Inside The Garage: High-Speed Cinematography Meets Virtual Production

Dive into the world of high-speed cinematography and virtual production with Steve Giralt, founder of The Garage. Learn how robotics, custom rigs, and LED walls are reinventing food and beverage commercials.

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https://youtu.be/g2QBEJUw754

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Connect with Steve:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevegiralt
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SteveGiraltGarage
Vimeo - https://vimeo.com/stevegiralt
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/visualengineersteve
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/stevegiralt
TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@stevegiralt6

Connect with The Garage:
The Garage - https://www.the-garage.tv
The Garage Moco - https://thegaragemotioncontrol.com
The Garage Learning - https://www.youtube.com/@TheGarageLearning
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-garage1
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/the_garage.tv
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheGarageLearning


Steve Giralt is a Director, DP, Photographer, and the creative force behind The Garage. He is driven by a perpetual quest for knowledge fuelled by an unquenchable thirst for visual innovation and creative exploration.  

Steve's visionary approach to image-making is a symphony of leveraging cutting-edge tools and boundless imagination. From motion control robotics to Phantom slow-motion cameras, his repertoire is as diverse as it is revolutionary. At the heart of his work lies a commitment to storytelling, weaving narratives that resonate deeply with audiences worldwide.

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📝 SHOW NOTES & SOURCES

The Garage
https://www.the-garage.tv

The Garage Moco
https://thegaragemotioncontrol.com

Steve Giralt @ YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@SteveGiraltGarage

Steve Giralt @ Vimeo
https://vimeo.com/stevegiralt

Vision Research Inc.
https://www.phantomhighspeed.com

Kino Flo Lighting Systems
https://www.youtube.com/@KinoFloLightingSystems

B&H Photo Video Pro Audio
https://www.youtube.com/@BandH

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0:00 Introduction to The Garage
3:03 Steve's Background
5:40 Skills for High-Speed Cinematography
8:09 Planning High-Speed Shots
11:30 Technology Advancements
15:48 Virtual Production in Food Commercials
21:17 Phantom Track Technology
26:13 AI in Commercial Production
30:03 Behind the Meatball Shot
51:45 Craziest Rigs and Projects
55:31 Closing and Contact Info

Transcript

0:00

We did a Doritos thing with it with a ball of fire in the middle, just super f ing cool. Chips flying and a ball of fire with a camera going around. It's like, come on, like that's so much fun. Welcome to VP Land, the podcast where we dive into the future of creative technology. I am your host, Joey Dowd. In this episode, we're talking with Steve Giralt, founder of The Garage, a production company in Brooklyn. Steve and his team are the masterminds behind those awesome slo mo food and beverage commercials you've probably seen for brands like Pepsi, Jack Daniels, and Firehouse Subs. In this episode, we'll dive into the world of high speed cinematography, exploring how Steve combines robotics, custom built rigs, and virtual production to create those jaw dropping shots. We actually made our own custom LED lights, too, like we have 6, 000 watt LED lights, because nobody makes them, so we've actually made a chip ourselves. If something doesn't exist, we're not scared to defend it. We'll also discuss the future of virtual production, the role of AI in commercial filmmaking, and Steve's thoughts on the latest industry trends. Each one has its new challenges, but it's all about how do we bring innovation to the story and the process on every project. Plus, Steve shares details about their high speed LED wall, capable of running at 240 frames per second. And Steve will tell us about the craziest rig he has ever built. Nobody died, but we were worried our Phantom was going to die on it. Links for everything we talked about. are available 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. And now let's dive into the world of high speed cinematography and virtual production with Steve Giralt. All right. Well, Steve, thanks for joining. Uh, good to see you. Pleasure to be here. Excited to talk about this. Yeah. So, um, let's just start with the overview. Uh, what is The Garage and what's the story behind it? Cool. Yeah. The Garage, we're a production company. We're based in Brooklyn, New York, uh, at Industry City, which is the big old complex down here where we have Abel Cinema. We got Lux Lighting. We got Light Gear. Now the new Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Film School is actually literally, you can see it. It's literally the building. Right behind in this window up two floors. And, uh, it's great. Yeah. Awesome community here in Brooklyn, uh, filmmakers. And we basically make commercials. We started it based on me as a director doing just food and beverage exploding food and collisions and Robots and all sorts of crazy stuff, but now we have a director roster of six directors, everything from the stuff I do to live action. We actually have a production that's wrapping in Barcelona right now as we speak. So, uh, really kind of a wide range, but all commercials, all very technical filmmaking in a lot of ways, really product based. Based stories. Just once again, we're, we're here to make really cool content. And that's like kind of the goal of the garage and why I started it was really kind of like covered in my garage. Let's hang out. Let's make a mess. Let's do some cool shit. Like let's mess around, you know, and you know, somewhere make some cool art and, you know, eventually leave the garage and make some money. So, um, yeah, that's kind of where we're at. That's awesome. And, but you're probably be talking about a lot and your specialty is the slow mo, very stylistic. Mostly food shots? Food and beverage. How did you get into that? I started as a still photographer, you know, and kind of was like, Oh, you know, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I went to RIT in Rochester, New York, and, uh, I kind of left school wanting to be a travel photographer because like, who else wouldn't want to travel after college and after being in Rochester for a few years? And, uh, I quickly learned like, Oh, okay. Travel is cool, but not really what I want to do every day. And I, you know, at that point had shot like people, places, food, things, you know, like all the travel experiences you do, you know, everybody takes a picture of their food first, right. You know, and, uh, the, the, the camera gets to eat first and so it always works out. And, uh, You know, kind of started making portfolios of each of those different bodies of work. And then the food started getting like the most traction. And I was like, Oh, this is fun. This is cool. So I started shooting for more food based magazines, ended up doing a lot of work for like food, the Food Network magazine, you know, so I would like shoot like Bobby Flay and like a food thing Bobby Flay did or Ina Garten and the food thing Ina made and you know, like, and then With that, I kind of in parallel was also very technical and loved techy things as a gadgety kind of guy. Um, so I love the studio also. And, you know, I started doing more studio based shoots for people, product based stuff. Uh, Victoria's Secret was an early client. I used to do a lot of shoes and handbags and, you know, bras and panties and all the, all the good fun stuff everybody wants to do. You know, the, my technical side kept growing and growing and growing and, you know, it kind of overtook me when I started taking classes in like welding and woodworking and all this kind of crazy stuff that kind of led me to what I called like visual engineering, which was really kind of combining all these kind of crazy So, yeah. Met mechanisms that kind of throw things and collide things and move things in the art of filmmaking commercials and all that stuff. And that's where I kind of landed on the robotics thing. But I never had it in interest in robotics until like, Oh, yeah, I need the camera to do this thing like super fast. Like, how do you do that? Oh, a robot. So Um, it's always been like the, the creative leading, the reason for the, you know, the technical thing for the most part, um, and, and my love for innovation in general. Like, I'm always like, how do we, how do we do the hardest version of this thing, you know, in the coolest way possible, uh, hence what led me into kind of high speed virtual production, which is like the most painful. I've probably never tried to do. So yeah, what kind of skill sets did you have to add? Did you have to like kind of become an electrical engineer or like learn? I don't even know. So robotic soldering, like what other skills did you have to get? All the, all the skills. Yeah. I mean, like, luckily I just needed enough Proof of concept to shoot my first kind of things and then you find people that will do that part for you. Right? So luckily, I'm not the guy doing all the things anymore. Still, I'm very much, you know, at the garage director. I'm, you know, founder of the company. I do all sorts of boring company things like HR and whatever. Um, but we have a full time effects team here now. Like we're a team of nine people total here at the garage. So basically one person now is in charge of virtual production and production. IT, and one person's in charge of special effects, and we have somebody in charge of robotics, like, it's kind of a really weird collection of people that we have, but they're all amazing creatives, but for me to get started, like, yeah, I learned how to solder and how to use an Arduino and hand code a thing, so, like, the motor would spin a thing, a strawberry and throw it in the air, and I have a great understanding and could use all these things as well as I learned in COVID, I could still do all the things if I need to, uh, because we couldn't, we weren't allowed other people for a bit, uh, so I did like actually a national Budweiser campaign that was just like me and a food stylist. That was like it. And we were like flipping a burger on a barbecue with a fire effect. And we were like, yeah. Shooting on the Phantom and doing all this stuff. So, um, I still have all those skills, luckily, but I do appreciate having people with those specialties to work with me as part of a team as, you know, filmmaking is very much a team effort in a lot of ways, but that's kind of what led me here. And then that's also what helps me understand what I'm asking for when I'm like, Hey, slow motion, can we do that, you know, you know, this way with the camera moving at this speed? And can we, or can we do it in front of an LED wall or can we do, you know, You know, how, how gravity works and physics and, you know, all that stuff is really important to the weird stuff that we shoot because, you know, people don't think about it, but like, you know, gravity and speed is and physics is like really innate in things flying, right? You know, like, so I want to say someday I'll get like a degree in like fluid dynamics because we throw so much liquid around and stuff. I don't know when you're planning a shot, how much of that is a, like, do you think of that, like, okay, like, we need to, like, we need the food to fly in this arc, in this direction. Are you, like, how much are you thinking, how much science are you getting into when you're, like, trying to map out a shot? You know, have you seen a beautiful vine, you know, equations? No, it's not like that at all. It's more of a, okay, I want the shot on screen for this long, or I want to be able to move the camera this much while, you know, We're looking at the thing, you know, like, let's say we're going to shoot a thousand frames a second. Okay. Well, within that amount of time, how far do I want to move? You know, cause that's the thing, you know, if you've never tried it, if you're shooting at a thousand frames a second, you, the camera needs to move really fast to feel it at a thousand frames a second when you're playing back at 24 frames. Right. You know, like, you know, especially most of the commercials we do now are 15 second commercials. Right. So like, that's just one of many shots that are in there. So like, if you want to get them all in there, you got to really be. Doing a lot of really cool speed ramping and plus the movement, plus all that stuff. But no, I mean, I'd say like, you know, once again, we're just like anybody that's done a commercial of any other sort. There's still all the same process of treatment and the creative brief and, you know, doing the bid and, yeah, so. Producers and, you know, all that stuff that goes into it, but creatively from my end, it's just a little different in that I got to think about time in a slightly different way when you're dealing with slow motion a little bit, where it's just like, okay, well, you know, a drop of water moves from here to here in exactly 0. 1 seconds. Okay, well, you know, can we track that the way I want to do it? Or, you know, how do I need 10, 000 frames a second or whatever, you know? So it's just, and once again, it's one of those things, it's like, it's not like you're going to learn in Buy any other thing but doing it and trying it and, you know, being like, okay, so I guess that's the speed of gravity. Okay, that's the speed that this robot could do with, you know, this lens or this camera package on it. So, you know, how can I cheat that? Is it like, oh, I need a pan and tilt with it, not just like track it or whatever. So, you know, you learned those tricks pretty quickly. And once again, we have a fleet or family, whatever you want to call it, of seven different robots here from the smallest one to the biggest one, because we actually have a separate company, the Garage Motion Control, that does services of just motion control for outside productions. So like we'll do a Apple TV shows or music videos or SNL. We actually had two monster robots in SNL live with Travis Scott like a month ago. It's crazy. Yeah. So that was like live TV, which is really scary. And actually they use the virtual production with that too. But yeah, no, I mean, we, it's, it's never, there's never a dull day over here where we're not either testing something for a shoot that we're pitching or we're, you know, testing something that we want to figure out for ourselves or, you know, You know, that's the thing. So our whole space is like 10, 000 square feet. We have, you know, an LED wall. We got robots. We got all the other stuff here. Camera. We own a phantom camera. We have, uh, like a red Raptor XL X now. And yeah, all the toys all, you know, we even made our own sounds like a lot of custom. Yeah, we've only, we actually made our own custom LED lights too. Like we have 6, 000 watt LED. Lights because nobody makes them. So we've actually made a chip ourselves. Basically, we had somebody making it for us in China, and they're actually liquid cooled with these like copper blocks. And like, once again, if they made it, I would buy it, but nobody makes it. And I needed it because I need flicker free light and I need lots of it for high speed. And tungsten lights are just so inefficient that they melt the food and the ice cream and whatever we're doing. So, you know, if something doesn't exist, we were not scared to kind of invent it. here, which is, you know, fun and painful all at the same time. Yeah, that's wild. All right, I got technical questions. I mean, I'm trying to think of the best way to go about this. I guess the first one is more like, how has the technology changed that's enabled you to make crazier shots, like whether that's the faster frame rates or the faster robots, robots that can actually keep up with these frame rates? Like, how has everything changed in your experience since you've been doing this? Yeah, so I mean, funny enough, the, the camera tech hasn't changed that much on the, you know, because it's really the phantom camera is the only one that will go, you know, 1000 frames plus, you know, and the, you know, the flex 4K. What's the, what's the shooting at 4K, 4K raw. Yeah. So our, our camera is the Beo 4K. Which is, so basically, and get ready, this is fun for the people that love hard drives. Uh, so in 5. 6 seconds of real time, I record 72 gigs of raw data, basically. You know, so in the time of this podcast, that's it. Your whole drive is full. Um, so, but, you know, the way it works is actually a crazy SSD drives or something fast enough to write, to write that quickly. Well, so that's weird. It's a weird. Different workflow. If you've never worked with the face of it, it's a buffer. Yeah. So you stop the buffer, then you trim what you want. And you actually save that off for us. We actually do it over 10 gig ethernet. So it actually saves off the camera straight to our servers and like whatever. But the flex 4K, which is the same sensors, the camera we have as I got a super 25, 000 super fast SSD, like drive in it basically that's like, uh, it's called the Cinemag. So it'll save like those 72 gigs in like a minute, you know, which is pretty fast, but yeah, the fan does a very unique workflow. We also love the red, uh, for up to 240 frames. Cause then that's 4k and you don't have to deal with the buffer or any of the things you get the beautiful dynamic range. The red gives you, but the second you got to go above that, I mean, the red will technically do 480 at 2k crop, like this tiny crop on the sensor. Then the phantom is the way to go, basically. So we were, for better or worse, tied to that until somebody else comes up with something else. And then what about the robots and being able to move quick enough? Yeah, I mean, that that hardware speed has not changed dramatically. What I'd say the thing that has changed the most is the ease of programming. Because, you know, it's not like it's live tracking anything, right? You're really I have to say, Hey, this is way 0. 1. This is 0. 2. This is three. You key frame those. And it's just like, okay, connects the dots and that's your camera move. Basically it's too hard to do, but like the ease of like changing focus pools and like all, like all the other things around that. And it also, it's kind of our center hub for triggering different pneumatic. Things or explosions or whatever we're doing too. So that's all kind of built into one timeline on the robot software. So the I think more than anything, the software is was just getting better and better that use usability and the ease of kind of doing things with actually smaller robots that aren't as big to kind of because, you know, when you have to, you know, you need three phase and all this stuff, it becomes a pain in the butt sometimes versus, you know, our bulging. You're on track is like 120 power just plugged into the wall, go to a house and use it, which is awesome. You know, so I think they're They're getting just a little easier use more than anything else. Um, the cool thing too is that the robot actually feeds its 3D data out to Unreal too. So it's actually, we don't need a tracking system, which is really fun. We have robots, so we don't need a tracking system. Otherwise, you know, tracking system is definitely cheaper than a robot. But, um, so basically, whether it be a green screen or an LED wall, like you could literally be doing live compositing or whatever it is. And actually, as the robot moves, it's kind of giving you that data. So it's really fun. for that purpose as well. And then, you know, you don't have to worry about latency at all either because the robot could set a delay to offset for your wall lag if you have any. So it's kind of cool that way too. So, you know, you'll always be dead on with your frustrum no matter what you do. So it's kind of fun. And that's the thing. The biggest thing we've been diving into is like, how do we tie the robot into the whole led wall world and the future that way? Because we already have the robots like house. It's like, how do we tie the robot into the whole led wall world and the future that way? Because we already have the robots like house. Can we use them in a new way and, you know, do some cool, you know, multi pass, multi layering stuff with the wall or whatever it is, you know? Yeah. So, I mean, tell me about more how, what have you been doing with virtual production and, and, uh, food and drinks, uh, beverage shops? Yeah. So, you know, for us, you know, having followed it for the last few years, we're like, okay, that's cool. But, you know, real time doesn't do me much good in the world of slow motion where we're at. And then we've been kind of following and talking to the people that make the hardware and stuff. And basically, they're, you know, we're like, okay. They assured us that the idea of doing 250 frames or 240 frames on the wall is possible. We're like, great, who's doing it? And it's like, it's possible. So we finally were, I was like, okay, let's, let's give it a try. And actually, funny enough, I bought some. eBay that I found. And so it's like, Oh, great. Some, you know, road panels, somebody was selling on eBay. I bought a prompt to processor and like, let's just play with this little tiny, you know, it was like, you know, four feet by eight foot piece of wall basically. And let's try to see if we get the 240 frames working on that first. Cause once again, I'm What video cards could play 240 frames a second? For sure, too. Like, there's just so many, like, I was talking to the guys at Disguise, and it's like, okay, if I spend, you know, 400, 000 on the Disguise system, will it play 240 frames a second? They're like, We can't guarantee that. It's like, okay, well, so there's a lot of like, everything should theoretically work, but no one's ever actually done it. Yeah, exactly. Nothing was within spec. And then what we actually found out was the most painful was clocking because there's no standard above 60 frames for Genlock basically. So we had to kind of create our own clock system, which was actually a lot longer than we thought it was going to take. But now it's like, Dead solid. It's actually more solid than the built in oscillators in the cameras themselves that actually do their frames. Like our science clock is like pretty amazing. It talks to like the GPS satellites and shit, you know, whatever. But either way, so, you know, that opened up the door to 240 frames a second slow motion. Virtual production that also requires the robot too, because, you know, good luck live rendering 240 frames a second in Unreal, uh, you know, even if you're doing a blank background in Unreal. So basically it lets us pre program the move, which is what we're doing anyway, and then we could basically Bake out that movement on for what has to be displayed on the wall. So then boom, every time, no matter what we do, it's going to play back the background perfectly. So as long as we're rendering the background plate, so it's not because you don't need the real time. Exactly. We don't need the real time. We know what's going to do. Yeah, not so handheld like, Oh, what's gonna happen? Okay, it's and the cool thing is like the robot will let you scale the speed of movement to like same exact path just at different speeds like to the nanosecond or whatever. So like if I say we're gonna go 240 frames, we could shoot it at 24 frames and render the full quality of 24 frames and that's just speed it up. So we're not losing quality trying to go faster either. So we could, you know, keep, you know, the nice Yeah. Movement and lighting and textures and things going or background actors or whatever we have going on, uh, which is really cool, you know, so it lets us be more flexible and shoot pretty much any frame rate we want. It just, we had to make like a kind of custom workflow with TouchDesigner to kind of get to do this kind of record playback and we're using Assimilate LiveFX, uh, to drive the wall too, which is awesome and it's really been a great. Software to use as well. So yeah, between that, we kind of worked out the clocking is like, let's say the clock talks to everybody, the robot, each frame on the robot is the frame where the camera was the frame with the walls and frame with the unreal with touch designer with, you know, it's like all those frames have to line up. All the way at 240 frames a second, so it's definitely the most important, which is ridiculous, that a clock is the most important part of this whole thing, but it really is. Um, and the movement in the 60 frame timeline, if you just use genlock and you try to multiply it, it's just, it's too sloppy, it doesn't, it, everything doesn't quite line up perfectly. So yeah, we got that figured out, and we've done a bunch of shoots now on the wall. One, I think you could share, the Captain D's taco spot we did recently, which was also very, very good. Last minute and that's the crazy part about commercials and virtual production. You know, like you see like, oh, Mandalorian and Amazon show and you know, like, yes, they were in pre production for six months and then they shot, you know, like we had two weeks from like award to shoot date where we had to create a world and we had to shoot. Test everything and get approvals. And, you know, so we're kind of working on making, you know, that faster. And that's definitely part of our challenge as well. Cause commercials are never going to be like, Oh, great. We'll give you three months to do this. Like, no, they just, they, they, they don't work that way. They've gotten so used to just being able to wait and I'll give you an award, you know, one week, three months. You know, two weeks, maybe if you're lucky, three or four weeks, but it's part of the educational process that we're working with clients to on, like, you know, if you want to use virtual production, these are things you got to consider. And, you know, we're actually, uh, making some demo footage and stuff to show them like this is a 2D 5D plate. This is full 3D. This is, you know, just to let them kind of understand what The timelines and the workflows that are possible like we could shoot tomorrow if you had the asset for us, right? Like, you know, at the end of the day, it's a matter of, like, how customized do we have to make the world and how much do we have to torture test the speed and whatever on it? But, uh, but yeah, so, but for us, without the 240 frames a second, it just It wouldn't make sense for us to go, you know, go that path. And our hope is, you know, at some point, the walls and the LEDs will actually be able to do 480 or a thousand frames. But that, like, I'm not holding my breath. What's the limiting factor for that to happen? It's just flicker. It's the speed of refresh, yeah, on the panels themselves. Like, it works. Like, Brompton, technically, Their new card that they came out with a little support of supposedly a thousand frames a second. But once again, there's no panel to actually do it on. So like, great, more hypothetical specs. And then same thing, like what video card could play back at 480 frames a second, or do we have to use two alternating somehow and clock them in alternating ways? Or, you know, once again, 240 was hard. 480 would. Be cool, but I know it wouldn't be any easier from here, but, um, we'll see. But honestly, like when we look at our shoots that we're doing. Oh, 240 is really a nice place for a lot of shots. Yes, there's a lot of the thousand frame shots that have to be a thousand frames. And for those, we could, you know, print out a backdrop like we used to or whatever it is and shoot those off the side because the amount of light you need to will change dramatically. And, you know, our walls like 1800 nits, which is pretty bright, but to do a thousand frames versus 240, I would need like, you know, 6, 000 net panels. And I wouldn't want to be using like big chunky wallpapers. Uh, you know, outdoor panels or something. So it kind of my, my hope that someone's going to invent, you know, 6, 000 that, you know, two pixel pitch, you know, panels is just not going to happen. Honestly, just, you know, yeah, just for me, this is where I want to shoot slow motion on the wall. Yeah. But the thing is, for us, we do so many liquids that Like, refraction, and like, that's why we don't shoot blue screen, like, or green screen, you know, very often, like, it just reflects through, you know, it reflects through everything, you know, like, it, it, the reality is that faking that in post just never looks right, so we really need to be on at least a, you know, printout or backlight film or something, or the LED wall's great if you could do You know, the shots on it because it really gives you the most flexibility because the printout like you printed it. That's it. Like, you can't change it on the day. The client's like, Oh, I don't like the bokeh, whatever, you know, are liquids. Usually the ones were like 1000 frames per second is where it really shines. Like, what are the kind of substances or use cases where you really need someone? So many sticky substances come through the door here. Um, uh, yeah, no liquids. Definitely 1000 frames. Plenty of times, but you know, once again, like your standard like pour into a Coca Cola glass or something at 240 looks pretty sexy, you know, so it really depends on like how fast and explosive if it's a, if it's a collision versus a pour, it's very different, like a pour at 240 could look good, but a collision, you know, needs 1000 frames because it's just like, it You know, it's so fast, you know, but if it's something like heavier, heavy cream or milk is slightly different because it's a little slower. You just got to think about the speed and how close you are to it. Obviously, if you're wider, you don't need as high frame rate as when you're closer because just like, you know, once again, that, you know, coffee bean, whatever is moving that much faster in this little area versus When you're looking at a wider frame, right? You know, like the feeling of movement, I guess is kind of the word. Um, but once again, I think that for us, the hybrid of doing some shots, a thousand shims, not once again, virtual production is not gonna be for every shoot either. That's just the reality. There's times where, like, you know, once again, we have a team that's in Barcelona right now because they wanted to shoot in Barcelona, you know, that's fine, you know, like, yes, we get 3D scan that world. Gosh, it's splatted, whatever, bring it in here, put it on the wall, like, you know, but still, you know, Sometimes some productions just what's what's most efficient and what's going to work out right for what they're trying to go for but for us it's like at least it opens up the possibility where you know some shots you know could be done on the wall and on the same day we could do non wall shots too right like it doesn't mean that everything has to be done on the wall all day long you know like we did a shoot recently where like you know three end card shots that were like the Four seconds of the spot were on the wall. Everything else was not on the wall, you know, for these three different commercials. And actually that works great, you know, because once again, like we're not building three huge room sets for these like four seconds of, you know, each one, there would have been like three totally different room sets, which is like, would have been crazy expensive to like we're in New York City, you know, it's not the cheapest place to make work, you know, it's great. Create a bunch of talented people, but for us, it's like we are competing on a global scale. Like most of the people we compete with are not just in New York City. We're competing against people in Poland, people in Mexico, people, you know, in L. A., all over the place, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, you name it. So those, you know, The ability to save some money by owning a wall of our own that we could run very efficiently because, you know, pretty much one person could run our wall, you know, we'll bring in a second unreal person for shoots, but, you know, that's really not that big a lift and they're a salaried full time employee. So it also helps, you know, that, you know, we have some flexibility. Yeah. on what we have to pay and charge, but not to say that the wall was cheap or anything, but you know, it's fine. What do you tell clients? Like when do you try to decide if virtual production makes sense? Like what's the thought process behind that with like clients and when it does make sense? Yeah. So, I mean, it starts in the I'd say the treatment process when we're, you know, kind of bidding for a job, because it's usually like, what's the ask, you know, and what's the budget? Usually we're kind of kind of, it's usually a sliding scale of those two things and the timeline and all the things like that too. But first is creative. Like, what is the story? What are the shots that want to tell that story? And then what's the most efficient way of capturing or the coolest way of capturing those shots that tell the story? Right? So it's kind of looking at each of those and then do they line up? Right. You know, like recently, there was one that we did that were like, Oh, it's a park scene and they wanted like an office scene. It's like, okay, well. Those could go either way. We could actually be in a real park and then we have to bring, you know, clear the park and get all these extras and permits and, you know, whatever it is. And, you know, and then once again, what time of day do we want to be in? Like, do we have to shoot all day long and make it feel like the same time of day? Well, for production, virtual production is great for that, you know, and, you know, so really it's so many different aspects that we need to consider. You know, and once again, at the end of the day, what is it going to pull off the story we're trying to tell? Is it going to be believable? Like if we had a park that was just empty without any extras or any other people or cars or anything moving by, you know, that would feel fake too, right? So it's just kind of like trying to find the balance of if we do virtual production, while the world has to be empty. Very real too, right? And we have to have enough time to add all those aspects and moving clouds and birds and tree and breezes and you know, whatever it is, big question is usually like, how long do we need to get the shots done in if we're on location, right? Because how much is the light going to be changing? Because that's also the challenge on location to like, You need a sunny day? Well, there's no guarantee you're gonna get a sunny day outside. Like, okay, get lighted, but then how much, you know, what do we need to make that a reality as far as crew? So it really is kind of, uh, another tool in our garage, let's say, you know, as far as like, you know, trying to balance You know, what the right solution is both creatively and financially for a project, um, and it just gives us a whole new pathway, which I think is great because, you know, a few years ago that didn't exist. So for us to have that ability and, you know, whether we shoot here or we go to another volume too, right? Because our, our wall is only 10 feet tall. So like, if we needed to do a really big wide shot, we can't do that here. So, you know, we could also, we could test it here and then, you know, You know, okay, great. We'll go to the real stage and, you know, go to either one of the other stages in town or go, you know, travel to a new stage or whatever. It's just a matter of, uh, you know, each project is so different, you know, and that's the thing, and so many projects are just like a day or two days and, you know, and they're trying to squeeze a lot into that day. If you're on location, all you're gonna be getting is your location shots right here. We could be doing, you know, location shots on the wall while we're also doing, you know, You know, product shots on the side, and we could have three sets going. Like, it's just a different workflow, uh, when you're actually in a studio. And for us, we do so much food, like, that's also a challenge, too, right? Like, if we're going to bring chocolate outside, like, it's going to be melting on us, or whatever, ice cream, or here we could crank the AC down to, like, 60 degrees, and it's Kitchen nearby, food stylist, everything right there. Yeah, exactly. So, for us, if it's like, Pizza, like Domino's literally sends us their pizza oven that we install in our kitchen here like that, you know, yeah, it's like a very different animal. So once again, we love the studio a lot of the time because it gives us just the control. So this is a way to bring that level of production as if you're on location. But to be in the studio is kind of very powerful. And as we build worlds for it. Clients and we have this in it, you know, kind of in our repertoire like now it's like, oh, we already have a beach. We have a living room. We got a nice kitchen like we could just adjust those worlds accordingly and be able to like actually turn around the world pretty quickly to which is, you know, obviously part of the challenge. Yeah. I mean, do you feel like you're gonna have just Like, not every job is going to require a complete custom build, and it's just like, we need a living room, and we can just throw an existing living room together. Exactly. Because I think, you know, especially the foreground production design is such an important part of it that I think that's always going to change, you know, so I think having something that, you know, the client is like, okay, that works for the background, you know, that's where We definitely do a lot of previs for clients as well, too, because they just, once again, they're still not, they're still wrapping their head around, like, what? How are we going to be at the beach? Like, we're not at the beach, you know, like, build a set. You don't need, like, truckloads of sand and, like, whatever. It's like, no, no, please, no sand. The sand gets on everything. But, uh, so it's like, You know, the previs thing using Unreal as part of that is really great because we could actually show the cinema camera, you know, put a fake foreground set in front of it and everything and a bad looking medic even or whatever it is and just like, okay, get the sense of like, okay, now I understand that this is this is how this is going to work. So, I mean, I think eventually they'll catch on again. We, you know, we went through this with the robots, too. People were like, what? You're gonna use a robot to move the camera? Like, what? You know, that's crazy. Uh, so we have to do, we're used to educating clients, you know, on the. You know, new ways of doing things and, you know, and why, you know, and then after the shoot, they don't understand like, oh, okay, now I see why we did it that way, you know, and I think, you know, that's a success for us. And one thing we do worry about is like, like, we don't want the client to ever have a bad virtual production experience because, like, all it takes is one bad experience on anybody's shoot. Not even ours. And they're gonna be like, no, you know, whatever. BBDO says no to virtual production or whatever, you know, big agencies or clients. Um, and that's what happens with the robots to like somebody goes on to a shoot with the unexperienced robot operator in some other city. And like, like, they don't get their shots or the thing breaks or whatever it is, like, it just, they're not gonna remember those details. They're gonna be like, Oh, this, the robots don't work, you know, like, so that's part of that challenge that I think we are in virtual production as well. And just the lack of lack of education out there. That's why we're definitely excited about our new neighbors here at NYU and their new master's program, which is cool. Yeah. Yeah. You also, you sent me some test clips you did of, uh, Phantom Track, which we'll, we'll show. Um, but so, yeah, what, so Phantom Track, that is, uh, that's Red's, um, frame remapping, right? Where you're filming, you're filming, the screen is alternating between backgrounds. You're filming two different environments at the same time. What are some potential use cases you see for this? Cool. Yes. We're very excited. That's why we sent our Excel to get upgraded to the Excel X. Um, they need a better naming person. Copywriter. S Tab T B T would come up with something better. And they'd be like, Nikon will figure it out. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah. So, I mean, PhantomTrack, yeah, exactly. Basically just alternating frames between two different backgrounds on the LED wall. The other cool thing that we've been playing with is if you use cream source lights. Uh, they could also do frame, uh, mapping as well, so you could actually alternate your lighting sources between those two as well, which is super fun. Uh, so basically in that scenario, you could actually literally be shooting day and night time at the same time, so your actual lighting is all changing. You know, you could have one lighting set scenario that's all synced to that one frame, and then that turns off. The next time the shutter opens, like different lights are on, you know, and it just kind of you can also map. We saw a demo. You could do the mimics, the Kino, the Kino mimics with your with image based lighting and sync it to your environment. If you had a theoretical night scene and day scene. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A lot of normal speeds though. They're not fast enough. So, you're doing this at 240 frames per second? So, 2 120s. So, we can have timelines on the RED. Yeah, exactly. Which, once again, isn't necessary for 99 percent of the shoots out there for normal people, but I'm Steve. Yeah, exactly. So, you're shooting, framing, mapping, high speed, and then, yeah, what are some of the use cases? Yeah, so like we could do, you know, basically, and then add into another layer of that motion control, you know, so you could do some insane match cut sequences, basically, so you could be doing two at a time, but then you could do that same move multiple times, and then, you know, you could have eight different match cut scenes that have different worlds, different lighting, different, you know, even practical effects, like one where it's raining, one where it's dry, one, you know, like, and, you know, that your talent action You know, could match more easily between multiples. So, so once again, the right only allows you to do so far two different video feeds out of it, right? But it's nothing to say that if you had a script that would cut your files apart for you later, you can't do more than two. You just can't watch it live, basically. So, we've actually done this on our Phantom years ago, uh, with some other stuff. So, not with an LED wall, but just with lighting only. So, basically, with 240 frames, you could do technically 10 different scenarios at 24 frames a second, you know. But, obviously, that frame 1 to frame 2 10 will alternate slightly at that point, right? Cause you're just changing so many things. Yeah. Yeah. For it to cycle through. Okay. Yeah. But I think we could definitely do four and you wouldn't feel that difference. So basically we could do four matches, which we're actually planning a shoot to do right now for a test that I'll share with you whenever we do it. We're basically yeah. It's kind of like day and night and then day and night where it's raining and not raining and then some other and then you're in different two other worlds during the raining and not raining and two other worlds during the either way, you know, just a lot of different worlds. I'm saying match cut, which you'd be like, Oh, okay, but with liquids involved, that's where the rain and stuff, right? And that's why it comes into play because you could do your move with the liquid, which is going to be a unique thing. Yeah. Exactly. With a real refraction. You can't repeat, but you can have that environment. That's really, that's really awesome. Yeah, because I think for us, like the liquid is really what forces us into this painful place because most time like just throw up green screen and here we go. You just do it once with the talent and then you quit. Throw the different worlds behind it and you got your match cut and you, you know, if anything, you change the lights with the foreground and, uh, so once again, very niche use case, even for us, honestly, most of the, you know, unless the job requires like a lot of match cuts or two different worlds, you know, it's part of the story, it doesn't really make sense, but I think at the very least having the green screen and the background plate of the real world is useful because then if the client changed their mind later, you could actually change it. Very easily change out the Unreal world, but all your reflections, as long as they don't change it completely, should be fairly accurate. If they're just changing little things, it's just actually just a nice back pocket thing to have, you know, for our clients if they want to change something in post, that they're, you know, very welcome environment, one with the green screen background. Yeah. If you need to swap it later, you can. Yeah. Exactly. So that's the biggest use case for Phantom Track that most people will have is those two are tracking paths for the movement and one that's just like the regular Unreal scene. Right. Like the You know, wall of split tracking markers up for you, um, and stuff like that. Or if you want to get like an alpha channel, you know, you can make it either all white or black or whatever, like depending on what your lighting is doing. So if you know that you're going to want to like, you know, cut out everything around the person and be able to color match that easier, um, Like, it just gives you some tools for post and VFX to make that just a little easier. But, you know, AI tools and masking is getting so much better too, but, you know, but once again, with liquids, it is tricky, you know, so for us, having that ability is kind of a cool. Cool thing. That is cool. We did a demo last year to maybe with a ghost frame, similar concepts that they could do three or four outputs at the same time. But I don't know if they can run at 240. Um, so that's yeah, I think that's your limiting factor. Yeah, the megapixels could do 240 also as far as the processor goes. Thing is the camera will still only show you two. Things is the challenge. So that's part of the pain is like, how do you show to a client when it's like going, you know, like on the monitor, you know, yeah, just pretend it's smooth video, you know, right? Because the stuff you're going to do to your fan or not your other camera is just process it later in real in post to split that to extract all the frames. Yeah, it's just a script that just says, like, hey, every frame one goes here, every frame two goes here, every frame, you know, like, just, you know, re sequences the frames, but once again, then if you have to hand it over to, like, company three or something, they're gonna be like, what the hell is this? Like, I can't, you know, color correct this raw file as a hot mess. Yeah, it's like, what went wrong here? Yeah. You mentioned AI, and I was going to ask about AI stuff, but the one thing, well, to start, have you experimented with any, so talking about 240 frames, 1000 frames per second, have you experimented with any of the AI tools for slow mo extraction? And I guess over the years, just Not with liquid, you know, like, because liquid is constantly changing shape, and it's just kind of thinking it's going to keep going the direction it's going, but it's not, you know, if it's like a person, you know, let's say jumping over a, you know, high jump or something, whatever it is, some of them Do a pretty good job, but like fluid things, not, yeah, it's just too sloppy. Maybe someday they'll get there, but I think, uh, uh, but AI tool for, you know, all sorts of other stuff, like even designing, you know, background plates for 2D stuff is great. Like Qubrick, I've been using for that stuff. And then even tools for, uh, you know, chat GPT, whatever, you know, I think there's once again, it's another tool to use. And I think AI is going to be, you know, it's such a big thing. Word right now that it's like AI, you know, whatever, but there are a million uses in applications. But I think at the end of the day, it's been part of our life already for a while in some ways. And, you know, we've just started calling its own thing, but it's really just been part of the tool set that we're using. You know, it's how a lot of the software You know, it does great masking and Photoshop and all these things, you know, it's kind of just, it's, it's machine learning for better or worse. I'm all about it helping us make cooler stuff easier, you know, like I have no objection to that part of it. Like, I think it, the generative side is its own world and it should be labeled something else. I guess generative AI, I guess it is, but you know, but that should be the AI word and the rest is just like, it's machine learning, you know, I feel, but everyone's just kind of clumping it all together. But no, our clients are way too crazy to like. Be able to prompt a commercial that they actually want through gender of AI, like, it's just the level of detail, like, especially in our stuff, right? Because it's just like, oh, that one sesame seed and that little bit of cream cheese. I don't know, it needs a little more ketchup and it needs like, you know, like, Good luck prompting that one, you know? Yeah, I would love to get your, uh, your soundbite on this because I remember when Sora came out and there were like some demos of like generated like slo mo product shots of like fruit flying in the air and then, you know, Twitter was like, ah, rest in peace, like product photographers, like this is going to replace it. From a professional standpoint, what is the process that clients go through of all of the details that go into? Creating a slo mo product shot. Yeah, exactly. A slo mo product shot. There's so many details about exactly the shape. of the liquid or the, the, the object and how they're interacting, like the lighting on the object and the liquid, there's so much that goes into exactly that too, so much that we'll literally like put the object on a robot to move it in exactly a certain way so that like in, you know, to my sponsors, uh, oh, to, you know, in a specific way, this rotates and the label appears exactly that way when we wanted to, while the camera comes in closer, the liquid wraps around it at exactly that 0. 01 second moment in time. Like, the layers of detail in what we do is just so extreme that there's just no way to prompt that. You know, it's just, there's, you know, even if I prompted it and it got me close, changing that prompt to get it to where actually where I want it is just like impossible. Like, it's just not a thing, but not to say that, you know, it's not going to be a tool To make, I would love it to generate worlds to put up on the, you know, BP wall, you know, and stuff like that. Like, if that got great, I'd be all about it. But I'm still, our clients are still going to be putting the real thing in front of the camera, whether it's on a fake background or not. Like, that's a different story. But I think their particularness about exactly how this is lit and how this is portrayed and that this is actually a real thing that they actually make that they want in front of the camera. No, because I, you know, like what I really tell people, right? The most, the way to summarize it the most is like, if AI Sora was going to replace what I do today, CGI would have done it 10 years ago, because like, it's just a prompted version of CGI, right? And we still luckily get hired to do this crazy stuff by these wonderful people. Um, and, uh, for a reason. You know, like they want a real thing. They're real products in front of the camera and making decisions as a team as we shoot the thing. Um, not this one guy typing away into a computer of like, Oh, make a beautiful commercial for Pureleaf, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Also, if you need to tweak something, you just go to your timeline and adjust the key frames for all of your time in your robots. And it's not like Reprompt this and maybe I'll get a modification or maybe I'll get something completely different that was I could completely off base. Yeah, if you're okay with a little luck and just okay, that looks good enough and that'll work. Great. You know, I think there's gonna be a lot of really bad AI generated commercials in our future, but that's just, you know, once the legal things all get worked out too, because that's years ahead of us still, you know, so I think that's the biggest thing is like so many of our clients, we actually have to sign them. Waivers that we're not using AI in any form or shape as part of this process of the shoot that we're working on. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, so I think until those things are really laid out, the multibillion dollar companies are not going to take the risk on their Super Bowl ad or their big national TV ad being AI generated because it's like the litigation costs will outweigh just hiring us to do it, you know? So even on those spots, would that be like no AI background stuff? We're using Kubrick. That would have to get a special request like that would be a special waiver from a client to allow us to do it on a job. Yeah, because basically, for the most part, the risk has to lie on them. Like, I'm not going to do the risk. They have more money than me, you know, uh, so they Yeah, so right now it's mostly for test shots that we're using it for and just kind of getting understanding of what it is. But no, but you can also use Kubrick with, you know, stock photos that you could buy licensing. to and to an FD and cut them up and stuff like that. So there's not that it has to be AI generated or they might give it a 2D image and have it generate some 2. 5D perspective because that's a pretty good extra depth extractor or use generative fill just to replace some parts in the actual 2D image you bought from, you know, Shutterstock or whatever, you know. So, I mean, I think there's a hybrid out there. That's not like I just prompted this whole shot, you know, where, you know, because I think Photo retouchers have been doing that with Photoshop now for a little bit already too, like, oh, generative fill and do this, you know, that's it, that's AI, you know, of some sort. It's just not, uh, and it is generative AI too, where it's generating that filled area, right? Using its database of knowledge, right? So it's not like, uh, it's not completely different, but I think there's something to be said about an image that started from scratch as a generative Shot that there is so much mystery as to who owns that and who has the right to that and, you know, all that stuff. Yeah. Right. Or removing an object from a wall is not that mysterious of, uh, they've been doing that for a long time. Yeah. Uh, going back to the real thing, can you walk me through the thought process of the planning process? Probably, 'cause it was the most recent video I saw, but you had one video recently of, uh, behind the scenes, uh, the meatball shot of following, dropping a bunch of meatballs into the marinara sauce. Yeah. The sauce. Yeah. Yeah. So like, what's a shot like that? What's the planning process or the thought process behind how you create a shot like that? For sure. Um, so that was, uh, Firehouse Subs, our client. It was a meatball sub. So they're like, how do we show the meatball part of the sub in a cool way? And we want to want it to feel saucy. You know, like, great, then let's get some meatballs and let's, you know, Put them into sauce. And, uh, well, first then, then there's a lot of questions I have to ask. Like, do you guys actually use real marinara sauce in your actual sub? Because they can't portray something that's not real. It's like, yes, we do. Does it actually look good as a big pool? You know, like, you know, there's a, there's a lot of, uh, Checkboxes that we have to check before we say, Okay, great. This is the shot we want to do. And then it was like, okay, great. And the meatballs themselves look good without the sauce on them too. Cause that's, that's also, you know, meatballs are a weird thing sometimes, you know, so all those check, check, check. Great. All right. So we're like, all right, great. We want to show then meatballs Dropping into the sauce and then keep the camera kind of pushing through that ideally a bit to edit as well as the thought process because they love the camera kind of pushing through stuff and other commercials we have done for them. Great. That sounds easy enough, right? Great. Just get some meatballs and drop them and there we go. But then we wanted to track the camera with the meatballs as they went in and keep them in focus and things like that. And, and so that's where they get complicated, right? If you're just locking off the camera and watching them drop in. Great, easy, but the second you want to have full control of where each meatball is, when it hits the surface, you know, how many of them are there? So we created this huge rig that was actually, you know, in the BTS, you don't hear the sound, but it was actually really loud because it's like all these pneumatic cylinders, like air cylinders that just go You know, like, they basically have these little fingers like tines, like a fork almost, and the meatballs are sitting on it, and then these just pull away so fast that then the meatballs drop in place down into the meat sauce, right? It's almost like the, when you pull the fabric off the table, uh, which, if you didn't catch our thing with Gavin from the Slow Mo Guys, uh, that was a fun one too. Um, we're, we're like, can we do that, actually? So for the meatballs, yeah. So now we have control of. Where the meatballs are, how many we could put in there, how many layers of meatballs we have. So I think we had like, I don't know, three layers of height so that some are landing while some are still in the air and some are even closer to the lens is, you know, parallax is awesome and super fun. And then now the robot. Tracks with those as they fall down into the sauce. And we can do a focus pull in there if we need to. It's all programmed. And we have to get the timing of that just perfect. And, you know, get all the food styling things right. And sometimes you have to, like, either thicken the marinara sauce or make it thinner. Just make sure when they impact, it just like, doesn't like, it doesn't go anywhere. We want it to like splash and stuff like that. So there's, you know, just water at it or whatever we have to do to it. And yeah, then we, you know, We get through that whole shot idea, get it to the client, everybody signs off of it, go through pre pro, like show the rig we built and how it works, uh, that's where our effects team, uh, builds all that stuff here in house, and we'll actually probably put it in front of a camera, almost, almost every rig gets in front of a camera before shoot day, most of the time just to make sure it actually works, um, cause then it's a little late otherwise. And then yeah, then on the day, it's really just getting that timing just right. And literally we're making like 0. 01 second increment changes, you know, like, and repeatability is honestly everything to us. Like we really needed to be like the rig itself has to be super accurate because if it doesn't, Spread just a little later or a little earlier, like there's a chance that the robot's going to run into the meatballs, you know, because if it's going to do the same thing every time. So it's really about this control, honestly, because like, as I said, like, even with the prompting, there's like no control, right? Like, and the things we do are just like extreme control. And like, that's the only way we get the child that the client's happy with. Right? So for us, it's just like really trying to like, Zoom in on like every little detail and try to take the human element of, of variants and, you know, mistakes out of it. Like, oh, the AC didn't pull focus, you know, like we're not using ACs to pull focus, you know, so all that stuff to get the shot. And exactly that was like two seconds in the commercial or something, but it takes a lot of, a lot of effort goes into something like that. How many takes do you have to go through in iterations? Uh, that wasn't too bad. That was a pretty reliable rig. And, like, once, once we had, like, the placement of the meatballs, I don't know, maybe eight takes or something on it, something like that, you know, yeah, it's not crazy. No, because once again, like, so much is before take one, you're just doing the practice drops and stuff like that with, like, without the marinara there and just, like, without, like, with some, like, two meatballs just to kind of get the timing right. And then you're like, okay, the timing looks right. Put them in, get the lighting right. And then, you know, a few takes just to tweak positions and timings and you're pretty much there. And then it's repeatable. That's the thing. Like once you kind of nail that down, like, then it's just like, great, we're done. You know, like, no, you want another take? Great. We'll do another take. It will be almost the same. But here we go. You know, so, so much of the effort. That's the difference is like, there's so much upfront effort in the work that we do. And that's where, you Some ways virtual production is familiar to us. It's like, yeah, yeah. It's like you need to put that time ahead of time in pre production and testing and all that stuff. So that on the day, you know, it's working, you know, you'll make little tweaks, but you're not like reinventing the wheel on the day, you know, Oh, what would you say is your craziest rig or Rick craziest shot that you've done? Oh man, our craziest rig is for sure what we call the spinning rig of death. Nobody died, but we were worried our phantom was going to die on it. You know, it's just this like crazy spinning rig we made where like the camera was going 35 miles per hour around like a center platform and it was for Jack Daniels. We did the shoot and basically they wanted to see like a lime wedge fall in the air and have and have it twisting and spinning. Because the camera is moving around and then it hit like this drink and then the liquid bounced out. But like, as it's bouncing out, you get the perspective change. Um, and then we've done it a couple of times. We did a Doritos thing with it with a ball of fire in the middle too, which is super cool. Um, it's just like, it's like chips flying in a ball of fire with a camera going around. It's like, come on, like that's so much fun and we might bring it back someday. We'll see. Well, it hasn't, you know, come back again. We were like, what else can we do? You know? Because we're like, you know, the camera was locked in, so it's just moving in orbit. Like, my thought is like, oh, can we do like a, like a camera move while it's spinning around, while things are exploding in front of an LED wall? No, I don't, I don't know. So, and then some of our favorite shoots, you know, have been, you know, Pepsi has given us a lot of really fun projects. Uh, we did, you know, recently we did purely for them, but we do like, uh, You know, for the last, how many, what year is this, uh, seven years, yeah, uh, we've done two big global campaigns for Pepsi for their main, you know, Pepsi branding, uh, which is run in every country but the U. S., which is funny, Pepsi is like, there's global and then there's the U. S., and they just, they let us have a lot of fun and just really experiment, like, oh, okay, what if we, Fill a balloon with Pepsi and put it in a tank of water and then we pop it and then we push the camera through the pop the balloon of Pepsi, you know, just like we just, once again, every time we do it, we're like, how do we push it that much further? How much, how do we do something, you know, cool? Uh, you know, just like this last time we shot some stuff at like 8000 frames a second because we're just like, oh, it looks so different. That 8, 000 frames compared to 1, 000 frames a second, you know, eight times slower. So, you know, they're like, okay, but that has new challenges too, because camera movement, like, is going to be eight times slower too. And the camera was already moving as fast as it could be. So how do we cheat, you know, to make it feel like we're moving faster than we were? And so each one has its new challenges, but it's all about, you know, and those are, I mean, those are our favorite projects. It's just like, how do we, Bring innovation to the story and the process on every project, right? You know, and I think that's what gets us excited here. Like my worst nightmare is doing the same shoot every day for like a year, you know, like, uh, you know, unless they're paying a lot of money, then maybe it'd be okay for a year. Um, But, um, for Pepsi itself, we've come up with some crazy rigs as well, like, you know, these turbine interwoven strands of liquid that are, you know, uh, spinning. And, I mean, if you ever want to come by in Brooklyn, man, you're welcome to do a little tour here. Like, we have a friggin Haas CNC machine. It's like huge. Yeah, yeah, you make like car parts from this thing, you know, uh, so are you machining rigs and stuff too? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's fully like we have like a room of 3D printers and machines and like blades and welders. And like, it's crazy because once again, like we need to, Create these things and the precision needed for them is just getting higher and higher. Cause like we're trying, we're asking more and more out of them. Like, you know, it's like, Oh, back when, you know, the good old days is a piece of wood and a bungee. And like, there you go. You know, now we're like, we're really kind of dialing in that precision, which is super fun. Um, And, uh, yeah, it just, it makes sense for us and the turnaround times and all that stuff too. Yeah, that's awesome. It's a little magical workshop. Robots, like it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's been fascinating. Where can people find out more, uh, more info about you, your behind the scenes stuff? Cool. Yeah. I mean, you have all the links, but basically my Instagram is probably the most fun. You know, Steve Draught on Instagram, on TikTok, Steve Draught 6, whatever. I don't know why I'm just the 6th one, but, and then the the garage. tv is our main site and the garage rentals. com is our services site. So yeah, all the stuff that we do as far as effects, robotics, LED wall, That we all, we do that as services for other people too. So if anybody requires high speed virtual production or robotics or motion control or effects, like once again, we are happy to collaborate, you know, once again, we're, we're here not just to make work for me and our directors. We're here to just be part of the greater community of image makers. And especially if you're somebody innovative and you really want to push the limits on stuff, uh, we could, we could definitely be friends. But, um, and then, yeah, this summer. We're considering putting together a little, like, open house kind of summit here on the virtual production stuff, uh, here in Brooklyn as well. I'll let you know, um, if we pull that together, um, just to kind of show off the process and, you know, uh, cause I think a lot of people, it's just like motion control, right? A lot of people have never touched it, have never used it, and we're really trying to make it feel a little more accessible. Uh, so we, we love, you know, opening up our space to people and letting them, you know, touch it for a day. Um, so yeah, I'll let you know. Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks a lot, Steve. Appreciate it. Cool. No, thank you, Jerry. And that is it for this episode. Many thanks to Steve for coming on and sharing his knowledge. 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