Latest / All About The Joy / Directing Dignity: Joel Lava on AI, Leadership, and the Politics of Conviction

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Directing Dignity: Joel Lava on AI, Leadership, and the Politics of Conviction · All About The Joy

• 0:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Hi everyone, welcome to All About the Joy.
• 0:02
  Carmen Lezeth: This is our private lounge.
• 0:04
  Carmen Lezeth: And today we're talking to one of my good friends, Joel Lava.
• 0:07
  Carmen Lezeth: He has been on the show quite a few times in the past couple years.
• 0:10
  Carmen Lezeth: But I thought we would just have a little conversation with him so you could get to know him better.
• 0:15
  Carmen Lezeth: And uh maybe he inspired you a bit.
• 0:18
  Carmen Lezeth: I learned a lot about him today, which was weird because he's been a good friend for quite a long time.
• 0:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Enjoy.
• 0:24
  Carmen Lezeth: No, it's okay.
• 0:25
  Carmen Lezeth: You can do whatever you want, but you're such a dork guy.
• 0:29
  Carmen Lezeth: You were making fun of my background.
• 0:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Is that what you're doing?
• 0:33
  Joel Lava: I I was not making fun of it.
• 0:34
  Joel Lava: I'm merely saying now that you're becoming a paragon of the podcasting industry, um, it seems like you could have a background befitting of your greatness.
• 0:46
  Joel Lava: Whereas I'm not I'm not that.
• 0:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Of my greatness.
• 0:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 0:52
  Carmen Lezeth: I like how you fix that up.
• 0:53
  Carmen Lezeth: So okay.
• 0:54
  Carmen Lezeth: How are you feeling about last night, politics-wise?
• 0:57
  Joel Lava: Just like, you know, we went we went Clinton, W, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump.
• 1:06
  Joel Lava: It's just like this cycle of just like is just it's kind of expected at this point.
• 1:13
  Joel Lava: We we're a country we're a sick, mentally ill country of ignorant assholes.
• 1:18
  Carmen Lezeth: I love that you just said that.
• 1:19
  Carmen Lezeth: I was really proud of New York, though.
• 1:21
  Carmen Lezeth: I was so glad that he won Mandami.
• 1:23
  Carmen Lezeth: How do you say his name?
• 1:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Mandani.
• 1:25
  Joel Lava: I follow black Twitter basically, and man, of course you do.
• 1:29
  Joel Lava: So much black Twitter is like anti-Mandani, and it's just like, I'm just like, Jesus, man.
• 1:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Like the Can I just tell you that you shouldn't even be on Twitter?
• 1:39
  Carmen Lezeth: But okay.
• 1:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Like I left Twitter.
• 1:41
  Joel Lava: I call it Black Twitter, but it's blue sky.
• 1:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, I don't use black sky.
• 1:45
  Joel Lava: It's just the amount of hand-reading over this guy, primarily over what he has said about Israel and any direction.
• 1:53
  Joel Lava: I'm like, is he running for Secretary of State?
• 1:56
  Joel Lava: Like, this dude's running for New York City mayor, and then just the hysteria over wanting to do a pilot program of a couple free grocery stores.
• 2:04
  Joel Lava: Like, he's not, and you know it's all bogus when half the time they're saying this guy is gonna destroy the great city of New York, and the other half are time the same people are saying this guy has no experience, he's in over his head and he's gonna be overwhelmed.
• 2:18
  Joel Lava: It's like, well, which is it?
• 2:19
  Joel Lava: Is he so I don't know, just the hysteria over this dude is just like oh, I was glad to see it.
• 2:26
  Carmen Lezeth: I I got rid of a whole bunch of Facebook people that I saw last night saying things like, like, you probably know one of these people.
• 2:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, I don't know who he is.
• 2:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Something I don't know who he is.
• 2:38
  Joel Lava: I know the name.
• 2:39
  Carmen Lezeth: He wrote something like, I can't believe after 25 years of 9-11 New York elected a Muslim.
• 2:47
  Carmen Lezeth: And I was like, and you're blocked.
• 2:48
  Carmen Lezeth: I was like, I'm out.
• 2:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, what is wrong with like how do you not know racism?
• 2:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, what?
• 2:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, oh my god, yeah.
• 2:56
  Carmen Lezeth: He's the son of a very famous woman filmmaker whose name escapes me at the moment.
• 3:00
  Joel Lava: Yeah, she didn't, uh namesake, right?
• 3:02
  Carmen Lezeth: She did but this she did like these three movies, but that's what I'm saying.
• 3:06
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, I it's just weird.
• 3:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know.
• 3:08
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, what is right?
• 3:09
  Joel Lava: Well, that's because we're a mentally ill country and there's become a new permission structure to be racist.
• 3:15
  Joel Lava: And I think to a certain degree, it's nice when people can be real and aren't hiding behind a facade, but leadership can take people as mob mentality to do good or bad, and we've gone past the line of just lifting a bit of the veil where people can be more honest to taking people into a place of hate and hysterical mob mentality, hate.
• 3:41
  Joel Lava: And what's we've gone way past the facade line of honesty, and people are just like a good leader inspires our better, better angels, and that is not what leadership is doing now, and people are being stirred up, just like in I'm not saying to the extreme of Nazi Germany, but those same Germans who got swept up into this like kill the impure people, literally 20 years later, are the most progressive country, you know.
• 4:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Like people are Germany is for sure.
• 4:08
  Joel Lava: I'm an anthropologist, like people at the base level are all the same, um, despite our ethnicity and culture, we're all driven by the same bond of humanity, and that can be taken by we all humanity looks to a leader.
• 4:24
  Joel Lava: Most humanity wants to follow.
• 4:26
  Joel Lava: And a a leader can take us into a place of great goodness or it can take us to a bad place.
• 4:31
  Joel Lava: And anyway.
• 4:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Who who would be somebody that you would say is a good leader in like the past 30 years that you would say did a good job of leading anywhere in the world?
• 4:46
  Joel Lava: Well, you mean in any sector or in politics?
• 4:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Just as an example.
• 4:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, as an example of what you just said, because I think that was kind of profound.
• 4:54
  Joel Lava: Um, I think the easy answer is Obama.
• 4:56
  Joel Lava: I don't think I think Biden was a better, got more done in two years than Obama did in eight.
• 5:02
  Joel Lava: But Obama definitely appealed to our better angels.
• 5:05
  Joel Lava: I mean, Obama is the perfect example of there's so many think tanks and pundits and hired consultants about what a Democrat needs to say.
• 5:15
  Joel Lava: And part of my whole spiel, you know, I make all my videos is it really doesn't matter what they say.
• 5:20
  Joel Lava: It's that whatever they say, they believe it, they stand on their courage or their convictions.
• 5:24
  Joel Lava: So uh the Democratic Party could easily be led by a conservative moderate or by a progressive liberal.
• 5:32
  Joel Lava: Either is totally possible if that person is charismatic, strong, and doesn't back down and throws counterpunches.
• 5:40
  Joel Lava: Because Democrats are good at throwing a single punch, and then when they get punched back, they're like, oh, it hurts when I get in a fight.
• 5:46
  Carmen Lezeth: I know you get really annoyed at at politicians who don't fight back.
• 5:50
  Carmen Lezeth: So are you loving Gavin Newsom or do you think he's gonna be able to do that?
• 5:54
  Joel Lava: Gavin Newsom's interesting because man, it's like I've he's got that smarmy, just physically, he's smarmy.
• 6:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 6:01
  Joel Lava: Um, I have a friend from college.
• 6:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Wait, wait, wait, you say smarmy, and most women are like, yum, look at that.
• 6:08
  Joel Lava: No, like that slick, greasy, like snake oil salesman kind of.
• 6:12
  Joel Lava: That's just physically his traits.
• 6:14
  Joel Lava: And I have a friend from college who kind of came off that way, and it was I like as someone with like a monotone voice, etc.
• 6:22
  Joel Lava: Like, my friend in college was just that was just his his way.
• 6:26
  Joel Lava: Like, physically, that's how he sounded.
• 6:28
  Joel Lava: And when you got to know him, you knew he was like this genuine, really.
• 6:30
  Joel Lava: So I I think Newsom, man, he's just got you're running the fourth largest economy in the world.
• 6:37
  Joel Lava: Peep you're just gonna be so much that people pick at you.
• 6:40
  Joel Lava: Like, people, a lot of liberals go at him because of his stance on trans issues isn't progressive enough.
• 6:45
  Joel Lava: And then, of course, there's the homeless problem, and then our education's not the best.
• 6:50
  Joel Lava: Um, but then there's so much really good stuff in California.
• 6:53
  Joel Lava: But um, as far as like a chance to run for president, I don't know, man.
• 6:57
  Joel Lava: The whole just the homelessness thing and crime.
• 7:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, look at this is where I kind of argue with people about Gavin Newsom.
• 7:05
  Carmen Lezeth: It's the same thing they did with Barack Obama, is this kind of idea that everybody's perfect and can fix everything in one moment.
• 7:12
  Carmen Lezeth: The homeless problem is not completely Gavin Newsom's fault.
• 7:15
  Carmen Lezeth: He inherited it.
• 7:15
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm saying it's like everything is being, you know, like having what what I hate about the Democratic Party, and you know I left the Democratic Party, is this idea that everybody has to be perfect.
• 7:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Everybody has to be perfect, and they have to, you know, every box has to be checked.
• 7:31
  Carmen Lezeth: And that's why I'm so proud of what happened in New York.
• 7:34
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, I don't agree with 95% of probably what um the newly elected mayor agrees with.
• 7:42
  Carmen Lezeth: I really don't.
• 7:44
  Carmen Lezeth: But I I was for him 100%.
• 7:47
  Carmen Lezeth: And if I lived and was a resident of New York, I would have voted for him because that's what we need.
• 7:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Young people, smart people.
• 7:53
  Carmen Lezeth: They may not do it, like it may not check every box I believe in, but I know that it like what you said earlier.
• 8:00
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, he has this conviction, he believes it.
• 8:03
  Joel Lava: And I that's why I think that kind of is the reason I'm most excited for Mandani, too, is because he doesn't check every box.
• 8:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 8:12
  Joel Lava: He literally is charismatic, he stands on the current of his convictions, he doesn't, he doesn't back down and equivocate and capitulate.
• 8:19
  Joel Lava: He's like, this is where I'm at.
• 8:20
  Joel Lava: And not only am I saying, he doesn't even say this is where I'm at, take it or leave it, he's like, this is where I'm at, and I love where I'm at because I think this is the best way, and I'm passionately excited about what I believe.
• 8:30
  Joel Lava: Not like, well, but like Muslim, I'm not blaming him for the homelessness, but I'm saying on a national race, he would get tarred with so many negative traits, whereas Obama was a blank slate, for better or for worse.
• 8:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my God.
• 8:46
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, I say this with love.
• 8:48
  Carmen Lezeth: You guys really, and I say you guys, uh, I I am shook at how much you guys revise what you remember of Barack Obama running that race.
• 8:58
  Carmen Lezeth: I remember it like it was yesterday.
• 8:59
  Carmen Lezeth: I do too.
• 8:59
  Carmen Lezeth: It was not a blank slate.
• 9:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Are you out of your mind?
• 9:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my God.
• 9:04
  Joel Lava: What do you mean he was?
• 9:05
  Joel Lava: He had no legislative accomplishments.
• 9:08
  Carmen Lezeth: But it that that's not what I thought you meant by blank slate.
• 9:11
  Carmen Lezeth: He wasn't, it wasn't a okay.
• 9:13
  Carmen Lezeth: I thought you meant like there was no issues whatsoever with him.
• 9:16
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my god, they were going after him every five seconds.
• 9:19
  Joel Lava: No, no, yeah.
• 9:19
  Joel Lava: No, he was a he was a black terrorist with a Muslim, right?
• 9:24
  Carmen Lezeth: And he was like, No, that's what I told my kids.
• 9:27
  Joel Lava: I tell my kids if you want to understand how bad 2008 was as a country, we were willing to, instead of electing a white war hero, we're willing to elect a black Muslim terrorist.
• 9:38
  Joel Lava: That's how he's not.
• 9:40
  Carmen Lezeth: For the people who are watching this, he is not.
• 9:44
  Joel Lava: That was the fear.
• 9:45
  Carmen Lezeth: That was the fear of the well, that's what that's what they put on him.
• 9:49
  Carmen Lezeth: That's what the Republican, the conservative legislatively.
• 9:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, got it.
• 9:54
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm so sorry.
• 9:55
  Carmen Lezeth: I apologize.
• 9:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, I I actually love this conversation, even though I didn't really want to talk about politics with you, but you grew up in Texas.
• 10:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, sorry about that.
• 10:04
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh do you do you miss Texas?
• 10:08
  Carmen Lezeth: Do you how do you feel about your state in comparison to California?
• 10:13
  Joel Lava: Well, it's funny, I didn't make a video on this too.
• 10:15
  Joel Lava: Um I didn't see it.
• 10:16
  Joel Lava: I miss Texas uh some metaphorically and literally.
• 10:20
  Joel Lava: Um I grew up in a completely different Texas.
• 10:23
  Joel Lava: I grew up in a Texas with Democratic governors and Democratic senators and Democratic House of Representatives.
• 10:28
  Joel Lava: Barbara Jordan was the first black uh representative.
• 10:33
  Joel Lava: Um and I grew up in Austin, which was, you know, yeah.
• 10:37
  Carmen Lezeth: So the coolest place in Texas.
• 10:39
  Joel Lava: Yeah, it's where you know I grew up in the Richard Link later slacker Austin.
• 10:43
  Joel Lava: And I grew up in the Austin that hadn't had its coolness commodified yet, like the South by Southwest and the music scene and the film scene and the hipster scene.
• 10:53
  Joel Lava: That was all just what it was.
• 10:54
  Joel Lava: And as soon as I go, I went off to college and I came back and we land at the airport, and it's like keep Austin weird, and like all this like official campaigns of it was like it had been taken away.
• 11:05
  Joel Lava: And now I go back to Austin and there's a little smog and there's traffic, and there's places I used to drive by that were like forests are now just you know strip malls, and it's just not the same city anymore.
• 11:18
  Joel Lava: And obviously, tragically, just healthcare, education, politics, you know, is just it's insane.
• 11:27
  Joel Lava: It's just it's like freaking it's literally the closest thing to Afghanistan.
• 11:32
  Joel Lava: I don't know, man.
• 11:32
  Joel Lava: It's like Wait, what?
• 11:34
  Carmen Lezeth: Why are you exaggerating like that?
• 11:38
  Joel Lava: Like their adherence to like the abortion and their their bounty laws about finding someone who getting people to report on other people driving over state lines to get an abortion, like just the most crazy extreme stuff.
• 11:52
  Joel Lava: And I didn't know that.
• 11:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Are you for real?
• 11:55
  Joel Lava: Yeah, that was the bounty law.
• 11:56
  Joel Lava: That was like under when Biden was president.
• 11:58
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my god.
• 12:00
  Joel Lava: So yeah, uh, Texas was amazing, and I grew up in a Texas is truly the independent spirit.
• 12:06
  Joel Lava: It's the only state in the country that was its own country uh in 1836.
• 12:11
  Joel Lava: You take, you know, we take seventh grade uh Texas history.
• 12:15
  Joel Lava: Um, that's where the six flags comes from, the theme park, because Texas has lived under six flags.
• 12:22
  Joel Lava: Uh I I can name them for you if you want, but um it's that independent streak also, even when it came to like the Confederacy, uh this is where I was ignorant as a kid.
• 12:33
  Joel Lava: Like I really thought it was states' rights when I was a kid, because in Texas, Texas is all about like there were secession movements when I was a kid, they never went anywhere.
• 12:43
  Joel Lava: But Texas literally is heritage, is we were our own republic.
• 12:47
  Joel Lava: We don't need the rest of this fucking country, and there's like this badass, cool cowboy thing that goes along with it.
• 12:53
  Joel Lava: And there are people who are daughters of the Confederacy when I was a kid, and I just thought that was the same as daughters of the revolution, but I now see it differently.
• 13:02
  Joel Lava: But just growing up there, there's like this cool independent, like fuck you, we don't need anyone else's spirit, and it was democratic.
• 13:10
  Joel Lava: So it was a great place to grow up, um, but not so great.
• 13:14
  Joel Lava: My daughter doesn't ever want to set foot there.
• 13:17
  Carmen Lezeth: I agree with your daughter.
• 13:18
  Carmen Lezeth: I I've been there like, I don't know, maybe 10 times, and I I have no interest in my friends who live there.
• 13:24
  Joel Lava: Texas and Florida to me are like I sadly my friends I grew up with there are you know not wanting to be there.
• 13:31
  Joel Lava: And what's also interesting is growing up in Austin, as like a high schooler, I was really not involved, but very aware of like local politics, like mayoral level city council politics and a little state, but not a lot of national.
• 13:44
  Joel Lava: And it's really interesting because that's actually cool.
• 13:47
  Joel Lava: Yeah, I was the state capital and this Austin City, and my buddy from high school is now the county judge, which is basically more powerful than the mayor.
• 13:57
  Joel Lava: But now that I'm an adult and I live in California, I couldn't tell you anything about Burbank or LA politics, and I put know very little about California, and I'm like all about national politics, but that's also a reflection of the times we live in where it's I was just gonna say that isn't uh, but you do know who represents you in Congress, though, right?
• 14:16
  Joel Lava: I do.
• 14:16
  Joel Lava: I'm thinking of running against her.
• 14:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Are you really?
• 14:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Are you gonna get into politics?
• 14:21
  Joel Lava: I've just been playing with it because I'm so upset.
• 14:23
  Joel Lava: Joel! No, I'm a single-issue guy, though, because she's actually it's Laura Friedman.
• 14:28
  Joel Lava: She's actually by all accounts good, but she's part of just the old 20th century style technocrat who isn't like I want, I'm just my one of my things that gets me really angry right now is and I have a letter, I don't have it around, but I wrote her a letter saying every day uh our president commits multiple impeachable offenses, and all you leaders do is report on it.
• 14:52
  Joel Lava: Like all these speeches by our democratic leaders saying he is breaking the constitution and he's criminally, he's taking bribes, and they say all this, and then they I'm like, cool.
• 15:02
  Joel Lava: I didn't elect you to be a reporter.
• 15:04
  Joel Lava: I I have reporters who tell me this.
• 15:06
  Joel Lava: Like, what are you doing?
• 15:07
  Joel Lava: And that the only way to stop our president is through impeachment.
• 15:10
  Joel Lava: And I know Congress can't do it because of the blah blah blah, but if you're not even calling for it, we don't have any power.
• 15:15
  Joel Lava: That's what you've got to call for it.
• 15:17
  Joel Lava: You need to be filing articles of impeachment every day, or else what's what are you doing?
• 15:22
  Joel Lava: That's like, and so it that drives me nuts.
• 15:25
  Joel Lava: So I want to run, if only just to highlight that thing.
• 15:29
  Carmen Lezeth: But I can't believe you would want to run.
• 15:31
  Carmen Lezeth: I find that well, I don't.
• 15:33
  Joel Lava: I've never have, but I'm very angry.
• 15:35
  Joel Lava: As you know, I'm very politically active and I'm out in the streets every week.
• 15:39
  Carmen Lezeth: And so I'm very activated, and I've just but you've always been very activated in politics.
• 15:45
  Carmen Lezeth: You supported Joe Biden's run.
• 15:48
  Joel Lava: I've been making political videos since the late 90s.
• 15:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, you've always been.
• 15:52
  Carmen Lezeth: How does that it's so funny because you're part of Hollywood, right?
• 15:56
  Carmen Lezeth: You're a director and well, no, no, but but you are.
• 15:59
  Carmen Lezeth: You work in the industry, and so many more people are afraid of ever showing their personal side.
• 16:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, does it ever conflict with you getting a job at all?
• 16:08
  Joel Lava: Or I mean, I my career is basically non-existent, so you could argue it hasn't helped.
• 16:14
  Carmen Lezeth: Do you think it's because of that or because of AI?
• 16:17
  Joel Lava: Oh, I I think it's because of a variety of reasons.
• 16:20
  Joel Lava: Really?
• 16:21
  Joel Lava: I mean, I've been I'm just telling you what I was told.
• 16:26
  Joel Lava: Don't freak out on me.
• 16:28
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not gonna freak out.
• 16:29
  Joel Lava: I was told if with my real, you know, my portfolio of work, of commercials and music videos and promos, that if I was a 30-year-old black woman, I would be a millionaire.
• 16:40
  Joel Lava: But because I'm a middle-aged white guy, I will not get hired.
• 16:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Why do you think I would yell at you about that?
• 16:45
  Joel Lava: Because it's a racial thing and that's what's happening.
• 16:50
  Joel Lava: I'm saying that's one aspect.
• 16:52
  Joel Lava: I got the industry is dying.
• 16:54
  Joel Lava: Like, as I've been predicting Hollywood changing.
• 16:57
  Joel Lava: Dying.
• 16:58
  Joel Lava: Like I've been pr since 2023, I've been predicting in 2027 pretty much no Hollywood will exist.
• 17:06
  Joel Lava: Except for like autour specific things.
• 17:10
  Joel Lava: Like AI is gonna completely wipe out Hollywood.
• 17:12
  Carmen Lezeth: But you love AI, you're one of the first people I saw using AI.
• 17:16
  Joel Lava: I I uh Or now you don't?
• 17:18
  Joel Lava: I have cultivated a perception that I'm into AI.
• 17:23
  Carmen Lezeth: I love how you just said that.
• 17:25
  Carmen Lezeth: What does that mean?
• 17:26
  Joel Lava: Well, I like being on set with actors and art directors and set decorators and all that.
• 17:32
  Carmen Lezeth: I uh but you're learning AI so that like I mean, you were using AI for a while.
• 17:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Am I crazy?
• 17:37
  Joel Lava: Well, I'm using AI, but it's like there's just no thrill in just like writing some text prompts and then waiting.
• 17:43
  Joel Lava: Like, and anyone can do it.
• 17:45
  Joel Lava: Like my skills and what I have in here are pretty much no longer necessary.
• 17:50
  Joel Lava: And that was very, very depressing.
• 17:52
  Joel Lava: That happened earlier this year when Google Vio came out.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:56
  Joel Lava: Because I saw someone create a chat GPT script that's basically like a mad libs where it's a questionnaire.
• 18:02
  Joel Lava: What genre do you want?
• 18:04
  Joel Lava: How many characters, blah, blah, blah?
• 18:06
  Joel Lava: What location, what lighting style?
• 18:08
  Joel Lava: And then it just spit out literally a Hollywood production level scene of like a dude in the wilderness walking through the snow, and then he goes into an old cabin, and all the camera angles are cool, and the lighting is and it looks real.
• 18:20
  Joel Lava: So I'm and like I got into a debate with my friend who's in he edits television, and I was saying it's gonna be over in 2027, and like I was like, I don't like the term AI slop because it blows me away what people call slop.
• 18:35
  Joel Lava: And he's like, like to create a fake person talking in a scene before AI would take a team of people weeks, and it would still have that uncanny valley.
• 18:46
  Joel Lava: Now, that exact same scene that would take highest level professionals weeks is literally being done with a text prompt in like five seconds, and that is so mind-blowing when for people call it slop, or my editor friend who really he's great and he studies performance and how things tie together.
• 19:04
  Joel Lava: He's like, Yeah, but the performances are just they're not I'm like, dude, we're look where we were a year ago.
• 19:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I think people are are are using that as like a way to make themselves feel better, like, oh, there's deadness in the eyes.
• 19:20
  Carmen Lezeth: And I'm like, I just believed what I just saw.
• 19:24
  Joel Lava: I also I also point out to like King Kong in 1927, yes, you know, the Ray Harry Hall.
• 19:29
  Joel Lava: Yeah, but the audiences ate that up, or just go back and watch a movie from the 1980s, like a VFX, like you watch it now, and you're like, oh, that's like some weird VFX.
• 19:41
  Joel Lava: Right.
• 19:41
  Carmen Lezeth: Like you can watch any of the Star Wars, the first ones, you know what I mean?
• 19:45
  Joel Lava: That up and like we accept it.
• 19:46
  Joel Lava: And if if we go see anything now, but see, now we're not gonna go to theaters.
• 19:50
  Joel Lava: We're like some 14-year-old in his bedroom is gonna output a feature film that he that took him like two weeks to make, and it's gonna become viral, and there'll be a couple things in it where like, oh, yeah, that was AI, but we're gonna overlook it, and that's that.
• 20:06
  Joel Lava: And it's a game, that's why I think Hollywood's gonna be the next coal industry.
• 20:10
  Carmen Lezeth: So, so what do you think?
• 20:12
  Carmen Lezeth: You think it's gonna wow, you so you're seeing it on the negative end of it.
• 20:16
  Joel Lava: Do you not see it's negative for me, not for humanity?
• 20:20
  Carmen Lezeth: So, what are you planning to do?
• 20:23
  Joel Lava: So, what do you I don't have any other skill?
• 20:25
  Joel Lava: I have really good management skills.
• 20:27
  Joel Lava: I'm really good at managing teams of people, and I and I'm talking teams of sensitive artists, so I could easily manage any other industry, but I don't know.
• 20:37
  Joel Lava: I've looked into like becoming an ER nurse, but that takes two years to train, and I don't have two years of no income.
• 20:43
  Joel Lava: So, but I I've been pretty lazy about it because I I honestly think this is coming.
• 20:48
  Joel Lava: I think there's the whole commercial world is gonna have no more suits.
• 20:52
  Joel Lava: Why would a brand that has a million dollars to spend on marketing buy two commercials for 500,000 when it can get 95% of the quality for 50,000 and then it has another 900,000 left to micro-target across social media platforms?
• 21:08
  Joel Lava: We're already seeing it.
• 21:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Like why wouldn't you see that your skills could be and don't don't get mad at me, but like that your skills could be used with AI and you could I do, but I think it's gonna be a drastically reduced number.
• 21:22
  Joel Lava: Anyone can pick up a pencil and write or type on a keyboard, but they don't do it.
• 21:28
  Joel Lava: They still hire writers, you know?
• 21:30
  Joel Lava: Like there's still gonna be people needed to execute these things in the in volume.
• 21:34
  Joel Lava: It's just we're not gonna need location scouts or casting or grips, or we don't VFX industry is completely gone.
• 21:43
  Joel Lava: Why couldn't you be a consultant to an AI world that is going to be first of all, you have a lot of successful working directors already who could easily just port to overseeing a team of three text prompters, and so it's just gonna be even more competitive.
• 21:57
  Joel Lava: And so the chances of me I think the real I think the real I'm just asking.
• 22:02
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm just I mean, look at we're we're all thinking of these things.
• 22:05
  Joel Lava: I'm saying it's all gonna be just gone, and there's just gonna be a few people left, and that's those few people are gonna be ultra competitive.
• 22:11
  Joel Lava: And I I actually think one of the ways to set a person's self apart is to be one of those self-creators who make their own content.
• 22:21
  Joel Lava: And I just don't, because I have kids and I'm working, I don't have time, and I'm uh and the free time I do have, I'm putting into politics and activism.
• 22:29
  Joel Lava: I it's just I gotta tell you, it's just not you remember like the desktop revolution when we used to have graphic designers in a studio with tables and comes saying a lot of old school graphic designers like I'm not sitting at a computer, like I have to use my hands, I have to be tactile to create the true art.
• 22:46
  Joel Lava: And it's like, okay, sorry, feel that way.
• 22:49
  Joel Lava: Bye.
• 22:50
  Joel Lava: Right now it's like I like to do via I like to make CG stuff and I like, but I love to be on set.
• 22:56
  Joel Lava: And just I'm telling you, just the the human experiential process of just sitting there and writing a text prompt and then waiting for it to come out, and then hmm, that's not quite right.
• 23:06
  Joel Lava: Let me adjust this word, and then like that is a completely totally that's like with fish riding a bicycle.
• 23:13
  Joel Lava: It's like a completely different process of what I've spent my life doing and enjoying.
• 23:18
  Joel Lava: So it's like the motivation to sit in a computer and just type that phrase, hmm, let me alter that word from yellow to beige, and then and then I'm just sitting there like looking at my wall.
• 23:28
  Joel Lava: It's like I feel dead inside.
• 23:30
  Joel Lava: That's why I'm not like super excited about it.
• 23:33
  Carmen Lezeth: No, I and I'm just asking because I I'm curious what people because I know you don't reject AI in general.
• 23:40
  Carmen Lezeth: You've used it, I've seen stuff that you've done with it.
• 23:42
  Carmen Lezeth: So it's just interesting to hear you say that for humanity it's not a bad thing, but for you personally it is.
• 23:48
  Joel Lava: For the for the filmmaking industry, it's a complete uh extinction level event, but for humanity, it's democratized.
• 23:56
  Joel Lava: It means everyone.
• 23:57
  Joel Lava: I mean, I truly believe like the Black Mirror idea, like not next year, but there's gonna be a point where you sit down on Netflix and you bring up a thing and you're like, or you just talk into your Netflix, your remote, and you just say, I want to watch a movie starring uh Scarlett Johansson and John Wayne taking place on the moon, and it's an action comedy that's a minute, an hour, 45 minutes, and uh it's as if it's directed by Spielberg and DP'd by Janice Kamaninsky.
• 24:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Wow, that's so weird, all these names.
• 24:27
  Joel Lava: No, and you're gonna be like, okay, and let me watch it.
• 24:29
  Joel Lava: And then it's like there's a progress bar, and then 10 seconds later you start watching your film because it writes the script and then just starts rendering it.
• 24:36
  Joel Lava: That's already that's already technology.
• 24:38
  Carmen Lezeth: That's already happening, yeah.
• 24:40
  Joel Lava: So why why and then I get the joy of like I made this, I made this, like this is only happening because of me, these variables, and then I feel it's ownership and this giddiness.
• 24:52
  Joel Lava: And that's great for humanity, it's just bad for the Hollywood uh industry.
• 24:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I don't know if I think Hollywood's dying.
• 25:02
  Carmen Lezeth: I might disagree with you there.
• 25:03
  Carmen Lezeth: I think it's changing, I think it's gonna be something different.
• 25:05
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know what it turns into, but I I don't like that you might be right.
• 25:10
  Carmen Lezeth: But that tends to be how we usually interact anyway.
• 25:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Wait, we should first tell people we worked for a company that did motion graphics, right?
• 25:19
  Carmen Lezeth: And not action.
• 25:22
  Joel Lava: There was once a company called Fuel.
• 25:23
  Joel Lava: This is in the year 2000.
• 25:25
  Joel Lava: It was the dawn of the motion graphics golden age, where money was flowing and ideas were flowing, and anything went and uh and social mores were much looser.
• 25:38
  Joel Lava: And then this one company broke up into like five different highly successful influential motion graphics companies when each person left to start their own company.
• 25:48
  Joel Lava: One of them was run by a then 23-year-old.
• 25:51
  Carmen Lezeth: We don't need to say his name, but I'll bleep it out.
• 25:52
  Carmen Lezeth: It's okay, yeah.
• 25:53
  Carmen Lezeth: But 23-year-old, right?
• 25:55
  Carmen Lezeth: Was he 23 years old?
• 25:57
  Carmen Lezeth: I guess he was that young.
• 25:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 26:01
  Joel Lava: So we met, yeah.
• 26:02
  Carmen Lezeth: And uh I don't remember actually meeting you though.
• 26:05
  Joel Lava: Well, I don't remember.
• 26:05
  Joel Lava: I don't remember the moment I shook your hand.
• 26:09
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't think we shook hands.
• 26:10
  Carmen Lezeth: But I were you at the original office in Abbott Kenny?
• 26:14
  Joel Lava: Yes.
• 26:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Wow.
• 26:16
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 26:17
  Joel Lava: I was freelanced, but yes.
• 26:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, no, you were always freelance.
• 26:20
  Carmen Lezeth: You never took him up on any offers or whatever, right?
• 26:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Um yeah, that's interesting.
• 26:26
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, no, so I was just asking about that.
• 26:28
  Carmen Lezeth: I was just uh because you know, people I always like people to know how I meet.
• 26:31
  Joel Lava: And I think we I think we probably hit it off a little bit more than the next guy because I was technically old because I was 28.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: You were old.
• 26:41
  Joel Lava: And so we you there was like there was a clear difference in my vibe than from all these like 22, 23-year-olds.
• 26:48
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, because I think I was more, I mean, I was like the mother of the office.
• 26:52
  Carmen Lezeth: There weren't that many women.
• 26:53
  Carmen Lezeth: It was like me and Angela.
• 26:55
  Carmen Lezeth: I like when I showed up, Angela was the only other woman girl in the office.
• 26:59
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
• 27:00
  Carmen Lezeth: And so I think that was a big deal.
• 27:02
  Carmen Lezeth: But I was also uh pretty quiet because I was pretty busy.
• 27:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Because once he fired some guy, um, I took over and so I had to learn it all really quick.
• 27:11
  Carmen Lezeth: But so for that it was a good experience.
• 27:12
  Carmen Lezeth: But I I remember you more from um yeah, because all the girls used to talk about you all the time.
• 27:21
  Joel Lava: So all the people that we know that's not true because you literally just said there were no women in the world.
• 27:25
  Carmen Lezeth: I know, but there were because then we had so young, like once we started hiring people.
• 27:29
  Carmen Lezeth: So and when we moved over to Euclid, we did have more people.
• 27:33
  Carmen Lezeth: But you were like a shy guy, even at brand new school, like Joel.
• 27:38
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my god.
• 27:39
  Carmen Lezeth: So you think okay, so how did you react to that situation then?
• 27:43
  Joel Lava: I enjoyed it.
• 27:44
  Carmen Lezeth: What do you mean you enjoyed it?
• 27:45
  Carmen Lezeth: So you went out with them, you took up dates.
• 27:48
  Joel Lava: I actually regret not going out with some of them because I was so focused on just having a job.
• 27:53
  Carmen Lezeth: That's my point.
• 27:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Like you're that's exactly my point.
• 27:56
  Joel Lava: You were I didn't want to be unprofessional and get fired.
• 28:00
  Carmen Lezeth: I know, but that's my point.
• 28:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Other people would take the risk and do it, and they have.
• 28:04
  Joel Lava: Well, I wasn't shy, I just uh didn't get fired.
• 28:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't think you realize that you come across as being very shy and very quiet.
• 28:11
  Carmen Lezeth: At least back in the day, you do.
• 28:13
  Carmen Lezeth: You came across that way.
• 28:14
  Carmen Lezeth: But you seem to describe it more as maturity and professionalism.
• 28:19
  Carmen Lezeth: So that's fair.
• 28:20
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, I I thought no one in that office was very professional.
• 28:24
  Carmen Lezeth: I spent a lot of my time um at that first company that we met at, um, putting out fires consistently on a regular basis.
• 28:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Not that that was supposed to be my job, but that so many people, you know, it's so funny how you described it earlier, you know, like, but to me it was an unhinged place that didn't understand professionalism and didn't understand how easily certain people could be sued for saying certain things.
• 28:50
  Carmen Lezeth: And I think I talked to you about that before about keyword being thrown around and women being treated.
• 28:55
  Carmen Lezeth: Do you remember there was a bachelor party that was held at the do you remember that at the Euclid phase?
• 29:05
  Joel Lava: I I'm agreeing with you that I was I was professor.
• 29:08
  Carmen Lezeth: They brought in strippers.
• 29:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Let me just tell you, they brought in a stripper who was dripping a lot, and I had to pull one of the few women who was dancing with her as the guys were egging them on.
• 29:23
  Carmen Lezeth: You you just showed me a picture of one of the women I'm talking about.
• 29:27
  Carmen Lezeth: I had to pull her away and say, absolutely not, and throw her into my office.
• 29:32
  Joel Lava: What was she gonna do?
• 29:33
  Carmen Lezeth: She was dancing with the stripper, a the woman stripper, as the guy, and I was like disrobing for I have no, I didn't let it happen.
• 29:41
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, it was an unhinged place.
• 29:45
  Joel Lava: Yeah.
• 29:46
  Joel Lava: Um I was not part of all that because I was professional.
• 29:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't think you would, I I don't remember who was there.
• 29:51
  Carmen Lezeth: I know who it was for.
• 29:53
  Joel Lava: I'm saying just anything like that.
• 29:54
  Joel Lava: Again, if you want to call it shy or whatnot, I just would limit my vocabulary and whatnot.
• 30:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Um no, I'm saying that's how it came across, is if you were shy and kind of but I like what you said.
• 30:06
  Joel Lava: It was not a professional place.
• 30:08
  Carmen Lezeth: It was not a professional place at all.
• 30:10
  Carmen Lezeth: And it never became a professional place.
• 30:12
  Joel Lava: And I mean at that time that suited it very well creatively as well.
• 30:17
  Carmen Lezeth: And it was doing well.
• 30:18
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, it was uh it was definitely bringing in so much money, right?
• 30:21
  Carmen Lezeth: We were bringing in tons of money at that point, and it was but for people like me, um yeah, I learned a lot.
• 30:31
  Carmen Lezeth: I learned a lot because of that situation, but I also don't think you need to learn a lot through harm or through negativity or through bad experiences.
• 30:40
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't think that's the way it has to be, you know, but I did gain that from that.
• 30:44
  Carmen Lezeth: But um, but yeah, I I think that's why I don't talk to so many people from there at all.
• 30:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I I don't have much respect for a lot of people that worked there and participated in a lot of, even though I think a lot of people were geniuses in their own right.
• 30:58
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
• 30:59
  Carmen Lezeth: But I yeah.
• 31:01
  Carmen Lezeth: And if I could do it all over again, I would have never taken the job.
• 31:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I thought of that the other day.
• 31:06
  Carmen Lezeth: I would have walked away.
• 31:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I wish I had, because I think um I still have a bitter taste in my mouth about that place, which is weird, right?
• 31:14
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know.
• 31:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, okay, I have some other questions.
• 31:17
  Carmen Lezeth: I did not know, and you're don't be mad at me.
• 31:20
  Carmen Lezeth: I did not know how many awards you've won because of your I didn't realize you won Emmys.
• 31:25
  Carmen Lezeth: When did that happen?
• 31:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Was I around?
• 31:30
  Joel Lava: No, no, I I won most of no one I won the Emmy in like 2018.
• 31:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, so it was way after the fact.
• 31:37
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 31:38
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't, I wasn't in touch with you.
• 31:39
  Carmen Lezeth: I was like, I don't remember that happening.
• 31:41
  Carmen Lezeth: Let me see.
• 31:42
  Carmen Lezeth: You've been a director and creative director for over 20 years.
• 31:45
  Carmen Lezeth: You're here in California, your background is in animation and visual effects with a strong emphasis on storytelling through motion graphics.
• 31:52
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh no, motion design, sorry.
• 31:54
  Carmen Lezeth: You've won Emmy's Telly's, F what's FWA?
• 31:57
  Carmen Lezeth: That's a word you've been featured on South by Southwest.
• 32:00
  Carmen Lezeth: What?
• 32:01
  Joel Lava: FWA is more web-based, like microsite, like the web award.
• 32:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, you describe yourself as thriving at the intersection of story, motion design, and visual effects.
• 32:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Is that true?
• 32:13
  Joel Lava: Yeah, it's freaking true as fuck.
• 32:16
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, we'll talk about.
• 32:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, you love leading teams both on live action sets and in post-production, but you just said that.
• 32:22
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, are you known for saying when in doubt, flare it out?
• 32:26
  Carmen Lezeth: What does that mean?
• 32:29
  Joel Lava: Uh that means like if when is for motion graphics and compositing, if something's not quite looking right, just add a flair.
• 32:36
  Joel Lava: You know, like a JJ Abrams flair.
• 32:38
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 32:39
  Joel Lava: And it just gives it that extra.
• 32:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, got it.
• 32:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Always have a joke book handy?
• 32:45
  Carmen Lezeth: No.
• 32:46
  Carmen Lezeth: Is that true?
• 32:48
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh no.
• 32:50
  Carmen Lezeth: What's your favorite joke?
• 32:52
  Carmen Lezeth: Which favorite?
• 32:53
  Carmen Lezeth: You have to read it?
• 32:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 32:57
  Joel Lava: It's a joke book.
• 32:58
  Joel Lava: A man goes to a psychiatrist and says, Doc, my brother's crazy.
• 33:01
  Joel Lava: He thinks he's a chicken.
• 33:03
  Joel Lava: The doctor says, Why don't you turn him in?
• 33:05
  Joel Lava: The guy says, We would, but we need the eggs.
• 33:08
  Carmen Lezeth: See, those are dorky things.
• 33:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 33:10
  Joel Lava: I have some really go, I have some go-to jokes that have served me well in life.
• 33:15
  Carmen Lezeth: That's okay.
• 33:16
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm good.
• 33:16
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm good.
• 33:17
  Joel Lava: No, but I have like, depending on the audience, I have some really good ones that will win people over.
• 33:24
  Carmen Lezeth: But you've already won me over, so does it really matter?
• 33:26
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, looky.
• 33:27
  Carmen Lezeth: I love this.
• 33:28
  Carmen Lezeth: I love that you say this.
• 33:29
  Carmen Lezeth: We are all interns.
• 33:31
  Carmen Lezeth: I do love that.
• 33:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 33:34
  Carmen Lezeth: Is that something you say or not true?
• 33:35
  Carmen Lezeth: This is a Google search.
• 33:37
  Joel Lava: Well, I mean, it's a good that's my mode.
• 33:39
  Joel Lava: You're reading my link, you're reading my LinkedIn profile.
• 33:42
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not, they are.
• 33:43
  Joel Lava: I I would I no, it just means remember be humble.
• 33:47
  Carmen Lezeth: No, I love that.
• 33:48
  Carmen Lezeth: That's my favorite.
• 33:50
  Joel Lava: And it also means we're all if if we're and not just creatively, but in any line of life, we should always strive to be learning.
• 33:59
  Joel Lava: And if we're always learning something, that means we're always taking on something we're ignorant about, which means and if we're always pursuing knowledge, then we're always an intern in some aspect of our life.
• 34:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I love it.
• 34:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I think it's a simple line with a lot of depth.
• 34:14
  Carmen Lezeth: That should be a signature line.
• 34:16
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, you ready for some I'm ready.
• 34:19
  Carmen Lezeth: For some lightning round questions.
• 34:22
  Joel Lava: I love lightning round.
• 34:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 34:24
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't have that many though.
• 34:25
  Carmen Lezeth: I just did like all right.
• 34:26
  Carmen Lezeth: What's your favorite?
• 34:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Wait.
• 34:29
  Joel Lava: Lightning.
• 34:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, you're such a dork.
• 34:32
  Carmen Lezeth: I think that's what I love about you.
• 34:33
  Joel Lava: You are such a dork.
• 34:34
  Joel Lava: Lightning round.
• 34:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 34:36
  Carmen Lezeth: I just want you to know that when I edit, I'll be deleting all of that.
• 34:39
  Joel Lava: Oh no, that was amazing.
• 34:40
  Joel Lava: I'm just kidding.
• 34:44
  Carmen Lezeth: Seriously.
• 34:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 34:47
  Carmen Lezeth: What's your favorite curse word?
• 34:50
  Joel Lava: I mean, fuck.
• 34:52
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 34:52
  Carmen Lezeth: What's a film you wish you directed?
• 34:56
  Joel Lava: Oh.
• 34:56
  Joel Lava: That's a interesting way you phrase it because there's my favorite movies, but I I didn't wish I directed it.
• 35:04
  Joel Lava: I can tell you the movie I movies I want to direct that I won't.
• 35:08
  Joel Lava: That's easier, but Okay.
• 35:10
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't even know what that means.
• 35:12
  Joel Lava: It means I want to do a sequel spin-off to Back to the Future, where it happens now and goes back to like 95, basically, right as the internet is starting.
• 35:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, that's a great idea.
• 35:25
  Joel Lava: And it's a 90s, so you can bring in like all the 90s grunge and just compare the mentality of the you know Yahoo and pets.com and just that world of the late 90s, and no concept of what an iPhone is, or yeah, they still had glasses.
• 35:41
  Carmen Lezeth: Didn't we have pagers and stuff?
• 35:43
  Joel Lava: Like yeah, we had barely had pagers.
• 35:45
  Joel Lava: We had pagers barely had cell phones.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:48
  Joel Lava: Like that was back.
• 35:48
  Joel Lava: I was a PA in the late 90s, and we would charge on our invoice how many minutes of cell phone time we used to get ready.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: That's so weird.
• 35:58
  Joel Lava: And it's like the it was pre-9-11.
• 36:00
  Joel Lava: Yeah, like security at airports.
• 36:02
  Joel Lava: Like there's all this stuff that like a kid from now, like Marty McFly's grandson or whatever.
• 36:07
  Joel Lava: So that's that's like one movie I would love to make direct.
• 36:11
  Joel Lava: And I I have another one that actually I love so much.
• 36:14
  Joel Lava: I'm not gonna say publicly.
• 36:16
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, fair.
• 36:17
  Joel Lava: I think I've told it to you privately, but yeah, that's okay.
• 36:19
  Carmen Lezeth: I won't share it.
• 36:20
  Joel Lava: There are some movies like I would have loved to direct um the eighth episode of Star Wars, the one that completely went off the rails.
• 36:29
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not a Star Wars person, so there's your answer.
• 36:32
  Carmen Lezeth: I would have liked to do uh I saw the first three, the original first three, and then I saw the one I saw the one with Harrison Ford and you know when he's older, yeah, and Layout.
• 36:45
  Joel Lava: That was the Force Awakens.
• 36:46
  Joel Lava: I would have liked to direct the one after that.
• 36:48
  Joel Lava: That's it.
• 36:49
  Joel Lava: Okay, yeah.
• 36:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't see the one after that.
• 36:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, yeah.
• 36:50
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm kind of an originalist when it comes to Star Wars.
• 36:53
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know.
• 36:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Um I'm more of a Star Trek fan.
• 36:57
  Carmen Lezeth: Did you know that?
• 36:58
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't.
• 36:58
  Joel Lava: That's that's really cool.
• 37:00
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm a Star Trek person.
• 37:01
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not a Star Wars fan.
• 37:03
  Carmen Lezeth: And there is a difference.
• 37:04
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 37:04
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh, what's a protest sign you still remember?
• 37:07
  Carmen Lezeth: One that you made or one that you saw?
• 37:13
  Joel Lava: Uh the an interesting one is because I've learned a lot about protesting.
• 37:19
  Joel Lava: I've never really I did like the Iraq war protest in 2003, um, but never saw much use of protesting.
• 37:26
  Joel Lava: I think it is very useful now.
• 37:27
  Joel Lava: And so I've learned a lot.
• 37:29
  Joel Lava: I've learned what like keep I learned keep it to like three words, make them as bold lettering possible.
• 37:35
  Joel Lava: There's a difference between protest signs when you're on the street versus in a march.
• 37:40
  Joel Lava: Like if you're in a march, you can have like a bunch of words and stuff.
• 37:43
  Joel Lava: Yeah, so but the one I really thought was just awesome, and I didn't make it up, was it took the Tesla logo, which is like the T, and it turned it upside down, and it looked like a Ku Klux Klan hat, and it and the word the word was Ku Klux Klan.
• 37:59
  Joel Lava: Um, and it's coup-co-p.
• 38:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 38:03
  Carmen Lezeth: And so it was calling Tesla white nationalist, like racist, which is you know, well, you you hate Tesla and Elon Musk a lot.
• 38:12
  Joel Lava: Well, I liked it because it took the logo and completely literally inverted it into a clan hat, and then used the word coup, which our country's under a coup, and it added the racism.
• 38:23
  Joel Lava: So I just and it was like really popular, people loved it, and I just left holding it for like two months.
• 38:28
  Joel Lava: And then at a certain point, I was like, the the narrative had shifted, so I I don't hold it anymore.
• 38:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, but I but I love that you you protest all the time.
• 38:36
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean you pretty much do it weekly if you need to.
• 38:39
  Joel Lava: You're obviously I hold I I organize, I'm the leader of a weekly protest of two weekly protests.
• 38:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Um okay.
• 38:46
  Carmen Lezeth: Um let me see.
• 38:48
  Carmen Lezeth: What's your comfort food after a long shoot?
• 38:53
  Joel Lava: You can't go wrong with a burrito.
• 38:55
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 38:56
  Joel Lava: Oh, but I also love street dogs after like a concert.
• 39:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, is that like a hot dog?
• 39:01
  Joel Lava: Yeah, the dudes with the carts and their Oh, yeah, no.
• 39:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't need hot dogs.
• 39:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Even when I was a little kid, I do not do hot dogs.
• 39:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 39:08
  Carmen Lezeth: Um what moment do you wish you could relive just once?
• 39:18
  Joel Lava: I mean, I I don't uh I'm assuming I I I took that to mean if I could do it differently, not it was just a wonderful thing I'd like to re-experience.
• 39:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Whatever you however you want to interpret, there's no rules here too.
• 39:29
  Joel Lava: No, I know.
• 39:30
  Joel Lava: I'm just explaining.
• 39:30
  Joel Lava: I went kind of to the negative.
• 39:32
  Carmen Lezeth: Um don't go to the negative, be positive.
• 39:35
  Joel Lava: Well, no, I uh I'm just I gotta speak my truth.
• 39:40
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, go ahead.
• 39:41
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry, you're right.
• 39:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Go ahead.
• 39:42
  Joel Lava: Um, I don't have many regrets in life after age like 18 because or 19, because I had some series of things that happened where I realized the angst and pain I feel of not having taken act of not remedying the situation for better or for worse through action or inaction eats at me so much that I can't I have to do, I have to take action.
• 40:07
  Joel Lava: So my regrets and my formative years was uh it's I'm trying this is like trying to not light me around question, but I was there that I was at a summer camp, it was like the three or four week sessions.
• 40:18
  Joel Lava: I love to camp.
• 40:19
  Joel Lava: And I was at the finally the oldest bunk, you know, like so I was probably like 13.
• 40:24
  Joel Lava: I told a story, like the first day of camp when we're all like getting shots at the infirmary or something.
• 40:30
  Joel Lava: And when I was in the youngest bunk, we played strip poker, and so we're like six, seven-year-olds, and it was just like a funny story, and all the guys just they they decided to take it in, they started calling me gay.
• 40:42
  Joel Lava: And uh there's nothing wrong with being gay, but when you're not gay, you're talking about a little kid and you're talking about a different time.
• 40:48
  Joel Lava: But when I'm not gay and I'm 13, and they were they were just dot making fun of me all the time, and I didn't know what to do.
• 40:56
  Joel Lava: And it got it was so bad that my counselors were like, you should kick their ass.
• 41:00
  Joel Lava: Like, even my counselors were like, sometimes you have to and I that that's I'm not gonna be.
• 41:05
  Joel Lava: Yeah.
• 41:07
  Joel Lava: And then there was I was refereeing, I was scorekeeping, there was a basketball tournament, and I was focusing on that, and I heard laughing.
• 41:17
  Joel Lava: I thought I may have heard my name.
• 41:18
  Joel Lava: And I it was you know, the basketball courts by the tennis courts.
• 41:21
  Joel Lava: It's a summer camp out in the Texas Hill country.
• 41:25
  Joel Lava: And I look and there's like the the bull, it's like from a you know, a teen uh teen movie.
• 41:31
  Joel Lava: The dudes who are like bullying me are with some girls and they're all laughing.
• 41:36
  Joel Lava: And that moment has just stuck out with me for my whole life.
• 41:41
  Joel Lava: And I all I did was I pulled in and got self-hating, angry.
• 41:47
  Joel Lava: And what I wish I did is I went over there and beat the shit out of them.
• 41:52
  Carmen Lezeth: I think that's fair enough.
• 41:53
  Joel Lava: And the reason I didn't is because I would have been kicked out of camp and my parents would have thrown me into therapy, which is like this.
• 42:00
  Carmen Lezeth: I never thought you were such a rule follower.
• 42:02
  Carmen Lezeth: It's so interesting.
• 42:03
  Joel Lava: This pivotal moment, like when you break down the layers, there's so many things about my relationship with my parents and just so much like deep stuff.
• 42:11
  Joel Lava: But yeah, just the idea of not standing up for myself and not asserting my own agency.
• 42:18
  Joel Lava: I've I've uh I had a recent experience.
• 42:23
  Joel Lava: Um, I was playing on a basketball team for the first time in 15 years this year on a rec league, and I'm not as good as I was because I I can't jump anymore.
• 42:32
  Joel Lava: Um I I accept that, but I'm still good.
• 42:36
  Joel Lava: And there's guys who are like in their 20s on the team and they're just they can move better, so I'm fine like that.
• 42:43
  Joel Lava: But I I want to play.
• 42:45
  Joel Lava: And I I went in in the second half expecting to play like at least half a quarter, half the half.
• 42:51
  Joel Lava: And after a few minutes, they were subbing me out, and I got really angry, and I got angry at the guy subbing me out first, and I at first was just holding it all inside because like I don't want to cause a scene on a rec league team.
• 43:06
  Joel Lava: Okay, and then after the game I went up to him and I I was like, I remember I said to the effect of next time, like don't fucking pull me off so quick, like what the fuck?
• 43:17
  Joel Lava: And then he's like, and then I realized uh kind of it wasn't just like our best player was sort of would sub people in and out.
• 43:26
  Joel Lava: Anyway, I you know, because I've been doing a lot of work on myself too.
• 43:32
  Joel Lava: Um and I just like how do I what is the proper way to handle this?
• 43:36
  Joel Lava: Because like I was like, I'm getting mad at that dude who isn't he's not as good as me.
• 43:41
  Joel Lava: And and I just was like so moving forward on the team what I did when I checked into the game, I was like, hey, I'm gonna play for seven minutes.
• 43:52
  Joel Lava: Look for me after route, like at uh whatever time mark, and I'll let you know if I'm ready to come out.
• 43:58
  Joel Lava: And I'm not gonna come out until then.
• 44:00
  Joel Lava: And so I I asserted you took I said I took leadership.
• 44:04
  Joel Lava: I said, here's how it's gonna be, here's and and it worked that way.
• 44:07
  Joel Lava: And then in our championship game, they tried to sub me out again, and I had just been only playing for two minutes, and I had I had a steal and two rebounds already.
• 44:17
  Joel Lava: I was playing really well, okay, and they were trying to take me out.
• 44:20
  Joel Lava: I was like, no, I I said no, I'm playing great.
• 44:23
  Joel Lava: Like, I'm gonna play for three more minutes, and just to like be confrontational like that, right, but also keeping it civil is like a real skill because you can be like, What the fuck you motherfucker?
• 44:33
  Joel Lava: I'm doing like a lot of guys go right there.
• 44:35
  Joel Lava: I kept it like civil and mature, but I was being very strong and how I what I was gonna do.
• 44:41
  Carmen Lezeth: So did they let you play?
• 44:43
  Joel Lava: Yeah, I wasn't uh because I was like, I'm not coming out, sit, sit, sit down.
• 44:47
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, cool.
• 44:47
  Carmen Lezeth: Awesome.
• 44:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I love that you're working on yourself.
• 44:50
  Carmen Lezeth: I think that's a good thing.
• 44:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, okay, what's a sound that soothes you instantly?
• 44:56
  Carmen Lezeth: If you don't have one, you don't have one.
• 44:58
  Joel Lava: I would say the sound of my child sleeping.
• 45:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, that's sweet.
• 45:02
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 45:03
  Carmen Lezeth: I was hoping you'd say something more controversial.
• 45:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 45:05
  Carmen Lezeth: What's a book that changed your mind?
• 45:09
  Joel Lava: Oh man, there's so many.
• 45:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Nope, a book.
• 45:12
  Joel Lava: I would I've read a lot of parenting books, and most of them are just they state the obvious, but there's a book called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk.
• 45:21
  Joel Lava: I think is required reading for everyone, whether you have kids or not.
• 45:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, fair enough.
• 45:26
  Carmen Lezeth: Um what is your favorite movie?
• 45:29
  Joel Lava: Delicatessen.
• 45:31
  Joel Lava: 1993.
• 45:33
  Joel Lava: It's a maybe it's a French movie.
• 45:36
  Joel Lava: Um I don't know it.
• 45:37
  Joel Lava: Like, do you know the movie Amelie?
• 45:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes, not my favorite.
• 45:40
  Joel Lava: That well, I loved it.
• 45:42
  Joel Lava: They and the City of Lost Children, the guys who made those movies, they're it was their earlier, it was their earlier movie.
• 45:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 45:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, what's a scene you've watched a hundred times and still feel something?
• 45:55
  Joel Lava: Well, again, there's many like that, but I will say The Martian by Ridley Scott.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay, for sure.
• 46:02
  Joel Lava: There's a montage sequence in the middle where they're like meeting with the Jack Chinese and building the rockets, and it's just all montage to a David Bowie song.
• 46:11
  Joel Lava: I've literally written out every shot like on a text documentary.
• 46:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, that's awesome.
• 46:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Wow.
• 46:18
  Carmen Lezeth: It was something you would ask me if this were your show.
• 46:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Ha ha ha ha show is Or you could ask me anything because I get to decide whether we keep it or not.
• 46:32
  Carmen Lezeth: So go ahead.
• 46:34
  Joel Lava: If this was my show and I was talking to the esteemed Carmen Lazette.
• 46:38
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, Carmen Lisette.
• 46:41
  Joel Lava: Um, I would be like, what what is your it doesn't have to be precise, but like what is your like if you have like a two or three year plan for all the work you're putting into your podcast, what like a metric of success as well as how you would know it's your six you're making a difference.
• 47:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I think I'm already making a difference, and I do not have a plan, and I'm doing it because I love uh meeting people, talking to people, and having a place to have some sort of creativity.
• 47:16
  Carmen Lezeth: I've also learned a lot.
• 47:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh I cannot express how much respect I have for editors.
• 47:22
  Carmen Lezeth: And I'm, of course, not even pretending I'm editing in any level whatsoever, as film does or any of these other people, but just editing my own audio or my own video on my own little tools that I have has been an incredible learning curve.
• 47:37
  Carmen Lezeth: And I now have a different love of the art of film that I don't think I would have ever had before because I understand now editing on a different level and audio and lighting, and so in that sense, it's been really great.
• 47:50
  Carmen Lezeth: So I don't, I'm surprised by how much success we've had, and I wasn't trying.
• 47:57
  Joel Lava: So But my question is what what I don't have a plan.
• 48:02
  Joel Lava: What metrics do you define success?
• 48:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, there's different ones, right?
• 48:07
  Carmen Lezeth: There's audience for the podcast, there's audience for uh the videos, there's feedback from people.
• 48:12
  Carmen Lezeth: We get a lot of emails.
• 48:14
  Carmen Lezeth: I've had a couple people tell me that um they're so grateful that I said A, B, C, and D.
• 48:19
  Carmen Lezeth: I've had four Trump supporters tell me that they know they made a mistake and that they've changed their mind.
• 48:26
  Carmen Lezeth: I think that is crazy on so many levels, like just crazy.
• 48:32
  Carmen Lezeth: And that's not just from the current show that me and Andrea are doing.
• 48:36
  Carmen Lezeth: That's just over all this time, right?
• 48:38
  Carmen Lezeth: So for me, that's huge.
• 48:41
  Carmen Lezeth: I also measure success, and people who watch the show on Friday nights know this.
• 48:46
  Carmen Lezeth: We get so many people who hate us.
• 48:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Because there's so much engagement, you know what I mean?
• 48:53
  Carmen Lezeth: So you can see like who likes you whatever is to friends or blah, blah, blah, or people who follow you, okay, great, and I'm very appreciative.
• 48:59
  Carmen Lezeth: But the amount of people who hate what we're doing, especially Culture and Consequence, which is the political show, or anytime we talk about um politics, we get a lot more people who like us, but a lot more people who hate us too.
• 49:11
  Carmen Lezeth: And that's also a measure.
• 49:12
  Carmen Lezeth: I think the minute I start making this about something other than what its intention was, it's gonna lose its um like what I love about it, because it's already a lot of work.
• 49:25
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm spending at least 40 hours a week on this show, right?
• 49:28
  Carmen Lezeth: At least.
• 49:29
  Carmen Lezeth: And I don't really have a lot of help.
• 49:31
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't have, you know, I have people who come on the show on a regular basis, but I don't have people who are doing editing.
• 49:36
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not paying people to do anything, you know?
• 49:39
  Carmen Lezeth: So, but I think the minute it starts becoming something like that, without, I mean, don't get me wrong, if I had the money, I would hire people to help me.
• 49:46
  Carmen Lezeth: Do you know what I mean?
• 49:47
  Carmen Lezeth: But I don't want to lose why I'm doing it.
• 49:49
  Carmen Lezeth: But I think the minute you start having a team and all this stuff, I think maybe you lose something.
• 49:55
  Carmen Lezeth: So I don't know.
• 49:56
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm I'm open to it because I would love to be able to make an income, you know, doing this.
• 50:02
  Carmen Lezeth: And when you talk about AI, and I think about AI, I think about what it is that I can bring to the table because it is changing.
• 50:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Everybody's industry is changing.
• 50:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't want to see it as dying, though I don't think you're wrong.
• 50:14
  Carmen Lezeth: But I I like to look at it, you know, in a more positive light to figure out what I can bring to the table as well and contribute.
• 50:21
  Carmen Lezeth: And I think part of it will be my personality, my ability to interview, my ability to bring people together, my ability to kind of have these conversations.
• 50:32
  Joel Lava: Excellent.
• 50:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you, Joel.
• 50:35
  Joel Lava: I have uh I have an editing thing that might speed up your editing drastically, but we can I can play you after that.
• 50:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, that's cool.
• 50:43
  Carmen Lezeth: All right, well, thank you so much.
• 50:44
  Carmen Lezeth: I appreciate you stopping by as always.
• 50:46
  Carmen Lezeth: You'll have to come by again with the group if you ever want to, and we can I always want to.
• 50:50
  Carmen Lezeth: I always you're always welcome to come.
• 50:52
  Joel Lava: I feel like this is a probably a normal response to people who are interviewed, is I always feel like I completely didn't give you what you wanted.
• 51:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my god.
• 51:01
  Carmen Lezeth: I think you think too much.
• 51:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I adore you, but you you're one of the few people.
• 51:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I I think most people don't think enough.
• 51:09
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm being honest, most people have no ability to kind of just think things through and say things, but you're one of these people I think that thinks way too much.
• 51:18
  Carmen Lezeth: And then you you gave you gave me everything I need.
• 51:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Everything.
• 51:22
  Joel Lava: Thank you.
• 51:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 51:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Anyways, everyone, thank you so much.
• 51:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Remember, at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy.
• 51:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you, Joel.
• 51:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Bye.
• 51:29
  Carmen Lezeth: But don't log off.
• 51:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my god, I'm so cutting all that out.
• 51:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Let's see how my editing skills are.
• 51:35
  Joel Lava: Why do you cut it out?
• 51:36
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know.
• 51:37
  Carmen Lezeth: Thanks for stopping by, all about the joy.
• 51:40
  Carmen Lezeth: Be better and stay beautiful, folks.
• 51:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Have a sweet day.