Latest / Gimbal Podcast / How Ryan Trahan's Team Makes Mega-Viral YouTube Videos

Transcript

How Ryan Trahan's Team Makes Mega-Viral YouTube Videos · Gimbal Podcast

0:00
He has like a list of like 700 video ideas.
0:02
What does your team look like now?
0:04
No cellular service, no Wi-Fi.
0:06
Do you have like a worst video, least favorite video?
0:09
What would it actually cost to cross America?
0:12
Was their life sustainable during all of these things?
0:15
No.
0:16
Okay.
0:17
No, not at all.
0:18
Ryan Trahan is one of YouTube's most beloved creators.
0:22
And in today's episode of Gimble, I'm speaking with his creative director.
0:26
Preston White has been with Ryan for four years,
0:29
and together they have amassed nearly a billion views across all videos.
0:33
He's traveled across the country with Ryan to give a penny to Mr.
0:37
Beast.
0:37
He's taken the Penny series international and produced the entire thing.
0:42
And just recently, he helped Ryan and Ryan's wife Haley
0:46
make a 50 states in 50 days series across America.
0:50
That video series raised over $12 million for St. Jude's Hospital
0:56
and was seen by almost 200 million people.
0:59
Preston is a legend in the space, and I'm so excited for you to watch this conversation.
1:05
Let's get into it.
1:06
Okay, Preston, welcome to the show.
1:09
My first question is, how did you get into this industry?
1:13
Yeah, I mean, it's actually kind of crazy.
1:16
I was working in geotechnical engineering before this, and I just applied to be a contestant
1:22
on one of Ryan's series he was doing back when his channel was smaller.
1:27
and then me and Zach our editor were both contestants on that series and that's how we all
1:32
got connected and then you know like six months later it was interesting he just posted on his
1:38
story first actually and he was like hey if there's anyone in Austin that wants to work in
1:43
YouTube hit me up and I just texted him and I didn't even know what he was looking for really
1:49
but I was like I am super interested and we just he called me and then we just talked on the phone
1:54
he was looking for a producer and you know i didn't have any necessary necessarily like background
2:00
but i was super passionate about it and even though i was working in geotechnical engineering
2:05
i never wanted to stay in that i'm a creative person at heart and that job is you know it's
2:10
math and science and it's not there's no room for creativity over there you know so it was like uh
2:16
it was kind of a dream come true to you know be able to move into this when was this like when
2:22
was the shift from uh moving into ryan's team uh 2021 end of 2021 i my first day was like september
2:29
20th or something like that oh very cool yeah are there any skills from like geotechnical
2:36
engineering that are like helpful for you now that carried over i think really the only one
2:42
is project management you know just talking to clients and managing three or four projects at
2:48
the same time and just, you know, just knowing where each project is and each of its steps and
2:54
kind of being able to manage that.
2:55
Other than that, there was really, really not much crossover at all.
2:58
So I want to talk about the vlog series is in just a couple minutes.
3:03
But tell me about what the
3:04
the usual process looks like for a standard Ryan Trahan video.
3:08
Like what is your involvement look
3:10
like from start to finish?
3:12
Every Monday, we have a team meeting and we'll kind of do some ideation
3:15
and we'll sit down and we'll just come up with a bunch of ideas or, you know, a lot of times it's
3:20
Ryan, he'll just on his free time, he has like a list of like 700 video ideas that he just like
3:25
rapid fires and he just picks a few of his favorites and we all vote.
3:29
And then we kind of
3:30
like flesh out a little bit, you know, some of them and then we kind of decide.
3:34
And from that
3:35
point, that's whenever my job really steps in and I, he's like, okay, start figuring out, you know,
3:40
it depends on the video, right?
3:41
But like figuring out locations, figure out logistics, uh, I would
3:46
like it done film during this time so we can post by this time.
3:50
And I would like it to be in this
3:52
many days.
3:52
So I go in and I flesh out different, like with the one star, I'll go on to Yelp and
3:57
I'll just, uh, kind of scroll, uh, a million different restaurants or whatever it may be,
4:03
hotels, theme parks, and try to find funny reviews.
4:05
From that point, I'm starting to use,
4:07
you know, a lot of the creative direction there of like, what is going to make the best content?
4:12
What's going to be the best backdrop for this?
4:14
Even if this is good content, is it going to look
4:17
right?
4:17
You know, is it going to be something that the audience wants to see?
4:21
Then I'll present that
4:21
to Ryan, I'll book everything, he'll go film, and then it's editing.
4:26
And then I'll help, you know,
4:28
review edits and things like that.
4:30
And then finally post.
4:31
Nice.
4:31
And that all happens relatively quickly by the sounds of it.
4:34
Yeah, relatively quickly.
4:36
It kind of fluctuates.
4:38
You know, there's sometimes where we're, you know, we'll do batch films or we're like two months ahead on planning.
4:43
And then there's sometimes where we'll throw something in and it's like, we're posting in three weeks and we want to film this this week.
4:49
So it's pretty dynamic.
4:52
I mean, you know, YouTube is just that way in general.
4:55
So you talked about ideation meetings on Monday, and it sounds like Ryan kind of leads the charge there.
5:00
But you also bring ideas and you critique ideas.
5:04
How do you know what's a good idea versus a mediocre idea?
5:08
I think the number one question is, can we see Ryan doing this?
5:13
You know, that's like, because he has such a specific brand and personality type.
5:19
So, you know, the first filter that we run through is, would Ryan do this?
5:24
Would this make sense for someone to watch and be like, yeah, that totally makes sense for Ryan to do.
5:28
Or if it's not something he would necessarily do, is it funny because of his personality type, you know?
5:35
um and we haven't done that a lot but there is there is a level of that uh and then it'd be well
5:42
okay what's going to be the exact title structure uh going to look like that maybe dips into a niche
5:49
but still keeps it broad and you know gets us hopefully in the end 30 to 40 million views or
5:55
whatever it may be how much emphasis on like the titles and packaging and um all of that happens
6:01
early on?
6:02
Almost all of it.
6:03
I mean, it's like Ryan's biggest stressor and stress towards everyone
6:10
that we work with and everyone on the team is packaging is everything.
6:12
He is super passionate
6:14
about packaging.
6:15
And sometimes we'll decide a video because the thumbnail is a banger.
6:19
You know, if we are presenting ideas and it's like the title is meh, but then the thumbnail
6:25
is crazy, he'll be like, let's workshop titles.
6:27
I'm doing this idea.
6:28
So it packaging is like 90%
6:31
of it.
6:31
And then the content comes in a little later, you know, uh, me and Ryan will sit down
6:36
and we'll do some brainstorming on B plots and, uh, jokes and shots and things like that.
6:41
How do you like, uh, present the packaging?
6:43
Do you like sketch it out or
6:45
we've started doing like AI generated like examples and stuff?
6:49
Yeah, yeah.
6:50
We have a guy who's gotten so talented at the AI generation of presenting an idea or a subject or whatever that none of us even really try anymore.
7:02
We have him.
7:04
It's like, oh, we have this idea.
7:06
Can you flesh this out and present a thumbnail that would be awesome?
7:10
And usually it is.
7:11
So if there's a topic that's really popular on YouTube, or there's clear a clear trend, is that something that your team would lean into and follow the trend?
7:21
Or is that actually like, hey, we got to steer clear of this one?
7:23
I don't think there's necessarily as much of a steer clear.
7:26
I think there's just a sense of stressing evergreen content.
7:31
We want something that is still going to be pulling a pretty good amount of views in like a year, you know, like we just had the metaverse video hit 50 mil earlier this year.
7:42
And that's been growing for three years now, right?
7:46
So it's an idea that maybe, you know, obviously, like I survived 100 days in the metaverse, like I survived is not really a trend anymore on YouTube.
7:53
But the idea is something that's so evergreen that it's been garnering views constantly and consistently over years.
8:01
So we're not necessarily avoiding trends.
8:04
You know, if there's a certain world that seems to be at the forefront, we will lean into it, but we'll never go full trend.
8:13
Right.
8:14
It's definitely something that we don't want quick views.
8:17
We want long term views.
8:19
I want to ask you about your team.
8:20
It's pretty well documented that it's yourself, Ryan, and Zach.
8:24
Prior to you joining the team, it was a handful of other people, and then Ryan downsized.
8:29
What does your team look like now?
8:31
Is it still the three?
8:32
Because I saw the end of the, when you guys were in Hawaii, there was lots of you.
8:36
Yeah, there was lots of us, but that was all friends.
8:39
It's us three, and then we have a editor, sorry, a co-editor in Cohen.
8:45
and we have manager, an in-house manager and James.
8:50
But that's the whole team.
8:51
So just five of us.
8:53
And is that the right play?
8:54
It sounds like you guys are handling everything appropriately.
8:58
Right.
8:58
I'm a big proponent of small teams, especially in YouTube.
9:03
Where it all started, right, is like you're making videos
9:06
and you're just posting them online, right?
9:07
And I think that there's some value in sticking with the originality
9:11
of what made YouTube YouTube
9:13
and what makes it different from standard television or traditional media.
9:18
And I think that there's a lot of value in having people who are extremely bought into the end product.
9:24
And that's the case we find with us because we all feel like even if our names are not directly tied to it,
9:30
our reputations are.
9:31
And therefore, it's not like we're just coming in and doing a job eight to five, leaving and then not caring, right?
9:37
It's like we deeply care about everything that we touch.
9:40
and I think that having a small team contributes to that.
9:43
Not everyone, like Dude Perfect or whatever,
9:45
they're obviously running a completely different operation up there.
9:49
But for majority of people who are making content like ours,
9:52
I would always suggest a small team.
9:54
Okay, I want to talk about the Penny series
9:58
and I want to talk about the 50 States series.
10:01
But first with the Penny series,
10:02
can you give me a little bit of context of where that came from
10:07
and your role in that entire process?
10:10
Yeah, so Ryan actually came up with,
10:14
I mean, he came up with the idea himself
10:15
because he did a couple penny series before that, right?
10:18
There was like a penny $2,000.
10:21
Yeah, and then he did the one week series
10:24
in Fredericksburg, which was seven videos.
10:27
But we were filming,
10:29
like I survived 100 hours in darkness or whatever,
10:32
one of our lower performing videos.
10:34
But we were sitting there in that house,
10:36
Ryan just like was like
10:38
we should do a 30 day daily
10:40
series where we post every single day
10:42
and like have it be live and let it be
10:44
something that the audience feels like they're a part
10:46
of and then he just threw out the
10:48
idea of like well let's do a penny series
10:50
it's worked for me in the past and it would be
10:52
crazy and then we started to flesh out
10:54
the idea of like well let's go across
10:56
the country let's take a penny to Mr.
10:58
Beast
10:58
you know and lots of these
11:00
ideas that make it bigger
11:02
than what he was doing in Fredericksburg just
11:04
surviving.
11:04
It was like, now he has to travel.
11:06
Now he has an end goal.
11:07
We have a big thing we're
11:11
searching for, even though every video is going to have its own little subplots, there is an
11:15
overarching plot that ties all 30 videos together.
11:18
And from that point on, it just kind of was like,
11:20
okay, well, for me, it was like, well, let's figure out what would it actually cost to cross
11:26
America?
11:27
What are the ticket prices going to look like?
11:29
What are the cities that we kind of want to
11:30
go to?
11:30
How long do we want to be in every city?
11:32
Do we want to keep this constantly moving?
11:34
which we ended up doing like right sitting in each city for four or five days and obviously
11:39
a huge part of that is did ryan make enough money but there was like a relative plan right of like
11:45
well it's probably going to take this many days here's a few options of what the tickets are
11:50
going to cost so we had a general idea of what everything was going to be beforehand and we
11:56
definitely knew what cities we wanted to go to based on research on flights and costs and good
12:02
flight times, things like that.
12:04
And then once we had that relatively planned out, it was just me
12:08
driving the van, filming with Ryan, obviously any of his man on the street stuff, running a mile in
12:14
the Vegas heat with him or whatever, you know, things like that.
12:17
And then just making sure
12:19
Zach had everything he needed to edit in the van and just make it all the way to the finish line.
12:25
So yeah, I mean, I drove, I can't remember the exact amount, but it was like 1700 miles or
12:29
something that summer so that's crazy yeah what is like the order of like when you're choosing uh
12:37
places to go versus like shots to get i don't know like what is the order of like your planning
12:43
it's kind of like casting a wide net at first it's just getting a bunch of different things
12:48
and then looking at them side by side and saying well what's going to make the best backdrop or
12:52
what's going to make the most interesting backdrop and what's going to challenge ryan the most um
12:57
or put him in a position where he can, in a lot of cases, have a lot of social interaction,
13:02
which is, you know, partially the lifeblood of our channel.
13:06
When you were going through the Penny series, you were filming one day and then releasing
13:10
that a couple days later.
13:12
What were some things that took place in those early days?
13:15
Like,
13:15
were you constantly looking back at day one and day two and saying, okay, these were great.
13:20
Here's
13:20
how do we improve it for further?
13:22
Like, what was the difference between day one and day 30 with
13:25
the penny series creatively when we started we had obviously like a very quote-unquote strict
13:31
idea of what the videos were going to be and how they were going to be fleshed out and how
13:35
generally long each segment was going to be but as time went on we just started to discover things
13:41
like we really don't have that much control over how things are going to go down or what people
13:46
we're going to talk to we almost let the chaos take over and you can kind of see that once you
13:51
start to get to about like day 12 to 15 you could start to see ryan get a little like loopy uh and
13:58
we decided to like just lean into that you know just like let's stop you know and also to save
14:04
zach and let him run to the finish line in a way that is sustainable and also just gets us videos
14:10
out on time let's not caption anymore let's not worry about intense edits punch-ins things like
14:16
that let's let the videos be raw more um and let's let moments breathe and uh really just like
14:24
almost like lowering quote-unquote standards because it was like well we're not posting once
14:29
every two weeks we're posting once a day and people are sitting down and they're eating meals
14:34
to watch this video or they're sitting down with their families and they're loving the live nature
14:39
and the raw realness of seeing ryan and in spots where maybe like we weren't supposed to be filming
14:44
yet but we were like that's hilarious leave that in so it almost is like a lowering of standards
14:50
in a way or at least just changing a frame of mind towards like a daily posting schedule versus
14:56
we're trying to make a all-time banger on youtube you know right and that was at a time when like
15:01
kind of the opposite was happening on youtube like everything was super optimized the beastification
15:07
everything was super quick so you were making these decisions to to kind of go against the grain
15:12
Yeah, I mean, it was.
15:13
It was pretty scary.
15:15
Whenever we started, we were like, if we get 500,000 views a day, this is a success.
15:22
And if it flops, we can't quit.
15:25
So it's like, there's going to be 30 videos going up no matter what.
15:28
And so there was a big like fear of like, man, if this gets 100K a day, like this is going to be rough.
15:34
This is going to be really hard.
15:36
And yeah, like you were saying, there's like the beastification.
15:39
There is extremely optimized videos going out.
15:42
So, yeah, we did take a large risk, but we felt like it was something that the world needed at the time.
15:48
You know, everything was moving in such a breakneck pace towards nothingness.
15:53
And we felt like being able to lean into the storytelling of day-to-day life and overarching stories with little mini arcs in every single day and challenges and things like that was something that people were actually craving.
16:07
And that's why they were watching so much of the fast-paced content, right, was they were actually looking to get fulfilled by something, but they were never finding it.
16:15
So we figured we'd reach out into the more storytelling world and try to actually fulfill people.
16:22
What did you learn from the original Penny series that you applied to that second Penny series to make things easier or better?
16:52
Amsterdam, Ireland, like this, these are crazy places that people might not ever get to see.
16:57
And they're such visually stunning places that we got to focus a lot more on like,
17:02
well, no matter where we go, we're going to find someone who's extra generous, and we're going to
17:07
end up making the money so we can spend a lot more time making it visually stunning.
17:13
So it was it was a little bit of that.
17:14
And then also coming in on the editing side and
17:17
understanding how to edit on a quick, like quicker pace and no subtitles, no punch ins,
17:23
leaving things raw and real.
17:25
So we came in with that expectation.
17:28
And knowing it was only seven
17:29
days, right?
17:30
It was like, well, we don't have time to adjust.
17:32
So we kind of need to start
17:34
as if we're starting on day 15, being in a rhythm already, you know, instead of like starting out
17:40
and being like, well, we'll figure it out as we go.
17:41
You know, because there was only four,
17:44
four days that were actually live, right, where we were out and doing something and then people
17:48
were watching them.
17:49
Is it logistically more difficult to book a video internationally
17:53
rather than domestically?
17:54
I'd say for the most part, it's pretty similar.
17:56
But specifically,
17:57
when you start dealing with like Japan, they just do things very differently.
18:01
And if you are not
18:03
a month or two ahead, planning for Japan, it's significantly harder.
18:08
Like whenever we did
18:10
Most Futuristic City and Ancient City.
18:12
Ryan let me know that we were doing that on Monday,
18:14
and he was going to be flying out Thursday.
18:17
And so I was like, oh, no, like, this is so bad.
18:23
Because I had experience from when we did that Japan batch film in 2022, I believe.
18:28
And I had lots of time for that.
18:31
But then I knew these train schedules and these hard to get trains
18:35
are going to be extra hard to get.
18:37
and people are not going to be flexible.
18:40
So I had friends calling the embassy in Japan
18:44
and trying to get in contact with JR Rail
18:47
so that we could get some of these tickets,
18:48
and they were like, absolutely not.
18:50
We're not going to bend.
18:51
No kidding?
18:53
Yeah, in certain ways,
18:55
international is definitely more logistically challenging,
18:57
and especially because Ryan typically likes to get his shoots done quick.
19:02
So I'm always having to figure out a way to balance his rest,
19:05
having him have energy for videos, but also get him maybe around the world and back in like six
19:11
days.
19:12
It sounds like there's a huge emphasis on like visuals.
19:15
Where do you go to like,
19:16
make sure the places you're sending him look good?
19:20
Is it like Google Maps?
19:21
Or is it like
19:22
Instagram, like photos of other people from other people?
19:25
It's a mix.
19:26
I'd say it's mostly like Google Maps, you know, I'll give him itineraries,
19:32
and I will literally have screenshots of like Street View on Google Maps
19:35
and then like a location that you can hyperlink to on Apple Maps.
19:39
And it'd be like here from this angle, this is the shot, you know?
19:43
So it is that simple.
19:45
And then there's other times where it's like,
19:46
we'll see an Instagram post and it's like,
19:49
I need to figure out where this is.
19:50
And then I'll actually end up going to Google Maps anyways,
19:53
just to find that out.
19:54
But yeah.
19:54
Do you have a bulletproof way of getting a yes from an outreach?
19:59
I think the way that I typically approach things where I need to get a yes from somebody in order to do them is I'll give them just the amount of information that I know is not overwhelming.
20:11
And so I'll say, hey, I'm with Ryan.
20:14
I'll link the channel, right?
20:15
And then I'll say, you know, we're really interested in doing this and we want to highlight this and this is how it benefits you.
20:21
And this is how we're not going to be a burden to you and really pride ourselves on family friendly content.
20:30
And we're not like the typical what people think of as a YouTuber.
20:34
Right.
20:34
And so I'll do that and then they'll start to reach back out and talk.
20:38
And as we get deeper into the process, I'll give them a lot more solids of information and like, you know, they'll have some ideas and I'll be like, oh, actually, we're thinking this.
20:48
But that starting out in a way where I'm presenting it as this is easy for you, which it always is, right?
20:55
We never want to burden anybody.
20:57
So it's not like I'm lying.
20:58
I'm not lying.
20:59
But it's just presenting the information in an order in which it's easily digestible by them rather than like saying, hey, we have 25 people on our production that want to come here and do this thing.
21:12
And we want to film this.
21:14
Will you say yes?
21:15
It's more so starting a conversation and then getting them agreeable and then saying,
21:21
cool, we're ready to move whenever you are.
21:23
And it typically works.
21:26
Do you do that with hotels as well?
21:27
Do you even tell the hotel or do you just show up, spend the night?
21:30
It depends.
21:32
For most, like the one-star hotels, we just show up.
21:35
We just book it.
21:36
Even Airbnbs, we'll just book it and go.
21:39
We don't want to overcomplicate things and create issues where there might not be issues.
21:44
I can't imagine anyone would want to be in a video that says, hey, we're filming a video called I Stayed in One Star Hotels.
21:50
Can we stay in a hotel?
21:52
Right, exactly.
21:53
Yeah.
21:54
I'd like to go back to the vlog series.
21:57
So you did Penny Series 1, you did Penny Series 2.
22:00
Now you are at the point where you're thinking about doing another vlog series, this time 50 states in 50 days.
22:08
That was an overwhelming success.
22:09
And, you know, also there was a fundraiser tacked onto it that was massively successful.
22:14
Take me back before filming that and give me kind of like the timeline of events when this all got started and what you were thinking going into this vlog series compared to the other two.
22:24
So I got started researching everything in November of last year.
22:30
So I worked on it for like seven months beforehand.
22:33
and that was literally just like
22:37
you know Ryan had the idea
22:39
well we all were talking about like possibly
22:41
doing another daily series
22:43
but then Ryan had the idea
22:45
of like it'd be sick if we did
22:47
50 states in 50 days
22:49
and then you know just like kind of tacking
22:51
on to what's been working for us over the past year
22:53
which was like Airbnbs
22:54
so it was like this would be super fun
22:57
and interesting and he gets to
22:59
like give people a peek into his
23:01
life with you know
23:03
traveling with Haley, that was the idea because it genuinely was like a bucket list thing for them
23:07
to be able to do that.
23:08
So, you know, last November, I started literally just going on Airbnb,
23:13
state by state, just scrolling through like 50 pages of Airbnbs, and then like changing dates
23:19
and like figuring out when are all these available.
23:22
And then I would find all the states kind of
23:23
surrounding Texas.
23:25
And then I'd find cool Airbnbs, make sure they were available on these general
23:28
dates.
23:29
And then from that point, I started figuring out the route and like, is this one
23:33
available on this day?
23:34
And then at this state, is this one available?
23:36
And then I'd go find a,
23:38
you know, roadblock, have to back up, figure it out, find a new Airbnb, whatever that was like,
23:43
that whole process probably took about like three or four months.
23:46
And then from that point,
23:48
it was like, okay, we have everything booked.
23:51
Let's reach out to the Airbnbs that have like
23:53
no filming rules and make sure that we're good to film.
23:56
Let's talk to people who's maybe this
23:58
as their personal home and pay extra fees or whatever it may be so that we could do it and
24:02
just making sure overall that everything was in one place i had like a master sheet of an itinerary
24:08
for him with dates codes rules things he needed to know places he could go you know and so that
24:16
was also another thing was like researching around the areas where he could go to because we were
24:23
like this wouldn't be fun if it was only these airbnbs like if he was just going and showing
24:29
the inside of houses which i think was great but also like we thought it was kind of a vehicle
24:35
of being able to see america right another thing where we talked about with like the european penny
24:39
series like a lot of people aren't going to be able to see a lot of these states in their life
24:42
so let's like actually take them on this road trip and let's like let them see america in a way
24:48
that a lot of people can't see it.
24:49
And so it was like researching,
24:52
are there events going on?
24:54
Is there people that live near it
24:56
that could come and, you know,
24:57
help out and do things like that?
24:59
Like Nick, we reached out to Nick
25:01
and thought it'd be fun for him
25:02
to cook a meal up there in Massachusetts.
25:04
And then like Dr. Mike reached out to us
25:06
and this was like during the filming,
25:07
but they reached out to us
25:08
and that was a surprise that me
25:10
and Dr. Mike planned for Hayley.
25:14
Yeah, so he had no idea that was happening.
25:16
So that was genuine.
25:18
But yeah, so it was just like logistically extremely heavy for sure.
25:23
And you kept track again in like a giant, was it like a giant Notion page?
25:26
Yeah, it was.
25:27
I had like a Google Docs sheet and it was like 54 pages.
25:32
And then it was just like a list of all the 50 states in order with the dates and communication,
25:38
important things to know.
25:39
And then there was page by page, a full sheet of all the information they needed on the
25:44
house addresses, places to go, things to do, rules, check-in codes.
25:49
So it's just like a one-stop
25:50
shop that Ryan could go and see everything he needs to see for that day and the upcoming days.
25:57
What were like the contingencies you had to be aware of?
26:00
Like if an Airbnb bailed at last minute,
26:02
that would have been super challenging to solve.
26:06
That was a big one.
26:07
I was just making sure that a lot of these didn't bail.
26:10
Like specifically,
26:11
we found out like the month before that the frank lloyd right one in arizona was on the market
26:16
and uh so we had to reach out and be like hey if this sells like are we good because we were like
26:23
we really wanted to do that airbnb and they were like oh yeah we have it in the contract where
26:28
people have to honor the airbnbs out for at least this many months and i was like great but yeah
26:34
that was like the big contingency and then obviously like issues on the road like you never
26:38
know right if his car breaks down or um pop tire or you know roads are shut down things like that
26:46
and it's like okay what's our backup options how are we going to do this and then wheel of doom
26:51
stuff it was like you know if he gets like a reverse card like this could be detrimental
26:57
on certain days sure it was like you know just there's certain things we couldn't avoid but
27:02
just like being aware of what punishments could happen at what points and just knowing at least
27:09
some way of overcoming them did you have second options in case did you have yeah yeah i definitely
27:16
had like i would do that you know probably like 10 days in advance i didn't have like 50 of them
27:23
listed out but it was like as we moved on i would go forward and be like here's a backup just in
27:27
case um so there was always an option or if like another thing that we were worried about was like
27:33
getting like doxxed like oh true out you know early that like actually we had someone email us
27:40
and say they looked at the back end of saint jude's website and they're like hey i can see
27:44
all the addresses of every air no kidding yeah and like it was awesome that the person that found
27:51
that was a good person right you know so we were able to remedy that situation really quickly
27:56
because they emailed us it was like day three before the videos were even live
28:00
um so we just got lucky but it was that was another thing it was like man if we get
28:05
docs like this could be an issue you know yeah you did not go along for the ride with this one
28:12
if i unless you hit it from you didn't so that was a decision that was different from the penny
28:17
series what kind of new logistics got introduced there you know as like a creative director i don't
28:22
have a hand in any of the filming or even seeing what's going on right so there was like a relative
28:28
level of like uncertainty uh and making sure because there would be some times where you'd
28:33
get all the footage back and be like i really wish you would have done this and then you have
28:37
to communicate that you know across and that was a that was mainly an issue in the first like 10 days
28:42
of just like a lot of voice notes back and forth of like hey i really think you should do this i'm
28:46
thinking this and also if you're in the middle of rural america just the confidence in the internet
28:53
speed of sending footage over and making sure that your team gets it in time and is able to turn
28:58
around quickly.
28:58
Right.
29:00
We never really had any issues with that.
29:02
Luckily.
29:02
I mean, the Starlink
29:03
served us extremely well and, uh, and the wifi was great in a lot of these Airbnbs luckily.
29:09
Um, but yeah, I mean in the New York Airbnb in the listing, it was like no cellular service,
29:14
no wifi, nothing.
29:16
You are off grid.
29:17
And so that was like our big one.
29:19
We were like the Starlink
29:19
better work and it was great.
29:21
Yeah.
29:22
We never had any issues of like, we don't have all the footage
29:25
whenever they're starting the next day.
29:27
When they woke up, they had everything, which is great.
29:29
The editors.
29:30
Yeah.
29:31
Was their life sustainable during all of these things?
29:34
No.
29:35
Okay.
29:37
No, not at all.
29:38
Yeah, to be completely frank and honest, no.
29:40
By day like 30, I mean, by like day 30,
29:44
they were like so exhausted.
29:47
I mean, you know, they're pulling like 16-hour days
29:50
every single day.
29:51
They're tanks.
29:52
I mean, they deserve all the praise in the world for this whole series.
29:56
It would be nothing without them, obviously.
29:58
And I mean, they just did it.
29:59
I can't believe it.
30:01
Did you have any like rules?
30:04
Like we can only have them travel so many miles a day or it has to be like within a
30:09
certain distance or like things like that that you like don't break when you're planning
30:13
something like this?
30:15
Generally, it was like, let's try to not have any days longer than 10 hours.
30:21
and there were points where that was of driving no driving yeah they were everything was unavoidable
30:27
especially when the wheel of doom started going you know it was like it was really hard to get
30:32
any kind of sustainable days or easy days for them um but it was like if there's a really really
30:39
cool airbnb in north montana north montana is like we can't do that yeah that's a 12-hour drive
30:44
and then immediately turning around to another 12-hour drive so it was like let's lower our
30:49
standards just a little bit so that, you know, this can be actually done, you know, because
30:55
with drives like that one bad wheel of doom spin and it's over.
30:58
So it's a big, yeah, big thing of
31:01
like keeping the drives at least short.
31:03
So for people who are maybe considering doing like a
31:06
30 day vlog series for themselves, do you have any kind of advice or any kind of like,
31:12
be aware of this before you pull the trigger on it?
31:15
I think my main advice is just don't let
31:18
yourself be okay with missing a day.
31:22
Like you really have to, I think that there's so much
31:25
value in hitting it every single day and consistency.
31:29
You know, I mean, there are
31:30
people when we were doing the penny series who were trying to also do series at the same time
31:34
and they would miss an upload.
31:35
And it's like immediately you lose all trust of the viewer.
31:38
You lose the routine aspect.
31:41
You lose the fact that they're like, oh, well, they're just going
31:42
to miss again or they don't care or things like that.
31:45
So it's like, don't even address it.
31:48
Just
31:48
do it, you know, and like, don't start it unless you know, you can achieve that.
31:53
And also do it in
31:54
a way where you know, you can achieve it.
31:56
Don't, don't be crazy with yourself.
31:58
Don't set these
31:59
lofty expectations of things that are just genuinely impossible to do.
32:04
Right.
32:04
And I think
32:04
that the thing that people, if they want to do a series really need to get into their head is it's
32:10
not a typical YouTube video and you shouldn't expect it to be right.
32:14
It's, it's something
32:16
else entirely.
32:17
I mean, it's closer to Casey Neistat than it is to Mr.
32:19
Beast.
32:20
And so you have
32:21
to accept that role of it, that it's going to be a little bit more raw.
32:25
It's going to be a little
32:26
bit more unpolished in a way, but that's the magic of it.
32:30
And the numbers are probably going to be
32:31
different as well, right?
32:33
Absolutely.
32:34
A 30-day series, if it's not gaining a ton of traction
32:38
up front, or maybe it's gaining more traction, you can't really compare it to your other content
32:42
because it's so different and the performance will be different of it.
32:45
I don't think you can just do Casey Neistat style vlogs or, you know, the stuff from 2015,
32:50
2016 anymore, where it's a day in my life.
32:52
You have to have some kind of like tentpole substance to it.
32:56
Right.
32:56
How do you know whether some kind of tentpole idea is worth adding into the content or if
33:03
it's not the right kind of thing for the vlog itself?
33:07
It's interesting, but I think a lot of that is, I mean, truly just like vibe, right?
33:12
Like, does it vibe with you?
33:14
Does it vibe with what people expect of you?
33:17
And is it something that's going to tell a story that wraps up in a bow by the end of it?
33:23
Because whether or not people are gifted storytellers, or even understand storytelling, humans in general are searching for everything wrapped up pretty nice in a bow, at least in some aspect, like every day of the Penny series, we had some mini arc wrap up in a bow, right?
33:38
Like going and getting dinner with this one guy or like going and doing our laundry.
33:42
And then it was like at the end, it was like, oh, we accomplished our thing for the day.
33:46
Do you have like a story framework or like what is a story for you guys?
33:50
No, because it changes so much with every video.
33:54
We have a good understanding of the way that we want to tell our stories.
33:58
It's so hard because we just we don't really talk about it all that much, really.
34:02
You know, other than like establishing a B plot and then having like a like an intro and a finale.
34:07
But I think that the natural progression that we always go for is some kind of transformation.
34:12
Leave the story better than you found it or you leave yourself better than you came into it with.
34:17
So there's some kind of positive and uplifting transformation through every story that we tell, whether that's someone else, ourselves, or even just a challenge.
34:28
It's just something where it can be better than you found it.
34:33
What's your favorite video that you've worked on or what's been the most rewarding one?
34:36
My favorite video is the Loneliest Job.
34:40
I just love that video so much.
34:43
I think the experience was a big part of it because me, Ryan, and Zach all went to that.
34:47
So it was like going to this remote lighthouse island in the Arctic Circle.
34:52
It was just seeing the Northern Lights.
34:54
Like, it was just unreal.
34:55
Like, it was a crazy experience.
34:58
But also, I think there was just something about the story that we told in that video with Elena.
35:04
And she was such an incredible person.
35:06
her and food um yeah we're such great people and uh the way that we presented that and this
35:14
the kind of the overarching story of like loneliness versus doing what you love and
35:20
when you do something you care about you're not lonely anymore um you know it's it's about doing
35:24
what you love so i just love that whole story and the experience of that so that's definitely
35:29
my favorite video by far nice yeah great video i that was the one that i was thinking about from
35:34
like a logistics potential logistics nightmare like first of all you have to find that this
35:38
person exists and then you have to make sure that they're okay with you coming there and it's not
35:42
easy to get there and a whole bunch of different things yeah that was that was a that was specifically
35:47
the one i was thinking about when i was kind of explaining presenting something to somebody right
35:51
because you know she's running this old lighthouse and restoring it and doing these things and it's
35:57
like the last thing she wants is like three young youtubers to come in there and do whatever but she
36:02
was incredible and uh that was definitely one where i was like hey this would be great and it
36:08
just so happened to work out where she was restoring it in order to have people come out
36:12
and do a whole experience so it was kind of a you know we were able to present it like this could
36:17
get you a lot of eyes on your on your experience so do you have like a worst video least favorite
36:23
video oh yeah 100 uh shrek shrek fest for sure we just came off of the penny series thinking we
36:34
could do whatever we wanted gotcha we got we got humbled very quickly um and i think we just like
36:42
we were so exhausted from the penny series and we took a long break and even filming that like
36:46
we forgot our camera at the hotel we didn't have like a certain ticket we forgot you know it was
36:52
just like everything was so bad from start to finish and we had no control over it and then
36:58
the video itself didn't do that great so it's like nothing about it was it was that good how do you
37:04
know when to like cut a video like this video is not good enough like oh man we've only had to do
37:09
that a couple times and we've actually only ever had to do it once where we had the whole video
37:13
filmed which was crazy that's so rare for us but i think it was just like as we were planning it
37:20
out or filming it, it was like, number one, this is not interesting.
37:25
You know, the idea may be
37:26
interesting, the title may be interesting, but the actual content is not interesting.
37:32
And it's not
37:34
exactly what the title is promising.
37:36
And there's no way to get it to that point.
37:38
You know, it may
37:38
be like more of like a fantasy type thing, or whatever it is, just an abstract concept that
37:44
sounds interesting when you're when it's spoken, but then when practice in real life, it might not
37:48
live up to those expectations.
37:50
Then after that, you know, like, for example, with the one that
37:53
we filmed and didn't post, the reason we cut that was, it just was not the vibe.
37:59
It was not a Ryan
37:59
Trahan video.
38:00
It wasn't, it was positive, and it was happy, but it just like, fell off in a weird
38:05
way.
38:06
And it was like, definitely reaching out of our comfort zone in a way that we aren't pushing
38:11
the envelope, but more so like, I don't know, it really was just a vibe thing of like, this is just
38:16
wrong.
38:16
I don't think people are going to take to this well.
38:18
And it took all the way into the end of
38:20
like, to editing it to make that decision.
38:24
Yeah, yeah.
38:25
Once we started seeing it laid out on
38:26
timeline and the story not coming together, the way we wanted it to, it was like,
38:32
gotcha.
38:33
Yeah.
38:34
Okay, so my last question for you, Preston is one that I like to ask everybody,
38:37
who is a creator that's on your radar that you really like right now?
38:41
I love Jesse James West.
38:42
He's just really cool.
38:44
I'm big into fitness.
38:45
I'm a bodybuilder.
38:46
So and the way that he has so elevated himself beyond the fitness niche into a realm like ours, which is extremely broad is something that is extremely challenging.
38:58
And I respect him deeply for being able to do it in the way that he has.
39:02
Preston, thank you so much for joining the show for being an early guest.
39:05
It was great chatting with you hearing your side of the story, your insights.
39:09
Thank you guys so much.
39:10
This is so fun.
39:10
I really appreciate it.
39:11
Thank you very much for watching and listening to this episode of the Gimbal Podcast.
39:15
If you
39:16
liked it and if you're new here, please consider subscribing or leaving us a review.
39:19
If you want
39:20
to watch another episode, I recommend my interview with Harper Makowski, the head of production for
39:26
MKBHD.
39:27
I'll see you there.