What if you dared to defy conventional norms and embraced a paradox of interests to redefine your creative expression? What if you could harness the power of discipline to transform your creative blocks into stepping stones? In this exhilarating discussion, we journey through the fascinating realms of reinvention, authenticity, and unconventional interests. Drawing inspiration from iconic artists like Bob Dylan, we underline the profound impact of staying true to oneself while continually evolving one's artistic persona. Staying at the intersection of sports fandom, pro wrestling, and photography, we explore how individual artistry reflects our cultural consciousness.
An artist's block can often feel like a deep abyss, but what if you could channel your creativity to build a bridge over it? We offer valuable insights into overcoming these daunting obstacles by treating creativity like a job - showing up, putting in the hours, and continually honing your craft. As we delve deeper into the nuances of self-discipline, we emphasize the significance of self-awareness, embracing the highs and lows, and keeping the flame of passion alive. We also explore the fine line between work and creativity, advocating for patience, risk-taking, and balancing a creative lifestyle.
Time is a resource, and how we choose to spend it can significantly impact our creative journey. We delve into the intriguing relationship between time and creativity, drawing insights from legends like Martin Scorsese and Joe Myerowitz. In the era of instant gratification, we underline the importance of patience, perseverance, and the sublime satisfaction of bringing long-standing projects to life. From creating efficient frameworks to managing dopamine pathways for better focus, we share practical strategies to make your creative process more rewarding. Join us, as we embrace the unconventional, challenge the norms, and celebrate the beauty of creativity. - Ai
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
What if you dared to defy conventional norms and embraced a paradox of interests to redefine your creative expression? What if you could harness the power of discipline to transform your creative blocks into stepping stones? In this exhilarating discussion, we journey through the fascinating realms of reinvention, authenticity, and unconventional interests. Drawing inspiration from iconic artists like Bob Dylan, we underline the profound impact of staying true to oneself while continually evolving one's artistic persona. Staying at the intersection of sports fandom, pro wrestling, and photography, we explore how individual artistry reflects our cultural consciousness.
An artist's block can often feel like a deep abyss, but what if you could channel your creativity to build a bridge over it? We offer valuable insights into overcoming these daunting obstacles by treating creativity like a job - showing up, putting in the hours, and continually honing your craft. As we delve deeper into the nuances of self-discipline, we emphasize the significance of self-awareness, embracing the highs and lows, and keeping the flame of passion alive. We also explore the fine line between work and creativity, advocating for patience, risk-taking, and balancing a creative lifestyle.
Time is a resource, and how we choose to spend it can significantly impact our creative journey. We delve into the intriguing relationship between time and creativity, drawing insights from legends like Martin Scorsese and Joe Myerowitz. In the era of instant gratification, we underline the importance of patience, perseverance, and the sublime satisfaction of bringing long-standing projects to life. From creating efficient frameworks to managing dopamine pathways for better focus, we share practical strategies to make your creative process more rewarding. Join us, as we embrace the unconventional, challenge the norms, and celebrate the beauty of creativity. - Ai
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer, in summer.
Speaker 2:Or that translates yeah, you should check it out.
Speaker 3:Right. I was like, oh great. So not only is he a magical songwriter, but he's also a good photo-documentarian, like the son of a bee.
Speaker 2:Speaking of magical songwriters, you do other things really well. Bob Dylan has a bunch of paintings and you can buy them and they're not like 450 bucks yeah right. So I think that's that's gonna be something I want for this Makes sense. Just something, yeah, I mean honestly, maybe even replace I think that quote should go up here, right, yeah, and then you put a painting of his, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Should we tell?
Speaker 3:them what the quote is. All I can do is be me, whoever that is, which I love, it's one of my.
Speaker 2:It's funny you were talking about Matthew McConaughey and he referenced Dylan.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So he talks about always having this idea where, when he was younger, he always had this concept of something's only good when it's authentic, singular, the same. And then Dylan taught him that you can reinvent yourself, yeah, and you can control that. You can make yourself anybody you want to be. And so Dylan would recreate himself and the different stages of his career. He has these different personalities or these different ways of presenting himself to the world, and it's he starts out as this folky little Woody Guthrie clone kid, then he's the rock star, he's wearing the suits, and then he's the cowboy, and then he's the old jazz crooner. He's just got all of these eras of reinvention, and I've always loved that quote.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love it too.
Speaker 2:Just be unapologetically how you feel and I think, as long as you can justify it to yourself, it's fine. Yeah, you can do whatever you want to do. You can do anything you want to do, whatever you want to do. It's not like you can't do one thing or the other. As long as you're thoughtful about it and you're not like you said, you're not hurting other people, sure, then go for it.
Speaker 3:Well, we suppress so much of ourselves because of what's expected of us yeah, so much of who we are outwardly. Is us doing what we think people expect of us versus, like you said, just being honest with who you are and what you like, whether it's your sexuality or sense of humor. Obviously you don't just have like a carte blanche to just be an A-hole or to be offensive or whatever, I think people are afraid to represent themselves in paradox, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:People are afraid. There's a great Whitman quote where he talks about I contain multitudes and every individual. Then there's also I think the entire quote is do I contradict myself? I contain multitudes. Yeah, and that's such a beautiful collection of words and I think it's really important for work, for art and being a human. Yeah, you know, you don't have to embody something you don't have to embody. Just because you haven't seen that before doesn't mean that it shouldn't be. And just because you feel like two things don't work together, right, like, oh, I'm a football fan and I love jazz music, you can't do those things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's not right. That's sure you can. That doesn't fit the archetype?
Speaker 2:Of course you can, there's no, so I think that's always been a favorite quote of mine.
Speaker 3:Well, I was delightfully surprised when I found out you played golf, because I was not a football fan. You know the football fandom was a tip off.
Speaker 2:Everybody's always surprised about I like golf. The football thing gets weird reactions and I would call myself a proper football fan and a proper sports fan. So those always get reactions from people where it's like wait what? And I just I don't know. I like a lot of things, I have a lot of interest. There's no, you know, pro wrestling. The Rick Rubin always talks about Rick Rubin's like the biggest pro wrestling fan. I was a huge pro wrestling fan growing up.
Speaker 3:My brother and I watched that nonstop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, WrestleMania.
Speaker 3:Summer Slam everything.
Speaker 2:Oh, everything. Yeah, I think it's always funny when you find something and you're like what? Yeah, audrey came, we had this discussion last week of things that you know, things that nobody knows about you, that you could actually give a 20 minute TED talk on, if you needed to. And her biggest one with me. She's like, it's like pro wrestling with you. I'm like, I'm not, I don't follow it anymore. I just, you know, I don't know, I've got other things that I put more attention towards.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:We're talking like late nineties to mid 2000s 2010. Like absolutely.
Speaker 3:I would love to see from you, like a scholarly video essay on like, like, how macho man Randy Savage is a reflection of our something you know, like our cultural consciousness, like that would be like and you were dead serious about it. Like if you actually like thought in terms of wrestling and how it's like a mirror you know, I do think like an art form that reflects back our humanity and like you're making those connections.
Speaker 2:You're like tugging cheek, but also I know you're being kind of serious. I really think that a lot of times, when you see something and you're like that is amazing.
Speaker 1:I've never.
Speaker 2:It's when you have two things that are so separate and somebody pulls them together and connects them. So you know scholarly essay video and pro wrestling and obscure photography or something, and you pull all those that make an interesting video. I'd watch that.
Speaker 3:We referenced that yesterday. We were talking about photography as an art form in comparison to things that are more fabricated in the sense of a movie or a play, and how I was to make my point. I was referencing the speech that the character Bill gives in Kill Bill volume two, I believe where he talks about how all the superheroes are their self and then their alter ego is the superhero, it's Batman, it's a Spiderman, all that but Superman is the one that is different, he's the opposite. His alter ego is Clark Kent, where he, his true self, is Superman. And so, like that, to me, that speech that he gives is that it is analyzing something that seems unanalyzable and finding this profound, finding a thread meaning in it, or thread in it and you know, I think of that.
Speaker 3:you know something fun like that for wrestling. You could see someone like Quentin Tarantino or someone else going going deep on how it's.
Speaker 2:I could see, yeah, I mean that's, you get a lot of really great things when you have people who you're just like, you're interested in that, yeah, and then something comes out of that.
Speaker 3:It's like, yeah, you actually, I mean, you know and obviously is is such a through line throughout human history, wrestling all the way back to gladiators all that stuff, the show of it, yeah, and I always joke. Well, and the dedication of the artists. I'm like oh and it's holy crap.
Speaker 2:There's an argument that could be made.
Speaker 3:Surrender their bodies.
Speaker 2:Professional wrestling is one of. You've gotten what jazz hip hop? You've got certain certain art movements. Yeah, professional wrestling, you know, like it or not, it's one of the original American art forms and it's really big in Japan and Ken Burns dock on wrestling. Let's get that, holy shit.
Speaker 3:Let's get that.
Speaker 2:I would watch.
Speaker 3:Ken, I know your list. I talk a lot about Martin.
Speaker 2:Scorsese Ken Burns is also he's up there.
Speaker 1:He's on the on Rushmore.
Speaker 2:He's on the Mount Rushmore baby, I think you just gave us a perfect segue, segue into our topic. Well, so you said analyzing the unanalyzable and so giving the preface that I already. There's no way it's going to be as elegant as it was when I first gave that that previous intro was perfect. So we introed and then figured out we weren't recording the audio.
Speaker 2:So, I'm going to give this again, but now we have a segue, so at least that's nice. Analyze the unanalyzable that brings me in in a roundabout way, to this idea of channeling creativity, because we talked about the inspiration from anywhere. That's kind of what I take. Analyzing the unanalyzable, what? What is what should be analyzed, what shouldn't? Where do you draw that line? But channeling creativity is and we'll go through these at the end to talk about what we didn't talk about.
Speaker 3:That's right. Well, we didn't get to, but because we almost went an hour on pro wrestling. So let's just be careful here we were.
Speaker 2:we were, yeah, the butterfly effect where, like a just there's an alternate universe where we're just two hour pod pro wrestling, so channeling creativity. A friend of mine reached out to me and she basically said hey, I'd love to talk to you. I've been feeling really I'm just going to read the read the message, just to not blotch the words and go from there. So I've just been feeling really stuck lately. We'd love to hear what you've been up to and get a different perspective on channeling creativity. And I thought I mean immediately. I'm like this is the perfect, perfect thing to talk about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's great and I brought it up to you and you kind of took the Steven Press field route of going in on, you know, the war of art, the be a professional, sit down, approach your job every day, and so I kind of want to hand this to you and then we'll just again see where it leads us. But be a professional, what does that? What does that mean? Channeling creativity, feeling creatively stuck. You know what are some ways to overcome that? Maybe why is that happening? Should that be happening? Examples of when that's happened to us. We've got so many ways to take this. So, yeah, see, we just let it branch out from here.
Speaker 3:I think like a common term associated with that sometimes is writer's block. You know, like you know, and that, just as a larger concept not like literally a block to write a novel, but writer's block you could use, you know, in a sense, for any sort of creative block, or feeling like you're not inspired, or finding the thing, that, that, that that allows you to channel, you know the magic of the universe and create whatever it is you create, whether it's photo play, you know, architecture, whatever. So there's like two phrases that come to mind, and it's feeling inspired and finding inspiration. And I like finding inspiration because it implies that, like you're searching for it. Yeah, searching for inspiration, it also implies that it's out there at all times.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that it's out there and you just need to locate it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And, you know, the thing about my experience of inspiration has always been is there's definitely moments where I feel like lightning strikes and I'm, like you know, I'm ready to write something, or I'm ready to take photos, or I'm ready to edit something or jot down ideas.
Speaker 3:You know, whatever it is, and that certainly certainly happens more often than not, especially if you're trying to work in the creative field or work and, like you know, be a working artist where you earn a living from it, versus it being a hobby or a side hustle or something that you do when you're not at your day job. You know, one of the big things that I learned out of film school was how to treat screenwriting like a job, and you know, I don't recall. You know some, like reading some book or a seasoned professor telling me, like you know what the key is kid, sit your butt in the chair every day and just crank it out. You know, but you heard, I heard things about like 10,000 hours. You heard things like Stephen. Stephen King writes 2,500 words a day and it's non negotiable.
Speaker 3:So you hear kind of these he's got a great book on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think on writing or yeah.
Speaker 3:And I took a lot of that to heart and I, you know, of course, had a very intense goals at a film school to become a, you know, a Hollywood screenwriter and all that. And I knew that the difference between me and somebody that maybe was just like waiting for inspiration to hit and sit down and crank out 15 pages of a screenplay, the difference would be in the maybe the likelihood that I would get there before that person did, was that I would sit down every single day.
Speaker 3:that I wasn't working on something else like a paid gig or whatever, back then editing, and I would write at least five pages of whatever script I was working on. Sometimes it was 10. Just raw sewage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:You don't judge it. You just like I know what the scene's about or I know this plot point, you know whatever it is and I'm just going to get through it, especially if it's a first draft. Get that vomit draft out, which I learned from Francis Ford Coppola talking about the vomit draft. Don't judge it Just, get it on paper Just get it done.
Speaker 1:Stop staring at blank pages.
Speaker 3:you know all that, and I think that that to me, don't stare at a blank page. I think a lot of times, just to wrap up the point, we as creatives or artists can sometimes be staring at a blank page in a figurative, metaphorical way, and that can stop us. And to me, you just have to start doing something. If you're a photographer, go out and just force yourself to take pictures and you'll be amazed that sometimes that creativity or inspiration you're looking for will bubble up or pull you in, or you'll get in the flow, you'll start channeling something. Something will happen where you know it happens, you know. For me, again, it was always just sitting down and right, and now, with photography, I'm so in this like sort of honeymoon phase with it right now that you know I could just go to the farmer's market last weekend.
Speaker 2:Everything's exciting and just like it is.
Speaker 3:You know I'm excited about the cameras, the film, the getting it scan, like checking Facebook market, like I'm, you know, in that, that just like voracious phase, which I think for some people that are pursuing creativity, once that cools. Wait a second, I'm not. I'm not feeling it today, but I know I should be doing it, because I have a YouTube channel or I want to print a zine, or I want to try to get into a gallery, or I want to have portfolio for assignment work, you know, whatever it is you got to do the work.
Speaker 3:You just got to get out there and do it in the editing side and it's such a corny thing I call it chopping broccoli. Like you, just have to chop the broccoli. It's a reference to this SML skit and my buddy Nick and I came up with it because we'd be sitting in a windowless room in Burbank for 14 hours a day editing concert content and it's like. That's like our little saying. We would say like you just got to chop it up chop it up, man, and it was.
Speaker 3:It's like like a sous chef preparing for the nights you know, like you got to do all that prep work, to like you know, and there's nothing like a room full of hungry people to make you do your art.
Speaker 2:Absolutely but really try to do your job. I think it's interesting too. It's, like you know, in my you just brought in the chef metaphor and we were talking about the rice thing the other day, and I don't know if these two things can be related, but I just kind of have that like buzz in my head just now where I was like wait a minute, these two things might fit together some way.
Speaker 2:So now I'm like digging for that. Okay, this puzzle piece does it work? Yep, yep. But you talked about keep chopping the broccoli and like the sous chef, that like you're always going to have to do the preparation, the preparatory work, the discipline. Some days it might feel a little more. This is, I'm just reaching.
Speaker 3:Measles, plus the mise en place, the mise en place.
Speaker 1:Getting every Gotta, give my mise en place.
Speaker 2:You can tell I'm very so the idea of and again, I'm just working this together. But, yeah, no, I, we, both of us have really attracted to this idea of you got to spend, and I don't know if we're actually attracted to it. If you actually sat us down and said, spend six years making the rice and then you're allowed to touch the fish, right, yeah, so we're ready, go Aouch, move away. You know, does that change our perspective? Are we actually more Short-sighted than we think? We, because you know we can sit down here all day, like we're a very long-term focused, yeah, but at the end of the day, you know, six years Prepping rice is six years prepping rice.
Speaker 2:That's right and that's a lot of time to spend. And I think it's interesting, though, like that process never changes you always, if you're gonna make sushi, you have to prep the rice, absolutely. It's like you just said you know you've got to, you got to chop the broccoli, you got to sit down. It might not be interesting all the time, but you know, to get to the interesting part, you've got to do the mundane and you've got to put yeah.
Speaker 3:You have to push through the pain or the, the block, the, lack of inspiration. You know all of that.
Speaker 2:I mean if you're on, if you're on your four and a half of the, you know that Making rice, that's all you do every day. Yeah, I'm sure there's some pain there and I'm sure at times you know it's like. It's like going on a run where Sometimes you're aware of it, sometimes three or four miles go by and you're not aware like, oh, that was quick. But when you are aware of it, one mile feels like it takes an hour and when you're not aware of it, four miles can take five minutes.
Speaker 3:but you don't stop running because it gets harder, you just continue when I think in that example you know, with from Jiro, dreams of sushi, someone being tasked by the master that they're studying under to focus on rice for six years, yeah, doesn't necessarily mean that that person never gets to express themselves Creatively with food in other ways. They may not do it with Jiro at his restaurant because you have to pass this test. You have to show the mastery of of washing the rice, selecting the rice you know, steaming it.
Speaker 3:All of that stuff before I'll let you touch the things that you know, the final thing that a customer is going to going to experience, you know, I'm sure these Folks are doing stuff on their own, expressing their own creativity with what they cook for their families, for themselves, all that stuff you know. So there's other outlets for it, I think. But I think those are also tests like how dedicated are you to this? Yeah, because you're gonna reach a lot of friction in that process of Making that rice. I think about actors that work on stage and on Broadway for 18, 22, 50 week runs of a show. You know, are they experiencing the magic of art and creativity every single time they're out there? No, do you think?
Speaker 2:that might be an effective way to approach these little's in creativity Approach, approach them as test. I know that's not necessarily what that is right, but especially in America and the the West, the Western world, we like to apply these Challenges to everything. Everything's a challenge and I think there is wisdom in the idea of do hard things because they're hard right and you're not trying to achieve something, you're just the act. Is the achievement right? But then again, sometimes it's useful to have more of a straight line metaphor. Where Do you think, looking at it as if it was a test and you have to continue to pass these tests?
Speaker 2:This is something we see in YouTube all the time. Right, somebody gets excited. They make a Year worth of great videos where they're all in on photography and then go away and it, that channel is gone forever. Yeah, and you're like what happened to that channel? I love that channel and Sometimes I feel like the answer is probably well, I just didn't have the spark for it anymore. Right, and the spark, in my experience, it's always come back if you continue to pursue it if you continue to Sit down and do the work.
Speaker 2:Eventually something will come back, but you can also. It can also go away if you just pour water on it and don't right, if you ignore it for long enough. So do you think it's, it's useful around about? You think it's useful to look at it as a test and maybe we Stretch that metaphor a little bit or explore that a little bit of hey, these are tests that you have to.
Speaker 3:I Think the biggest thing is that it's a mechanism for building self-awareness. You have really have to ask yourself as you experience, I think, your growth as someone who is creative or an artist and do I only do this when it's like the most fun and exhilarating parts of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah whether it's you know. Again, the moment the inspiration strikes, you're struck by lightning. You sit down and write paint, sculpt, whatever it is Like at 2 o'clock in the morning and you know this thing comes out and it's amazing. And then it goes out in the world and everybody in the world thinks it's amazing and you train yourself to think like every Creative moment has to be like that.
Speaker 1:That's waiting for it to happen.
Speaker 3:And you know, it's three years before the next thing comes out. You know, you know, maybe there are some artists that have had careers like that, but I feel like you know, that's something that I use to ask myself how do you, how do you embrace those magic, amazing moments just as well as the most difficult and arduous ones? And to me it's not necessarily yeah, to me it's. It's a test of, you know, your passion, your dedication, your compulsion, your obsession, your, your, your need to use whatever that form is to create something, and it doesn't have to be like one, yeah you know like it can.
Speaker 3:It can be multiples and for me, I felt feel like I have gone through different art forms or creative outlets as an iterative process to get to where I am now absolutely and you know, I may abandon certain things that I was incredibly focused on for almost 10 years, like screenwriting, yeah, and in a sense, abandon it, apply what I learned and about it in form something to move on to something else, whereas someone might, you know, pick up a guitar when they're seven years old and they literally never set it down their entire life and all they do is make music.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they don't, you know they don't have a have, but you always hear about those folks having you know that they paint or they draw or they do something else like they have some Alternative.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even if it doesn't turn into a career. They're not exhibiting their work in galleries or you know, whatever there's, there's other ways that they, they experience creativity. So that's a very long and Labyrinthian answer, but but to me, thinking of it as a test for your, for developing yourself, awareness and ascertaining what is your level of dedication to life, in this, in this, in this experience, this way, this creative, artistic, yeah, because it's a lot different and maybe in some ways it's not from. You know, punching a clock nine to five and yeah and doing doing the work there are there are probably.
Speaker 2:There probably are similarities where I Mean at the beginning of the the Jiro dreams of sushi documentary. He's, he's staring at the camera. Yeah, it's this find what you want to do and Dedicate every waking something along the lines of just dedicate yourself to it completely. Yeah, and he's like, that's how you will gardener respect and you will.
Speaker 2:That's how you will achieve. You call it master, you call it master, you call it master, you call it master, you call it master, you call it master, you call it master, you call it mastery or whatever. Yeah, he's just like do it constantly, and you know there's gonna be ups and downs on that. And If you want to look at it on a linear thing, then the top of that, that achievement, is Mastery in some sense or another. Yeah, it's. There's gonna be multiple Peaks and valleys that you're gonna have to navigate.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think that there are also and that's.
Speaker 2:That's part of the experience too, because I don't think you find anybody who's made it that far like. One thing that I think is really interesting is a lot of the voice, the, the voicing of this idea of I'm struggling with creativity is After you've overcome that a couple of times it's not really voiced, and I think it's just one of those things that you have to fight through a few times and then you kind of learn how to do it. I don't know what a good life example of something similar would be, but there are some things where it's just this sucks and you kind of got to fight through it a couple of times and then you can learn how to navigate it. Maybe it's a depressive episode or something where it's just you have to find your tools to navigate.
Speaker 3:Well, I think too, something that people learn when they pursue art, creativity. There are, you know, we talk about self-discipline, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But then there's also, I think and I don't know how about like a catchy phrase for it but there's also sort of like mechanisms, of external mechanisms, that can create sort of an, maybe an artificial discipline in the sense that there's stakes, like you could say Jiro, you know, was running a family business.
Speaker 3:Culturally, you know, there's culture of honor and dishonor. There's a customer sitting there waiting to eat your food and they paid a lot of money. Like there are things that sort of can force your hand when maybe you're not feeling it. You know the Broadway actor that has to go on every night. They have a contract, they have people in the audience waiting for the show. You know the famous show. They're saying the show must go on. Yeah, when you're someone who is exploring art and creativity and maybe you don't have those external mechanisms that create discipline for you. Like I was commissioned to paint, paint a painting or make a photograph. Or I have a gallery exhibit coming up and I'm missing three photos. I need to come up with those. You know, some of the times those things create discipline because of the stakes and what you have to do. You have to deliver on your promise, you send a contract, you need to make money, whatever.
Speaker 3:There are instances, I think, where people are exploring creativity and there's nothing necessarily at stake Like right now with photography other than me creating a YouTube channel there's nothing that is making me go out and take photographs.
Speaker 2:See, but I would argue if you were in the opposite, just because I know you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Very similar. Call them personality traits.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:That if you were being not necessarily commissioned but you went out and you did three years of building a company doing video production, right, right, and you were like I fucking hate doing this for other people this way, this, yeah Right, and you were like I just want to make my own stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I want that and you could argue that there's. Everything has downsides, but it might be more of a benefit than you've thought for not having those external circumstances at this point in the journey. But I think that's an interesting dynamic of I think it is good to go and have that. You are responsible, you are beholden to something, but then at the same time I think of you and I think of me and how we would. What is it?
Speaker 2:Just do it out of spite where you don't want to do something, you'll set your mind to something. Yeah, maybe that is more of a negative force Could be. Yeah, I'm just thinking of for people listening. I'm just trying to think through both sides of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I could definitely see myself you know, I'm beholden to something. Like you said, I need two more photos. It's like that's awesome as motivation to like I got to get it done. But then I could also see myself being like who the fuck is this gallery owner? They need two more photos.
Speaker 3:Well, and I was just reading something I think it was an article in the Hollywood Reporter, and one of the lines was it was about Taylor Sheridan, the guy who created Yellowstone, and there was a reference to George Lucas. And George Lucas said if I had not landed a deal with United Artists to produce Star Wars, the original film, I'd still be writing that story.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:I spent years and years writing draft and draft, and draft and draft and draft, and until it was like there was this external mechanism. There's a force. There's a pressure, pun intended force. You know it. You know it created all this infrastructure, people payroll contract. You know all this stuff that got him to finish it and arguably make one of the, you know, the biggest pieces of IP ever created.
Speaker 3:So I'm curious with your friend. Is she exploring photography on her own and even if Instagram is there, or wanting to build a portfolio? There are some external mechanisms of discipline or you know, you know getting your work in front of people. Yeah, is she in a state right now where she's learning more about herself and self discipline and treating, treating it like it's work, even though technically it isn't? She's not getting paid? To do it or she's not.
Speaker 2:Well, I do think she's built business, she has she's done client work and she's done commercial work for people and I think one thing I saw in her work and if, if you're listening, I'm not going to like say your name or anything, because I don't- know, sure, this, like I wouldn't want somebody to say I might have some embarrassing here. But when I, when I as I watched her kind of do more and more work and we stayed in touch because there was always a draw there to continue to follow that journey.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:I have seen like she's matured and like the work has matured substantially to the point where you're like, okay, this isn't just somebody picking up a camera, there's genuine like. I want you at all costs please continue to do this work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a voice.
Speaker 2:There's perspective, there's a voice there's perspective there's it needs to. It's something that needs to be expanded upon and unfortunately, you know you don't hear commercial photographers complain a lot about being in a creative rut.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think this is a little bit why I fought back against that a little bit. I wasn't. I'm not disagreeing.
Speaker 2:I think I completely agree with you with the parameters, but commercial photographers don't fight back against that a lot because there's often, there's always an external pressure, right, yeah, and they. There's never an. With external pressure, there's not really a need to develop in yourself. I talked about Dylan earlier and he had these different renditions of himself throughout his career where he was always evolving and reinventing himself. It would, it was complete reinvention and every, every iteration looked different than the last. The music sounded different and the perspective was different. And that's what's so amazing is he continued to work through that and there was a constant evolution and the art was ever changing. And I think you know we talked last, last week, about the relevance, the staying power of that, and it's because there was the constant evolution, he was never resting on what was done before and with this person, I, I can see that being a thing, and that's something that I always try to approach with my work is, if it looks the same, I'm not happy, I'm.
Speaker 2:I constantly I've it's gotta. It's gotta be moving in a direction. Yeah, and I don't necessarily know if that's a straight vertical, but it's gotta be changing, it's gotta be evolving. You have to be, and so I'm always taking in different influences. You have to be open to every influence, no matter how big or small, and that's what I'm seeing with your work too is there's change.
Speaker 2:I need to play with this medium.
Speaker 2:I need to play with this medium and that's like the if and I'm not trying to sound like wise photographer and don't take me as that. I'm speaking to anybody listening because I don't know what I'm doing just as much as anybody else does. But I think with with great work, there's always that push of I need to constantly be reinventing myself and trying different things and experimenting in new ways. And you see that I think it's a through line through great painters and great you know Picasso, at all those periods of work, or you see great film. It's always evolving and and I see that and like I see that with your work and I see that with this person's work, and I don't know if you can fight through that with external motivation. I think the only way to fight through that is and I think external motivation is great but I think the only way to fight through that evolution, that reinvention, is by going inside, yeah, and by looking at within yourself and figuring out who am I, what do I want to say?
Speaker 1:what is?
Speaker 2:my voice, how is my voice different?
Speaker 2:And sometimes that means putting a curtain around you to close off the rest of the world.
Speaker 2:And when you're in that you know that dark inner environment, then you can start to pick away at what is uniquely you and carve that perspective and then you know what ideas do you want to challenge, what ideas you have that you're not sure about, that you want to look closer at and hopefully either prove or disprove, or you know, see if, see if it holds weight, see if it doesn't hold weight I think that's what art is at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:Is your if, all these theories that you're testing with the work and you're seeing if it holds weight or not, and if it does, then you can take that to the next piece of work and that'll right, that'll influence what comes next. And I forget the original point. I just went on like a total tangent, but the idea essentially is that you know, go internal, external and you never have the the creative challenge with commercial work because, right, it is a lot of times one of the drawbacks of commercial work in the traditional sense. This is different if you're being commissioned to do something based entirely off of what you're doing.
Speaker 2:But if you're going out and you're seeking clients, you're presenting them with a portfolio of work and they're hiring you because they see in that portfolio your ability to accomplish something that is, in their mind, a one to one to what they're trying to accomplish. So by showing them that you can accomplish this and that matches with the vision that they have in their head, you are pretty much playing into their level of risk and if it's, if it's a one-to-one, if it's, you know, 0.75 to one, if it's close enough in their range of risk tolerance.
Speaker 2:They see that as a zero risk proposition of okay, I pay this person, I'm gonna get what I'm wanting right and I can. Then you know I get what. I paid for. But then the downside of that is if they come to, if you know you have a portfolio and they come to you. I want this one yeah.
Speaker 2:I want option three. You better deliver option three and it better be within that risk tolerance, sure, and you know, then you have two of the same things for the next one and they're like, oh man, they can do it. So then the risk tolerance goes down and then they want it. You better live within that.
Speaker 2:The risk tolerance got smaller, so you have a smaller you know margin of error to work within, and now you've created three things that are essentially the same right so it's harder to to evolve, and I think that's that's the risk of of going to external is you can find yourself creating the same thing over and over, and I think part of the reason why why you've really you've almost caught fire recently with like just oh man, you're looking at all these inspirations is because you've you've managed to set this photography thing up as something that is detached from your. Yeah, there is no, no, none of that, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3:I just rambled for a long time, but no it, yeah, yeah, and I think I think too, like with commercial work or even if you create a YouTube channel and a certain videos really really connect with your audience and there's like sort of an expectation that you know, like you know, hey, that vlog was really great, but we would love to see some more final cut, you know, offer tips and tricks, kind of play.
Speaker 3:Play your hits right same thing with like a musician. You know people go to the concert. They don't want to hear all the b-sides necessarily, like they want to hear the hits like.
Speaker 2:Dylan.
Speaker 3:Dylan does the rock concert yeah, revolts, yeah, yeah, and then you know, yeah, seven years later it's.
Speaker 2:Oh man, we love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was great, yeah, so you know it was interesting with, like the framework of a commercial project. You know. You know you're sort of given sometimes when you're not, when you, when you are not commissioned, like we don't know what we want, but we want you and whatever you make, like we're gonna, like it's gonna be, like that's what we want we just want your perspective yeah, we want you to make your thing, versus a framework.
Speaker 3:You know, with a commercial photographer, it's got to be this model. We're gonna be at a location like this for the cover of Vogue or this photo shoot, whatever, and I'm sure there's plenty of them where it's like you're an amazing photographer, tell us what we should do, yeah, but for those where it isn't, or you know they're hiring a chef, but there's like we need to work within these ingredients and there's some leeway, but for the most part, this is your framework. I really struggle with that.
Speaker 2:I, I think, have I just I think of a Tony Bourdain quote, or is like there's always someone willing to hire you to make brunch, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great hard brunch hard, hard brunch. Changing the podcast name.
Speaker 3:Anyway, sorry to jump in that just yeah, so so you know, and you referenced earlier the production company and I really found myself moving away from it because I didn't like being handed the parameters.
Speaker 3:I didn't like having the framework that I had to work within. I felt like you know, whether I had a chip on my shoulder, or confidence or perspective, whatever it was, I was like you know, you know, I know what I want to make. Just you know, you just need to pay for it. Like, commission me to make this thing, and so, even with the YouTube channel, which I love because you know I have full autonomy, I can make whatever I want, even if I go, go off a little bit and what the video is for.
Speaker 3:As far as my bread and butter, which is Final Cut Pro tutorials, there's still, you know, sort of a client, if you will, in your audience going you know, hey, all this stuff's great we really want these stick to the final cut, yeah and you know, with the photography videos and the channel that I've made there, you know, pretty much every video is the same. Like you know, I'm very curious to explore it from kind of the point of view of a piece, you know, of sushi right rice. What happens if you?
Speaker 3:continue to and like you know they're not. You know Jiro isn't like you know, maybe he's, you know, playing around with you know smoking fish or aging fish, or what fishy sources, what water? How is it handled? Who's? You know there's. There's all kinds of variables that go into, but the but. The final product is a sliced piece of fish on oval. You know, I don't know what the term is, but a form of rice yeah and so I think maybe you know, we just like all of our.
Speaker 2:I thought about these old auto. Adjust, of course it was cloudy, you know.
Speaker 1:Like should we turn the key on?
Speaker 2:and well, it's gonna be fun.
Speaker 3:I've been talking for so long it turned to turn nighttime.
Speaker 2:I would love that. So I love that concept of remaking the same thing over and over and I would love to see what the end point of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I, if you just made the same photography videos for six years, like I wonder what that would look like, and I do too like, because I think that kind of framework of you know, in my video I have an opening title card yeah. I introduce the camera and give some information on the camera with different shots of the camera. Yeah, on one video I experimented with kind of doing a little teaser of a few photos that the person would see later on and going into the camera, but anyway, camera.
Speaker 3:Then we have some video clips that play to set the scene. You know the setting of this photography thing and then like ten, like literally ten photos. Yeah, six video clips, ten photos, and it's all the same time I don't edit the music, you know each photo is up for ten seconds, each video clip is up for six seconds. Yeah, like this very regimented thing, but the inputs are the variation. So one's 35 millimeter ones, this camera ones, this editing app, one's another, you know so. So I'm trying to play around where it's almost like people who wear the same clothes every day. Yeah, like I'm making different things, but I'm not having to spend time coming up with the parameters the parameters of the final product.
Speaker 3:Like Jiro makes, cuts a piece of fish and puts it on thing, does different stuff to make it, of course, and I want to do the same thing. I want to make the same, essentially the same video, every video, but have the ingredients be slightly different.
Speaker 2:I think that. So you spoke earlier like external constraints. That's the external yes, that is entirely useful mm-hmm like that's an external, it's a constraint. You almost deconstruct the, the, the medium that you're working in, down to the core. Yeah, and then that's what I'm gonna focus on so I'm just gonna, okay, I'm just gonna do, yeah, six seconds, ten seconds. Yeah, six seconds, ten seconds. I think I'm just gonna and huh now.
Speaker 2:You see, now I'm, now, I'm intrigued in the project because I I, I tried to do something similar to this with the, with the daily, the daily practice yep and I think part of the issue there is that wasn't what I wanted the entire experience of the channel to be, so I didn't want to get into this like constant repetitive, because you've got your main channel is like that yes, you can be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that I can do a live stream, I can make a final cut tutorial. I can do a vlog about yeah this I can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so much and I like the idea of constantly evolve, and I think that requires, but then evolution within restraints.
Speaker 3:So I actually have a quote here strict adherence to system and routine make spontaneity possible yep, and I think that's a great, a great way to look at restraining yourself or putting constraints on your work well, even in that example, I know I'm gonna eventually, at some point, make videos that the you know, instead of it being Colorado on 35 millimeter film, it's gonna be street photography centered around the color yellow yeah and you're gonna go out and yellow is the thing yeah or street photography or urban landscape photography on a annoying DSLR mirrorless camera one or the other and a 70 to 200 lens yeah and like you're gonna like, so coming up with these these artificial, yeah, these things that you know now.
Speaker 3:That doesn't mean that like I'm at a point where my street photography with like the tools that I love. So you know, like I have to, I have to, I have to create these yeah mechanisms to keep it interesting or spice it up or conjure inspiration. Yeah, but I like the idea of what it's interesting.
Speaker 2:You're kind of coming at it from the opposite, like we come out of from the same perspective, but the, you know, even within that, it's like you give, you give two filmmakers the same material, right output will be different. You know, we have that very similar. I shoot with the same camera, yeah, same lens. You know, all I've got is 35. I'm out there with a 35 millimeter lens and you know, the same camera and I shoot. I'm either shooting color on the digital, or I'm shooting triax or I'm shooting, you know, portrait 800 like yeah there's three possible options yeah and even that I find sometimes I'm just like, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I'm just like I'm just doing black and white forever, that's it, that's it and. But I never put constraints on like I'm only shooting this thing, I just go out and whatever I see I'm like, okay, I do this, but then the constraints on the other end, where, with your, you're putting the constraints on the shooting and you're the more malleable part of of the equation is the, the materials or the equipment that's being used, the tools so I wonder, how that manifests itself in yeah, and the output?
Speaker 3:well, and I think too, trying to come up with a kind of a formula, with video like camera video images 10 stills six video image you know like that kind of you refine the formula. I haven't you know I haven't the only thing that I adjusted with it after I kind of made that first video, because I wasn't a hundred percent sure, like I mean, I thought about it for a long time yeah and I'm like you know what, what's the video that I want to watch on YouTube?
Speaker 3:and I'm like I want to see and I came up with it like I want to see a channel that's all about different cameras, digital and film yeah where the video is the same thing every time, essentially yeah but the inputs are different, right, the cameras different, the photos are different, the locations are different. All of that, yeah, and, but the things that are the anchors are the vibe of the music, the sound effects that were recorded in that environment and, and you know, the overall framework of it.
Speaker 3:I yeah, I don't know, I think that's the overarching takeaway.
Speaker 2:Here is the framework yeah.
Speaker 2:I think maybe it's important to find if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling like you're struggling with with a certain creative output. It's find your, find, your framework, you know, think of what you're trying to do and deconstruct that into a simple, repeatable process. It's like people say you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to lose weight, or I'm trying to get into a habit of going to the gym, okay, we'll start putting your shoes on every day, right, and you don't. If you stare at a mountain and think you have to climb it, it's a lot more intimidating than looking at the trail 100 feet at a time yeah, you know they.
Speaker 2:There's the constant if you're thinking about and I find myself falling into loops like that's, you know you get a couple of good days of going for a run or going to the gym or something you're doing, something good for your health and then one day you spend, you know, an hour and a half with it, right.
Speaker 2:And then the next time, because we have this weird sense of comparison, you're like I spent an hour and a half on that last time. All I can muster today is 25 minutes. It's not even worth it, yep. And then you don't go out because you've set the bar too high. And then you feel that, well, if I can't achieve that, it's not even worth starting. Well, no, because if you do 10 minutes of it, 15, 25 minutes, you haven't.
Speaker 2:You're continuing to feed into it yes whereas if you just say I can't do it, well, when's the next time? You know if that hour and a half was an outlier in the first place. When's the next? What's it? What are the odds that you're gonna have another day in the next couple of days that that is able to meet that expectation? And I think you said something in the when we were talking about pre-production today, of why do we index on the outliers or why, why do we attach to the outliers.
Speaker 2:Why do we look at the outliers? As you know, the outliers are just that the outliers. You got a. You've got to break it down to. There's a great, a great piece of advice.
Speaker 3:That's something, something along the lines of you want to make sure it's something that you can do on your worst day yeah, yes, and that's, and that's a lot of what this is and that's a kind of hijack the conversation into the channel that I'm working on. But, whether you know it, yeah, there was some consciousness about it and some not. I think part of it is. I want to. There are a set, you know creating something, there are areas of decision-making right, and you're making a gazillion decisions yes what photo to take, what camera to use, where to go.
Speaker 3:All these things right and certain. You get to a certain point where decisions can sort of create fatigue about what you're gonna make, and one thing that I didn't want to it negatively impact the project was that every video that I made with these photographs was an unknown.
Speaker 2:Like I would discover the story you have to start from scratch every single time, every time.
Speaker 3:You're like and you're. You know you're having to figure out what the video is every single time I'm like I want to take that out of the equation.
Speaker 2:It's exactly what you said about writing. Never start with a blank page, right?
Speaker 3:I mean, that's the best advice I ever got, or it's the hardest thing to stare at a blank page.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's you, if you, if you know, if you have a framework, if you have something that you're working towards or you can sit down and you have the prompt there makes it 150,000 times easier to sit down and go off of that. You know, even if, even if it's a vomit prompt, it's so much easier to go off of that than it is to to start from from scratch. What am I writing about today? How do I feel?
Speaker 3:Well, and the framework also helped because, you know, my main channel is my, in essence, 9 to 5 job and I can't have something especially that I'm on fire for right now set that aside where I'm like well, I'm all, I'm all in on this photography channel that has 43 subscribers no money and you have to go. Whatever my wife's like what do you do?
Speaker 3:It's great I love the passion and inspiration here but, there's some things that we have responsibility to, so creating that framework for the video made it so that the time to actually post-produce them was incredibly small compared to all the different types of videos I make on my main channel.
Speaker 2:We've gone through the same process in the last several weeks with the optimizing the podcast Sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I mean I think you and I both and I did want to take this and kind of take it in the direction of more of a tangible advice, yes, and then I have one other thing that I want to. We're getting close on time, but yeah, I have something that feeds off of this, but I want to take it into kind of explaining some of those. Okay, so it's good to build parameters, how do you find those parameters?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And maybe to to get to what you think on that, I think you within the second channel, as with the podcast, you know we've had to figure out how can we make this, because we're both busy and sitting down and you know how can we get together and we've done a really good job of it so far, and it's like yeah, credit to you for coming up with all the systems. I mean it's it wouldn't have worked without, without the end like it's. You know there's a dialogue and collaboration, collaboration no, it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting though, because it has been interesting to develop a process of okay, you've got two people, how can we make it as efficient as possible? We want it to be easy. It's got to be. You know, none of us has. We can't sit down for 10 hours a week and edit a podcast.
Speaker 3:Right now. Yeah, we can't sit down and we can't hire somebody to do it and we can't hire, we don't have the extra, exactly the funds.
Speaker 2:Don't, don't.
Speaker 1:Funds don't reach that far.
Speaker 3:Not yet.
Speaker 1:We're not built like that, but we're taken over the.
Speaker 2:So it's, but it's been interesting. And I think one thing you find is there's a lot of things that we don't pay attention to every day, that if you just you know as soon as they come up you take the time to jot it down, then it can feed into into and I'm really excited to. I mean, before we started recording this, we kind of sat down and were like we're not gonna do one episode if we're not willing to do you know 50.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Because I think you and I we've both seen that you know you don't really get into it until you get to episode.
Speaker 3:You know, 30 or 50 or even a hundred.
Speaker 2:Right, you don't get in. You're always refining. It's the sushi, you know.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, we're on our third piece of sushi.
Speaker 2:Right, it's just there's no way it's gonna be as good as our 300th or our 3,000th piece of sushi. There's just no way.
Speaker 3:Well, there's the form of a podcast and you could follow sort of like the formula and the playbook of what other similar podcasts do this many topics and intro whatever, like you can do that and I think we are aware of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we have experimented with doing an intro and outro, whatever, and we're okay with this being these. These early episodes being experimentation Absolutely Discovery Us. You know, learning each other in the context of creating show business in a sense. I mean, we have conversations, often at a coffee shop or here or wherever about these things, like literally these things. These are the things we talk about.
Speaker 2:Personally, the whole reason we wanted to start this.
Speaker 3:We should have recorded this to our conversation because it may have value to other people. And so well, why not create this framework around something that we do without a framework and and and figure it out without like having to nail it all down. Okay, well, let's get the script for the intro. What's our opening? You know, you did a great job, like playing with the opening quote and the music and using mid journey to come up with the cover photo, which is awesome, all that stuff.
Speaker 3:You know and doing some pre-pro here, sitting down and talking about the topics we want to cover, but we also have a millenote Yep. So this you know, it just makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think we also have a desire to connect and have these conversations because they're fulfilling to us, they help us along. I think you introduce me I would say it's a sort of like this phase of my interest in photography and my and my and my excitement for it and the tools and the art form and the craft, yeah, and you know, and you know that's a two-way street and other and other areas and obviously our conversation about YouTube, all this stuff, like it just makes sense.
Speaker 2:So I think it's, you know the, the practical piece of advice there is find something that you're already I mean you can use the term link on fire, or but find something you're already passionate about and let you then start to explore that through the aspect of the work that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Right Like apply the work to something you're passionate about so and do the work when you're not feeling it. Do the work when you're not feeling it, constantly. Explore that that thing. Do you have any other bits and pieces of advice for refining process, for coming up with parameters, because I mean the, the big one that comes to mind for me is always it's, it's that that thing we said earlier of make sure you can do it on your worst day.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I want to make sure that we you know we're not we're recording a podcast episode, right? You know it's so easy that, yeah, well, we just got to sit down and get get an hour. And you know, we've done the pre-pro, we've got the prep. You know what are we gonna talk about. Well, we've already got, you know, 75 ideas and we've proven that we can't make it through an episode effectively so far. So it's like we've got plenty of ideas. You know they're banked away. It all we sit down and do is press requires even talking to you about like how do we get the cameras?
Speaker 2:implemented, so it's just there at all times. The hardest thing we have to do, though, is set up the cameras, yeah, and then it's press play right and you know this is not a restricting environment. The water is in the fridge. You know it's a very. Every time we've done this, it's when I care. You available at this time on this day?
Speaker 3:yeah, great yeah, I think. I think too, you know it's. It's setting the stage for the creative process. In those times where you're not feeling it, what tools do you have at your disposal to get you in the flow? I mean, I use everything from reward systems. Yeah, dude, if you sit down and write a rough draft of this proposal for motion vfx because they want to do a thing on your channel you can go get a copy of your guide, yeah, or?
Speaker 3:you can go upstairs and take a shower, or you can go do a workout.
Speaker 2:I mean not that a workout's really one, one piece of one piece of input that I learned recently on that I used to use reward systems for writing yeah and then I started. So there's. There's been a lot of research done about the dopamine pathways yeah, that influences like the neurochemical influence on your behavior. Yep, and there's the study done with children, where they looked at a class of 30 kids, yeah, and they found that 10 of them who chose to draw without being prompted so okay, we're just gonna sit here for 30 minutes and 10 of them just started drawing and they took them and they started incentivizing them to do the drawing and all of them.
Speaker 2:Once the incentive was pulled, none of them drew really so I. The dopamine system has this reaction when you, when you reward. So I used to chew nicotine gum when I'd write, yeah, and nicotine gum is great, but it fires. You know, your dopamine pathways are firing. You're like, oh man, this is yep great, and so I started to attach that. And then you build a tolerance and your baseline.
Speaker 2:To achieve that baseline, suddenly you have to do more and more it's like being an addict, yeah well and so, and then I I'd find myself not wanting to write because I couldn't get that same yeah so I had to pull it you know, I did the same thing with music and I said there's some things you can do like roll a dice, right, and it's like oh, today I get music while I write yeah, and it randomizes it.
Speaker 2:So then your body can't prepare. But that is something to be aware of when it's with the like in my life, there's a couple of tasks that I hold above everything else.
Speaker 2:So, like my I guess my complete expri it's like photography, like just the simple act of taking the like out, you know shooting and writing, sitting down and writing, and not like writing for work or, you know, doing all of this nonsense or doing writing a bunch of copy or whatever, but like writing, working on a piece. That's personal to me, and so I've had to find and running to an extent as well, just going for a run, yep, and so I've had to find ways to um not incentivize these things.
Speaker 2:Film also watching watching film, it's like it just sucks me in and I just like leave my world and um, you know, I found myself incentivizing that with like letterbox lists and stuff like that. I'm like, okay, this is great, this is a good thing, but don't over-incentivize. So you were just saying about the rewarding yourself. I think that's the way to go when it's something like if I gotta get a work thing done.
Speaker 1:I'm like.
Speaker 2:Alex, I will buy you the. You know we will go out and have the nicest dinner you've had if you can just finish this by Friday.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:But if it's writing, I'm like you just gotta write because the writing needs to be done. Yeah. And I think uh so I just I sorry to step in and take the point no, no, yeah, that's great and you know that's.
Speaker 3:One of the concerns about YouTube is that the dopamine hit that you get is every time you upload a video and see what the reaction is. You know you put your work out there and that's something that was always missing from screenwriting.
Speaker 2:That's why.
Speaker 3:Matt handles the YouTube statistics for this podcast.
Speaker 2:I um-. He is an adult that can handle his dopamine.
Speaker 3:And I, you know, I've definitely love published day. You know, when I publish a video and see what the reaction is, especially if it's something that I've had a diff-. You know, it's not as routine as a Final Cut Pro tutorial that I know is going to perform well, but maybe it's something I'm experimenting with or it's more personal. You know whatever that. You know whatever that is to see what the reaction is. Um, but you know you have to ask yourself, as someone that gets that published dopamine hit, would I do this if there was no money involved? You know, if I got a hundred million dollars, would I still make videos?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, and the answer is yes, would I necessarily make videos for my main channel? Maybe, or I shift them into another area, but I know I would continue making stuff, whether it's making a photograph, making a video, making, you know, writing something. Um, I am just locked into. For my life to have meaning, I need to, I need to be making stuff.
Speaker 1:Now.
Speaker 3:I would travel more. There's certainly things I would do.
Speaker 1:If you had the resources. There's some fancy items.
Speaker 3:I would get you know whatever, but I, you know, I don't think I would just kind of make up every day what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like maybe today I'm going to go see a movie or I'm going to, like you know, go whatever. Like.
Speaker 2:I think you and I are built to be busy.
Speaker 3:Built to be busy, built to have you know again, to be focused, to have a vision for something and then go out and make it and enjoy doing so.
Speaker 3:I think I was watching a YouTube video about Doug DeMiro and they said you know, if you want a hundred million dollars or sold something for a hundred million dollars, would you keep? He's like, yeah, I think I would just keep making videos about cars every, you know, all the time. Yeah, and I think I'm right there as well, I would still live stream, you know, like Apple news and Final Cut and have watch parties. Like I can't imagine not doing that stuff. And now that I have the photography channel and photography as something that I really enjoy, I think you know I would. I would really go crazy with that, like Paris or Rome or some random small town in Canada. You know, like whatever, like I would, I would, I would, I would be going down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:So so the zero zero became famous, and he's still making sure. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I, so I think that you know the, the, the reward stuff is you know, you just got to sort of know yourself and know what impact it has on the work. But yeah, anytime that I am struggling to get in the flow, which is another sort of term for feeling inspired, whatever that time where you time disappears, you're focused on something, you're annoyed that, you're hungry you know all that stuff to get into that state.
Speaker 3:I have used rewards, I have used putting a movie on in the background, music taking walks, taking showers, you know stream of consciousness writing. I mean all kinds of stuff to just, like you know, get in the get in the flow.
Speaker 2:Break through the yeah, break through it.
Speaker 3:But at the same time, I am not someone who has felt blocked. Yeah, I feel like there aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things that. I would like to do.
Speaker 2:Even in the big picture of the segues that you're presenting here. Yeah, Just ridiculous. We didn't plan this. Yeah, finish, finish that thought though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sorry to yeah.
Speaker 2:So this will be titled Alex interrupts too much in the episode Right.
Speaker 3:So I'm the annoying guy that's like. You know what's writer's block? Like I mean, I have journals filled with ideas, everything from what, something I think would be a fun bit for stand up comedy to you know a scene in a, a dramatic thriller you know, or a Western or something you know, the desire, compulsion to go out and make photographs, to also exercise creativity in ways that people might not think you're being creative.
Speaker 3:For me, an excursion with my family or taking my kids out for the day is like an act of creativity. Yeah, what, what would be?
Speaker 2:fun to do. You know the OK well, plain A failed, but yeah, create.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right. So you know, I just feel like there's sort of endless, endless desire to, to, to do those sorts of things, and on a daily basis, I might. I do what I call self auditing, which is trying to assess, like, what I feel like doing today, and there's no restrictions. It could be everything from screw off, go see a movie, go watch a baseball game, to like I want to get all this work done, this proposal done, and so I self audit and go to, I feel like, and I try to see where that overlap is between work and play, yeah, and come up with a plan every day based on that self audit, but then also the design that I'm going to create for the day, which is, you know, these are the things I want to get done. These are the things I need to get done, these are the things I'd like to do.
Speaker 2:Well, and then figure out that this is all within a systematic approach. I'm I'm assuming, like there is a parameter that you're working within and you're kind of plugging in the pieces to a certain extent, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean I just every day I wake up and I know there's things that need to get done today, and I don't mean need to get done like a to do list of things that I wrote the previous day and I have to write this proposal, I have to make this video and I have to edit this vlog or whatever. But there are, you know, things that sort of need to get done, with different degrees of need.
Speaker 3:You know this is due tomorrow, or this is like yeah, you need to do this, but you've got some time or whatever, and just trying to find, like, what's the truth of me today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's the balance? What am I gonna?
Speaker 3:How do I, how do I craft my day to just satisfy these? Yeah both of these things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know and then I think there's an aspect of patience that comes along with that of if your day is not, you know, you don't check off all the list items.
Speaker 3:Right, right yes.
Speaker 2:There has to be that aspect of patience. That's okay, we'll get to that Right. And I think that plays into the idea of you know, being in a creative block is like this is kind of a microcosm of that idea of you know. The patience is a key aspect, because what feels like you you're not doing anything right now is actually feeding into something that maybe you haven't realized yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, and you know, I think about, um uh, cws College World Series is in town and Alex and I went out to do some street photography there and there was for me. There was sort of like judgment on it, like the crowd is a different type of crowd than the people that are walking the streets of New York or the downtown parks in Omaha or the farmers market or whatever, and there's sort of a you know a judgment that kind of blocks blocks your um uh, ability to receive what the universe is giving you. And it took me going. Look, you know, I showed up. I'm like man. This place the light doesn't look good, the vibe is off, the light was awful.
Speaker 2:It was like 92 degrees.
Speaker 3:This is like my scene, even though I love baseball and I would love to go see a game like artistically, like this isn't kind of my thing and I'm like, just you got to just walk around and just start taking photos, even if they're photos that you don't like, you're not thinking are going to be like a photo that you will even edit.
Speaker 3:You'll even mess with it. Just start snapping some big same thing as always, you know, staring at a blank page. Just start getting stuff going and sure enough, uh, you know it didn't turn out to be like this profound experience where the most amazing things from the universe revealed themselves, but you moved into that flow state for sure, definitely moved in the flow state, got a good vibe going and you know. Uh, at least observed one moment with that little boy.
Speaker 3:That, to me, even if the photographs don't end up being a big uh, a big takeaway from the experience, uh, you know, just observing that little drama unfold made it worth it. Yeah, it made it worth it completely and I felt like it was almost like a little gift, like it's so corny but it's like hey you judge this and then you unjudged it.
Speaker 2:Here's a little candy.
Speaker 3:Here's a little reward for you and that that I will carry with me the next time there is a situation where maybe you propose going and doing photography somewhere where I'm like, oh yeah, that doesn't really fit like what I'm yeah, Matt, let's go to downtown Chicago. I don't know. There's a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Um well, so earlier you mentioned this thing of you. Feel like there's not enough time in the day. I don't want to end on this. Um, martin Scorsese, we got to, you know. Obviously we got to talk about.
Speaker 1:I don't know for a lot to do an episode now without mentioning him.
Speaker 2:So he just released kills the flower moon or is currently releasing it, and a lot of people are saying it's one of the best movies.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's a great example of mastering your, your skill. And he has this, this interview quote that came out recently, where he was like he's, like I'm at a place where the world is opening, has opened itself to me in a way that I've never seen before. Yeah, everything is interesting, and I'm probably butchering the quote, but everything is interesting. Everywhere I look there's something. So, you know, expansive and great, and I don't have enough time, yep, and that's how I feel.
Speaker 2:And he's, I mean, and Martin Scorsese, you know, obviously it's a little different when me and you have that feeling, but he's, you know, he's dealing with the great equalizer. He's in his 80s at this point and he knows that his days are very numbered. He doesn't have enough time and you know, he's reached that point of mastery in that, in that point, in the journey where everything is. And he compared it to Kurosawa, who also had a similar statement of, I think, when he won his Oscar, he was, you know, thinking everybody and he's like I'm still trying to grasp the true fabric of cinema. He's like, maybe one day I will and I'll earn this award, and this is at the end of his life.
Speaker 2:I mean this might have been for Ron, or like yeah one of the greatest movies ever. But you know, later in life and you know he's what we would see as a master and he's like so far beyond that. He's like I haven't quite realized yet but hopefully I will. And Scorsese is like I don't think he's saying that he's there, but he's sure. Look man, everything's opening, and Joe Myerowitz has said similar. He's like everything's open and there's just like the time to capture it all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I would say the irony of the path of mastery.
Speaker 2:right is you by the time you finally get there?
Speaker 3:Well, and possibly constraint too. What does constraint do to impact your perception of what's out there for you to create? For me, I have a lot of time constraint whether it's obligations to the things that earn me revenue through my channel or my family.
Speaker 3:Like you know, today my wife had very pressing stuff that had to get done at work, and I shifted my morning to take both the girls to Dottie's tennis camp and I sit there and my time is now compressed to try to squeeze in all this stuff that I was hoping to do today and it's not. There's not frustration whatever, but you know, working on this with you, I mean, I brought all my crap, I brought my AirPods, like I'm going to go to the coffee shop afterwards and I'm going to crank out some proposals and I'm going to write a draft for a video idea. I have and like an article on media.
Speaker 3:I'm going to do it all, I'm going to do it all, and like I feel that way every day, some of the stuff where I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that but I need to. And other than stuff like I can't wait to write that article or I can't wait to take those photos. I think about little projects like the fireworks one I mentioned, going to different small towns in Western Iowa and taking photos, documenting documentary ideas. You know, all the stuff that I'm like there are not enough. There's not enough time in the, in the, in a day, a week, a year, yeah, there's, I don't know enough people to help me all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:And I know that it's it almost comes down to, you know, like Scorsese. He probably has what two projects that he's working on, sure Right, and it's just like. He's like, look man, everything is great, but I gotta, you know, one foot in front of the other and with you it's like you gotta pick. You've, you've got to, you've got to have that constraint and I've, you've, taught me this lesson of just like there's only a few things that you can, you can pay attention to, Right. Yep, you know you better choose, choose those things wisely, because you know you can't over extend yourself. You spread yourself too thin, you're not going to accomplish anything with it.
Speaker 2:And you've got to learn to to separate what's what's important, what's important to you, and what's what's just a, you know, a waste of time. And then you always have this bank, yes Of like ideally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that you can, that you can tap into things that you can, that you can work on or or or explore, or whatever. Yeah, it's a, it's exciting times and man it is.
Speaker 2:It is satisfying to have an idea, like I know, just to bring it back. This is just. You know, we've been spending a lot of time on the podcast for the last couple of weeks yeah, pulling it together, and it is exciting because this has been a project that I mean, this didn't just come out of. We've been talking about this for over a year at this point, and so it is exciting to see you know this and it's not part of a playbook Like yeah, there's no play you to with your career?
Speaker 1:with what?
Speaker 3:I'm doing. We're not like we you know, like the playbook says we should have a time to do this now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was always. Just this was an item we put in our bank.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we would literally do this if we had 14 subscribers.
Speaker 2:Oh, hundred percent, I think we would still get together.
Speaker 3:Yeah recorder episode and make it because you know it, it moves us forward creatively. Yeah, it lets us. You know, there's sort of creative therapy in the sense that just talking about our. Experiences and what we do and what we want to do is therapeutic.
Speaker 2:It's therapeutic in helping me get over the idea of just you know, it's okay to have things out in the world, right?
Speaker 3:And I have to do an episode that aren't that controlled, by the way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh boy.
Speaker 1:I think.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I'm too. I don't know what the word is but to.
Speaker 1:I think that's.
Speaker 3:That's why I sing what I make. Yeah, well, we here take more take more, take more.
Speaker 2:I think we both have a lot of lessons that we can learn from the other in that regard probably more me from you, but I mean I you know how I am about things.
Speaker 3:I don't know. You've observed. Yeah, pardon me. You know like wonders, you know like how would things be different for me if I was? If I was I Don't know the right word is. I'm gonna say like restricted, or you know that I was more. I curated my own work more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes I feel like I over cure it.
Speaker 3:Well, and I mean, you know, and that's what life is trying to find a balance, right. But, if your pendulum is swung in that direction. Mine, for the most part, has always been Think it, write it, make it, whatever yeah, out there, yeah yeah and you know it hasn't buried me yet, but you know I Don't know yeah, I didn't buried you yet, no, I just know, but I mean so emotionally attached to what the process felt like making it that.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 3:Don't know, like I just can't not put it out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm very, I always.
Speaker 3:I'm like sort of ride or die. I'm showing my work.
Speaker 2:There's another Dylan quote where it was like the quote is I forget. What's is it from? Is it from the times they are changing it's bait? It's all know my song well before I start singing Mm-hmm. And when I heard that song? When I was, like you know, 13 years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just took that line and have. It's always, it's I mean, it's maybe constant loop in the back of my head for Mm-hmm. You know I'm going on in 20 years, you know it's just brrrr, and I don't know. I always feel like I don't know my song well enough and that makes me afraid to put it out there. Maybe we should wrap the pot here and have this discussion next time. But yeah, I mean, I, I know we were all over the place, but I hope that there was some coverage in talking about the creative process and you know, maybe, maybe it we take this episode and distill it and next time we can come with some points and, you know, just Summarize what we talked about here to be more concise and more helpful, but I do hope there was some form of value.
Speaker 3:Yeah, from what we, what we talked about today, I know we yeah, ramble, I'll be curious as we make this and if we do develop an audience, our episodes where they are a little bit more all over the place and stream of consciousness and going down different rabbit holes, the more enjoyable ones and valuable ones for our audience, or are the ones that are a bit more on rails? We're gonna talk about this point for a good chunk of time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, move on to this one, a little more regimented and more framework, and I know that like obviously Her sending that, that text and hopefully I hope this wasn't a violation of privacy and I didn't want to mention name or anything, but I just immediately I was like wow, I've struggled with this before too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I know Matt has. We've had discussions about it, like there's a good topic, but I mean, as we do put these episodes out there, like if there are questions like this that people have. You know we don't have any answers, but we would love to give our perspective on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that it's just like taking a photo, you know, well, it's not the greatest photo, but it's our perspective, it's our vision, right, and that's all. This podcast is, I think, and an experiment, to make a thousand pieces of sushi, that's right and eat a thousand pieces of sushi. We're just gonna be huge by the end of the just filled with rice, so should we run down the list?
Speaker 3:sure yeah. Here's everything we hope to talk about today, and then off, mike, we'll talk a little.
Speaker 2:We'll talk a little more about the sharing your work thing, yeah, okay. Well, the first one was sharing our work. We didn't even yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just didn't next up. We're next next kicking the can, that's right channeling creativity. Yeah, that's we really, I think we spent some good time on that center around that ups and downs be a professional intention.
Speaker 2:What first brought that excitement? So in pre-production or, you know, when we were planning this, we talked about that. I think that idea of relationship, creativity being akin to a relationship, yes we don't really know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that that once the honeymoon phase of a relationship or marriage is over, like it takes a bunch of work to yeah, I mean tank and self-awareness, and all that to have a good marriage and then we didn't.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna give us like a point eight, point eight on on the on that.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's a full.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we didn't cover it, but sure, sure, being open everything around you, we actually touched on this a little but, really I wrote down the scores of the. I'm running out of time, that doesn't count, so I'm gonna give us like a point three on that. Huh, okay, so what's like 1.2 out of three. Somebody's gonna have to go through it. Like our scale is different every time, I think.
Speaker 3:I think that that, like you, know and we'll get feedback from you know an audience once it starts to develop. But I I love the idea of coming up with a loose framework and letting that be a starting off point and seeing where it goes. You know it's, you know, like a producer sitting down with musicians and we're gonna do verse, chorus, verse, chorus and we're gonna make you know a hit single Versus. You know, you know a sit-down, you know jazz improvisation.
Speaker 3:Yeah like what these are instruments, these are some of the parameters. We're gonna do this in this key or this, whatever that you know yeah, and then we're gonna see where it goes. See where it goes Absolutely, and I don't know that there's, you know, a bad thing, because I've always gotten so much value out of our conversations Without knowing where it's going at any time and obviously you know, like you know, we don't want the audience of this to necessarily just be you and I. Yeah, people like it might be. Just completely masturbatory.
Speaker 2:Did you listen to our podcast? One thing to do it.
Speaker 3:It's so great, I Love listen to our podcast, my favorite podcast so one.
Speaker 2:Nobody else was making it, so we decided yeah, I just love what I said about that stuff. The Alex guy. Oh, this is what we're making the thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all right some 1.2 out of 3.
Speaker 2:Great good work. Nice, nice job.
Speaker 1:And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.