# [[MFP47 - "when a youtuber shares their secret sauce" with Danny Boyd from CinemaStix]] Transcript
This transcription was completed on March 4, 2026 with the application MacWhisper on macOS. This was done automatically, without human input during the transcription process. The transcription used the Parakeet v3 model.
My hope is that by offering this transcription – however accurate it may be done by a machine learning/AI – will help you, the listener. I’d love to offer full, proper transcription some day, but that is not feasible at this time. Thank you for listening and reading. I hope you enjoy the show and that this document was helpful. Enjoy.
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Hello everybody and welcome to the Max Frequency Podcast.
*00:00*
I am your host, Max Roberts, and I have the distinct honor and privilege of being joined this time by none other than Danny Boyd, Cinema Sticks.
*00:03*
Hello, Danny, how are you?
*00:11*
Hello, thank you for having me.
*00:13*
I'm very good.
*00:15*
Uh I was telling you before the show, thank you.
*00:17*
Uh, because I originally I don't even know if you saw this.
*00:20*
But I originally tried to reach out to you and the only way that I could find to communicate with you was Instagram.
*00:23*
And I and I haven't used Instagram in years.
*00:29*
So I sent you a message on there, but then
*00:33*
You started a newsletter.
*00:36*
And I got the newsletter.
*00:37*
I was like, oh, wait a minute.
*00:38*
I can I can respond to the newsletter and give it a shot.
*00:40*
And you uh you responded, so thank you.
*00:44*
That's I'm so glad.
*00:47*
I I think it's a little odd that you can respond to the newsletter.
*00:49*
Like it's literally just from my email address and so you can respond and it's just
*00:52*
directly emailing me, which I don't know.
*00:59*
It doesn't seem like that's what a newsletter should do.
*01:01*
But clearly in this case it was a good thing.
*01:04*
And I'm sorry if I didn't respond to your in uh Instagram.
*01:06*
Oh, you're totally you're totally fine.
*01:09*
I uh I just throw things out there and if they come back, they come back.
*01:12*
That's uh that's the idea when I do these sorts of things.
*01:16*
Um For those who may not be aware
*01:19*
Danny, you do video essays on film and sometimes television over on YouTube.
*01:23*
I came across your work
*01:30*
A few months ago.
*01:32*
I actually saw your Batman video a while ago and didn't make the connection until I was going through everything.
*01:34*
Your um animated movie, the um Phantasm.
*01:41*
But your uh your born identity video, the algorithm dogged me to watch it, and it was good.
*01:46*
A very good thing because I found all these videos and really
*01:53*
Uh, you reminded me of what I was missing when every frame of painting left and stopped making videos.
*01:57*
I feel like you are the reincarnate of those two over on every frame of painting.
*02:04*
So
*02:09*
This has been like a huge treat just to like have this back catalog of videos and essays to go watch.
*02:10*
So I definitely recommend everyone go watch all of those.
*02:15*
But up here at the top, I was just kind of curious what was the last movie you watched?
*02:19*
The last movie I watched
*02:27*
Um I guess uh it uh Tuesday.
*02:30*
I I go to a movie every Tuesday with a friend.
*02:33*
Um I'm really bad at seeing new films.
*02:36*
He texts me every week, he's like, You wanna see this?
*02:39*
I'll get tickets.
*02:41*
I say yes.
*02:41*
I don't even like
*02:42*
Pay attention to what the movie is.
*02:43*
If I don't know it, I don't look it up.
*02:45*
Anything I just go.
*02:46*
Okay.
*02:48*
In this case it was um
*02:48*
I mean, in this case, it was Mission Impossible eight.
*02:51*
Final reckoning.
*02:54*
Um Yeah.
*02:55*
I I
*02:59*
I did make a point not to watch any trailers.
*03:00*
You know, I didn't want to know what the big stunt was.
*03:02*
Um but yes, we went to see Mr.
*03:05*
Moss Blade.
*03:08*
I did the same thing of like I know I'm gonna enjoy Tom Cruise doing dangerous life through any instance.
*03:09*
Like I don't need to see
*03:16*
The movie trailers ruin it all.
*03:18*
And and and the last one, Seven Dead Reckoning, there was there was so much coverage of his big motorcycle stunt.
*03:21*
And like and I watched it because
*03:29*
It was on YouTube and I was like, Oh yeah, that's so cool and you know, and but then when it came in the movie I was like Yeah, I know So um yeah.
*03:31*
So I I really wanted to go in blind
*03:41*
Um yeah, I mean it was well, I don't want to give anything away because it's so new.
*03:44*
Um I am a big fan of the franchise.
*03:50*
I've covered the first one on the channel.
*03:52*
The first one being pretty different from the rest.
*03:55*
It's more of a like Euro noir spy
*03:58*
You know, uh I don't know, like it's it it's it's really vibey.
*04:04*
It's really if you watch it and two back to back, uh you'll be able to do it.
*04:09*
Oh yeah, especially two.
*04:14*
Right.
*04:15*
Uh yeah, no, totally.
*04:16*
It was like a totally experimental franchise until four five and then, you know, Christopher Macquarie took over the rest of the films as opposed to one director per film for
*04:17*
for four or five films.
*04:28*
Um and they started to become a bit more cohesive, I guess.
*04:30*
But um yeah
*04:36*
Yeah.
*04:39*
I will say uh five five Rogue uh a Rogue Nation, that is um that is one of my favorite movies
*04:41*
I I'm partial to Fallout.
*04:49*
I um I think the whole final sequence there in Fallout is um probably pound for pound one of my favorite just action.
*04:52*
Tension, build up, all the things, you know.
*05:03*
What's not to love about nuclear bombs and helicopters?
*05:07*
Yeah, they could have stopped there.
*05:10*
And I would have been absolutely fine.
*05:12*
Fallout was a great, great like just
*05:14*
just sort of culmination of what that franchise is good at.
*05:17*
Yeah.
*05:21*
I I think about that um the image of
*05:21*
Why am I blanking his name?
*05:26*
Superman.
*05:27*
Whoever was Superman.
*05:28*
Henry Cavill, yeah.
*05:30*
Yes, Henry.
*05:31*
Uh reloading his arms in the bathroom fight.
*05:32*
I think about that image far too much in my life.
*05:35*
Yeah.
*05:38*
He's so good in that movie.
*05:39*
Um I'm so glad that he got to keep his mustache
*05:41*
for that.
*05:46*
You know that the sacrifice was not made on that movie.
*05:46*
It was made on on the more I forgot they did that for Superman.
*05:50*
Yeah.
*05:55*
Oh man.
*05:55*
Oh gosh.
*05:56*
Oh well.
*05:57*
Oh oh well
*05:57*
Um I wanted to I wanted to gauge since here we go.
*06:00*
This is what I'm thinking.
*06:09*
So last year
*06:10*
Every frame of painting came back for a little limited run.
*06:12*
And then they they put out a short film that the two of them and and a team made called uh The Second, which uh was I liked it.
*06:16*
And in that time, obviously you had um started well cinemastics has been around for a while in different carnations, which I want to talk to you about here in just a moment.
*06:26*
But
*06:36*
based off at least the timeline of things, you were you were in the groove.
*06:37*
You're doing the thing you're doing now.
*06:40*
And I'm curious what it f and they were an inspiration for you, it seemed, in in the newsletter that I was reading.
*06:43*
So I was curious
*06:49*
How you felt when you saw that they were going to come back for this limited run.
*06:51*
Obviously, when I saw it, I was very, very excited.
*06:55*
But for you, I'm just I'm curious because you were a fan, but now you're also
*06:58*
doing the same sort of thing.
*07:04*
I I don't know.
*07:07*
How did it feel?
*07:07*
What d what did you think about it?
*07:08*
Well, I did think about it.
*07:10*
Um
*07:13*
Yeah, I mean when I saw that, I got very excited.
*07:14*
I I mean, they were hugely influential on me.
*07:19*
Um and
*07:25*
When I saw the announcement, I was like, oh boy, like, you know, the algorithm has changed a lot.
*07:30*
And my first thoughts went to what
*07:35*
W w how are they like, what's gonna happen for them?
*07:40*
Like when they come back into this space after I don't know, like eight years or something?
*07:44*
Um
*07:49*
Like, I hope that there's a huge group of people waiting for them, but there's also you know, YouTube, it's like dog ears, you know.
*07:51*
Um
*08:00*
You know, there are like uh um generations of viewers that happen very, very rapidly and a lot of people who might be really into video essays who
*08:02*
at least didn't get into them when every frame of painting was coming out, even if they've discovered them, you know, in their in their and
*08:12*
Postmortem years.
*08:22*
And I made an announcement on my channel just saying, hey, I just got this news, this is happening.
*08:25*
And and I and like a lot of people didn't know.
*08:32*
and we're finding out for the first time.
*08:34*
And um so I sort of waited anxiously for it to drop and, you know, watch their views and stuff like that.
*08:37*
This is where I'm probably gonna get in trouble.
*08:44*
I
*08:47*
I haven't watched them.
*08:48*
I I made a bit of a decision a couple years ago to sort of um
*08:50*
swear off watching video essays.
*09:00*
I, you know, learned everything that I knew going in.
*09:03*
from channels like them and from watching and re watching and obsessing over how they do it, how they edit, how they write, how they narrate and
*09:09*
what types of things they cover, every frame of painting specifically and tons of other channels too.
*09:21*
And you get to this point where at least I do, it's like
*09:27*
I want to be able to talk about anything I want to talk about.
*09:34*
And if I discover something really interesting, I want to be able to talk about it.
*09:36*
And
*09:41*
I I watch things and I'm like, damn, that is so interesting.
*09:42*
I wish I had made a video on that.
*09:46*
Or now I can't make a video on that.
*09:49*
And and so I've sort of chosen to live in
*09:52*
in ignorance of what other people are covering so that I can just make any decision I want to at any given time.
*09:56*
and know that if I pick a topic that's already been covered, I won't know it's already been covered.
*10:06*
And as a result,
*10:13*
you know, it it it just it won't be influenced because that's sort of my greatest fear is is um
*10:15*
Yeah, I mean just not not being original, I guess.
*10:25*
And this happened once.
*10:30*
I I made a video on on um
*10:31*
baby driver once and and it did really really well but then I discovered in comments um the first day it came out from people being like, uh this video already exists, somebody else did it.
*10:34*
And I found that video and I was like, damn, yeah, this is like the exact same topic with the exact same sources.
*10:47*
Like I know what article they used because that was the article that
*10:54*
my read and thought was so fascinating, or this interview with the costume designer specifically in this case, and
*10:57*
And this one interview with a director that talked about the same stuff.
*11:05*
And I didn't go watch that video because I was so afraid of like, did I just make the exact same thing?
*11:09*
So uh I as someone uh I told you this before we started recording, but I graduated in journalism and
*11:17*
When I write reviews about anything, I never read anyone else's coverage about said thing until I'm done with my review.
*11:27*
Like I don't especially in a well I guess in post you know, launch of reviews and things like post embargo.
*11:38*
I never want to read what other people think about something out of that fear that like what they're saying, their words, their like strings are gonna be
*11:46*
Even if it's subconscious, bubble up through, and then suddenly it's not original in some way, or at least wholly me.
*11:58*
I mean
*12:05*
you can pull influence from things.
*12:07*
I mean if two people who do film essays find an interview with a costume designer on the film Baby Driver interesting
*12:09*
The like logical conclusions on those probably end up all in the same place.
*12:19*
So it's then it comes down to personal style, editing, how you present the information.
*12:24*
Um, which is always unique.
*12:31*
But then you get but I always uh like you, I try to stay away from things that I watch or listen to.
*12:33*
I don't listen to video game podcasts uh anymore because
*12:41*
In part I don't have the time, but also I don't I don't want their style structure ideas to like
*12:45*
Come off into what I do, bleed in.
*12:56*
I want to make my own sort of thing and pull inspiration from other places outside of
*12:59*
That niche.
*13:05*
That format, yeah.
*13:06*
Oh, a hundred percent.
*13:08*
Like I I'll pull an idea from a a tech podcast or uh maybe
*13:09*
just an unrelated interview or another sh or or or a YouTube video, like things that are different.
*13:15*
But I don't want to pull from a a video game podcast.
*13:22*
You know what I'm saying?
*13:26*
Yeah.
*13:28*
I mean, like Right, exactly.
*13:28*
I if if I'm just
*13:32*
smothering myself in video essays all the time, then w what I'm um uh learning
*13:34*
about how to edit and how to do music and how to do sound effects and what kind of footage to use.
*13:43*
It's being it's being informed by
*13:48*
by other people in yeah, in the same niche and it it begins to create
*13:54*
uh uh homogeny in the format and so like you're saying I mean
*14:02*
Uh yeah, I mean there is similarities between podcasts and video essays, but they are different formats and a lot of my influence for a while before I really started to kind of find my voice
*14:11*
was in like Radio Lab and and like just podcasts and radio shows like that were um, you know, they were doing really interesting things with edits and with sound and I was like, oh, cool.
*14:24*
Like that's
*14:36*
that's used in that space, can it be used in this space?
*14:38*
And I just like the comfort of knowing that if I'm only looking for inspiration in things that are not exactly what I'm doing
*14:42*
then uh I you know, I just I'll just feel I don't know, I'll feel better.
*14:52*
Like I'll feel like I'm I'm I'm
*14:59*
uh hopefully breathing some new life into what I'm doing and maybe I'll inspire other people and and other people will find things in what I do that is good for their video essays, but
*15:02*
Um I just yeah, I I I I I want I want so you you really have to be distinct in any media to stand out.
*15:15*
And I think the
*15:28*
the simplest way to do that is to have influences but diversify them as much as you can.
*15:30*
Holy agree.
*15:38*
I wholly agree with that.
*15:39*
I want to jump into
*15:40*
what I've been internally calling the cinemastics timeline, which you you roughly kind of etched out in this newsletter that you sent.
*15:44*
At the beginning of May?
*15:53*
You're sending the newsletters, I think, like so the June edition theoretically would be coming out soon for your next one.
*15:55*
Thanks for reminding me, yeah.
*16:02*
And so in that letter, you closed it all out basically with this
*16:07*
Loose recap of what I wrote down as basically like starting, stopping, retrying, relaunching, rebooting, doing all the things to try and make
*16:16*
A channel work on YouTube and talk about film.
*16:28*
All the way from going to the movie theater and taking notes and and coming home and just talking to the camera about whatever it is you saw.
*16:32*
to uh alternate channels, to a channel that you only name, but uh we don't I it sounded like a video game thing, maybe we'll talk about that, but
*16:40*
And then b coming back to Cinema Sticks itself, which was a channel that you had at one point, and then it turned into the thing it is today.
*16:50*
And that really resonated with me as someone who's been making and creating things online for
*17:00*
Almost two decades now, which is a horrific thing to say out loud.
*17:07*
Ironically, uh completely unplanned today, the day we're recording this, what is it, the 29th of May, is the 17th
*17:11*
year I've done podcasting.
*17:20*
Um and all I can think about when I say that is the wake of podcasts that I've left in in my dust.
*17:23*
Um of different things, of trying new things, launching things, trying new formats.
*17:29*
um and always trying to make it work in some way and coming back and reinventing and things like that.
*17:34*
And
*17:41*
I don't know, this little journey that little in the sense of it was only a few paragraphs.
*17:43*
Not that it wasn't a long span of time, but it really
*17:48*
hit home with me that the way you talked about burnout, but encouragement from other people and then
*17:53*
finding your voice and launching it.
*18:02*
And so I really wanted to, I guess, ask you about that journey in a little bit more detail and
*18:03*
get the feels of it a little bit 'cause what so it's been twenty nineteen's what I had written down for like when you were talking to a camera movie review style.
*18:12*
And that, I think, kind of echoes back to what we were just talking about.
*18:20*
That's kind of what everyone was doing on YouTube then.
*18:24*
Like, oh, I'm I just saw, gosh, what Avengers movie came out in 2019.
*18:26*
I don't know.
*18:31*
Uh and then you're talking you talk about it or what have you.
*18:32*
Yeah.
*18:37*
How yeah.
*18:38*
I g mm, I don't even know quite how to phrase like the start of this question, but I guess what
*18:39*
Why YouTube and why make videos?
*18:46*
What compelled you, I guess, in the first place?
*18:48*
Because I think that is the thing that is the constant through all of this.
*18:49*
Mm-hmm.
*18:54*
Yeah.
*18:55*
Um yeah, I'm I'm pretty bad with dates.
*18:56*
When I wrote those paragraphs I had to look all this stuff up of like when when did I do that?
*18:59*
Um
*19:05*
Yeah, 2019 was was was when I started talking about movies.
*19:06*
I think
*19:14*
Shortly before that, I made the decision of just generally, oh YouTube, how interesting.
*19:16*
I want to do that.
*19:23*
and you know, me and everybody else, right?
*19:25*
I mean, I there's there's a a a a local school I I went to in elementary school here, um, where I am in New York and and one of my old teachers
*19:29*
coworkers has recently asked me to come in and talk to the kids about YouTube because they all want to be YouTubers, you know.
*19:39*
Um they don't want to be
*19:46*
m the type of YouTuber I am, I don't think I think they want to be influencers and I I don't know how much I can share about that but um to them or, you know, give them good news.
*19:48*
But
*19:58*
But I I wanted to uh I I think they want I I think the adults in that situation want me to give a cautionary tale to them.
*20:00*
Um
*20:09*
Anyway, but I yeah, I thought, gee, like I wanna I wanna work for myself.
*20:10*
I wanna, you know, be independent and all that stuff.
*20:17*
And uh maybe I can do this.
*20:20*
I don't I don't really know what kinda lit a fire under me, but it didn't it didn't start with movies.
*20:23*
It started with video games
*20:29*
Um and it was just a simple like, okay, I love this thing and this is a medium to talk about it and maybe one day make money and um maybe I can combine them.
*20:30*
And um so I think it was okay, it was again I'm bad with dates, but it was whenever Kingdom Hearts 3 was about to come out.
*20:45*
That was when I
*20:54*
decided I'm gonna review video games.
*20:57*
What a game, what a game to come in on.
*21:00*
Uh gosh, what a ride.
*21:03*
What a
*21:04*
Whoo how to ride that game.
*21:05*
This is gonna be the biggest game of the decade.
*21:11*
Like this is the thing to do, and then it was
*21:13*
I mean whatever, I won't talk about it, but that would take over the whole entire show.
*21:15*
Yes, that was
*21:25*
That was uh yeah, that was a wrench in it.
*21:27*
But um so during my sort of video game phase, which um I don't know if you mentioned it, I think I mentioned it in in those paragraphs something called Pennyboxle.
*21:30*
There was a
*21:40*
I was curious if that was a gaming thing.
*21:41*
Yeah, originally it was.
*21:43*
So I penny box.
*21:45*
It was like I was really into stamps at the time and there's there's like a very famous old
*21:48*
stamp called the penny black and I thought that was just a really cool sounding thing and then I thought, okay, what's like a a a vaguely video gamey graphical word
*21:54*
Um so anyway, I created Pennyboxel and and um and the whole theme of the channel, like design-wise, was
*22:04*
like mail instead of the case.
*22:12*
I've found it.
*22:14*
I found it on YouTube.
*22:15*
Oh god.
*22:17*
Um yeah, so uh um
*22:18*
Within that, I would not recommend watching anything on there.
*22:23*
But within that, I tried everything.
*22:26*
I tried video game reviews, I tried let's plays, I tried um comedy stuff, I tried like
*22:28*
songs I think I tried um essentially essays.
*22:35*
I tried news.
*22:39*
Um I was just like I'm gonna talk about video games
*22:41*
And um it was really quick before I basically got burned out.
*22:45*
I mean
*22:52*
or realize like I'm completely uh ruining the fun of one of my favorite things in the world.
*22:53*
Um because the pressure that gets put
*22:59*
on you trying to complete a video game, especially early on.
*23:03*
I mean eventually you'll get you know, you'll get pre-release codes and you'll have
*23:09*
I was gonna say not really.
*23:21*
Not now.
*23:22*
Yeah.
*23:23*
Not not now.
*23:24*
I know.
*23:25*
I know.
*23:25*
It's
*23:26*
Oh god, yeah, the state of the industry.
*23:26*
But um certainly without even uh you know, three days or one day or whatever, um, if you're unlucky
*23:29*
uh you know, if it it comes out that day, everyone's playing it and you're like, Oh god, I'm gonna beat this game, I'm gonna write about it and think about it and make a video about it I mean it's like impossible and it takes all uh all the fun out of playing games for me 'cause
*23:38*
I'm a very slow burner when it comes to playing and um I was like I can't do this, it's just completely ruining everything.
*23:53*
Um
*24:00*
And so I was like, but I still want to do YouTube.
*24:02*
So what about movies?
*24:06*
I can ruin movies for myself.
*24:08*
Like whatever.
*24:09*
Um They're they're shorter and there are more of them
*24:11*
So um This is true.
*24:15*
So like yeah, I got this.
*24:19*
And I I was like, I'm gonna review them, I'm gonna go to the movies, I'm gonna write things down, I'm gonna come home, as you said.
*24:21*
I'm gonna come home, I'm gonna
*24:28*
I'm gonna, you know, turn the camera on and I'm gonna talk about it.
*24:30*
And I can do that, you know, in like an hour after seeing it day of and um see what happens
*24:33*
I don't remember what I I reviewed some really random movies.
*24:41*
I think I went to see like Hellboy 2019.
*24:44*
Um and like
*24:48*
Highwaymen or like some Netflix movie or something.
*24:50*
Um I was just trying everything.
*24:54*
And but yeah, like you say, everyone's doing it and you realize that
*24:56*
really quick.
*24:59*
There's this weird, weird, I don't know how it is now.
*25:00*
I'm sure it's the same.
*25:03*
Almost almost toxic like
*25:05*
low run community of of m movie reviewers on on YouTube.
*25:09*
A bunch of people who do it the exact same way, which is just, you know, their opinions on camera.
*25:15*
and who are so, you know, in need of subs and views that they're all just doing sub for sub with each other.
*25:21*
And like the only people who comment on or who find and comment on your movie reviews are other people reviewing those movies
*25:33*
And it's really useless because they subscribe, they expect you to subscribe, but then they never watch your stuff again because they're out there doing exactly what you're doing.
*25:43*
They don't need to watch your movie review.
*25:50*
So you don't grow
*25:52*
And um there were a few channels that I like, you know, kept track of throughout that process to see like, are they growing?
*25:54*
What are they doing that I could be doing and
*26:03*
And th they're basically two movie like two classic movie review channels on YouTube and they've been around forever and it's
*26:06*
Th whatever, they've been around forever you e just you can't compete with them.
*26:17*
You have to do something different if you want to review movies.
*26:20*
And um
*26:22*
Yeah, and it was around then that I discovered the the video essay format and um via Nerdwriter at that point and who is still basically the king.
*26:25*
I
*26:36*
I forget exact I think I think by that point every frame of painting had already retired.
*26:37*
Um and I hadn't discovered them yet.
*26:43*
Um so Nerdwriter for me was like
*26:46*
that was the answer and and that was what I obsessed over and that's what I studied and r decided I can do this.
*26:49*
I think that seems fun.
*26:57*
That seems like I can put my own kind of creative spin on things and
*26:59*
it looks way more interesting to to make than than, you know, the traditional movie review.
*27:03*
So
*27:11*
I yeah, started doing it.
*27:11*
I guess so was you reviewing them that film craft channel that you talked about?
*27:15*
I'm
*27:20*
Yeah, oh let me kind of run through the timeline better than that.
*27:21*
Cause that was like the conception of the idea and that was
*27:27*
Th that that was Cinemestix.
*27:30*
So there was Pennyvoxel gaming and that became PennyVoxel Cinema, which I think was the movie reviews.
*27:33*
Uh or early movie reviews.
*27:40*
And that quickly
*27:42*
turned into cinemastics.
*27:44*
I think it's even possible that the physical or whatever the physical cinema sticks channel that exists today, um
*27:46*
was once Pennyboxel Cinema and I changed the name.
*27:56*
I can't remember if I started a new channel or not.
*27:59*
Um but I remember I was yeah.
*28:02*
I was reviewing movies and I was like, wait, Cinema Sticks, that's a good name.
*28:04*
I'm taking credit for it.
*28:09*
There are other people in my life who take credit for it.
*28:10*
I don't know who came up with it.
*28:13*
But the idea was that it sounded like cinnamon sticks and um which you only really realize when you say it out loud.
*28:14*
And I was like, Yes, great.
*28:21*
I'm gonna review movies and I'm gonna have like the the sweet and the bitter a as if
*28:23*
that's what sentiment is comprised of, which it's not really.
*28:29*
Um that was my whole conceit and um cinema circles born
*28:33*
And uh yeah, and then so I reviewed a few movies and then I I switched to video essays.
*28:40*
And so Cinemastics went for a while in that form and that was where I learned
*28:45*
how it all works and what I wanna do and how I wanna do it and I tried out a lot of stuff and some of it was good and some of it wasn't.
*28:52*
My my first success was a video on Joker, when Joker first came out.
*29:00*
Um and Joker is in Joaquin Phoenix Joker?
*29:05*
Yes, although
*29:10*
Can't remember if it was like really about the movie or if it was kind of about Batman sort of leading up to that film, because I think I managed to get that video out like right around when the when the movie came out and luckily the movie was big.
*29:14*
And um it it did I mean the video did okay, I mean for a channel with like no subs.
*29:27*
Um and I so I had some successes and a lot of failures and um you know, it was unpredictable like
*29:36*
Sometimes I get seven hundred views, which it's not nothing, but then other times I was getting ten thousand.
*29:46*
And it was like, Well, I need to be getting ten thousand every time because otherwise I just don't understand like
*29:51*
uh who's watching and w I I'm not seeing things grow or escalate.
*29:58*
So I don't know.
*30:06*
It 'cause you're you're not making any money at that point.
*30:07*
It really takes a lot of viewership
*30:10*
to sustain you and I had to make money in other ways and it's a lot of time.
*30:12*
And um so during the pandemic early on I
*30:18*
Gave up I I wanted to start fresh basically.
*30:27*
I felt like the Cinema Six channel was so like old and had been through so many weird
*30:30*
phases and trials and errors and stuff that I thought maybe it's just like algorithmically like confused.
*30:37*
Like I don't know.
*30:44*
Like maybe.
*30:45*
And especially if it was penny voxel
*30:46*
Gaming side movies at one point.
*30:48*
Yeah, YouTube doesn't you know, and maybe that's not true, but I couldn't take a chance.
*30:52*
I just I needed to like take what I knew
*30:57*
take what I'd learned and and um apply it to something fresh.
*31:00*
And um so yeah, I started a channel called Filmcraft.
*31:04*
Separate channel
*31:09*
I um completely ignored cinemastics.
*31:10*
I b I think I unlisted like everything on there and I
*31:14*
made a bunch of new videos and I put them on Filmcraft and I would say Filmcraft got to r
*31:19*
It didn't I actually think that Cinema 6 had about 10,000 subs when I abandoned it.
*31:28*
Um Filmcraft I think got to about half that in a much shorter period of time
*31:35*
'cause I knew a lot more at that point about how to how to do things and um again I had some successes and mostly not.
*31:41*
And um
*31:49*
Yeah, that was I guess mid pandemic or something, and I was just ready to to stop.
*31:52*
I mean, I had
*31:59*
I just I had to you know, I had to move on with my life.
*32:01*
Like I I had set goals and they weren't getting met and um and that was gonna be it.
*32:03*
And then a really good friend of mine
*32:11*
Um Simon who a really good friend that I uh just somehow we've become really good friends.
*32:13*
Like we went to high school together, but he was a couple years younger than me and we didn't really know each other in high school
*32:21*
school and we reconnected online later and I think we've only like seen each other two or three times in person in the time that we've known each other, but he has
*32:25*
been such an influence on my like direction and um
*32:36*
m just just motivation in in this space because he's such a fan of this space and he's so knowledgeable about the creators in it and how they work.
*32:45*
And um so he was just a complete like total guiding angel all the way through, remotely
*32:56*
Um and still is.
*33:06*
And um so yeah, he basically said
*33:09*
Look, okay, like I get that you're ready to give up, but I really think you should go back to cinema sticks.
*33:14*
See who's there, and just try one more time and see what happens
*33:26*
And I was like, okay, sure.
*33:34*
I'll I'll do it.
*33:37*
Like, I don't know.
*33:38*
Um
*33:40*
And I deleted everything.
*33:42*
I now had a a really significant backlog, essentially, of or runway, essentially.
*33:46*
for for for a new channel, even though it was an old channel, but I was starting from scratch on it.
*33:51*
Um because I had made all these videos on cinemastics, I'd made all these videos on filmcraft, I'd learned all these things about how I want to make videos that I could
*33:57*
you know, m make those videos better and make new ones at the same time and be able to put out content um frequently and consist consistently um as I begin again.
*34:06*
Which was really the key.
*34:21*
Um, because when you have a video come out that does well, you don't want to be floundering
*34:23*
starting the next one in order to um ride that wave.
*34:32*
Uh you need to already have that next one be coming out.
*34:37*
And that's really hard to do when
*34:42*
you um are making one video at a time and you work and have a family and you know all that stuff.
*34:46*
So but if you have a runway, you know
*34:53*
It's a little bit easier.
*34:56*
That makes total sense and is super smart and is what everyone like in the
*34:58*
the the businessy side of it talks about is consistency is key.
*35:05*
You have to be consistent in an upload schedule, style, things like that.
*35:08*
Um
*35:14*
You know, I've started doing video essays on games last year.
*35:16*
This is something I had always wanted to do and make, but never really did it.
*35:20*
And then a friend of mine, Brian Hankin, he's been on the show.
*35:25*
He talked about how he was starting this like super small Discord for other essayists.
*35:29*
Like just to collaborate, get advice, feedback, that type of environment.
*35:37*
Super small.
*35:42*
Not a big open thing.
*35:43*
I was like, well, I kinda I want to do this essay thing.
*35:45*
I'm friends with Brian.
*35:48*
Maybe he'll let me in there.
*35:50*
And that'll work.
*35:52*
And I used that environment as like this encouraging factor to push and uh get an essay out.
*35:53*
And last year I made
*36:01*
uh four essays that did well.
*36:04*
But one thing, I guess I had a a cinemistics Danny Boyd moment.
*36:07*
Um
*36:13*
a lot of talking, it was encouraged to shift those over to a new channel.
*36:14*
And that's because my my main YouTube channel or whatever has just been uh ten plus years of random video gamey things.
*36:19*
It's so
*36:27*
the idea was a more consistent place where like the expectation can be set.
*36:28*
And I think my problem is is I don't have that I haven't built up that runway
*36:34*
like uh like you're talking about.
*36:39*
So I'm not ready for the next video.
*36:41*
I've had quite a few of them do well for someone of my scale, which is, you know, a few thousand views on a couple, and like, all right, that's a win for me
*36:43*
But you're right that it does take you gotta be ready for the next thing so that something doesn't catch you off guard and you can keep leaning into it and
*36:53*
You have to make, make, make, make, make, right?
*37:06*
You have to just keep making the thing.
*37:09*
And you kind of get better as you go.
*37:11*
Someone re today, ironically, um, I've heard this before, but quantity produces quality.
*37:13*
It's n and you made a lot of videos before and then cinemistics became what it was when you came back to it here in uh
*37:21*
22, 23, whenever that was 22.
*37:32*
And you were ready, as it so to speak.
*37:37*
And I think the algorithm was ready too, to a degree.
*37:40*
We can
*37:43*
maybe talk talk about the algorithm a little bit, but I th I it's vital, I guess, is what I'm saying.
*37:44*
And what I hear, and I'm not speaking necessarily from experience.
*37:52*
Um
*37:56*
But it's something I see all the time.
*37:57*
Another common thread would be uh people who are ready to give up and then
*37:59*
That the at the give up line is when the thing takes off.
*38:04*
So uh maybe you get as close to giving up as you can, folks.
*38:09*
And then uh you succeed.
*38:13*
Which does take
*38:16*
time and and quantity.
*38:18*
You know, you you don't give up after one.
*38:20*
You give up after you've done a lot and it's not working.
*38:23*
But in that time you haven't wasted it because you've you've learned so much.
*38:26*
And
*38:31*
W you you mentioned like these are some of the things that yeah, you know, everyone tells you this is what you need to do, you know, like consistency and all that stuff.
*38:31*
All those basic principles that even YouTube on their
*38:41*
um help forums and stuff like that say like this is really important and and these metrics are really important and all that stuff.
*38:46*
Like all that information is there and people are
*38:54*
saying it, but it's really, really easy to not want to hear it because it sounds too obvious, I think, when you're starting out.
*38:58*
It's like, oh well yeah, of course, you know, consistency is key.
*39:07*
Got it.
*39:10*
Or like
*39:11*
titles and thumbnails are really important.
*39:11*
Um, but they are.
*39:14*
And I think that you only really, really realize the the magnitude of that when you've experimented for yourself.
*39:15*
And s th the biggest piece of advice I give people when they say they want to start and wanna know
*39:25*
w you know, m what's your one, you know, piece of advice for starting?
*39:34*
I tell them it is basically what I just said.
*39:38*
It's
*39:42*
It's to create runway for yourself.
*39:42*
It's to make a ton of content, but don't release it.
*39:44*
Just make it.
*39:48*
I mean you can.
*39:49*
You can go that route too, but make a ton of content.
*39:50*
Get a bunch of stuff to like 80% complete.
*39:53*
Discover what feels good.
*39:57*
Discover patterns in your work.
*39:59*
Discover stuff.
*40:01*
You know, you're gonna discover stuff on the tenth video that you didn't even think of on the first, and you're gonna want wish that you had
*40:02*
Done that the whole time because it becomes, I don't know, your signature thing or something.
*40:10*
So you can get everything at 80% done.
*40:15*
Learn
*40:18*
see what you like and then and then you've got a bunch of basically ready to go stuff and you can go back and rework that early stuff and make it all more cohesive or whatever.
*40:20*
and have the work done and then then put it out and no one listens.
*40:33*
I've had so many emails from people being like
*40:39*
So I didn't do that and now my video's blowing up and I don't have another video ready.
*40:42*
And I'm like, that sucks.
*40:50*
Um
*40:52*
Yeah.
*40:54*
It's it's preparation to a degree.
*40:58*
It's being
*41:02*
You're preparing for the thing that you always wanted, right?
*41:04*
Like, I want this to succeed in some way.
*41:08*
And that success could varies by definition to people.
*41:11*
It could be this is my job.
*41:14*
It could be
*41:15*
A hundred thousand people watch this video.
*41:16*
It could be uh I reach X subscribers, it could be whatever.
*41:19*
Uh success, whatever your definition of success is, and the goal of why you're doing the thing.
*41:24*
And you have to you have to in your mind almost act like you've already succeeded and prepare the way for that success so when it shows up
*41:30*
You're like, ah, here it is, I did it.
*41:41*
And you keep and then you can keep going.
*41:43*
Um and also
*41:45*
By then you've built the habit, the routine, the muscles, and you're not floundering to make the next thing.
*41:49*
You're ready.
*41:56*
And so when you reach that inevitable goal, whatever it might be, uh you don't
*41:57*
Your momentum doesn't stop because you reached it.
*42:03*
Uh that was that's just like a a byproduct of the work.
*42:06*
Like you have the habit to keep going
*42:09*
And so the making of the thing is what you're is pushing you, not the goal of reaching, you know, a tho a thousand subscribers or or what have you.
*42:11*
A thousand is nothing um in the YouTube game.
*42:20*
But it's it's interesting.
*42:23*
The you because I want to move on to your process and you you you hit on the like the very first thing I
*42:26*
I'm wanting to talk about.
*42:35*
But in your April newsletter, so two months ago, you you wrote I I'm gonna read the quote actually, because I think it's pretty good.
*42:36*
And I think it
*42:47*
It hits on exactly what we were just talking about.
*42:49*
He said, quote, competition in the film, essay space, and on YouTube at large is as fierce as ever.
*42:52*
There are certainly algorithmic elements beyond my control.
*42:59*
But there is also a lot that is within my power to be more engaged, to continue to develop my craft, to experiment with new ideas.
*43:03*
There's no point standing idly by hoping things will get better.
*43:12*
Uh that's just great advice, Danny.
*43:19*
Yeah.
*43:26*
Yeah.
*43:27*
And I think that hits home.
*43:28*
With what we were just saying, is YouTube is like you said, you went and talked to kids about who want to be YouTubers, right?
*43:31*
Like they care more about the play button.
*43:39*
Actually, uh, friends of the show uh
*43:40*
Um, Corey Carlson of My Life in Gaming.
*43:43*
His kids, he went over to their school at one point and talked about it because they have a play button, you know, like their YouTube channel is is so big enough to have a play button, whatever threshold those are.
*43:47*
And the kids think that's the coolest thing in the world.
*43:57*
Like that's what they want.
*43:59*
They don't want um X amount of of money or whatever.
*44:00*
They want to be a YouTuber, like you said.
*44:05*
But you can't just like throw things out there and hope the algorithm you know that happens, people go viral.
*44:07*
Like that's how that term started.
*44:15*
But you gotta put in the work.
*44:17*
And the works hard.
*44:20*
Yeah.
*44:23*
And going viral, you you you you have to like we're talking about, I mean you have to take advantage
*44:24*
of when you go viral.
*44:34*
I mean, going viral once does not guarantee endless success for the rest of your life or career.
*44:35*
you have to you have to build on that momentum and figure out why that happened and
*44:44*
engage with all those people that have inevitably flocked to whatever it was that you created that went viral, um, to keep them.
*44:52*
'Cause otherwise they'll just move on to the next viral thing that wasn't yours.
*45:01*
And it yeah, it's a lot of work.
*45:06*
Um and and so there is a lot of stuff that you can do and have to do when the algorithm
*45:09*
has done you a service.
*45:17*
Which I hesitate to say because the algorithm i is not this phantom
*45:19*
thing that um that you know like scholars are scratching their heads you know over what it is.
*45:29*
It's
*45:37*
It is just people.
*45:38*
Um, the algorithm is is people, it's viewers, it's it's people on YouTube, and y
*45:40*
uh w as soon as you start thinking about it that way and you start thinking about the like the psychology of human beings and and what
*45:47*
they're seeing when you put stuff out and and and um what they want
*45:56*
I don't know what I also hesitate to say because that's sort of a a double-edged sword too, but but you you start thinking about the algorithm as just
*46:06*
is you like other you's you know like if you would watch your stuff w what would get you to click on it and that that's all it is it's just it's just a bunch of people out there who
*46:16*
You know, YouTube will present you to them and it is up to you to have created something and marketed something in such a way that makes what you've made
*46:28*
uh you know unignorable.
*46:40*
Um YouTube is is really good at
*46:43*
giving chances.
*46:48*
It doesn't feel that way sometimes and and the smaller you are the fewer chances you're given, but you are given chances.
*46:49*
When you put out a video you get an artificial number of potential clicks
*46:56*
But YouTube can't make people click on your stuff.
*47:02*
All YouTube can do is show your stuff to more people because people clicked on your stuff.
*47:05*
So it's up to you to
*47:11*
make it clickable.
*47:13*
And um that's that really is in your control.
*47:14*
Even though it relies on other people
*47:19*
Those are those other people are human beings and you're a human being, so you just have to think like a human being.
*47:21*
And uh think I should computer.
*47:28*
Think like a human being.
*47:31*
Yeah, exactly.
*47:32*
I mean really though it's
*47:33*
It yeah, it's it's it's a mental shift I think, but it it's really, really key.
*47:35*
I've never heard it quite put like that, and I love that.
*47:41*
I love that way of thinking.
*47:44*
It's um you have me
*47:46*
So my most popular video on my channel, which is only 38,000 views, but it's it's a podcast that we did about the Fast and Furious films.
*47:49*
And in particular, Fast and Furious 7, or Furious 7, uh has 38,000 views and the the reason it has 38,000 views.
*47:58*
is because of people mostly located in South America who were trying to illegally watch the 7 movie on YouTube.
*48:08*
And I know that because of the analytics and like the videos that recommended my video are all foreign mirrored versions of the movies that people were trying to watch.
*48:17*
Um
*48:27*
So it is just people out there trying to watch it.
*48:28*
Um that is definitely what's going on.
*48:32*
But
*48:36*
That I think leads me into your process.
*48:38*
And the most the thing I'm most curious about
*48:43*
I gotta understand it.
*48:47*
Is your titles and your thumbnails?
*48:50*
Because to me, they are
*48:52*
Not they feel so opposite of what I feel like I'm told or seen, which is your titles are like
*48:58*
Sentences in a good way.
*49:10*
I d I don't mean any of this.
*49:12*
There I I'm I have trouble processing it to a degree.
*49:13*
Like your most popular video when you find a way to dance in every movie you're in.
*49:16*
And then it's Sam Rockwell.
*49:22*
Great video by the way.
*49:24*
Love that one actually a ton.
*49:25*
Or when the audience doesn't get the joke, or when the filmmakers get stuck with an unlikable character, when the animators are given half the time and money that Disney gets
*49:27*
They're so long, it's all lowercase, your thumbnails are usually a picture of a character, just a still from the movie.
*49:36*
Often not the person you're talking about in the movie.
*49:44*
I think of your gladiator videos.
*49:47*
They're not even about that.
*49:49*
Um I forget her name, but the woman in the movie, but she's in both thumbnails.
*49:51*
You you gotta talk me through the cinemastics logic here, because it clearly works.
*49:55*
You're your born thumbnails are what got me.
*50:00*
And I noticed that they kept changing in the beginning.
*50:03*
There was um Marie was one.
*50:06*
I think the title changed a few times.
*50:09*
What is what's the cinema stick sequence sauce here?
*50:11*
Yeah, I will tiptoe around that a little bit 'cause it is secret sauce.
*50:16*
Kind of.
*50:21*
So early on in in this iteration of cinema sticks, what got
*50:22*
me um success was experimenting heavily with
*50:30*
with titles and again thinking from day one thinking about thinking about the potential viewer and what is going to light something up in their brain.
*50:38*
And I think the very first video that I did this with was uh it was one of two.
*50:50*
I c I can't remember which one came first.
*50:59*
Um
*51:01*
I had a video on the David Fenture film Mank, um, which I think I've recreated so the original video when it came out is not listed on my
*51:03*
It's not in in that order on my channel because I've removed the original video and and redone it with higher quality footage, which is a whole other thing.
*51:15*
But um
*51:25*
And then probably did this with this video too.
*51:27*
There's a Star Wars video that w that um around the same time that I was also experimenting with titles with.
*51:29*
Those two videos
*51:37*
I think we're the the conception of of these funky memey um titles.
*51:39*
Mank was the big one.
*51:47*
Mank was the one that cracked the channel.
*51:48*
I think.
*51:51*
Um it was called um I think I've actually changed it with the with the new version of the video, but the original video and the original title was um
*51:52*
Um when a when a modern filmmaker makes a fake old movie and
*52:03*
It just worked.
*52:12*
And it it was I mean I it c it came out, I gave it a normal title.
*52:15*
Like, you know, whatever, like how David Fincher
*52:22*
made mank, whatever, like some sure basic right video essay title with a very pretty thumbnail, you know, with text and graphic work and all that stuff.
*52:25*
And um, you know, no one watched it.
*52:38*
And so yeah, I changed to
*52:41*
J just a still.
*52:46*
I did that because of every frame of painting.
*52:48*
That's what they did.
*52:49*
All their video videos, thumbnails, are just stills from the movie.
*52:51*
And I was always really enamored by that because I thought, well yeah, like
*52:54*
Why shouldn't a shot from a film, which is a professionally made, professionally lit thing
*52:59*
not be interesting enough to capture attention.
*53:08*
We love movies.
*53:11*
We we see an image from a film in another context that we're familiar with and we go, oh I love that movie.
*53:13*
Um like that that should be enough, um, potentially.
*53:19*
Um plus if you keep it simple, it's way easier to change them um and experiment.
*53:24*
But so anyway
*53:29*
I made that title for Mank and that was inspired.
*53:30*
We were talking earlier tonight about um you know finding inspiration from other niches and other formats.
*53:36*
And the idea came from, you know, weird 30-second meme comedy videos, you know, on YouTube, but
*53:44*
from other niches or just random ass viral videos on random topics that have nothing to do with movies and are absolutely not essays
*53:55*
and that have these like really casual, jokey titles.
*54:06*
And I would just like be on my feed noticing these random videos that have
*54:11*
you know, a million plus views and I'd go to the channel and they would have like five hundred subs and I'd be like, what's going on?
*54:16*
All their other videos
*54:24*
had no views and but this one went viral.
*54:27*
So something about it was interesting.
*54:30*
And
*54:33*
And after doing that a bit, I you know, I was like, well, yeah, they just they just have these titles that are really easy to click on.
*54:34*
They have no pressure, basically.
*54:41*
Video essays are
*54:45*
a very intellectual thing, sometimes a very pseudo-intellectual thing.
*54:47*
They ask a lot, I think, of the viewer.
*54:51*
They ask you to turn your brain on a little bit and to focus.
*54:55*
And that's kind of a big ask on YouTube, especially as time goes on and people
*55:01*
Don't have a lot of energy.
*55:07*
Um I I won't say time because you'll still watch like eighteen, you know, thirty second videos or more, but um
*55:09*
I just wanted to take that pressure off.
*55:18*
I wanted to n you know, I believed that the content I made was worth watching and that if people clicked on it, that they would like it.
*55:21*
Um, but I wanted to really lower their expectations and um just make it easy.
*55:32*
Make it feel like I'm not asking anything of them.
*55:38*
And they can click away if they're not interested.
*55:41*
Um, but I believe they will be.
*55:44*
And so I applied that idea to the video essay.
*55:47*
And for a long time, the when format
*55:51*
was was basically th the simplest key.
*55:56*
Like it i it was just sort of a consistent thing that seemed to work.
*56:01*
Um and I had some variations in that.
*56:05*
Um Yeah, a lot of your videos do start with the word when.
*56:08*
I didn't even notice that.
*56:11*
Yeah.
*56:13*
Well you might not have, but um a lot of other potential video essays
*56:14*
essayists did notice and uh this has been a a a thing uh basically it well
*56:19*
Okay.
*56:28*
Let's let's talk about that really quick.
*56:29*
I I had this question later, but it it just this feels a little bit natural here.
*56:31*
Mm-hmm.
*56:37*
I it seems like a lot of people copy you, which is so interesting because you try so hard not to copy other people.
*56:38*
or in the film essays space.
*56:46*
But YouTube being what it is, and the fact that I've been researching you out the wazoo
*56:48*
uh especially since you agreed.
*56:53*
Like I've been preparing, right?
*56:55*
Uh YouTube thinks I only want to watch your videos and videos like you right now.
*56:57*
And I'm just seeing
*57:01*
I see your thumbnail style being applied to um Toy Story.
*57:04*
There's a Toy Story one I keep seeing.
*57:09*
um be recommended.
*57:12*
I have a master list on my phone of channels that that that have done it.
*57:14*
It's long.
*57:19*
That's
*57:20*
Does that feel okay, how does that feel, first of all, to be the one imitated, right?
*57:22*
And then
*57:29*
How do you I don't know how do you cope with that, feel with that?
*57:30*
I don't is it is it one of those scenarios where you know imitation is the highest form of flattery here?
*57:35*
Does it upset you?
*57:40*
I don't know.
*57:41*
What what's the
*57:42*
What's the vibe?
*57:44*
It's it's complex.
*57:47*
Um my emotions around it are really, really complex.
*57:48*
When I started to have success, I immediately started to have fears.
*57:52*
That if this works enough and I get enough exposure, the thing that I'm doing is I'm being counter to what everyone else is doing.
*57:57*
If this works better than what everyone else is doing and people start to do it because it works
*58:08*
then it's going to lose its novelty and it's going to lose its um
*58:17*
it I'm gonna lose my identity around it.
*58:26*
Like it it it was for such a long time you associated my channel with those titles.
*58:29*
You saw that title, you knew it was me.
*58:36*
And over time my worst fears became reality.
*58:40*
And it it it
*58:45*
You know, there's nothing I can do about it.
*58:48*
You know, I borrowed from another niche, you know.
*58:50*
I didn't invent the when title.
*58:52*
Um, but as soon as other people inside of the niche started to do it
*58:54*
Um, I worried, well, you know, i it's a bit like why different um
*58:58*
You know, different companies can't have the same slogans or certainly the same logos, right?
*59:06*
'Cause it confuses people and you can use the success, you can leverage the success of somebody else's brand.
*59:11*
um for your own gain, but but they potentially lose out in you doing that.
*59:19*
I mean in in in the real world where you know stuff is trademarked and all that stuff, like that's not legal.
*59:26*
Um but this is this is this is the Wild West and it's YouTube and so um but it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt and
*59:32*
it it's great that people are getting to make these channels and make their videos and get, you know, all these views.
*59:41*
Um but it's no longer like an association with my brand because um because too many people are doing it.
*59:51*
And
*59:59*
And so I've felt like A to stand out I can no longer do it and B my
*01:00:00*
My channel has just consistently decreased in s you know in in in viewership um over time.
*01:00:12*
That happens to most channels, but
*01:00:20*
you know, uh I I I'm constantly in this position of, okay, I I d came up with this thing at some point that nobody else was doing and it worked.
*01:00:23*
Now everyone else is doing it.
*01:00:33*
I really need to come up with the next thing.
*01:00:34*
Um before you know it's too late.
*01:00:37*
That sounds uh stressful and daunting.
*01:00:43*
It it is.
*01:00:50*
It is.
*01:00:51*
It's it's a constant, you know, thing in my in my brain because it's my job and my livelihood.
*01:00:52*
And a lot of these channels
*01:01:00*
I don't think it is, you know, like maybe they want it to be.
*01:01:01*
Um, but they're making, you know, some amount of money on on the success that they're having.
*01:01:05*
Um
*01:01:13*
And but I don't know that they're necessarily their ambitions are to to really do this full time and um
*01:01:15*
Yeah.
*01:01:26*
And it's yeah.
*01:01:27*
I don't know.
*01:01:29*
And and I don't watch video essays, right?
*01:01:29*
So I don't click on their stuff.
*01:01:31*
I don't know what kind of if they're really good or not, you know.
*01:01:33*
Talk to me about the
*01:01:37*
The thumbnails is I guess as much as you've you're willing to share the secret sauce here.
*01:01:40*
Like what I get the a frame from the movie.
*01:01:44*
That makes total sense to me, and you're right, it's simple
*01:01:49*
But like why the Why the randomest things?
*01:01:53*
Yes, it feels so random.
*01:01:59*
Like your your Lord of the Rings video
*01:02:01*
It's not about uh Aylwin.
*01:02:03*
What what is this?
*01:02:05*
You're g you're k yeah
*01:02:06*
I guess as someone who watches your videos, I know, and so then that actually does drive my curiosity.
*01:02:11*
So like, what is this really about?
*01:02:17*
But to maybe a potential new viewer, or just from a like you're just looking at a perspective, I it's fascinating to me.
*01:02:20*
There is less um calculation, I'll say, involved in the thumbnails than there are in the titles.
*01:02:32*
It it I don't know.
*01:02:40*
Like, I have intuition and and I've developed intuition and I can basically pull a bunch of um thumbnails, you know, from my video or from the movie.
*01:02:42*
You know, like sure, maybe a thumbnail is of somebody who isn't the core focus of the video, but I still might have grabbed that thumbnail from the video itself, just it was just some random, you know
*01:02:56*
part of it.
*01:03:07*
Um so I'll I'll pull ones that I think might be good and then I'll look through them and be like, okay, you know, what do I think?
*01:03:09*
Um
*01:03:16*
is the most clickable.
*01:03:18*
Um, but I'm not always right and I don't always know.
*01:03:20*
And sometimes like I did one on office space and
*01:03:23*
Um, you know, Jennifer Anderson's in that movie and like everyone knows who she is.
*01:03:28*
And I tried thumbnails with her and no one clicked on it.
*01:03:34*
And
*01:03:38*
Then I put one of the like funny side characters in the film and it made a huge difference.
*01:03:39*
And a similar thing with um
*01:03:45*
uh with the the American Psycho video, which is uh when the audience doesn't get the joke, it's my second highest performing video.
*01:03:48*
you know, Christian Bale was not cutting it.
*01:03:56*
His secretary for whatever reason.
*01:03:59*
Christian, Christian, we don't need you anymore.
*01:04:04*
Right?
*01:04:07*
I mean I think part of it though is that
*01:04:08*
You you put something too familiar and people see it and they're like, Oh, I know what that is.
*01:04:10*
Yeah.
*01:04:17*
They they form an understanding
*01:04:17*
a preconceived notion and you want to not do that basically and um yeah so it's it it i it it really does feel a bit random
*01:04:20*
Um and I try a lot and some just work better than others.
*01:04:31*
Yeah.
*01:04:36*
I mean it's it it is fun.
*01:04:37*
I encourage the listener to go to the YouTube channel A to watch the videos.
*01:04:39*
B go to just the video pane and then just scroll through the thumbnails.
*01:04:43*
It's actually really fun.
*01:04:47*
Like to see them all out.
*01:04:48*
and just look at the images you've selected, you get some uh some good ones.
*01:04:51*
I mean, oh my gosh.
*01:04:57*
I mean, and this is a testament to what you were talking about.
*01:04:58*
These are scenes from professionally shot films.
*01:05:02*
They're meant to look good, like the shot of um from Spider-Man 2.
*01:05:06*
Like with the glasses when the sequel surpasses the original.
*01:05:11*
Oh my gosh, just talk.
*01:05:14*
Like you don't even have to do obviously you don't, but like you don't have to do anything with that.
*01:05:16*
Just put the glass, the goggles there and you're set.
*01:05:20*
power of the sun in the Palmoy hand baby.
*01:05:24*
No.
*01:05:27*
So good.
*01:05:29*
I'm curious I'm I'm curious about a lot of things, I guess
*01:05:31*
I think I've said that quite a bit actually tonight.
*01:05:35*
Um The experimentation, the the constant not constant, but especially when a video comes out, I notice
*01:05:37*
Things change every they're changing pretty quick.
*01:05:48*
How on the ball are do you have to be with that?
*01:05:52*
Like
*01:05:55*
Do you have things queued up?
*01:05:57*
Are you A B testing or are you just like switch, switch, switch?
*01:05:58*
Let's like what is that part?
*01:06:02*
You you put you put a video out.
*01:06:05*
I think you got your ri your King one coming out soon on YouTube.
*01:06:07*
It's up on Nebula.
*01:06:10*
Yeah, yeah.
*01:06:13*
Um yeah, that one just launched on Saturday on YouTube, I think.
*01:06:14*
Um
*01:06:18*
So Saturdays are my release days and they come out at nine AM Eastern time on a given Saturday.
*01:06:19*
It's not every Saturday, but um that day I am unavailable to
*01:06:25*
anybody in the real world.
*01:06:33*
Like, um that is that is a unique type of work day.
*01:06:34*
The video's done, it's up, the work
*01:06:41*
has just started.
*01:06:44*
And it's it's m monitoring, it's responding to comments, it's it's watching those metrics like a hawk
*01:06:46*
just without stop.
*01:06:58*
And i going into that, yeah, uh you know, I'll spend a bit of time before video comes out after it's done.
*01:07:00*
where I will brainstorm some potential title ideas or some um title sort of directions that could then be like varied a little bit within within each sort of
*01:07:09*
concept of a title um and a bunch of thumbnails and I will yeah essentially cue them up in like the order that I think they might be effective.
*01:07:23*
I definitely have more success.
*01:07:33*
A video uh almost without fail does better when I've spent more time in that process coming up with what I really think might be the most successful combination.
*01:07:36*
Um and and um 'cause otherwise if I don't put enough time in I put out the video, I give it some title and thumbnail and then
*01:07:48*
And then I'm sort of floundering because oh, it's not hitting the numbers it should hit.
*01:07:58*
I need to come up with something now.
*01:08:02*
Um and I get stressed and and um the rumble doesn't always work.
*01:08:05*
Yeah, it's all about the runway, exactly.
*01:08:10*
Just on a microscale.
*01:08:12*
Um, so it's yeah, it's it's th there there's a ton of metrics.
*01:08:13*
YouTube gives you a ton of metrics and
*01:08:18*
most of them are in real time and especially in the first day you get a lot of really good real time data and I just I know what I need to be hitting, I know what to look at, I know
*01:08:21*
w how to manipulate it essentially by thinking about people and thinking about what I can change and what I have control over.
*01:08:32*
um and seeing what effect it has because it's almost instantaneous.
*01:08:40*
You make a change on YouTube and you see that change within five minutes or less.
*01:08:44*
And um it yeah, it's really nuts and I totally rely on it.
*01:08:51*
That
*01:08:57*
It sounds remarkable.
*01:09:00*
Both on the just the absolute scale of YouTube, right?
*01:09:03*
Just the scale of the entire system is what I'm thinking of.
*01:09:08*
But then the just the rapidity of the feedback.
*01:09:12*
Is rapidity a word?
*01:09:15*
I don't know.
*01:09:16*
I think it has to be a word.
*01:09:17*
But
*01:09:19*
To get that kind of feedback, to make that sort of change, and then get feedback within a minute and or five minutes or or whatever it is, and be able to pivot to a sense that
*01:09:21*
gets your video to the the audience.
*01:09:32*
That's super fascinating.
*01:09:35*
You have to
*01:09:38*
develop a bit of a thick skin for it because you are making public changes and I I I am not afraid of that.
*01:09:40*
I you know, I think a lot of
*01:09:50*
I mean that that took some time because you get a lot of comments then of like, oh the titles changing, oh stop you know, whatever.
*01:09:52*
I mean there's a huge spectrum of comment types around it.
*01:09:57*
And
*01:10:03*
And it's it's it's unnerving.
*01:10:04*
Like you really feel like there there are a lot of people who get it, there are a lot of people who don't care, there are a lot of people who don't notice, but then there are a lot of people who who attack you for it.
*01:10:06*
And it you know, it feels louder than it is, you know, it the vocal minority.
*01:10:16*
Yeah.
*01:10:21*
Right, exactly.
*01:10:22*
The vocal minority because at the end of the d I mean, first of all, their comments don't rise to the top
*01:10:22*
So it's not like that becomes the topic of discussion in the comments.
*01:10:28*
And and also, you know, my my like to dislike ratio
*01:10:33*
average across the channel is I think ninety eight point eight or something.
*01:10:40*
Like I I I'm not worried that people
*01:10:47*
are more uh uh obsessed with all these title changes than with the content itself.
*01:10:53*
People are not like as a as a general rule, people are not pissed off that I do this.
*01:11:01*
Right.
*01:11:06*
Um people like what I'm doing.
*01:11:07*
I am I'm like looking at all my notes, I'm trying to pick
*01:11:09*
'Cause I'm look also looking at the clock.
*01:11:15*
It's a delicate balance.
*01:11:17*
The art of the city.
*01:11:18*
Well, don't worry for me about time, but yeah, I mean obviously you don't wanna No, I'm
*01:11:19*
I definitely have to talk to you about DMCA.
*01:11:28*
I th this was like a core question in my pitch email to you.
*01:11:32*
But before we get to that, because DMCA is so wild, um, I think, to a degree.
*01:11:36*
I want to you had this quote in that Maya newsletter
*01:11:47*
that the dis that a discussion and an analysis of art could in its right be art, like in itself, basically, I think.
*01:11:54*
How my brain internalized it.
*01:12:03*
And with film, I I guess, like obvious first of all, uh Criterions made an entire business out of it, right?
*01:12:06*
Uh restoring film and then commenting on that film.
*01:12:14*
Like that obviously there is
*01:12:17*
an art and a business to it, right?
*01:12:19*
You have to come up with a way to like show
*01:12:23*
other people's information and art, whether that's a behind the scenes, an interview, or just the movie itself.
*01:12:27*
Which, as you've we've mentioned, you is professionally shot, edited, acted, all of the things, right?
*01:12:35*
But you have to present that information to the audience.
*01:12:44*
To share your essay, like the the the your thesis, the thing you're trying to share with the audience, the thing you found interesting.
*01:12:50*
And I guess I'm thinking of like how do you balance
*01:12:57*
And f between those two, because in like a video game essay, I just show relevant gameplay.
*01:13:03*
And now there are times where it's like a very specific moment, and so that's intentional and I want that
*01:13:10*
to be the emphasis, but sometimes I need a little bit of filler, you know?
*01:13:15*
And then in a movie I feel like there's
*01:13:20*
I would think there's less flexibility there.
*01:13:24*
Am I wrong in that?
*01:13:28*
Is it when you're writing a script or you're ed you're you're editing the video,
*01:13:29*
Does the idea of like what you want to show with the words that you're saying, is that a very natural part of the process, or do is that
*01:13:35*
I don't know.
*01:13:43*
How do you take like the the work of Spielberg or Sodenberg or or um Fincher or whoever and you're like, ah yes, now I will present like their art as my art.
*01:13:44*
Do you get do you get what I'm saying?
*01:13:55*
Yeah, I definitely do, yeah.
*01:13:57*
And I've got oop I've got a lot of a lot of answers, I think.
*01:13:59*
Um I mean
*01:14:04*
For one, yes.
*01:14:08*
Um it yeah, with uh yeah sometimes I watch, you know, video game stuff, reviews, essays, whatever, and it's like
*01:14:09*
I'm satisfied just watching a bunch of b-roll of the game that like isn't specifically relevant to what's being said.
*01:14:18*
Like that's enough for me.
*01:14:25*
But I
*01:14:27*
You it is a little harder with movies.
*01:14:30*
I for one m movies in video essays don't look great.
*01:14:33*
if you're showing scenes of characters talking without showing them talking, you know, or without playing the the dialogue, you know.
*01:14:41*
It it's a weird look for me to be talking and their lips being moving
*01:14:49*
Um It's like a really bad lip sync.
*01:14:55*
Yeah, exactly.
*01:14:58*
I think your brain just gets a little bit or you wanna hear what they're saying or whatever, or it's just it isn't cinematic because
*01:14:59*
in a scene where characters where where there's no dialogue, usually scenes where characters' lips are not moving.
*01:15:07*
So um
*01:15:15*
So you already you know, your movie is already smaller than uh, you know, forty hours of game footage and then
*01:15:17*
So you have less to work with there, and then if you you know need your your filler to be scenes where characters aren't talking, then you're even more limited.
*01:15:25*
So
*01:15:33*
I when I'm I'm thinking about that pretty much as I'm writing the script.
*01:15:35*
Like I I try
*01:15:40*
I try not to write a sentence without some idea in my head about what is gonna be laid over that line of of my voiceover.
*01:15:44*
Um
*01:15:56*
Because it's just it can be hard when you get into the edit and you I've said all this stuff and I need to put footage over it and it you know, some random thing I said that doesn't directly connect to something
*01:15:59*
I don't know what to show there.
*01:16:11*
And I have to find something.
*01:16:12*
And like that's that's hard.
*01:16:13*
Or it takes time.
*01:16:16*
Or I don't know how long it will take or whatever.
*01:16:17*
Um It's I I
*01:16:20*
I'm sorry.
*01:16:24*
In my head I was thinking, man, it's like the runway again.
*01:16:25*
You're as you're writing the script, in your head, you're also preparing the way for when you get in the edit bay, right?
*01:16:30*
So when you're you're editing.
*01:16:36*
That process is smoother because when you're like when you said that you you know you gotta go find a clip, I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting there, like, ah, now I gotta go find a clip for this part, you know
*01:16:39*
Prepare the way.
*01:16:51*
Um
*01:17:00*
I yeah, exactly.
*01:17:01*
Like, um, there's okay, so I get asked this question a lot
*01:17:03*
not not usually from community people, but from um business people or people who who wanna work for me, which is something I I I say no to because I like doing everything.
*01:17:11*
But
*01:17:24*
When somebody says, you know, I want to edit for you, or or somebody says, hey, you know, you should have a team.
*01:17:25*
It'll make your life easier.
*01:17:33*
There's, you know, you
*01:17:35*
there's no way that what you're doing somebody else can't do.
*01:17:36*
I I don't know because
*01:17:41*
Because my process is is is hybrid, it's not linear.
*01:17:46*
I oftentimes will um
*01:17:50*
I'll record what I call a a scratch recording of my script and then I'll lay that down and I'll I'll start playing with the footage at that phase and then I'll I'll I'll
*01:17:54*
rework the script based on the flow of certain dialogue that I want to play out or um
*01:18:06*
uh uh just sequencing basically.
*01:18:15*
What what what r you know, there's a rhythm there and I need to make sure that rhythm's good.
*01:18:18*
Do I need to say something right here in order to
*01:18:23*
uh add to that rhythm that's created by by the movie and the clips that I want to show and what I'm saying.
*01:18:27*
And so then I go back and I I make changes to the script and
*01:18:34*
And then I I um have a new voiceover and I lay that down and I've already got a bunch of footage now 'cause I've already, you know, got a conception of how I want things to go.
*01:18:38*
But it's just it's
*01:18:47*
It's just it's not one step, then the next step, then the next step.
*01:18:49*
And I can't just like write a script, send it to somebody, and just they'll know what to do with it because
*01:18:53*
uh I'm thinking about every stage at every stage.
*01:18:59*
And um so yeah, i it's I'm yeah.
*01:19:04*
Yeah.
*01:19:11*
It reminds me of there's an author I really, really love.
*01:19:13*
His name's Craig Mott.
*01:19:17*
And he actually just put out a book with Random House uh this month called Things Become Other Things.
*01:19:19*
And the very short of a long story of how this book came to be was Craig did a walk in Japan, and during that walk he wrote a what he calls a pop-up newsletter.
*01:19:26*
So every day he'd write about the walk he did, like what happened that day, and send it out to people.
*01:19:39*
And so after a month of walking, you know, he had X amount of words and letters.
*01:19:46*
And then from that
*01:19:51*
He like cut everything up, laid it all out on his floor, and was like, I like these, these, these, and reordered the book.
*01:19:53*
And there was like that version of the book.
*01:20:01*
And then that happened again with the Random House Edition.
*01:20:03*
And basically he he wrote the thing, right?
*01:20:06*
Or the ideas of the thing.
*01:20:10*
And then laid it all out and moved things around and like, well, what do I, how's the flow here and and so on and so forth.
*01:20:12*
And I'm I'm super condensing his process, right?
*01:20:19*
But you talking about like I r I record this scratch and then I'm laying some stuff over the top of it and I get a feel of the the flow and the pace and and all the other things that you would
*01:20:23*
f you you can't possibly know until you're editing it with footage and that goes for anything.
*01:20:35*
And then given the fact that we are
*01:20:42*
just reusing someone else's footage where it's not like a movie or a show where we'd have to go reshoot something or um, you know, have people come in and do dubs over lines or things like that.
*01:20:45*
You know, this is
*01:20:57*
economical in the essayist sense.
*01:20:58*
You can then go rewrite the script, re-record it, and then put that back and so I I like this
*01:21:02*
I like the sound of this process.
*01:21:12*
You're getting a much better overall feel of it.
*01:21:14*
You're bringing all of the pieces in together at once or are are like you said, hybrid.
*01:21:18*
Yeah, and and over time, you know, you you do develop um intuitions or or um you gain a better understanding of your own
*01:21:23*
um just of what works, you know.
*01:21:34*
Like I would say less and less.
*01:21:37*
I ha have to go through that stage in order to get something because I'll
*01:21:39*
all have done it enough times in enough ways to be like, okay, I have a feeling that if I want to show this clip, I need to
*01:21:44*
set it up in this way or whatever.
*01:21:53*
Um or I need to time out my voiceover like just enough to fit inside this.
*01:21:55*
Um because I've done it before and I know how it's gonna be.
*01:22:01*
Um
*01:22:05*
But but yeah, I mean that's a it's a process and and um everything gets faster.
*01:22:06*
And and I think great filmmakers, I mean like you're saying, yeah, it's way less economical to to do anything remotely like this in in the filmmaking space because you
*01:22:12*
You wanna make sure your script is the way you want it when you when you shoot it.
*01:22:20*
Um so you don't have to go back.
*01:22:24*
But you know, as as a filmmaker too, you know, you you you get a better handle on that stuff.
*01:22:27*
Um
*01:22:33*
so that those m you know, mistakes don't get made or whatever.
*01:22:34*
Um, of course if it's a big studio thing and there's just too many chefs in the kitchen
*01:22:37*
Different story.
*01:22:42*
But but yeah, so it really depends on the video and the more experimental the video is, the more I have to do that.
*01:22:43*
My Lord of the Rings video that just came out
*01:22:51*
I'd never really done anything like that before where I just well, I guess my previous crying video, this was a crying video, yeah, a movie that makes me cry.
*01:22:56*
I do by the way, I love that this little series you're doing.
*01:23:05*
Um It gives me an excuse to talk about movies I wouldn't otherwise have anything to say.
*01:23:09*
Hey, I that is I um
*01:23:14*
I just re-watched the trilogy for the first time in a few years, like in quite a few years.
*01:23:17*
Um now this took me a lot longer than normal because of a two-year-old, and it's hard to find four hours of time.
*01:23:23*
But uh Return of the King, I remember I was texting my wife, I think I said something like, Up the you know, how many times have you cried today?
*01:23:31*
'Cause I'm up to five.
*01:23:39*
So
*01:23:40*
Totally.
*01:23:42*
No, I I w they showed at my local theater last year, all three of them, um, back to back, not in one day, but day by day.
*01:23:42*
The extended versions, which of course I've never seen in the theater 'cause
*01:23:50*
They're the extended editions.
*01:23:54*
Now the theatrical editions and I yeah, I wrote down every single time I cried.
*01:23:56*
Like I have it written down
*01:24:01*
Literally all the points and it was yeah, it was a lot.
*01:24:02*
There's there are tears on the the paper.
*01:24:06*
Yeah.
*01:24:09*
Tears on the paper.
*01:24:09*
I uh
*01:24:10*
I saw the extended editions in theaters before The Hobbit came out.
*01:24:12*
They did all in one day, all three of them.
*01:24:17*
And I took a buddy for his birthday and we were at the theater for I think about fourteen hours.
*01:24:23*
'Cause you have to sit through all the credits.
*01:24:28*
Yeah, you sit well, you sit through the credits and they had, I think, thirty minute or forty minute intermissions between each movie.
*01:24:31*
Right.
*01:24:36*
Or you know, so that's only two intermissions, but you gotta eat.
*01:24:37*
It was one of the coolest things I've ever done, but I will never do it again.
*01:24:41*
The closest, I guess, anyone could have done.
*01:24:48*
I think when Endgame came out, they Marvel did a thing where it was like three days.
*01:24:52*
It was like every MCU movie.
*01:24:57*
I remember that being an event, but the just like the only people that could theoretically do that are people who have the PTO if they're an adult adult.
*01:25:01*
college students who don't care, or uh old teenagers whose parents also don't care.
*01:25:12*
I don't know.
*01:25:18*
Uh that's something I would have done when I was much younger, but couldn't even fathom doing as an adult.
*01:25:19*
No.
*01:25:26*
That's too much.
*01:25:27*
That's too much.
*01:25:28*
That's a lot.
*01:25:30*
DMCA.
*01:25:32*
Mm-hmm.
*01:25:34*
I this is the thing I would be the most scared of.
*01:25:35*
uh just having ad revenue just shut off because a robot said, uh, we own this.
*01:25:37*
Which
*01:25:46*
They may not own.
*01:25:48*
They may own it.
*01:25:49*
That's quite possible.
*01:25:50*
Or or they probably don't.
*01:25:51*
I don't know.
*01:25:52*
And then also the fact that you're using this in a
*01:25:53*
a fair use type of sense.
*01:25:56*
Um you are no stranger to DMCA takedowns.
*01:25:59*
You
*01:26:03*
uh your Charlie Chaplin video that came out not too long ago is the four time copyright appeal winning video.
*01:26:04*
Yes.
*01:26:10*
Uh Star Wars.
*01:26:11*
Yeah.
*01:26:13*
You
*01:26:14*
Things go wrong.
*01:26:16*
I just watched a video on The Last of Us season two.
*01:26:19*
And the way that the the channel decided to represent it was A to show gameplay footage because video games don't get that type of takedown usually.
*01:26:24*
And then when they did show footage from the show, it was in a like small, smaller box, the opacity was down, and it was like red tinted
*01:26:34*
So like as a human you could understand like well this is supposed to look like an HBO show, like whatever, but the the robots I guess can't flak it.
*01:26:45*
Or it's much more difficult.
*01:26:53*
Now you don't do that, uh, for obvious reasons.
*01:26:55*
I'm very curious, I guess, A, your thoughts, your feelings, because this is a this threatens the livelihood aspect of your work.
*01:27:01*
But then also you've talked about
*01:27:11*
Like you've learned a lot about how it works.
*01:27:15*
Like your Star Wars video that just came back out.
*01:27:19*
I'm curious what you mean by those types of things.
*01:27:22*
Like you have plans, you've learned things.
*01:27:25*
Like what is how do you do the dance with the DMCA?
*01:27:28*
Yeah.
*01:27:32*
We we talked uh a bit earlier about you know, the idea that
*01:27:34*
talking about art can in its own form be art.
*01:27:43*
And these videos are a creative outlet for me and it's where I get the joy.
*01:27:48*
from doing 'em and because of that it's very, very important to me that these videos are exactly the way I want them to be, without compromising anything.
*01:27:53*
And that means, you know, using high quality source material, not manipulating the video like that in order to avoid something.
*01:28:04*
um not not compromising the fidelity of what I'm doing.
*01:28:13*
Um I want the videos to look good.
*01:28:18*
Um
*01:28:21*
And I also want to show what I want to show.
*01:28:23*
Not just want to, but you know, why talk about something if you can't talk about it?
*01:28:26*
y you don't go to film school and have all the professors just say, This is what's happening in this movie and this is why it's good.
*01:28:33*
You know, they show it.
*01:28:43*
It's a huge component of learning.
*01:28:44*
And um so for a while I was of the
*01:28:48*
avoidant nature, or that was my strategy.
*01:28:56*
I'm going to avoid these copyright claims as much as possible.
*01:28:59*
Um I am going to
*01:29:04*
do whatever I can within within the the limitations that I think are there to to avoid them, which was essentially a single clip um
*01:29:06*
Okay, for I I just want to mention like The Last of Us, for example, t T V is not often claimed.
*01:29:21*
Um it
*01:29:27*
it's harder to cla I don't know, the the masters that those copyright claims get checked against.
*01:29:29*
I I don't think a lot of shows, 'cause there's so many shows, maybe The Last of Us because it's so big.
*01:29:36*
Um, so many shows and they're so long, um, they don't seem to be in that um database the way movies are.
*01:29:40*
Um I've I've never had a problem with a show and I've talked to a lot of people who focus on shows on their channels.
*01:29:49*
Um anyway, the point is
*01:29:56*
It's it's not it's not as strict as a lot of videos suggest in the way that they go about editing.
*01:30:00*
Um
*01:30:08*
You you can use a lot more than you think you can and still get a um through these copyright claims, at least the automatic claims that that happen when you first upload.
*01:30:10*
If a clip is not too long
*01:30:21*
And it is followed by a clip that is at a different point in the movie, um you're good.
*01:30:24*
Like if you if you don't use
*01:30:32*
too much of the film as a whole and each individual segment is not too long, uh, you can make a whole, you know, 10-minute video essay that's 100% clips from the movie.
*01:30:34*
um and get away with it.
*01:30:46*
Uh get away with it.
*01:30:47*
You know, I mean get away.
*01:30:48*
Yes.
*01:30:51*
Right.
*01:30:52*
No.
*01:30:56*
You uh you do
*01:30:57*
Uh music is more strict.
*01:30:59*
M score really, really difficult.
*01:31:01*
Um the the amount you can use is much less than an actual clip.
*01:31:04*
Um but
*01:31:09*
Yeah, so for a while it was like, okay, i if a clip is under fourteen seconds, I'm usually good.
*01:31:13*
Uh it's usually fine.
*01:31:19*
You know, I I I if there is music in a clip, I either won't use that clip or I will
*01:31:21*
you know, I'll strip out the the music.
*01:31:27*
Um if you use um uh versions of the movie that have five point one sound, usually dialogue is kept to a single track and that at least
*01:31:29*
makes it a little bit easier to not use film music and then also not have that film film music clash with music you want to use.
*01:31:41*
Um a lot of times there's
*01:31:49*
There's still remnant uh music i in those dialogue tracks, but at least they're quieter and they're easier to get rid of at that point
*01:31:52*
So anyway, that's what I was doing and sometimes I got unlucky and I got claimed and sometimes those claims would be manual claims weeks after or months after the video comes out
*01:31:59*
Um and that sucked.
*01:32:10*
And I thought, crap, what do I do?
*01:32:11*
Like this that video is just done.
*01:32:13*
Um, it's not making money.
*01:32:15*
And um
*01:32:18*
And and I just hated that I was editing around that.
*01:32:21*
Because sometimes I would upload, it would get an automatic claim, and I'd be like, oh god, now I have to go back to the edit.
*01:32:25*
and change stuff and try again.
*01:32:32*
And I would spend a whole day just uploading, seeing if we got claimed, going back, changing, uploading, seeing if we got claimed.
*01:32:34*
It would take so much time.
*01:32:43*
Sometimes I wasn't even successful.
*01:32:45*
And I I you know, I was just like butchering my own stuff.
*01:32:48*
And on top of
*01:32:54*
That I came up with these weird strategies.
*01:32:57*
I have a Rocky video, like the whole video would get claimed, but then when I cut the video in half and uploaded it in two halves, it was fine.
*01:32:59*
Um it's just nonsense.
*01:33:08*
Like I was playing the game, you know, and I didn't want to play the game anymore because it was just annoying.
*01:33:11*
I just I want to make the video the way I want to make it.
*01:33:16*
And lately my videos w I would not be able to do that.
*01:33:18*
Like
*01:33:21*
I uh with the crying videos especially, like in order to actually make the viewer experience these scenes that within the context of the full movie will make you cry, you have to show that clip.
*01:33:22*
And that's usually gonna take more than 15 seconds to make you cry.
*01:33:36*
Um, or else the video doesn't work.
*01:33:40*
So
*01:33:42*
So if there's anyone listening who's worried about this stuff or deals with this stuff or is afraid of this stuff, don't be.
*01:33:45*
The fact is that if you make
*01:33:55*
content that is educational or commentary or fair use in some way and y and that is you know, you really believe that that's true, um, and you're not just
*01:33:58*
trying to make money off of showing scenes from a movie.
*01:34:10*
Um don't be afraid.
*01:34:14*
You you will get claimed.
*01:34:19*
y you can fight it and the system in place for fighting it is actually okay.
*01:34:21*
It's it's it's pretty fair.
*01:34:27*
It sucks that you have to go through it.
*01:34:29*
But it's just part of the process now.
*01:34:32*
I it rather than it being part of the editing process, it is now just part of the post launch process.
*01:34:35*
If I get claimed
*01:34:40*
I fight it.
*01:34:42*
They reject the my uh dispute and then I appeal their rejection and
*01:34:43*
And I win because because I'm I'm in the right.
*01:34:51*
And it and it works.
*01:34:55*
The system itself just feels so
*01:34:57*
Icky.
*01:35:01*
I have It's there to scare you.
*01:35:02*
Yes, that's a good good way to put it.
*01:35:05*
I um
*01:35:07*
I have a channel that's just dedicated to uploading like raw gameplay footage just for other people to use to make essays or or what have you.
*01:35:09*
I have
*01:35:16*
so much stinkin' footage you know on this insane high quality like I gotta do something with it.
*01:35:17*
And I remember I had some footage of Metroid Prime 2 Echoes for the Nintendo GameCube.
*01:35:24*
And I was getting copyright like strikes on it.
*01:35:29*
Not from Nintendo, but from some DJ.
*01:35:34*
I was like
*01:35:38*
That doesn't sound right.
*01:35:40*
And I went and this person had just taken Nintendo's music and said it was their own music.
*01:35:41*
And I was like, Well, I gotta fight this.
*01:35:47*
Not because I own the music, but because this person doesn't own the music.
*01:35:49*
Uh and that was an interesting process, but uh interesting in the sense that I even had to do it
*01:35:54*
Because all I did was submit the claim, and obviously that person didn't respond, and so within 30 days everything was flip-flopped back around.
*01:36:02*
But I guess does this then
*01:36:12*
We clearly know the theme of the episode.
*01:36:16*
Does this further lean into the runway, uh, if you have to fight, you know, Charlie Chaplin?
*01:36:18*
How long did that take to be like YouTube uh approved, as it were?
*01:36:24*
So
*01:36:31*
I mean I've gotten so many claims that they they all kind of mishmash together.
*01:36:33*
That one was a that one was a record.
*01:36:39*
I think it was I w I
*01:36:41*
Yeah, once the claims are dealt with, I I can't see them anymore, so I can't remember.
*01:36:44*
But it was like you know, there's one for one speech, there was one for the other speech.
*01:36:49*
Like the speeches themselves from that movie
*01:36:54*
were copyright m like material which which is which you know was not a lie.
*01:36:57*
Like those those are very, very famous speeches and people like
*01:37:04*
to use them in media.
*01:37:07*
One of my favorite songs of all time is called Iron Sky by Paolo Nuttini.
*01:37:09*
And partway through the song, the speech, one of those speeches, is used in the song.
*01:37:13*
And um it's super cool and it makes the song really great.
*01:37:18*
But you know, you can't just use that for nothing.
*01:37:23*
You know, you have to get the right to it.
*01:37:27*
Um so they know that it's like very desirable in in other media and so it's it's um controlled.
*01:37:29*
Um
*01:37:36*
Anyway, so there are all these things and I had to dispute every one of them and and some of them were I think I mentioned this, but like just global blocks.
*01:37:37*
The video just wasn't visible.
*01:37:46*
Now today
*01:37:48*
So on the topic of runway.
*01:37:51*
So I've gotten into the habit of um
*01:37:53*
Oh, I've gotten several weeks ahead in my schedule so that I complete a video weeks before it comes out on YouTube.
*01:37:58*
So with my Lord of the Rings video that I just came out with on on Aragorn and and um and crying, um I knew that was gonna get
*01:38:08*
claimed like you know, I I'd never done Lord of the Rings before for this reason and I know a lot of other people who have and who have dealt with this stuff and so I was like
*01:38:20*
Okay, I'm gonna deal with it.
*01:38:35*
So I finished it like a month ago and I uploaded it.
*01:38:37*
It got three claims, one for each movie.
*01:38:43*
And um I was like, okay, all right, that's what I expected to happen.
*01:38:48*
Um
*01:38:55*
And so I think because if you get so claims are different from strikes.
*01:38:57*
Uh claims don't hurt you except that you don't get money.
*01:39:03*
Which is painful.
*01:39:08*
Um strikes actually Yeah, different gonna hurt.
*01:39:09*
Strikes actually go against your channel though, and um I've never gotten a strike
*01:39:12*
Uh but three strikes, very bad.
*01:39:17*
So because I had three claims on this video and I didn't know how malicious
*01:39:20*
they were gonna be or new line or whoever it was was gonna be, I I didn't wanna like challenge them all at the same time, you know?
*01:39:25*
Um just in case I get three strikes in one go.
*01:39:34*
Um so anyway, it took a it took a long time to d now the the initial red um dispute you can't get a a a strike on that.
*01:39:39*
You c you can you get one chance to be like, hey, this is fair use
*01:39:49*
Uh I'm right.
*01:39:53*
And they will almost always reject you because they wanna scare you.
*01:39:55*
You know, they they they
*01:39:59*
they have every right within the system.
*01:40:01*
I mean they don't they shouldn't have this right, but they have every right within the system to just say, no, no, we're right.
*01:40:03*
We it's ours.
*01:40:09*
Um
*01:40:10*
i th they get to decide for themselves.
*01:40:11*
Like it's totally dumb.
*01:40:14*
And um if they do that the claim remains, but they can't strike you at that um stage and then you appeal.
*01:40:16*
And the appeal process is even scarier looking.
*01:40:23*
Um and you can get a strike.
*01:40:26*
But you probably won't.
*01:40:29*
And it'll either expire or or they will release it.
*01:40:30*
And so with all three of the claims on this Lord of the Rings video, um
*01:40:33*
I d I I disputed and then each one got the you know the rejection and I had to appeal and every appeal actually got rele like manually released within a day or two.
*01:40:39*
Which was really unusual.
*01:40:51*
Usually I have to wait for the seven days for the appeal process, it's seven days.
*01:40:52*
The initial thing, it's thirty.
*01:40:56*
Usually I have to wait for that those seven days to um expire
*01:40:59*
before the claim gets released.
*01:41:04*
But for whatever reason, they looked at my appeal and were like, yeah, we're we're wrong.
*01:41:07*
um and manually released it.
*01:41:15*
So the process actually didn't take too too long.
*01:41:17*
So I was feeling really good going in because it's like double jeopardy.
*01:41:20*
I mean if you if you appeal it and you win, um, you're good.
*01:41:24*
on whatever that claim was.
*01:41:29*
Today that video got another claim
*01:41:31*
And I was like, how can this be?
*01:41:37*
I've gotten one for every movie and I've dealt with them.
*01:41:39*
It was a random ten seconds from
*01:41:43*
one section, I think it was um it was a dialogue clip I had used from the Council of Elrond in fellowship.
*01:41:49*
Um
*01:41:59*
I think Legolus it's when Legolas says to Aragorn or no, Legolas says to Boromir, this is no mere ranger, this is Aragorn, son of Aerothorn.
*01:42:00*
You owe me your allegiance.
*01:42:09*
And I think underneath that line
*01:42:10*
is like Sauron's theme song or something because, you know, they're all talking about it.
*01:42:14*
And, you know, when Gimli tries to break with his axe you get a flash of the eye and all that stuff.
*01:42:21*
So it's like there and lingering.
*01:42:25*
I didn't realize that.
*01:42:26*
Like I wasn't you know it's
*01:42:27*
Like I was um only focused on the line.
*01:42:29*
I was using it for the line.
*01:42:32*
I even probably lowered any background volume on that line as best I could so that I could play music.
*01:42:34*
And yeah, so they claim those ten seconds.
*01:42:42*
And um now I'm dealing with that.
*01:42:47*
Uh I'm sorry about that, that sucks.
*01:42:52*
I think that leads into this like other part
*01:42:56*
of the equation, this haven, it seems like, that is nebula, which
*01:43:02*
If you watch any essayist of a certain caliber on YouTube, odds are uh you've heard of Nebula, uh either as an ad read or just them saying they're on Nebula.
*01:43:10*
Which is a creator like found and run video platform where your videos get to go and
*01:43:22*
basically uh not live under the the fear of the eye of DMCA you know scouring over uh Mordor as it were
*01:43:30*
You just uh got on Nebula in December, if the YouTube post is accurate, which obviously would be you made it.
*01:43:43*
Um
*01:43:53*
So it's only been six months.
*01:43:55*
How how did it feel A, I guess, to get invited, because it is invite only
*01:43:57*
And B, how has that been for you as a creative where you've been able to make the cut you want to make and at least have a place for it to go and not have to worry about this?
*01:44:04*
Nebula is a wonderful space.
*01:44:19*
Um the reason you don't have to deal with this stuff is because ads are not run and ads are the problem.
*01:44:22*
Um
*01:44:30*
You know, because I still have to think about YouTube and it's the same video on both platforms, like
*01:44:35*
I don't exactly feel liberated in that sense.
*01:44:43*
Um, it is nice that there's a place where I don't have to worry, but I still have to worry because of YouTube.
*01:44:46*
And and so for every video I have to go through this process.
*01:44:51*
But
*01:44:55*
if I could be on nebula only and, you know, have it be you know, get everything that I get from being on both and only be on nebula, that would be wonderful.
*01:44:56*
That would be absolutely wonderful.
*01:45:06*
It's just such a better
*01:45:08*
space for viewers and for creators.
*01:45:10*
Um so it it's great in that sense.
*01:45:14*
Um as you say it's only been six months um
*01:45:18*
I'm not, you know, I'm not making a lot on Nebula, um except as a as a as a partner.
*01:45:24*
Um
*01:45:33*
on on YouTube videos, um ad reads and you know, bringing people over, um a lot of creators stop relying on ad revenue at some point.
*01:45:34*
Uh
*01:45:46*
Uh uh at least they have other revenue streams that really take over and um
*01:45:47*
you know, I I don't know.
*01:45:55*
I I just that's never been true for me because I've I've been really lucky in getting a lot of views and so I've always um needed that viewership to to be part of
*01:45:56*
the revenue stream and with Nebula, you know, it's a smaller group of people.
*01:46:07*
Um, you do get view based revenue through it, through a through a share, um
*01:46:13*
But um yeah, I'm still so new to it.
*01:46:20*
My audience there is still small and the audience as a whole is a lot smaller.
*01:46:23*
So um
*01:46:27*
It it it's it's uh it's well, it's it's not an alternative and it's not meant to be an alternative.
*01:46:30*
It's it's it's very explicitly not an alternative to YouTube.
*01:46:38*
It's very much its own space, but it
*01:46:41*
it won't replace YouTube for a viewer and it it won't replace it um as a creator either but it's
*01:46:44*
It's super wonderful that it exists and I want everybody to come on there.
*01:46:52*
And I'm not just saying that as, you know, a partner like
*01:47:00*
it just uh it's just so much more pleasant.
*01:47:04*
Yeah, it seems that way.
*01:47:09*
And everyone that I know who's on Nebula
*01:47:10*
Only has, you know, nice things to say about the whole experience.
*01:47:15*
I think it's the right idea for her.
*01:47:18*
This type of
*01:47:24*
Video?
*01:47:27*
Like you get to make and say what you want to say and not have to worry about the consequences of like you said, ads are the problem.
*01:47:29*
It's these
*01:47:38*
huge corporations and things.
*01:47:38*
But the the inverse of that is is you need that revenue for sustainment.
*01:47:40*
It feels it's like they e each need each other, you know?
*01:47:47*
I don't know.
*01:47:51*
Yeah.
*01:47:53*
I know well ads are funny that way because, you know, people talk about oh I you know, wish there were fewer ads and and I hate
*01:47:53*
You know, I hate all these ads and unskippable and all this stuff.
*01:47:59*
And I'm like, yeah, on principle, me too, but also that's that's how I get money.
*01:48:01*
Like I I hate needing that, but it benefits me.
*01:48:06*
It benefits the the
*01:48:11*
makers of those ads and those products, but it is also what makes money for the creator.
*01:48:13*
So
*01:48:20*
I haven't seen an ad on YouTube in I don't know how many years, and it's not because I'm running an ad block or anything like that.
*01:48:21*
I just I pay for YouTube premium because I don't want to see the ads.
*01:48:26*
And I don't know what the the rate or however it works is, but it uh is my understanding that some of my premium subscription like goes to the viewers of what I'm watching.
*01:48:31*
My understanding is that if everybody had premium, it would be better for everybody.
*01:48:40*
Like that the creators would make more if it were a hundred percent premium
*01:48:45*
Everyone sign up for YouTube Premium because it truly is the best.
*01:48:50*
Um I don't even have it.
*01:48:53*
It's so expensive.
*01:48:54*
Well, okay.
*01:48:56*
Do this.
*01:48:57*
Uh have a family plan and split it with your your dad, because he watches so much YouTube
*01:48:58*
So do that, everybody.
*01:49:03*
Um, that's what I do.
*01:49:05*
We have a family plan and it it happens to work out when you split it, but I don't even know how much it costs.
*01:49:06*
Like the I think YouTube should give creators a free YouTube premium when they are professional When they're professional they should get it for free.
*01:49:12*
Yeah, I guess it's a little bad.
*01:49:24*
Makes sense.
*01:49:25*
I like it.
*01:49:26*
Well, I think that does it, Dan.
*01:49:28*
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
*01:49:31*
I really appreciate it.
*01:49:34*
I've learned so much.
*01:49:36*
Just in general, talking and ways of thinking about things I have never
*01:49:38*
thought about stuff before like that.
*01:49:43*
Um so thank you so much for coming on the show.
*01:49:45*
I really, really appreciate you taking the time.
*01:49:47*
Everyone go check out Cinema Sticks, not cinnamon sticks.
*01:49:50*
Not uh what was not Pennyvoxel, not Filmcraft, Cinema Sticks.
*01:49:54*
Go check them out on YouTube.
*01:50:01*
at cin at cinemastics everywhere.
*01:50:03*
YouTube, Patreon, Nebula.
*01:50:06*
The newsletter is cinemasticks.
*01:50:08*
kit dot com.
*01:50:11*
You can go sign up for that, which is gonna have more good nuggets, I'm sure, in the future as it gets sent out.
*01:50:12*
If you would like to see links to anything that we spoke about, you can check out the show notes in your podcast player or head over to maxfrequency.
*01:50:19*
net forward slash MFP.
*01:50:26*
Dash forty seven, everything including all of those links will be there for you to go check out and sign up.
*01:50:29*
Uh you can head over to the blog, read anything.
*01:50:35*
and get ready to listen to Chapter Select season seven.
*01:50:39*
It's gonna come out eventually here, when Metroid Prime four finally gets a date.
*01:50:42*
Miyamoto willing, we'll find out.
*01:50:48*
Uh but until next time everybody.
*01:50:50*
Adios.
*01:50:52*