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11 Marylou Anderson of madeby_marylou
71 Plays4 months ago
Marylou is the Queen of chill vibes. She creates videos that make you feel, mallets that will beat you with love, and has recently become a 3d printing addict. She was lots of fun to talk to about videography, her cnc, and her new love of 3d printing.
https://www.instagram.com/madeby_marylou/
https://www.madebymarylou.com/
Things of the week:
Marylou: Creating your own music for videos
Al: “Do something with what you have”
Jeff: Print your own multi-color filament https://makerworld.com/en/models/912395-multicolor-filament-v2-dual-triple-quadruple
Patreon: http://patreon.com/digifabricators
Discord: https://discord.gg/hHp8Sv7vt4
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to DigiFabricators
00:00:12
Speaker
damn Hello and welcome to DigiFabricators, the show where we learn how makers and artists use their computer-driven tools for fun, art, and profit.
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm your host, Jeff Stein, aka a a weird guy, and with me is my talented but humble co-host, Al Schultz of New York Woodworks. How you doing tonight, Al? Good evening. I'm doing well. Thank you very much.
00:00:38
Speaker
Awesome. Going pretty good over here, too. We had a crusty week of creeping crud in the house, but we're all feeling better now. It's that time of year again.
00:00:50
Speaker
Well, at least you got it out of the system in time for the podcast. Yeah, that's right. no No trips to Rwanda. No, no, none of that. All right. Let's throw out the podcast disclaimer and we'll get a start.
00:01:05
Speaker
All right. Even though we pretend to be experts on the internet, I would like to point out that neither of us have any actual training and are just guys winging it in our shops and learning as we go.
00:01:16
Speaker
All advice provided is based on our personal experience and possibly inaccurate assumptions and is worth exactly what you pay for it. If listening to this show causes you to take out a loan to buy new and expensive digital tools, you may tell your spouse that it was our fault, but do so at your own risk.
Meet Mary Lou Anderson
00:01:36
Speaker
Our guest tonight is the queen of chill vibes. She creates videos that make you feel, mallets that will beat you with love, and has recently become a 3D printing addict.
00:01:48
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Mary Lou Anderson, AKA Made by Mary Lou. Hi, thanks for having me. Good evening, ma'am. how are you? I'm good, thanks.
00:02:02
Speaker
where do Where do we find Miss Mary Lou this evening? Where I'm in Orange County, California. California, West Coast. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:13
Speaker
Close to Disneyland. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. um It was a really nice day. It was like 82 degrees, really sunny. Kind of hot, actually.
00:02:24
Speaker
But nice. Wow. Yeah, you can have that heat. We're not ready for that yet. I know. I was like, not 80 in March. Give me a little longer. Is that hot for March even?
00:02:35
Speaker
I feel like it is. I mean, it definitely is here. yeah I'm pretty sure we broke 40 today. ah wow. Heat wave. heat wave
00:02:50
Speaker
Wow.
Creative Roots and Filmmaking Journey
00:02:51
Speaker
So I guess the the the the official question is, give us a quick introduction of who you are and how you got here. Who I am, how I got here.
00:03:06
Speaker
How long do you guys have? um so i I'm just a general artist, I would say. ah I've been creative like my whole life. I grew up with musicians.
00:03:21
Speaker
My dad is a guitarist. Every single person in my family like plays something sings. And um my mom was very supportive of the arts.
00:03:33
Speaker
um So I just grew up trying everything. And I was a very curious child and that extends to now. um I went to film school.
00:03:46
Speaker
So I studied filmmaking. And um while I was in film school, I did a lot of set design on other people's films.
00:03:57
Speaker
And that was probably like my real introduction into tools. Cause like, I'm a girl among many boys in my family. Like I have six brothers and I'm the only girl. So I was not taught like tool things as a kid. I was
Embracing Digital Tools
00:04:15
Speaker
last in line when it came to that. So I didn't like touch a drill till I was in college.
00:04:21
Speaker
And was like, oh, okay, this is all right. You know, and it was something that i i um, I didn't end up like doing much set design like after school, but I had those skills and, um, I moved to North Carolina.
00:04:43
Speaker
um and it was such a change of pace, like, I had no friends there. i didn't um and didn't know what to do. Like, what is there to do in Raleigh, North Carolina, you know?
00:04:57
Speaker
Other than try restaurants, I guess. um so i I got caught up on YouTube.
Influences from YouTube Woodworking
00:05:04
Speaker
Like, I was just watching a lot of YouTube. And I came across, like, Laura Kampf and Four Eyes Furniture, Salamone, and just, like, the rabbit hole.
00:05:17
Speaker
you know, of makers and stuff. um But in particular with like Laura Kampf, I was kind of like, oh, this is cool. This is different from what other people were doing, which was like basically woodworking or just making things in general um shown in a cinematic way.
00:05:36
Speaker
And it At that time in my life, I wasn't really doing any filmmaking, but something about watching her videos, like reminded me that I had all those skills.
00:05:49
Speaker
Like I could do all of those and melt that in with my current interests, which at that time I was like, really diving into woodworking well just like youtube university woodworking i guess right right and and learning i hold the doctor there yeah i'm getting closer to my phd so um but yeah and and like you know making small things at a time and and using the tools that i had at my disposal and not like
00:06:22
Speaker
You know, I knew the quality that I wanted, but I didn't have the tools to make those things. But I went into it thinking like, well, if I can learn to do this on shitty, like tools and and camera gear and stuff, then when I can graduate up to the next level, I'll be that much better.
00:06:44
Speaker
those things so that's solid thing it's solid thought yeah you really just gotta i mean some people are like i'm gonna wait until everything's just fucking perfect and then i'll make a video yeah but you know that's such a bad idea really just have to start with what you have yes and then try to upgrade yourself once you know what you really need
Starting with Basic Tools
00:07:08
Speaker
Exactly.
00:07:09
Speaker
this This is, I know we're recording audio, but this bag right here has about $1,400 worth of DSLR camera equipment in it that is two years old that I've never used because I've got to take the time to learn how to use it.
00:07:22
Speaker
And I literally just today got it out with a, a friend of mine got it out and he's like, no, no, no, no. You're going start filming with this thing. This is what it'll do. He actually connected it to my phone. I about crapped my pants. I was like, what?
00:07:34
Speaker
But, uh, so the monitor,
00:07:37
Speaker
but he shows that as a monitor Yeah, you can use it as a monitor, the phone, you can hook it to an iPad. you can You can Bluetooth directly from the camera to the hard drive on your PC. like it's I'm like, wait a minute.
00:07:53
Speaker
What? Yeah. so So you started with classic art media, paint, drawing, charcoals, creativity and stuff like that, and then graduated into building things you could hold in your hands.
00:08:09
Speaker
And so were you were you finding like maker spaces to work in or were you just getting whatever tools you could afford to get? No, yeah. Saturday and saturday in the driveway. Yeah.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have that personality type to want to go to a maker space. Okay. Talk to people and work around people. Yeah. So especially when i'm first when I'm first starting out with like something I'm not that experienced in, the last thing I want to do is like do that in front of people.
00:08:40
Speaker
So, um, yeah, no, I used a lot of my stepdad's tools in the driveway yeah and, um, When we moved to North Carolina, it was into like a new development. So there was a lot of construction going around and there were there was a lot of like, yeah, there's a lot of pallets just on the side of the road.
00:08:59
Speaker
And I just like pick them up, um take them apart and try to figure out like what I could make out of this. And it was all just like skill building. Like I was just trying to teach myself, like, what are the fundamentals of this?
00:09:12
Speaker
um Can I make something shitty like this look cool? home yeah and then, you know, as I kept developing, then I'm trying to figure out like, what's my style?
00:09:23
Speaker
You know, like. There's people that I'm inspired by, but I don't want to be them. I don't want to copy them. I don't want to emulate them. I want to take the things that they do that inspire me, but say it in my own voice.
00:09:37
Speaker
And so along with like building skills, it's like figuring out what is your voice? What are you trying to say? are you trying to do i guess yeah Yeah, man, this is good stuff.
00:09:51
Speaker
so So, I would love to talk about camera gear just cause it's, it's, it's fresh on my mind, but from after digital camera equipment, which we can go back to what, how
CNC Adventure Begins
00:10:03
Speaker
did you get dip your toes into the digital world and what was it? Was it a, was it ah a vinyl cutter, a CNC, a printer? of what How did you end up in the digital space?
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah. Um, Did I end up in the digital space? um I feel like a a lot of ah when Inventables sort of came out with um their X-Carve CNC, they used a lot of influencer marketing and I was influenced.
00:10:34
Speaker
and gotta i gotta I gotta say, thought you were like way after Inventables. You don't look old enough to know what an X-carve is. yeah No, I have like the small one too. Really, really? You got the, which is what Jimmy Duresta jokes about, like the X-carve is the gateway to woodworking or something like that.
00:10:59
Speaker
Basically, definitely to see and sing. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, like, after I got that, I regretted it. Really? ever Yeah, it took forever to put together. Like, I stalled, kind of like you had your camera for two years. Yeah, I think I had it, like, in parts for...
00:11:17
Speaker
like seven months or something. And then I would just do a little bit at a time. I'm like, this is fucking annoying. don' want Put this thing together. um We have a, we have a mutual friend that I don't think ever got an X-carve together.
00:11:31
Speaker
its a yeah yeah yeah it was like many parts yeah and then like they there were parts that were missing on top of it ah so i had to like go back but i know it's a year later four months yeah four months later and they're like are you sure i'm like yes you sure you didn't just wear it out don't know what to say yeah cat ri i haven't even tried it yet yeah I just sat in the garage untouched, you know, for so long on the workbench.
00:12:03
Speaker
Well, that's an amazing drive that you were able to survive an X-Carve and stay in, stay passionate about this business. Well, once you get it working, it's fun, right?
00:12:15
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Yeah. But then there was like maintenance and the belts, like replacing that was a nightmare. And, uh, but then I also like learned what I didn't want to do again with my upgrade.
00:12:28
Speaker
Like I always knew this was my starter CNC. Um, and also you're still, you're not still on an X-carve. No.
00:12:38
Speaker
Yeah. And then I was shopping around. i don't know. I'm very curious. they're probably hanging on museum walls now. let Maybe. Probably.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah. that But then Onefinity came out. And it I feel like that really took away a lot of the pain points. That's a big jump from an X-Carp to a Onefinity. Yeah. Yeah. yeah third Assembly and ease of use.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah. Like, if I ever need a small machine, it'll be a onefinity, I'm pretty sure. I have a strong feeling that if I ever get rid of my shape, OCO and upgrade that one affinity is going to be the, the yeah right choice for me. Yeah.
00:13:22
Speaker
I still like shape OCO. They're a great company. And this machine has done fan. I mean, for a belt driven machine with a trim router in it, it has done fantastic job for me. have no complaints about it or the company.
00:13:37
Speaker
But the reason I will dump Shapeoko in a heartbeat for a Onefinity is the fact that they came out with a $700 rotary that you can smack onto a Onefinity now as a plug and play option that you can get.
00:13:51
Speaker
And they are the first person to sell a machine under like $7,000 that has a rotary possible without a rotary.
00:14:03
Speaker
without you know dicking around and doing it all custom yourself shit right so you're on a onefinity now correct sorry yeah so six or seven hundred dollars and get you a rotary right now yeah depending on the size of the machine i think i would probably want to get a laser before i got a rotary for my cnc not everybody needs a rotary yeah but yeah But I do, and that will affect my purchase decision, is buying a machine that will support that.
00:14:39
Speaker
I'd like to get rid of my rotary-only machine and the Shapeoko and replace them with one solid, linear, rail-driven machine that has the rotary built onto it. i want to It's got the flat and the round built on. that's I'd replace both of my machines with one of those if I had the money today.
00:15:02
Speaker
Yeah, I say do it. Charge it.
00:15:09
Speaker
Well, sure. both didn't say anything. If I was going to call it an investment, if I was going to call it an investment and I'm going to make money by having this machine, then I would absolutely invest in my future and do that.
00:15:25
Speaker
But seeing is this as this is a hobby and I don't make a good goddamn dime off of this, I just have fun and like showing off. So yeah. It's yeah this is more something I need to have money to throw away at it to be able to afford to upgrade my hobby.
00:15:43
Speaker
Now, for sure, i do have the advantage of knowing that if I buy a new machine that I'm perfectly capable of selling the two old machines to help recoup some of that cost.
00:15:57
Speaker
But it's it's it's still not going to balance out and I still need to have all the money up front. So.
00:16:06
Speaker
It is what it is. Is this a full-time business for you? Is this what you do for a living? or yeah No, no. the I don't make any money from this. yeah this is awesome This entire Instagram is a hobby?
00:16:21
Speaker
This entire Instagram is a hobby. Everything that I do. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have not looked at this Instagram, there is there is really anything that you can try that Mary Lou hasn't tried and and mastered.
00:16:34
Speaker
This is, wow. Okay. yeah Interesting. Hopefully, you know, it'll turn at some point in my life. Yeah. you do shows or or like Etsy or anything like that? or this is all no um i used to No. I used to like have an online store and I would sell like some products and stuff here and there. But like I shut that down a while ago and I kind of... I've been a little bit more project
Plug-and-Play 3D Printing
00:17:05
Speaker
focused. Just like one-off sort of a thing.
00:17:08
Speaker
um Because it is side... aside yeah not a side hustle but like a side uh hobby egg i guess yeah yeah it is a hobby yeah many many side hobbies yeah you're killing it but thank you shit so so we've got it so we went from a an x-carve to a onefinity what what was it what was your next digital dive um i got a 3d printer a couple months ago i'm like how long has it been it hasn't been that long yeah i don't know maybe month and a half this is the a1 bamboo yeah a1 yeah yeah i uh i am tripping out on this uh
00:17:55
Speaker
this little organizer you made it look like a mint it looks a mini uh c c uh what do you call these sustainers yeah yes did you model it after a sustainer no i didn't i just found like a file on um bamboo studio yeah you using like gridfinity or something Mm-hmm.
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Gridfinity is a system that you can print the bottom, which is just a really short grid. And then you can get boxes and containers of like that are one or two grids across and whatever size and shape.
00:18:32
Speaker
There's like a thousand things that fit in. So it's a complete system. It's a full system that's pre-modeled and you can pick and choose. whatever shit you want to make your drawer work the way you want.
00:18:45
Speaker
And a lot of people, you know, have contributed to this 3D printing cost, which like, you know, that's actually what I needed to dive into that world. Like I needed the technology and the users using it to be at a certain level. Like I wanted something that I just plug in.
00:19:05
Speaker
I don't, same instance, you know, I already learned from X-Carve. Like, I don't want to build this thing. I just want to plug this in. um Unless it's a bandsaw, I'll deal with it.
00:19:17
Speaker
But like these other tools, I just need to like plug that shit in and I want to print something now. And that's what this printer did. And like so many people like have modeled stuff out that I just can like take that and customize it to suit my needs.
00:19:35
Speaker
and make it look the way I want it to look. Yeah, you're just tweaking like shareware files? Is that is that a appropriate proper term anymore? I don't know what shareware is, but shareware files, yeah. yeah yeah yeah Free for personal use models.
00:19:52
Speaker
yeah There's millions of them. so so exactly Is that why you waited until now to get a printer? Is because you didn't want the hobby of learning how to fuck with a printer you wanted a hobby of printing things because that's that that's what was holding me back i mean i had a resin printer a couple years ago and it was not i mean it it did what it was supposed to and i didn't have to mess with it other than the usual mess of dealing with the freaking resin and the that mess but i mean i didn't have to tweak it i didn't have to learn how to play with it it just it just printed shit
00:20:32
Speaker
But all the other, you know, FDM filament printers, there was a thing where, I mean, you had to spend half your damn time tweaking it, re-leveling it, re-adjusting shit. Yeah. Tweaking every freaking little time to setting and adjusting your temperatures and your flow rates and all of this shit.
00:20:51
Speaker
It was a whole thing. And you had to like spend years learning how to do all these things. And yeah. just to keep your machine running and actually getting prints off of it.
00:21:03
Speaker
And Bamboo came along and they've got the settings in there on defaults. that are so good that you don't have to tweak anything. It auto levels itself for the most part, not 100%, but 95% auto levels itself.
00:21:22
Speaker
And that all the default settings usually give you the result you're looking for. And it's only when the defaults don't work do you have to figure out what you need to tweak.
00:21:35
Speaker
But for the most part, Bamboo's got it. So you just send a file over, you wait a couple of hours, you pop the thing off and you move on with your life and you've got it. it It's just, yeah that's what I was waiting for, for the FDM.
00:21:51
Speaker
I was waiting for that. I didn't, ah you know, i don't care how nice a Prusa is and i don't care how many people swear. It's just amazing. And once you get it tweaked perfect, it just works for you.
00:22:03
Speaker
Great. How long did that take to get to this point? You know, suck I mean, i know too much i don't cause time for that i know people who said they can guarantee that their Prusa will do anything they throw at it because they've got it tweaked to absolute perfection.
00:22:21
Speaker
But did you spend three years learning how to tweak that thing to perfection before you get to that point? It certainly didn't do that shit right out of the box. And that's that's what I was waiting for to get into it.
00:22:34
Speaker
I've had mine since the middle of last summer. So I'm not too far ahead of you. I was also waiting for the bamboo simplicity of just take it out of the box, plug it in and hit print.
00:22:45
Speaker
yeah amazing I'm just waiting until I'm tired of Jeff bitching at me and I'll just go buy one and I don't have one yet I had one in the cart and i it just wasn wasn't in the budget at this time so it's still in the cart um I am trying to figure out if I would just want to double ah double down and get the full size A1 that you guys are using or Plus, or whatever it is.
00:23:16
Speaker
The normal A1 is the same size as the other expensive ones. Oh, it is. The Mini, yeah. Yeah, the the three, the a one the P1, and the X1 are all the exact same cubic dimensions left, right, and up.
00:23:32
Speaker
The Mini is the only one that's got a different ah print size. So I'm looking at it, so an is fine. but Yeah. I don't need to get the fancy case and all that stuff. No, not really.
00:23:43
Speaker
But he had, the guy that helped me with my camera today, we were looking at a job, actually, for some CNC work, a bunch of CNC work. But he, up in the corner, we had to get, like, he's thinking, he's he's contemplating buying, like, 350 sheets of plywood, and we have to store it somewhere, and he's got a barn, which is his studio. So we were kind of like, you know, you don't want this, if we're going to keep this long-term, you don't want pre-finished plywood where you're spray painting and shooting poly and stuff like that you're going to ruin the plywood you know so but then on the shelf i see um i'm like what is that over there and he goes oh it's a 3d printer was like really it was like do you i didn't know you were into this and he goes yeah i haven't touched it in a year or two it was a so i went over and looked at it it's an ender yeah and uh he goes he goes do you want to get into 3d printing i said yeah i actually have i have one i'm
00:24:39
Speaker
just haven't pulled the trigger on it yet. he goes, oh, well this is the one you want to start with because it's going to teach you how to do all the leveling and all. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I don't want to know how to do all that.
00:24:50
Speaker
but no The new ones do it for you. That's what I said. You don't have to learn how to level anything. I said, how old is this? And he goes, it's like three years old. I'm like yeah, no. It's ender the co conversation. that was That was fantastic piece of technology up until Bamboo upset what was standard for everybody. Yeah.
00:25:15
Speaker
that Now that Bamboo came out, they've raised the bar. Everybody's standard is it fucking just prints for you right out of the box. Which was not industry standard before that point.
00:25:28
Speaker
So right and beforeable bamboo came right before Bamboo came out, the Ender and the Prusa were fantastic machines. But they were the last generation of you still have to learn how to freaking tweak the shit.
00:25:45
Speaker
yeah They were great, but... box this box I'm sorry, I know this is silly, but this this box is amazing. this organization box i've got i've got it playing on a monitor behind me yeah or behind you should say yeah no i love organization so so so what's the software i see there there's like a dark screen with the 3d with the um yeah bamboo studio that's bamboo software yeah yeah bamboo studio okay okay so you can literally like change the text on these models or whatever mm-hmm
00:26:17
Speaker
yeah Some, like, you you can't change the text. Like, it's just sort of built into that. So I've been trying to find things that maybe have, like, a blank spot where I can put, like, text that I want. There's...
00:26:34
Speaker
there's ways that you can try to do some stuff. Like, yeah, I'm sure if if the front of your model has a nice flat spot, but the person that uploaded it put their own logo on it, you can add a cube, you can add a primitive cube and stretch it out and make it thin and basically use that to fill in the holes.
00:27:01
Speaker
Like a cover. And then try to, and and if the cube sticks out a little bit, that'll be the front surface. And you can, don't I don't know if you can emboss on a standard cube, but I'm guessing you probably can.
00:27:13
Speaker
You can probably add your text to the cube and put the cube just a millimeter in front of the shit. So it'll fill the holes and allow you to put your own shit on it instead. There's a lot you can do with...
00:27:27
Speaker
adding primitives and adding and and adding those onto the model or adding negative primitives, which will subtract anywhere they overlap.
00:27:42
Speaker
So there's a lot you can do in the slicer to adjust the models that you download. And just when you think you understand shit, you find an entire tab of shit that does all kinds of extra stuff you didn't even fucking know was there.
00:27:57
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I used that software for a couple of months and then I found another tab at the top and I'm like, wait, I can do what? I didn't know you could do that.
00:28:10
Speaker
That's what I think is going to happen. I'm just going to keep discovering more and more. So it really becomes this like addiction. i could see. i mean, you're very like, you're printing such a amazing, like,
00:28:25
Speaker
I gotta get a printer. yeah Yeah. Now keep in mind, she's had it for six weeks and you're looking at things she posted three weeks ago. i Yeah.
00:28:36
Speaker
Oh, wait, wait. You've only been printing 3D printing for a month and a half? Yeah. Six, maybe eight. I'm trying to remember how long I've seen her with it, but it hasn't been more than like two months since she that. Yeah, exactly. It hasn't been too long. So what you're seeing is basically what she did out of the fucking box.
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. yeah Amazing. like also he's Good job. Yeah. so that that's that's that's the joy of the the the bamboo is great for a beginner because you can click. I mean, you can be on the app on your phone.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah. You could be, you could be at the store and you're like, Oh, I mean, you could be at the hardware store and you see a piece of plastic. That's an angle bracket or something stupid. And you're like, Oh, I could just print one of those.
00:29:27
Speaker
You can open the bamboo app on your phone, type in angle bracket, find one you like, click the next button three times, pick which reel it comes from. and when you get home, there's going to be a,
00:29:40
Speaker
you know, black angle bracket sitting on the printer waiting for you. And you didn't have to do anything except find the one you like, tell it how many you wanted on the plate and what color you want it to use.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah. The best thing is like starting a print before you go to sleep and then waking up and it's like just about finishing. yeah and You get to see the whole finished product and i'm like, wow, you were working while i was sleeping.
00:30:07
Speaker
um You can sleep while I die. Like something you couldn't do with a CNC. No. You can, but I don't recommend it. No, I would never. i i have a camera. Yeah.
00:30:23
Speaker
i've I've left the house before. Yeah. right I'm getting a little bit more bold. Like I'll leave. like i don't have a camera in there. I'll leave the shop and I'll like go kick it inside the house.
00:30:34
Speaker
I can tell by the sounds that something's going wrong. Absolutely. absolutely they on We should, I mean, again, we You should be very cautious taking advice from us. Please don't do what I do. We've already warned them. We covered that at the beginning.
00:30:51
Speaker
For a reason. Yeah, 100%. But there is, i want to stress, there is a difference, and this is not throwing shade at any machine or any brand, but there is a difference between a three five six twelve horsepower router that's designed to run for hours and hours and hours and a trim router on a v-carve or on a x-carve that is designed to run for five to ten minutes trimming something it was never built for a cnc right so letting a letting a trim router run for 10 hours on an unattended is a
00:31:27
Speaker
That's a risk. That'd be wild. yeah I found a good solution for watching this from when I was somewhere else. Now, I don't have any fancy camera equipment.
00:31:41
Speaker
i I have an Android phone in my pocket, and I have my last Android phone sitting in the shop. That last Android phone is what I do all my filming on because it's in airplane mode. I don't have worry about notifications popping in in the middle of my recording or anything stupid like that.
00:32:01
Speaker
And when it's not recording, you can install an app that does a webcam. You can install a webcam app and it'll connect to a server somewhere.
00:32:14
Speaker
you just plug it into the wall so it doesn't run out of electricity, turn on the webcam, And then when you're in Menards, if you're wondering how the machine's doing, you can pull up the browser on your good phone and see what the old phone says your shit's doing.
00:32:31
Speaker
And what do you do if something's going wrong? i have one of those smart switches that you plug into an outlet and then you plug one thing into it and all i've got to say is okay g turn off the shop and my lights and the cnc all go dark instantly from wherever i'm at so yeah i mean i've i've had my wife text me and say your machine's making a weird noise I don't even care to look at it. i just reach for the power button as fast as I can from where I'm at.
00:33:05
Speaker
It's a great trick. Yeah. And that's almost everybody's got an old phone. Yeah. Yeah. Old phones are great for recording stuff in the shop without having to buy expensive camera equipment.
00:33:19
Speaker
And they're good for webcams too. Yeah. I used to, I used an iPhone to film a dead iPhone to film with for a long time. Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:30
Speaker
But now I run Blink cameras everywhere. ah Some of us may have thousands of dollars worth camera equipment. But it's not new. No. The Blink cameras that I use are plug-in ones and are like $14. Yeah. The controllable outlets are more... So what are you shooting on Mary Lou?
00:33:54
Speaker
Um, I have a few cameras. Uh, not surprised to hear that. Yeah. My main, um, is a Sony FX three.
00:34:09
Speaker
I primarily use a 24 millimeter Sigma cinema lens. Um, that goes down to 1.4 f-stop. I have a couple other lenses, but I don't really use those too much.
00:34:27
Speaker
um And that's like my main you know filmmaking camera. I also have an Osmo Pocket 3. that I'll use like for um like reels or something, you know, quick little video edits and stuff. Right.
00:34:43
Speaker
That's that's kind of a GoPro ish type device, right? It is. It's basically like a GoPro on a gimbal. OK, so it's all It's all one, right? Yeah, but exactly. It's like probably that big. um But, you know, it has a lot of great features too, like face tracking and mostly like I like it for um smooth camera shots.
00:35:12
Speaker
And it's a good it's a good like, like if you want to vlog more, um it's way less embarrassing to have like in public than big ass camera. that's a full photography yeah exactly and i i already feel would be a little yeah i feel embarrassed doing like influencer things in public like i still i still it's so hard yeah yeah like yeah no i'm like at a restaurant i'm not really good at that either i i rarely film myself at all really and when i do i'm
00:35:48
Speaker
almost never holding the camera um i mostly put my phone on a tripod and then take two tries to make sure i'm framed in the damn shot before i actually start trying to do my spiel but it's very rare that i do that and you know the thing i've noticed about influencers and acting like an idiot in public You can get away with so much more if you have someone else hold the fucking camera.
00:36:21
Speaker
For Somehow the fact that you have a you have a person with the camera who's walking around and filming you while you're doing your shit, it somehow offers this air of legitimacy that holding up your own phone and talking to it when you go down the street doesn't give you.
00:36:43
Speaker
yeah Yeah, when you have somebody filming you, it's performance. When you're filming yourself, you're just crazy. Yeah, yeah. that's You know, I don't know that that's true, but that absolutely mirrors the public perception of how you're doing what you're doing there. Yeah, and probably yeah for sure.
00:37:00
Speaker
yeah I think if I was ever going to try to be one of those people that walked around and talked in public, I think I would find – ah one of my kids or a friend or somebody that would play cameraman because that would at least make me feel like I'm playing to them specifically and not just talking to myself on my damn phone, which makes me feel silly.
00:37:27
Speaker
And you know I mean, I think you could maybe transition in a little easier that way. If you start with someone as a cameraman, just even for a couple of times, you find somebody that'll do it once or twice for you, that might break enough of the ice that you can get used to acting like an idiot in public.
00:37:47
Speaker
And then maybe you'll feel a little bit more comfortable trying it yourself after that. yeah yeah but i'm still it gives you something to focus on personally yeah yeah it gives you something focus on too right you're not so you're not distracted by those i i still can't do i act a fool here like my story is i'm a maniac in the shop but if somebody walks in like i'm so awkward doing that hey my friend bob showed up hi bob you know but other than that i'm like hey welcome back to the shop you know yeah
00:38:20
Speaker
my wife will It's not too bad if Bob is someone who's gotten Instagram and has yeah done stories before. Because yeah if you're doing stories with a friend who also does stories, suddenly you're doing stories together and you're sharing your insanity and it's fair.
00:38:41
Speaker
yeah But somehow if my wife would be walk-in or somebody who's not on Instagram at all and doesn't understand the thing of it, then I'd be super heavily self-conscious at that point.
00:38:59
Speaker
oh yeah And I might as well just stop what I'm doing, deal with the people, get them the hell out of my space so I can focus on being an idiot by myself again, rather than worry about someone being judgmental and watching me act like an idiot for a camera.
00:39:16
Speaker
I think my, i i don't trust other people with a camera, like to make the shot look right. Or maybe with your camera.
00:39:29
Speaker
Maybe, yeah, but even lying on a phone, I'm like, why do I look like shit when you did this? like Because they didn't go to school for filmmaking.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah. That might have a lot to do with it. Alright, so I'm but um but going to make a note here. it's Never tag Mary Lou because it's going to look like shit. Yeah. Well, you guys at least like have an Instagram. I'm talking about like you know your family member who youre you happen to be with on this trip. and and you know and need I need a cool cinematic shot for my short film. Can you take this video of me?
00:40:07
Speaker
No. I'd rather bring my own tripod and slider. and create the shop myself. I just don't have that like trust. But stories are much more candid, much more like free and you're right. Like when you're with someone who stories a lot or just someone who has like a vivacious like personality, it's so much easier to do silly things in public with other silly people.
00:40:34
Speaker
Right. yeah It's just the solos. Solo stuff. It's hard. It makes a difference if you've been someone who's taken a lot of pictures or shot any video and has any vague idea how to frame a shot so that the person is staying in the middle or on the third line or wherever the hell you want it to be.
00:41:00
Speaker
versus someone who just picks it up and vaguely kind of points it in your direction while wobbling around a little. Yeah. And I, I would be a much bigger difference for you who knows how to do it right. Knows how it looks right.
00:41:15
Speaker
And it looks really, really wrong when someone else doesn't know those things. Yeah. huge different I for some of us who don't know anything about videography, videography, don't know, got an extra syllable in there then.
00:41:32
Speaker
It wouldn't make as big of a difference. And yeah, I would just try to clean it up and editing. Yeah. It's like, I don't know what a slider costs, but I'm not paying for one. i wanted to i was I'm glad you brought that up. Explain what a slider is. I know this is all normal stuff for photography people, and I think I know what it is But you said tripod and a slider, and i'm like, wait, do they go together?
00:41:56
Speaker
So explain what a slider I think you can slider on a tripod, right? they do put Yeah, you can put a slider on a tripod. It's basically um also a machine.
00:42:07
Speaker
um that's using a belt system and you know going in a loop and it pulls the camera back and forth um so you can get camera back and forth yeah so you put the camera on top of the slider and this bell is just um pulling the camera from like left to right essentially and you can set through an app on your phone like various speeds that you wanted to go various like distances along the slider you can do a time-lapse and as well.
Filmmaking Techniques and Tools
00:42:37
Speaker
And how big is this thing? through Um, mine is a small one. It's like, oops, sorry. It's like probably like, I don't know, 12 inches, like a foot. Okay. Well, and forgive my ignorance, please.
00:42:48
Speaker
Um, why do I want to move my camera left to right or right to left? Um, so you're, you're not always just like, you could also face the the lens like in various positions, but ah moving shot is much more, uh,
00:43:05
Speaker
dynamic yeah it's more dynamic i mean static shots have their place for sure but a moving shot is more interesting it draws you in it looks cooler um and also i don't have another person to give me moving shots while i'm doing things so the slider is kind of like you know my cameraman
00:43:29
Speaker
so Yeah, I mean you you've seen like a landscape where where the camera slowly pans to the left and shows more as it goes. That's a slide that's basically done on a slider.
00:43:40
Speaker
okay okay Now I do the same kind of shit in my video edits, but I'm doing it by zooming in a little bit in the edit in in editing i will just have a static shot because the camera my camera is my phone is just sitting on the tripod it ain't going anywhere but if you zoom in like 20 then you can pan left and right on the image because now the image is bigger than the frame yeah of what you're showing so once you zoom in you're now showing
00:44:18
Speaker
say 60% of the actual film. So you can keyframe a shot so that the video starts zoomed in at this percent and it starts all the way on the left.
00:44:33
Speaker
And then over the next six seconds, it will slowly pan across the video. So if, if you'll see me doing shit like this, Say I'm shooting a video where I'm doing a rotary cut and you'll see the camera basically stay in line with the router as it moves to the left as it cuts through the part.
00:45:00
Speaker
That's being done on... Now, see, she would do that with a slider, and it would look fantastic. I do that by zooming in a little bit and panning... Panning across the frame. You can cheat it in post, for sure.
00:45:14
Speaker
I cheat it in post, and it costs me nothing. But so it doesn't look as good at hers, but it still looks better than the static shot.
00:45:26
Speaker
To give you a little like film history, i don't know if you've ever like noticed when like in behind the scenes you see a camera on top of tracks. and Yeah, right. that is A slider is emulating that.
00:45:40
Speaker
It's just a way smaller version and you know the movements aren't quite as vast or yeah drastic, but that's how you used to create moving shots that are really nice and smooth back in the day before a gimbal was ever invented. yeah so You had a yeah the cameraman who was very, very slowly pacing himself step, step, step to the left to follow the actors up the street.
00:46:07
Speaker
Have you ever heard of the Alfred Hitchcock shot? Well, it's just called the Hitchcock shot. But it's basically where um they were on tracks. So um the tracks were like just going straight and the camera's facing straight.
00:46:24
Speaker
And they're moving in on the tracks physically. And then the lens is zooming out at the same time. So it's creating this really weird effect. I can't remember what movie that was in.
00:46:36
Speaker
It was like one of his super popular movies. But um if you ever see that in a movie now, that is a Hitchcock shot. Very popular moving shots in cinema. So the central character doesn't seem to get any closer, but the background still kind of seems to slide by? Yeah, it's like the room is moving at you and the person's moving further away.
00:47:00
Speaker
like it's it's a really bizarre cool shot though i saw it in a recent movie um called perfect days and i was like shocked because nobody uses this shot anymore you know i was like oh my god that's so cool it was like you caught it see that's so cool that's so cool like to to catch things like that that they're like little little uh presents yeah in in film school they called it the disease so you can't watch like uh movies as a normal person anymore you're like literally dissecting the entire thing the whole time i know it but i feel like yeah i feel like that's the truth for anything that you're passionate about that is you you just dissect it until you figure out how to do it
00:47:45
Speaker
When you're a woodworker and you go into a bar and you see that the miters on the corner of the bar don't fucking meet up. With a woodworker, you look at that and you go, that is some really shitty construction craftsmanship right there.
00:48:00
Speaker
But nobody else in the damn bar notices it all. It's because you're a woodworker, you notice woodworking mistakes. If you're a filmmaker, you notice filmmaking things that you don't like.
00:48:13
Speaker
Whether it's bad or just not to your specific taste, but you, you, you dissect it more because you understand more about it. Or you appreciate the good things. I mean, if you sew, you see bad stitches in the Walmart and you go, I'm never buying this shit.
00:48:30
Speaker
So, I mean, it that really does go for anything that you know enough about. that you can judge the specific details that your normal average unknowing person would never see. Yeah.
00:48:44
Speaker
So Ms. Mary Lou, let me ask you an opinion question. I'm curious because just in the little bit of time we've been speaking here, about almost an hour now, um you're very passionate and very in tune with your creative ideas.
00:49:05
Speaker
and with creative things. And you're also very passionate and very in tune with digital things and fabrication and and all that kind of stuff. So as a person who has been through film school and is an artist and operates as a creative, how do you feel about all the digital taking over like the Hitchcock shot?
00:49:26
Speaker
You know, I mean, i understand we can't make movies like they did in the forties, but there's, there's a, It's like vinyl versus digital. You know what I mean? There's there's something in seeing a Hitchcock shot or seeing a something done the old way, you know, or the classic way.
00:49:43
Speaker
so But then you got Avatar, which absolutely drives me crazy. <unk> great It's a great movie, but it's like, I'm tired of everything being an Avatar now. Like, I want to see real actors come up with an original idea.
00:49:56
Speaker
but You know? Yeah. It seems like i I love um
00:50:06
Speaker
i love a purist I love people who really dive into something and look at it from the history of it and pay homage to those sort of things and I think that It's important to maintain that sort of thinking when you approach these different like things um in terms of digital going digital.
Balancing Digital and Traditional Methods
00:50:35
Speaker
I also, you know, enjoy things that make my life easier. Sure. Oh, absolutely. and will help me make my dreams come true.
00:50:46
Speaker
um But I'm never going to forget like the things that I learned, the hard work that it took. um I, like I said earlier, I tried to learn things.
00:51:01
Speaker
on shitty things how to how to do it so that i could get better um and i think people need to to have that perspective as well maybe go through a little adversity with some stuff how you makes you stronger yeah and have like a good healthy leg balance of the two like you need you can 3d print all day but also go touch grass please Right, right, right. Like... Make a mud ball. Yeah, you need to just, I guess, find the balance and...
00:51:32
Speaker
um
00:51:36
Speaker
One thing I feel like might be getting lost in the sauce is crediting like um people for what they have done. So like if you see a Hitchcock shot, call that out. That's what that is.
00:51:50
Speaker
Remember, that's what that is. Oh, I'm gonna now. Yeah. yeah If I ever see one of those, I'll be like, oh my God, look at that. yeah yeah yeah see just aware she was talking about that is cool that's right and again maybe i'll just have to youtube one and find yeah yeah that's cool it's a mind bending piece of video from the sound of it it is it's really cool it's african hitchcock yeah yeah most of his stuff is a little bit on the mind bending yeah
00:52:22
Speaker
I love your reference to a purist. That's ah that's an interesting term. I've heard that like in sports cars. like There's people who like would frown upon...
00:52:34
Speaker
like I have a Volkswagen Beetle. There's Beetle purists. and I belong to a club called Ruin VWs. Yeah, well, my dad's like a a purist for music.
00:52:46
Speaker
And so he has very high standards. and And
00:52:56
Speaker
I guess like that's kind of where it comes from for me. And I can take appreciation into that and other people who are like that. Nice. You, you mentioned that you were, your whole family's musicians and I see a couple of guitars behind you. Are you a guitarist?
00:53:11
Speaker
I am. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. I make guitar noise.
00:53:17
Speaker
That's always fun. I do too. Yeah. on top of've got i inherited Yeah. my My father is still with us, but I inherited, he can't play anymore. And I inherited his guitars, which are really cool, really classic.
00:53:31
Speaker
And, uh, but a couple of years a few years back, I took a fingertip off so and I've, again, like the camera thing, my guitars are in the cases and I haven't picked them up since I i i took, well, you can see it there, I took the tip right off.
00:53:49
Speaker
And like the feeling is, you know what, go listen to Jimmy Dress. We spent five minutes talking about there partial amputations there last week.
00:54:00
Speaker
But this is my anxiety or my my stress in it is, and not that I was a good guitarist at all, but I can play a little, you know. I haven't touched it since the injury since my injury and therefore I can still play.
00:54:16
Speaker
I'm scared if I pick that thing up and I can't play it, I'm going to be devastated. then yeah Then you'll know you can't play. Exactly. Versus right now you can until it's proven otherwise.
00:54:28
Speaker
Yeah. I'm sure I could pick, but I was more of a finger picker, slow bluegrass. Oh, okay. okay but yeah I mean, that's hard.
00:54:40
Speaker
What do you mean you were just okay? You're probably better. I was a background player. nana I feel like you're being humble. No, no, I'm not. someone says that they pick.
00:54:53
Speaker
I'm like, don't know. No, no, finger pick. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like finger pick. That's like a different skill. Oh. but Yeah. and so I have no formal training.
00:55:05
Speaker
I've been, figured it out. You know, people say, what court you playing? I don't know.
00:55:11
Speaker
The one that doesn't sound wrong. You make noise until it sounds right. yeah yeah And then you remember that one. When my dad taught me how to play guitar, he taught me three chords and that was it. like that's that's right yeah yeah That's This is funny. i was playing We were playing just campfire playing and some guy goes, oh my god, you just played a G major 7th.
00:55:36
Speaker
And I was like, what?
00:55:40
Speaker
I don't know what you said. Those words were English, but I don't know how they how how they make sense when you put them in together like that. He's like, nobody does that. That's a classical guitar. And I'm like, I sure.
00:55:51
Speaker
I'm it sounded right. ah yeah Well, you're a classic. That's fair. Yeah, I'm a classic. That's for sure. Oh, yeah. Interesting. Interesting.
00:56:04
Speaker
So why don't you tell us about those mallets? I think that was a project I'd like to hear more about. oh yeah. Um...
Heart-Shaped Mallet Design
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah, they're mallets. um I call them heart hammers.
00:56:19
Speaker
um It's kind of like a... ah
00:56:24
Speaker
and I guess it's not funny, but it's more nerdy. I'm i'm a Blackpink fan. It's K-pop band. And um they have like heart-shaped mallets.
00:56:35
Speaker
But there's a that theirs was made out of plastic. And when I went to the show, it was like 80 bucks for one. I was like, I can make a better one. can make it. Yeah. And like, I'll just make it out our wood and and it'll be like cooler in my own, you know?
00:56:53
Speaker
So I kind of sat on that idea for a while. And um when I was finally, like, I got through all the design process on it and figured out, like, how I'm going to assemble this. Because I decided to just do it in parts and then just assemble it and build on it. And then I don't know if it was you, Jeff, but I think we...
00:57:14
Speaker
i talked ah about like doing a dowel all the way through all the pieces except the last two or something and I was I was making like little mini dowels that would go in between each piece and you're like why don't you just cut all the way through i was like i don't know I guess I will now don't have a good answer for that.
00:57:35
Speaker
So anyway, I like. Well, you think of what you think of and then you run with it. And that doesn't mean you stop to consider any other options that might be easier until you run into a problem and then you're like, oh, maybe a different way.
00:57:51
Speaker
Right. But luckily this happened during my prototyping phase and i was sharing so much of that process that I was able to get like input like that, which is so helpful before I went in and made like what was going to be the final product.
00:58:07
Speaker
um And it also came at a time in the world that I think, We just needed something more positive. um And I'm a very like love forward person.
00:58:22
Speaker
And that is like the message that I would always like to give out. And so it kind of became almost like a symbol to me of like, you know, this is the opposite of hate.
00:58:34
Speaker
And freedom with love I would love to smash all the hate that's in the world. That'd be great. Yeah, so that's pretty much, you know, it's kind of like a a cheesy thing at a Blackpink concert. And then it turned into much more for me.
00:58:50
Speaker
um I haven't finished editing that video. It'll probably come out. at some point this year but like I finished making them so long ago and I've already given them out to like the friends that I wanted to give them to so I just have to like edit and put this video together um but I also get very sidetracked on projects and then commissions come in and so videos get prolonged are these CNC?
00:59:18
Speaker
cut these out yeah cut them out of the um on the Onefinity and I use Cherry for all of them They're beautiful. They're really nice. Thank you. I think you CNC'd the handles and then there was like a circle. There was like a circle on each side and then a heart in front of that.
00:59:38
Speaker
And then was was it a love you ah written into the heart? Yeah. That was CNC'd in and resin, right? Yeah, I filled it in with epoxy.
00:59:50
Speaker
That was a solid CNC project. Thank you. Yeah. You did a lot of prototyping to make sure that came. How many do you end up making? I made, I actually made seven, but I fucked up like two.
01:00:07
Speaker
And then I do it. I cut them up because I glued them up crooked. It was like the last two, you know, when you're tired at like 1145 PM and you're like, oh, you're like doing a glue up of like these very movie parts, you know?
01:00:22
Speaker
stack of five pieces of wood yeah yeah hope that the top level and the bottom level and the center level are all in perfect line exactly and flush like one side's not more to another way um but i'll do i did yes exactly and it happened to be on two points where i like didn't add salt was like it'll be fine yeah it slipped after 11 yeah it's slaveryb but's soul after I ran out.
01:00:54
Speaker
um And then the next day when I unclamped it it was just crooked as fuck. So I was like really depressed about it for months. I cut them up.
01:01:05
Speaker
um They were a little too big to fit through my bandsaw. So I had to use like ah a multi tool. to cut it and then re-sand everything and then I glued it back up and it went right back into the same position of being crooked yes and I just gave up that at that point I was like No, because I wanted to do another giveaway. I did a giveaway at the beginning and then I wanted to do another one because I like doing giveaways on my birthday.
01:01:35
Speaker
ah But I glued it back up crooked and so we all lost that day. Yeah. yeah there there what What's David Machuto's rule number four? There are no mistakes, only... Damn it. It's...
01:01:56
Speaker
I make many mistakes. He's guys it's got ten rules on it. I've seen them. I know what you're talking about. I've seen them too. But I certainly haven't memorized them. Okay. If looks straight, it is straight. remember them as well as the 10 rules. You know that one.
01:02:07
Speaker
And if it doesn't look straight, it probably isn't. Yeah. Probably. Usually.
01:02:16
Speaker
Oh, well. You can't win them all. No, but that's okay. It was was definitely a worthwhile project. And um yeah, so I guess later this year, just holding myself accountable now.
01:02:31
Speaker
really There we go. You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. Later this year. Later this year. You're going to do another one I'm not going to make another one, i don't think. Maybe I'll 3D print some.
01:02:45
Speaker
Oh, there you go. Yeah. You know, I've done that a couple times with stuff, and it is sort of kind of fun. It's like, what was it, a year? Maybe it just little over a year ago, i made this big convoluted vase out of wood.
01:03:00
Speaker
and it's like I glued up rings. I mean, and I glued up boards, and then I cut rings out of them. on three axes CNC. And then I stacked like seven or eight rings on top of each other and glued them together to make a vase blank.
01:03:16
Speaker
And then I stuck it on the rotary and I carved all the design into the side. And then it was like, it was a big process. It took me weeks. Now, a couple of weeks ago, I'm like, you know, I could print that model and it would look cool.
01:03:35
Speaker
And I threw some blue translucent PETG into the printer and i threw the model over there, scaled it to fit. And the next morning I had the same damned vase out of a clear, trail out of a blue translucent material that looked really cool.
01:03:54
Speaker
And it took a lot less effort than the three weeks it took me to make the wood version yeah that I don't have anymore. So now I've got my own version. It took me you know eight hours to make another one while I slept.
01:04:11
Speaker
it was So I mean, it's it's kind of fun to go back to the old stuff that you made the hard way and just throw it at the printer. I mean, it's not you're not going to get the same thing and going get the same quality, but I mean, you're going to get ah a nice, easy, simplified version of the identical product.
01:04:32
Speaker
<unk> You could 3D print an exact model of the one they were selling at the concert for $80. Exactly. could do that. that cant do that now. $4 worth of filament and it'd be done by tomorrow night.
01:04:48
Speaker
Perfect. See? yeah full circle Full circle. Why not? No, I think this is a great idea. I probably will do that, in fact.
01:05:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it's fun to revisit something. and yeah I could kick that out of the printer. That'd be cool. make Also, it would be cute to make like miniature versions of it.
01:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, that would look cool. You have to find something to so something to hit with it. You know you know how like a gavel hits like the the little circle that goes on the judges thing and then they bang on that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:05:28
Speaker
You'd have to find something that was thematically cute that you would want to hit with a heart that would be fun somehow. After the after I finished the prototype, I did a little animation where the mallet was hitting a heart that would like bounce back up.
01:05:47
Speaker
Okay. So maybe something like that. You know what you could do. You're familiar with TPU. I've been wanting to try that. That's like the, the like bendy.
01:05:57
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's like rubberized plastic. You can literally squeeze it like rubber. like You can make rubberized, you can make gaskets, you can make cartilage cartilage, whatever you want to do with it. Yeah.
01:06:12
Speaker
That's, that's where you're going to want to find it. Yeah. Find or make a model of a heart in some way and print that out at, TPU and you could hit it and it would be squishy.
01:06:25
Speaker
Yeah. You can print that too. And then add the little sounds. Go on Amazon and buy the little freaking squeaky things that go in a dog toys and put one of those in the heart. So when you hit it, it actually goes squeaky squeaky. That'd be adorable as shit. Yeah.
01:06:44
Speaker
yeah could also print, and this would be a good, as far as gifts go, you could print your, scale it down tiny and make it a like a keychain.
01:06:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that'd be really cute. Yeah. Yeah, I looked all these ideas. It doesn't have any fancy squeakers in it like Jeff's idea, but, you know. Hey, I just ran with that.
01:07:05
Speaker
I'm going to do both. Miss Mary, I have to commend you. I've been scrolling on my, I've got a monitor behind this monitor and I've been just kind of stalking your Instagram. Your photography skills are amazing.
01:07:18
Speaker
Thanks. It's almost like she went to school for video. it's Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. And you can tell. Yeah, yeah. I'm i'm sitting there going, oh, I just need to delete my account.
01:07:30
Speaker
um Well, you've got perfectly video you got perfectly good video for Instagram quality. Yeah, an Instagram photographer. You're an Instagram photographer, and um she's she's she's got a different level of skill set.
01:07:47
Speaker
Yeah. you're a photographer photographer uh it's you know uh finding that skill set again because when i was in film school um you're learning so many different things and so like being having a camera like i wasn't the cameraman i was was directing a scene i was acting in it i was writing it but Like very rarely was i behind the camera.
01:08:16
Speaker
And then like my my final year of school, one of my friends asked me to be the cinematographer on his short film. And I was like, me? want me to do it? You know what I do, right?
01:08:28
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I was very confused and I didn't know why he was asking me. But it was also film school and people like flake on you so hard all the time. So um he might have... I gotta give him props, because i mean we said earlier, if you hand this thing to your sibling, they're not going to know what to do and how to aim it how to focus it.
01:08:48
Speaker
But if he asks you to hold the camera, you know... How to focus and aim and track and keep things in the right frame and keep things either centered or on the third lines or whatever he thinks he wants.
01:09:05
Speaker
Yeah. You know how to make it. You know what it's supposed to look like. So it's just a matter of you needing to make it look like that on the screen while you're holding it.
01:09:18
Speaker
So, I mean, i yeah he didn't have a bad idea by asking someone else that knew what the hell they were doing. Even though you weren't familiar with the camera, you knew what he wanted it to look like.
01:09:30
Speaker
yeah And you knew what the camera needed to do, even if though you're not used to holding it, you know? For sure. Yeah, it was. You still made a good call. Very, it worked out. It was, um and it was a good experience for me, you know, learning that role on a film set.
01:09:49
Speaker
And if it was something that I wanted to do as well, you know, like at that time you're thinking like, what are you going to do in this industry and stuff? So it was letting me know a lot of like, what are the things I want to do and what don't I want to do?
01:10:04
Speaker
And um I ultimately didn't do any of it because I was just like got into music after school. um But then when I, you know, came back to um those roots and and buying cameras and going through like a life cycle of cameras from let's say 2014 to now so like a GoPro a like Canon ES whatever um I had a Sony a7 III and now I have the Sony FX3 and with each of those cameras each well the Sony FX3 was like my dream camera so I don't really have a lot of bad things to say but the other three cameras had a lot of like
01:10:51
Speaker
limitations and it would be so frustrating because i know how i wanted something to look and i couldn't create that look with that gear but the most important thing to me at that time was like just keep making shit like you're gonna get better this is gonna build um a portfolio for you even if like nobody ever sees it that's even better because you're kind of creating in the shadows And you're willing to be ah more experimental and do things that maybe, you know, you're not going to do again in the future, but at least you tried it and it's there.
01:11:28
Speaker
So um I wasn't always where I'm at, essentially, is what I mean by all of that. like It took a long time for me to get to this point.
01:11:39
Speaker
um But, you know, it's worth a shot. And I've heard that advice thrown out there before for people who are interested in starting to make videos.
01:11:52
Speaker
And the the first key is is, just start with what you've got and start shooting things and try to do some edits and see what turns out. But the second part of the advice that really kicks in there is that just because you did a project and you shot the video and you did the editing,
01:12:14
Speaker
There's no rule that says you ever have to post that shit or show it because it's half-assed and it's inadequate. and it doesn't you It doesn't really do what you want, but you learned so much. Here you go.
01:12:25
Speaker
You went to school on the first one. As long as we're throwing out Jimmy-isms. um You learn so much. you don't i mean You can make five videos and you don't ever have to post it any of them.
01:12:41
Speaker
you can just keep doing it for you and for practice and for learning. And when you actually have something, I mean, and the first time I made a video, it was an accident. I didn't even plan the video.
01:12:56
Speaker
I shot like, three or four little short video clips of a single process I was doing. And I took pictures of my project the end of every night when I was done doing things.
01:13:08
Speaker
And when I was done with that project, I decided I wanted to make a video out of it. And I stitched it together into mostly a slideshow. But I mean, and I posted it.
01:13:19
Speaker
But, you know, that that that's me. That's not what everybody needs to do. But I mean, some people want to post, some people want to do like seven videos before they think it's good enough to actually show to other people.
01:13:32
Speaker
And that is okay. You can do that. You don't, you can do it as long as you're actually doing it. Do you know what i mean? Like people will say they have that arbitrary number, but then they never actually make the seven videos. They just make like one and give up.
01:13:47
Speaker
So yeah, you can, you can have your number, but like actually do it. You know what I mean? Do you know how many videos I have started? Yeah. I have hours and hours and hours I have lot unfinished videos.
01:13:59
Speaker
Yeah. I've got hours of footage of product projects that have never seen the light of day because i saw something else shiny and there was way too much stupid footage that I didn't need and I didn't want to filter through and I just decided I didn't care enough to put the effort in.
01:14:20
Speaker
you know Do you have a favorite video editing software that you would recommend that's easy? That's easy? I'm on a PC, not on a...
01:14:32
Speaker
uh okay so it's like i don't i don't know because i don't use it but my recommendation for you is to get into davinci resolve it's like basically the standard i actually have it on this laptop yeah that's what i use for all of my stuff it is extremely powerful it is extremely free Yeah. And it is very easy to learn to get started. And there 8 million videos on YouTube that will explain to you how to do anything you happen to be stuck on.
01:15:06
Speaker
DaVinci. I got it. I think I have it on here already. that That would be my choice for recommendation, but I don't think that's what you're you actually using.
01:15:17
Speaker
No, I use Final Cut, um but that's because I paid for ah like a really long time ago before DaVinci even existed. And it's the software that I learned to edit on in school. um And I'm sorry, my cat is like trying to get into a box if you guys hear that. Yeah.
01:15:35
Speaker
But um yeah, so I use Final Cut. I did use Premiere for a little bit, but I think Premiere sucks personally. um They do have a good transcriber for captions.
01:15:50
Speaker
So I will like finish my edit in Final Cut and then export that video and import it into Premiere just for captions.
01:16:01
Speaker
wow Yeah, because I don't want to write them all myself. Amazing. I think think Resolve does that. I feel like it might. I can't remember. I know that if something happened to Final Cut, I would go to Resolve.
01:16:16
Speaker
But I've never done it. I and see. I will record ah voiceover that I have no plans of anyone ever hearing.
01:16:28
Speaker
i will i will i will edit a video I will put a voiceover into it and then I'll bump that into Instagram, put music in it, leave the voice track at like 5% so you can't hear it over the music.
01:16:45
Speaker
But if you leave the if you leave the original audio on at least a couple of per percent, then it can use that audio track to build captions. So i will basically cut out my audio use that audio only to transcribe the captions in Instagram and then just blare music over the top of it. So all you get is the music and you get the captions, but you never actually hear the voice that I recorded.
01:17:15
Speaker
It's a type over, not a voiceover. but well I mean, I started by speaking it, but yeah, then I transferred it to text and instead. I do that on Instagram. I've never done that with DaVinci. I just do that with Instagram.
01:17:32
Speaker
I find, you know, not in every single case, but, like, if I have a video that I know I'm going to post to multiple platforms, it's easier to have those captions, like, already done and not have to redo them per app because that gets annoying and I don't want to like, fix things within those captions all the time.
01:17:56
Speaker
And I will. i like, go through those and, like, figure out... Because I also say things like... in a way that isn't normal sometimes so it doesn't pick like what I'm saying. Sometimes the auto caption translator misreads things yeah or you didn't speak clearly enough or loudly enough for them to pick it up Yeah, I will do that. I click in and I actually read through the thing and sometimes they get a word wrong. You click on it and you retype it or you add one if it missed A or something in between a couple other words.
01:18:31
Speaker
Yeah, and talking like my song But yeah, want do three different platforms. That'd be a real pain in the ass. But I mean, I'm almost entirely Instagram. Sometimes when I'm feeling squirrely, I'll put something on YouTube, but not super often.
01:18:46
Speaker
And i I had a TikTok for a while and it got on my nerves because some people, and that there were like 7 million people that watched my video, but they weren't paying for it because I didn't have enough followers.
01:19:05
Speaker
you need to have You need to have a certain amount of views every month and you need to have a minimum of like 10,000 followers. So even though I had a video that ran like mad for like a year and a half up to about seven and a half million views, I only had like 3,500 followers and i got sick getting the constant comments from assholes and i wasn't getting paid for it.
01:19:36
Speaker
They were making bank off of my video, but they weren't giving me anything. And, and they you know, they, they, they pulled some transition bullshit a couple of months ago where they,
01:19:50
Speaker
took their shit offline for 12 months and came back with a different algorithm and some new behind the scenes ownership or something like that. That was, that was the motivation I needed to say, you know, i don't need Tik TOK.
01:20:04
Speaker
And I pulled all my videos off and I still have my account. I still watch stuff occasionally, but not as much as I used to. But I pulled all my shit down.
01:20:15
Speaker
i don't need like six people every day telling me that I sound like an idiot or I'm doing some shit wrong, which is what I got for a year and a half for no goddamn benefit of my own. And I don't miss it.
01:20:32
Speaker
The hell them. They weren't paying me. I'm sick of making them money and dealing with assholes. So, eh. We're running a little, we're not running long, but we're getting, no, we're, we're probably hitting that point. We should start thinking about our, uh, things of the week.
01:20:51
Speaker
Probably be a good time for that. We skipped it with Jimmy cause we were running really long. We were, we, we almost got two hours by the time we got out of there. Um, did you happen to bring anything for a thing of the week?
01:21:04
Speaker
Yeah. yeah My thing of the week is recording your own music. i used to make up a lot of excuses as to why I couldn't record the music for my videos.
01:21:21
Speaker
ah you know I'd say like I didn't have time or it's too much on top of all the things I just did to you know get a project from start to finish. but um I didn't want to pay for a service anymore.
01:21:35
Speaker
um I was using Epidemic Sound before that. So I stopped that subscription and i started recording my own music and it's really like brought the joy back into the process. It's like become my favorite part and like curating a sound for every video has been so much fun and highly recommend it if you can, if you have like you know the capability to just just do it that's amazing yeah yeah i i think i think that's a good i mean if you're capable of doing the the the singing and the guitar playing to make the music
01:22:19
Speaker
I mean, I've tried finding music on a service and finding something that I liked. And then you're stuck with the fact that you've got two minute music track that you fell in love with, but you've got a two minute and 30 second track you want to put it to. And then you've got to figure out what the hell to do about that. Or can I splice in another music or do I just scrap the whole damn idea and go fish for something else?
01:22:44
Speaker
The pain in the ass of finding ah licensed audio track to put over your video is such an incredible fucking headache.
01:22:56
Speaker
Yeah. That I can't imagine writing your own music is actually that much more work.
01:23:03
Speaker
Yeah, you know what? I feel like by the time you've gone through like a whole fucking catalog and put like I used to put playlists together. i'm like, I think this video feels like this.
01:23:15
Speaker
You know, I would spend hours just like listening and looking for the right music. And, you know, by the time I was done with that, I could have just recorded the whole song myself. Yeah, exactly.
01:23:26
Speaker
Like I recorded a song yesterday in two and a half hours. Nice. So rather than spend hours and hours and hours picking music that you're going to pay somebody else to do, use you can use your own music.
01:23:39
Speaker
And it'll be better. And it'll be a lot less headache because if there's something you don't like about it, you just change the shit and record it again. Take it and adjust it. There's not a whole lot you can do with the shit you've downloaded.
01:23:53
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm like notorious for getting blocked on like Instagram and Tik TOK for the music that I use. So this is like way better, even on those songs that I got from epidemic song. I've gotten my videos flagged.
01:24:07
Speaker
was like, I thought this was free everywhere. Wow. What did what did I pay for? Yeah. Yeah. A headache. Yeah. Yeah. Literally. How about you, Al? You got anything interesting today?
01:24:19
Speaker
Yeah. um Um, and I mean, I only, I had a really quick one. um We finally took delivery of a new tractor and I've been using the hell out of this Kubota, this little Kubota tractor we bought. It's amazing. But more importantly, ah this whole, man, this day has just been amazing.
01:24:36
Speaker
ah alert Like having my friend tell me, hey grab your camera. When you come look at this job, my wife and will look at it and show you how to, you know, show you some tips and tricks and stuff like that. And then Mary Lou comes on the show tonight.
01:24:49
Speaker
And we talk about photography and all this kind of stuff. And I took, I jotted this down and we kind of touched on it, but I think my thing of the week is going to be, I don't know if, uh, I'm sure somebody else has said this, but I'm going to use it as a quote.
01:25:02
Speaker
And I just jotted down, do something with what you have. Yeah. You know, don't, don't wait. If you've got a, if you've got a cheap $20 sander, well, well do something with it, you know, and someday you'll have a $500 standard, but don't wait until you can afford a $500 standard before you do anything, you know? So do something today with what you have.
01:25:26
Speaker
You've, you've got the ability to do something, whether it's draw a picture or write a poem or sing a song or build a birdhouse or whatever, whatever it is that you do, whatever you are passionate about, just do something with it today.
01:25:39
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. And and my other feelings on that is that. It may turn out that you don't want the $500 sander anyway. right Now, I mean, i was thinking about you and this topic yesterday because I've got a what is it? it it's it's It's blue, teal-colored freaking sander. It plugs into the wall.
01:26:08
Speaker
It's better than Ryobi, but it's nowhere near professional-grade sander. And was using that, and I was thinking, man, it'd be really nice to have a Festool or a Mirka one of these other amazing sanders.
01:26:27
Speaker
And then I stopped myself and said, yeah, But I haven't, yeah i mean I mean, I may have like a $50 sander, but I haven't used it in the last month.
01:26:40
Speaker
If I'm going to use the sander and I used it for 10 minutes to sand, i'm I'm making a new cover for my oven to keep the cats from stepping on the damn glass surface when it's hot.
01:26:53
Speaker
And I had to sand that thing on both sides. It took me like 15 minutes and it's the first time I've used the sander in a month. I'm like, man, it would be really nice to have a $500 sander right
Tool Investment Insight
01:27:04
Speaker
now.
01:27:04
Speaker
But then my next thought was, but it'd be a colossal fucking waste of money because I don't use it enough, nor do I make money with it. So I might have started out in the beginning and go, man, I'm not going to do anything until I get a $500 sander.
01:27:20
Speaker
But now that I've spent a couple of years doing things, I wouldn't get my money's worth out of $500 sander if i had one. Right. So it'd be great to have one for the 10 minutes I need to use it, but I can do the same job with a shitty sander in 15 and I'll, I'll suffer a little bit more, but for the 15 minutes a month I use it, it'd be silly.
01:27:47
Speaker
Right. And it's not even definitely use what you got. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to, And again, i I've got lots of inexpensive tools because I have no i can't justify you know spending the... Like I need an edge bander.
01:28:05
Speaker
An edge bander is about $4,000. Or I can go to the Goodwill and buy a $25 iron and edge but and edgeb band like the rest of us mortals do. You'd have to need a lot of edge banding to justify buying a tool.
01:28:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's why you get started with what you got and then you will learn which parts of this are the ones that need to be upgraded and which parts are the ones of the process that just seem to be okay with what you're doing and you really don't need to waste the money.
Celebrating the Maker Community
01:28:44
Speaker
I'm going learn how to use this. I promise I'm committing to it. You're going to figure that camera out if it kills you, huh? That's right. Well, you know, I think you just met somebody that might be able to give you advice if you need. Yeah, you can ask me. I can show you some questions. Awesome. I appreciate that.
01:29:01
Speaker
Yeah. Well, she's she she subscribes to the maker community spirit of not gatekeeping and helping people who need help.
01:29:15
Speaker
awesome for sure which is the requirement to be cool and an upstanding member of our maker community the tide lifts all boats Yes.
01:29:26
Speaker
i yeah, you know, that's, that's the one thing that I really, really, really like about the maker community is that it is in no way, shape or form like the art community or the photography community or true pet breeding community or the child raising community where everybody is all about killing each other and how everybody else is doing shit wrong. And no, I'm not going to tell you how I did this stuff.
01:29:53
Speaker
yeah um It's also, I believe, in in my mind, I believe that this is the reason why Jimmy is considered the godfather.
01:30:04
Speaker
It's not because he's the first and it's not because he's the best. It's that he created this community by coalescing people around him. of his same beliefs that ah all rising tide all ships crap and there's no gatekeeping and ah jimmy with two million followers on youtube will answer a question to some nobody with no followers who wants to know can you explain to me what you just did
01:30:35
Speaker
He'll fucking do that. and He's coalesced the group of people around him that are like-minded people. And people who want to be gatekeepers don't tend to really be part of our community.
01:30:50
Speaker
That's true. not very well and I believe that he's considered the godfather because he coalesced the group of people who are not like that. and He created...
01:31:03
Speaker
He created the part of our community that was the moral standings of how our community was going to work as a group. I believe that he that's why he's the godfather.
01:31:13
Speaker
yeah He smashes everybody with that love mallet. Yeah, that's the one. There you go.
3D Printing Innovations
01:31:21
Speaker
All right, well, I've got something fun and digital and a little bit less esoteric here.
01:31:29
Speaker
um This is a 3D printing trick, I guess. I found a model on Maker's World called Multicolor Filament.
01:31:44
Speaker
It's actually a multicolor filament version two, parentheses, dual, triple, quadruple. And what it is, is it's a model of a coiled string that will print out as ah exactly what's what's filament, 1.7 mil or something like that.
01:32:06
Speaker
It'll print out a circular string that is you know, standard 3D printed filament. So it seems like a waste to three d print your own filament.
01:32:20
Speaker
But in this case, the model is set up so that you can do two, three or four colors. You've probably seen for sale, multicolor filament.
01:32:31
Speaker
I've got a few rolls. I've got one that's like red and black. And as the model turns, it sort of looks like black from one side and sort of looks like red from the other side.
01:32:43
Speaker
In this case, you can take any two, three, or four colors of anything you want, as long as they're all the same. I mean, you can't mix your PLA with your PETG, obviously. That shit doesn't stick. But, I mean, if you've got two different colors of PLA, and you want to use a dual color that doesn't exist, say that you want a purple with a neon green, and you can't find that anywhere,
01:33:13
Speaker
You load the purple, you load the neon green, and you print this model. And it'll give you like five meters of purple and neon green dual color filament, which then you can feed into the back and make a model out of the dual color.
01:33:31
Speaker
Wow. And you can make... yeah So it's making like aqua fresh toothpaste. Right. Right. Exactly. Simple, simple mind here. Yeah. You're printing the two types of things side by side. So then when you, when you come back and you squeeze it out of the tube, it comes out with the stripes, like the aqua fresh does.
01:33:54
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So you know, you need eight meters, so if you know you need eight meters you could print as much as you need. there is a There's a limit to how big of a coil you can fit on the plate at one time.
Dream Tools and Farewell
01:34:09
Speaker
it's all It's all one. You can't go up.
01:34:12
Speaker
This all has to be single layered on the plate. It does go up. plane But it it's it starts with a coil. It starts smaller and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger as it goes around to the edge of the plate. But there's a limit on how long you can make that.
01:34:27
Speaker
However... there are little hardware toys called filament joiners where you can feed two ends of filament into this machine and you push a button and it like heats something up and then pushes the two pieces together and it'll, it'll, it'll weld two pieces of filament together end to end. So even if you're limited to like seven meters of filament that you can print at a time,
01:34:55
Speaker
you can weld another piece onto the end of it to extend the length of that. I don't have one of those yet, but I know they exist and they look cool. So that's my choice is multicolor filament of custom work.
01:35:13
Speaker
And I think that's pretty cool. Very cool. All right. So I like to ask people what their dream tool would be. So Mary Lou, if you could have any one tool delivered for free with accessories, anything you want, what would you pick and what do you think you'd do with it?
01:35:37
Speaker
A giant drum sander. just those just a huge one like how big can we get it like a big one i would build tables tables all day would wide belt yeah big wide oh that would be the dream that'd be a cool one i have not heard that one yet and know where there's a 60 inch wide wide belt that'd be in uh jimmy's off-site shop yeah no no it's ah actually a buddy might's cabinet shop oh okay well i know jimmy's got one that's like five feet long and he's gay you like pull a lever and it like pushes the material into it or so i don't remember i've seen him use it before oh oh oh that's a stroke sander
01:36:27
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, that's that's very old technology, actually. that's Google though google a video on a stroke sander. Those are really, really cool. That makes drum sanders look like crap, huh?
01:36:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But you need 10 feet. You know, you need 10 feet of wall. You know, they're they're big machines. Well, you you can't fit one of those in your single-carriage garage shop. no no, no, no, no. You could probably get by with a drum sander, though.
01:36:51
Speaker
Yeah. For sure. All right. That's cool. Well, that was a solid answer. We haven't heard that one yet. Yeah, I love being unique.
01:37:01
Speaker
Okay. Okay. um Well, I think we're about ready to wrap up. Is there any anything else you'd like to throw in and talk about quick? Anything else you want to mention? or No, but thank you guys for having me on. I really appreciate it. It was a good convo.
01:37:20
Speaker
Absolutely. hello ah hope it wasn't too disappointing following Jimmy and Dresta. No, not at all. No, that's fine. You know,
01:37:33
Speaker
and not Not everybody has the the following and the experience of him for podcasting. But I really try to mix in the the people everybody knows and some people that people don't know yet.
01:37:50
Speaker
<unk> I'd like to introduce people to the world and you're somewhere very comfortably in the middle with the rest of us. Yeah. I don't know what your numbers are right now, but I i know you're not Jimmy and I know you're not nobody.
01:38:08
Speaker
Accurate. Wherever that leaves you, wherever you're at. That's all good. Okay. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show. We appreciate you ah spending your time with us.
01:38:22
Speaker
And everyone who enjoyed the episode should go follow Mary Lou. She's on Instagram under, ah what is it?
01:38:34
Speaker
Made by underscore Mary Lou. Yeah, as well as on YouTube under... Just Made by Mary Lou. Just Made by Mary Lou.
01:38:46
Speaker
Okay. No, Just Made by Mary Lou. Go follow her She makes some amazing looking shit. And she makes her amazing looking shit look really good.
01:39:02
Speaker
So and not only does the stuff look good, but she makes it look better with the videography. So I also need to thank my co-host Al for taking the time to hang out and keep the conversation interesting.
01:39:18
Speaker
and Always a pleasure. And I need to thank all the listeners for tuning in. A huge thank you to our current patrons for their support. So many thanks to Adam from BKR Customs, Ed Swanson of Ed's Clocks and More, and Eric from Overall Makerworks.
01:39:36
Speaker
If you enjoyed listening and would like to help support the show, you can share it with your friends, leave a review, or you can join our Patreon. You can find our Patreon at patreon.com slash digifabricators.
01:39:50
Speaker
And we have a Discord server open to all listeners. Our patrons will get access to an exclusive patron channel in our server, and they will get to hear about our next guest before the public.
01:40:03
Speaker
Direct links to our Discord server and Patreon page are in the Digi-Fabricators Instagram bio, which you should also be following at Digi-Fabricators.
01:40:14
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And if you or someone you know does cool things with their digital tools, please contact us. We only have so many friends to invite, and then we will need some suggestions to keep this show going.
01:40:27
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I can be found in most places as a weird guy, and al can be found under New York Woodworks, which is N-Y, woodworks with an axe.
01:40:39
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So thank you again to everyone, and we will catch you on the next episode.
01:40:53
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Sweet. Nailed it.