[00:00] Hey guys and welcome to episode 5 of the Robert Johnson Film School podcast Office Hours and this podcast is actually one of two of our panels from VidCon this year and it's going
[00:15] to be me, Freddie Wong, Clinton Jones aka Punisher and Joey Skoma, the editor at the film school, talking a little bit about YouTube, about how digital cinema is changing and whether
[00:27] or not you should go to film school or not go to film school, and we answered some questions from the audience. So, hope you guys enjoy. Welcome back to the Fire Talk stage live at VidCon 2015.
[00:57] We have some exciting guests who are going to be up here doing their rocket jump film school. and these are the guys from the Rocket Jump podcast. So I'm going to get out of the way and let them work their magic right here on the Fire Talk stage. Welcome Rocket Jump.
[01:09] Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey. Joey, thank you. Trick, trick, trick, trick. Nice. What, what? All right.
[01:21] This one's not working, but that's okay. We're going to welcome everybody to the Face Rocker podcast. We're hanging out with Lauren, Joey, and Clint live at the Fire Talk stage here down at the
[01:33] sunny Anaheim, California VidCon 2015, the sixth annual VidCon and the first ever on-stage podcast at a VidCon. Yeah. Yeah. How's it going, everybody? Lauren, how are you doing?
[01:45] Pretty good. This is crazy. And there we go. Ah, we're getting the mic sorted out a little bit. First of all, this is a crazy VidCon. We're going to sit back, relax, and chat a little bit and talk about this. They're going to get comfortable.
[01:57] This is a crazy VidCon. Well, I remember coming year three, and it was a lot quieter, and there was a lot less people. It was very small. And then this is crazy. Yeah, so what's interesting is that VidCon used to be at a hotel across the street from CAA.
[02:12] And it was a tiny little, you know, it had like two ballrooms. And I remember we had a panel in the VFX panel that we did. And it was like 20 people showed up, and nothing was scheduled after our panel. So we're like, I guess we can just be in this room forever.
[02:25] And that was like the whole thing that we did the whole time there. Quinn, how's it going? It's going, man. It's going very well. When did you get here? Not a hard question. Not a hard question. You can't even remember.
[02:37] Yesterday. I got here yesterday. You were sleeping under the bushes outside the convention center. I don't have a room. Wait, really? Sleeping in the bushes. Oh, okay. Yeah. You can probably just back to your car. It's probably more comfortable. Please help.
[02:50] And Joey, you got your liter of Coke and just hanging out here. I know. They were really generous at the food truck with this thing. Apparently, they're getting rid of the sugar in Mexican Cokes starting next year.
[03:02] They have been for the last two years, slowly but surely. Slowly. They're phasing it out, huh? Yeah. It's awful. So, here's to the last of the sugar. There we go. Anyway, we're here at VidCon. We're talking a little bit about film school.
[03:14] Lauren, you guys are doing some stuff down here. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Today is the Rocket Jump Film School day over at our Rocket Jump booth, which is over by Jimmy Kimmel. If you see video games being played, that's where
[03:27] the Rocket Jump booth is. That was a key component of the booth strategy, by the way, because you'll notice that Kimmel, they got a big eight-screen thing. People can see it from miles away. You can see this booth from
[03:39] space. For us, we're like, if we just get a Wii and a bunch of controllers and Smash Brothers, this will work. And like, flies to honey. People are stopping by. We got some cool competitors over there.
[03:51] No, everyone there outclasses me. Clint, have you ever played Mario Kart yet? Mario Kart, not yet. Not Mario Kart, I'm sorry, Smash. Well, I just played JD Witherspoon by the fountain on our DS's and I got,
[04:03] I done got crushed. Really? He's good. He plays a good Captain's Alchemist, though. I'm starting to hear that, Clint. It sounds like VidCon's been a disappointment for you, honestly. Yeah. What are you still
[04:15] hanging around for? I'm glad I'm here, though. I'm glad I'm here. Are you? It sounds like it's been an awful experience. I'm here with you guys. Could you describe could you describe your VidCon experience so far? Well, hold on, think about that.
[04:27] Hold on, what else in terms of the Rock and Jump Film School is going on at our booth today? Well, we just did a meet and greet. You can meet me, Joey, Cherish, like the creators of the film school. I'm doing a talk at Canon tomorrow at the Canon Creator Lounge at 3.30.
[04:41] Cherish has a video panel at 11, I believe, where she's talking about women in film production. And then today at, I think, 345 or so, we're doing another meet and greet with film school where you can come meet us again.
[04:54] And then other people that we're featuring, like professors, we have cinematographer John Salmon, who shot Video Game High School. There's Clinton Jones, VFX master and director, who we just worked together.
[05:06] We did. It was fun. That was great. It was good. So for those of you who are looking for something, looking to up your sort of game when it comes to making movies,
[05:18] be it vlogs or narrative or what have you. We started a film school. You can see it online on YouTube at youtube.com slash rjfilmschool, or you can go to our site, rocketjump.com.
[05:30] But the whole point of it was film education in a world where there's a lot of tutorials, but not a lot of the stuff telling you why or how or the thinking behind things. Is that right? Yeah, the main impetus for Rocket Jump Film School is that we wanted to, one, have really fun and engaging tutorials that were free and accessible.
[05:51] And there's a lot of tutorials out there that are like, this is how you duplicate this exact shot or this type of lighting or this special one effect. I really like those tutorials. Yeah, well, they're really helpful.
[06:03] And one thing we'll do is we'll point you to those tutorials, but then we'll show you why you would use that effect. Why would you use that type of method or technique?
[06:15] And how to apply that to your larger story. So it's not just how to do the specific writing. It's like how do you know what's the basics of writing and what will work best for your vlog, what will work best for your short film, what will work best for your effect, and why.
[06:30] And also the meaning behind it. What are you saying with your film? So it's the stuff that you would learn in film school, but online, but also with that fun rocket jump type flavor.
[06:42] Sure, sure, sure. There's explosions. There's fun things. There's... It's hot. We have fun stuff. That's where. I want to take a second here. Clint. Yes. Sum up your VidCon experience for me, man. Man, I was listening to Lauren.
[06:55] I wasn't thinking. I told you to think. I told you to go to the corner. I gave you so much time. Come on. She was stalling for you. I could tell. She was throwing five-year-olds around. Both. Yeah, come on. It's been great because I have my Razor scooter with me.
[07:08] Really? Are they? Not in the hotel. But, you know, out in the courtyard area, I'm scooting. Like, I got places to be quick. So I got my Razor scooter. So that's great.
[07:20] The one thing I am seeing a lot this year is they have those little mini Segways. That's what I was going to say. They have a lot of that going on. One so bad. They have the little mini Segways. So, of course, Clint can handle a scooter.
[07:32] I don't think I want to see you on one of those mini Segways. No, because then you'd see me floating. You wouldn't see my legs. And you'd be like, whoa, what is this? Have you tried them? Have you tried them? I've never tried a Segway or one of those weird things.
[07:46] I want to try them for operating. That would be the coolest dolly shot. Super easy. Oh, my God. That's a great idea. I know that Sam and Nico have been doing a little bit of that. Our friends over at Corridor Digital, they have a little mini foot Segway that they've been getting some tracking stuff on.
[07:59] Is this the big wheel? No, no, no. No, it's not one wheel. It's two wheels. Basically, you stand on what looks like a flat shake weight. It's the best way, I think, to describe it. But this one, you know, it's like a Segway.
[08:14] Like, you just, you know, you put your toes forward and you go around, and people are kind of tooling about on them. It just seems like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It seems oddly reckless. Joey, what's your VidCon experience been like? This year's been really fun. It's been a good time.
[08:26] Is this your first VidCon? This is my second. My second VidCon. I don't know if I was here last year or the year before, but the other time I went... You remember a lot of high-pitched screaming.
[08:39] Yes, actually. That you were here last year. I've had less nightmares when I go home at night. I've had, like, weird Dawn of the Dead-style zombie, like, screaming girl nightmares. Not because of me, but just because I've seen mobs of people that I went home and I actually had nightmares.
[08:58] It really bums me out that I was not, well, it bums me out that, let me ask you this. If I put a shirt out and it said, I wish I was a hot Instagram boy, would you guys buy it? It doesn't say, would you guys buy it on the back?
[09:11] In the back it says, would you guys buy that shirt? Oh, okay. It's like, it's something. Oh, my God. I love that that can be a career option. I'm really curious. I really want to talk to one of these guys and really just ask them, because here's what's happening, right?
[09:24] In high school, did you guys ever have anyone like famous in high school? with you? Did you ever go to high school with someone famous? No, no. No? We had window white football, football stars. Okay. Was he, like,
[09:36] super popular in high school? Yeah, he was pretty popular. I have some friends who, like, they went to, like, school with, like, Blink-182 before they were Blink-182 or Fallout Boy before they were Fallout Boy. And what was interesting
[09:48] was, like, at that time, they were going to school and, like, they had a band or something and they were, like, slowly getting sort of famous and the fame came afterwards for them. so that afterwards they were like, yeah, oh, I wasn't cool with that person. But now we have Instagram, and I had a friend of mine talk to one of these Instagram guys,
[10:04] and they said, well, the thing is they said that, you know, like, how'd you get into Instagram? And the guy's response was, well, I just started taking pictures of myself and putting them on Instagram. And that was it. That was the entire, and I think for a lot of the old school sort of YouTube types,
[10:20] and by old school I mean people who started like three years ago, So, like, it's kind of a mind-blowing proposition to be able to get that kind of following and that kind of devotion just off of that kind of activity.
[10:33] And so what's interesting to me is, like, in high school, everyone's awkward. Everyone doesn't quite know, like, you know, where do I stand in the social ladder. But now you do know. It's how many Instagram followers you have.
[10:45] And so I wonder what that's like for those guys in high school to be like, yeah, that person has 2 million Instagram followers already. They're probably making more than their parents are. What does that do to your mindset? How does that affect your high school experience?
[10:59] I don't have an answer. I can't even believe that that's a thing. It's like the most weird success story that you could describe ever. Yeah, I just started taking pictures. There's like a new wave of people who get into filmmaking that way as well.
[11:15] They want to get into TV shows. They want to get into movies They want to start moving in that direction So it interesting to see how these different types of social media content creations always kind of end up in the same place of like telling stories or doing something bigger It never develops
[11:32] into something new that's bigger. It always kind of, it's kind of coming back to... I wonder if it never, if it needs to, because I wonder if there's like a certain thing that's going on where being Snapchat famous or being Instagram famous, like that's enough for what
[11:46] you're trying to do and that already gets you to a certain point yeah you know it's like in a weird way and this is a little bit crass but in a weird way it's very it's like it's like the it's like the online equivalent of like the way like Paris Hilton became famous right or the way like a little
[12:01] bit there's a certain like weird sort of you know turn the camera inwards and there's there's and that's the level and then from there there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens right from that point from that point for becoming well known then there's you know people are moving laterally
[12:15] into other mediums and things like that. But it's just interesting to see that that's enabled by what essentially was an app that was designed to take pictures of food. Yeah. That's what was Instagram's first point, actually.
[12:28] That's really... It's called Reptrongram. It's only food pics. And someone decided that they could actually take other pictures, and it blew up from there. They never saw it coming. Yeah. I talked to the Instagram co-founder. Oh, and that's kind of interesting,
[12:41] because one of the original ideas we floated around for this podcast was like, do you need to go to film school or do you not need to go to film school? And there's so many options available to you. It's like, do you even need to go and learn the skill set
[12:54] or can you just learn on your way through Instagram, through Vine, through YouTube? And that's a big question that film school gets. It's like, do I really need to go to film school or can I just teach myself? I'll tell you a really interesting story.
[13:06] I was hearing someone was doing a working press and they were doing a piece on a Vine celebrity. and apparently she was like no no no we shouldn't be here we should go over here and had an understanding
[13:19] of like lighting that was better than their understanding and the guy was like a camera guy forever and he was like yeah she like found a spot and was like yeah there's like a bounce up here and like this and this is the best lighting for me and they're like how does this person
[13:31] know this and because their experience was in that way they had lighting experience they had like an eye constantly seeing what worked and what didn't it's like trial and error without realizing is traveling errors.
[13:43] Yeah, absolutely. You know, and... That's interesting. And lighting for phones and lighting for your small cameras is a lot different than traditional lighting anyway. That's really fascinating. I wonder how much of that was...
[13:55] Gosh. Sorry. Sorry. I was going to say, I wonder how much of that was, like, learned, like, that she went out and learned, or just through experience? I think it must have been
[14:07] through experience. It was like she was seeing this and was like, oh, this picture looks better than this picture. And then, you know, it's a very natural process. Like, why was this picture looking better? Oh, it's because the light was over here and it does this. And just sort of in a very organic way,
[14:19] I think, like, some of these, like, some of these Instagram, like, selfie takers are probably better portrait photographers than actual portrait photographers. Well, because they're, they're doing it. Yeah, absolutely. And they're having fun and they're not afraid
[14:31] to fail at something and they're just trying and constantly taking photos. And they get feedback from it. Oh, yeah. It's not like they're just putting it out and not, no one's seeing it, you know? Yeah. And the feedback might just be, oh this one has slightly fewer likes than the other one and it might be some other thing but like
[14:44] they're getting that back and forth and that to me is fascinating the idea that you can organically learn essentially visual language right organically learn like filmmaking organically learn uh photography and not have to go from a class to session what do you think about film school
[14:58] lauren film school i mean like i feel like it's it's if you learn best in an academic setting and that's something for you to figure out then i mean i love film school but mostly because i had time to mess around and fail at stuff and use the film school equipment and try stuff
[15:14] that I wouldn't be able to normally. Yeah. And in a setting where it's okay if I messed up. I mean, I still had the pap, but, like, it was okay for me to learn. It was an experiment. That was it. To be really kind of recklessly experimental.
[15:27] Oh, yeah. I tried fake underwater, like, with fans and weird blue lights and stuff like that. I tried a double exposure on 35mm film that usually would cost a lot of money to fail at, and it totally didn't work.
[15:39] We didn't get the right frames messed up and we failed at it, but now I know how to do that. But outside of film school, I probably would have been fired. Right. But film school also has more of a structure that can also inhibit creativity.
[15:55] So you're worried about grades. You're worried about appeasing your teachers. There's a tradeoff, I feel. But you also meet people that are like-minded there. We met freshman year.
[16:07] Yeah. We met Brian Frenzy freshman year. True. So, Clint, you never went to film school, right? No, I went to a small tech school, but it definitely wasn't a film school. So, I would say, even like early YouTube stuff, you're demonstrating really interesting camera positioning, camera movement from an action standpoint.
[16:25] So, how did you start? How did you learn that? I'm always curious about that. My buddy, Bobby, he had just a small camcorder, and I didn't know how you, like, cut in movies.
[16:37] go one image to the next and he showed me he rolled and he cut and then he turned over here rolled and he played it back and it was this is the poor editing app what's that? the poor editing app yeah like in camera right
[16:49] and then and that was really cool and I was more interested in the technical side so I got Windows Movie Maker I found out I had that and if I if I put a muzzle flash on the one frame there yeah yeah then you got it looks like you're shooting
[17:01] because I had airsoft guns yeah yeah yeah so then I got into VFX and learned all the VFX side of stuff I see And so, were you watching movies for, like, how they were doing things? Like, what were you looking at? Not really, to be honest with you.
[17:13] I, hmm, I, I mean, you know I'm into martial arts. Yeah. I love Jackie Chan. Yeah. So, I guess I was, I mean, I never really watched movies like, oh, I'm going to go into film.
[17:25] But you had seen them. I've seen, like, a bunch of Jackie Chan movies. You're kind of absorbing how they're shot without realizing it, almost. Yeah. I mean, I was just into video games and that kind of stuff, you know, and I guess it kind of translated and was like, oh, why don't I do one of my favorite games for real?
[17:43] Yeah. And then the Killzone, do the Killzone thing. Right, right, right. And so that's how all that stuff kind of came about. Joey, I know you were doing stuff in high school, right? Yeah. How did you get started with that?
[17:55] Well, Brian Ferrenzi, who plays the law, he started a video production class when he was a senior in high school. and he was teaching it to me. I was a sophomore, so, you know, I was 15 and I just started learning from my friends.
[18:09] And that's how we, we sort of had a Willy Wonka style passing of the torch. So when he graduated, I started teaching the class and we, and it was student run and UC credited. So that's why I didn't go to film school in college
[18:23] was because I would have just relearned the same thing I was teaching in high school for undergrad. So this way real quick. So the school had you teaching kids and those kids were getting credits.
[18:35] Did the school have, like, no money or something? No, it was, we had a teacher chaperone, but we were running the classes and giving out the assignments and doing the grades. Wow. That seems like, I feel like you got taken for a ride, bro.
[18:48] What? It was high school. No, I know, but usually, you know, there's, like, structure in high school. Like, teachers usually get paid. Yeah. Did you get paid? No, it was student run. I got an A for being the teacher, you know?
[19:01] So they paid you in grades. That's great. Yeah. Well, yeah. You don't see how that's, like, a little bit strange. It also helps you get into college. Like, hey, I taught this. So they paid you in grades and may be helping you to get into college.
[19:14] Well, as most high school goes, it's like, oh, I'm going to run. I'm going to do a sport. I'm going to be in student government. It's going to look good on my college answers. There's a difference, though. They don't have the kids coach the football team.
[19:26] Good. that would be great like that would be great actually I feel like high school sports would be way more fun if your friends were coaching it yeah it would be awful I mean more dramatic but fun
[19:38] actually that would be intense right if you're like and if it was all student coaches and then just like the face off that would happen with the high level politics you go to the other school like fights just breaking out someone should make a short film about that
[19:50] what would you call it you guys take that somebody do that what would you call it school collision course collision course perfect perfect that's so good someone make that
[20:03] and then put it on the RJ Film School forum I'm talking to this right now we have a forum for the film school where you can post your stuff and we'll like look at it and give feedback and stuff like that you should you guys should
[20:15] post stuff there whether it's Collision Course or something else we'll give you an A and maybe you'll get into a better college we can give you an A plus sticker
[20:27] Real quick, Joey, I feel like you could see your old school. I mean, it helped Brian get into SB where he met all of you, so it's like, I mean, you guys can knock him for taking the initiative to build a program.
[20:39] If there's anybody who was taught by Joey in high school, please tell us. I want to hear stories. Joey, what were you like as a teacher? I want to know. I am tweeting with Lauren at Rocket Jump Film School.
[20:53] Please drop by. Like, no, but, like, what would you do if the kid was rowdy, you know, like a kid was giving you a lift? What was your tactic? Okay, I'll answer that question with my mom was a teacher, and my mom taught at my high school also.
[21:08] So I'll answer that with how I responded to kids coming up to me saying, like, dude, your mom kicked me out of her class today. And I was like, well, what were you doing? And they're, like, talking. And I was like, well, shut up.
[21:20] You know? It's like they're coming to me to learn, like... I like the idea that when they're coming to you, you're in the teacher's lounge, like, reheating some, like, rice and just, like, chilling out.
[21:32] Like, what? What are you talking about, kid? You're on break. Yeah. I'm reading Business Week. Get out of here. I wish I had access to the teacher's lounge, now that you mention it. So you didn't have access to the teacher's lounge? No. That's why you were a teacher. It's like, none of the perks.
[21:45] Or the health benefits of the 401k. None of it. None of it. Interesting. Yeah, that's rough. But I think I was a good teacher, all right? I would have loved to have been. I want confirmation. How many kids do you have in your class?
[21:57] About this. 30. 30 kids? 30 kids. Yeah. You were their age. Yeah. How could you possibly control them? How do they respect you? With passion. We only had kids.
[22:10] This is really interesting. Kids come in. We only had kids who, me in the class, who wanted to make movies. So it's like, if they don't get the assignment done, then they fail. then they fail. You know, it's like... That is usually how it works.
[22:22] Yeah, so it's like here you have a month to finish this project, and if you're not working on it, then, you know, I'm not going to look over their shoulder while they edit because I know that they need to put in the time to finish it.
[22:35] So you're more of a hands-off, kind of like, set the environment and let your children flourish type of teacher It very much like you have a kid with a fork and there an outlet right there and you just go don do it don do it
[22:49] and then they keep inching the fork towards the outlet, and then if they, yeah, don't do the assignment, then you're just like, I told you, told you so. So you would let a child be electrocuted. Yes. Metaphorically. Metaphorically electrocuted.
[23:02] Yeah. Yeah. It's a... Here, go, like, off the diving board into the pool, learn how to swim. Like, that's how we started filmmaking. I can't find a way to meet your children.
[23:14] They want to film school with DJs and a camera. At RJ Film School, the Joey Stilmer teaching story. Do it. I feel like that's a great way to do it. Who went to this high school, please. Before we taught anything, we just gave them
[23:26] a camera, put them in groups, and then made them make a movie. And then they brought back... It's like, let's see where everyone's at. Yeah. That's great. It's trial and error. That was day one. Yeah. All this to say, you have to make your crappy movies now
[23:38] before you can make good ones. What was the gap? Tell us about the gap. The gap? The gap. The gap is when you have, the thing is, if you're a creative person, you're going to have really good taste, usually.
[23:50] You have something that you like doing, you're really passionate about, and the first, like, year or so, you're learning, you're really excited, you're developing skills, you're seeing improvement, and then once you get into constantly making that creative stuff,
[24:02] you're never going to be happy with the stuff you're making because you have that really good taste. You have really good, you know, passion. You have really high standards. And you're going to make a lot of crappy stuff that you hate.
[24:14] And you're going to be frustrated. But you have to get through all of that to get good and get to a point where your taste matches up with your skill set. So every single creative person goes through this thing where you get through, you hit this wall.
[24:31] And you're just like, I'm not as good as I thought I was. I'm not, you know, you're not Steven Spielberg. You're not, you know, you have to go through that gap year or two or three of just trial and error by fire
[24:45] and making all your crappy movies and learning from them and like, oh, that edit was terrible. What can I do next time instead of waiting and being afraid of, you know, making a movie because it's not perfect. No, make your imperfect movie.
[24:58] Get it out. Get it done. Get it through. You know what we should do? True. Yeah. I got an idea for a film. but we should do a series called Gap Movies. And we put up all the movies that we made in this interim period before we were at all amazing.
[25:10] Oh, it would be so embarrassing. And then have us comment on it and, like, you know, talk about what you were thinking and stuff like that. And the goal is to show off the time before now, right? It's very easy to look at, like, well, that person's really good,
[25:23] but you never see the in-between and the time before they were that good. That's always so interesting, too. I love that. I think it's a great idea. I've seen early movies of people who I really respect and be like, oh, thank God, you're like me.
[25:37] Mine were great. I don't know what you're talking about making savvy movies. I peaked in high school. What were you making in high school? I made worse. What would you make in high school, Joey? My first film was called A Life in Satan's Anus.
[25:51] What? That's where Joey peaked. That was the beginning of the end. It still holds up. If I watch it, I was like, this is great. Can you put that on YouTube? Is it on?
[26:03] Yeah, it's on YouTube. Did I tell people to Google it? You're very young to watch. If your parents think it's cool, then Google it. Wait, no kidding. What did you make in high school? It was still a time when we still had free reign over, like, there's tons of cursing in it.
[26:19] It's, like, very inappropriate. A 15-year-old kid should not have made this movie. I had a lot of friends who made those types of movies. And we got a lot of things from school because we put it up on our school site. Well, you were a faculty member. That was when I was the student.
[26:32] That was when Brian was teaching. The next year I took over. Did Brian get any heat for letting that happen? Did you get him in trouble with other faculty? No, they were all fine. But basically my citizen cane was what got me.
[26:49] That was it. Get permission before you watch this film. Wait, quick question, quick question. So is this real when you have, you can film anywhere. What? Okay. You can film anywhere as long as you have three people and no more than three people.
[27:05] So technically they're, well, not anywhere. What's the rule for that? Not anywhere. On the sidewalk. On the sidewalk. On the sidewalk. Unless you want to get permission from the owner of the property. Private property. Public property.
[27:17] Public property. Yes, that's more true. So you can do three people. Am I wrong? No tripod, I think, and no boom. No tripod, no boom. It's called rule of three in L.A. And that's not including your actor or is including your actor?
[27:30] I think, I don't know, that's something to check on. It's not including your actor. It's not including your actor, but the crew has to be three people, and this is only in Los Angeles. No sticks, $800 fine?
[27:44] $800. Oh, so it is a permit, $800, according to a very helpful camera guy who's been telling me not to use my microphone. but what if I like the way this sounds bro
[27:56] what am I going to think so yeah well so that's the thing well that's the funny thing about LA is that LA's got these rules you know there's all these sort of things and we're in Burbank actually
[28:08] Burbank is a little looser if I recall than the city of LA with this but for those of you out there here's the trick so number one obviously if you're filming on your camera or your camera phone super helpful
[28:20] duper duper helpful because then it's just like nah I'm just taking a selfie. And the guy's like, I don't want a selfie. I'm just going to film here. Right? So that's helpful. And you can get really good footage off of that. But the other option is you've got to have a designated friend.
[28:33] And I've seen this work. And this allowed us to get like 20 minutes. So when someone comes up, if you're in a park or something, someone comes up and says, hey, you can't film here. You start the timer right at that point. Right? It's over from there.
[28:45] But you can buy yourself more time. And here's how you do it. You have a friend come up to him. And you take the guy. And you pull him aside a little bit. Right? So if you're filming over here, you can't pull him to the side and have a little talk. Use the training we just taught you from Jimmy.
[28:57] Use the physical training, which you just saw, as an instruction. You pull him up to the side, right? And you make it seem like it's a kind of quiet conversation, like a little private thing, a little embarrassing maybe even for you, and you say this.
[29:09] And this works every single time. You say, sorry, our friend was just in a car accident. He's in the hospital right now. He's alive. Oh, my God. He'll be all right. but he loves this park
[29:22] we go here all the time and we thought we wanted to make like a video greeting card oh yeah for him you know so he's there every single time they'll be like
[29:34] oh okay and if you keep it short don't and obviously you're sitting there and you're like have like prop weapons and you have like a sword then okay like it's a little bit harder to get that one across but if you don't have that
[29:46] you could probably get away with it so that's That's my technique. That's my technique. You're morbid. We actually have a friend, we knew someone in the go school who would do this, actually, who would do, they would have a book for the permit, and they would fake the permit that
[30:00] was the real permit, but on top of the fake permit, they'd put a ridiculous permit. It would be like, it would be like notebook paper and like crayon, and it would be like permit to shoot, permission, like the teacher, you know, like, and so when someone saw them,
[30:15] they're like, yes, here's our permit, and they'd pull that up, and they would laugh Because, like, oh, this is clearly a joke. And they're like, right. But they would disarm the person checking. And then when they flipped to the fake permit that they made look good, the guy wouldn't check it that close.
[30:27] Because, like, oh, these guys are cool. That was another trick that they did. I don't recommend any of these. And for legal reasons, I cannot endorse any of these methods. However, these are things that have worked in the past for us. And, you know, take that information and do with it what you will.
[30:39] But this is not an endorsement, nor is this a call to action in any way, shape, or form. Producing is being a people person. basically is what you're it's being creative being charming working with people around you
[30:51] you gotta roll a coin every time charisma check yeah yeah you know and I think I think a big part of movie making is you need friends because it's very difficult to do everything on your own you can
[31:03] I'm not saying you can't you know you look at the vloggers and they do stuff on their own but it's very helpful to have friends it'll improve aspects of what you're doing most definitely so you gotta make friends you gotta do your best to make friends and VidCon's a really good place And VidCon used to be everyone was running around with little cameras,
[31:18] and everyone was doing vlogs, and everyone was shooting little sketches, and all the panel discussions were centered around the idea of, like, how do I make something? How do I do this? It's really interesting to see it now because it's no longer that. It's actually a lot of people here not for the making side.
[31:32] There's a lot of people here who still have that, but now it's a split between the people who are there to make movies and people here to, like, see and visit friends that they've met online or to talk to and meet the online creators who they've been watching over the past few years.
[31:47] Let's take some questions from the crowd. Who wants to come up here and ask a question? I thought this can't go up right away. Come on up here, man. Real quick, get up on stage here, introduce yourself, and tell me, hold on real quick,
[32:00] tell your channel and introduce yourself. Okay. Well, my channel is Doug Kabob, and I do animation stuff. My name is Doug, and I have a question. Sure. what is being who is your big Instagram who do you look up
[32:13] to on the YouTube space good guys TV and stuff like that so exactly who do we look up to on the YouTube side of things what's on the line here well I think for us we're kind of a weird spot because we do
[32:25] there's a lot of types of people doing stuff so it's a whole range of things so you know like so off the top of my head Rooster Teeth those guys are we're big fans of and they do a lot of gaming stuff and they do a lot of other stuff sketch and show
[32:38] style type of stuff. In terms of like, you know, the day-to-day stuff, MinutePhysics, who, Henry is a big, who has actually worked with us for a while and was doing VFX for us, have gone and done, gone to great heights with MinutePhysics. Who else on the YouTube
[32:52] side do you guys watch? I particularly, I actually just met the guy who represents him, Bro Science. Oh, yeah. Like, I love Dom. Like, Dom is one of the funniest dudes ever. So,
[33:04] So, yeah, so I really like what they do. I like, now I got my family on to Dom's stuff. I got my cousin a T-shirt or a tank top, of course, that says, don't spot me, watch me, you know, for when he goes to the gym.
[33:18] Like, it's just a great personality. And obviously Harley and stuff. I really like Harley's whole, everything that Harley's done is great. We're all friends with Five Seconds Home, guys. Yeah, yeah. Five Seconds Home, all the way. I like what we do.
[33:30] Quarter Digital, of course. Yeah. Bros from way back. yeah no it's a whole range of stuff that we like but really I think what it is is we're looking for stuff I always like stuff that's like interesting it's different
[33:42] and whoever's doing it clearly like they're doing it because they love it and it really shows through I think on YouTube when people do things for the love of doing it rather than the goal of trying to get hell of a sub or trying to get
[33:54] gripped reviews you know like it just doesn't you kind of see through that people who are having fun you can tell and you're like yeah I want to I want to be like those people I want to make cool stuff like that Let take another question If you have a question go ahead and line up here on the side here Next person Introduce yourself And Alexa what is your question
[34:14] Hi. I was wondering how important are visual effects or can just a good story carry it? Good question. Visual effects are kind of a story carrier. Lauren, what do you think? Visual effects are only as good as your story. And if the visual effects aren't serving your story, then there's no purpose to them.
[34:29] So if you want to make a good film and it needs special effects to really work and the special effects are working for your short or your film, they're very important. But if your story is kind of boring,
[34:41] people are going to not like the visual effects as much. They might even be harsher on the visual effects if the story is not as good. Story is far more important. Story is game.
[34:53] Story, like the movie Once that came out a few years ago, that was shot with barely any light on an older type camera, and the story was so compelling
[35:05] that I didn't notice it at all for a fun go-around, and a good story and good sound design and just care and craft with what you're doing will make a really good, compelling movie,
[35:17] but VFX without story, there's no point. It's a tech demo. Yeah, it's a real. It's a real awesome stuff, which is, you know, cool. And when we say story, it doesn't need to be a huge, epic, long, squeaky thing.
[35:31] A story can be A to B, something very basic, you know, told very succinctly, you know. Yeah, something simple. One of the favorite videos we've done was Serial Killer, right? And if you think about the story for that, that's not a story, really. I'm shopping for cereal.
[35:44] Situation, right? Situation. But it's a very linear thing. I'm shopping for cereal, bad guys come in the store, I take out the bad guys one by one. Because you want cereal. Because I want cereal, and then I get cereal. That's a story. And that works for that video.
[35:57] It's not like, again, nobody, we never say that what we're doing is like crazy long, huge stories that we're telling. It's very basic A to Z. But if that's not there, then the visual effects are meaningless. All right. Thank you very much, Alexa. Next question.
[36:09] Link. Hi, my name is Sean. And I was wondering, are you guys ever planning on doing another cross-country filming tour like you did a few years ago? Ooh, yeah. With the Chef Franco jersey appearing on brand. That's right. So back in 2010 when we first started, we did a road trip.
[36:23] We called it the YouTube Road Trip. Um, funny story about that, by the way. Uh, we, uh, we, we hit the, uh, we, we wrecked that RV, technically, because, uh, because, uh, Matt drove it into a, a, a, a thing.
[36:36] And, like, it hit the, uh, air conditioner. So, that, that ended up costing way more than we thought. But, uh, yeah, we like doing road trips. The question is trying to find a time to do it. So, we don't have anything planned in the near future. But, yeah, film school.
[36:48] I would love for, uh, like, a tour for film school to do workshops across the country. I don't know where you guys find that. I pitched to Freddie and Clint, obviously, doing our own Easy Rider from L.A. to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
[37:02] You do Route 66. We hop on our motorcycles and have an adventure there. Let's go. Let's go. I mean, you seemed hot on the idea when I pitched it. No, you never pitched to me. I also want to remind you, you know that they die at the end of Easy Rider, right?
[37:16] Yeah, but they were also hippies, and it was a tough time. Okay, fair enough. All right, next question here. Hey, I'm Matthew. How do you feel about unpaid internships in film? Because I'm currently working an internship that has me working more than 24 hours on any given set sometimes.
[37:30] And I'm probably still getting jibbed here. You are. Look, here's the real answer. Long and short, you are getting jibbed. Unfortunately, that's kind of the way the film industry works. It sucks. We hate it. It's technically illegal, by the way, if you're doing anything in California that's an unpaid internship.
[37:46] But you saw what happened. So some people took a class action lawsuit against Fox for that. and it's one of those things where it sucks. That's kind of how the industry is. My advice to you is if it's something that you feel like you're getting something out of,
[38:01] if it feels like you're learning something, then at least you're getting that out of it. But if you can, try not to be exploited. And honestly, your time might be better spent just making movies with your friends, and that might be a more instructive experience. Yeah.
[38:13] If your internship is just having you do the normal PA work, but they don't take the time to show you what's going on or be open with you or be like, hey, like, I have one internship where I answered phones and restocked the fridge.
[38:26] I had no idea what the company did by the end of the summer. And I was like, I don't know what they do. I had a terrible time. That was a waste of time. I shouldn't, like, I was waiting for them to, like, let me know what was going on. But I would much rather have an internship where I was working crazy hours and doing crazy stuff,
[38:43] but they're like, oh, come into the editing room. We're going to show you something cool. Like, that would be worth it for me. Yeah. But it all comes down to what you think is worth your time. Yeah. And if you like the people as well. You want to work with people that you like.
[38:56] And also this way, everyone's like, oh, but if you don't do it, you'll burn the bridge or something like that. Guess what? You don't want to work for them. Well, also, if you burn the bridge to sucky people, other people will probably be like, yeah, those guys' bridges deserve to be burned.
[39:09] We've found friends of people who are like just honestly bad people. You find friends because people realize that, too. It doesn't have to work in a way that's like, oh, you have to just be nice to everybody or something like that.
[39:21] No, stand up for yourself. If you feel like you're getting exploited, walk from it, man. All right, next question. We've got time for two more. Yes. All right. Hello, I'm Robert from Five Man Movie Makers.
[39:34] I was wondering, how do you grab people's attention online and then keep it there? How do you grab it? With video, you mean, right? Yeah. Yeah, so how do you grab people's attention online with video?
[39:46] I think it really kind of comes down to, it comes down to, You have to look at yourself when you watch a video and think about what do you see and what are you sticking around for. When you go to a video, there's expectation.
[39:58] If you're going to it blind, sure. But if you go into it and a friend says, hey, you should check this out, you have an expectation for what it's going for. Try not to disappoint and you try to hit them so that you're meeting the expectations and you're surprising them.
[40:12] So if you can exceed those expectations when they get into a video, that's where something really hangs onto. I think one of the videos that we did was Ball Pit. I think from seeing the response, the Ball Pit video we did, I think, worked well because the expectation when it started was like, oh, this is like a prank video.
[40:26] And it's going to be a prank video, but why is it 20 minutes long? Where is this going? And we had a lot of people come up to us and say, like, I couldn't believe where it went. And I'm so surprised where it was going. And I just watched through the whole thing. I think a big part of it is holding attention and exceeding expectations.
[40:40] Yeah. And also, you want to make the videos that you find interesting and that you find funny and that feel true to you. If you're trying to make a film to make other people react but you don't really care about the idea,
[40:54] then people are going to be bored from the start. But if you're like, this is freaking hilarious, other people who are like-minded like you will find it. Good start. Last question here. One more.
[41:06] It looks like it's you, buddy. come up with something quick how important is the first 30 seconds of every video
[41:18] how important is the first 30 seconds I think honestly it depends because there are situations where it's about the attention right and a lot of people say like oh people will click out at the board or what have you
[41:31] but it's like yeah but at the same time we need longer videos we've found that can hold people's attention better sometimes than short stuff, because short stuff is so consumable. It's like fast food, right? It's like asking in a meal how important is the appetizer.
[41:45] If you're expecting a good meal and a whole bunch of courses to come after it, the appetizer might not be so important. If you're the kind of person who's only there for the appetizer, well, then I guess the appetizer is a super important part of the meal. Yeah, if I get the gist of your film in the first 25 seconds,
[42:00] what other reason do I have to watch the rest of it? It's like you do want to hook people, but you don't want to, you know, put everything good all in the first 25 seconds because, quick, we need to make sure people watch the video.
[42:12] It's just like, no, like, you know, spread it out. A lot of times, honestly, I've seen videos that are two minutes long and the first 30 seconds I knew the whole two minutes. So even though it's a two-minute video, my sister's 30-second video would have been just as good. Same with, like, even one-minute videos.
[42:25] It's about making sure that however much content you have filled, the time that you're giving it. And it's like, if it's like a 10-minute video, 15-minute video, you can use that first 30 seconds to set your style and your tone, and then people will be like, this is cool.
[42:38] I'm down for this. And then, you know, the rest of it hopefully pays off. Again, it's about paying off and having and keeping in mind how people watch things. And it's a world where there's a lot of other things to watch, so you better give them a reason to watch your video over all the other stuff they can be doing.
[42:52] Anyway, that's all the time we have here. We're going to stretch out a nice, long outro here on the Far Talk. Oh, yeah. A nice, long strip. This is a film school podcast, so I'm just going to plug film school.
[43:05] Go for it. We have the Rocket Jump Film School for those who just came, and it's basically taking the rocket jump behind the scenes, like that fun stuff, and going in-depth, like how we approach camera, how we approach directing,
[43:18] how do we approach editing, and making them into fun tutorials. So this isn't just like how to use Adobe Premiere. This is how to tell good stories and how to use all the software that you have to make really fun, good films.
[43:31] So we have online tutorials on YouTube. We have school.rocketjump.com. You can chat with us directly on the forums, post your videos. You'll get feedback. You'll get feedback from other community members.
[43:44] We have all the VGHS writers are doing screenwriting tutorials, and they're going to give you feedback. And feedback is the best way to learn. Oh, yeah. The only way you know if something's working for other people or not
[43:56] is to put something out, see how people react to it, And the problem with YouTube and the problem with a lot of these other platforms is it's hard to get honest, good feedback. You might get someone, they won't bother commenting. They might just close out. But you'll never know that they closed out.
[44:08] They'll never know, like, oh, this didn't work for me or this didn't read or this part wasn't funny. You'll never get that sense. And one of the nice things about the community that we're building here at the Rock and Joke Film School is that people will give you that. And it might be hard. People are really responsive.
[44:20] It might be hard advice to hear, but it's better that you're getting it now and it's better that you're getting it in this context than in some other time. in a more professional context, and you didn't even realize that you were missing out on lessons
[44:32] you should have been learning earlier. Yeah. So we're engaging you guys on the forums. We have a YouTube channel. We try to reply to comments. We have Twitter. We have Facebook. And then we're going to start featuring some student work that we really like.
[44:45] We're going to have assignments. We have stuff you can download. We're going to try and release footage from our shows and stuff like that, like DJ Just, so you guys can edit. And we're going to give you sound libraries so you guys can practice sound.
[44:57] Yes. and get your hands dirty and really work with stuff and then show it to us and get feedback directly, which is really cool. Please, please. It looks like we're out of here. It looks like we're done. So real quick, thank you, Lauren, Dean of the Rugged Up Dirt School, Clint,
[45:10] Joey for joining us. Thank you, of course, to Fire Talk for allowing us a little bit of time here at VidCon on your stage. And thank you all for watching Ben Higdali's podcast, producer, Mick Smapper. We'll see you next time. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[45:27] you