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TSP EP 148 Part 2: Discussion with Content Creator & Filmmaker Josh Ampuero Featuring Special Guest Alex Duarte
2 Playsin 3 hours
In this episode, Tom and Steve are joined by filmmakers Josh Ampuero and Alex Duarte. They discuss Josh's new Youtube show that breaks down films, and then they break down The Thing.
So come along with us as we learn a thing or two!
If you'd like to discover more from Josh you can find his Youtube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/@JoshMakesMovies1/feature
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Transcript
Introducing Anthony's Video Essays
00:00:00
Speaker
All right, main topic. On to Josh, as we say. Josh, you did a five-part series. I don't know if it's only going to be five parts, but... um i there's five parts There's five episodes so far. You did a series called Anthony's Video Essays. You can find that on um Josh Makes Movies. On YouTube. Which is on YouTube. ah These are short, quick to the point videos that typically have a bit of humor or joke slash punchline tied to the title.
00:00:28
Speaker
Right.
Inspiration and Parody in Video Essays
00:00:29
Speaker
um What inspired you to start a series like this? Well, um it's basically just like... for For people that like film stuff and follow film creators on YouTube, there's ah like a genre of videos called video essays where film ah the...
00:00:48
Speaker
where the ah content creators will take a movie or a scene from a movie or a genre of movies or a franchise and just essentially make like a 30 to seven times 60 minute video on just sometimes one scene in a movie, you know? And um I, I remember, I actually, i think it, I just,
00:01:11
Speaker
I just came up with the idea in last year, but it was a culmination of having seen so many of these video essays. I remember specifically I was watching last year, I was watching a YouTube video called, ah why Ben-Hur still looks like a million bucks or something like that. on YouTube. It's a pretty good video essay. And it's, uh, it's 10 minutes long.
00:01:35
Speaker
And I, even before I clicked on it, I was like, why does it look so good? Cause was shot on film. Like that's, that's the answer. Right. I don't think you need 10 minutes to explain that, but, um,
00:01:46
Speaker
Uh, and then I start watching it and the first three minutes of the video, the guy is giving us a synopsis of Ben-Hur and it's like, but the, the title of your video is why does it look so good? We don't give a shit about the, the story. Like, don't tell us about the story. Don't tell us the summary of the movie. Like we'll go watch it ourselves. story is The story of Ben-Hur has nothing to do with why it looks so good. Exactly. And I was just getting so frustrated. But but I realized like e this is only 10 minutes. I've seen video essays that are half an hour long, 45 minutes long. You guys have probably seen video essays. I always was going to say, have you seen my favorite video essayist is channel is Every Frame a Painting. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. and that's yeah That's just that they're literally like you're going to say Mr. Plinkett. Well, I mean, Mr. Plinkett, I guess, is a video essay as well, but it's just that's the cream of the crop is every frame of painting. Yeah.
00:02:38
Speaker
And but that that guy is like 10, 15 minutes like that per video. Like he doesn't make them too long. Like I i personally like ah ah the closer look and some of his videos can be an hour long and they're good. He has great videos. He has really good videos. How close does he look?
00:02:54
Speaker
But ah all all this to say is like, I think it was just a culmination of having seen so many video essays and then I see this one from Ben Hur and I have this idea, well, what if I what if i made like a parody of video essays where the the character, the host would do essentially do the same exact thing and start the video with a question, like how this guy asked, why does Ben Hur look so good?
00:03:20
Speaker
But instead of having this whole long drawn out video, I just answer the question in the first 45 seconds to the first 45 to 90 seconds. And then I end the video there. You know, it would be kind of funny. ah And so that's where that's where the the whole idea for my series came up came from.
00:03:39
Speaker
OK, interesting, because i will say i definitely get the parody of it. And when I was cause I was rewatching him today. Do you know the difference between parody and satire? I think you can listen to the first part of this episode and hear me explain it. So parody is the comedy bit and satire doesn't necessarily have to be comedy.
00:03:59
Speaker
Um... But they're both kind of playing on ah on this idea of it. And when I i was going through it i was watching the videos again. Because I remember I had texted you. I was like, damn, I wish the Star Wars video. like I disagree with it. like there You should have tried to make a point, which would have been funny. yeah ah Because it's like, of course. it's so So the last video that you came out with is why we should reconsider the Rise of Skywalker, the last Star Wars film in Episode IX.
00:04:24
Speaker
And I remember when I, before, because I i watched it and I was like, fuck, like I wanted actually, like, I thought you had like a very clever, like, oh, you know, it's it's because it's like, it's for the new generation. yeah It's not for us, you dumb fuck. That's why i thought that was the joke. Gotcha. Because it's so obvious. Like, yeah, duh. This movie sucks. There's no reason to reconsider it.
00:04:45
Speaker
But I mean, you know, and that's what I was like kind of telling you. I was like, no, dude, you should I think you could have came up with something there. Gotcha. You were hoping for a defense of The Rise of Skywalker. Yeah, and that would have been funny because that movie is indefensible. Right, right. Right? It's a giant pile of shit. Yeah. And it's like, dude,
Appealing to Modern Audiences
00:05:01
Speaker
it's funny to defend shit sometimes. Yes, it is.
00:05:04
Speaker
But, you know you know, that's why i didn't ah thumbs up that one. Gotcha. um so So then can I ask you, with With these videos, because we were talking about like ah modern audiences now, younger audiences watching films and having difficulty and kind of that TikTok generation.
00:05:23
Speaker
Did that play into this at all with like the videos being so short? Or is it just kind of, I mean, it feels like that plays into this to some extent with, hey, let's just stop beating around the bush and just get straight to the point. Yeah.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny. ah No, ah and actually, the short answer is no, I didn't i didn't really consider that. although Although that was my mentality, what you just said right now, let's stop beating around the bush and get to the point. It wasn't because of modern audiences. It was more of just...
00:05:56
Speaker
trying to make a parody of these video essays. So the original, original idea was, first of all, it was going to be me. I was going to be the person that was doing the video essays.
00:06:08
Speaker
And instead of it being what ended up being ah in each one, he answers the question in like about 30 seconds. It's real, it's really short. And then after that, the, the, the other 30 seconds is just, you know, punchline or me being funny or like writing stupid shit, adding stupid shit to it. Right. That's why each video is ah ah a minute long or a little bit longer. um But my initial idea was it was going to be me and it was going to be a good, like,
00:06:31
Speaker
a minute and a half of me giving the actual technical answer to the question. Like, why does film work? Why why does it look better on film? Because when you take the, you know, they go into the whole,
00:06:44
Speaker
technological explanation as to it's taking an actual picture of of what you're seeing and it's not being du it's not being run through 50 computers and you know being color corrected, edited. it's you know It's an actual snapshot of what you're seeing. So that was my original intention, my original idea.
00:07:03
Speaker
And it was going to be like, ah so for for example, for Bonnie and Clyde, right? the the He asked the question, why was Bonnie and Clyde considered so controversial? the The real answer is because Bonnie and Clyde was one of the first American movies to have squibs, to have squibs on the actor so that when they get shot, it's actual blood packets that are exploding. and audiences were not used to seeing that in American movies. So it was so shocking to them, the realism of the violence. And that was really, that was going to be like how I would have done, like how I just explained it right now is how I would have been doing that video or how, how the video. So that would have caused it to be about a minute and a half long, giving the entire backstory and everything. But when I pitched it to some of my comedy friends, which is what I do a lot now with all of my ideas, I try to get in a lot of other voices, a lot of other ideas ah to to look at it.
00:07:50
Speaker
The most common consensus was instead of doing that, you should shorten it to a 10 second response. Just make it a very short answer because it would be funnier and it would appeal to a wider audience. like What's the funny a funnier answer then?
00:08:06
Speaker
ah So for example, so let's take the Bonnie and Clyde one. right So I pitched it to my buddy, Josh Sianas. And I said, this is what I want to say. I want to say this. I want to go into like why it was so shocking. And then he goes, instead of doing that, you should just say, why was Bonnie and Clyde so controversial? Because of the violence.
00:08:22
Speaker
Anyways, if you enjoyed this video essay, please like and subscribe. So it was like very, like immediately to the point. I think you need to talk to us. I was gonna say, you convinced me on the other side is way better. Like now I'm like, that series has to come out because that sounds more interesting. Well, that to be honest, well, that's, but that's it. It's because I was writing it for you. Like that's my original idea was written for specifically for people like you, but it's such a niche audience of people that would like that. But I also, I also agree that I couldn't just do a one, a one word or a two word answer. So that's why the, the videos ended up being kind of an amalgamation of both. It's still a very short and concise answer. It's not the full answer, but it's still answering the question, which was my whole intention was post, posit the question, then answer it. Right. And then get the fuck off the screen. It's almost like an angry video game nerd, but you're like the angry video remover reviewer because you're like all these fucking video essays don't get to the Like you don't get it. The squibs. Like this is what's actually important. This
Collaborative Process and Casting
00:09:27
Speaker
is what you should actually be talking about. And also just to say like, this is one of the first times people had seen it. Yes. Oh, exactly. Yeah. I didn't know that. And you're adding in these nuggets of truth. Yes. And then the comedy is the fact that's like,
00:09:40
Speaker
Well, it's the violence. Yes. Correct. Yeah, obviously. But also, if you guys saw the Bonnie and Clyde video, he does – he says exactly – like he doesn't say exactly what I said, but he does say a more condensed version of what I just explained as the answer to the question. And then what I did is in the description, I actually – in the description of the video, if you read it, it actually has my whole long diagram. I know. I know. I know. You motherfuckers. You're lucky to watch the video, motherfucker. Next time, talk to us. Come on. We think we're funny.
00:10:18
Speaker
We know. We think we're funny. ah But yeah, because I think that's the video that introduces Greg, which is like this yeah subtle side plot of essentially Greg owes Jonathan money, and he's going to fucking get that money. Anthony. He owes Anthony money. Well, then let me ask you this, because we had talked about this earlier drunk with comedy. It's a comedy. um And the difficulty of writing comedy, I think we've probably talked about this before and how difficult it is to write comedy.
00:10:44
Speaker
um With your series that you're doing now, has that been an issue and then relying on comedians, comics? Or comedy writers just, you know. To help you like make that more funny? like Yeah. what' What's that process been like then?
00:11:01
Speaker
In terms of like, how like did that how did I pitch it to them? Just in general, like, can you kind of deep dive on that and what led you to essentially like you gave us your initial idea and then what it was distilled down Yeah. So, yeah. How did you choose to go with Anthony, not Jonathan? Right. And... ryan and ah Not Josh, because it was originally me. Yeah, so like how did choose to cast? would have been kind cool if it was And then like the other thing too is like Vic Mendoza did the cinematography.
00:11:31
Speaker
and so And Stephen gave us one of these mic stands. Thank you, Stephen. I appreciate that. That's why he's got a special thanks credit in every video. I also lost a microphone that I let Alex. And it was my baby, but I don't know what happened to that. That's very concerning. It's here.
00:11:47
Speaker
That's very concerning. It's not here, but Josh, this is about you. So how did it go? How did i Yeah. How did it go from essentially you in front of the camera to what is like you have a crew and a cast? and Yeah. Well, the crew was just me and Vic. That was it. That what that was the whole crew. That's a crew. It is. You're right. You're right. You could have done it with yourself in front of a camera. You're right. I do it with myself in front of a camera. You know, it's way more involved. As soon as another human being is involved, yeah the complexity of the project skyrockets. You know this. Yes. I guess you're. ah talk about it. You are very correct. And that was. ah
00:12:23
Speaker
So that was, that was it. Like when I, when I, so I also want to shout out my friends, Dorian McNeil, who goes by Mr. Beach bum and Keith Cox, who are the other two, the other two people who I pitched the idea to, and they each added in different things, but it was just that, like, I, I will, I will err on the side that of the people that if, if enough people are telling me the same thing, then I, then I'm going to go in that direction. You know, even though I, even though I was in love with my, of course, I love every, every idea I come up with, I'm a a massive narcissist, but But you should lean into your narcissist. But, but if but if all three, and, and again, and these three people are unrelated, like they, they all know each other, but they're not conversing about my idea behind the scenes. I just go to each of them directly and say, this is the idea. What do you think? What do you think? what do either And for all of them to tell me, shorten it. make it ah make it almost a character. like keith Keith literally told me like kind of what you said. it it
00:13:17
Speaker
It'd be funnier if it was a character, if someone was angry about it. and that was and And Keith is a really good actor. I actually wanted to get Keith involved. Damn, Josh, you're smart. We'll get... well' We'll get to that. But I wanted to get Keith involved as a co-host for the last episode because i I just, again, going back to the stupid shit thing is like, it's already a minute long. Like you're going to put a second person in there as ah as a second host for a minute long, you know, series. Like it doesn't make any sense, but that's what I would have wanted to lead into. But that, that we'll talk more about that. That might funny. Yeah. Well, that's coming for season two. Stay tuned, Keith. ah Anyways. um
00:13:52
Speaker
But Keith said that when he said that, if it was him doing it, he would do it as like an angry person, like duh, because it was shot on film idiot. Like that's why it looks so good. And, and so that got me thinking like, okay, maybe that, maybe he is onto something there. Maybe it could be funnier if it was a character. And that's when I started thinking of like my roster of talent that I, that I, that I have.
00:14:17
Speaker
And, and it led me to like start thinking, okay, like who, who, who could I, who could I see as something like this? And then, ah Anthony Duran, who is a really great actor. We met him on ah Red Sands. He was involved in Red Sands. I don't know if you remember, but. ah oh Yes, I do.
Production and Technical Setup
00:14:33
Speaker
He has halopathic powers. Yes, he played the deputy. So so shout out. to So special thanks to Michael Barrett for introducing us to Anthony Duran. ah we We met on, i met him on um the set of Red Sands, which I co-created. he,
00:14:48
Speaker
i beat we became I became friends with him. and And afterwards we developed a relationship, a friendship over Instagram pretty much. And I would see that he would ah post stuff about film. He loves film. he's and He's an actor. He's been involved in like independent projects and stuff.
00:15:02
Speaker
um I don't know if you guys are are Conan fans and he's going to love that I'm even talking about this, but there's a video from the Conan O'Brien show where him, Kevin Hart and Ice Cube get in get in a Lyft. They get a ride from a Lyft driver. I don't know if that sounds familiar. If you've seen that, that's Anthony. That's my, that's our, that's our friend who, yeah, it was just, he was driving Lyft randomly that day and he happened to get involved in this skit with Conan O'Brien, Ice Cube and Kevin Hart.
00:15:26
Speaker
And, um, that's pretty cool. Yeah. And so, so, and he's the star of my, you know, of my series ah of these videos. So I would see that he would post stuff about film and we would, you know, we would chat about film. He loves, you know, movies and stuff. Um, and so,
00:15:41
Speaker
ah Sometimes he would also post like videos of him doing auditions, like video auditions. And I was like, man, like this guy likes, you know he's he's comfortable being in front of the camera. He already loves film. So it's kind of like, if I get him involved in something like this, maybe that could just naturally fit with like his audience. His audience knows that he likes movies. He likes he goes to film premieres and he posts pictures about it on Instagram. So I was like, maybe maybe maybe something like this could happen. And then...
00:16:08
Speaker
um And then i so I reached out to him and I said, this is the idea that I have. This is what I'm thinking about doing. What do you think about it? how How do you feel about it? And he was like, yeah, let's do it. Sounds fun. Let's do it. And ah and so that was it. And then um he had these posters up on his wall already. I asked him if he was comfortable with us shooting in his apartment. He said, yeah. So at that point it was like, OK, I'm going to I'm going to already be going out to L.A. because he lives in L.A. Yeah. I'm gonna be going out there.
00:16:33
Speaker
ah I might as well have, try to make it look as professional as possible. That was the other part of the parody is like a lot of these film video essays, they have this setup when it cuts to them talking to the camera, that's like so cinematic. There's like beautiful shadows and light lights and like all the fucking, the cameras and and stuff in the background, like the computer, like it's all like yeah a whole like cinematic shot. So I'm like, if I want it to look if I'm trying to parody it, like to get the parody just right, it has to look professional. it has to look cinematic. Well, I don't really know how to make things look professional, but Vic does. So I, I, and Vic was, it's funny. It's funny. Cause Vic was the first one.
00:17:12
Speaker
i sent him the Ben her video. Like the one that i just talked about, I was like, this guy just made an 11 minute video where all he had to say was it was shot on film. And, you know, it kind of like sparked the idea. And so I would send Vic, like my pitches for Pulp Fiction and Bonnie and Clyde and all this. And he would, he would all, he would laugh about it and stuff. Vic Mendoza, check, check him out. Vic's cover art on YouTube.
00:17:33
Speaker
And so I said, you know, I want to go out there. we want, I want to go to LA. I want to make this look legit. Are you in, you know, are you, are you in to, to be a part of this? And he said, yeah, let's do it. And so that's,
00:17:43
Speaker
that's kind of how how it happened just asking people yeah dude while you're talking I'm just like I wish you'd like had shot in like a Dunkin Donuts and it was like this is the guy he makes these videos on his break like a Dunkin Donuts he's like just fried a donut it's like it's like what is the deal the way you said it's like I'm trying to make my video about better yeah like get the fuck out here Don't you get it? I'm a big star. Yeah. ah I'm sorry, Josh. No, that's okay. Dude, that's an incredible story. And I think that's one of the reasons I love having you on is like, you're always just inspiring me to want to like create stuff because you are always are always out there trying to make stuff and not trying, but actually making stuff. And um I wanted to ask like, so did you do all five in one day? Yeah. Yeah. And like, what was that day like? Yeah. It actually wasn't, it wasn't too bad. We, we actually did it really, we did, we finished it pretty well on schedule and we did everything efficiently.
00:18:42
Speaker
And it was more of a thing of, I, I actually had, I wanted to do more. I wanted to do more than, than five. I had a, I had a few different ideas planned, but it started with like the writing. I had to write, you had to actually like have this, this stuff written down, especially you're getting an actor involved. Yeah. I wanted him to not necessarily be off script, but I least have looked at the entirety of what it is that we're trying do. So this is scripted. It is scripted. It is scripted. Yeah. And so, but it's also kind of funny is like a lot of the jokes, most of the punchlines came in like a couple days before we filmed. And that was mostly because of Josh Sian is my first writer friend that I mentioned.
00:19:23
Speaker
um Like he he was the one who gave me the punchline, the ah the Greg, you know, like, I know how much, you still owe me money, Greg. Like that was him. That was completely him. And we didn't have that until two days before we started filming. So I don't even think Anthony got to, got to see that until I, I actually was telling them about it on set, but I, you know, but it was, that was, to me, that was like such a small part of the whole thing that was like, he'll, he'll do He'll be, he'll be fine. Anthony will be able to do as long as he's got the rest of it beforehand. Um,
00:19:50
Speaker
So, uh, but yeah, so I, I spent a lot of time writing it. Like I said, it it started really with the Ben Hur thing. I, for some reason I was just like, well, I don't want to do just a rehash of Ben Hur. What's another movie from the same time period that, uh, is also shot on film. And so I just came up with gone with the wind, ah and Because, it you know, it looks gorgeous. Gone with Lillin is beautiful. and And so I was like, OK, so we'll we'll start with that one. um And why does it look good? Because it shot on film. OK, so I just type type that up. Right. I had that one probably for for a few months already. And then little by little, I added like the the other ones that that are that are there. um But yes, intentionally, we went out there for the one day um because I'm also ah
00:20:30
Speaker
ah yeah yeah I'm going into Anthony's house into his apartment, you know? So it's like, if we're going to be going out there, Vic is bringing his equipment. I want to make the most of this day that we're going to be out here. So let's go intentionally to shoot at least a good four episodes, maybe more.
00:20:46
Speaker
Um, and, and, and take the, and take our time and do it right. And then, um, so that's what it was. We got there at, uh, want to say like around nine o'clock in the morning. Um,
00:20:57
Speaker
I was actually already in l LA cause we, I had, I had gone to see the, the whole bloody affair, kill bill, the whole bloody affair the night before with, with Anthony, the actor and with our friend Carlos E Campos, who was also in red sands.
00:21:09
Speaker
Um, we went to see that. So it was, I had kind of intentionally made a whole like weekend out of the, the whole thing. I'm already going out there. I might as well, yeah you know, knock out a few things, do a few fun things. that at the new, the, At the New Beverly. Yeah, we saw it at the New Beverly. And um it was the first night. It was the very first night that they showed it there. And Zoe Bell was in the audience. And she got up and introduced the film. I thought that was so awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. Zoe Bell, man. If you don't know, the stunt double for Uma Thurman in that film and also became an actor in Tarantino films, such as Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And she was- Death Proof. Yeah, Death Proof. She's one that's hanging on the roof. Right. Or the- The hood of the car. The of the car. Yeah.
00:21:48
Speaker
So was badass to have her go out there and talk a little bit about it. That's awesome. Yeah. So we, we get there at nine in the morning. Um, and, oh, and, and so, and also by this point, I had also talked to Vic a little bit, like let's, a lot of, a lot of the reason why, why we got done so fast and efficiently is because of planning. Like that's something that a lot of, I think a lot of, a lot of first time filmmakers overlook, uh, even a lot of veteran filmmakers don't really, don't really think about it. You know, like Well, it's work. no one likes to do hard work. yeah And planning and pre-production is yeah a lot of hard work. Yeah. But vicck is Vic is also ah a professional, you know? And so i i i take my time with him, you know, thinking thinking talking things through and everything. Like I would send him pictures of... like the video essayist, like I'm saying, like they have like their whole setup and everything. I would send pictures to Vic.
00:22:37
Speaker
This was two months before we filmed, you know, months, months ahead of time. Like, this is what I want it to look like. I want it to look like this. And so he starts thinking, okay, what lights do I need to make it, to make it look like how Josh's vision is. Right. So he was planning ahead of time. And then in the weeks leading up to the film,
00:22:56
Speaker
I, ah we, I'm talking to him on the phone and he's like, if we're going to do this, you know, we need to break it down. Like, how are we going to do each one? And I said, okay, so, uh, is the, it's going to be two shots. Every episode is, ah is a wide and a closeup.
00:23:10
Speaker
That's it. That's all. I thought it was a digital closeup. No, it was, it was two, it was two shot. It was two setups. Okay. Yeah. So, so he said what, what he, what he was like, I think what we should do is we should do the entire, the entire script in wide and then the entire script in closeup and you can cut back and forth. And I was like yeah, maybe. But at the same time, i kind of was, when I was writing it, I was already like in my head, I was picturing what lines would be set in closeup. So I'm like, you know what? um We could do that Vic, but I think it'll just be, it'll probably just be better if we just do, um,
00:23:43
Speaker
I'll know, I know what, which lines I want to do in closeup. So we'll, so that will probably save us some time if we do, you know, maybe we do all of it in wide. And then in the, when it's just the closeup, is just like two or three lines and that's it. And then we're then we're done. And so I said, is it going to be, is it going to be better if we just do all the wides first? Like we do every single episode, do it all in wide.
00:24:02
Speaker
And then we cut and then we change the setup and do it all close-up. He's like, yeah, that's that's how it would be the fastest. That's how it normally works. And we were gonna do a different ah costume per episode as well.
00:24:12
Speaker
so So I was like, okay, so I'm thinking at that point, okay, so I have to be ready on set. When we do, after we finish each episode, I need to have a picture taken of what he looks like in for that episode so that when we go later and do the close-ups, I i can tell him this is how you're dressed. So this is all planning ahead of time. Like this is all shit that we're planning ahead of time.
00:24:32
Speaker
And we finished, I think at 2 PM, we started at nine, we finished and we did like a, like a 45 minute lunch. So, you know, it was pretty, it was a pretty, pizza. peter
Film vs. Digital Debate
00:24:44
Speaker
Little Caesars? No, it was a it was a local mom and pop shop. Wow, you go out for them, huh? Yeah, not absolutely. We get Little Caesars. That's all we get is Little Caesars, huh? Well, I mean, the mom and pop shop was in l LA. Like, you want to go to LA and get you guys lunch and yeah come back to Victorville? Yeah? You're saying there ain't no mom and pop shops in Victorville? You can go to Apollo Burger's to get us some change in front. Yeah, that's right. Apollo Burger's pretty good. ah but josh It is really good except it's insanely expensive. so for the You talked about the editing. um Did you ever think to add the editing as a level of the satire or sorry of the parody? because you What do you mean by that? We had kind of mentioned how like right like these have all these cuts where it's like it just cuts back to the film for like
00:25:25
Speaker
six frames or something and then it cuts back and it's like oh yeah and and then this shot and then this it's like all these different like super fast wonky editing or has that was that ever a consideration for you like because that's one of the things about these video essays right is like they have these like very like methodical editing as well shots clips of the movie uh things like that yeah no i mean i didn't really where's my beer yeah I didn't really think too much of that. Don't forget too.
00:25:58
Speaker
I mean, i mean, yeah narcissist we're dealing with like, like, is it like I said, one minute videos, a minute and 10 second videos. That wasn't really something that I, that I thought about too much. um I did, I did try to do ah a few like in jokes, like the, um like for the thing for the John Carpenter's, the thing one, there's a part where he says he, he straight up says like,
00:26:21
Speaker
um it was it was all done. it was The reason why it took so long is it was painstakingly done frame by frame and it wasn't animated by a goddamn computer. And then I cut to the scene where McCready is pouring the whiskey into the computer in the thing, you know, and you hear the, you know, so I did that intentionally because I thought it would just be a funny thing to to to be visually seeing while he was seeing yeah the line, you know? that's good editing. So, yeah, so i did I did a couple of little things like that, but no, it wasn't something that I... But I also don't think there was stop motion on the thing. So your video is wrong. Oh, well, maybe it is.
00:26:54
Speaker
Really? I think it's all animatronic. Damn, even the end? No, there's some stop motion. There is some stop motion. No, there is some stop motion. There's some stop motion. Like when the dynamite box goes into the hole.
00:27:06
Speaker
Oh, animatronic, man. That's pretty cool. um I mean, maybe it's stop motion. don't Carpenter's cheap. He couldn't afford that shit. Sorry. Stop motion cheap? Stop motion's expensive, right? Yeah, dude. That's what i'm saying. Carpenter was cheap. That's why he was like, a Animatronics cheaper than stop motion? Oh, yeah. Once you're done building it, you're just driving with like a robot. Oh, shit. I didn't know that.
00:27:28
Speaker
So that's why Mad God like took so long? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Stop motion is no joke. yeah it's fine It is no joke. It's frame by frame. frame by frame everybody know that's why they're always like cost so much That's why they don't do stop motion in 24 frames per second. They're like, yeah, I think it looks good. I think it looks good at 12. 12 looks pretty good. That's why everyone loves Akira because Akira was animated at 24 frames per second. And that's why the animation house went out a yeah they were like out of business. It's the most one of the most like expensive films to create like ever.
00:28:01
Speaker
for japan so josh we talked about how you recorded it all in one day my next question is what led you to pick the films you did and so let me just go ahead and uh give the some of the titles for the uh the films they all start with why um because it's you know why which would have been funny if you gave him a costume that was like a why on the t-shirt or something or you know you had some more effort um i'm fucking with you josh So the first video is why Gone with the Wind still looks better than modern movies. So why Gone with the Wind? You kind of explained that already. So we don't need to go there. um Why Bonnie and Clyde was considered controversial in 1967. That was a typo on my notes. What's one of the more in-depth explanations of why Gone with the Wind looks better?
00:28:48
Speaker
ah I was just gonna, to be honest, I don't fully understand the film process. Hold on, Josh. He explained all of this while you were out of the room. It was. No, i know but i was talking to be fair, i didn't say I didn't explain that. Well, you said that the reason was you kind of went off of the Ben-Hur video, which was it was just shot on film, and you were like, the reason why i picked Gone with the Wind was because Gone with the Wind looks just as good and and holds up just as well as Ben-Hur. It But to answer your to your question is I don't fully know the whole reason why thirty five millimeter film looks exactly good as good as it does. But I was going to research that. I was going to ask Vic. I was going to ask the people that do know so I could give the actual technical answer of why that was. Well, you know well let me ask you the technical side and kind of go on a tangent. Do you feel that...
00:29:43
Speaker
um movies shot on film do look better than movies shot on digital? Absolutely. I mean, and that's not to say that there's not digital films that look beautiful. There are there are a lot of digital films that look beautiful. Have you seen The ah Hangover? Yeah.
00:29:56
Speaker
Did you see The Hangover? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Because that was all digital, right? The Holdovers. The Holdovers, yeah. Because The Hangover might have been shot on digital. It might have been 35, yeah. It probably was. That's probably 2007. You've seen The Holdovers. Yes. That was pretty good digital film. I thought it was pretty good, yeah.
00:30:14
Speaker
And they kind of replicated also ah Last Night with the Devil kind of accomplished late night. Late Night with the Devil. Last Night would be better. There was a Last Night. To be fair. Technically true. yeah so But fuck that movie because AI, right? So so how much do you feel that's true versus...
00:30:34
Speaker
Well, well, with it, with it looking in at also, we need to ask our resident cinematographer. Yeah. Question as well. Alex don't know. He's like, oh man, you know, he's like, just look at light it, bro. Lighting is the most important. See? Yes. That's one. You're not wrong. Like a true DP. I agree. And that's what, and Vic did a really good job lighting the scene too.
00:30:56
Speaker
But, ah but yeah, no, I, I, like i was saying, I, there are a lot of digital movies that look beautiful that look really, really well, you know, that you can still light a scene really great and shoot it in digital and looks really great. Such as? I don't know. Blade Runner 2049?
00:31:13
Speaker
I don't know. like ja no I No, I honestly don't know. i don't I've seen it. I like what looked like. don't think that was shot on digital. You don't? I'm pretty sure Denis Villeneuve does not shoot digital. Isn't it a hey isn't it Roger Deakins though?
00:31:28
Speaker
isn't that a That's a Deakins movie. Deakins only shoots digital. Dude was shot Dune was shot film and then... thought it was shot on IMAX. Yeah, Dune was shot film and then scanned... No. All of them are digitally scanned. Dune was shot... They ain't doing that shit fucking on a projector. Dune was shot digital and then scanned onto film.
00:31:49
Speaker
That's how they did Dune. I don't know about Blade Runner, but that's how they did do it. They shot it digital and then scanned it onto film got to give it the film quality. Gotcha. And then I guess they went back to digital scan from there.
00:32:03
Speaker
Yeah, but what I was going to say to your point is um the movie that you brought out The Late Night with the Devil, it's it's a decent... Okay, was. It was shot on an Arri Alexa XT. Okay. What's an XT? Does that set for... Digital? It was an Arri raw codec for 3.4K, so it's digital. How about that? Because it is a Deacons. Deacons don't shoot film anymore.
00:32:24
Speaker
He doesn't? No, he doesn't. So, no, but but my thing is, you're right. Absolutely right. Digital can look great. Yeah. Yeah. Let this motherfucker finish what he was saying. No, it's okay. I stopped talking, didn't I? It's okay. No, yeah, for something like Late Night with the Devil, there's also this other movie. I haven't finished watching it yet, but i'm I'm intrigued to finish it. It's on Netflix called They Cloned Tyrone.
00:32:48
Speaker
It came out a couple years ago. Oh, yeah. Boots Riley. Boots Riley. Oh, no shit. It was shot in digital, but they make it look like 35 millimeter film, but I'm, but unfortunately for me, because I, I, I love the look of 35 millimeter film and it, and it's really, so it's really, I don't even like admitting this cause I'm going to sound like a snob, but it's distracting because I can tell that it's,
00:33:13
Speaker
they're trying to make You see difference. Yes, they're trying to make look like film, you know? And I think that's what Late Night with the Devil did as well. So yeah it's a little distracting for me because it's like, well, if you're going to try to make it look like that, why not just shoot it on film? Like, why not just go all the way instead of putting all these filters on in post-production? We all know the reason.
00:33:35
Speaker
What's the reason? It's cheaper to shoot digital. it's No. so It's easier yeah to shoot digital. yeah It's easier. yeah Easier and thus cheaper, right? Yes. well yeah You don't need as many lights, correct? I will say, you what? Because we had a DP on and she said it's really not that cheaper to shoot digital versus film.
00:33:51
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. I believed her because she was hot. But she might have been light at her. All right. Well, go on eBay and buy a memory card and buy 35 million euros and tell me which one is more expensive. Of all of our guests, dude, she's coming up. She's coming up. Kasusha Gennefield is an amazing DP, and she knows what she's fucking talking about. But my thing is, and this is what she said as well, is – Film requires a discipline. Yeah. You cannot just hit record and start shooting. Yeah. You have to make sure the film is loaded, that the gate isn't blocked. There's no dust in there. You have to make sure that um you're accounting for the amount of foot footage you have left in the role because it's not digital, right? Where it's like, oh, I can shoot for 14 hours on this SD card and then swap a new SD card in and then shoot for 14 more hours. Right.
00:34:41
Speaker
It's like you literally have a canister and once you're out, you're out. Right. And then you've got to switch to something new and you've got to load the film, right? ah ah Film is noisier, so you have to account for that with audio. like you just These are all considerations when you're shooting with film.
00:34:56
Speaker
And also, right, you have to understand iso is a lot better in lighting because you do not have that like post-production dynamic range control that you can get from a digital. What you shoot is what you get. There are some color temperatures and things that they can do in the... ah um uh developing process but other for the most part no and then it's all digitally scanned in right and then of course that's what they did digital color grading and stuff even though it's on film uh but right it's so much harder these things make but it's also you also hear like
00:35:31
Speaker
that discipline is better on set because the actors are, have to be on their key. Like we can't do 70 takes cause we're going run out of film. yeah We're going to run out of budget. Like, or we're just like, really just can't, we're going to be done for the day because we don't have any more ready to go.
00:35:46
Speaker
So you have to get this right. Like you have to get things right. You can't fuck around. You have to be ready for the shots where we're digital. Yeah. you hey okay right there there's yeah you those heights and so it's so lax compared like you can you can shoot long and you can shoot uninterrupted takes like right there's no real limit to how long you can record except for hitting record costs a lot less on digital right because there's no cost of film in development
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah, there's no physical thing being eaten up other than yeah the idea of digital data, which, I mean, we everyone, you have you can't go on set without like 10 SD cards and enough enough that you probably have...
00:36:35
Speaker
to shoot three days, like nonstop of footage with like a couple SD cards verse, or if you have an ARIA, I'm sure they have those big drives. You can slap like a a nice ah external drive like we would use for the Blackmagic or something like that, I'm sure. that's Well, with the RED, I mean, we used some pretty big drives, right? Like 320 gig, 12, 300.
00:36:54
Speaker
twelve three hundred Terabytes, two terabyte drives. No, but I mean, ah the drives we were saving onto were like 312 think. I think that it was... bricks, remember? The bricks were terabytes, but the little one... terabytes. The little one was like 240 gigs. The bricks?
00:37:10
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Those were terabytes? Mm-hmm. Damn. The little one wasn't. No, that was like 512. Yeah. Because it was an SSD. Yeah.
00:37:21
Speaker
But regardless, right? like there's a The discipline is different. Yeah. No, yeah. I mean, we didn't lose anything. It was just... Hey, we're done filming today. We got to offload the cards. Okay. Right.
00:37:32
Speaker
So, Alex, do you have anything to input about the difference between film? Because as a DP slash cinematographer yourself, I know you want to shoot with film, but like... I mean, I would... What do you prefer? What do you prefer? I can't really... I feel like would prefer to shoot on film, but I mean, I haven't. So I would be kind of like a... Well, why would you prefer to shoot on film then?
00:37:57
Speaker
Just because I feel like you do get like the more... like That is going to be the better quality. Me personally. you know um But ah like you guys said, it's going to be more expensive. it's gonna There's a lot more discipline. And I feel like as somebody who's trying to be a DP cinematographer, I don't think i I'm there yet to have that. I think I still need to work myself up to having the discipline to shoot a film. Film to me is like...
00:38:26
Speaker
the the leveling up of being a filmmaker if you're shooting with not only that it just it literally requires more education It does. you need to be More education, there's less room error. I don't know would say that. Well, no, because literally you have to understand how to handle the film. You have to understand what different film speeds and ISOs mean. It's not a button that you can just change in your camera. Digital goes pretty deep, man. No, no, no, no, Don't get me wrong. But digital also has more room for error. Digital goes deep. Motherfucker, everyone shoots at 3200 Kelvin.
00:38:59
Speaker
They switched the Are you fucking kidding me? That's what I'm saying. There's a lot more room for error compared to film. Come on, motherfucker. I know what you're saying, but you cannot give me. a Dude, film requires an education. Like, you cannot just fucking pull the full the film mag out. I mean, I do.
00:39:20
Speaker
that's i mean, I do it in photography. I mean, it's different. It's different. I would say, i i would say the biggest issue with film versus digital is if you fuck up film, you don't know until the next day.
00:39:32
Speaker
And then that's an entire day lost. I say it's the next day. If you're lucky, if you're lucky, because now it all you could just literally go back and review it. And remember, we would do that sometimes on Dickhead be like, Hey, not enough. like Yeah. got enough But we did do that, right? we would We would review the shot and be like, okay, how do you feel? And you know we would do the playback and then we would know and we would move on.
00:39:56
Speaker
Where film just does not give you the option and you're right. like If you're lucky, maybe it's going to be developed the next day. Maybe the next week. And how much are are you going to lose within that? like like Yes, there there is that issue of...
00:40:11
Speaker
If you're shooting off film, I mean, you're talking about thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars possibly just lost on a weekly basis versus digital where it's instantaneous. I mean, that's the advantage of digital. It's just instantaneous.
00:40:28
Speaker
I don't think anyone would ever argue that digital looks better than film because it's like, I think you can... I don't even think it's an argument. It's just digital looks different than film. Yeah. And we're accustomed to...
00:40:40
Speaker
Well, we're really well we're I think we're accustomed to film because we're based in the physical realm. My thing is... Like film reacts physically yeah to light. Where digital is not physically reacting to anything. It's just ones and zeros being... Pulled in.
00:40:56
Speaker
Pulled in. and Whereas like film is like an actual... like yeah This is light coming through. There is literally physics happening right there. Yeah. With that, where digital is an interpretation of that, perhaps. Yeah.
00:41:09
Speaker
And maybe that's where there's a disconnect. Look, all I'm saying is... like Alex, when you're saying like shooting on film is the level up, it's to me it's like, no, it's like a different education base. Because where on digital, like yeah, it's probably a good idea to have a light meter and to know how to like use the ISO, but like how often is it like, well, 800 will probably be okay. We can shoot at the 1600 and post. You can literally look at the histogram. You don't even need the light meter. um And where where film is like, okay, we bought 400 ISO,
00:41:45
Speaker
We better have some pretty big fucking lights. I know this should be bright enough. Right? It's like 400 ISO is what we bought. It's what we have or whatever. right That's how film is. like you don't change You can't change the ISO or the the color timing of the of the film. It's what you bought is what you bought. The ISO is literally what it is.
00:42:07
Speaker
you got to get that light to match what what i've started realizing is like a like first starting to shoot my first film camera is a lot of people are talking about like don't rely on the the film speed and like for example like i have 400 uh iso right that's stupid don't listen to that and a lot of people are saying you rely on the film speed but you got to research the film stock and then see if you need to push or pull the film right some films will respond better if you push or pull them yeah and then you have to uh expose and then develop get that mic in front of you steven and then you have to expose and develop them and and in accordance with that but yeah
00:42:46
Speaker
like that that and like That's what I've seen. but No, no, no. you You want to pay attention to the film speed because that's at least the general. Yeah, no. I'm not yeah i'm not saying disregard it. I'm not saying disregard it at all. But like they're saying that there's, like like you said, push or pull. For example, a lot of people say that you need to overexpose for the like camera I'm working on, which is Canon AE-1. So they're saying overexpose it by one stop.
00:43:15
Speaker
you know What? yeah A stop? Yeah. Because they're saying that, you know. What, the Canon AE-1 is like off by an entire stop? Yeah, that's what lot of people are saying. So they're saying like, set it to, instead of 400, set it to 320. But also, it's like, is everyone shooting on the same film though? The same film stock? uh i don't think so feel like they're going in general if you're like like the person just like a rule of thumb like you don't know any better yeah they said a rule of thumb shooting with 400 specifically but what i'm saying is like think about that that is not something if you were shooting with the canon rebel whatever the fuck canon rebel ed or child dysfunction just say canon rebel yeah that's what i have Well, you're not like, well, you know, I got to up a stop. You're like, no, ISO 500. 1600. Oh, right. Like digital. You can do that. That's the thing. A lot of people say that it's better to underexpose for digital and overexpose for for film.
00:44:20
Speaker
Yes. Because because what? because We did the opposite. We overexposed for our film. We overexposed by so much. Yeah. That's a big thing. We overexposed. I mean, those kids on Epstein Island, they got overexposed. um But that's the interesting thing in that and because...
00:44:40
Speaker
I feel we are all also we are all also so used to – damn, I could barely get that out. We are all so used to the automation of our phones taking pictures in high quality.
00:44:53
Speaker
And there has ah a discipline this discipline of actually understanding lighting and how the camera works is really kind of lost on a lot of this generation. a lot of the new filmmakers because – Quite frankly, because they don't have to know it. They just don't. yeah yeah would The ones that do are better, but but you don't have to to get away with it.
00:45:12
Speaker
I would say it's lost, but I would also say it's ah intrinsic because there's so many people who have never taken a photo class that could take good pictures like on Instagram, for example. I've seen those booties. They're like, hold exactly like right oh, you got some good. Yeah. Oh, let me lock the door real quick. Some luminosity coming off of the booty. So i would I would say there's that aspect. I mean, it's sad, but, you know, we're just getting dumber.
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah. We're getting dumber because of the ease of everything. Because we're allowed to be. We're allowed to be. We can get away with being dumber, and that's not a good thing. No, it's not. Because because you understand that craft less and and less is being applied, and that's why like a movie movie like Sinners is...
00:46:03
Speaker
The
Choosing Films for Essays
00:46:04
Speaker
most nominated film ever. It's great movie. and o it it Sure, fine, it's great. It ain't the most nominated movie ever. Yeah, it is. It it ain't it ain't better than Gone with the Wind. It is the most nominated ain't Shawshank Redemption. Oh, you're saying it doesn't deserve to be the most nominated movie ever? so you' Not at all. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, no, no, no. That's what I'm saying. To get back on topic, now that Josh is back from his break.
00:46:28
Speaker
um And now Steven has to pee. So, you yeah yeah why Bonnie and Clyde? oh so, so it was a, it was more of um it just became a thing of like,
00:46:41
Speaker
um We're going to go through each movie, by the way. Okay, no problem. No, please ask me all the questions about myself. That's what I love to talk about. That's why you're here. About my project. It was just, I was searching for films that were kind of all, it ended being all before like the 1990, I don't know when Pulp Fiction came out, but it was- Okay, so my my cutoff was like that, 94, 95. I didn't want anything more recent because that's what – those are the types of movies that people make video essays about is older movies. you know of um For the most part, there's a lot there's a lot of movie video essays about you know Tarantino movies and stuff like that, of course.
00:47:24
Speaker
But it was it was more of like – What was the, um I was trying to to to come up with like seminal moments in cinema history. So Bonnie and Clyde, like I said already, one of the first movies to ever use squibs on camera. So like there's something to talk about there. You can pose us a specific question at the beginning. Why was it considered so controversial? And I can answer it with specific details as to why it was. And then boom.
00:47:52
Speaker
the the video essay is over, please like, and subscribe for more content just like this, you know? So, uh, but that, that's why, and it, and, and I was introduced to Bunny and Clyde in film school and they, that's where I learned, that's where they told us like this shot of the banker getting his head blown off is like not something that people were used to seeing in the sixties. So that's why it was so crazy. And I, and, and I mean, I look, I look at, I, I, My wife has never seen ah Bonnie and Clyde before, and I was showing her my ah my video essay, and she was like shocked when the guy because I showed the scene of the baker getting shot. And she's like, is that what really happens in the movie? I was like, yeah, it's pretty insane, right? So, you know. Yeah, he gets shot right in the eye, right?
00:48:36
Speaker
You should show her some Mario Bava movies. Yeah. The Italians were doing gore like that way before. You know, it was interesting because when I was watching it today, the Bonnie and Clyde video, I had to make sure that Sam Peckinpah had made The Wild Bunch after Bonnie and Clyde, which he did. That came out in 1969. But I think for another one videos, you could do Peckinpah with slow-mo violence. Okay. Did he pioneer that? pioneered that definitely. The idea of using violence and steering slow-mo is definitely a Sam Peckinpah thing. And you can point to... was the first one who did slow-mo violence with beautiful orchestra music? You know, like Ave Maria. Opera music? I mean, that's fucking... Platoon? I don't know. Is that Platoon? No, I was going to say not Ang Lee. Yeah. The guy that did the Hulk. It's a different kind of slow-mo. The Hulk?
00:49:34
Speaker
No. That's angry. No, not the Hulk. The one with the Jackie Chan. i No, the one with... um Jean-Claude Van Damme. Who directed Mission Impossible 2?
00:49:49
Speaker
That's angry, dude. No, it's John Woo. John Woo. I was going to say, John Woo probably popularized slow-mo with the Platoon. What? When Elias is running and he's like... yeah Do you think that's... yeah No, it's way before that. No, no, no. I'm saying, do you think that counts, though? Hell yeah, dude. I cried. I was like, no, Elias. It's not way before that. Platoon is like 1987. John Woo was making that shit. those like I'm talking like John Woo Hong Kong movies.
00:50:20
Speaker
that was yeah too for eighty s i thought the early eighty eighty That was the Look, okay, maybe Platoon is the one where John Woo was like, oh, that's how you do it. What about The Godfather? Do you think that counts when he's like, I ri i i i hate Satan, he sucks cock, and he's like shooting everyone in the eyeballs? That's not slow motion.
00:50:41
Speaker
yeah No, but it's still like that. Oh, okay, gotcha, gotcha. Oh, maybe Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc.
00:50:52
Speaker
John Woo. jo car dude John Woo and maybe I'll give you Platoon. No, John. With Adagio for strings. yeah The silent film we saw. this that Dude, where's the... You saw like the fucking... There's no violence in that movie. Dude, you saw the trans version where it's like... the um No, man. It had classical music, but it's not like slow-mo. Joe's not down priests. I'm not saying slow-mo, but just the juxtaposition of the score verse what's seen on. Sure. What the fuck does that have to do with Bonnie and Clyde? I was talking about an old man getting shot in his eyeball. I was talking about Peckinpah and slow-mo violence, like Wild Bunch. and ah
00:51:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good topic for another video for sure. I'm not allowed go on a tangent. You are. You are. It's 2026, okay? I'm calling ice. Hey, buddy, whatever you want. Peckinpah, Peckinpah. I can't, I can't, I can't. Oh, man.
00:51:54
Speaker
oh man ah So, ah next video that we will talk about is going to be why this scene from Pulp Fiction shocked audiences. So why, from all the scenes from Pulp Fiction, you went with the ah Mia getting stabbed in the heart with adrenaline. That was a good one. Yeah. um Why that scene and why, and like, can you kind of...
00:52:17
Speaker
Go through that? Well, I mean, for those who are uneducated, at the premiere of Pulp Fiction, I believe it was at the New York Film Festival, a man in the audience almost had a heart attack when that scene happened in the movie. Was it because he was eating popcorn or was it for the movie? It was supposedly because of the movie. Is that where that stems from? Is like...
00:52:42
Speaker
Person in the audience having a heart attacks and shit? No, dude, that should happen. People were doing that in The Exorcist, Alien. Yeah, no, but that was like, exactly. It hadn't happened before. I mean, it hadn't happened before. That was like a modern movie. My mama's wedding. Exactly.
00:52:57
Speaker
And so, and so like that. big fat Greek wedding. Everyone had heart attacks. My big fat dick wedding. but You can make the note that parody of that, Josh. My big fat dick wedding. Give all the grandmas heart attacks. You know what I'm saying, bro? Yeah. There's a giant dick marrying a woman.
00:53:16
Speaker
I do. so Do you, giant dick, take this Priscilla to be your lovely red and white? Yeah. You didn't even wait till the honeymoon. The priest is just like covered in cum. His hair is all slicked back because of all the cum.
00:53:39
Speaker
You know Josh? Now I understand why you Comedy advice. Now it's kind of making sense. I know. Mr. and Mrs. Giant Dick, you may now kiss the bride. she just gets sucked up into the pee hole, the urethra, and then she like shit out the balls. And she's like, oh honey.
00:54:03
Speaker
Oh, you silly goose. All right. And they're driving away and it's like just married and it's like all the bumps. It just like makes them squirt a little bit, you know, like at the out the window of the car. There you go, Josh.
00:54:16
Speaker
Make it. Okay. Get a giant dick. I know one. Alex got a giant dick. Giant dick. tened Eight inches, I heard. who would you hear it from? Who told you that? Remember when he I told you he was watching Hellraiser? No names.
00:54:33
Speaker
No names. nos yeah So me just say, I think Bill Gates told me. But that's why that scene. Modern audiences. That's that's why that scene. Because of that. I mean, honest i mean honestly, like that's like the scene that most people remember from that movie is like the most intense part of the movie is when the adrenaline needle goes into her chest. So that's why that's why that scene was chosen and- Yeah. So I was originally going to tell the New York Film Festival story when it was me doing the whole thing. I was going go into that whole spiel of this man fainted because, you know. So your friends didn't like it because it was too close. The sat the parody was playing too close to what was actually going to be like interesting.
00:55:19
Speaker
Well, that's what that's what, that was the argument. It's like, it's going to be interesting to film nerds and to people who like video essays, but to someone, to a normal- Who's your audience if not all these people? No, I agree. But I agree. But at the same time, it's also like people are used to, on my channel, they're used to comedy bits. They're used to sketches.
00:55:40
Speaker
And I try to make, ultimately, I do try to make- I'm trying to make people laugh is the goal of my videos, my movies. yeah but I don't think you got to worry about that. I mean, it's just, it's going to happen naturally. I guess what I'm saying is like,
00:55:54
Speaker
I feel like they led you down the fucking wrong path, Well, time will tell. ta As you're talking about it, I'm like, fuck, I really fucking wish we had the original Josh version. Well, go on the videos and click on the description and you can read. what but so Dude, no one reads it. I've never read a description of a video ever. Even the ones I've written myself.
00:56:17
Speaker
Like, no, like, come on, Josh. Honestly, with the podcast episodes, when I got to go to the description, I'm like, ain't no one fucking reading this shit. And that's one of the worst things I hate writing about. Because it's like, no one's going to fucking read this.
00:56:30
Speaker
They're going to look at the title and that's it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's so funny because I don't know if that's true. I do. I do. I do. I started doing a weekly D&D thing with some co-workers. Wow, really? Do you play BG3 with them too? No.
00:56:47
Speaker
Oh, no. Okay, there's at least that. well Damn, dude. Why you got me? I'm sorry. But the thing I wanted to say was like, so the the DM, like, so the other day I was like, I just like, I couldn't do it. Like I, my, I twisted my back and I had a big knot in my back and I was all fucked up. was like, I'm not doing D&D night. I don't want to sit at my desk.
00:57:05
Speaker
And he was like, you know, i worked so hard to like plan these stories for the night. The DM told you that? Yeah. I think Josh, he was more like giving me shit about it. Not you, Josh. ah Josh Rogers from Texas.
00:57:17
Speaker
Our DM. But yeah, you know he's talking about, and I was like thinking about that as like us as creators of things like you know the podcast and you know Josh makes his his shows and he's talking about the descriptions and he goes talking about descriptions, writing descriptions for the podcast. And I was just like, No one fucking appreciates like how hard it is to fucking put all this shit together. Right. And that's part of the thing that you really have to keep in mind to maybe keep yourself sane is no one gives a shit that you spent 40 hours 10,000 hours.
00:57:46
Speaker
doing this It's just, did I laugh? Was I engaged? Was it interesting? Yeah. Like, yeah. And, you we had talked about this a little bit to bring it back to earlier in the show where we had brought up, Joshua brought up the Heart of Docu's documentary on Apocalypse Now. And we talked about clerks a little bit and ah like knowing the story of how something is made gives you an appreciation for it. But you have to seek out that story to begin with.
00:58:13
Speaker
um you know, it's like when you watch you watch Wizard of Oz and you're like, how those people died from the asbestos of the snow and shit that they were doing. It's like that, it kind of changes how you watch Wizard of Oz a little bit. Yeah, definitely. So you know to bring that to descriptions and like writing. So read my descriptions, motherfucker. No, I mean, that what I'm saying is like, don't write it in the description, Josh. Fucking put it in the video. Because no one gives in the video no one gives a shit about anything but that.
00:58:41
Speaker
fucking little little hit of dopamine that they're getting from the video or whatever it is yeah is it possible to have like um like the more detailed video like in like your your channel right like you would make the actual video about that film and then and then what you've been doing lately you would make that into one of the shorts mm-hmm Yeah, I mean... I mean, because they would be just as, like, it would be, if anything, more engaging, and then you could link them to the actual video if they got the time to yeah watch that instead of reading the description. You mean, like, the actual video essay to the parody?
00:59:17
Speaker
Yes. So the parody is just a YouTube short. And then that would link them to the actual video. Yeah. No, I mean, it could we could it could. We could do that. I don't know if I want to go through the effort now that I've released the first five episodes, you know. But it it could it could be. I mean, you don't have to backtrack. You could just keep it the way it is now. And then, don't know. That's just my input. This isn't in the notes, but this is a question that just popped in my head. Do you ever worry that if these videos popped off that ah Anthony would become more famous than you because he's the face on the screen? And they're like... oh I want to see Anthony do the videos, not Cash.
00:59:54
Speaker
No, of course not. No, I hope – dude, are you kidding me? I'm not the star of any of my movies. always give the spotlight to other people. It's on my channel. So you're not that big of a narcissist. No. So you're liar too. I think – If I'm being honest, I think I am massive narcissist. I just am really good at hiding it. I think that's what it is. Okay. So, yeah. So that's why I'm very happy to share the spotlight with anyone else. Well, be fair, you can't be a filmmaker without being a narcissist. Yes. I think that's fair. Because we're all telling our stories. Yes. Our stories. This is my story.
01:00:30
Speaker
You don't get it. hope Anthony gets super famous from it. I mean, he's already told me he wants to do another, like, if it's considered a season, you know, my first season of fucking Anthony's video essays. He wants me to come back out and do another six, eight episodes. don't know. I'll say Josh is, I got such an angry video game nerd. Do you know angry video nerd? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got such early AVGN vibes, and I was just like, fuck, dude. Josh might, like...
01:00:56
Speaker
like he I think he could actually, like if you like stepped up the production a little bit and like really went hard on the parody, yeah where like every shot, it's like he's got a different color light scheme on his face. and like really just go. But I mean, the effort in this is like yeah insane. But I'm saying, like dude.
01:01:14
Speaker
i was like I was getting those vibes. so I was really intrigued. I really liked it. Yeah. So this is Pulp Fiction. Yeah, that was Pulp Fiction. So this one's going to probably spark some talk, um I would think.
01:01:25
Speaker
The next video is why the effects in John Carpenter's The Thing are still incredible. And essentially the joke is that like, it's real, right? yeah It's practical. It's puppetry. It's man-made, uh, just human effort yeah but on the screen. What you see is there.
01:01:44
Speaker
Like it's not, you know, someone looking at fucking Gandalf, like 900 feet up in the air, like, Hey dear Gandalf, what's up baby? And you know, and it's like just a stick looking at you. And a CGI creature. Yeah. That was added in post.
01:01:58
Speaker
So yeah. Why the thing? Again, just so similarly, ah so ah supposedly, again, ah and and he says it in the in the video essay, it's it took the post-production took over a year because it was all painstaking frame-by-frame work that had to be done in order to make it look as good as it is.
01:02:21
Speaker
um And ah that's just... I mean, it's still considered, like you said, it's your favorite horror movie or it's your favorite horror movie. You know, it's still considered. Alien my favorite horror movie. Okay. Well, it's still considered ah in the top 10 list of horror. It's always in anyone's top 10. It's going to be John Carpenter's The Thing. So it's a. Oh, it's top. Yeah. It's that top five. yeah Yeah. Top five. Yeah.
01:02:46
Speaker
So that's... And if it's not in your top five, you're you're probably... You probably haven't seen it. Probably no better movies. I feel like... Imagine like... You're probably an artsy
Audience Preferences and Filmmaking Approaches
01:02:55
Speaker
fartsy... Le Diabolique. Exactly.
01:02:58
Speaker
Seeing it for the first time in theaters back then, I feel like that audience was definitely... I think that's a good statement. That movie historically bombed. everyone's top I saw a thing about that where it bombed because one of the things was the AIDS epidemic, right? Because it was...
01:03:15
Speaker
It was very similar to it. shit. It's a thing coming out of my thing. That was funny because like people didn't really want to like hear about that or watch a movie about it. And they said that hit home so like to that. You know, it's so funny. well I was just thinking about how that though i want to make I wanted to make an analogy so about like, STDs? It's like, you know, ah sometimes you want to do something. Yeah. Where is this going? Come on, please. Come on, finish your sentence. Essentially, it boils down it boiled down to like...
01:03:53
Speaker
Like, we all should have sex with Connizan, but we don't. Right? How did you know? oh Well, every guy's like, yeah. Right? And it's like, you know, every now and then, like, we got to eat the burnt toast. You know? Every now and then, we got to make ourselves suffer a little bit more for the greater good. And that's why the general strike will never work in the United States. Yeah. that's what it was I got back to it yeah I was like Americans will never ah ah they'll never ah ah make themselves like have like feel any discomfort if it if it doesn't directly make their lives better and that's why America like will fail as a civilization and it has to do with because we would rather fuck without condoms than with condoms because it feels better well that's seems like a weak argument laughter
01:04:52
Speaker
I feel like I had something there at the start. It feels like a very weak argument, buddy. Yeah. You can't blame it all on Catholicism.
01:05:03
Speaker
I'm also goingnna i'm going to go back to one big thing that they mentioned was E.T. coming out around the same time. Yeah. thing And that was the thing is the people were like, oh, this is a fun-loving extraterrestrial. I mean, what a dynamic, right? Juxtaposition. Do you want to watch a movie where the alien kills humanity or the movie where the alien saves humanity? Well, how do I feel? I'm a little depressed. Sometimes I i look at like the way people review films nowadays. or like I had a film class that was like filled with like really sensitive students. What do you mean by that? Sensitive students. I feel like they were easily triggered by things that like ah I feel like they shouldn't be because they want to be in the film industry. And to let that affect you is...
01:05:52
Speaker
I don't know. Like, I mean, if you're just an audience, like I get it. But if you're trying to be within the filmmaking industry, you should have a little bit more thick skin when it comes to that.
01:06:03
Speaker
Well, not only that, isn't a film better? a film is always better when it challenges you, but not only when it challenges you, but when you feel something. Yeah. and It doesn't have to be bad or good or scary or I mean, the whole point, which... which But to evoke emotion is kind of the core of art. so Yeah. Yeah.
01:06:21
Speaker
yes we that's the that's the thing all these fucking kids that are like let me have my volume in my that's the problem I think with like filmmaking nowadays sometimes is like is the I guess the commitment to trying to please your audience constantly We don't need to do that. like ah You know i mean? like Why do we always have to... Oh, we have to make the film this way just to make our audience happy. When it should be like, no, we had to make we're going tell this story and it's going to make our audience feel a certain way yeah because we're telling a story. We're evoking a certain emotion. So what I'm going back to with the E.T. and the thing... is that you know it's like the et did well because in it was pleasing to the audience yeah and you know the thing didn't do well because it's kind of dark and people are getting ripped apart et is a good movie dude don't underscore it no i'm not saying you're talking like he motherfucking like uh the fucking land before time No, E.T. is like... A little after four times a good movie. No, E.T. is a good... E.T. is a fucking great movie. No, that's the thing, though. That's the thing. I'm not saying that it isn't a great film. No. All I'm saying is the fact that it got more hype or, you know, like it did better. No, but Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex. My complaint is towards the audience. I kind of agree with that a little bit. 1982 mom that made major sure Meatloaf was ready when husband got home so she didn't get her ass beat. Is that how it was in the 80s? She took her kids to C.E.T.
01:08:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And then daddy took his mistress to go see. yeah That's why the thing did so bad. But you know what? It never worked out quite the way you think. You know what? To Alex's point, though, a kind of i kind of also I kind of agree. i kind it kind of feels like, I agree, E.T. is a great movie, but it also kind of feels like Spielberg plays to the audience. Spielberg plays. make stuff for the audience. like He's trying like James Cameron. think there's quote that he mentioned about that. Right, but but the movie, by if you watch E.T., it's like he's trying to make a feel-good movie for the audience. you guys cannot compare E.T. and The Thing. If you watch The Thing, right but that's my point. Also, Steven Spielberg made
01:08:45
Speaker
Yes. Yes. But that's my point. My point is that's how Steven Spielberg made E.T. It feels like John Carpenter made the thing for himself. It feels like it's his vision that he's trying to create this work of art that's, you know, that that's fuck the audience. I don't care about the art. This is the movie that I want to make. No, you're so wrong, Josh. That's what it seems like. think Josh is 100% right. No, John Carpenter made the thing because he saw The Thing from Another World and said, I fucking love this movie. It's one of my favorite movies. I love Howard Hawks, and I can't make a Western. Now imagine if it had 10 dicks. And I can't make a Western because no one would let me.
01:09:22
Speaker
This is true. John Carpenter always wanted to make a Western, but no one ever let him make a Western because he made Halloween. Yeah. And so they were they would only give him money to make horror films. And so that's what he fucking did.
01:09:34
Speaker
He loved The Thing from Another World, directed by Howard Hawks. I think it's Howard Hawks, I hope. Yeah, I believe that's true. And that's what happened. the difference The thing is about The Thing is
01:09:49
Speaker
Well, it's like it is definitely ah a groundbreaking film, and it's one probably one of the – I think you can argue – you guys are right. It's one of the best horror films ever made. But it is not a general audience film. yeah Correct.
01:10:02
Speaker
So many people will watch that movie and recoil so much to it. But you know what? Everyone likes it. Yeah. yeah oh Yeah. The only people that don't like my point. Yeah, exactly. I am. I'm just doubling down on the fact that like, and but I'm not saying Carpenter necessarily made it for himself. I'm just saying that,
01:10:22
Speaker
like eat ah there's a reason that Spielberg is Spielberg and there's a reason why Carpenter is Carpenter and he pretty much fizzled out and does does not make movies anymore it's because he did not make audience reaching films yeah he made great films yeah but they're not wide reaching audience films but i I would take that I would take making great films of course we would and this is why you should have made your series for us and not for the fucking audience we are circling back hell yeah Because you have to think about it. Yeah.
01:10:52
Speaker
the The people that give a shit about this stuff yeah are the people that have no that actually know what Bonnie and Clyde is. Sure. no Yes. Go and go ahead and ask, fucking go on the go go to victor Victor Valley College right now. It's Saturday, but go on a Monday at noon into the the cafeteria, the Performing Arts Center, and ask anyone there if they've seen Bonnie and Clyde. And how many people will say,
01:11:14
Speaker
Right.
01:11:17
Speaker
Hopefully they know who Bonnie and Clyde is. Is that some kind of transgender thing? like you know like I feel like that's what kids would say. But I don't know. First they were Bonnie, then they were Clyde. Yeah, you mean when Bonnie became Clyde? Damn, if you made that film, then you'd make so much money. Oscar. Most nominees above. It's not Bonnie and Clyde, it's Bonnie then Clyde. Bonnie to Clyde, yeah. Bonnie then Clyde.
01:11:45
Speaker
Yeah. You're on to something, dude. And it's about a woman that becomes a man on a kit on ah on a amer a spree of violence and robbery. and Billionaire. Billionaire right there. There you go. fucking Let's do it.
01:11:58
Speaker
So, Josh, the thing. Yeah. So that was that was why you know that was why.
YouTube as a Filmmaker's Platform
01:12:03
Speaker
Because that's what people remember most about the thing is the practical effects. And I figured I could make a make a video about that.
01:12:10
Speaker
See, and this is why I wanted to, this is why I keep bringing up like. I have an end of discussion question. So, you know. Okay. Well, we're on the last film. Yeah. And we're a little over two hours. So we're doing pretty, we're doing well to wrap up soon.
01:12:24
Speaker
Um. The last video in the, I guess we're calling this the first first season, yeah um is why we should reconsider The Rise of Skywalker, which is, you know, very bluntly you put in the video, which spoilers for the video for those of you who haven't watched it, is you shouldn't reconsider The Rise of Skywalker. That one was made as plainly a joke, as completely a joke. Yeah. yeah um which is completely antithetical to every other video because every other video you have a reason and understanding which is why I was like no Josh you can't do this at the end it's the season finale you had have a reason I wanted to end it differently I mean and this is where it's non-Japanese the one I got you it's all gone
01:13:08
Speaker
What the fuck? finished it. When? When? y'all haven't been drinking this entire two hours. Oh shit, I thought we were drinking the Japanese shit this whole time. Let's go Japan.
01:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, Mechagodzilla. King Caesar! That was really cool shit, dude. I kind of... Anyways, Josh. and So, yeah, so oh why the easy layup?
01:13:37
Speaker
This is such an easy one, Josh. Well, yes, and that was kind of that was kind of the reason why also because um we all um i had i had planned this as one of them, whether we did it this time or whether we did it at it at a different time. This was planned as to be one of the videos, Rise of Skywalker. And, um, and i and I hadn't written, i hadn't written it down other than just in a text message. So I i was like, again, I was trying to shoot them all in one day. We came to the end of these four that we finished, but I had already also pre-told Anthony that,
01:14:11
Speaker
I was like, if we get if we get these four done quickly, then I want to do the Rise of Skywalker one just because that one's going to be the easiest one out of all of them. And it was, and that's why. So I wanted to do an extra, a fifth video. And that was the easy layup to finish You broke my heart, Josh. You broke my heart. sorry. I apologize. I'm not going to lie. I seriously wanted, yeah. I wanted, because I was like, fuck, dude, he's going to do it. Like, it's going to push the parody because everyone's answer is that is the answer. Yeah.
01:14:40
Speaker
Because, and I was like, dude. But no one's ever made a video about it. Imagine if anyone made it, but if you made a sincere effort effort to be like, this is why you should watch one of the worst movies ever made. The most corporate, shilling, money grab bullshit, fucking dumbass movie. yeah But then you find like the, cause you're Josh. Ampura, man. You're the fucking optimistic man, dude. You're the guy that's like, hey, you know what? i make I'm going to talk about ah you well what it ah what was the exact phrasing you were? a Fuck, I wish I were written down. But it was like ah like silly shit, essentially. Stupid shit. Stupid shit.
01:15:19
Speaker
Silly shit sounds better. It's still there from me. I'll write it down. But, right, it's like, you're the guy, man. you're You will find, you are the guy that will find the stupid shit in The Rise of Skywalker. And I wanted that. And I was like, fuck you. Of course, it's a great ending to the series. like yeah It actual would be an actual legit send-up to one of the worst like corporate, gra like, there's nothing positive that you can really say about Rise of Skywalker.
01:15:44
Speaker
But you could have found something to say. It would have been funnier. yeah And that's where I'm... I mean, Josh, the video's great. series is interesting. Cool. And I like it. And I think you did a good job. i appreciate it. I just wish you went that little extra further for that last one, buddy. Well, maybe that'll be the series finale. like After a few seasons, we'll end it with an actual... Fuck Greg. If you watch the series, you know what I mean. Yeah. um Steven.
01:16:11
Speaker
Yeah. Fuck Greg. You said you had a... Yeah, I completely forgot what my question was, but it was really good. I was trying to remember it for a while there. i was like, shit, I completely forgot.
01:16:23
Speaker
Well, also, I also want to say, I want to point out also, because you mentioned it a couple of times of like the angry video game character or angry video game nerd. um i I think I could have played that. I think I could have done a good job. But at the same time, it's like once we started coming up with like these jokes and stuff, i I really think I know where my strengths are as an actor. And there aren't many. But I also like – A humble narcissist. Yes, I try to be. I like that you know that Anthony brought a lot of really fun things to the to the role, to the character. Big shout out to Anthony Duran. Oh, yeah. I know my question. And so like, even for the very first one, like for the Gone with the Wind one, when he when he says the, I picked your mother up last night, like I could i could have delivered the line too, but I don't think I could have done it as good as he did. You know, he he really like got the suave bastard of it all really on you know on on camera. And so I really liked that. I think you're a swath bastard. I appreciate that. I don't think that many people agree with you, but, but, ah and then, and he was also wearing like these, these white sneakers that show up in some of the episodes and the pant, his pants kind of stopped.
01:17:33
Speaker
I think he's wearing like ankle socks or something. And it just kind of like he was wearing, he's like, should I change? I was like, no, I kind of like that. I kind of like that you're like very almost professional on the top. And then when you cross your, when you put your foot up that it's like this, these sneakers, I kind of like the the juxtaposition of it. i don't know. It just, it just kind of added to the character for me. Josh, your level of deep detail, like noticing detail is...
01:17:57
Speaker
One of the top that I've ever seen. I appreciate that. you Dude, you could see detail that I would never notice. I would just be completely ambivalent too. But I did want to ask you because Iron Lung is coming out this weekend.
01:18:12
Speaker
And that's a YouTube film. Yeah. Markiplier. Markiplier. He also has a YouTube. art ah He has TV show. james John Bonham? No, he has a ah TV show on Amazon.
01:18:25
Speaker
I didn't watch it because I saw him on there and i was like, fuck this. ain't going to watch it But then there was like ah Talk to Me and... oh yeah. What was the other one? Bring Her Back. Bring Her Back, who which was by YouTube filmmakers. filmmaker so Um, what's your thought on that with YouTube being possibly an avenue for filmmakers to kind of branch out and start a career? think it's incredible. Is that something the you're looking to? Like, can you just delve into that and, you know, your initial thoughts? Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of, a lot of filmmakers are talking about that. Chris Stuckman who did YouTube reviews. yeah, he did Shelby Oaks. Yeah. Uh, you know, Did you watch it? Anyone watch Shelby I haven't it. I heard it's pretty bad. I did. You watched the whole movie?
01:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, I did. it I saw it after ah Red Letter Media. chris No, was it little Red Letter Media? Someone critiqued it and they said it was like a bit kind of misogynistic in a sense. Because it it because because it was kind of done in this in this scope where like you put this person through all this torture and then you punish them even more. right And I was like, yeah, yeah, that was kind of bad. Yeah.
01:19:40
Speaker
You know, when you when you put someone through that, you kind of want them to redeem themselves, right? Like ah Last House on the Left, right? Yeah, what the family gets the the as horrible and agraphic and as violent as what happens to their daughter is. The parents are fucking murder those guys. There's the comeuppance, right? That like, yeah, yeah you know, you want that. and And that didn't happen with Shelby Oaks.
01:20:08
Speaker
Not even Shelby Oaks, but Iron Lung. I think Mark Plyer is kind of producing these films that are better. And then also Talk to Me. Yeah. Freddie Wong. You know, Talk to Me was like legit. Yeah, it was a great movie. A good ass movie. Well, I loved i loved to Bring Her Back.
01:20:24
Speaker
And Bring Her Back was really good. It wasn't as good as Talk to Me in my opinion. No, no, it wasn't. But it was like. Dude, you guys are fucking good. yeah you guys yeah You guys are something special. Yeah. So that movie missed a lot. Like the writing kind of sucked.
01:20:40
Speaker
It did. It was little too on the nose, right? mean It was a little, yeah, it was kind of, it was like ah Knives Out where I just kept thinking like, please be different, please be different. And then when it wasn't different, I was like, okay. but It was a little different. But it was a little different. It was a little different. And then was like, okay, I'll give you that.
01:20:57
Speaker
so So, like, do you see... But the end sucked. Oh, yeah. Don't ruin it. We haven't seen it. Don't ruin it. did not like it. Me either. Talk to me. The end was so bad. like i It kind of... And you know, it's funny because Talk to Me is a little more streamlined where the other one's a little more, you know, curves and weaving. But then the end was like... it's Just give me the simple story. I'll take that. Yeah. don't I don't want to have to, like...
01:21:24
Speaker
eat around all the fucking meat. And you know what they don't do? They don't go far enough. No, they don't. because up Talk to me needed to go further. Anyways. They fucked up. So how do you feel about like... I mean, these guys are making movies and we're like... Yeah, we made dickhead. Dickhead might come out.
01:21:45
Speaker
but josh i What the fuck do I have to say? how how do you feel about like YouTube ah creators i think becoming fantastic becoming like legitimate filmmakers like Mark Plyer? Because I've i've heard mixed results on his film and I've heard a lot of good things on his film. well i'm i'm like How do you feel about that? And then...
01:22:04
Speaker
I think it's fantastic. Just kind of like your general consensus. I think it's fantastic because so many filmmakers, even like I think Scorsese has said, if I was growing up right now during this time, that's what I would be doing. I would be making movies and putting them on YouTube. Yeah, after he shit on Marvel. That's what he said. Yeah. But I think – no, but I really think it's becoming the future. It's becoming the – the way to get your name out there because it's free marketing. It's, it's free distribution. You know, you, you, you make it for, you can make it for free. So it's all, it's basically everything that you need. If you can, if you can get around the whole not making money for, for maybe your entire life off of films, which I can. That's what Tom and I have been trying to with this podcast. was going say like, that's the other thing too is,
01:22:54
Speaker
The YouTube is... Saturation is a fucking thing to consider, right? There are so many people, like millions of people that would want to be filmmakers that probably have YouTube channels of their shorts and just like, oh, yeah how many people have had the... I made movies with my friends in the backyard when I was eight on, you know, the fucking mini DV camera. yeah It's like, this is not...
01:23:21
Speaker
This is not a unique story as it used to be. but it doesn't. Because YouTube allows those people to upload their videos. and And then it's like, now you have to fucking separate yourself from the masses.
01:23:33
Speaker
Well, also so also the ecosystem of YouTube. Because like I never knew who Mr. Beast was until Joe Rogan. And recently. like I didn't know who Mr. Beast was until like the past two years.
01:23:45
Speaker
He thought Mr. Beast was me with my pants off. I know, that's what all the ladies say. But you know, like... my lady still let him on out That guy's probably the biggest... Eight inches, ladies.
01:23:56
Speaker
Alex is like from pain eight and three quarters. but the Might as well round up. Yeah. got your Hellraiser right here. Alex is like, hey, Sage. No, I think... i think um i i don't even need those hymns. I agree with the um with the saturation thing, but it also doesn't scare me. It doesn't phase me because for for me anyways, again, not to humble brag or anything, like I i take my time with my scripts. i i've been writing a screen I've been writing screenplays. I have feature length screenplays that are, done I have three of them that are done that i that I'm still working on all these years later because they're not ready yet. They're not ready to be made. So I think you can set yourself apart
01:24:44
Speaker
on YouTube, even though it is very saturated by how how much work you put into your writing, how much work you put into your to learning your craft and filmmaking, ah how how seriously you take like the sound design, the sound editing, the color correction, like all of this stuff allows if just putting in a little bit of effort separates you from i would say 80 to 90 percent of most youtube filmmakers because i've seen i've i've seen what's out there and and i and i i can tell i i look and i take notes of oh this guy didn't give a shit about sound design this guy there's like chops in his sound i can hear i can hear all this shit it doesn't sound professional this guy didn't care about camera placement he just set up the camera and and said all right guy go for you know so I see all the all those things that are out there and I take my time with it and maybe I'm wasting my time. maybe i don't i don't even have a thousand subscribers. Maybe i'm I'm taking it way too seriously, some people would say, but at least i'm I have a product that I'm proud of.
Finding Fulfillment in Filmmaking
01:25:44
Speaker
you know I have something that I'm- Well, that's what was going to say. How do you feel about this then? I think it's great. I think i think YouTube levels the – yes, again, it might be saturated it might be getting oversaturated, but also levels the playing field because now everyone sees all this stuff, and then I'm going to throw my hat in the ring. I'm like, okay, look at this. Look at how different I did it. I i took my time with this.
01:26:07
Speaker
I tried to make it look as professional as possible. and um And if you build a big enough audience by being different, you start getting opportunities like Markiplier, like these other guys. You can't say like Markiplier, because that fucker is like a multimillionaire before he even started making his own movies. That's true, because he was, yes, go ahead. I'm sorry. Let me ask you this. Chris Stuckman is not the, he didn't just pick up a fucking random YouTuber. He was like top three of movie critics. Yes. It was Red Letter Media, Jeremy Johns, Chris Stuckman. Yes. I've never heard Jeremy Johns. No, but you're right because- That's not my problem, motherfucker. Both Markiplier- but what I'm saying about that ecosystem. But both Markiplier and Chris Stuckman didn't build an audience from their films. They built an audience from other types of videos that they were doing, but they used the money from that audience that they got off of YouTube to invest and then make their own films, right? Oh, absolutely. But what I'm saying is, and Josh, what I'm saying is-
01:27:10
Speaker
Is that a bad thing? No, no, no. what i'm No, not at all. Here's the thing. they They are air established brands. Yeah. None of us are fucking close to being an established brand. You just said it yourself. Speak for yourself, buddy. You don't even have over a thousand subscribers. Me and Alex, right? That's right. Right? The beast and the...
01:27:30
Speaker
TSP. ESP. I mean, i mean right? like That's a crazy thing when you think about it. It's like we can't compare ourselves to these people. They are not... they are Their reach is so... They're like Logan Paul. ah They're like little JIT.
01:27:49
Speaker
They have... Logan Paul. What's the other one's name? But can there. We can get there. But what I'm saying is...
01:27:58
Speaker
What are you saying? I mean, I don't want to be compared to those guys. No, no, no. No, no, no. But I'm saying like. On their status. Like part of why they are so successful is the fact that they got there first. Yeah. Yes. What I'm saying is part of the success comes from being in the right place at the right time and grabbing the right audience. I'm not saying we can't do that, Josh. Yeah. All I'm saying is we're not there. Mm hmm. We are not there. We have not, none of us are making money, making videos. None of us, right?
01:28:29
Speaker
we We, that's the dream. yeah That's the ambition. That's the goal. That is the finish line is to say that, hey, look, this is my job now is making film, making shorts, making whatever it is that we're doing to make content, videos, ah to bring it back to the content versus, uh,
01:28:50
Speaker
film Film versus narrative, documentary, whatever. Like this is the thing that we want to do to make money. yeah This is our dream. This is where the, you know, that if we could do that, we would not be doing our day jobs, our normal bullshit, nine to five, whatever bullshit we're doing.
01:29:07
Speaker
yep and The thing is, we just don't we don't have that opportunity. We have to fight every inch for that opportunity. And even then, we're like climbing over the bodies and corpses of thousands, if not millions of others i that are have come before and are alongside us to try and make this what we do.
01:29:28
Speaker
i think that's what a lot of people don't realize is that... like You got all of the shit in front of you. Plus, you're going to endeavor into this. And it's not easy.
01:29:40
Speaker
And no one gives a shit if you cross that finish line. No one cares. Yeah, but i i it also i think i agree I agree with what you guys are saying. i think also it's like...
01:29:51
Speaker
um I think what sets me apart though from a lot of people is like, I genuinely don't care if I keep this shitty nine to five job that I have for the rest of my life. If I get to pay my bills with that, but I also on my free time get to make the movies that I want to make in, in the, in the way that I want to make them with the people that I genuinely love.
01:30:14
Speaker
that's to me is, is heaven. Like, I don't, I don't need to, I don't need to make money. I don't need to make money from my movies. I hope one day I will. This why we need to keep optimist Josh, not pessimist Josh. Do you understand what I was saying earlier? you not hear me? Yeah. This is why the rise of Skywalker video should have been more Josh. Well, like I said, maybe one day it will be, but that, but that's, but that's my, my point is like,
01:30:35
Speaker
i Don't sell me on hopes and dreams. Show me. Well, that- that Show me Josh, I wanna see, man. Well, this is what- Show me these scripts. Why are we making them? What the fuck are you saying? You got feature scripts? Yeah, they're not ready. They're not ready to be made yet. I have to- You have me and Steven. Look, you've got to focus on dickhead. What are you talking about? Don't mention dickhead. How dare you? Man, look, what I'm saying is it's fermenting, okay? It's fermenting. Send us the fucking scripts and we'll fucking help you, man. know. Look, we're not the smartest people. I'm dumb as fuck. know. But I know I could help you, man. Yes, talked about it. caught him into making a film called dickhead. So, you know, we ain't that smart. I told you already, Tom, I'm on the third episode of a series that I'm writing. Liter police. No, no. See, no. See, you want to talk about that.
01:31:26
Speaker
i wanted to send you that. I wanted to send you those scripts and you didn't respond to me. But but we'll talk about that later. read them. No, you haven't. You read the first one. You read the one that i was going to direct. Yeah. No. No. What?
01:31:37
Speaker
No, what I'm saying is I'm talking about a different series. I haven't even talked about this. I'm writing a half hour series right now. I'm on episode three right now. And I told you about it and you told me to send it to And I will, I promise you, you're going to be the only person I send it to. What about, I could direct. Yeah, no, absolutely. You all- Not literally. You're all going to be- We're all going to be working together for the next 50 years. Damn, Josh, you're saying don't respond? Fucking hell. Don't look at me, Alex. We're all going to be working together for the next 50 years, okay? Jeez, 50 years. I ain't going to be alive that long, Josh. I hate to tell you. But my point is- got two, maybe three years for I'm writing a lot of different things. I couldn't have had a sneak peek. Like, come on, man. I haven't sent it yet, okay? I haven't sent the half hour. I'll send you the letter police. Well, Tom already got the whole season. No, he didn't. That's what I'm saying. I wanted to send him the whole season. Well, didn't read the whole season. I just said he got the whole season. He hasn't gotten it. He has only gotten one episode. I read some letter police and I gave some notes and it disappeared.
01:32:37
Speaker
That's all I'm saying. Yeah, same thing with me and Alex. Uncle Rico. But I'm writing this. I don't know. Don't start going down there. I'm writing this half hour series. Uncle Rico. And Tom asked send me the pilot. And I will. promise you. it to me, dude. I'm going to. But I need to finish. I need to put a few little tweaks on it. I need it to be at a certain point where I'm ready for other people to read it. But you are going to be the first person that reads it. promise you. Josh, I swear. I'm not. intentionally trying to always blow you off. know. I hate talking on the phone and you always call me. You're a busy man. It's easier to text me. Trust me. He never blows me off. Same. I'll say he has never blowed me off. I'll say, Josh, dude, I love you. You inspire me. I want to make shit with you. want to help you. bought him a red camera and no blowing off has ever occurred. Oh yeah, that red triangle and the Bermuda triangle. See, that's what he tells me. He's like, oh really?
01:33:33
Speaker
Bring up the red camera. That camera fucked us so hard. but but no josh come on man like come this is what i'm saying this is what the fucking the whole the today was supposed to be the anthology meeting and we have two other filmmakers one of them literally lives like five feet away from steven's house and we have some other filmmakers where it's like we need to like but i blacked out at his house so trying avoid him we need to do oh that's because he tried to like fuck his cousin
01:34:03
Speaker
I mean, no, you didn't. but I did. yeah That's also. No, but seriously, yeah what I'm saying is like, look, look, it's like, We all try to keep doing these things, like these own our own projects and this thing. It's like, no, we got to come together and like try to like show what who we are like as this team. Because alone, it's so hard to like get the resources and the crew and everything together. But like when we all come together, hopefully we can kind of like fill in the gaps where we missed. Make whole yeah. yeah but that And then make a couple short films together and make an anthology. Because the thing was, this like not only is it about each of us showing who we are as filmmakers, but it's us challenging each other yes as well to make the best kind of shit we can make.
01:34:51
Speaker
And we have to be able to be mature and defend ourselves and say, and and if Steven's like, Tom, it's fucking stupid when that bitch does the acid and she tries to brain her husband with the hammer. And then then it's like, oh no, because of this and this and this. And then he'll be like, okay, okay, okay.
01:35:06
Speaker
You're still stupid, but try this. And then it's like, okay, I'm that. And that's how we made Dickhead. And I don't know if Dickhead is going to go anywhere, but yeah I'll say is I think there's a,
01:35:19
Speaker
Something that we could all do. And not only that, but Josh, man, like fucking, if we could help, man, let us help. No, of course, man, of course. But but that's that's my point. My my whole point is- always have free time, but let us help. My whole point is, who did i who did I call when I wanted to make the Oscars apology short? I called you guys. Okay, i there's that that's what I'm saying. Like, I don't i honestly, i don't I haven't made too many things in the last few years because I've been busy trying to edit and finish all these other shit that I've done- Over the last 15 years. Okay. And, and I'm, and I like taking my time with my scripts. I like taking keep my time with my editing, with my, with everything. So.
01:35:56
Speaker
No, you're fine, buddy. I'm just saying. Yeah. Yeah. So I agree with you. We should do a lot of things. We should, we should get together and collaborate. But if it's going to be something like that comes from me, if it's going to come from my brain, it's going to take a long time for us to first, for me to, for me to even send it to you guys. You know, that's why I'm still working on this half hour script. But if it's about,
01:36:15
Speaker
Us, like you guys have an idea or you guys want to do something. I'm available. I'm ready. I'll come out and I'll do whatever you guys need, whatever you guys want. I'm ready to go. But need a Josh fucking script for anthology. Okay. Then tell me what you want and I'll start writing it.
Future Collaboration Projects
01:36:30
Speaker
But you're going to have to wait until it's ready. don't even know yet. What are you complaining about, dude? It's up in the air, man. What I want from the anthology, it's something that we can all... What you want Jared and Clark corrected, you're like...
01:36:48
Speaker
Yes. No. and i ya I was like, don't pigeonhole us that hard because they want like this end of the world, apocalyptic, Lovecraftian kind of story.
01:36:59
Speaker
They are wrong. i have one of those. Tell me more. Because we can't do that. My thing was like, I want to tell the stories that are, my idea was that we do something that's local to us. Cool.
01:37:13
Speaker
Because this is all we have. Yeah. Is the fucking desert, man. Absolutely. Like, we need to use that. Yeah. That's what we have. People will pay for that. People pay for that. so if So this is the first I'm hearing that you want to do an anthology, but I'm i'm down for the idea. And the sooner you tell me about it, the sooner I can start writing. So I'm glad you're bringing it up now. So like ah by the time you figure out exactly what you want to do, maybe already have like a little first draft or something. Because my thing was, I didn't want to pigeonhole us into horror. I didn't want to pigeonhole us into- So don't. The only thing I want is it has to be about us in the desert. In the desert. Okay, cool. Because that's who we are. I got a lot of shit i got a lot of scripts written for the desert already. so Right? like this yes
01:37:52
Speaker
And this is where we need to capitalize and use that. Yeah. that's all That was my thing. Okay, cool. do it. Because it was like when we tried to make it bigger than that or try to change the story or anything like that.
01:38:05
Speaker
bigger or more expansive. It's like, no, we're just fucking desert rats. And we've got to use that as to our advantage. I got tons. I got tons of scripts written short scripts written for the desert.
01:38:16
Speaker
I mean, there's shit around here only like people that have lived here forever know about. You know how we were always like, everyone knows Wesley? Yeah. yeah like That's kind of a story. That's a story right there, yeah. it's like i I was starting to think about an idea for... Right? It's like... Seriously, right? like how you would be like I was just thinking about like people who get stranded in the desert and they're just like they have no idea where they're going and then all a sudden they walk up to a fucking Wesley like meditating around some steamed circle. of like you know some he's got to be around some like meditation shit with herbs and stuff and they're like what the fuck and he's like yeah I've been waiting for you guys you know totally true thing right if you've been in the desert long enough you will eventually know Wesley but did you do music in the background yes a sitar and and and then it's almost it's almost like a ah like a curse like I think it's a blessing it could be a curse or a blessing depending on like your association but like
01:39:13
Speaker
Right. It's like ah eventually it's like, OK, you just move into the high desert. You're not going to you're not going to understand. Right. You've never been to Gators. You don't understand that they're like. yeah Right. Like, you know, you don't know how dangerous it is. your Gator. Right. You're like, oh, you know, I'm going to go to get I'm going to go to Ricky's for a drag night. And you're like, well maybe you shouldn't. Yeah.
01:39:36
Speaker
But you know what? Wesley might just appear, you know, and there's this figure that just appears in the desert, right? Oh, I'm going to go to the social show at 930 p.m. on a Wednesday.
01:39:47
Speaker
Guess what? Wesley might be there and he's probably going to be there. If not, Anthony will be there or some asshole will be there that you don't want to talk to. But. But if you're lucky, Wesley will be there. Right. And then it's like, oh man, what are you doing Sunday night in the desert? Well, I'm going to the rooftop out in Apple Valley. Guess what? Wesley's there. Well, you know what's funny? He's listening to the local band because he knows all of them. And he went to high school with half the people there.
01:40:14
Speaker
And he fucked it right. That's a story. Yeah, it is. There's a story there yeah about fucking our friend Wesley. And it literally legitimately, legitimately, he just kind of knows everybody. Well, there you go. The Chronicles of Wesley. That's the that's the anthology right there.
01:40:29
Speaker
And it can literally be it could that could be the impetus and ah of the the anthology. And it's the shorts. Break off from who Wesley has interacted with. I mean, we don't know. You know, what's funny is like, and I haven't, I haven't talked about this project either, but the only how many women has he is sexually assaulted? Do we know? the only every woman of the height The only other project that I worked on last year, aside from Anthony's video essays is actually a project that I've been filming with Wesley and ah Steve who helped us out on ah the Oscars apology short. Um, and if you guys are gonna, are gonna like, if you want to move forward with this, this whole thing that you guys are talking about. no mike my Legitimate. But serious if it if it's about Wesley's what I'm saying, or if, it if that's like the desert, but we filmed it here in the desert. We filmed down street from my house and it'll be done this year. It's going to like, I'm, I'm getting close to the construction project. Yes. That one. Okay. I'm, I'm being kind of vague about it still, but, uh, but anyways, but no, it's okay. But, but my point is, uh,
01:41:27
Speaker
If you guys want to do that, like i've gotten i've um I'm already working on on on a short that's going to be done soon. So, you know, we can do that. Let's do it. But yeah, anyways. down You guys tell me what you want. I'm going to start writing. to How are we doing on the podcast now?
01:41:46
Speaker
Or just that three hours. Well, what's next on the list? That's it. What's next on the docket? Anyone have anything to wrap up and say? Get out there and make movies with your friends.
01:41:58
Speaker
And take your time with it. Holy shit. Is the Wesley thing a thing? I guess Is kind of a thing? The Chronicles of Wesley, man. I think that sounds like a bad idea. Legitimately, I think. No offense. I'm asking Steven. Fuck you guys.
01:42:12
Speaker
ah We just got to vet Wesley, you know, and see, like, his past. No, but you know what But you see what I'm saying? Like, there's a weird thing. It's almost like how, like... A mystical... It's weird. You're kind of a...
01:42:26
Speaker
You were like this pillar, like this too, for a while, where like everyone knew everyone through you. Six degrees of Wesley. There you go. For a while, that's like how I met and networked with everybody. Yeah. I used Steven as my... And no one has ever reciprocated relations that I have established. i appreciate everything you've done. I'm trying to tell you to take a class so you can get a job where you want to work and you're just like, ah, fuck this guy. Mm-hmm.
01:42:57
Speaker
So on that note... All right. Well, Josh, thank you for being on the show. Absolutely. Anytime. Alex, as always, thank you for showing up. Actually, i think this was probably a rare ah experience where we were ready and set up on time. It was good. um we had Did you enjoy your root beers, Josh? Absolutely. Did you enjoy your beer? All four of them. Everyone is good. Great mpa Everyone is of officially toasty except for Josh who drank his root beer.
01:43:29
Speaker
I appreciate it guys. Thank you everyone for having this chat. And I hope people can learn something and make sure you check out Josh, ah his channel at Josh makes ah movies. And it's not the other Josh makes movies. yeah It's the right Josh makes that guy actually changed his name. So now most, almost all my videos pop up when you type in Josh makes movies. So that's kind of cool. And definitely check out the ah Anthony's video essay yeah series because it's,
01:43:57
Speaker
it's pretty good yeah i think it's uh worth your time i mean it's not like a huge time investment yeah i remember josh was like oh you haven't watched the video and i'm like motherfucker it's 40 seconds i've watched it yeah that was the exchange it wasn't that big of a commitment i promise yeah but the thing was was like i wanted more from the fucking skywalker video like it come on john stay tuned for season two God damn it. Like, to come on, man. Every other video was different. And I was waiting for I was like, come on. Oh, I was like, oh, fuck. he fucking He's going to fucking do it.
01:44:32
Speaker
That's all I got. Thank you everyone. This is Twin Shadows Podcast. If you like us, ah fuck off.