12. Emotional Truth Versus Technical Mastery: How To Stop Getting Stuck In The Weeds With Your Work

In this episode, we look at the intricate balance between the technical aspects and emotional resonance in creative works. We discuss how an excessive focus on technical details can sometimes overshadow the emotional connection, which is essential for a meaningful audience experience.

We discuss how a preoccupation with technical perfection can lead to a disregard for the narrative and emotional truth of a piece. Furthermore, we also share experiences that explore how different people can have diverse preferences and perceptions when it comes to art and storytelling.

Concluding with a strong advocacy for authenticity, the episode emphasizes the importance of storytelling and emotional engagement in creative endeavors. This in-depth exploration provides valuable insights for artists, filmmakers, photographers, and creatives in general, emphasizing that while technical skills are crucial, you should always be in service of the narrative and emotional truth of the work. -Ai

Double Indemnity - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Indemnity

Martin Scorsese on Comic Book Movies - https://bit.ly/47It05m

Rushmore - “Unlock it!” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6jYV4eZ1v0

The Gap by Ira Glass - https://vimeo.com/85040589

Alex’s 16mm Project - https://www.alexccarter.com/motion-picture/revlon-16mm-film

John Mayer Video - https://youtu.be/_eWrQzNJgC8?si=uTaSRUTJh5_Fg7lr

Scorsese & Casino - https://youtu.be/2BFHDK_u62M?t=1158

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

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Yeah, I try not to be snobby about movies. No, yeah, I try not to be snobby about anything and I hope I'm not, but I think I would enjoy it, dude, I mean, I see it.

Speaker 3: 0:27

Fast five Great movie, Honestly I just see it, as you know, like a time to value index. You know there's only limited amount of time. There's tons of old movies and high quality movies. That's how I view it, and so if I'm, going to use my you know finite resource of time. You know I'm going to prioritize double identity over the flash.

Speaker 2: 0:46

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's the thing and like, that's what I always tell people. Like you don't watch a lot of new movies. Well, like, I've seen three new movies in the last week, right, about seven days, and we're on a roll man, I mean, you know that's the most new movies I've seen. But I go see a lot of new movies. Yeah, like, but it has to be. I have to feel like there's something in it and I know that's like a snobby way to look at it, but it's exactly what you said. No, at most I can watch one, two movies a day, but most of the time I don't even know. Like you know, it's like four or five a week maybe. Yup, that's the average. And you know you only have so much time. You got a lot of stuff going on and you know I just yeah, if I'm not going to enjoy something, I'll tune out, I'll turn it off, you know, move on. The real reason.

Speaker 3: 1:34

I watched it too was it was twofold. I was curious to see how bad it really was, because it performed poorly in the box office compared to expectations. And you know comic book movies are, you know, inconsistent, they're a little all over the place. You know you got all the talk from.

Speaker 1: 1:50

Scorsese about how they're in amusement park, blah blah blah.

Speaker 3: 1:52

So you know someone who has enjoyed comic book movies for the most part, especially like Gardens of the Galaxy. I do love those movies, but I'm also prone to that more commercial stuff. I love like Back to the Future and Star Wars and you know all that shit, but part of it was I was on a plane. I'm like I don't really want to like study a film right now and like really be like thinking about it. You know, and not that I like can't just like watch a classic film and just sort of absorb it and then study it later.

Speaker 2: 2:22

I don't appreciate that piece of shit.

Speaker 3: 2:24

I just don't. I just kind of don't want to work, I just want to, like, tune out and escape a little bit.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Sometimes you want background noise.

Speaker 3: 2:29

Yeah, and then it, you know it completely caught me off guard because of a specific element to the story. And you know, I want to subject you and Audra to the same thing because we have that shared experience now Hooked you in there. And see if it elevates the material for you guys or if you know bad reviews and poor box office performance. But then you watch it and you're like that was actually really fun.

Speaker 2: 2:55

Yeah Well, let's talk about this a little bit more. I think I might start start the edit there Before we get into. You know the topic that we came in with. I'd like to get your point of view on. You talked about the Martin Scorsese like he's talked about the theme park aspect of these films. I want to hear your thoughts on snobbery.

Speaker 3: 3:20

Oh gosh, we could do a whole episode on this I know.

Speaker 2: 3:22

And maybe we do. Let's see where this goes. But you know we've the core idea that we wanted to get to today was idea execution. We were super fired up on it last time we recorded because we hadn't quite gotten there. You know, we trailed off into a different conversation during pre-pro. We started rolling and I think this is an interesting thing Like where, where snobbery to you.

Speaker 3: 3:45

What is that? Honestly, I think that can be an ingredient blocking people from executing. I think that it can be an element of a hang up that might keep somebody who has an idea from executing. This is a little like just a little bit of a.

Speaker 2: 4:00

You don't have to tie this in, but no, yeah, what you're doing.

Speaker 3: 4:04

So sort of a variation on what. What made you bring up snobbery, which was potentially not saying that Scorsese is a snob, but that he's sort of classifying comic book movies in general as an amusement park ride versus true cinema.

Speaker 2: 4:18

Well, just to context, give you context on that. We saw a movie last night, yeah, and we were talking about the director in comparison to Scorsese.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Yes.

Speaker 2: 4:28

And I'm not going to specify which movie we saw last night. One of the critiques I had was when Scorsese talks about film, you get this understanding that he knows more than anybody in the on the face of this planet. Yes, but he does it in such a way where it doesn't at all feel like he's being a prick about it, right?

Speaker 3: 4:44

You feel you're with him.

Speaker 2: 4:46

And I think he just he like has so much passion about it, clearly has more knowledge than any human has, like any. Yeah, he's extremely knowledgeable about it and, without you know, turning this into a second off Scorsese episode. It's like he is able to communicate it in a way where the passion shines through, but there's no ego that comes from that, that breath of knowledge in some directors.

Speaker 3: 5:12

It doesn't alienate someone who doesn't doesn't know about that movie or doesn't know about the deeper meaning. He could talk to somebody who's watched one or two films in their life.

Speaker 2: 5:22

Yeah, he's bringing them in, whereas some people have vast knowledge on film, or you know, on a.

Speaker 2: 5:28

It doesn't have to be film, it could be like fine art, it could be photography, it could be woodworking, it could be anything. And some people they communicate in terms of like this makes me better than you, right, and that comes off, and that doesn't come off with Scorsese. So when you mentioned the comic book thing, the interesting connection I've always made with Scorsese's critique of comic book movies is that it it feels like it's coming from a place of love. There's no. You have a lot of film bros and you know just people out there on the internet that get really fired up about, oh, comic book movies are ruining cinema, right, but they're coming from a place of like, I'm special because I know all this stuff about cinema, yeah, and not all of them, but a lot of people use these in watches, cameras. They use these things to display status.

Speaker 3: 6:25

They're trying to project something you know, putting out its feathers to strut and lure in the female.

Speaker 2: 6:31

Right, I'm, you know this is I've really, you know, knowledgeable about this thing. I'm better than that and I think Scorsese manages to do it. So that's kind of why I wanted to dive into that topic of snobbery a little bit. Is, you know, it's like that's a snobbish take? Yeah, but it's not snobbish because of how he portrays that. And I almost want to explore that a little bit more and, like you know your own experiences with you know I, right before we started recording here, I was like I tried to. You know I have snobbish tendencies for sure and I like I really try to internalize and just go inside and make sure that that's not coming from a place of projecting my ego or my right. What kind of insecurities am I trying to? Am I trying to cover up that? This? I'm just trying to.

Speaker 3: 7:21

You know I enjoy some things and I want to portray passion, not, yeah, not the other, and when someone enjoys something that you might not enjoy, that there isn't like some kind of judgment of them because you know they wear an Apple watch instead of you know an obscure Czechoslovakian watch that you found on the internet.

Speaker 2: 7:43

Right, you know, you've got the guy, the watch collector, who's wearing like a you know Patek or something yeah, you know a hundred thousand dollar watch, right, and he's like, oh you fucking Apple watch, yeah. But then think about there's some people that are just as fired up about the Apple watches, sure, and you've got to be able to transcend that Like I'm better than you Absolutely If you're actually going to get the most out of the experience of anything, yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:09

But yeah, I just I'm interested in like do you have any experiences in your own life where you've kind of caught yourself in that on being a snob right now, or I mean my nickname growing up for my parents was Arista Matt.

Speaker 3: 8:23

I'm going to start calling you that. I was, you know, 15 years old, eating sushi, you know, and wanting the finer things in life.

Speaker 2: 8:32

You know, I was, you know my mom would always say that you've got. You've got expensive taste yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:38

Yeah, and that's really where it came from, like I really liked, you know, sometimes I think certainly part of me maybe liked certain things because it was expensive or it was associated with people in a higher class than my own. I don't know where that comes from or it always felt to me like it was just kind of something I was born with, but it's hard to know what influences when you're that young might steer you in that direction, I don't know. I mean, you know I have some things that are nice. They're not crazy expensive or luxurious. I don't know that if I won the lottery, I would be like acquiring, like you know, the Mount Rushmore of luxury items and and all that kind of stuff. I'm perfectly comfortable with, you know, my Wilson set of golf clubs. I'm perfectly fine with my 2019 almost base model F 150. Yeah, you know, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on something because I don't have a Mercedes S class, you know.

Speaker 3: 9:39

I think that's the biggest thing is like she ate an S class If I ever get to write in it 100%. Yeah, all the little tricks and the things they do, like they do a thing where, like they have an acoustic treatment inside the car, where if you're talking in the front seat, it like projects your voice through the speakers in the back seat, so you never have the person in the back seat who's like, well, I can't hear you. It's really loud in here. I'm like that's pretty cool, Nice feature. But you know so.

Speaker 2: 10:07

I think I think you hit on something, though, like just appreciating, yeah, and I don't think there's anything wrong with seeking out like that clock is one of my favorite things. We bought that clock right Because the first time we recorded an episode I was like man, it's really inconvenient not being able to see what the time is. I feel like I'm being disrespectful when I'm doing this or when we're checking the phone and we're having a conversation.

Speaker 2: 10:29

I need to be president, you want to be president, yeah, and so it was like we need a clock. That was a dollar at good will yeah, and it's so it works great. It's great. Is it the finest mechanical movement? And no, it's freaking walk like. It works beautiful, it looks great, right, it's the vibe of the room and I think that's. I think that's kind of the indicative of part.

Speaker 3: 10:47

You know one of the things of why we get along. You know we appreciate finer things and an opportunity to acquire one, even if we don't buy it brand new. You know we can appreciate that. But we can also appreciate simpler things. I mean, I have a Casio watch.

Speaker 2: 11:00

You know that was trendy back when I was, you know whatever Casio yesterday. Yeah, this watch costs. Yeah, it costs like 250 bucks, Right, and I mean like my clothes.

Speaker 3: 11:09

I've. I've wear a pair of black Levi's and I've got some J crew T shirts. You know it's. It's, you know, relatively simple. So you know, on the flip side of my parents nicknaming me a wrist-o-met, my brother and I would often, I know, would often.

Speaker 3: 11:25

My dad, you know, had a master's degree. He was an English teacher at high school, you know. He studied English literature and all that and and he, I think, searched for growing up in Southern Wisconsin, worked at a marina, you know kind of blue collar, all that stuff. Worked at a factory. He sought out you know some finer things sometimes, but not with any air of snobbery. But my brother and I would just kind of be idiots toward him about stuff you know, like kind of on purpose, to get a rise out of him, and he would just kind of mutter under his breath in a joking way, loving way, but he would call us Philistines and we just loved it and we would say like that's, you know, like my dad. Later on we would say to my dad would say something like we'd be like dad.

Speaker 1: 12:04

That's a really philistinetic thing to say.

Speaker 3: 12:06

And he goes. You can't use Philistine as an adjective. Son Like oh, whatever, dad, you're so stupid. It was like the kids in Rushmore like Bill Murray's kids in Rushmore like unlock it, so we would just be idiots sometimes.

Speaker 3: 12:20

Anyway, the point being, you know, I think there's definitely things that I appreciate that from an outsider who doesn't know me could construe that, whether it's an item I own or an attitude I have or a perspective I have as snobbery. Like my brother-in-law might think I'm a snob because I only use Apple products, but you know they're not something that he's as crazy about as me. To go to the, to go to these lengths to use it, you know stuff like that. What I was going to say earlier too and this is along the lines of snobbery, I'm not changing gears here is, I think, when it comes to execution, sometimes I think sometimes and I don't know if I've let this happen to me, I'd have to kind of think on it for a little bit to ascertain but sometimes I think people let snobbery maybe they don't think they're being snobs, but they can let snobbery prevent them from executing because I think deep down, maybe they're afraid that if they fail then they won't be looked at as someone who knows it all Well.

Speaker 2: 13:27

So there's this. There's actually a. It's a phenomenon that's been defined. You're familiar with Ira Glass.

Speaker 3: 13:34

American Life. Yeah, I know the name. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:36

So, right, you're almost out kicking your coverage and capability, right, yeah, so there's this phenomenon that he outlined and I'm pretty sure it's, I'm pretty sure it's PDF or I don't know if it's, if it's a short, like a short little chapter, if it's an article, but it's this phenomenon called the Gap, not the clothing brand, but, right, it's the gap between your capability and your taste and what's the delta between that? Okay, and so you've got your taste, which is really high, and you've got your capability. And I think what you're saying is, once you almost become conscious of that, you start to internalize that gap. Then that is preventing you from executing, because you're just worried about I can't do that At my level of taste. That's what's good, yep, and I can't do that. And so better not even to try because I'm just going to fall short.

Speaker 2: 14:32

And but here's the thing about the gap it's the only way to close the gap is through work, that's right. So that's the only way to close the gap is to continue to iterate. And you know, everybody started out with that gap of taste. You know, first a lot of people start out you have no taste, you have no talent, and then taste is easier to develop than talent, because taste is, you know, it's a byproduct of just experience, yeah, and in a good way.

Speaker 3: 14:58

Consumption, like taking in a lot of these things, right, and you know we've talked about how you know, especially in the West, how consumerism drives everything.

Speaker 2: 15:06

Sure, well, taste is a byproduct of consumerism, yeah, so you know, inadvertently, through the you know this, this perspective, that we view the world through this lens of consumerism, we're developing extreme taste in a lot of senses. Yeah, and maybe that is because of ego or because you know your taste is serving some kind of you know, your taste is kind of overcoming some kind of deficiency, psychological deficiency or perception of yourself, but it tastes a lot easier to develop in skill and talent. And then we create these myths around well, some people are just born talented and they're just really talented and some people do have there are those outliers of talent.

Speaker 2: 15:52

But I think for the most part, if you're doing the work, you're going to get to a point where that's not as much of a problem and you start to change how you. You know the pieces start to line up differently in front of you. You don't see things the same way once you've executed a little bit and I think that you know that phenomenon is kind of what you're talking about, right. 100% is that gap which you know. There's the irony right. The only way to fix, overcome it is execution over and over and over.

Speaker 3: 16:24

And I feel, like you know, I've seen that a lot in just creating YouTube content whether it's making a main channel video or a live stream or whatever.

Speaker 3: 16:35

I know how I want it to look and at what level I want it to be in my mind, especially in the early days, like I want my video to look and feel like this YouTuber's video or that YouTuber's video, but I don't know typography and graphic design.

Speaker 3: 16:50

I don't know how to put these effects on my video. I don't know how to light it like they do. I don't even know how to dissect that. But I said to myself well, I'm building something, so it's OK that it's going to start out at a lower quality, because I'm going to learn these skills and enhance it so that I can be doing it at a higher level. But if I just sit here and say to myself, well, if I can't make it look like that day one, then I'm not going to do it, it's not worth my time. What's funny is, though, if I look at my main channel and I look back at the earlier videos, I'm not someone who cringes, I just accept the fact, and I sort of love my old self, I'm just like you just didn't know you were learning.

Speaker 2: 17:33

You're learning.

Speaker 1: 17:33

And I'm still now.

Speaker 3: 17:34

You're still learning, and so I have this.

Speaker 2: 17:37

But we talk about this all the time. I've watched some of your old videos. It's stark, right, and we knew each other when you started the whole thing.

Speaker 3: 17:44

I mean now it's a film school, I worked in video and editing and post-production. I'm like god, why didn't you tighten this up? Or why didn't you punch in and punch out or do transitions or add some sound effects? You know, like you. Just you were just in a different place. And so, again, I try not to dispatch criticism and harshness on my past self. I just go it's OK, you're in a much better place now. Is it still perfect or where you want to be? No, but you're building Today's livestream, for example, and I won't go into it. But I put a keynote together and I had my e-cam live with all the scenes and all that stuff, and I really like that stuff. I like to be able to change scenes, I like it to have a vibe to it, fonts and the things and all this stuff. I couldn't do that when I first started live streaming.

Speaker 2: 18:27

I even know how, and so I want to piggyback off of that, but I did not do it Because that's exactly, and you gave the example of the podcast too, and how drastic this is. So I would love for you to restate that, because I think we've literally just transitioned from Snobbery. We'll revisit Snobbery. I think that is absolutely something that I think warrants for the discussion, but we've flawlessly transitioned because we're so good at and we might echo back to Snobbery.

Speaker 3: 18:53

Because, I think it is something that's synonymous with unless it can be perfect, why bother? Or again, that taste to capabilities.

Speaker 2: 19:04

It's one of these happy accidents too where we kind of stumbled on, but we just happened to start talking about it and they do relate, they're absolutely interconnected ideas. But you were talking about how this evolution happened from your first video Now and how, with everything, same thing. I went through that journey with photography. I went through that journey with running. First time I went for a run. I couldn't make it half a mile without walking. Fast forward 10 years and you're running and you never would have imagined, never would have imagined. Gotta start. Same thing with photography. Same thing with film. Same thing with how I see films Reading with writing. I've just been on that. I've seen it happen so many times. You were talking about the podcast and the level of complexity and I just I think the YouTube, because you were talking about the live stream and I was like phew, that's going over my head already, like what is what the heck are we talking about?

Speaker 2: 19:59

But with the podcast. I think it's interesting because we've maybe this is more connected to our viewers or to the listeners, or all three of them. They can kind of see what's happening in real time. We had this as an idea and I think, walk us through the execution and then just the complexity level, for we came in with all of this experience but, compared to a person starting from scratch, we knew about audio, we know about images, we know about editing, we know about what's on the cutting edge. What are the core principles? What do we need to focus on? Obviously, the most important thing is do you have anything meaningful to talk about? Right, do you have any?

Speaker 3: 20:47

value to provide. The verdict is still out on that.

Speaker 2: 20:55

No, but I think there's so many complexities and you presented it well earlier, so I'm just going to hand it to you and kind of let you walk through that and feel free to guide me a little bit back to where I was if I don't quite get to what I was saying.

Speaker 3: 21:09

But I'm going to start out by saying my main channel. And then I started a photography channel and we started this podcast channel and right off the bat you can see from out of the gate with my photography channel. I really love the banner that I made with a VHS cover that has the title of my channel on there and I selected a font and how I wanted to look for titling the videos and I came up with just a style guide, if you will. That I didn't actually document, but I just have it in my head and the level of quality, I would say, or sort of taste level, is much higher right out of the gate.

Speaker 3: 21:48

Like I won't look back on that channel and go in this channel and go what the you know God, what were we thinking Like? We just didn't know what we were doing. Now, does that mean we're not going to improve the podcast channel or even my photography channel? Absolutely, but I feel like you're starting at such a higher place because of everything you learned and built off of for me from my main channel, just like stumbling through it and figuring it out as I went. And so what I love about this channel and we're talking just like the overall look of it and how we set this up and the cameras we chose everything part of it is almost a rejection of higher quality tools to almost have like a higher quality through low quality.

Speaker 2: 22:35

But then Quality through the process and not through the execution.

Speaker 3: 22:41

Maybe an execution is a poor word, but quality through the end of December, yeah, and we knew, setting this channel up, like we've got to come up with, like our avatar, our banner, our fonts, like what, the you know what, all that stuff, so that we just have this sort of consistent look and vibe when we start.

Speaker 2: 23:02

And I think also like a key thing that we kept referring to, was it needs to feel like you and I are describing coffee.

Speaker 3: 23:08

Yes, as far as yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:10

This is as unassuitable.

Speaker 3: 23:12

Right.

Speaker 2: 23:14

We talk about all the time, like we always have drinks and like you'll have coffee, yeah, we'll eat. There's all the least things that informed we could have had the boomer mics and the headphones, yeah, but we're doing that's not how we have coffee.

Speaker 3: 23:30

Well, and we're doing what we normally do when we have these conversations. We just happened to add a, two microphones and three cameras and a light.

Speaker 2: 23:37

We turned the light on because it's always there the lights, literally just sitting there.

Speaker 3: 23:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that Delta that you talked about between capability and taste was, for me, small, like it just made sense to put the channel together, the way that we did, to take what we were doing. That provided us value and hope that it provided value to others, and we chose tools that were both, that both had a certain taste quality to them, like these cameras and microphones that aren't the sure SM7B that every podcaster has on the blue compass arm, and you know whatever, which is funny because we've gotten compliments on that.

Speaker 2: 24:16

Yeah, audio, yeah right.

Speaker 3: 24:18

And then we're like no frills with the audio. I asked you last week, like, do you put a compressor on, do you do a DS or all that? Pretty no frills, pretty much nothing.

Speaker 2: 24:26

And you know, you buy you know you buy a good different.

Speaker 3: 24:28

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:30

We try to build it in. We try to do all the edits in person. Right, we're editing as we record, because that saves us time, because we knew we overcomplicate the process, it's not gonna happen. And now we're 12 episodes in. Yeah, and it's second nature almost.

Speaker 3: 24:48

Well, and we take all of our consumption of the form and I'm just gonna say YouTube in general, obviously there's podcast YouTube. There's you know, your channel, my channel those types of videos. You take all that consumption that you've done and you start to develop a taste level and you dial it in as far as high quality is in, like 4K cameras and like every there's a bunch of studio lights and it's super polished and it's got a color grade, a custom LUT, all this stuff. And then we also combine.

Speaker 3: 25:19

Well, we've made our own YouTube videos and we know how time consuming it can be to edit just a eight minute video where we're talking to the camera and showing some B roll. We need this to be as little nuts and bolts you know man hours to get it done as possible. So how do we take what we've consumed, what we know of the workflow, our own capabilities and our taste level and combine all that to have something that is that feels right, right away. But again, that's all built off of all of our collective experience leading up to it, my channel and how, all the stumbles and stupid stuff I did talking to camera for an hour and a half and cutting it down to a 45 minute rambling video with like no real thought to compress the story, or have an outline or anything.

Speaker 3: 26:10

You know all that stuff, and so I think that that stuff really lends itself to the ability to execute. And now, what we talked about earlier, with us having a conversation after that movie that we saw with our friend Cody and talking about, you know, film and filmmaking. I think that we are standing at the precipice of capability, taste and the complexity of a collaborative art form and what that does, and for us to execute on what we all want to do, which is to make movies, short films, documentaries, whatever. Even if it's not, let's get a studio deal in 10 years, it's let's just put stuff on our YouTube channel or a website or whatever Everybody has.

Speaker 2: 26:55

Everybody leads with expectations almost, and that's the wrong you should lead with. Let's get together and have a creative collaboration. It's like having drinks, like you know it's. Let's get together and hang out and flex some creative muscles and try some things.

Speaker 3: 27:11

Well, and maybe the end result of that, those initial collaborations. We don't have to sit there and go. This film needs to be at a level of quality that we can submit it to film festivals.

Speaker 2: 27:20

It's too linear, it's too linear of an approach.

Speaker 3: 27:24

Maybe it's just. Let's start figuring out how we work together, just like you would. A rough draft, right, the vomit draft we talked about before.

Speaker 2: 27:31

Don't judge what you're writing, Just get through the we have the benefit of we have worked together before, Like we all work pretty well together. I think In just the risk of getting too much into the specificities of our stuff.

Speaker 2: 27:49

I wanna take what you had and then kind of just contextualize a little bit, so you were getting into this, but I just wanna put a title on it. Where should you start? Like you've got we've got people listening to this, I'm sure, from all levels of experience. We've got people probably with experience I don't wanna isolate those people. We've got people who are just out there wandering.

Speaker 3: 28:10

We've all been there Struggling with execution, we're still wandering on plenty of stuff.

Speaker 2: 28:13

Sure, when should you start, though? You know, if you have something and I don't wanna get too basic where it's like create a plan and then execute that plan, but on a creative endeavor, where should you start? Maybe walk through?

Speaker 3: 28:29

I mean I'm gonna give just like what might feel like super cliche like psychiatry talk.

Speaker 2: 28:36

And again, these are two takes out of a sea. Of them Absolutely there's none.

Speaker 3: 28:41

The thing that has worked for me and it's a little bit corny is changing my mindset, and I'm gonna use an analogy of going on a hike up a mountain, changing my mindset from standing at the trailhead looking up at this giant mountain going, I'm gonna climb up there. This seemingly insurmountable feat Like how am I gonna do this To just focus on a hundred feet at a time and break it up into bite-sized pieces?

Speaker 2: 29:11

Not even having the mountain in your mind Like you, just literally you're just like. I see a hundred yards in front of me. There's nothing beyond that.

Speaker 3: 29:18

I think you-.

Speaker 2: 29:19

We'll deal with the next part when we get there.

Speaker 3: 29:20

You have to be prepared. You know, obviously you know this is I don't wanna get the weeds on this, but you know you have to understand it's gonna be really cold up there. I have to have tools that allow me to survive this endeavor. But as far as the mental perception of how seemingly insurmountable it is, just break it up into a hundred feet at a time, just do a little bit at a time and that has helped me immensely with preventing me from locking up with trying to execute something, an idea, especially a grand idea. And again, you know we were talking earlier in the pre-pro. We historically, between you and I, have done pretty well with executing on solo creative endeavors Getting photography portfolio and going out and doing street photography, making YouTube videos about it. You and your writing, me and my writing Commercial work, doing yeah, a lot of stuff that I don't have to rely on a complex system to make it.

Speaker 3: 30:19

Now, obviously, with, like my YouTube channel, somebody who hasn't made YouTube videos and is thinking about it is gonna go oh yeah, dude, that is complex. We gotta get a camera, a computer, all this and that 100%. For me the complexity is collaboration. It's calling you, it's calling Cody, it's getting Ian. It's getting the whole crew together to give their time to something that ultimately, is sort of like. You know, I'm the tip of the spear, if you will, even though we all are gonna be involved in making it.

Speaker 3: 30:48

And instead of like thinking again of the whole mountain of getting everybody together and getting a location and all this, how can I look at it a hundred feet at a time and not a hundred feet at a time for a big project? But just go, what if we just get one actor and my wife and kids are gone for the day and we film scene at my house together and we have the lights that I have and the camera that I have? We're not renting equipment. We're not like okay, we got to do a duck, we got to get a door, a Dana dolly, and we got to do this. And then we got to get an HMI. We got a blast light through the window because it has to look at this, because there's a chance that we could get this into a festival, and all of a sudden you're just like Well, some of the coolest stuff comes from like the.

Speaker 2: 31:33

You know the 16 millimeter short that, yeah, we did, you know, right with Carter and right, I love that. That's one of my favorite things We've ever. Yeah, part of it was very cool, very easy and Lincoln the show knows. No, lincoln the show Good on my website now.

Speaker 2: 31:50

You know, but little thing like that was just we showed up and Ass around and we shot for the whole day and that was just like an hour segment of it and I think there's this idea of like it needs to be this big production. But what it's one of the most in the last few months I got together with some buddies and we just went to a coffee shop and, you know, literally had a writer's room. Yep, literally Just had a writer's room for two hours over a cup of coffee, and I'm like that was so simple and so fulfilling and rewarding and you know, you make more progress than you've made in months.

Speaker 2: 32:21

Yeah and you know I have a Person who lives in Tennessee and you know We've been really close for a long time and you know he's an older, older, older guy and we collaborate. He's been a songwriter for years and he's written a couple of musicals and like work. Call each other all the time I in you know I will get off the phone and I'll be like man, like just so fired up to write right now. You need that kind of thing and instead of thinking of it as like we need to get to this huge production and have this, this grand Production, come out of it and they're gonna commit days and all this money like it needs to at first start as just Getting, you know getting in, and just like Chopping it up a little bit and figuring out, you know, building on something.

Speaker 2: 33:08

Yeah, yeah, get one person in a room and just kind of go from there or, you know, do the planning and figure out how you can execute on that. Do write something, yeah, and really basic and it's not gonna all be there in the script, but then figure it out as you shoot it and you take as much time as you need. I think we've just constrained ourselves a little much and with some of the collaboration stuff, because what you said, we kind of get caught looking at the mountain and then whoa, that's a big mountain, yeah, and then yeah that's it in this.

Speaker 3: 33:41

Yeah, starting it up like it's just, oh, you know, scheduled with my wife, my kids, you know the thing, and then I'm not, you know, or I'm not gonna really be able to do this the way that I want to, like, I see an 8k HMI coming in through the window and we can't really do that. So, like, is it really worth it? Because I just need that.

Speaker 2: 33:58

Look the car headlights going.

Speaker 3: 33:59

Yeah, whatever it is, you know. Or just like, like, fig, you know, just figure out a way to to, to, to embrace a different look, you know. Or just just Don't, don't, you can't put the light out, but film it anyways, just so that you can get practice Filming it, you know even, and then the next time you know it's a different story, especially, especially if you know here's, here's another element to it. Like, like, are you setting on reasonable expectations for what the outcome of that collaboration is going to be? Like well, If I can't.

Speaker 3: 34:30

If I can't, if I don't feel like I can Confidently submit this to Sundance, like what's the point in making it? Yeah Well, the point making it is to get used to making stuff, to get that flow with your collaborators. Get past, like for me, if something is like the guilt of not being able to pay, you guys like sometimes I feel like, whether it's a YouTube video or something like, oh well, I can't pay the rate or even a portion of the rate.

Speaker 2: 34:53

So like I just feel like I'm taking advantage of that if I Me on something I've had a feeling, this is getting a little personal about it, yeah, but I feel like we've wasted a Lot of time as a group because we do have such a unique hang ups, we have such a unique group right now, yeah, of capabilities. Yeah, we should, we should have been ripping stuff. I mean, to be fair, you know, you did have like a pandemic, but right, you know, two years we could have been ripping stuff off, yeah. And it seems like every time we all get together, we always end up coming to the conclusion of like wait, there's actually nothing stopping us from ripping stuff off, exactly, and you know, it's like years and years of nonsense when we just, you know, constantly like, oh yeah, Can't do that, no, but I, yeah, and you know part of me sits there and goes.

Speaker 2: 35:41

you know, I don't know, maybe as collaborators we sort of had to arrive at that point, we're just we're so lucky in the and I mean I do want to move away because this is turning into a more personal thing, but yeah, we are lucky. I think you know. If we're gonna distill this into something more general, it's Take stock of the resources that you have. Right, you know, in your case starting the channel, you had a bunch of production gear. Yeah, you know, in the case of us doing, you know, segments like we've got experience writing, we've got Taste, we're comfortable with each other's tastes, we trust each other and we're able to work with each other without getting caught up in our, in our egos. Let's take advantage of that. Right, and you know, for anybody who's trying to start something, yeah, take stock. What resources do you have? What can you work with right now? Because you will Get caught up in this. You talked about it with the, the first Apple laptop you had.

Speaker 3: 36:35

Yes, I know it's funny.

Speaker 2: 36:37

It's interesting because you so you were getting this laptop? Maybe tell the story real quick and then we'll come back to take stock your resources.

Speaker 3: 36:44

So you know, coming out of college I was always someone that just sort of built my own custom computer. So I'm living in Chicago after I graduate and I have a custom Windows PC. It's got Windows XP on it and you know, windows movie maker. I'm not doing any.

Speaker 2: 36:57

XP, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 37:00

And now I'm I'm like starting to transition from acting into writing, so I'm writing screenplays and trying to figure all that out. Well, my talk to my sister one day my older sister and she mentions how she has this Apple iBook G3 and this is, you know, like, this is like pre iPhone the eye stands for internet book yeah right.

Speaker 3: 37:18

This is pre iPhone. This is where Steve Jobs has had a few, you know, two, three years under his belt as the returning CEO at Apple and he's come out with some pretty amazing products. Well, she tells me she has this computer but she's not using it because they made her use a Windows laptop, blah, blah, blah. So it's just sitting there. She's like I'm not gonna give it to you, but I'm not using it, so why don't I bring it home the next time I come home? She was living in Arizona, we were in Chicago. I'll bring it home and you can use it. Well, I look up what it is and kind of like I'm familiar with Apple at this point, but not whatever. And I see what it is and I and literally you start to visions.

Speaker 2: 37:55

Future you, yeah, just yeah, taking over the world with this.

Speaker 3: 37:58

Yeah, and I'm like Knowing that that is out there and I get to use it. Now this computer is a big, giant piece of shit and I never want to look at it again and I had, you know, just told myself like I can't get any writing done because I know I'm not using the best tool that I have at my disposal, and part of it wasn't actually like, oh, the design of an Apple iBook and blah, blah, blah. It was the portability. I'd like had a hard time always just writing in my apartment at the, at the big giant it's funny though You're like, I've never written anywhere else and then as you imagine yourself writing right in the forest?

Speaker 2: 38:33

Yeah, you're like, I'm gonna write in the forest every day.

Speaker 3: 38:35

Yeah, and I was living in. Yeah, so I. So I just got brain locked and it was a couple of months before she came home and she didn't want to ship it to me because I was kind of pushing for that, anyway, like so, yeah, I just like shut down all of the execution that I had been doing.

Speaker 3: 38:52

I was writing, like all you know. You know my working on a one-screen play and ideas for others during this time and I just shut it all down because I was like this this inanimate object is required. Yeah, it's a better tool and I can't do anything without it.

Speaker 2: 39:07

And the reason I bring up that story is because I think it's such a good example. You see, you call it being like brain locked, being frozen. Yeah, I think it's a great example of what a lot of you take stock of your resources and just start with those. Yeah, you know. And if stuff comes up along the way and I've been absolutely guilty of that, yeah, same phenomenon. But if things come up along the way, just X, keep executing with what you have right, there's no better. Like you got that computer, it's you that computers long gone.

Speaker 2: 39:35

Yeah like did it really make that much of a difference in the grants? I mean, I know you did a lot of work on that, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, no, you can work with whatever you have right now, like you can write on a pad and paper. That's free. There's no computer, yep, for that, and it's better to write an entire thing on a piece of pad and paper Then to not write something on that beautiful computer that you might have in the future.

Speaker 3: 39:57

Well, and that really goes to the point that I talked about earlier when it comes to execution I referenced this with, like, my wife and I having kids and I'm not gonna get into that, but there's you. You can make yourself sort of a ingredient or conditions based executor, where, well, I know I'm, I can execute this, I know I can do it, but I have to wait till all these things are in alignment before I do and probably Conditional underneath at all.

Speaker 3: 40:26

You kind of know that the conditions are never gonna be perfect, so it's a great way to just keep kicking the can and not execute. My wife and I would say this, but I mean kids. Well, we just need to have this, this and this, and then we'll start having kids. I'm starting to get to be 35, 36 years old and, like there's no doubt, I know I've wanted kids my whole life. I'm like I am starting a family.

Speaker 3: 40:45

I got a good page yeah and you know, we both literally said to ourselves that's these conditions are never gonna happen. Yeah, and our friends told us we thought the same thing, it's all bullshit. Yeah, you'll figure it out. Yeah, they're your fears, are our guiding you right now? Yeah, don't let them just get started. And I think that's the same thing. I think we have multiple ingredients of things because, to give ourselves credit, kind of what I was talking about, my old YouTuber self, like love that guy because he was clueless or didn't know this or didn't know that. But it's okay, we have done stuff. We did a spec television commercial. You did the Revlon thing with the 16 millimeter film. We did a couple of YouTube videos and there was pay involved in that, but it was still a lot of work.

Speaker 3: 41:35

We've done a pre-production on a couple of projects that tailed off, but you know and we shot a documentary, but I haven't edited it or we haven't looked at it any further. I know we will, and we may even look back on that one.

Speaker 1: 41:48

We're half executors.

Speaker 3: 41:50

And go. I kind of feel like it had to happen this way.

Speaker 2: 41:53

Anyway, maybe that's what we're telling ourselves, yeah.

Speaker 3: 41:57

But these conditional executors. So you have sort of like the snobby folks right. Like you talked about the delta between taste and capability, but then I think you also have, like the conditional non executors. You have people like I am an ex, I'm confident that I can do it. It's just that I need this, this and this.

Speaker 2: 42:15

I would say there's a little bit of both, like I think there's a fear of not meeting that taste expectation, or even a knowledge that like look, I'm not gonna hit that taste expectation. Yeah, you know my taste. I love, especially in film. Like I really appreciate good film. I don't have that capability at this current moment, right, like because I haven't done it as like you, just I'm sorry but like I'm not gonna. Like I can't lie to myself and be like you. Could totally be, martin Scorsese, you just have to get out there.

Speaker 1: 42:45

Here's another thing.

Speaker 2: 42:46

But I know I have a unique vision of like how I see things and how I do things and it's kind of like I'm not trying to make a Martin Scorsese movie. It's like I heard this quote the other day from that John Mayer video I sent you. It was like if you've never been cool, you've always been cool.

Speaker 2: 43:04

Like if you're not trying to do something then, you're always doing something fine, and that's kind of the approach that I take to just everything. It's just like, well, you know, as soon as you get past the point of like I'm doing this for somebody else, it suddenly just like, well, what do I like, right, what gets me fired up? Like this podcast man, like I know we've got 30 something subscribers. It's like you know we get a listen a day on, you know, itunes or whatever I love. It's been one of the most rewarding things I've done in this year and I'm like the aesthetics, perfect, we kind of got it all like figured and I'm like that gets me fired up.

Speaker 2: 43:42

So this, I've started to shift into the same approach to, you know, filmmaking and you know I had to shift with photography a little bit ago too, and writing too. It's just like stop doing the taste comparison thing and just make what you enjoy. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's like, yeah, if you focus on that, then eventually the skill level will build up to a point where, you know, I think we tend to focus on the gap and we hyper focus on the gap and we hyper focus on oh, this, and then, yes, we all, we also as a. You know, I don't know if it's a byproduct or if it's just a parallel.

Speaker 2: 44:18

We will constantly be like well, if I just had a better typewriter than you know, or if I just had you know, three weeks Conditions and could go away, cause that's like a way of keeping ourselves from just self-hatred, almost, and self-loathing. But no, I mean, I think we just need to. You know, yeah, use what you have, take stock of what you have and just focus on making something that you think is cool. And if you think it's cool in that moment, if you're true to what your current self-expression is and like, wow, this is cool to me right now, then you might evolve out of that, but at least it was cool to you right there At least, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter Anything we make is not gonna be around at some point. So it's like you can make things for other people. You can base your whole life around impressing other people, or impressing you know whatever, some expectation, or you can just spend it enjoying every little moment and like having fun dialogues and having, you know, creative idea flow and just, oh, that's cool when let's execute on that and see what that looks like oh, here's one that's kind of cool. Let's see what that looks like Like, oh, I might get it.

Speaker 2: 45:30

We talked about getting into new hobbies. It's like, oh man, that's kind of cool. Let's see what that looks like. Let's see how that hobby looks on me. Try it, experiment, yeah, enjoy it Like you know it might be, you might get.

Speaker 2: 45:42

There's plenty of things to get fired off about in this world and to get excited about. And if you're just trying to serve that, if you're being honest and just trying to serve that in like an authentic way, you're not trying to serve another master, I think you're gonna be okay. I think the work's gonna be fine and the gap is gonna be less obvious. It's gonna be less apparent Cause you're not trying.

Speaker 2: 46:03

It's a lot easier to make something that competes with you know, somebody at the top of that taste level, when you're just being true to yourself rather than making, trying to make a carbon copy, and then it's gonna become apparent how, how just far away you are, because if you're trying to go out and make a carbon copy of this is some great film that you respect, when you fail miserably which you will, which you will Everybody's gonna be like he was trying to do that and that's what came out of it. If you just go out and make something that's only in your brain, then if you just go out and make something that's only in your brain, then nobody's gonna have a point of comparison. So it's the best thing that you could have made at that point in time. And suddenly the gap is hard to see. It's a lot foggier.

Speaker 3: 46:53

And I think when you come at the thing that you're making with that, from that place when you don't have the best lights, when you don't have the best camera, when you don't have the best shit people will connect to the energy and the vibe and the truth of what you're expressing, your perspective, what you have to say, what came from the collaboration, the energy, the love, the surrender, all of that stuff.

Speaker 3: 47:24

One thing that freed me up with execution was a series of things, but one in particular Steven Spielberg. Someone asked him in an interview what movie of yours do you watch back and you feel like it's the closest to the vision you had going into it. So again, sort of like what we see in our mind before we execute and then what actually comes out after the execution. He said the only movie that's even close to what he thought before was Close Encounters of the Third Kind and every other movie he watches he struggles with it because not that he's sitting down and watching his own shit all the time, but he struggles with seeing all the flaws, all this stuff. Lucas talks about it with Star Wars and that's why he tinkered with it after the fact.

Speaker 2: 48:14

Because he's trying to emulate his constraints.

Speaker 3: 48:16

He's trying to emulate a Hitchcock, yeah, and he wants the look to be this that whatever and I mean some people would argue that the original Star Wars is a work of beauty because of the constraints he had, the limitations that he had, he wasn't able to do everything he wanted. That's a separate conversation. But that freed me up so much. The masters look at their own work and see flaws. When I see flawlessness, so even if I'm not a master, I can't not make something because I know it's not gonna look the way I see it in my head, because I don't have the tools or I don't have enough crew or I you'll just let that stuff stop you. And then another little powerful moment for me, going to the other master, our old friend Scorsese.

Speaker 2: 49:04

We gotta come up with some, maybe you intro the podcast with this scene.

Speaker 3: 49:09

There's a scene in Casino where Sharon Stone she's in a bedroom and she is like just an incredible performance. She's upset whatever. There's a camera move that's gonna track with her as she hurls herself on the bed. And I may be misremembering some of the details because I haven't seen Casino a little bit, but I remember the story because Scorsese tells it. It's like there's a moment where she hurls herself on the bed and I think her head's like on the edge of the bed by a nightstand and the camera's gonna track with her. Well, when they did the camera move, it smacked the table, Like visibly smacks the table and jolts.

Speaker 3: 49:44

Scorsese left it in the movie because Sharon Stone's performance on that take was perfect, and so that, to me, was what encapsulated it. I get so fired, and I guess what? Because, to finish the point he just said to himself, the thing that tells the story the best, the thing that matters most, the emotion and the feeling in that moment. Yeah, there was a huge technical gaffe, but what she's doing connects the audience to her character and the overall story that's being told. So who gives a shit if the camera hits the table? And he left it in, he made the right decision. Whereas somebody might say best performance, I can't handle having this mishap in my film, so I'm gonna take the lesser performance because the technical thing was done better.

Speaker 2: 50:34

I always know that I'm in good hands with the director if the first take is out of focus or something. But the performance is on and I'm gonna. This will wrap up the podcast because this will wrap up the episode here, because we're about at time, but I think it's always, you know, if you're in the first scene and there's a focus mishap, but the performance was right. You're like a choice was made there and I'm in good hands, and anybody that disagrees with that is a fucking snob.

Speaker 3: 51:04

And that's where we end it. So let's make something and not worry about having perfect focus or the camera moves, whatever we have the best light. Let's just say to ourselves we all want to make stuff together.

Speaker 1: 51:16

Let's just take it 100 feet at a time and start getting it done and stacking those wins Absolutely, and it being a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again at the summer, in summer ihren.