LIVESTREAM FRIDAY, February 20, 2026 9am PDT
Published · 1:37:02 · 320 views
About This Video
A February 2026 Friday session. Van answers patron questions and discusses early-year projects with the community.
Transcript
I'm just testing the mic to see that it works. I'll be back in a second. Back in actually five minutes.
Mic. Mic. Mic. I can't tell if it's the right mic or not.
All right, that should be uh live. Okay, everyone, I hope you can hear me. Oh, okay. I just double checked on
on. Um, okay. Let me know in the uh comments if you can't hear me and I will rectify the situation as best I can about like that. Okay, in keeping with
tradition, the weather report, an homage to David Lynch. Uh, the weather this morning was chore coat with a down puffy and the
hood up over it. And yesterday I saw a guy in my neighborhood walking a dog wearing gloves
like warm w like cold weather gloves. It was like 50° out. Anyway, Californians
of which I am quickly becoming one. Um, okay. Let's get to the questions. So,
the way I do this is I or I answer in chronological order in the order that they came in. So, first come, first
serve. And I'm going to try to get done by 10 this morning. Let's see. Does this sound good? How did you settle? Okay.
So, um Oh, somebody you know what? I think next time I do a live stream, I'm going to um I'm going to just answer the live questions that come in like the way that streamers do it. So, let's go. All right. So, this is from Justin. About to
have my first kid. Any advice on the first few months, how to deal with sleep, etc.
I think there was this movie that came out with uh Charize Theron and it's I can't remember the name of the movie but it was a woman's name and
apparently the ending was very very very unsatisfying.
Uh uh and I haven't seen it but I imagine that movie is about how little sleep you
get. The that is the thing that's the thing that is not there's not enough attention. It's like a detail in movies
like, "Oh, I don't get enough sleep." No, your life is no sleep. I mean, the
like if you can swing it, but it's an extremely expensive thing, the night nurse is the way to go. But that's like
a rich person saying it's like, "How do I bring extra luggage on my flight? Fly private."
So, um, yeah, just you just have to submit to it and realize your life is going to be
miserable for I don't how know how long it is. Is it six months? Is it longer than that? And then um,
your wife is going to be going through crazy hormonal
um, extremes. So, do your best. I do not do well in that situation, but I have
I'm not the person to advise, but I can prepare you. It's going to be gnarly.
Okay, so this comes from Boomer. I I think it was the clip where you asked the door down maybe right before you were screaming something like, "What the
duck? Oh, why the duck can't I do anything?" Edited for TV. Um, did you ever figure out the answer to that? I
don't think I figured out the answer to that. I think I've just learned to accept it and just try to go and not
have a heart attack. Um, Eric asks, "Will you do a director's comment, Harry, on the movie Color, and thank you
so much for all the content." Maybe I'll do one solo without Sachs and post that to Patreon. color was a
movie Tom Sachs and I did for his studio about the Tom Sachs kind of the color code of what colors are acceptable to
use in his studio. Uh I think we did it in 2011 that's my guess 2012 something like
that. Uh it's pretty good. It's called color. Um, all right. Next. Skyler, I'm
trying to hang some framed paintings and posters on my walls. Some are a bit heavier. How would you recommend mounting them to be secure and level?
Um, oh boy. There's something called a French bevel, and it's like you cut on a on a table
saw, you cut on a 45 degree angle um strip of 3/4 inch plywood.
And then you have like a male and a female that kind of like locked, you know, it's on an angle. I'm doing a hook with my fingers, but it's like it's an
it's like uh two 45s that it's a piece of wood cut on an angle like this and then another piece of wood
cut on an they fit together and lock together. So you mount one to the wall perfectly level
and then you mount one to the back of the painting if it allows if the frame
allows such mounting and then you put that on and you have a little wiggle room to like microle it. That's like the
heaviest duty way to do it. Um, and then the other one I would just do
the like cable that goes from one side to the next. You know, I have to know I I don't know what your frame is. What's the frame? If it's heavy, if it's a
poster, you have to do like a little strip of wood across the top. You probably have to either clamp.
I don't know. Not enough information to answer the question. But the French bevel is good for super heavy stuff. And
um I think those uks is that what they're called? They're like little they're designed for hanging stuff and they're a hook with like little u pins.
Those would probably work if you get the one with the three. Uh I don't know. I don't have any. We don't have any. I have a guitar I made out of cardboard
for my son's first Halloween that says Gene Autry on it. And that's the I think that's the only thing hanging from our
house. Everything else we just there might be a couple things we just use like nails, you know, but French bevel
is the toughest and strongest until you get up into like steel.
Um, okay. And then any thoughts on Robert Duval and Tom Nunan? Sad week. I don't know who Tom Nunan is. I guess I should,
but I don't. Robert Duval is just one of the absolute top-notch tripa rated greats of acting as cinema acting.
But he was it was his time to go. Wasn't he like 95 years old or something? He was like an old guy and he worked it did he did his he made his contribution.
Andrew asks, "Have you received the 100k subscriber plaque from YouTube?" Yes, I got a long time ago. I got a long time ago. I think it's in storage. Um,
how do you do the Q&A? Oh, can you Aaron asked, can you do the Q&A from the new switching station? Give us a live tour
of the system. Pull up some footage on the iMac. Do a little commentary. Talk about how the last week has been the new
how the last week has been using the new setup. So, the last week was building the new setup, which is what next week's
video, if I can get it out next week, will be. So, I've I'm I'm in this like
I'm in this o uh overlapping period where I'm ending the old way and beginning the new way. So, this week was
like double work or one and a half times work because the new way is faster. So, um I was like doing a movie that'll be
coming out on Sunday. I was doing a video of YouTube video that's coming out on Sunday and I was building this thing
and shooting building this thing without the thing to shoot itself with because
it wasn't built. But you'll see it's a whole thing. So I don't have it up and running. I guess I could try live streaming. There's like a live stream
button. Um I don't really I don't know. It's HDMI out and then the HDMI I don't know that
I have the HDM uh that whole thing of wires and cables and no no is as you'll
see is like a very long um session with chat GPT getting everything right. So, I
don't know if I can invest that much time into that system, but maybe once I start nailing
it, maybe. Um, uh, but that is a great idea. Um, what is your favorite place you've traveled and where are you going next?
I Dublin, Ireland. So, I guess he's from Dublin. My favorite place I've traveled and where am I going next? Okay, so I only now
because of the children. I don't know why because but because of the children.
I don't know why because but I say because of the children. I really there is no destination on earth that warrants
an airplane ride. And the only reason I ever do airplane rides is for other people. I do it. I would I would never
do an airplane ride. Not never, but I'm currently in a phase in my life where I won't do airplane rides for my own pleasure because it will take all of the
pleasure out of the I'm that much of a that like there was a slippery slope of how bad commercial airline travel get
got. There was this slippery 20-year slope, but I'm not willing to buy into it. I'm not willing to be like, it's not
so bad. No, it is absolutely horrible given the wealth and the status and the
power of this nation. It is absolutely unacceptable and therefore I do not do it unless it's for other people. Then I
will do it. But there is I can't it will ruin my trip. So I do overland stuff. I love overland. I I think my next trip
will probably be Utah. My favorite place I've ever been. Oh my god. I don't know.
My favorite place I've ever been. Ohigh. I don't know. Uh, probably somewhere in California. Like I would Well, I have to
think about it, you know. I don't know if it's so much the place as the experience. There's
just been experiences. like it's not like I can go back to a like I had some incredible like like
times in Amsterdam, you know, but it was because of the people I was it was like all these circumstances. If I were to go
back to Amsterdam right now, I'd just probably be like, "Wow, this is great." You know? Um,
last night I watched um, Renoir, this movie from like 2015
just so that I could like be in the south of France mentally. And I'm watching it and I'm like, "Oh, this looks exactly like Tanga." It's like
this could have been shot in the backyard. This is what this is my world that I live in now. But I do love
France. If I had to pick one country, France is unbelievably great. And the French, they, you know,
they're kind of like New Yorkers. They have this reputation of like there's that line in um in uh Dumb and Dumber
where he's like, "We're going to Aspen." I don't know, Lloyd. The French are [ __ ] Um, but
nah, I've I've you know, if you go as a guest, like as a as a guest for work or
something, if you go as like um if you go more I I'm having a hard time talking about this without sounding like a total
snob, but I had a wonderful exper Oh, here it is. If you go and work with French people, depending on your work,
it's France is unbelievable. And the French are unbelievably great and they're super cool. I love the way they like riot. They're like, you know, the
French government is like, we're going to make retirement. You're going to have to wait an extra six hours to retire. And they
just burn the country down. I love that about them. I love that about the French. And France is like
I mean they have the Alps, they have the south of France, they have I haven't done like Normandy or any of that stuff,
but it is so sophisticated. Hermes is French. Bugatti is French, that car
company. I don't know if it's still French, but it was originally French, even though it sounds Italian. Might be Swiss now. I don't know. Um France is
just the obviously the food, the mustard, just the mustard. just go into regular everyday middle class I work in
an office and I shop here supermarket and just look at the mustard and the jars that the mustard comes in just that
alone but it's like everything and the thing that you say when you like in France and you're eating the bread is like why can't this be done anywhere
else there's there's no way to do to do this anywhere there's no way to replicate this anywhere else it only
tastes like this here and that is like and I'm not a snob like that. I'm not like like Italy is [ __ ] Like
Italian food in Italy is I'm sorry. It's okay. And I've done top highest top top.
I haven't done southern Italy though. I haven't done like Calabria and stuff like that. and I haven't done but Italy I find in those tourist towns like
Milan, Florence, Venice, the food is it's not as good as American Italian food. Sorry, it's not.
And I'm talking like the equivalent across the, you know, the equivalent.
But my point is France. Yes. Everything. It's unbelievable. It's so so fancy. So beautiful. Hermes. Hermes. The finest
maker of anything on the planet is Hermes. And that's from France. That stuff's made by hand by French people in Paris.
I don't know. So maybe France is my favorite place. I don't know. Uh, but I've never really traveled there by
motorcycle, have I? And that's my favorite way to see places, motorcycles.
Um, I also love the Alps. I love the Austrian Alps, Swiss Alps, Italian,
um, French Alps. Okay, Laya asks, uh, "Chow, Van, as a musician who wants
to start writing like Van, what could be something similar to Van that records his beautiful music for his video?"
Thank you. Love your world. As a musician who wants to start writing like Van, what could be something similar to Van that records his beautiful music for
Oh, thank you very much. That's that's very kind of you. I just have a Moog, a mini Moog that I downloaded on my iPad
and then I just plug in headphones and I plug it into a recorder and I just play around with it. And I was looking I haven't done it in over a year. I
haven't added new music. I've had a whole bunch of that I've done in the past. I just do that and I play with all the buttons and then I start recording
and then I stop recording. They're like a minute long and then I say that one's called Rain Dance. That one's called fog
light or whatever. Uh, that one's called Prowler. Um, the thing I find difficult with the Moog is that they're dreary. I don't
know if this is my my um my soul, but I can't seem to find sounds that are like, "Hello,
check this out." You know, like happy fun. They're all just like, "It's raining outside." It's like this. The
tone of it is like David Lynch. The tone of everything I think is like David Lynch like like something's coming around the corner. Like that stuff's really easy to do on the on the Moog.
But like happiness happy sounds are kind of hard to come by, but I'll figure that out.
But thank you. That's how I do it. Um I'm cur Oh, this is from Patrick. I'm curious to know what lessons you have
learned about your company's expectation, your community's expectations for your future YouTube and Patreon content. I'm also currently
struggling with the balance between creating elaborate videos and being more consistent with my online presence. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Oh, this thing is this is what this is the thing
that you know I I'm like trying to do this longer. I everything just seems
impossible. It just everything seems so incredibly difficult and complicated.
So, I don't know. I just gonna I'm just going to I'm just doing this thing with the switcher so that I can set up
cameras all over the place and just plug them in to the switcher and then start going and everything goes in one file
and one little hard drive and it's not SD cards and all of that.
So, that's what I'm doing now. Um, but I'm also have a team like I've hired a couple people to help me.
Um, someone asked about paying only paying $15 an hour. Um,
that you know, you just whatever the market will bear and then that'll grow as it that'll grow. that'll that number
will go up fast as the person gets um more ingrained in the in the in the in the process. But I don't know. I don't know
why it was so cheap. Um you know, people offer to ask people offer to work for free, but
I don't like that. And it's also illegal in California. Um
um I'm also currently struggling with the balance between creating and being consistent with my online
presence. And when I listen to like Colin and Samir um and those guys are like the experts on performance on YouTube performance.
They are the ones who understand it absolutely more than probably anyone.
They're the They have the best framing of of YouTube performance and
they can back it up because their YouTube videos perform very very very well and they're huge. They have a gigantic channel. Um,
and they have all of these you do it this way, do this, do that, do this. They have all this very practical stuff.
And so what I have a hard time un uh I have a hard time implementing is like
okay am I just filling in boxes like in the first 30 seconds make sure you have your blah blah blah and then 17 seconds you have to have the ding ding and then
you got to have 40 seconds make sure your thing is a singer and the sting ding ding has a thing vong vong in it and the title has to be zang zingy and
do do 12 rounds of ABC testing and do 40 it's like all this stuff It's like,
okay, that's not what that's not what I that's not like that's a thing. That's a
thing that happens. That's that a team of people do, but that's not like that. I don't know. That's I don't know.
I that's not what I I'm not that thing. I I'm not good at that thing. My thing is I don't know what my thing is, but it's it's not that. So, I don't know. I
I have this old and I'm starting to think um obsolete um just understanding and way of doing
things and way of thinking and things just get obsolete like you watch I watched that um mega do which is the
documentary about the making it's who made it the guy who made
Leaving Las Vegas made the doc about Francis Ford Copala making
megalopouloolis and he and Copala put up $120 million of his own money. That's
all like it was like all his money to do this thing and it was it wasn't a fiasco
like the um like Apocalypse Now was, but it wasn't a success like Apocalypse
Now was either. And it's like really hard to see. You can't watch it on streamers. He's adamant that you see it in a theater. I missed it in the
theaters. And he's it just I'm watching this, he's 85. I'm like, dude, you're just trying to do it the old way. We're
not that doesn't We're not in that world anymore. Like this like the blockbuster art films don't happen. They just don't.
I mean, Tarantino kind of, but I don't I don't think he pours that kind of money in there and he has a better track record than you. So, like I feel myself
as I'm getting older holding on to values that maybe are obsolete. Like this, you know, like one of the things
that I have I have like a way too much I put way too much value in originality and like this isn't the originality era.
This is the conformity era. Everyone has the same phone. There's one platform, YouTube, okay? There's Rumble, blah blah
blah blah blah. Um, but you know, all the cars look exactly the same and that just the way to do it. I don't even
understand. So, I don't even understand the way you do it and the way you stand out. So, I just have to kind of do it the old way that I know of. And maybe
it's just obsolete and I there's nothing I can do about it. But I think we all think, oh no, I my best works ahead of
me and I can make better and better and the more I work, the better I get. With comics, it's kind of true. They get better and better comics. It's very
strange. But I don't know about filmmakers and like I think TV I had this revelation where I was making that mixer thing. I was like, "Wow, this is
like this is TV technology. This isn't film. This isn't cinema technology. I've been doing it the old way that I've been
doing kind of like cinema. Multiple cameras each housing data recording system, you know, film or
whatever. And then this new way is not that. It's so I don't know. I don't I don't know.
My expect the community's expectations for my future YouTube and Patreon content. You guys were all pretty supportive.
Everyone said, "Let's do it." Okay, so from Jorge. Hey Van, I'm about to pull the trigger on an electric bike for my road trip to Puerto
Rico and Hel Wajaka for my 40th birthday. Well, that's fun. Puerto I
said Puerto No, not Puerto Rico. Puerto Anhel Wajaka, which I've been to, which is great. There's all these strips of
There's all these different kinds of beaches. There's like the hippie beach.
There's like a nude beach. There's all these cool beaches there. What would you re would you recommend me? The Siron
or the Aventon with fat tires? I've never ridden the Aventon.
I would go with uh so you're talking about the kind the electric bike with the pedal assist.
I don't know about the Suron bike. Do they have a pedal assist? I would go with um I don't know. Aventon was the one that was the best reviewed when I
looked it up for like a pedal assist electric bike. I don't know. The one with the most range probably. Um
I don't like fat tires though. I guess you want to ride on the beach. Trying to think. I think I rode my TWW200 on that
beach in um 2015. It's kind of softish sand. I don't remember actually. I don't know. Suron bike. I don't know the Suron bike. So, I
would have to say the Aventon with fat tires and then the Suron like dirt bike thing like the one I have.
That's like a different species. I don't think there's enough. Maybe there is enough range. I think you get about 25 miles or something like that.
Um, okay. So, Khalil asked me, "How has moving the studio out of your house affected the way you create in regards to work life balance and time
splitting?" For contest, I run For context, I run a film lab and I'm a photographer and videographer. I built
my office into my home and I love that I can walk in and on a dime get my creative thoughts out. However, it can be a little too easy to end up in my
office 24/7. Do you find yourself at home wishing you could just pop into the office and get a minor task done? Or do you find that when you're at home, it's
easy to turn off the work brain and enjoy your family more? Yeah, I'm I I don't know how you old you are, Khalil, but like
I'm old and um I find it easy to turn off my my work brain. There are some people who just submit to the work and
just like just like ignore their family and they're okay with that. And I kind of feel like everyone besides their
family is okay with that. Is okay with like well no he's just obsessed with his work. Yeah. My father was a
was Ren Augustus Renoir so I never saw him and he was 90 years old when I was
10. So I have you know I didn't know him at all but you know he was obsessed with his work and that's okay but I don't I
don't really want to live like that. I don't want to make my work my religion.
So I don't really Having said that also I'm lazy. Having said that I don't I could easily don't have to I can easily
step away from the work. Having said that, yeah, there was something about having it right there as far as writing is just going down first thing in the
morning and just sitting down and writing like in that liinal state that I can't do because I have to get in a car.
I have to have do my whole morning routine before I even get here. But I'm starting to get accustomed to that. And I brought back my routine of like
writing in the mornings for four hours or writing for a certain amount of time, not just skipping it, which I did all of like 2025.
So yeah, there's the balances, but I think having the separate thing is better. And also I'm in a different town with more like amenities and it's closer
to all the errands I have to run for work. So um yeah, it's better. It's
better having this. And then the setups, I can leave all the stuff set up and like the setups and breakdowns in the old space was insane because it was so
small. Like setting up all the lights for one shot and then like taking it down and doing the same set, you know,
the next week that's all done. So, um, um, Mao asks, "Hey Van, quick question.
And how much time do you spend to sit and think about an idea or develop an idea? So the way I've been doing it is
um I come in I get to this so about four hours a day is my I do from 6 a.m. till
10:00 a.m. And then there's exceptions like I had to ship a video today to get approval from a sponsor and I had to you know I was finishing a video yesterday.
So, there's exceptions, but to sit and think after I finish a video, that's kind of the job is to sit and that's my new schedule is 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
or 4 hours or as close as I can get or when I feel like I've exhausted my output. But, um,
and then they come at weird times. Like yesterday, all these ideas came to me while I was doing like three or four different projects. And I just had to
have like pen, pencil, and note, post-it notes, and paper everywhere so I could
get them down and keep them organized into where they belonged.
Um, so yeah, just like catching the big fish, I guess.
Connor B asks, "How often do you utilize the Tacoma? I'm torn between an SUV and a pickup. Okay, so the Tacoma I use once
a week, twice a week. Once a week on Sundays, the the kids and I get on dirt bikes and we go f explore some place or
go to old places that we love. Last week it was um this place called Rower Flats OV which is this incredible offhighway
vehicle park and there's like a miniature um motocross track for little kids learning how to ride dirt bikes and
then there's big guy trails and there's big Jeep trails and so we go there and we ride our dirt bikes around there and we have a picnic and stuff. We go to a
whole bunch of places like this but that's every Sunday. So Sunday is like the Tacoma day and then Monday I usually drive it into work so that I can charge
the batteries for the electric bikes, the batteries that we depleted for the electric dirt bikes we
deplete on Sunday. And but this Monday it was pouring rain. It rained all week.
So I won't be able to do that until tomorrow unless it's raining. And then with the rain it kind of ruins or makes extremely messy all of the places we go.
So I don't even know where we're going on Sunday. But I'm torn between an SUV and a pickup. I guess like a 4ERunner is
just a I have to make sure that there's not something wrong with the stream.
Okay. Uh the 4ERunner is um just like a it's a it's a um Tacoma with
a roof on the back. You know, you can fold down the seats. You got yourself a Tacoma. So, I don't know. SUV is pretty great. Pickup truck. Oh, and I get wood, like firewood.
Um, yeah, almost never. The Land Cruisers, I'm just spoiled. Casey gave me that Tacoma as a present. And, um,
the problem with the Land Cruiser and the rack that I put the bikes on, it's called a moto tote and it goes in the
trailer hitch receiver. And the there's no good like trailer hitch receiver for the Land
Cruiser. And I'm just torn my second one because the way that the mounts are made, they're not made strong enough.
It's supposed to hold 100 500 lb. I've only got 200 on there and it stays on my Tacoma.
Totally fine. No sign of breaking. And then this is I'm sec breaking my second one. So on the Land Cruiser. So, I got to get like I have to have a welder
build me a custom like uh a custom mount that mounts to the frame more robustly
um than the one I have now. But that's the only problem. Uh but yeah, I don't know. I did pickup trucks for a long long time, but with the family,
we're all squeezed in there. It's the one with the little extended cab, but I have the 2-year-old barely fits behind the thing. And then the six,
sevenyear-old rides up front, which is legal if there's not enough room in behind the seats. He rides up front in a in a in like a booster with the seat
belt. So, it's more fun when we have the Land Cruiser, but we don't have the bikes when we have the Land Cruiser. So,
that's the tradeoff. But, yeah, I think SUV is probably better. Um, how uh Oh, okay. So, let me read this.
Evan asks, "Hey, Van, a good friend of mine has a birthday coming up and I'd like to meet him make him something for his desk or bookshelf. Think Tom Sax's
tape dispenser type of gift. Do you have any ideas for what I could make? I'm considering an
all wooden grenade with a nice stain as a birthday." I would make him something functional. And I have a rule.
Don't make it bigger than your hand because people I mean I don't know where you are. Maybe you're in Texas and everybody has these big giant places,
but people in my life tend to not have gigantic have like lots and lots of
room. And um oh something good to make uh I like to do the pencils with the name engraved in them like this one. I don't know if you can see that. Oh, wait. The
camera's right there. I don't know if you can see that. Um, what else? Yeah, I did that gift guide.
Um, uh, I'm getting a little rusty with gifts, too, myself. The grenade. Does the grenade do something? I would say make something that does something.
Yeah, the tape dispenser would be good. They're very hard to make. It'll take you like two or three days. It's not like you just throw it together unless you do it crappy. But um
um a shelf is cool. I don't know, man. I don't know your friend. You know, you
got to it's it's all personal stuff, but there Yeah, there's a video that I made about gifts and it's all different a uh price ranges.
Um, I love doing the Swiss Army knife with the name engraved into it like from uh Rushmore, but you can engrave it
yourself um with a with a wood burner, $10 wood burner from Harbor Freight. Okay, Ryan
asks, "Uh, I'm getting excited for your new format. Good luck. I'm struggling with deciding how to define my services as I transition into a full-time video
producer, choosing a niche and pricing my work in Nashville. I have years of experience, but mostly as a hobby. Right
now, I'm doing event photography, videography, but I also get to work on short promos and some comedy sketches. I
would love to work towards a level of quality that requires more strategic lighting setups and set
dressing, but I currently don't have as many people on call to collaborate reliably with and ensure the cost would
be justified. And obviously I have my own aspirations for my own creative projects which I recognize would best
fit on YouTube, but that is not a great place to start as far as making money with this profession in the short term.
Uh if I'm honest, I'm struggling with confidence and tenacity, although I'm sure you have some advice on details of the selling yourself, differentiating
your work, and satisfying a client. I'm glad you told me where you live, but it's very helpful for me to know how old
you are. If you're 19, I have a completely different set of advice than if you're 49.
So, I don't I don't know how old you are, but um your reputation is going to
be what gets you more work than you can handle. So, you just have to you cannot
mess you have to be insanely great about the little things. You have to be exactly on time. Not an hour
early, not 20 minutes early. You have to be exactly on time for things. You know,
you have to do things exactly as they're asked. All of that stuff is so differentiating. It will put you in your
own league. Um, I mean, I went from New York to Los Angeles
and those are, you know, and I'm astonished as to like the the just laxidasical
nature of some of this angel of some of these Angelino pe people professionally just like what? Um, but then of course
there's great ones and those are the ones that you stick with.
Um, so the question is, I have years of experience, but mostly as a hobby. Right now, I'm doing event
photography, but I also want to work on short promos and some comedy sketches.
Um, yes, just your reputation will Yeah, this isn't really a good question for me
actually cuz New York it just and then I was in New York at a certain era and it wasn't this era of every, you know, 30 million YouTube channels.
So, I don't really know. But I know that your reputation when you if you get good I'll give you the advice that Bill Burr gives everyone. be un be undeniable.
So just do a great job and charge a lot of money. Make sure you charge a lot of
money. I I it almost suits you to not want to do the job and then price it at such a high rate that you can't not do
the job because it would be too irresponsible. I think that's the helpful way to go about it. But yeah, I did lots of weddings.
Um, I did lots of weddings just like with one camera and with whatever light was available and I kind of did them all the
same format, but I edited them in the era before no one had edited videos. No one had edited wedding videos. They just
had like VHS or whatever that was really long. And um, but I edit them and did a little music. And God, I'm glad I don't
have access to them because I'm imagine they're really bad. But um
just keep working. Don't worry about confidence and tenacity.
I'm just struggling with confidence and tenacity. The two things that matter is that your project is done. It's finished
and that you like it. You like it. That you like it. And um it takes a long time
to get there. It takes a lot of tries before that happens.
Um, studio. Hey, Van. Studio 11. Hey, Van. I've visited your video on sobriety a couple of times. I'm a little over two
years sober myself. I'm curious if you've had any new thoughts, revelations, conversations, etc. on your journey. Appreciate all you
do. Um, sorry to have more people like in my personal life from the program, like
outside the program. That's kind of great because you know them kind of inside out and then knowing like personal hard
stuff about them, you give them more of a um benefit of the doubt.
And then my friend Johnny who's also in the program, he says this great stuff, great thing.
There's this thing in are we talking about a or we talking about sobriety? I'm a little over two years so myself.
You had new on your journey. Appreciate all you do. So, first of all, I I couldn't imagine doing it without AA,
without like a program like AA. I couldn't imagine doing the sobriety thing because that's the thing that gets
you through all the you drank so much cuz you're crazy, you know? Take the drinking away, the drinking made you a
little less crazy. Take the drinking away, you're still crazy and you don't have your medicine. So, AA is like the
medicine that you take for your crazy. And the thing that's great about it is you have like
you eventually build up a list of guys to call. Yes. Guys, guys call guys and
girls call girls. um you develop a list and you call them and uh when you start
to act weird and you start to be able to detect when you're getting weird and um any new thoughts, revelations, conversations? Not really. Not really.
I'm, you know, this is I'm coming up on 14 years, so it's pretty ingrained now.
And I'm being a little irresponsible with my program, I got to say. Okay, Mitch. I'm a video editor who works from home. Per your advice from a previous
steam stream. I'm getting my own studio space for my creative work. Is it bad to use that as my work from home space and
my art studio or should I have that as a dedicated space for making art? Also, whatever happened to your UB tripping
appearance with Ari Shafir? Yeah, whatever happened to that? I don't know.
I know he banked a bunch because he's on this trip, but I don't know what happened with it. and I don't want to like I don't want him to publish it just cuz I'm bothering him. So, I don't know
what happened. Uh I'm a video editor who works from home. Per your advice from a previous stream, I'm getting my own
studio space for my creative work. Is it bad to use that as my work from home space and my art studio
or should I leave that as a dedicated space for making art? Are you getting a studio
or you getting an apartment that you're moving in? I don't understand the question. Uh, is it bad to use that as my work from home space and my art
studio or should I leave that as a dedicated? Again, I don't know where you are. I don't know where you are, man. If
Are you in Texas where you're renting a space, it's 20,000 square feet and costs $50 a month. Are you in Singapore and
you got a a six foot by six foot that's $40,000 a month in that I I don't know
where you are. So I it's very hard for me to give advice with all this. I would say in general
working in the place where you live is an emergency. That what that's what I would say in general. Like if you're working in the place where you live,
that's an emergency and that's something you're going to fix. You're in the process of fixing. That's your task.
That's what you're doing is you are moving out of that situation because you are in an emergency situation. That's how I look at it. But I didn't come up
in this era when, you know, it cost $5,000 a month to rent a to share a studio apartment on an eighth floor walk
up in Bushwick. I I grew up in a different era um where it was possible
to like do things relatively cheap if you were willing to risk being in a dangerous neighborhood like the South
Bronx. Um but the prices are coming down. I think the prices are coming down for things or they're not going up. So I
would say uh living and working in the same space is kind of a temporary emergency.
Get Tom Sax's new book. Get Tom Sax's book guide because he goes into that. He the whole big part is like his
transition from studio like sharing a studio with someone to his own studio as a living space. And if
you have a place like that Yeah. and you're a builder like he had this I don't know maybe a thousand square foot
and with high ceilings with like I want to say 18t ceilings 16t ceilings so he
could build a second floor in the back and build out a little you know bathroom situation and he was
on he was in Soho Manhattan at the very very end of when it was an industrial place cuz they used to like make stuff.
Manhattan used to be manufacturing. So he was at the very end of that and he was living in a place called Grand Machinery Exchange.
And um um but that was 36 years ago. It was almost 40 years. I think 89 or something. 37 years ago. Um,
what technical skills are you working on in 2026? Welding for me. I should learn welding, too.
I'm using chat GPT to learn all the computer stuff that I've been avoiding learning. Like this switcher thing that
I've been avoiding learning. I've had it in a box for five years. Um, technical skills are am I working on in 2026?
Welding. Maybe I'll learn welding. I'm just trying to increase my output on YouTube. That's what I'm working on.
Walmart or Home Depot came to you and wanted to bring a van nice product to market. What would it be? You have 100% creative control, but you have to hit a 1999 price point on 10,000 units.
Um, corner braces probably. Those those corner braces that aren't sold as
shelving, they're sold as framing. I think that's what I would want to sell.
for 20 bucks. It' be like a kit with a with a piece of wood in it, like a shelf kit and a saw. Can you do all that for
20 bucks? I don't know. Um I don't know. What does Walmart It's a different world that stuff. It's about the manufacturing and how cheaply you can get it made. That that world.
Matteo, I'm really curious to see how you'll use your new setup. I work in the audiovisisual field, so I know that
world quite well. What made you try a live approach for your videos? Is the goal to save time on rough editing and focus more on fine-tuning and
storytelling? Thanks and have a great weekend. All right, it's a good question. So, in the beginning of this next video that I'm making, which is
about the transition from my old way to this new way with the switcher thing, if
I wanted to do multi- camera stuff, essentially in short, it's the cards.
It's the SD cards and managing them all and managing all the cameras for the footage because I would have Okay. Some some
projects I have, you know, five cameras and that's all each camera gets its own,
oh my god, do I have to go down this road of explaining the craziness?
Um, the best way I found to organize all that stuff is by camera. So, all the
SD70, I'm sorry. So, all the 1DX footage is in a certain f is in a folder. All the Q2
footage is in a folder. All the GoPro footage is in a folder. That way, they're all in chronological order by
camera each shot. So, I'm doing multiple camera stuff and cutaways and stuff. I'm dragging and it's a huge Okay, so in
short, I did a three camera test my way, the old way
in the beginning of this next video that's coming out maybe next week.
I did a three camera test and it took me like two hours start to finish.
Actually, you know what? I'm not done. I got two hours into it and I still have to do a couple more shots.
And then I started messing and then I did that post last Friday and that took real basically real time and then
plugging in the hard drive that it recorded to and then uploading that to YouTube. No editing at
all. No editing at all, man. No copying, waiting it for it to So I'm at a place
where I can commit to shots. I don't need extra takes. I don't need any of that stuff. And uh so that you know that
was like real time plus 6 minutes. So whatever that video so that was 11 minutes versus over two hours and I'm
not done. And I have to I have to render and export it to as a quick time file or
whatever. So the new system is going to be me switching in real time. It all gets written as one file onto a camera.
The sound is synced and is one sound audio thing and um
the post-production will be essentially like polishing that, cleaning it up, making it flow better, you know, making the pace of it, you know, eliminating
all the dead air and then like color grading all the stuff, which is a little bit of time, but I have to do that with all the cameras anyway.
So, we're we'll see. We'll see how it goes. But that's um the goal is to save time so that I can put out more volume.
The goal is to save time so I can put out more volume. And yes, more time spent on on storytelling. I don't know if fine-tuning is the right word, but
just more time on it. More time on storytelling. More time to write in the mornings. Um but we'll see. I haven't I
haven't done one yet. Okay. Stephen asks, "I'm shooting, right? No, I'm in school right now for computer science
and it gives me no freedom to make YouTube videos, which has been taking a serious toll on me. I want nothing more
than to make movies again. I'm thinking of dropping out. Before committing to your craft, did you have a fall back? What ultimately made you take the leap?
And how did you go about assessing risk?" No fall back. You can't have a fallback. You have to completely commit.
Um, you know that guy Tom Billu, he has this show called Impact called um
Impact Theory. Hold on, I got to get the door. Remind me to show you where the key is.
Sorry. Um, I'm in the middle of a live stream. Okay. Um, that's Ethan, our editor. So, um, you can just go I I left you instructions on the table. All right.
Um, so yeah, no fallback plan. You got to have a gun to your head. And um,
do you have enough computer science where you can do there's a difference between day jobs and fallback. So your day job should
kind of support your you got to get the Tom Sachs book. Everyone has to get it.
You have to get it. It's called uh guide and he just tells you how he did it and I that's the way I know of doing it and
you have to have and he worked at Barney's which was at the time and remember it's a different world. Don't go get a job at Barney right now. Um he
worked at Barney and he was a window dresser. He helped make he helped an artist do the window um displays at
Barney in Manhattan which was like a huge thing back then. was a huge huge cultural phenomenon like it was a significant thing. It would get in the
you know there'd be pictures and papers and stuff. So that's what his day job was. And then he also had welding. He could weld. So he would weld fire
escapes which was extremely expensive because it was hazard and blah blah blah. He did it all off the books. This is a different era. He was doing it all
off He did it all off the books. It was very dangerous, but he still made enough money to support a studio and hire
employees to help him make his art. Um, uh, yeah, I mean, I I if you have enough
computer science, like computer science will probably be part of your YouTube.
Um, if you have enough to get a day job and not even so much a job, you want to think of yourself in terms of an
entrepreneur and a freelance agent that you go and work from and like I guess a gig worker and you go and work from gig to gig helping people out on projects
and charge a lot of money. Um, yeah, I guess drop out and then
get get a No, I I don't know. get up, figure out an income stream like that pays you enough money and doesn't take
too much time and then make all your Also, I don't know how old you are and I don't know where you are. You have to tell me how old you are. You have to
tell me where you are, but I'm assuming uh you're in school right now for computer science. You're probably between 18 and 22. Um
uh I didn't have a fallback and I was moving to New York to learn to become a
professional writer and the there was no such thing as digital video. There was digital video in as much as there is crisper technology.
Okay? You know you can make genetically modified it exists. You can make genetically modified organisms if you want with crisper technology. It's out
there. You can It's done. But that's about how popular digital video was back then. Like it wasn't a thing. It wasn't an industry. It wasn't a thing at all.
So, um I think that's the only thing I've ever been an early adapter on. So, it's not like there was this industry that you could go and find success in.
It was it was a different time. It was so much. It's really really hard to explain how much different it was. It's also better. Sorry. It was better.
Airline travel was better. Um Tom Billu. I was talking about Tom Billou. So he went to film school USC.
Super smart guy, incredibly good communicator. I watch I probably watch his channel more than any other. He
talks about current events and he talks about um like money like investing and stuff but he went to film school USC.
There's only two film schools in the whole wide world. One's called USC, one's called NYU. Everything else
is some other kind of thing. Anyhow, um he went to USC film school and he
quickly learn he made a film. It wasn't good. He quickly figured out I need a lot of money if I want to make a film.
And then he became a billionaire. He made protein bars called um called Quest, sold it, became a billionaire, and now he has this YouTube channel
that's incredible. Still doesn't make movies. Keeps talking about it. He's I guess he's in the process of building a a a video game, which is kind of like the next generation of cinema or movies.
But he still doesn't make, you know, he's got a he's a billionaire. He could make as many movies. But what happened was movies collapse. There's no cinema
anymore. I mean, not really. Even the big heroes, I mean, Josh was the only like hero last year
whose movie did really well. I don't even think Oh, wait. Did Thomas Anderson's movie do well? I can't remember. I don't think it made its
budget back. Um, anyhow, uh, I'm getting sidetracked. The answer is no. No, you gotta You got to
commit. You got to commit. Um, I Okay, I learned I learned this cool phrase from a rabbi and it's more betaken, more pin.
I forgot what the other Hebrew word is, but essentially it's more trust in God, more livelihood. And by God,
he doesn't believe in the God you don't believe in. Also, it's just talking about like the universe faith. Just
trust in the way things are going to work out. The more you just trust that, the more breaks you're going to get. But
don't be a fool. Don't try to join the NBA when you're 67 years old and you're 5 foot2. Don't do stuff like that. But
the other stuff, if you can do computer science, you can do anything. Um, and also you're if you're you're starting
out, chat GPT, try to leverage that. Get the $200 a month version and try to leverage that.
I've changed my tune on because it's works now. Because uh, AI works. I've changed my tune on AI because it works.
I ask it to do a task, it advises me, and I get the results that I'm after.
It's it's improved by light years over the last year. Okay. Uh, what do you think about uploading frequently with
the low effort quality of video versus uploading like once a month with high effort quality of video?
What do I think about it? I think um that's what I'm going to do.
Um, I don't know if it's low effort or if it's more efficiency because I'm going to have it's the effort is going to be spread throughout like three
people, three or four people. Um, and then I have the machine and then I have a whole new way of doing it. And we'll
see about that. But how do I feel about it? I'm terrified. I'm I'm I'm terrified. I'm shaking in my boots, but
it's like the fun kind of terror. Like the roller coaster kind of terror, like you ain't getting out of this. So, we'll see. And have I seen Marty Supreme? Yes,
I saw the Josh very kindly invited me to the director's guild. um screening which
was a a mad house. So I just they they didn't I wasn't even on the list even though Josh personally called me and said come and I put you on the list. I
wasn't on their list. So I left that and then he invited me very graciously which to a way better screening which was the
um costume designers guild. So it was all costume designers and the costumes in that movie are incredible. and he had did a little talk with the costume
designer afterwards and all of his Marty Supreme shirts, those were all dead stock from the actual era. Those those those wife beaters that he wore, they
were dead stock. She went and found them all over the world so that she could have a hundred of them for the shoot or what or however many like in the
original packaging. Um, but yeah, Mario Supreme is so great, so fun. Josh texted me yesterday. He's going to be in town
in a couple weeks and uh I really hope I get to see him, but I know he's going to be running around like mad. Um
Carlo, you mentioned financial stability as the main motivation to keep your up your good work even when burned out or when you don't feel like working. If
money was no object, what would be a good motivation to coupe up your consistency? I'm in my 20s and have just
enough money to pay my bills, but often I feel unwilling to work when I don't strictly have to, even if it could mean gaining some advantage for my future.
Basically, I'm asking for tips on discipline. I don't know. I think you either have it or you don't. I'm sorry. I think that that drive I think you're born with it or you don't or you're not because I
have people in my family that are very born with it and like there's nothing you can do. They're just going to work themselves until they're dead. Casey,
Dean, my brothers. And then there's people in my family like my extended family and yeah, my extended family that
do not have it. And there is nothing you can do. there is nothing I I honestly believe that I I think that
anybody can do anything thing is not true and I think there's kind of nothing you can do and then sometimes those
people get gunned to their heads and that motivates them. So I don't know I would just say yeah I mean enjoy but
just contribute find purpose you know it doesn't have to be through work it doesn't have to be through whatever create you know creating stuff for
everybody to consume and all that there's other ways of living man I'm trying to get I'm trying to I want to be
in that I want to be this to be a a elective and not a requirement you know
this making stuff all the time Um, I would love it. I have so much respect for the people who still do it and who
are set for life and they still do it. I have I'd love to know what that's like.
I'd love to know what that the nature of that is. But man, God bless
God bless uh Francis Forcopla for for putting it all all his money into a movie when he could have just lived
large for the next 10 years because he's going to be dead in 10 years probably.
He had those vineyards and beautiful houses. 120 million. Boom. Okay.
Tips on discipline. Yeah, you kind of just want a gun to your head. Oh, and then little tiny things at a time. just little. You're not doing a big thing.
One thing at a time, you're gonna do you're gonna you're gonna have AG1 every
morning, you know, you're going to do that for a month and then it's just going to be part of your life and then you're going to get up at 4:00 in the
morning every morning and you're just going to do, you know, a few months later and you're just going to do that.
It's just going to be a part of your life and you just keep adding those. I mean, I've called back. I've stopped running. It's improved my life. Quitting
running has made my life better. Um question about your films. Uh on the fourth turning, this is from Nikolai.
What does this concept mean for your everyday life? Is it just analysis or does it influence your actions or is there also a danger of becoming different of becoming indifferent? So
forth turning like um for me prime number one entertainment. It's so entertaining for
me that that that er that that that genre of information of like we're in this cycle. This is probably what's
going to happen. You know, Ray Dallio has his version of it. Ray Dallio is the Bridgewater hedge fund manager. I think the most successful hed hedge fund in
the world. Um he lost a fortune and then built a fortune and now he's just advising about this upcoming thing. So,
when I have enough money that I don't have to spend every single penny IS uh and I have some left over to put
away, this is financial advice either. Um that that guy Neil How he actually the guy who wrote Fourth Turning is here. He
actually works for a um I guess an investment firm called Hedgei
and he has a fund called the Hedge I forth turning. It's an ETF.
So I would invest in that if I have money. This is for me if I have money left over because it is a index fund
that has all of the assets in it that will that tend to do very well during
fourth turnings or after subsequent to fourth turnings. Um I don't exactly know what they are. So that's a practical
thing. And then just like this understanding that things are going to break down that they're not going to put the fire out. They're gonna let the
whole town burn down. They're going to let the Palisades burn down because we're not in this era of of of competent
government. We're in this era of transition from the postworld war II order to whatever the next order is and
things are completely broken. So just understanding that and knowing, okay, make sure you have all of your, you
know, make sure you have in the event of electricity going out, you have contingencies for that. In the event of not being able to get food or there's no water, you have contingencies for that.
Like I have extra, you know, not, you know, if a tree goes down into Panga and I can't get out and there's traffic, blah, blah, blah. There's a chainsaw in
my Tacoma so I can cut the tree and tow it out of the, you know, get it out of the way.
um angle grinder if I need to cut the lock on the on the gate that goes to the fire roads if the roads you know like
this kind of stuff is like and you know what in the last fire having bikes electric dirt bikes mounted to the back
of my truck came in handy so that I could go back to my house when the neighborhood was locked down by the military. Um, I went through the back I
went back through the, you know, through the back roads to my house to get needed documents and so forth in case the place
burned down. So, that's kind of it. But primarily, it's just very very entertaining. It's like it's like
watching, you know, a movie about the the future or something. And it also that I love the Fourth Turning is here, the new book, because it it allows me to understand historical events in order.
because it he has it structured so that it services his hypothesis of like unravelings and awakenings and
so forth. And then you can kind of keep you know you can keep the the English civil war you know in in order as to
like where that fits. I think that was 16th century the the y house of York and the house of Lancaster. Uh okay.
Uh, do you ever feel guilty upgrading gear when the old one still works? I have this laptop that I've been literally turing torturing for 5 years
non-stop. It gets my everyday job done, but upgrade would probably be better and make things a tiny bit faster. Oh, no, no, no. I'm the opposite. I am furious.
I am I rate when my um uh five-year laptop just suddenly stops
working and I bring it to the to the phone store, whatever it's called, the Apple store, and they're like, "Oh, no.
It can't be fixed." Like, or we can fix it for $700, but it won't be able to do X, Y, and Z. I am furious. That stuff
should last. I don't know. It just seems like it should last forever. And it can last forever, but maybe not. Maybe those little switches burn out or something.
No, it makes me crazy. One of the things that I absolutely love about this new switching technology thing, this new, it's not new technology. It's an old
machine. Also, you're in an age right now where things don't go obsolete that fast. Like up until like 20 whatever,
maybe 2010, things went obsolete so so so fast. this thing is still this this uh Mini Pro still works and I can still
do put install firmware and all this stuff. And then I have this generation of cameras that I love. I have a 5D, I
have a 1DX, I have these T I have all these cameras that I like that are old.
I was just thinking about this. They're gifts from Casey uh permanent loan type situation. So with the great L series lenses and stuff and I really like them.
I like the way they work. I'm used to them. I've been working with them for a long time. So, I know how everything works and they work perfectly with this switcher thing. They work they like
they're like old they're like old-fashioned together and so and I I'm like, "Wow, I'm I'm because I'm so used
to Apple where nothing works ever." I mean, I had a thing today where had a poisoned audio file. I had to re-upload
a whole YouTube thing and redo all this stuff. Apple just never works ever and never will and never has. Um, but this some of these old c some of these other
companies, they when you have the old stuff, it's got all the bugs worked out of it. It's got like it works great. So, no, I love it. I love the old stuff. And
also, I think that there's like a l there's like a peak that you need to get. There's like a peak where you don't need to go any further. You don't need
to go to 6K, 8K, blah blah blah. You don't need that. Just for me, that just that's for gigantic projections and it's
not in my I don't need it. as great as the thing needs. Like the the you know the DSLRs are kind of as great as they
need to be and I'm so astonished I can still use this 2016 Canon 5D
um 10 years later and it still looks so beautiful and great and um it's fast and blah blah blah. Okay, so uh what kind of
wax does the DE speed coat use and is it considered archival adhesive? It is archival adhesive. Yes, the Dodge speed
coat uses its own wax. You have to kind of find it and track it down. It's hard to find.
But I wouldn't I would I wonder if you could experiment with using beeswax, which might destroy it, and it might be really expensive. I don't know.
But I have beeswax from a beeswax candle that melted on our um mantle at home and I scraped it up and I walled it into a
little ball and now I keep it in my pocket in a little um it looks like I carry around heroin, but I keep it in my
pocket in a little pill bag so that it stays warm. And then this stuff is really great like adhesive for sticking,
you know, things on shelves that fall like little tiny things on shelves that fall over or like sticking hard drives
to your desk so they don't move like sticking little tiny things. So I don't know. And it and it's reminiscent of that dig speed coat wax.
Um, but I would figure out whatever that speed coat, the non-brand name for whatever that thing is called, like hot
wax adhesive blah blah blah machine. And then I would search eBay with that with that language. Don't use use both, but
the more general you use, the more the better. And um and I found a big stash of it last time. I keep it like in this
military case and I have it like all stashed away in case I need to use it. Okay, this is the last one, I think. Unless, you know what? I'll hit refresh.
Why not? Maybe there's another question. Um, dead air. Oh, wait. No, there's more questions. These came during the live stream. Okay.
Um, Sam. Oh, no. Nate uh Aneronire Aneronire, what are some of your favorite music videos? What a great
question. Okay, the Okay, I'm going to go to Okay, so the collections
um Palm Pictures came out with the director's label. My brother and I made a fake one with our videos in it um
probably 20 years ago. Nah, 20 20 2004 2003 something like that maybe 2002
they came out with the director's label and they did Chris Cunningham Spike Jones Michelle Gondry they might have done one more Michelle Gandre is the
best one he's the great he's the greatest that ever did it that ever did the ones having said that he didn't direct the greatest music video and I
think Chris Cunningham might have directed the greatest music video but some of my favorite music videos are the Spike Jones one where the guy it's shot
on film at like I don't know thousand frames per second in a car. Oh, it's so good. I don't even know the band. I
think the band might be Dinosaur Jr. or something. Um 90s band. It's a guy in a fire suit on fire. Not in a fire suit
like the silver thing, but like in the jelly. So he's wearing regular clothes, but he's a stunt man. um on fire,
actually on fire, sprinting down the road. This is shot at seven or like a thousand frames per second or something,
right? Sprinting down the road and he's being tracked. It's a tracking shot. And then in the very end of the road, the
camera pans and there's and it turns out we've been in we the point of view.
We've been in the car. We've been in a car the whole time and it tracks and it's like a teenage girl just sitting in the back seat like chewing gum looking
out the window board. Fantastic. That movie is great. The Lego one with Michelle Gandre that's stop motion that
each frame is a different Lego set that's been pixelate that they've used the Legos as pixels and it's the white
stripes. Um, fell in love with a girl lost completely. He's in love with the world and it's incredible. That one's
amazing. um Dead Leaves in the Dirty Ground where Jack White comes back to his house and the house is completely
trashed. The outside's trashed and the the video is mostly the inside of the house and the inside is trashed and
projected in real time as he's walking through the house. projected in real time as he's walking through the house
is what happened, why the house is trashed. It is incredible.
It's incredible. There's another Michelle Gundry one that is split screen. This one is impossible.
I don't know how you make this. This is impossible. Split screen. It's Sibo Mate, I think is the name of Chibo Mate.
It's a Japanese band. The whole thing is a palendrome.
So this side the video goes forward. This side the video goes backwards.
It's and then in the middle they meet and switch. It's incredible. It is so incredible. I can't even describe the concept. It's so incredible and it's
done perfectly. She takes a shower in the beginning. I think the whole thing is one shot. She like starts off. She takes a shower. She gets dressed. She goes out into the street and then
another girl or her doing it somewhere else does the opposite of that. She's on the street. She comes into the shower.
She d and then in the middle it switches and then the beginning of
this one is how this one or the end of I It's unbelievable. Okay, that one's incredible. Okay.
Um, okay. But the best music video of all time, and I really I would like trade my
whole career to be able to have made this thing is um, no surprises, radio
head, one shot. It's just Tom York's head. He's in a tank. Okay. He's in a
He's in a He's in a He's in a a tank with a gasket around his neck. Okay, you can't You don't know what's going on.
You have to understand, you see this for the first time, you have no idea what You have no idea what's going on. Okay, I know. I'm telling you what's going on.
But when you're watching it for the first time, when it comes out, you have no idea what's going on. Okay. The lights go dark and then you see
in reverse reflected in his thing in tiny little letters. You
see from a teleprompter the lyrics to the song and he starts singing the song.
A heart that's full of like a landfill. And then the lights are kind of coordinated with the ding ding dong
ding dong ding. The lights are coordinated with that. And then at some point, oh my god, I'm going to cry
talking about how good this video is. At some point, you see why his head is in a jar. Little
bit of water comes up to here. And a little bit of water comes up to here.
And he's still singing the lyrics. One shot. One shot on a teleprompter. He's looking at it. It's reflecting back at
you. And it's and he's singing. And then and then at that part of the song where
he goes silence, he take the water is up to here. Is like up to No, the water is up to here. And then he puts his head up and takes a huge breath.
And then it goes all the way up and he is underwater and a couple bubbles come out of his nose. And then it and then it's like the break in the song, the
musical interlude and then all the water drains comes out
and he goes he like takes this huge breath like he was drowning. Like he takes this huge breath. Like when you've held your
breath as long as you possibly can, he takes this huge breath and then he [ __ ] a huge smile that he's trying to
suppress comes on his face because God knows how many takes that was. God knows how many lungs full of water he took.
And he knows he's got it. And then he just sings the rest of the song. And then it goes back and the lights go dimmer and they sync with the music and
it just goes out and it goes dark. And my god, it is so beautiful and so great and so like doable. Like two people can
make that, you know, like it was so so cool. Um, that's the greatest one that's ever been made. All right. Sorry. Yeah,
that was YouTube and the, you know, music videos was YouTube when I was a kid, when I was coming up, except there were gatekeepers.
Very interested in how Whoa. Okay, there's a few more. very interested in how consistent your Patreon and YouTube has been over the last five years.
Congrats. Your younger brother describes himself as 60% business and 40% artists.
You feel like 95% artists, which I I love your work. What percentage would you say you are? I'd love to hear how
you manage to stay by stand by older videos that show versions of the spirited man that your artistic v vision
may naturally dislike in time. I mean it from a place of profound respect. I'd love to hear
how you're you managed to stand by older videos that show versions of the spirit of man that your artistic vision rely.
You know, I they're done and I like them and that's when they get published. Um um
[ __ ] it's not an issue of being if you're if you're really good at business, you're probably an even better artist.
think Spielberg is bad at business, you know? I mean, there's some that are falling the toilet like, but it's tragedy, you know, Van Go.
That's tragedy. That's not You don't want to live that life. That's I'd rather have just been a bum. I think I'd rather just been a bum. It'd be worse to
be the one of the greatest geniuses and lived in absolute squalor and agony,
you know? I think that's worse. So, um, what percentage would I say? I'd say I'm
75% artist and 25% business, but man, I wish I was better at it. And it's not a I don't even think it's a natural thing. I think it's a discipline thing.
I think it's like a focus thing. I think the same [ __ ] you got to be you gota do to be a triathlete iron man triathlete
is like the same kind of stuff that it takes to do well. It is so hard so complicated.
It's really hard and you have to be really trusting and you have to work with big groups of it's super duper duper duper hard the business stuff it's
unbel Don't do it. Don't do it uh if you can do anything else. Um
um I don't mean don't do a business. I mean don't do creativity and a business, you know, or like art or whatever you want
to call it and a business because you can do business with something that you know
if you sell those little things that you shoot like a slingshot under this Eiffel Tower and they come down, you know,
those things sell and you can make a business out of that. But like it's hard enough. This is why people
have agents and everything. They're the business people. Hi Van. I'm pretty sure you've got a list of books you recommend reading, but do you have a list of films
you recommend watching? Maybe you could give one new recommendation during the live stream each month. That's a great idea. A new recommendation. Yeah, go see Marty Supreme, man. It's super cool.
It's really good. Um, yeah, that's a great movie. I really love that. I'm one of these suckers who
really loves that um uh pluribus. I love it. Sorry. It really gets my mind going.
Oh, I heard some filmmakers say the audience loves to do math. It's one of those movies where you're trying to figure stuff out.
Josiah, hi. I'm really inspired by you to get into the maker space, but I currently don't have any tools besides a drill and anal keys. What would you recommend investing in first?
Jigsaw. Cordless jigsaw. Um, pick whichever major brand, not Ryobi, whatever major brand you like best.
Bosch, DeWalt, Makita, Milwaukee. That's kind of it. I might be forgetting one. Pick whatever brand you like the best.
Maybe pick it by color, which in which case it would probably be Milwaukee.
And then get the cordless versions of those. The first thing you need is a jigsaw.
And then you need an angle grinder. So, get the cordless ones of those. And I recommend I recommend the 18vt.
I have a 18vt Makita. I can't remember why, but that's I think it's cuz the batteries fit on my kid's bike on my
kid's old electric bike. I got a little adapter and so I just started buying all the tools. And there's knockoff Amazon
like I have a knockoff Amazon a knockoff uh Milwaukee heat gun that takes a 18vt
battery. It cost like 40 bucks. But that's your next is if you have a drill, your next is a jigsaw. And then the one after that is a um angle grinder.
And there you go. And then make sure you have a nice tool kit and keep it all organized. All right, Peter. Been following you since
1999. Whoa. 27 years. Uh wait, I didn't start in 99.
No, I started in 2000 is when I started making movies in 99, unless you were following me, you were reading my um super science articles, which maybe you were in, and um Super Science magazine.
Um you're a master of finding using B-roll from decades ago. Question, what tips do you have for logging, tagging,
and archiving videos for easy retrieval when needed? Oh, okay. This is the This is the kind of the drama one of the dramas at the studio right now is um I
have I'd love to know how many shots I have. Hundreds of thousands. Um and so what tips do you have for
logging, tagging, and archiving videos for easier retrieval? Date first.
Name of the camera second. This is a folder. This is a folder.
Fold. you do years. I have a whole thing on I think it's the most recent one.
It's called media management. It's a Zen. If you scroll down, if you scroll down, you'll find it. It has all this in there.
The So, you do a folder with the year 2026. And then you have subfolders that are titled first the date and it's
the date you took the card out of the camera and backed the footage up on this hard drive. It's an external hard drive.
Then nothing else on it except for your archive footage footage. It's your archive hard drive and you need two
because two is one and one is none. Um, you need a backup.
So you it's date. This is how you title it. And you have to I'm talking Mac world. I'm
talking Macintosh paradigm here. You have to do columns when in your finder. You have to
columns. So it's your folders are organized by into columns and each folder within the year it starts
with the date and then that day is the day you took the SD card out of your
camera and you put it into your SD card reader on your Mac and you copied all the footage. Okay? Then one or two
keywords. Don't go crazy. Don't go crazy. T uh Tangga um rower flats ov birthday um and then in some if you don't want keywords just leave the date and no keyword but it's
date camera and optionally keywords and you just keep doing that. I have 26
years of those. Um, so I have to know what we're doing now. What we're in the process of implementing. We haven't
probably I might go off the deep end and use uh Claudebot or whatever it's called now to build
um to build AI assisted software that will crawl that I can train on even if I have to get a server that I can train on
my archive so I can type in prompts and click and drag images and it will be like here's all the pictures of Tom
Sachs um using a soldering iron You know, I'll just type in all the pictures of my old apartment in New York. Boom. All of the I mean, all the
footage from the old apartment in New York. Boom. All the footage of me and my son together. Boom. Apple can kind of do
that in photos. Like I I needed to find a cave specific picture yesterday and I found you type it in, but I want that for my whole thing and I'll probably
have to build something. And yeah, I know you're going to send me, oh, this does it. This does it. This does it.
We've been through them all. I don't like the way they work. So, that's how I do it. And then eventually it's going to be it's going to be manually organized
like that um until AI gets good enough so that I can just plug the card in and it'll do it automatically. But um and
then AI is going to crawl through it for me when I need to find specific things because I you can just I go down just rabbit holes and I get stuck and it
makes me depressed because I'm looking back at like my youth, you know. Um, okay. So, this is gonna be the last one.
10:30. Okay. Hey, Van. Clarifying my earlier question. I work from home, my home office in my apartment. I'm looking to rent an art studio space. I live in
Pasadena and I'm 30. My issue is that if I rent a studio space for my a art, should I also use that to do my 9to5
or should I keep th those completely separate? Oh, you also told me to get a studio space no further than 50 minute stuff.
All the good stu all the good studio spaces in downtown Los Angeles. Is it better to have a longer commute in exchange for a bigger industrial space?
Keep it closer. No, it's better to have it closer. Keep the spaces, but the spaces are usually smaller and more officy. Thanks. Office. You should be
able to find stuff, man. You try to blowball. There should be tons of office space because everyone's working from home now. office is although they hurry
up because they just changed the the city council just changed it to allow office space to be converted into living space. It's one of the strat it's very smart. It's one of the strategies that
they're going to use to um bring the housing costs down and there's just not enough housing in LA. So no 15 minutes from your house. That's what I have.
That's great. Don't do and downtown LA is way too far for you, man. I mean it doesn't seem far but that's traffic unless you're a motorcycle guy. Not even it's it's a nightmare. Don't do it.
Don't do downtown LA. That's a nightmare getting in there. Um, and it sucks down there. It's disgusting. There's no good restaurants.
Sucks. I have friends who had spaces down there. It sucks. Um, and it's Pasadena. You live in heaven. Pasadena is fantastic.
Um, so yeah, stay in Pasadena and try to find this is a this is an office, man.
This this building. Try an old Pasadena, you know, like the old is it Colorado?
Like down in the old part where the buildings are all old. See, there's there should there's a glut of office space. So, see if you can um find a cool
spot. And also, you know, you can as you get bigger, you can rent. But yes, do have it be the nineto-five and be the
art thing. Have it and then the art thing will start as it gets successful, they'll start edging out the nineto-five stuff. But yes, do that. That's a great idea. Yes, that's fine. That's fine.
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. So, I live in Pasadena. My issue is I if I rent a studio for my space, I do and I keep completely centered. No, no, no. You keep those. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Plus the little places you're going to be more you do workarounds. You're going to develop a style. It's going to make you more clever, more efficient. You
know, it's more New York compatible. I don't know if you've ever lived in New York, but New York teaches you how to really honor space. Okay, guys, have a
great weekend. Fantastic. Uh um I hope to get back with something.
There's a new video coming out Sunday morning and then I hope to get back with uh something some weird new I don't know
what long form thing. Uh maybe a week from Monday. So, or a week from Sunday. Oh my gosh.
I don't know if I can pull it off, but okay. I'm doing my best. All right. Bye-bye.
Products & Tools Mentioned
- Blackmagic Mini Pro switcher uses — video switching hardware for livestream
- Canon 5D uses — camera discussed
- Canon 1DX uses — primary camera discussed
- Milwaukee recommends — power tool brand discussed
- Makita 18V mentions — power tool brand discussed
- Bosch mentions — power tool brand discussed
- DeWalt mentions — power tool brand discussed
- Aventon electric bike mentions — electric bike brand discussed
- Sur-Ron electric bike mentions — electric bike brand discussed
- TW200 mentions — Yamaha TW200 motorcycle discussed
- AG1 mentions — supplement brand mentioned
- Patagonia mentions — outdoor clothing brand mentioned
- Moog synthesizer mentions — mini Moog on iPad discussed
- Toyota Land Cruiser essential — Van's truck discussed
- ChatGPT mentions — AI tool discussed
People Referenced
David Lynch, Tom Sachs, Colin and Samir, Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Tom Bilyeu, Neil Howe, Ray Dalio
Books Mentioned
- Tom Sachs book discussed (by Tom Sachs)
Films & Media Referenced
- 2015 film about the painter discussed
- Josh Safdie film discussed
- Francis Ford Coppola film discussed