In this episode, we share a couple of stories from our lives that prompt a discussion about the broader implications of curation and the art of curating.
This lasts for all of 3 minutes before we find ourselves caught up in a long-winded discussion about editing and the intricacies that go along with it. We delve into the art of editing, the importance of reflection, and the roles of editors and gatekeepers.
Throughout the discussion, we emphasize the importance of editing in refining creative work, from photographs to writing to to-do lists, and the roles of internal and external editors in the process. We clearly didn't take our own advice with this one, but we hope that you're able to find something of value in our ramblings. -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
In this episode, we share a couple of stories from our lives that prompt a discussion about the broader implications of curation and the art of curating.
This lasts for all of 3 minutes before we find ourselves caught up in a long-winded discussion about editing and the intricacies that go along with it. We delve into the art of editing, the importance of reflection, and the roles of editors and gatekeepers.
Throughout the discussion, we emphasize the importance of editing in refining creative work, from photographs to writing to to-do lists, and the roles of internal and external editors in the process. We clearly didn't take our own advice with this one, but we hope that you're able to find something of value in our ramblings. -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
It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
Speaker 2:I stopped at this estate sale and then did the next thing. Part of the story afterward. So, and I won't give a ton of context, but usually on Fridays and then sometimes on Sundays I'll go check out some estate sales if I've gotten through my week and, you know, in a good place or if I've sort of scoped out the estate sale to see if they have a high likelihood of having, like, some retro stuff like VCRs, vhs tapes, old cameras, stuff like that. So this one, this house was really cool and I went there and did he have a camera? He, this house was really cool and I went there and did he have a camera? He had a couple cameras but nothing exciting. He had a Pentax ME Super.
Speaker 3:I don't know if Pentax is Pentax had like a run of like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they had the claim of like the smallest SLR camera. I know the Pentax 110, but like regular SLR camera, the Pentax MX super tiny SLR like compared to a.
Speaker 3:K1000. It's just like the mirror in like the film.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just like the form factor is much smaller than a regular SLR, and they also had something called the Pentax ME and the Pentax ME Super and I can't remember what the extra features were. Maybe it was like a power winder and it had maybe some auto or program stuff, you know, whatever, whatever, more electronic based stuff, less mechanical. But they wanted like 80 bucks for it with a little basic 50 millimeter f2 lens and I'm like I'll come back on sunday if it's half off, it's worth it. But uh, it ended up being sold anyway. Going through this is a 94 year old gentleman who passed away, the guy who runs the estate sale I would come, you know, you know chit chatty with. He told me he was like uh, world war ii veteran and traveled a lot overseas, whatever, and he had this plate on a table. And for those of you who don't know of, I don't know if we mentioned the the rv excursion we went on to go pick up your camper so this was probably about a month, month and a half ago.
Speaker 2:A month and a half ago we uh alex bought alex and uh audrey bought a camper like a pull behind camper um out in uh out by des moines iowa so alex and I got in his uh, his lexus and madison county.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're like bridges of madison county and all that stuff is, and pulled this camper all the way back to omaha. It was a really, really a fun day anyway. So I saw this plate and it says god bless our mobile home with this pull behind it. And it had to be a pull behind, you know, and of course and I'm like, I'm like I don't know 50 cents is it worth it?
Speaker 3:so so I picked this up have a prominent home in the studio we haven't shared to. I guess the the addition of the TV.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the CRTV. So I mean there's.
Speaker 3:There's lots of little trinkets that are popping up in here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're. You're you exposing me to some of this stuff like typewriters and, obviously, film cameras and all that film cameras dating back years ago, like I've, you know, really gone down the rabbit hole on a lot of this retro tech stuff, and so I almost feel like we should just do some.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm talking away from the mic again. I almost feel like we should do like a little just time capsule tour or something. Yeah, I don't know how we would put that out there if that would go on the channel, or I think it could, or what. But yeah, I mean, like I know this, this space has kind of evolved a lot and yeah, you know, with us kind of staying put for a little bit, I'm like okay, good, good, it's like yep yeah, it's nice that, yeah, everything gets to kind of remain and continue.
Speaker 3:I was looking at old photos though. Yeah, from I, every six months or so I'll just take a photo and then you know, yeah, put it away, it'll sit on the phone or whatever. And I was looking through old ones and I've got photos of like everything empty. There's like one desk in the corner right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everything's empty and I remember sitting there like one of the first nights for the first week I was here and it was just that desk, the black one, and then my macbook computer and like an old monitor, like that was it I was like yeah and so that was you know. Everything has kind of grown from there well, it's good that you documented that.
Speaker 2:I um posted a video to my channel members on my main channel Cause I was, I'll post, I'll make videos that are a little bit more like um, you know just the kind of like this is, but like a touch of therapy and sort of like. Let me tell you what's going on with me, not because I want to talk about myself, but maybe what I'm going through and the obstacles I'm facing and what I come up with to overcome them might help you think of different ways to do the same thing. And I was talking about, you know, because for some of my audience I'm sure they're like what's with all the retro tech stuff, dude, vhs, the VCRs, typewriters, like are you OK, yeah.
Speaker 2:What's going on, man? Because you are really going deep into this stuff.
Speaker 3:We got to do this.
Speaker 2:when I say do a tour, like we got to do it, of your space too, because, yeah, you kind of gave me the tour of your space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, the other day, yeah, um, and that was the first time I've been there in a few months since I guess the retro yeah, tech kind of special yeah yeah, and it's it's really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's actually really sweet so, but in that video I was referencing sort of like a return to my roots, a back to basics, and that's a concept that I hope we can talk about maybe on a dedicated episode.
Speaker 2:I'll write that down as a note without elaborating on it too much right now. But I was trying to draw connections from what I was doing with all this retro tech and collecting it all and drawing connections to the past and I had, when I was 18 years old and was leaving for college. We had a VHS camcorder and I documented my like my final days as an 18 year old, living at home with my parents and like shopping with my girlfriend to get stuff for my dorm room and giving like a tour of my room in the various states of packing up what I was going to take and what I was going to leave behind. So I have all this footage of my childhood bedroom from when I was 18 years old the member channel, member video to draw the connection between this studio that you saw, which is like kind of filling up with posters on the wall and pictures and stuff on my desk and all this stuff, dude.
Speaker 2:My room as a kid was the exact same. It was like a, like a museum for what was in my brain, you know, um, and that that was uh, it was just really.
Speaker 3:It's just really great to know that I have this time capsule from when I was getting to the stage where I'm like, like if this keeps developing in here, like I'm gonna literally just have to make a deal with my landlord where it's like all right, unit one is ours, just bill me every month like it ain't going anywhere like we're gonna have to do like a Casey Neistat, like keep the studio thing.
Speaker 3:I watched the video recently too, of you talking about like old, like I watched the video of Van's apartment again, um, and him having the subsidized apartment in New York city and he paid like $900 a month for it or something and then lost it cause he just stopped paying and he was just how much he regretted that and not being able to take his kid there and be like this is where you know, everything kind of started out and I don't know that's, that's cool to me. I don't love the idea of, like, hoarding resources. Plus, like you know, this is a building. It could be sold easily and whatever. But yeah, I don't know as you build stuff out like your studio, like I can't even imagine it not being what it is you?
Speaker 3:know like if you guys were to move and I know you've talked about it before then you would almost want to retain that as like a content house or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that was the idea was I would, through my business, pay the more you know, pay rent to us personally to keep the house, not just, you know, because it.
Speaker 3:This would be such a goofy thing, like just to retain the space Because, like you know, but Right, you think about it, yeah, and then it's like, ok, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Especially all the you know the starting point of life, right yeah, especially all the you know the starting point of life right well, and for that, for our house, it's kind of a no-brainer because we got it so inexpensively and it's an asset that we could, you know that can build value it's a little tough for this because you don't own it right here.
Speaker 3:It's just like, okay, what you're gonna pay a lease on something because of memories, because of sentimentality and all that you know it's gonna.
Speaker 2:Obviously it's the main character in this podcast, in this podcast not that we're trying to make it be like 20 million subscribers and all that. You know. Um, you know I could see if it was something more prominent. You know it'd be like your favorite sitcom, um you know, like all of a sudden they move.
Speaker 1:You know?
Speaker 2:like, and it's a different set. It's stuff. You know that that's a character in that thing. It's part of the identity and brand of it.
Speaker 3:Um, and yeah, I do think it's, I think space being a character in our lives, yeah, beyond the idea of like this meta, like sitcom, environment or, I think space just becomes like you know, like this space is a part of my life, in the same way that you are in the same way that Audrey is, in the same way that you know, Maggie is life in the same way that you are, in the same way that audrey is, yeah, absolutely in the same way that you know, maggie is there, yeah, and it that's weird, it's a weird concept to think about, but yeah, um, you know, I guess we're fortunate enough to have places like that, like your studio is, like I mean between here and your studio, like that's probably where we spend yeah absolutely the majority of our time 100.
Speaker 2:I'm in my studio pretty much all day yeah, um and even when I rap for the day and go upstairs or pick up my kid, make dinner, all that if I go down to my studio at night, like after I've sort of switched modes, it feels weird, it almost feels wrong, to be honest yeah um, and maybe, maybe part of that is like you know, you have a flow here, you know, so like coming in here I tend to avoid this at night yeah, I mean it's some like I want to get into a flow where I can just sit down, like right
Speaker 2:at night, but yeah it is especially for me. I've already sort of given eight to ten hours yeah to the thing and I'm like this it's rest time. Yeah, it's time for rest and to be in a different yeah, I tend to.
Speaker 3:I tend to think of just like closing this up, yeah, um everybody's going.
Speaker 2:So the title of the episode is this whole curation thing. But I I gotta give my quick story.
Speaker 3:We gotta well just really quick on the on the studio thing before because I think it does tie in yeah, yeah, and my next curate your space.
Speaker 2:I got a good link.
Speaker 3:I got a good link to this for my story um one thing, I just tying together the plate and the. We've been, we've spent the last few weekends like out, just yes, yeah, yeah, you know practicing well I mean practicing, but also just like it's a good way to just get away like disconnect from everything it's basically like getting a cabin out, and so we've spent the last few weekends, the last two weekends, away from here.
Speaker 3:So we'll just pack up on Friday, go and that's where we are. Yeah, and coming back here on Sunday nights to this. It means so much more to me because it's just like all here, everything's where it needs to be and it's all. So I don't know. Just a weird little bit of appreciation.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate the this space a lot more now that we've kind of you know, you get away from it from a little bit, yeah, and then come back and it's all here. I can see how, like you know, I can see like, oh, keep the studio and you go to yeah yeah, and then come back absolutely in place.
Speaker 2:I can see how that's just so like okay, I know where everything is, it's all yeah so and I've worked out the kinks you know with the, with the camper especially just like, oh, I don't have this or I'm missing this. Do I really need that? Like, oh, we've got to bring this next time yeah like we got to fix the heat. We got to do this.
Speaker 3:You know there's yeah, it's a whole, that's a whole project. Yeah, we are. We are involved in now, but it is nice coming back and, yeah, everything's just like here. Everything is like got this know where this is. This works like that.
Speaker 2:This works like that so well, every time the camper acts up. Hopefully you can look at the the golden plate there that says god bless our mobile home, amen. I want to burn it to the ground right now, god bless it.
Speaker 2:God bless it. So the connection, my quick story, and this will be quick. You know we talked about, like, a place. It's our podcast, we can do what we want. You know a place and the energy it has and how it informs us, um, you know our, our, our desire to be in it, more drawn to it, spend time with it. You know I've started a new photography project and I talked to you about this. Um, you know I've been making videos on the photo videos channel and you know, while that has elements of the work, it also is, you know, a lot of parts content, and I'm like I want to make work something that is not content. Uh, and so you know I I am aspiring to turn this into a book or a zine or something at some point.
Speaker 2:But I've been really drawn to these old rundown satellite dishes, not the like the direct tv ones that people have in their houses, but the bigger ones, like the 80s industrial calm 70s industrial calm, but then like the ones that you know that have, like, there's a couple properties around omaha where those people 20, 30 years ago lived out in the middle of nowhere, but now all the urban sprawl has caught up to them yeah but because they lived out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2:If they wanted tv they had to have a big, huge satellite dish, and so they'll still be in their yard or mounted to the roof of a business that was you know whatever, and they just. There's something about them that just draws me in and I'm just giving into it by taking photographs of them. Well, there's one in bellevue, off of old fort crook road, and it's this massive satellite dish behind this huge complex. I don't know what the complex was originally for, if it was government, if it was a school thing, if it was an old tv station, I don't know what, but it's a big, giant, white, like, like from the movie contact, like seti, alpha six, like the is that right? There's seti. Whatever they are, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, the radio thing, satellite dishes, dishes this thing's huge.
Speaker 2:And I'm just like I'm going to make a photo project where this is the anchor to all these different satellite dish photos I take. So I'll go there, park the truck on a residential street there's like a public easement, that's like grassy and I take photographs of kind of wide. I'll either do it on 28 millimeter or 50 millimeter, but it's still a pretty wide shot, even with the 50. Satellite dish, like a truck. There's a weird little playground. I think it's just like a Christian school or something that's over there, all this stuff. So I'm taking photographs and I go back to my truck. This is like on a Sunday morning. I go back to my truck and I can see the satellite dish through, like the budding trees, and there's a house and there's a dog sitting there and I'm like, oh, that's a shot. So I take, take the shot.
Speaker 2:And then I go to get in my truck and I see a car coming and I'm like skinning up cause it's narrow and thinking they're going to drive by. Well, this person just stops and I'm like looking into the windshield and I'm like, and she's got, this woman's got her phone up like she's filming me or taking pictures of me, and I'm like, okay, so, um, I'm still looking at her. She drops the phone, she goes and she's mouthing. I'm calling the cops and I'm like, okay, yeah, uh. So she drives by me, stops, opens her door, takes a photo of the back of my truck because she's trying to get the license plate and my vehicle description and a picture of me, and I'm like she has the door. I'm like, why are you calling the police? And she shuts the door and drives off and I'm just sitting there like am I just out of practice?
Speaker 3:Or like are you just the unluckiest person in the world, I must be. Or like are you just the unluckiest person in the world, I must be.
Speaker 2:I think you know I don't do myself any help by being like sort of prominent in my stature. I'm six foot four. I got long hair. I'm a big guy, I'm wearing pretty much all black.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't have like a light button down so I you know, I think anytime you're wearing black, psychologically that communicates to people like something villainous, like a darth vader vibe or something you gotta learn like a couple of phrases of russian.
Speaker 3:Just I do, yeah, right, yeah, that's what I'm thinking and I've got a black truck.
Speaker 2:They've seen me there before. I guess I've actually gone into the parking lot and photographed the satellite dish in front of a police officer parked in the parking lot. Police officer didn't give a shit, he didn't come up to me, he didn't hey what you doing, you know nothing.
Speaker 3:Because because I'm not doing anything wrong you're completely within every right that you uh yeah to do that now in the parking lot and we won't spend too much time on this.
Speaker 2:But, um, you know it is private property. I can take a photograph there. But if the property owner was like, hey, don't do that, get out of here, and I refuse.
Speaker 3:Citizen can't do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then I'm trespassing, and then we've got some criminal stuff going on there. But I'm on a public easement, my truck is parked legally on a on a public street and this woman, like I don't know if she thinks like you know, the sinister thing is me like like casing the place to steal something or to perform an act of terrorism. Um, there is a school attached, so, but there's the sunday morning, there's no kids there. Like does she think I'm like getting ready to plan, uh, like a school shooting or some kind of?
Speaker 3:thing on the school, like there's. She probably has 12 narratives in her head, yeah, and that's.
Speaker 2:That's a her problem but there seemed to be from her like this, this energy of like I see someone doing something wrong or suspicious and like I'm gonna be the hero that takes care of this well remember the conversation we had about like it was the conversation we had not long ago about the when people feel like it was you were talking about.
Speaker 3:If you wanted to share your story. Yeah, of getting.
Speaker 2:Oh right, Of the guy attacking me yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's like people just want to feel important yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and that was probably just her way of being, like I know that you're bad and I'm going to be this great person to come in.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to have an exciting story to tell my friends and I'm like she's got to be posting this to Facebook groups. Like this guy keeps taking pictures of this place.
Speaker 3:And you're probably out there on Facebook right now, right Like, look at this weirdo.
Speaker 2:Here's his license plate number.
Speaker 3:Honestly, that's an interesting project in and of itself. I know and good know if you see, here's this license plate number. Honestly that's an interesting project in and of itself, like, like and good for her. You know she's getting something she gets to feel special. Like is it? Is it goofy? Yeah, it's pretty goofy, but it's like. You know, she gets to be the hero in her story and yeah oh, look at this guy. I'm neighborhood watch and right part of this community, and this you know weird guy is out here.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah and I I mean interesting, the, the, even the the day that I was attacked by that guy. There were two other incidents with people during that photography session one where I was photographing a public playground in between two apartment buildings and the woman was like filming me from her window after she saw me outside and again, I'm wearing all black, I've got a purple digicam, I you know like I get that. It's like a little odd that this guy's going around taking photos. I get that.
Speaker 3:I just I can't tell, is it like it? Because it might part of it, might just be like. I mean, I'm out of practice. You know I've been out in the last few months, like since it doesn't winter kind of came on. Well, it doesn't happen as much downtown yeah, I just wonder if there's like a psyche yeah, because I was.
Speaker 2:I was uh just continuing on from where I was, where the woman was filming me. While I was taking photographs, another guy that was like maintenance for a building or something. He like kind of like I don't want to say aggressively, but with definite strong intention crossed the street um, you know, not at a crosswalk after parking his truck on the sidewalk and got out and was like what are you doing? And it was like half curious, half suspicious, like him being suspicious of me.
Speaker 2:And I'm like I'm just out exercising my freedom to take photographs so weird, what are you photographing the building for and all this stuff. And I'm like I had another guy when I stopped in my truck in Bellevue and there was like a liquor store that had a really cool I don't know color scheme on the side of the building and the light was hitting it right. I rolled down the window and took a photograph and the guy comes over. He's like hey, hey, hey, what are you doing? And I'm like I'm just taking a picture of a building. Yeah, like I don't. Maybe the black truck and my vibe, like people think like oh, I'm a government official or I'm like a real estate developer that's gonna take photo, like I'm doing recon and intel gathering on your building or something, though like that's.
Speaker 2:I know, like maybe I need to very strange, like experiment with this and change wear a white change my clothing. Just wear a white shirt and see. If you wear a white shirt, it might explode.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, we should have done that for the 20th I and I have been wearing a light.
Speaker 2:It's not white, but it's a light colored button down.
Speaker 3:That's kind of like my summer yeah thing I guess, maybe I'd honestly be curious, like so how funny? Like yeah, beige button down gets you no flack, but black button down right yeah, black sweater and a black jacket, black pants.
Speaker 2:People are just you know, and I'm not like a little uneasy about marveling at the possibility that a man dressed all in black with a black truck kind of triggers people's suspicion or something you know there's. There's a reason that our villains typically especially in archetypal stories and star wars and all that, are all in black and all you know western.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, yeah it communicates something.
Speaker 2:Anyway, that's interesting episode about curation, but I just I just wanted to share another run-in with somebody that's bizarre While I'm out taking photos, cause I yeah, I can't speak on like is it a cult, like I just haven't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I haven't really been out photographing a lot recently so, yeah, got to get you out. I don't know if it's if it is like a cultural thing. That's just maybe people are a little more, or if it's, you're just the unluckiest guy.
Speaker 2:I wonder if you know you and I go to similar areas together. If we get no flack at all, like oh, just two people hanging out taking pictures, yeah, but what guy by himself in black, this guy's up to something, yeah you've got to do like the andrew callahan and like, yeah, just dress for the area but I also want to go. He'll go to like yeah, you know right, you're right, yeah, like if he's, if he's going to like a yes, like a like if he you know he went to like a furry convention.
Speaker 3:He's like, just yeah, popped out. It's like, oh, he's going to like a trump rally or something.
Speaker 2:All right, he's gonna put the throw a cap on and like you know, do what you gotta do. 100, I mean, you know. And gary windegrand's trick where he's always looking like the cameras how does this thing like? How does this?
Speaker 3:thing work. You know, like I think I think that's an because you do want to be invisible, right 100, and I'm like, not intentionally, but I am standing out like a gigantic sort of like car heart.
Speaker 2:Literally, though you know. Yeah, like you show up and like work, wear yes yeah, like, I think.
Speaker 3:I think that is something that people take for granted. You have a lot of photographers that are like oh, like, this is just my look, this is how I go.
Speaker 2:This is my brand, or whatever it's like.
Speaker 3:Yeah I think almost the responsibility? Yeah, it's. Is it pandering a little bit maybe? But, like especially in 2024, things are in a very you know, you want people to be at ease. Yes, and you talk about being as close to an objective camera as you can.
Speaker 2:You almost have to, yeah you know if you're wearing something that is completely in contrast to the environment that you're in.
Speaker 3:That's right. You're not invisible. You're betraying the idea of getting being objective and that's going to show up in in the audience. So, and that's why I love that is interesting doing the eclipse, street photography and the parades.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody's down for being photographed. Yeah, like the vibe is just so different.
Speaker 3:You can blend in, because you can wear whatever and there's so many people there and people are focused on something.
Speaker 2:They're not just sort of like what's that guy doing?
Speaker 1:Like what's this guy?
Speaker 2:doing this is weird.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think that's part. Yeah, I think that's why I like going down to the park and photographing is just but I also want to say to this lady, if I was up to no good do you?
Speaker 2:think I would draw this much attention to myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you're like a really shitty, I'd roll the window down on my truck with a zoom lens and I'd take pictures Like I would be or you would.
Speaker 2:I would not want people calling the police on me if I'm going to do something.
Speaker 3:It's like if you're, if you're, if you're doing something sketchy and you're not completely just, you know, unaware, yeah, You're probably going to try to blend in. She's probably not going to notice you.
Speaker 2:You're going to be taking cell phone pictures and wearing whatever everybody in the area is yeah, I'm gonna yeah and I right that's, yeah, that's funny but that to me I think it gets comes down, though, to it's.
Speaker 3:There's a little bit of ego there. That's exactly right. She wants to, yeah, she wants, I want to have my moment.
Speaker 2:this is yeah, it was interesting because it really felt like it was about her. Like you're so focused on being a hero or having a story or whatever and this is just my interpretation of of what she was doing but you get so focused on being a hero or having a story or whatever and this is just my interpretation of of what she was doing but you get so focused on that stuff that you don't actually take stock in what's happening. And it's just a, a nerd who thinks the satellite dish looks cool in the late morning light.
Speaker 3:I'm doing a project about satellite dishes.
Speaker 2:I have an old film camera Like yeah, that's silly. If I broke out the 500 millimeter lens and was firing off shots. It's just silly to me. Yeah, I'm still going to go back, though, and I'm just going to be ready for this lady to double down Just bring your social security cards. I've been tempted to actually go to the police station and be like. I just want you guys to know I'm doing this photo project yeah and you might get calls about a guy hanging out taking photos like. I just want you to know.
Speaker 3:If those calls come in, I'm just taking, I'm just making a nerdy photo project, a couple of them, and just be like, hey, this is what I'm working on. Like here's my instagram is I'm sure they would appreciate it too, because you know they have to be like yes, ma'am, we take it very seriously, but they're probably just like this guy's, just taking photos. What are we doing?
Speaker 2:We've seen him there before. We park in that parking lot all the time Because we like that satellite dish too. It's a really cool dish.
Speaker 3:Anyways, curation 27 minutes.
Speaker 2:Oh shoot.
Speaker 3:We were going to get into curation 27 minutes 27, oh shoot. No, um, I mean so our, yeah, we were gonna get into curation and I almost feel like we're just doing like a random episode at this point, and so I'm now I'm like do we continue?
Speaker 3:I know because there are other trains of thought we could go down um with recency, or we could get into curation, um, so I I basically I just came like these are some human versus machine curation, algorithmic curation, information overload, like these are some ideas. And then I wanted to kind of talk about two separate things where it's like content curation and content yeah, and like the current status state of the internet and how that works out. And then also editing, um, so right, this book, the work of art, yeah, um, that I just picked up, um is all about the editing process, right, and you know what it takes from like the first draft to get.
Speaker 2:When you say editing, you mean like so anybody who's making work, whether it's a script, uh, photos. I don't mean, I don't mean like photo editing, right so actually, it's interesting, I don't.
Speaker 3:It's almost like editing as a word has been co-opted yes, um, in the last 15 years or so, to mean something that it like if you were on Instagram in 2014, you talked about photo editing. It's lightroom presets. That's the thing that comes to mind when actually photo editing is sequencing, yes, and figuring out which photo.
Speaker 3:You know that maybe the lightroom thing is that's more like color correction developing, I mean yeah, there's not really like a perfect word for it, but we use photo editing, now right, and maybe video editing is thought of as like like video editing was sequencing video right, deciding what to leave out, what to leave in, and then it really turned into this thing where it's like transitions and swooshes and like you know about this because you, I teach it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right in the middle of it it's like well, in book editing too, you know you have an editor, exactly it's and what they do to help you with your manuscript.
Speaker 3:And then you're working it, you're restructuring it, editing song which verse are you gonna leave out? How are you gonna present it? How does this all build?
Speaker 2:I watched a lot of fashion content everything from Project Runway to fashion documentaries with my wife for a while, and when the designer, we get feedback, I think it just just needs a little bit more editing. Yeah, and basically it was. You have too many ingredients in your design Like it just needs more editing.
Speaker 3:I think there's a Marc Jacobs section in here where he talks about like I mean, yeah, no, it's the editing it applies. It's a fact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Every anything creative, you've got. The big pile of stuff that comes out right away, the vomit draft or whatever. You've got the big pile of stuff that comes out right away, the vomit draft or whatever, absolutely, and you got to edit that son of a bitch down.
Speaker 3:Like in this book, the one of the first pages is a Bob Dylan writing um, blown in the wind and it's like crazy, ripped through it in like 30 minutes. But then he edited it, you know he went through it. He's like, okay, this needs to go here. We have this grand vision and we've talked about this on the pod before but this grand vision of the artist sitting down and ripping the masterpiece out of thin air. And it's like that might happen occasionally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some outliers, there's some outliers, but 99.999% of everything is Heavy editing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's a George Saunders At the end of this book. George Saunders the writer, and he writes. You can see him working through the story. He's like I don't know, I have two options here. I have two paths I can take. He's like this path or this path and he's like pros and cons, the two.
Speaker 2:Just turning on, do Not Disturb.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, but like has to decide. He's just having a dialogue with himself yeah, no, but like has to decide. He's just having a dialogue with himself on a piece of paper, typewritten Should I do this or should I do this? And I think that's super helpful to have that just idea that, oh, this is what it can be like when you're creating work. It's just having a conversation with yourself what should I, what am I trying to say? What's, what do I need to say in order to make sure I communicate that? What can I do a better job at communicating what? What is overstated? Um, there's just a lot that goes into it.
Speaker 2:Um, I've actually been using my typewriter as a mechanism for sort of like forced editing.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And not spending too much time on it. Like notion just makes it, and I can type so fast like 50, everything I think of some tasks to do, which the majority of end up being what a lot of people in productivity refer to as a cold task that like wasn't really a big deal. It's something you'd like to get done. Maybe it's a bit more aspirational than something you need to do, and so I would have these to-do lists in notion and productivity management self-management stuff and it would just be to-do lists and notion and productivity management self-management stuff and it would just be so much and overwhelming and like I would be down about having not gotten all this stuff done and so many cold tests.
Speaker 3:Bits on the screen doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Well, and it would just be sort of like a downer all the time and I'm like I'm going to start playing around with making my to-do lists on a typewriter and I'll scratch down on a piece of paper what comes to mind, do some internal editing and that's going to be end up being a cold task, whatever. And then when I actually go to type up the written list and then I make decisions like I don't really need to do that. That's not reasonable today. That's out of scope, whatever. So I have an editing process and I'm like I don't want to type all this stuff up because typing is there's a little bit of friction there. I have to finger pack, I can't type like I can on a computer. So I end up coming up with these four to six item to do lists on a piece of paper and then I cut it out.
Speaker 3:It's like a whole little thing process and it might seem, I think, giving your brain time to just process what's happening. Yeah, it's probably right, the best way to do things. Yeah, and some people might, they might benefit from just ripping through notion risks. But every like you you talk about editing, editing down a piece of work. I think our brain just needs time to edit. Yeah. You know, before you send that angry email, sit on it for a little bit, edit it.
Speaker 2:Did this episode just become about editing? Yeah, is this an edit? Well, do we just?
Speaker 3:want to do editing? Yeah, because we have like curation we're editing our episode right now. We're editing live and in person Because I really like our curation episode, but our truth of in the moment right now is we're in a different place. Yeah, I kind of feel so let's just run with it, let's just go and then we have curation sitting. Yeah, okay, well, that's fun.
Speaker 2:We came in like we got to get this episode recorded, let's just do curation. We goofed up the audio last time. Let's just sit down and just rip into curation. Well, sure enough, chit-chatting, talk, whatever. And now this thing I'm editing. I'm like I don't want to talk about editing. Yeah, I don't want to.
Speaker 3:So I mean everything's editing right like if I'm if I want to have a conversation, I think you just sit on it, think about it a little bit the, the quickness of just being able to rip it right like it's all about fuck it, send it it's. I feel like most of the time I do that I regret Yep, Um, so I think creating like barriers between yourself and yeah.
Speaker 3:And getting that out is probably a good thing. Like you sat down and you going back to where when the guy threw the thing at you and you sat down and wrote the thing out if that would have been on an Instagram caption or a tweet, right, that's out in the world. Yeah, upon reflection, though, you were like maybe this is just for me, right?
Speaker 2:So you know, maybe we, we need more of that, that mindset of like, because we have all these tools for getting our impulsive, immediate reaction to things out Right.
Speaker 3:Everything's so immediate.
Speaker 2:We can easily deliver what's going on in the moment. And yeah, there is something really um fundamental I feel like about that kind of two hander between your feelings, your impulses, your reflexes. You know that initial um heat of the moment, kind of reaction or whatever you put out there. And then there's that more editorial, you know editing something, thinking about it. You know not necessarily like what are the ramifications of I put this out, but just trying to like, you know, just trying to form it into something better.
Speaker 3:Um, and I think in the editing process too, of like the key questions that comes up is like do I actually like this, right? Yeah, yeah, like we we live in especially with technology and with especially with like language models. Now there's so much just like yeah, it's here, and then it's out, it's here and then it's out, and it's like. There's a lot of stuff where it's just like do I even care about this or do I like this? Do I agree with what this says?
Speaker 2:no, but it looks good right well, and for me, my thing is like, sort of like I felt it, I feel it, um, I, I made something or I said something about it, and the, the, the truthness of the truthness of that, the truth of that, yeah, um, sometimes makes my more uh, editorial parts of my brain, or sort of the, the, the part that wants to shape something into something better.
Speaker 2:It's like I'm so connected to how I felt, like I felt true to that expression in the moment and therefore it can't not be good because it was just an impulsive reaction and I put it out there, or you know, yeah, like you talked about, like, um, dylan didn't just rip through, blown in the wind, and then just like, yep, that's the song, yep, send it. Uh, you know, I think I have definitely fallen victim to going. I feel something, I'm gonna channel the source and create this thing, and those two steps in that process were so powerful for me that this must be good work because of yeah well, and it's like must be good, because it came from that place.
Speaker 3:I love the dylan example of blown in the wind because it's drastically different. Yeah, after he sat down, yeah, cut out verse and you there's. You can buy books of his where it's like all of his lyric pages, right, he would write on paper a lot and just, I mean that's a really paper and typewriter. Sure, but he, you know, he'd either scribble on a napkin or and what doesn't make the song is almost more of an illumination into his mindset than what makes the song. Yeah, and you know he could have just been like I'm fucking bob dylan right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like at this point you know he's probably got a little bit of that. Like it's good yeah I'm bob dylan, or.
Speaker 3:But he's like no, I gotta like, yeah, take stuff out. And there's always going to be some subjectivity that comes into play here. But you know, that's what our editor is. Just, you know micromanaging things to death. That's always the question that arises. But it's like you're making the, the choices, and you see that initial draft and the final product, and one is a lot more effective at saying what it's trying to say, to my eyes at least, and I think a lot of people would probably agree with that. So you know, yeah, taking that time to got it all down, it's here, step away, come back. What am I trying to say here? Oh well, I don't need this paragraph, or I don't need this line of dialogue, or this, this, these photos aren't these. I thought they were good, uh. Or like you're shooting a film and you have the scene where it was like a pain in the ass to get right. People always use this example oh, we spent half a day on this, that's right.
Speaker 3:Yep, this has got to go in got to go, and then you start looking and most of the time it's like this just doesn't fit, yeah, which is ironic that that's usually the scene that is like the one, and that's the battle between you know, your subject subjectivity and your objectivity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like this, we did all the work that we did, all this blah blah blah. Uh, we got to keep it in, and then your objective brain is going yeah, this is no good, this isn't working this isn't made for what this needs to be yeah, you know what you know.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there's. There's stuff, there's lots of stuff, whether it's a song, a movie, a screenplay, whatever, a photograph that you know like maybe could have, could have become something great or really powerful. But the wrong forces at play in the editing process or a lack of an editing process could have really messed things up.
Speaker 3:I feel like we do have a lack of an editing process. It's a cultural thing. Nowadays, there is a very big lack of editing, and you see it in writing, you see it in video. Yeah, you see it in. I mean, there's a lot of film that I'll watch where it's like do they even like? Why is this here? Like this was already, you know there's. It's almost be become a bit of a lost art yeah I don't think it's a lost art.
Speaker 3:There's plenty of people that do a really good job at it. But if you just looked at culture in a broad scope you could probably say it's not what it once was right um, well, I think there's so many forces at play too.
Speaker 2:not only are the tools getting better and better for us to take a thought, a feeling, an impulse, translating it into even if it's a rough draft or a brain dump, you know thing of, you know piece of work, there's all these other forces at play, because not only the tools to make it are that much easier and more accessible, but the ability to distribute what you made and the exhibition of what you made, you know maybe for other people, you know, because this is where gatekeepers come back in, is Matthew O'Brien making an argument for gatekeeping here?
Speaker 2:That you may have held your work to greater scrutiny because your your odds of getting something exhibited were. Let's dive into this a little bit Cause.
Speaker 3:I feel like it is a paradox, right, you can't just say no gatekeepers, and I have succumbed to, to the fact that the platforms I use don't have gatekeepers.
Speaker 2:It has made me, um, you know, think it, feel it, make it, send it like, and then, uh, with the point I was going to make too, about these forces at play, I can sometimes let myself go, dude, you haven't put a video out in two weeks, Like, you gotta just make something you know. And it's like, do you?
Speaker 3:yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, um, doing what's expected versus what you a common refrain from me on the podcast as well, and I know I'm a little bit all over the place right now, but part of why I think us choosing to go into this a little bit more too for me is, in a book like that, helping me to identify my process and sort of the process. I'm all over the place, dude.
Speaker 2:I just sent an email to someone I consulted and she didn't really seem to understand the intricacies of post-production workflows and I broke it down like this happens, then this happens, then this happens Now. There's nuances to that and differences in documentary to feature films or this or whatever. But just so you know, this is the process and I feel like a book like that might help people that are listening kind of go look, we don't want to be rigid, right, and be like, well, if you did a rough draft, then you have to do this edit stage. You know, like there's fluidity to it, but just having a cursory understanding of the flow and the workflow and the forces at play and the things you should really be thinking about, especially with the ease with which we can exhibit the stuff that we come up with, again, that's my biggest thing Think it, feel it, make it, send it. And how can a book like that and the editing process and the presence of gatekeepers actually be a good thing that elevates your work? So it's not just break down.
Speaker 3:So in your mind, break down this process, because I I'm with you and this is something we need to. More people need to understand, especially anybody who's worked professionally in a creative field knows the frustration yeah of this not being understood because everybody tries to commoditize things. Yeah, and you when you lose the core process or the view of what that process needs? Like I'm sorry. Creativity is the same thing as it's always been for the history of time. Yep, creativity has never changed. Yeah, getting something from idea to finished product.
Speaker 3:It can take on different forms but in its essence, it's the same, no matter what. Whether you're in music, whether you're in film, whether you're in photography, whether you're in painting, whether you're in digital art, whether you're in television production or, you know, feature documentary, it doesn't matter, it's all, it's the same. Whether you're making a podcast, writing a book, making a magazine, it's the same core process. So, I think, outlining that process, and then I want to hear an argument from you for gatekeepers, a hundred percent Cause I'm just, you know, there's no definitive yes Gatekeepers, no gatekeepers. It's somewhere in the middle, as most things are. But I want to hear your argument for gatekeepers. I'm curious.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think the argument too is and this is something for me to think about is how do you create a gatekeeper in your own mind and in your own? This sounds corny, but your own heart Like. If you don't have a gatekeeper that's keeping you from putting your work out there, whether it's making a book or a video or whatever, should you create your own gatekeeper? You know a voice in your mind that says maybe this can be better. Yeah, now, there's pitfalls to that. You can sit there and edit and work on something. Endlessly Great works are never finished, they're only abandoned. You know we have all these sort of cliches and ideas that have come up through the you. You know centuries of creative processes that we all undergo, but do you think we're becoming?
Speaker 3:you know, we almost as a culture, went so far in one direction of, just like you said, think it, make it, put it out, yeah, and I think, like are we?
Speaker 2:we talked about that in the last episode is that?
Speaker 3:almost something where you like, we talk about this idea of don't let other people influence. You know your your work. That's something that a lot of people probably think is a cool. Like you know, you just make what you're making.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then we also have this other, you know, contrasting belief of look for good criticism and you know you and I will show each other work and just be like, hey, like, get in the pen, there is a. I think one of the keys is you have to have trust yeah, absolutely with the person. Yeah with their taste.
Speaker 2:With that, they understand what you're going for, that you understand, yes, that they're not going to impose their agenda or what?
Speaker 3:they would do with it.
Speaker 2:They're understanding your vision. Should we like?
Speaker 3:should we all be seeking out editors like? Should we all be like? You know it's a hard thing to do. You ask any professional editor. Yeah, every author thinks they don't need an editor. Right, right, every author is like no, no, no, I edit myself, it's perfect. But you get a great author with a great editor and the work kind of transcends yeah absolutely individual pieces, so does everybody need like? If you ask me, do you need an editor? I'd be like no, I'm. I'm a great, I'm my best editor.
Speaker 3:I think, but I like there's a part of me that's like I think I actually need an editor and that I think that's why I share work with you know, yeah, I want people to share work with I just wonder if there's if it's some me some mediums I think about painting.
Speaker 2:I'm like I don't really hear in the a painter's workflow external editors. Now, maybe there's a spouse or somebody and a particularly large undertaking, not size wise, but I I don't know or more.
Speaker 2:Maybe they're getting feedback from someone, but it just that you know, I've never, I've never really had in-depth conversations with painters, but when I look at like what I think the workflow is for a painter, I feel like there's so much self-editing going on um, but then at the same time, for a novelist, for musicians, you know, especially when you get in the studio and there's producers and your bandmates and all that stuff, you know there are some artistic expressions that that tend to have much more collaboration and some of those collaborators are great editors. Yeah, or a producer is a great editor, or you know you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I feel like it. It runs the spectrum and I think there are incidents where there's editing happening or gatekeeping, whatever it is, but someone has a really good person in their mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, like there's, there's a it's like a detector, and when the right, because all you're creating anything is just ideas yeah it's catching ideas and putting like and you. Part of that comes, I think, from just creating work. You tend to gain an eye yeah you're like this is right, this is wrong. Right, why? I don't. I don't know. You can step in and do it your way. In my eye, this is right, this is wrong, and that's that's how you start to see. That's why everything is subjective right, because everything is.
Speaker 3:There's a choice being made and you can take two things that are try to be objective and it's going to be subjective because of there's too many decisions for it not to be, and so I think you should lean into that and so I, I I would make the argument like editing, external editing, is not a necessity. But then I think of writing and how useful that can be sometimes to have, because I agree with you on painting. I don't know if it's you hear about. There's painter, a painter in this book and they talk about like she'll create, like she'll completely scratch out masterpieces yeah because she's working to get somewhere else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not like. You look at it and you're like the average viewer. That's amazing. Yeah right, it's not right though yeah I need. So it's completely subjective, right, but why is it with text? It's like and maybe that's not true. Like you know, moby dick is a behemoth and I'm sure, most people are like this thing could have been edited, yeah, but it loses the character it's not the work, if it's you know it's less but the but, the whole conversation is basically like being able to approach a piece of art as if it's just its own thing.
Speaker 3:Step out, pull the ego aside.
Speaker 2:The ego concept is so overused, that I almost don't like to say, oh you've got to transcend the ego.
Speaker 3:But I really think, like, I think great art empathizes with people, or it gives people the ability to empathize. Yeah, that's my perception. Yeah, other people might have a different perception of great. It might just be craft based or whatever, but my opinion great art helps supply empathy, and empathy has to be felt by diverse groups of people. Yeah, and for that to happen, you've got to, you've got to kind of be able to. It's it is two things at once. It's completely dialing in on what you feel with the thing, the thinking that other people have that same feeling, but then it's also completely removing yourself and just focusing on the through line of what that feeling is.
Speaker 2:Well, and I sit there and I think how much great work has come from a place of ego, how much great work. And the process may not have been good or fun for the collaborators or even for the individual if they were completely working on their own, but you know that there's amazing work out there that came from someone who is just just thinks they're pure ego Like I wonder.
Speaker 3:I wonder, though, like if you, if you lined it up, if there would be, if there's a difference, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I know in the, in the collaborative process, I would think that the amount of great work that would come out from what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:You know people that are just surrounding the piece of wood and they're trying to make what they're going to make the best it can be it's about. It's not about each individual and my idea got in there and I'm driving the show and all that stuff. And I know we've talked about Rick Rubin a million times, but I think about him writing this book, helping on this in this process. It's helping to, helping to identify um, at least in his experience, and then us relating our own experiences to it, uh, a way to, you know, to make things, uh, from a more truthful, honest, pure place and having an understanding of the simplicity, editing down all the forces at play and making something right, and that's something just cutting to the core of yeah, like what's trying to be even to the point where it's like, why do we do award shows and the best album and this and that, like, like the silliness of all of that and your work being a diary entry, you know that that stuff has been so revelatory for me.
Speaker 2:Um, in trying to trying to edit down the process to something that's simple, it doesn't mean that it's not complicated, that there's lots of steps, but that you're just focused on this and this and those two things doing their thing yeah um, and not I, I gotta get another video.
Speaker 2:I gotta get another video on it. I gotta do this Like. I gotta make sure the audience likes it. I gotta oh, I gotta follow up my hit with this thing I've got to. You know I can't. I can't do another album like that, because you know that one was, you know, didn't what you know all this stuff and it's like yeah you know you spend so much time thinking about it when, when, and then you.
Speaker 2:It's almost too exhausting, you have no time left to make anything. And I think, on the spectrum of editing, you know, that's like big picture sort of philosophical approach, and then there's like just practical editing you know, like we could go into the tools, whether it's pencils and pens that you like to use, and meet. You know a typewriter that helps me just sort of have a mechanism to edit without I think every and everybody's different.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, everybody.
Speaker 2:I did add a new note oh, we got a new note on the board you got a new note, you can see it.
Speaker 3:All the others are like sun aged, yeah, typefaces, I think a little size smaller oh yeah, a little little pika pika, let maybe 11 or whatever. This guy, though, now that I see you, what I hope, this is what I, whatever I miss this guy though. Oh yeah, now that I see you, this is what I have. I want this guy back. I want that little type set it back. Sold that typewriter, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:We got to get you a cursive one, maybe, and see what you think about that. Yeah, there's too much Too much.
Speaker 3:I can't do, it Can't do it. Two, two. Anyways, it supports the mission. Yeah yeah, it was just like a reminder for myself. Yep, like technology's there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's not, it doesn't you know? Oh, this was on a typewriter, this is on this camera, or doesn't matter? Right? I wrote this in pencil.
Speaker 2:I need that iBook G3 or else I can't write another word. It's about the ideas. That's it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it doesn't matter how you capture them, how you get them down and that goes for everybody but find what works, right, I think.
Speaker 2:Something that was interesting about ideas, like like a little bit, for me, um, editing goes like. There's times where, like it's um, think it, feel it, make it right, it's just bam, just get it out. And then think it feel it, make it right, it's just bam, just get it out. And then there's other things where there's an editing process where I'll say to myself I'll think of something and I'm like that'd be a great article or that might be a good video, or I should explore that more. And I'll say to myself if you're still thinking about it, in a week then jump in.
Speaker 3:Yeah that, I do that all the time. That's the internal gatekeeper, right.
Speaker 2:Like, let time help you determine if it's got that kind of staying power.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if it has legs and if it disappears into the ether, and sometimes it'll disappear and come back a year or two later. Yeah, that's happened to me before, and so I probably regretted.
Speaker 2:I like I think you know, maybe not writing something down and sort of letting that process just sort of. I mean, I'm sure I've had stuff that's just gone.
Speaker 3:I'll never, it'll never I love to write things down, yeah, but sometimes I'll write it down and then I won't revisit it for a while.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, and we talked about this in the episode where we talked about guy clark writing la freeway right, he just wrote the words down, yeah. Then it became a while, yeah, um. And we talked about this in the episode where we talked about guy clark writing la freeway right, he just wrote the words down, yeah, then it became a thing later yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that, yeah, that phrase just kind of stuck with them.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, but no, I think. I think we are all in the process of if you're going to move towards a world without gatekeepers, which is a noble goal.
Speaker 2:Without external gatekeepers, maybe Without external gatekeepers.
Speaker 3:I think a gate the argument I'm trying to make or that I could make here. I'm not trying to make any argument, I don't know how I feel about this completely. I think gatekeepers are necessary in some way or another, like there has to be a bar that you have to get over.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Or else you'll just put everything out Right, and there has to be, maybe there doesn't has to be is. But you know, I think it's probably a good thing for there to be a bar, yeah, probably a good thing for there to be a bar, yeah. And when? That's not when you, when you introduce externalities into that, you get bureaucracy you get ego. You get, yeah, commerce, vacation of things that shouldn't be um.
Speaker 3:Viewed that way, you get politics and power clashes exactly all that stuff so if we're saying that that's bad and we want to take that stuff out of it, I think there is still a core requirement for a gate. So we're all having to learn how to be that for ourselves. Yeah and I think, just just as much to have relationships with right, with collaborators who you can trust to do that well, and each person in the equation has a function.
Speaker 2:Right, the artist is making the work. Right, it's coming from their perspective, they're channeling their vision through what they're making right and a gatekeeper or an editor or whatever, just as much as we want the artist to have truth, purity, all that kind of stuff in what they're making a lack of ego, a lack of I got to get another video out like all these forces right, that just just them and the work.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We want the same thing from the gatekeeper. It's not about well. The publishing company hasn't had a hit in a while and they were like whatever and like that. Force is at play.
Speaker 3:Or you know, the writer kind of slighted me on something and now I'm going to have that shade in my notes and whatever you know or my ego for my career pursuits.
Speaker 2:There's a great scene in um the show on HBO uh, not HBO max max um about, uh, the one to watch Julia childs. It's uh, I think it's called Julia the show Julia, and she works with an editor at a big publishing house and there's some line that the woman gives out. But you can tell from her perspective.
Speaker 2:There was a frustrated writer that you know didn't get his work through her as a gatekeeper and all that stuff and she said something, but there was just a sense from her that she is gatekeeping for all the right reasons. Like it's about the work, like you have to ascend to greatness, you have to do your part and.
Speaker 3:I, I just you know, I think even, her.
Speaker 2:Even her boss was like you just have such impeccable taste and you see it, you know, and and the purity of her seeing the good work, or the potential for it to become good work, with this input, that input, you know, this criticism, constructive criticism, not destructive criticism, and it was really really poignant, um, and I think that's, you know, that's ideally the. The takeaway from this conversation I don't think we've arrived there yet is not necessarily like coming up with a regimented process and what the role of editing plays in your process, whether you're a painter, a writer, a photographer or whatever, but just having more awareness of like, what is the process from when you think of think up something as photographing satellite dishes.
Speaker 2:So we we kind of veered off yeah with so like imagine that what is what is? The process in your mind, like just to clarify that I don't know.
Speaker 3:See, I'm sort of saying I'm saying this out loud, because I'm saying, I'm telling myself like maybe matt, you need like if you had you were talking about, like the consulting, like if you had to consult on a process how would you lay it out? Maybe that's how we wrap here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lay out what you think that, and I think it's tough because I, you know, I'm occupying so many different disciplines, I guess, from YouTube content creator to photography. Um, you know, back in my screen writing days, I did have a very sort of like I I had edited down impulsivity and whatever, down to a mixture of both structure and process, with spontaneity, impulsiveness, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:It's interesting because how I edit my writing is different than how I edit a photo.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, versus how I edit a project like a film project, absolutely Very different.
Speaker 2:I mean gosh, gosh, there's so much, there's so much, it's. It's everything from driving in your car and all of a sudden, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna go do street photography during a solar eclipse, which you know was almost how it happened like I'm just this thing's happening, I'm just gonna impulsively react and go do it. Okay, so the process has started, right, you know what? Know what is that process?
Speaker 2:Idea presents itself, yeah, going the actual process of taking photographs, the mechanical, technical aspects of managing the tool, the camera, the self-editing you're doing take a picture, don't take a picture, shooting on digital versus film, and the differences between where your brain is with what whether or not something's worthy of a photograph and film versus digital. Um, and then even with film, uh, getting your film developed. I mean, I have rolls of film that I shot two, two months ago, that I I I probably have forgotten the photographs I took, yeah. And then with digital, you know, capture it and start the editing process. And I've even come up with a little process where I have all the raw photos. I have a folder that I call selects and I have a folder that I call super selects.
Speaker 3:Yeah and so, oh yeah, no, I'll do, I'll do the raw, then I call it one star two star yeah, and then yep, maybe three maybe three, yeah, and so, and if something is like hitting after five years then maybe that makes it to like four stars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just light room talk but yeah, so I'm not trying to tell, like, like you know, prescribe what the process should be for photographers, but I do want to be more thoughtful as I experiment in different art forms with different disciplines, it's important to have time to think while you're doing it or to have time to think about the process to have like.
Speaker 3:So you talk about we.
Speaker 3:We talked about the pta thing like yes, he'll step yeah, and one thing that I didn't mention there is he, I think he also also. It might. It was either. It was one, one of the major kind of American directors and they talked about they have to step away, like they'll take time off. Yes, got to step away, absolutely. So do you think it's important to give yourself barriers like that? So if you're taking photos, you know, maybe you get the idea, maybe you take them impulsively, but then maybe you step away for a couple of weeks before you pick them back up.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I and I have to learn that process, because most of my experience with photography so far has been making content which is completely different than, you know, a gallery exhibit or a photography book. My process of choosing what I would put in a, in a book or in a gallery, would be completely different than what I'm choosing to show in a YouTube video. Um, and then I think a question to ask that we don't have to get into but to think about is well, why should it be? Yeah, Maybe your YouTube video should be more of a uh, more analogous or synonymous with a photo exhibit or a photo book, and less a piece of content. That has, to me, a subtext of get it done, get it done, send it, send it, send it, make it. I think about this all the time. I think about baseball writers and I'm like there's an art form to that, but there's also a sort of like a discipline to, but there's also a sort of like a discipline to providing the thing that serves commerce.
Speaker 3:You got to write about the ball game to put in the paper to sell the paper, right. You've got your template to a lot of them.
Speaker 2:They've got a template they can come in, so and so, okay, fill it in 162 games a year, plus playoffs and World Series, and these guys and gals have to write a story for the game after every game while they're while they're doing it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I sit there and I go. It's OK that I sat at the coffee shop and cranked out an article for Medium and just like lightly edit it. I've also probably been thinking about it for a couple of weeks and did some editing there. Yeah, and you know, just just send it. So part of me goes. You know, can I be a little bit easier on myself with content, because I am a baseball writer for some of this stuff?
Speaker 2:and for others. You know, the baseball writer has a novel they're working on and they're not writing it like they do their baseball games, but they could also really make great work content in the form of what they write about with the baseball game.
Speaker 3:Um, you know sure there's great metaphor yeah, yeah there's restrictions on the language that can't get too flowery and prosy, because yeah, when you're writing baseball beats, it's yeah, it's basically an experiment in syntax yeah, and you've got a, you've got a structure that you just but it's not clinical and sort of like you've got your go-to metaphors.
Speaker 2:You've got your couple of blah like couple of well and you're and you're also watching the game going. What are the moments where my you know whatever, and how do I translate that into the work? And while I have restraint, you have to be restrained, and how flowery or sort of um the, the reading level or vocabulary choices.
Speaker 2:I make for the average reader, et cetera, et cetera. I can still transfer the experience and story of the game to the article while also giving information. You know what the stats were, you know how many, you know whatever, this incredible moment at the guy hit a grand slam, whatever. Um, so I like kind of thinking about how what I do is sometimes writing a baseball game article and then other times making work, and I want to make more work because I just haven't done enough of that. Um, especially with photography and and and some of my YouTube videos. Like it's okay to have taken a month to make that video.
Speaker 2:And I think that's what I really like about your channel is a lot of times the lack thereof right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but that's okay.
Speaker 2:But I think maybe that's also part of it. Yeah, you were feeling oh, it's part of the charm you were feeling like I'm turning into the baseball writer and not that that's a negative connotation, but I'm serving-.
Speaker 3:I think also, yeah, and some people can do it yeah, I can.
Speaker 2:I feel you can baseball right, and that's not to say you can't do the other things right I can't baseball right yeah, yeah, I just can't like, I'm not like, this is the closest thing to baseball. Writing that I've got.
Speaker 3:And then also I think it's funny though, in this episode about editing like it is as clearly unedited of like we are just trailing off At least we're still recording yeah, on one camera.
Speaker 1:But no, I think it had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer and summer, Thank you.