Latest / The MOOD Podcast / The Power of Anonymity in Art; Novo Dé, E054

Transcript

The Power of Anonymity in Art; Novo Dé, E054 · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of layers.
• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Buckle up.
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be famous.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I think it's a prison.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: If you're going to put something out as your actual name, there will be consequences to that Immediately.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: You're going to feel like I should just get out of this.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I should stop, because I only got 10 views, or I only got 10 clicks, or I only got 10 likes.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Never lose sight of what you want and who you want to be within the industry.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: God, tell us a little bit more detail about the production company.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: How do you kind of market that brand in?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: order that you pay the bills every month.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: If you're wanting a steady stream of income, then I actually would encourage you to probably.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Why do you think?
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: you've succeeded.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: If you do something you love, you won't work a day in your life.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, a century from now, what's really going to matter?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I know I'm not the first to say this, I will not be the last to say this, but Novo Day.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for coming on the Mood Podcast.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: It's great to finally chat with you again.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, man, great to be here.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I wanted to start off with something that I think underlines a lot of what you do in the art space, and that's anonymity, and we're going to talk a little bit more in depth about that.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: But um novo is essentially um anonymous uh to the public, and I want to want to kind of dive in as to why that is what your reasoning and and kind of rationale is behind the whole anonymity brand absolutely.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of layers buckle up on the deepest, on the deepest end.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I, um, I want to push the, the artwork to to the front.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I want to give it all the spotlight, because I know, I know I wasn't, I know I'm not the first to say this, I will not be the last to say this, but when we're all fucking dead, like what is it gonna matter what you know I was, who I was dating or who I was married to, or all of that, those cultural components that for some reason we're so obsessed with?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And I do not understand for the life of me why.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, a century from now, 500,000 years from now, what's really going to matter, it's the work.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: When you think of your favorite artists, you don't think about what their favorite food was and shit.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: You think about their most famous pieces and things like that.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So it was very important to me to make sure that when I got started, I wanted to make sure that the work was the most important part and from there, obviously, as we get a little more superficial with some of the reasoning behind that is I don't want to be famous.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's a prison.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: When I look at Taylor Swift and Mr Beast or whoever these fucking people are, that just like the idea of fame is a little scary to me, to be honest.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: So that's why, like, if you ever look at my promotional like headshots and things like that, I have a.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: We have an amazing team at Novadea Productions and we have a graphic design artist His name is Tom and I'm always telling Tom, like, can you obscure my face a little?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: You know more before I put this out.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: A little more, a little more, a little more.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: You know where I see other people wanting to be further and further in spotlight.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: And then another fear of mine is where, if you don't do that, especially with how things are today, you know in, like, trying to feed this machine and trying to get into these industries and trying to carve out an audience and all of these things, before you know it, you become the product and you lose sight at, uh, the most important part was probably the reason you got into this industry to begin with, which is the art itself, what you wanted to make.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And, um, on the uh yeah, I know on the furthest, you know, part of thethest part of the superficiality of it all is.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I honestly have a boring ass name and I've actually met about a half a dozen people with the exact same legal name as me and I was like man if I put my name out there.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: If I start putting myself out there as just my name, I'm already lost in the sea of content, right Like I'm.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: It might get to be even more lost probably, and I knew that I wanted to connect.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people know me from the writing and things like that to start with, but you know, uh, nova day productions and the idea of Nova day is not only a person but a collective, a team of artists too, and we knew that we were going to, um, make a lot of things.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: You know, after the writing, we have a lot of music in the oven that we want to show and give to the world and, of course, we're going to probably make music videos around that and a bunch of other things, and there'll be this amazing cross-pollination of things and I know that my legal name would have probably done nothing, but no good day, you know, maybe he can do something.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit more about.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, I, I'm gonna, we're gonna unpack that a little bit more certainly on the, the, the fame thing and the, the, the need, or the perceived need, to be in the spotlight.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Is it a prison?
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: are you scared?
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: You're a looking guy.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Are you afraid of that?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: A little bit Like come on.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: You know it's interesting as I become more in the spotlight and I.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: You know we're talking microcosms here.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: You know 8 billion people in the world and maybe a few thousand of my audience, you know it's we've got to put things into perspective.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: But as that few thousand grows into another few hundred and few thousand hopefully, I'm definitely more aware of the negative side of it and the trolls and the people who just like to bring people down, and I consider myself quite a strong person in that respect.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: One of the things my wife says she always loves about me is I don't give a shit what people say, but I do.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I do, especially when it comes to art.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: That is an art itself.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well, I don't care about what people think of me as a person, because I am who I am.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: You know, I have my close friends, and that's all I need in this life.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: But when they criticize something I'm putting out there that I've put a lot of hard work into, and my passion and my beliefs and my values, then I start to quit, and then I do that.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: You know I'm only human, right, as everyone is, just like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: That still will get to them, it's.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: You could have millions and millions of people who love you, but you could have five people that fucking hate you.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: But that's what you're signing up for.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: That's what you're signing up for is the criticism too.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: So it's it's inevitable, you know so the thing where I try, where I don't ever want to get to a point and um is, is my private life, and I share some things about my private life.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: You know, whether it's my dogs being sweet or, I generally don't share.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: You know, like the vlogging side of things, I don't.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: I don't want that.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I think that's the line for me.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: It's like I'm happy to have a public persona, to be my brand, but when it comes to what I do every day and what I talk about in close inner circles, then there is a line there that I don't really want to jump over.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And saying here that's where Novo Day was born as well.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but what I like about you is you're also trying to kind of offer some value to people who want to get into these spaces, into the art space.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Feel like they need to have a public persona.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: So talk to us a little bit about that and why you think that that's maybe not needed.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: If you're just starting out and you're a little bit shy and you don't really know where to go, and do I need to put all this effort into like this is me on Instagram kind of thing Can you give us a little bit more insights as to how you've kind of guided people through?
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: that Absolutely.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I mean intention, like we talked about this on our show.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: The show we did with Art of the Beholder is.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: It's all about intention.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So I feel like not enough people give a lot of thought to making sure, especially in the world we live in now, where every single text, message, email, video, everything is very permanent.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: There's a permanence to that, and if you don't think about the long game, I'm afraid you may not want to even think about the game at all, because a lot of people I think there's a big difference between the creators that want to just be famous overnight or make a ton of money or what have you For.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Myself and my team, I know we want to be in this game for the long haul and part of that is playing the long game.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So, knowing that these things are always going to be changing, always evolving, always reshaping, not only who we are as artists, but also the culture as we shape it, I urge people to always think about those consequences, because if you're going to put something out as your actual name, there will be consequences to that and you have to think about as much.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: As we've talked about this as well before is the audience is often last, when I'm making pieces, when I'm making pieces, but the audience is nonetheless important.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Even though they're less, they're on the list.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: So there has to be a branding element.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: You have to play a little bit of the game, but you can never lose sight of your vision, because once you start feeding this machine, eventually you become a part of it and the things you use can end up using you, and that's why I always you know, I have colleagues and friends that you know they're musicians or they're doing different things and they're like well, no one is buying my stuff unless I'm making this reaction video or this tutorial video, and there's nothing wrong with that for the record, nothing wrong with that for the record at all if that's your game, if you want to have a hybrid approach to this, totally.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: But I noticed I may lose touch with them.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I may regain touch with them after a year and then that's all they're doing and I'll ask them well, that started to become successful and I was like what happened to the music and it's like I don't have time for that.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I'm making videos and I'm making all these things that are actually accumulating the views and getting the revenue and the income and that takes over.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, I felt like I may be insulting an entire generation of artists or people in this industry that have an intention to do that from the beginning, like the Mr Beasts of the world that have an intention to do that from the beginning.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Like the Mr Beasts of the world, that's fine.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Just never lose sight of what you want and who you want to be within the industry.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: And I knew that if I started doing it a completely different way, that I would lose touch myself.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: I knew I would, because I get this from my management all the time.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: It's like why don't you do more videos, art of the beholder videos, uh, you know showing your face and stuff like that, and you know doing these kinds of video shows and things like that.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, I can't control.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: You know my, I can't control how my guests like video footages and their audio and you know there's a lot of things like everyone dressing up.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: You know I'm a little old school where I would want, in a perfect world, I would want, uh, if I could have a show like that.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I would want it to be, like you know, in the states, like the late show with steven colbert.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: You know where I was actually dressing up every night having a guest where they were miked on their lapel and not having to do that.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Um, I'm actually so glad this worked out, because I've never used Podcastle for the record and I was afraid I was going to have to do the big headphones and the mic in front of my face, because that's even a look Remember, that's a creative look.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I feel like they lose touch with things like that because they see it so much they take it for granted.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: So that's just to bring the conversation around.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Circle is you can't take it for granted.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: What you do matters and the intention goes a long way, and so really think about the future that you're going to try to fulfill.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: I feel bad now having this microphone.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Get out of here, matt, jesus Christ.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Let's jump into that while we talk about it, the art of the beholder podcast, which I was privileged to to be a guest on a few months ago tell us what that's about, how you format it, what the intent is behind it and and give us, give us, an idea of you know how that's going and and what the kind of the the intent behind it is.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Absolutely so we were.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: We knew that the things we wanted to create as a team we wanted to.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: You know, novoday Productions has always been a multimedia venture and we knew that.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: You know I can never put myself in a box and it's a blessing and a curse, and I knew that like I wanted to.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: The original flagship you know kind of products and art we were wanting to make was actually music, and any musicians out there listening can relate to the fact that it takes just an incredible amount of resources software instruments, production equipment, recording equipment, you name it to get to a final product.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: That's nice, because we like nice, polished stuff as well.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: And I realized that I wanted to nurture other areas until I could build a home studio and things like that.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: But regardless, we knew that the products were going to probably be like.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: We were going to be in the conversation, maybe once every three or four years, especially like writing novels.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: It takes about five years to really put out a novel from beginning to end.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: We knew that we wanted to be in the conversation.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: So Art of the Beholder was born to not only market and kind of help with the branding as well, but be in the conversation.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: It was so important to talk about the things we love, and that was really the soul of the show was originally based on.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I had been having conversations like the ones we have on the show for decades with my closest friends and we finally were like, why don't we just record ourselves doing this?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: And I wrote a format around it and obviously the intros, outros, all the little things to actually give it a polished show format, and a lot of it is.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: The rest, as they say, is history, and the things we like to cover include both deep cut things but also pop culture things in all forms of art.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: We cover a lot of music, but we didn't want to put ourselves in a box, much like the products we knew we were going to make.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And because we wanted to talk to the entire community, we wanted to talk about film and literature and music and all these different things.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: And that gave us these amazing opportunities and connections with so many other people like yourself to have conversations about things we never even thought in a million years we could have, especially with people across the world, like in Bali, like in your case, and that helps us cultivate that audience that we're all trying to create and carve out, just a space.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I think, the more I get to know artists and things like that, most of us don't give a shit about being millionaires and billionaires and the Taylor Swift of the world so famous that you can't even go to the grocery store without someone mobbing you for selfies and shit.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: So we just want a space, we want community, we want an audience, and they may hate the stuff.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I joke about that all the time.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like you read my first novel and I'm pretty sure you're going to hate it with a fiery passion, and that's kind of the point.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to be challenging sometimes and then so art of the holder ultimately is the connective tissue to all of that.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I always wanted a live stream too, because we knew that, yes, we were going to make all these different kinds of things.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Even you know much to your world.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: We, we dabbled in a little photography as well not as good as as your stuff, but uh, we we like to jump in and try different things and because we just want to make things, you know that feeling of just like making things and trying to make the world a better place, and I knew that.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Something like art of the beholder.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Uh, just a podcast show to always be in the conversation would be that connective tissue to all of them.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: How do we make the world a better place?
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: How do we make the world a better place?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: God, you have one person at a time, man.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: There's no easy answer to that.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: A better place is subjective.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Your better place is different from mine.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: My better place is different from yours.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: The most hippie thing about me is I actually don't believe in the concept of war.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know why we have to have war.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: No other species does this.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I come from a scientific background.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Before I got into the arts, or before I well, I've always been in the arts, but before I got into it seriously and wanted to pursue some more practical careers outside of the arts, I had a lot of my undergraduate degrees in the sciences.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So I've been studying those kind of things for millennia and I can tell you, you know, yes, it's art and music and math that separates us from the animals.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: But, man, the animals are sometimes so much better and so much more right than us.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Probably like your dogs, you probably see that in the animals that surround you, things like that.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Probably like your dogs, you probably see that in the animals that are surrounding you, things like that.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: So because I actually am writing a piece right now called it's called Twist, Ending Life, and I have a whole scene that talks about the fact that dogs have figured it out.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Dogs know life better than us.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Absolutely the smallest things make them happy.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: All they need is very little, and they're so excited to see you every day.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: So how do we make the world a better place?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, keep chipping away, keep striving to be better.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: It's never going to be perfect, but if we strive to be better, maybe we'll get there one day.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there are a few common themes that we could probably all agree on that we need to either eradicate or diminish in terms of human suffering, animal suffering yeah, I think we've got four dogs and I wish I could have ten.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Four dogs.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I've got one right here.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: I don't understand.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: We're animal lovers, and there's one thing I can never understand in the world is why we have to be.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: We being the proverbial we, I mean it.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: It it varies according to what culture you go into and which which country you're in, of course, but um, I don't know why we have to be so cruel to animals.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I get that there's a food chain.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I get that.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: You know, we, we have to, we don't have to, but we do kill animals to eat.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know why we have to torture animals.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I don't have, why we have to make them suffer.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know why.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's it.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more separate conversation.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: But yeah, animals, animals will last.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Well, hopefully will last way beyond us.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: You know, I think that's probably the the most nihilistic way to answer that question on on on my side is just to get rid of humans and then it's the world is going to be a better place well, ai is getting better every day, so you may do your wish, matt, don't my god, have you seen chat gpt 4o?
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Did you see that?
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I, uh, I'm thinking about signing up for it, um, I, um, I'm a little scared too, as as a writer, how is AI?
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: I was going to leave this to later, but it seems we've mentioned it as an artist, as a writer, as a photographer, as a producer.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: But for you, noviday Productions, how is AI?
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: How is the future looking with the encroaching influence of AI?
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: And we mean, we're a matter of years before.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: We just don't have to do anything.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: We don't have to, we will want to because we're humans, we're creatives, we want to have that influence on the world and express ourselves.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: But right now, here, right now, how is AI integrated and how is it affecting your productions?
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Well, we do.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I would be lying if I said I didn't use it at all.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: We absolutely use it, but we have a very hard policy of using it only as a tool and never as a crutch.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I will never, ever have AI let me, or AI write an entire novel for me or something like that.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: No, no, I don't think there.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Right now, we're still in the infancy of it.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I actually listened to a lot of other podcasts and a lot of other documentaries that talk about this a lot as much as what's his name?
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Sam Altman or whatever of OpenAI is saying that we're like right around the corner for having this kind of AI we see in movies.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I know Scarlett Johansson's voice was hijacked for their new chat GPT voice communication and thank God she just put the brakes on that and I think she's probably going to litigate it, things like that.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: But when we're writing sure, when we're writing, marketing is a full-time job that I do not want to sign up for.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Thank God there's people in the world that want to just do that side of the business.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: But when we need to do hashtags and market things, I'll have Chad out.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: You know, with this kind of subject, I think there's nothing wrong with things like that.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: You just can't let it take.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: It was kind of to my point of talking about the intention earlier.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: You can't let it take over or we'll never carve out these spaces we want in our communities.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: We'll never carve out these spaces we want in our communities.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: But yes, use it as a tool, not as a crutch.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I am an existentialist.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Life is short.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: There's maybe a little nihilism in there, but more cynicism.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: But I know that it will get to the point that it is so good that it can write novels, probably better than most of us, and things like that.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: So there is.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I would be lying if I said there was not some sort of existential dread to the communities, to the markets, things like that.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: And that's why we're starting to see it now.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: We're starting to see the pushback we saw with the SAG after strikes.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: We're seeing it right now.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I just mentioned Scarlett Johansson probably going to sue OpenAI's ass.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: We're seeing pushback and I think we'll eventually get there where we're telling all of these different governments like you guys in the UK, us in the States, all over the world, that we need to litigate this, we need to put guardrails on this, because the box is open.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Pandora's box is open.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: We will never, ever, ever go back.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I felt like that's the scariest part, guys, is we will never go back.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: That existential dread will be there forever.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: So if we don't learn and really push for change and adaptation of how to live with these worlds, we are going to always suffer the consequences.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree and I don't think we have to fight it too.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: I think you talked about the solution there.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: I think it's the litigation, it's the regulation.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: I'm talking as a photographer, talking as a writer, talking as a podcast both podcast hosts.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: We need to have a system that authenticates whatever we put out there, and I think it's coming just trying to tap into what's going on in terms of the regulating bodies.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: But the quicker that, but the quicker that comes, the better, and then we can have certainly in the art world, we can have the coexistence of both.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be a war, it doesn't have to be a fight.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: It's not AI or human right.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: We both live alongside each other and one uses the other.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: We can both have a space, for sure.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: What is your space at the moment in terms of?
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit more detail about the, the, the production company, why you know people come to you, how you kind of make a business out of it and you know, certainly with the multimedia kind of verticals that that go through novad Day Productions, how do you focus on any one at any time?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: My constant worry is not worry, but my constant battle is I want to do this and I want to do this and as creatives we have ideas and, like you said, I just want to make stuff all the time but I can't make something really well without giving it my full attention.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: And then I've got this and this and you're trying to juggle so many things With Novo Day Productions.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: You have a wide array of productions.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Tell us how you kind of manage that and any advice to people who are wanting to do different things at the same time.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: I cannot.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: The ability to have to harness work ethic is.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I think I cannot stress that enough is to hone that part of your personality in as best as you can.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: First and foremost Because I think when people want to do a lot of different things, the scope alone is intimidating, and a lot of people don't even.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I have other colleagues, contemporaries, that don't even get off the ground because they have some version of writer's block.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: They or they are.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: The scope is so big that they're they get intimidated by it.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: And I want to premise this by saying work ethic is so important because there is endless amount of talent out there and the sea of content we have right now way too much, in my opinion, we're adding to it right now yeah, joking, of course and so much different kinds of talent and passion that we never saw before, because anybody can put themselves on YouTube and things like that.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Because I will assure you anybody listening as soon as you start, you're going to get something I consider worse than failure and that is nothingness.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: You're going to get crickets.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: No one is going to give a shit about your work or what you put out and you could have put your heart.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: So all going to be the most polished thing on the planet, or what you put out and you could have put your heart.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to be the most polished thing on the planet.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Because I don't want to use the word competition, because, as artists, it's not a competition, it's not a fun competition.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: We're all on the same side.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: We're all trying to put, you know, beauty into the world and change it for the better.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: So that answers the other question, again Beauty.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: But it's answers the other question, again beauty.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: But you're going to feel immediately.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: You're going to feel like I should just get out of this, I should stop, because I only got 10 views, or I only got 10 clicks, or I only got 10 likes and no one likes this.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: No one's buying the thing.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Well, of course not.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: You have to build these worlds, you have to cultivate an audience, and it takes forever.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I'm still working at it to this day.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I'm still working on it to this day and I'm still looking for ways to take things to the next level, and I do.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: And so you have to believe in what you're doing, straight, to stay true to your vision, be flexible, be organized and, most importantly, my God, when you're dealing with artists, you have to be patient, people have to find their muse, people have difficulties with scheduling.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: You can call whatever we're doing like it's semantics right.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: It can be the arts, it can be media, it can be entertaining, you can call it show business, it doesn't matter.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Whatever you decide to go into, there will be an inevitable point where you come to a crossroads and if you're not getting the attention that you want, you think that your initial thing is to give up.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And so I urge everyone listening don't give up, keep going.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: You don't know what's going to land, you don't know.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing about art.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I talk about this all the time.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Art is time sensitive.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: People don't get a lot of the really challenging things right away.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: It takes 10, 20, 30 years.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing about people today.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: They don't want to wait that long, they don't want to play the long game.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: But I urge you to play that long game if you really want to kind of get into these worlds.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Because, yeah, it's not going to be the 0.0001, the success overnight is so rare it's not going to happen.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: But if you have that work ethic and then you have that organization, you are flexible, you are patient and you're, most importantly, true to your vision, you will get somewhere.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: It may not be exactly what you have upstairs, because everyone, when they're young, you always want the same thing.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: But as you get older and you realize especially when you keep going, after you get the crickets I remember the first time I put myself out there and it was a nothing.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I got nothing in return.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I did have that soul searching moment, but I wanted to keep going and I think that will tell you who you are.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: If you keep going, then you're probably an artist.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: If you want either fame overnight or something like that, maybe think about some other careers.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: So that's what I would tell a lot of people starting out and wanting to do a lot of different things.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Because and for the record, there's nothing I actually wish I was a master of something and not a jack.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I wish I could just pick one thing and be like okay, this is it, I'm doing this for the rest of my life.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I just, I just don't have that in my DNA.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's not, it's not a part of me.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: And I know there's a lot of people listening that will probably be like well, I'm a musician, I just want to be a musician for the rest of my life, or I'm a painter or I'm a photographer, and that's great.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Fucking embrace that.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: But for the other people out there that are like me, you really have to buckle down and sometimes just do it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: It is work at the end of the day, but if you do something you love, you won't work a day like a month, like it's the.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Certainly with the and I don't want to be ageist here but certainly with the younger generation, who have been brought up with instant gratification, society of instant gratification, so they think, well, if it's not working now, why it's never going to work, move on to the next thing, move on to the next thing, move on to the next thing.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: So that patience to be consistent and consistently patient.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: I think it's absolutely vital to build something and build a legacy, and you mentioned legacy earlier.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: What is your long-term goal?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Is that your long-term goal to build something that you can look back on once you're in the ground, or whatever you believe in after you die?
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: What is that that you're working towards, and is that something that's always something you're in the ground, or whatever you believe in after you die?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: What is that that you're working towards, and is that something that's always something you're working towards?
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, Legacy and the idea of immortality is, for some reason, very important to me.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: It's definitely a driving force that I could make something that could land myself in the history books forever.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Because, yes, I don't mind talking about a little bit of that stuff.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I am a non very religious and I think, and I'm also of the camp, that life is very short and we and we don't know the future.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: We only have one shot at this and if you're not doing the things you love or want to do, it's so challenging for me to relate to people like that sometimes Because, yes, I would love to make something that.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Because, yeah, when I pass, I think that's personally, I think that's it that there is no reincarnation, there's no afterlife, there's a nothingness to that.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: But there's not a nothingness to memories, there's not a nothingness to history, and I think we forget that as much as traditional arts.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: You know it's easy to think about man, I want to be, I want to be in the books, like the greats and things like that.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Everybody, in my opinion, much to you know someone like Rick Rubin's mentality on this.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I think we're all kind of artists, even if you don't go into a traditional art career and for the people that are probably making the tech right now or changing the laws, or everyone wants to strive for greatness, and where you place yourself in those timelines depends on you and what you want to do.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I would love to make the next great song or the next great thing, and again, that's subjective.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: If it doesn't happen, that's okay too, though In a weird way, that's the crossroads I got to.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: If it never actually happens, that's okay.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I gave it the best I could and I have no regrets, and I think to me that's enough.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: How do you then balance?
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I agree with you.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm not a religious guy and I think once I die, I die, and it's like a sleep that I don't wake up from, and so I don't know whether that's a blessing or a curse.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, everyone's different and it's how you perceive that it's both.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: It's dualistic.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: If you're thinking, you know I get some criticism of how I want to build a legacy, which I think is really important.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: A lot of people build their own legacies, like outside of the art.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: It's not just exclusive to the art world, right?
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: People have children for that reason, whether they agree to that or not.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: So I want to leave something behind.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: It's difficult how do you stay present and engaged in the moment on whatever you're working on, to be at that time, present in the moment as Novo Day, but also be thinking, as you do, long-termist and wanting to build this greater body of work?
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Well, this is probably me just being me.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: I've always been a walking oxymoron of a lot of different things.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: A lot of ideas kind of live in my mind for years, sometimes decades.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: So part of the reason that I really started to put myself out there seriously about 10, well, five years ago officially, but taking what I was doing very, very seriously about 10 years ago.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: But I was sort of sitting on decades of ideas and so, knowing that I wanted to try to achieve as much as I could, I actually stemmed it.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I based it off of what I call the holy trinity.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: No pun intended, I'm not religious, but I call it the holy trinity of pop culture, which is literature, but I call it the holy trinity of pop culture, which is literature, film and music.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to do something, at least one thing in each of those worlds before I passed.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Personally, even if it wasn't that great or not, a lot of people saw it I just wanted to do it for me, and so I had a lot of these ideas already brewing in my mind for years, and then I finally was like, well, it's time to do it.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: So I started to do it, and I think that's what is going to separate.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: A lot of people is actually sitting down and having that organization to map out a lot of the plans and ideas for it.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Because people ask me oh well, you must have like a five-year plan, I have a 20-year plan, I have a 30-year plan.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I'm playing such the long game that I try to be 10 steps ahead of everything and any idea whenever I can.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: It's impossible to see the future, of course, but just having an idea of how I want to structure these things and being organized enough.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: You know, because a lot of I come from, since I come from a lot of different worlds and realms and career paths, I cultivated kind of like that type A personality when it came to schedules and organization.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: I have.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: I cannot tell you how many spreadsheets I have for the stuff that I'm working on, like it is.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: It's almost gross, like how many I have.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: It's disgusting, matt, but that's what it takes.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: You know, that's what it takes.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Man is tapping into those artistic sides, but also having that business side in your brain of being like okay, well, I'm my own boss, I don't have schedules, I don't have deadlines from someone above me, but I need to create them.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I give myself deadlines all the time.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Luckily, I have a management team and we have an annual meeting for the whole year.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: What we, what we?
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: We map out the entire year, uh, pretty beat by beat.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: We don't.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: We don't always meet those deadlines.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's impossible to meet deadlines because you're working with a lot of other people.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Like just last year I finished, um, my second audio book.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Um, only got to produce it.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't get to direct it like the first one.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: But it's only a two-hour audiobook.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Two hours, right, shouldn't take that long.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: It took over a year to produce.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: It was already written so I had to adapt it, produce it, find talent and a wonderful actress that we got.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: We actually auditioned somebody else didn't work out.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Now, that's a good example of like, oh well, it's not quite playing the part nailing, the part that I had in my head.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: So we had to go through the audition process again.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: That's what prolonged a lot of these things, and just a two-hour podcast took over a year to make.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: And so you have to go into it knowing that not only being organized and being a little type A, if so, you have to go into it knowing that not only being organized and being a little type A.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: If you're going to channel any of that type A-ness in your mind, channel its organization where the rest of it can be for creativity and muse and spark, and let's try something no one has ever tried in their whole GD life, right Kind of thing, that feeling, that passion.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: But you have to have that other side of your brain or it'll.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Or, or let me tell you, hire people, like, if you don't have that, if you don't have that business type a out of the schedule, shit, um, hire people because, um and I know that that that can be hard, because not everyone is working with budgets like big studio, but as I know I'm not, so I have to really pick my battles, um, from you, from the income we get from sponsors and things like that.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: And it definitely comes down to that that you have to not lose touch with your goals, but how to frame your goals annually and then put them into five-year plans, 10-year plans and so on until you meet them.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: So it is, I guess, just to put a point on it, it is a marathon.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: As soon as a hurdle comes, jump over that hurdle and get to the next one.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: And, yes, it may take a year to make a two-hour audio book.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: That should have been made in like a weekend, but you'll be happy you got to that finish line.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I resonate with that process.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: I've just filmed an online course and well, actually I filmed it beginning of the year, I wrote it end of last year, the scripts and just an idea of the structure and how I'm going to produce this, filmed at the beginning of the year.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Then I've gone through, I think, four different video editors, because you know they just let me down or they found it too difficult or they're above my budget or whatever.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: And I'm for.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: You know we're we're still editing the fourth module out of 12 and we're, you know, halfway through the year It'll be a year by the time.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: I have it, I have it ready to go.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: So I mean, it's, it is a marathon and and that comes, I think, with a little bit of experience just having those, those impatient moments going.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, actually Okay, this is, if, if this is meaningful, then happy to to take the time on it.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: But I think your your point about organization is I'll go one step further and talk about systems Like, if you're able to, whether that's with a team, if you can afford a team but have some systems in place that can offload as much of that the admin or the organization, or just a place where you can pop ideas and come back to later.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: If you've got that in your little ecosystem, I think that can really help with the organization and therefore you can keep one eye on the long-term process, long-term goals, but also focus on the here and now and be present without losing sight of that.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Where is the kind of?
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: I'm going to ask you to give us some of your 20-year plans in a minute, but where, in those lines, have you think?
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: And in your kind of multifaceted um production company, where?
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Where have you?
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Where do you think you've succeeded and where, where do you kind of gravitate to most?
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: I, I really love art of the beholder.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, I I think we we have a long long way to go.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the podcast Art of the Beholder, I think we still have a long long way to go.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: But even that it was, you know, we dropped.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I think I mentioned this, but if I didn't, you know the original title was like Art of the Beholder, with Novo and Buck, like our names were going to be in the title, because it was going to be like a 90s radio kind of show where we had the same two people every single show.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: That obviously didn't work out.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: It turned into more of a traditional talk show, which I love too.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I love acting as well and being able to kind of play the character version of Novo Day.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: That's definitely not kind of me per se, but it's so.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I'm glad we dropped it because even that I know I want to pass the baton, I want to have other people host and eventually it will have a different host when I go off to do other things.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: But I want it to keep going going.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get to that point where it's still going kind of like wisecrack and stuff like that, where then if I wanted to come back or be a guest.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I could always come back, so that live stream is always there, that connective tissue to everything else.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: And to answer, I think, the other question, so yeah, the first decade was mostly like writing and because of that, like I mentioned kind of what I was talking about musicians and stuff it just takes so many resources to make even one song.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: So I knew I had to buy equipment and make a home studio in tiny little chunks, but I still wanted to nurture that side of me.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: That was, I really had an itch and I had to nurture those sides or I'd go crazy, you know, I, I, I really had an itch, um, and I had to nurture those sides, or I'd go crazy, you know, kind of thing.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: So I did it.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, since the music was originally going to be the flagship, I, I got the book from, like writing lyrics and poems and things like that, and then I was like, oh well, I should just keep doing this until I have enough equipment to make music.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Now I have that, doing this until I have enough equipment to make music, now I have that.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: So we're about a decade, uh, into the, into the kind of the writing phase of novoday productions, and the next 10 will be definitely, um, definitely music.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: And then the probably the last after that is I definitely want to do more video content.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Stills, um, not content I kind of hate that word sometimes.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: I, I want to.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: I want to make a short film, you probably for one of my short stories or something like that.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I actually, or I'm developing a screenplay for a feature that I, that one I would pass off to, but it's in my head right now and I just got to, you know, will it into existence.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's kind of just to have.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Like I said, the holy trinity of pop culture, art, is literature, music and film, and so I knew that every 10 years there's going to be probably something like that.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: And the beauty of it is it has spawned other things that I didn't know that I would have liked, like I designed all the art covers for my books, and I didn't know that I would have liked, like I designed all the art covers for my books, and I didn't think that I would kind of fall in love with design that way.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I thought I would just like hand it off to you know, outsource it Like.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: Here's my idea now do it, or just or not even that, just like, here's the book you know, read the synopsis and make a cover for it, I don't care.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: But when I would finish this stuff, I would say I think I know exactly in my head what I want to make for that cover and I've always been absolutely obsessed with surrealism and the movement that is surrealism.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: So everything I make in terms of just like visual, like artistic content, so cover, art, promotion, things like that, it'll always have like a hint of surrealism in it.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: And uh, even our logos, you know, has a little jellyfish flying through it, things like that, and uh, just like hints of it a little bit everywhere you have to.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: It's almost like Easter eggs that you have to look for sometimes, but it is, um, it's, it's, it's it kind of that's how I break it down.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Uh, to your point with, uh with with systems is, you know, I'm kind of breaking all those worlds into 10-year gaps and um, and then all the things that come with it, like I know, like if I write music, I probably would like to have like a music video and probably outsource that, so probably may write that and maybe even help film it, maybe even help edit it Like so it kind of all these other pursuits have turned into new routes that have taken shape and I kind of kind of to my the curse of me wanting to do so many different things.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: I never said I was amazing at all of them.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: For the record too, I just enjoy doing all of them.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: I just love doing so much that I can't stop.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: It's like an addiction.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it definitely turns into like oh well, I want to try that now and I want to try that now.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I wish I could be master, but I'm still a jack.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Before we move on, we moved on from the AI conversation, but I couldn't help but think this is the interviewer, me as a photographer.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Does that scare your community?
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Like you know, right now it's very crude, dolly and all the other stuff, but eventually it's going to get to that point where it's going to be so, so good that we cannot tell a difference.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Right now.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: We can tell a huge difference, right, like every every what was it late night Night with the Devil?
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Like them, just like putting things in the background of the movie and the whole.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Like ex-Twitter Instagram verse, like lit on fire, like you're using AI.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: You know it's an AI image, like people just have this like super keen eye for this and I think, as a photographer, I assume you do as well, but I assume that your entire community is a little scared with this idea.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, unfortunately, most people are morons, right, most people are stupid and uneducated and I think if you're able to educate yourself and inform yourself and find out about, you know and just think back, like certainly in the photography world and I'm just speaking for photography now, but it probably spills over into what you're talking about with movies and filmmaking and video.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've been using AI for years, years and years, ever since the concept of the digital camera came about.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: It's 2000-ish, we're talking over 20 years ago.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: We've been using AI ever since the computer was invented.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: But there was no fear of being replaced right, there was no fear of being replaced by the AI capabilities.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: I think there's always been an existential threat.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Whatever technology or whatever revolution has come about in human existence over the last two, three hundred years, there's always something that we think will threaten our existence as humans, ai just being another one.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: Maybe not our existence, maybe our existence, depending on AGI and how you see that moving forward.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: But, specifically talking about photography.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Look, we use photoshop, we use lightroom.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: We have done for for decades.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Um, that's ai.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Uh, I think where people are getting scared is they're just a little bit ignorant.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: And you know when, when chat gpt and when the these large language models came about, suddenly ai was in the headlines, right oh fuck, we got to think about ai.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, then mid journey came about in Dali and all these image generations, oh yeah, well, you know, we've been changing shit in Photoshop and in post-production and movies and images for fucking years.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: This is just the next level, right?
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: So where?
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: And going back to what I talked about earlier, with the regulations and the legislation around these kinds of things, or even just authentication, right, instagram now has, when you put a post on, you have to click a little box as to whether it's AI generated or not, which is a start.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: It's nowhere near the solution that we need, but if anything, in my opinion and I've talked to some really big photographers around who kind of echo this point is that it will make real photography more valuable.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, certain parts of the industry will probably be replaced.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking product photography, food photography, still life photography, maybe some advertisement for big commercial brand photography, but you know, real kind of photography, as a fine art form, it, it will never be replaced because people will always want that human.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like music, right it's not going to replace.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: It's not going to replace music, it's going to live alongside it.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: But if we have an authentication system where you can see a song generated by a human, albeit using technology and using AI and whatever software they might use, and compare it to something that clearly is marked AI generated or whatever it might be, the same with photography.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: It's like people will find the real, human generated images more interesting, more valuable and they might look exactly the same.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: But knowing one is being created by a human will add the value.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: So I'm not too worried about it.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, we have to, like you said earlier, use it.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: We have to utilize it, we have to work alongside it, certainly in the business and the system side of things.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: But you know, personally I I'm I'm not too worried about it.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Photography will always be around, whether it be a huge part of of society.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: I I don't know, I don't really care.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: Um, there will always be people wanting to take photos and if that's sure always around, then photography will always be around and the value of, of good photography.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: You know, this is the other side of it.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Maybe it will help us get rid of the fucking shit that's out there.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Maybe it will help.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe it will kind of make new photographers who may not have it, you know, in their desires.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Like step their game up.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and maybe that will allow us to just kind of balance the playing field a little bit more.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: But yeah, personally speaking, to answer your question, the more experienced photographers out there and the people who are kind of maybe not cemented in the space but have a business surrounding their photography passion, they're not too worried about it.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: It's something they have to keep an eye on, of course and, like I said, make sure they're keeping up with the paints so they're not left behind.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: But in terms of replacing photography, there will be some sectors of the industry that will be replaced in time, but, genuinely speaking, I don't see it Gotcha.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: What does your business model look like?
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: I don't want to dive into specifics and there is a sense of anonymity, of course, about everything that you do but give us an idea, certainly for people watching who kind of love your work or at least want to emulate a lot of the way you carry your brand.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: How do you bring that into a business sense and how do you kind of market that brand in order that you pay the bills every month?
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: um, the the models are.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: It's challenging because the models of our models are based on the products you know so to have.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: If you're going to have, if you're wanting a steady stream of income and you're wanting to to the bills, then I actually would encourage you to probably like right away, that is, you probably would want to play a little more of the game a little sooner.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying you got to do dance videos or something like that, I'm just saying that.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: Give me an example though.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Of a dance video, or what do you mean?
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: Give me an example of playing the game in order to kind of get a more consistent stream.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, playing the game.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: And again, no disrespect.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: No disrespect that people do this because there's a lot of intention of wanting to create a lot of business revenue from this alone.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, most of your point of our attention spans are getting less and less and less, so you're always going to get the numbers based on the lowest amount of content, or like not the lowest, but like the shortest amount of content and the most entertaining at the same time.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: You'll probably have to really experiment and there's luckily, between the AI you know our conversation about the AI there's so many metrics dedicated to this so we can look at the metrics and see what is working, what is not working.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: And again, it's hard to tap into those worlds because, again, there's already a million other people that are doing this.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: So, if you can figure out a way to stand apart but it's challenging because standing apart will also mean that you're not going to get as much right away.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: It definitely took us years and years and years to start getting even a little bit of income from these things, and I think that's intimidating, kind of going back to that point of like people want that instant success, they want to be a sensation overnight, they want to have the hit Again.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: I guarantee it won't happen that way.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: But if you're wanting to dive into the deep end, then, yes, the shortest amount of content, the most entertaining, the things that people will get almost a little addicted to, and the people that are really good at this, again, are the Mr Beasts of the Worlds, but then you become kind of a slave to that though, too.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: You become kind of a slave to that, though, too.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: So if you, if, if you want to dive into those worlds and you're, yeah, you just if you want to pay the bills from these things, you almost have to do that.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: You have to, um, you have to do the content that definitely sells, um, and make sure that.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: I mean even down to the smallest metrics.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Like, um, you'll get more things.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Like you will get more clicks.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Like you will get more clicks, you will get more views.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: If your face is in the thumbnail, if your mouth is slightly open, like people, like they take for granted, but like, go to your YouTube page or whatever, and search and notice these patterns that like, oh man, the people with like 500,000 views and a million views have are doing a lot of the same things million views have are doing a lot of the same things, and I, if, if you want to, if you want to be a part of those business models, more power to you.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Um, I knew that we personally didn't, so, um, we, we, just our focus is always on the, the product, whatever kind of artistic output or expression that we're making, and for us it's volume and it's a long-term kind of building of things that are interconnected.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Almost everything is interconnected with the things I make, even the novels like cross pollination between characters and things like that, and I'll even have music that way.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: So I don't recommend that for everyone.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: That's not for everyone the long game.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: But if you're wanting to jump into models that can get those clicks and all those things, so here's the thing Um, yeah, get those clicks and there's all those things, cause, then you'll get.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: So here's the thing.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: So, uh, like, if it's YouTube, for example, you're going to get revenue.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Uh, uh, it's.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I think the, the metric now is like you have to have at least a thousand subscribers and you have to have a certain number of views per video, but then you'll get a cut at all that, and then you can sell merch from that as well as, um, uh as well as yeah, so you're selling merch from that and and then other products uh along the way.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: And then also you know the people you know for, like the dance video kind of uh population out there.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: If, if you get enough uh people will contact you uh much, like some of our sponsors, to just talk about it on the show, you know, or wear the clothing in the video.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: You know where it's like, because the best kind of marketing, and probably where you actually get paid for it pretty consistently, is also consistently invisible where you don't really realize you're being marketed to.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: But we, yeah, we're kind of rebels a little bit that way.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: We don't want to always play by their rules.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: So fascinating.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: Um, one thing you talked about in terms of playing the game and trying to get, trying to understand that there is a business behind um, anything that we want to do full-time right, we've.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: We've all got to pay the bills.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Unless we're extremely privileged, extremely lucky.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: We've got to sacrifice some of that artistic integrity.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Um, you talk, you talk in in some of your copy about provocative art.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: Is that a?
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: Is that a specific strategy that you think will help you get a little bit more exposure?
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: Or is that just your innate, natural way of wanting to express yourself?
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: short answer is both.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I, I think, um, I'd like, I really like to uh, very opinionated.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: I uh, a lot of the stories I craft are not family friendly at all.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Um, uh, very challenging and very taboo sometimes, um, but they're still stories, they're still fiction.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: I, you know we have a team of beta readers and even my mom is in that group, believe it or not.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: And you know like, adulteration is about a.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: My second outing is a novella called Adulteration.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: That's about a porn star, you know, like a woman that's like trying to make it in an adult entertainment business.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: And even my mom was like I kind of understand her motivations, you know, which is such an interesting conversation to have with your family.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: So both I enjoy, you know, because I think some of the best characters are the most complex ones, very three-dimensional, you can't really put them in a box.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: And so I know, because of like society we are, like the adult entertainment industry is like automatically taboo, like oh, she's broken, that's why she got into that industry.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: And not necessarily.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen the weirdest documentaries and like interviews with a lot of people in that world and they just treat it like a job, they treat it like doing a podcast you know like.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Or you know signing up for to make a book or to to be a photographer.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: They, they just treat it like a job, like, like, like a plumber kind of job, like they're just going to work.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: They're, they're, they're a mailman.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: You know, that's how they talk about it.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: Um, probably a plumber, character in there.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, that is true to share, uh, but yeah, I mean uh, but yeah, to answer your question is it's both.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: You know, I I do.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: I do know that that stuff is probably going to be more entertaining, but I also do like, I like playing, I like challenging readers, I like challenging just people with all.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: I like challenging people with kind of all the stuff I make and that's why I expect the criticism I have to.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: You have to kind of this is a weird romantic way to put it you have to fall in love with the hate a little bit.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: You have to be okay with it.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: You have to come to peace with it.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Um and um, it's um, it's, it's just, it's yeah, it's both is, is that maybe a reason you like?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: anonymity is kind of a barrier to that hate no, I, um, again, you know, um, you know, um, I.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: You know, between, yeah, wanting to put the wanting to put, you know, the art to the spotlight, the art first.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: You know, not being crazy about being super famous.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: I want to have a little bit of divide.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Keep my private life private, protect my family, because they're not putting themselves out there and they don't need any X, instagram, twitter, hate for stuff like the stuff I make, and so I want to be protective of that.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: No-transcript um, you could do that with anything, and I, I don't know, I, I personally, I, I don't think I'm trying to hide under the shield of the um, of the branding.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'm trying to hide under the shield of the branding.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: How do you see that moving forward?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: You mentioned the kind of dirty word that is content, and I'm with you on that.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: I think we've made this word content into something that we don't really like, and content can be anything right, but how do you see the evolution of creativity and art moving forward and where do you think you're going to?
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: I know you have a long-term plan, but where do you think you're going to fit into that evolution or devolution?
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: I see it.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Ask the question again.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: Maybe I didn't quite understand it.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: With the evolution of creativity and art as we might see it or perceive it moving forwards.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Where do you kind of see the space and we've talked and we've touched on social media a little bit, we've touched on the world and society of instant gratification when do you see your business model and your creativity fitting into that evolution or devolution as you might perceive it?
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know, that's a good question.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it may be the hugest thing on the planet in 30 years.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: It may be another drop in the.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: It may still just stay a needle in the haystack.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: I'm apathetic, I think, to that idea.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: I still, you know, all the all of uh, contemporaries, probably more like inspirations, people I I look up to, like david lynch and you know, leonard cohen and stuff, had had all these.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: You know they didn't put anything on a model, um, you know, they just kind of made stuff and and and acquired an audience and a lot of their stuff, I will admit, is so challenging.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of artists I love and I'm like I do not get this at all.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Like what could someone explain this to me?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: Like this is, this is weird for even me and I I love weird stuff, I love avant-garde, I love, I love, give me some strange anything, give me eclectic end day.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: But there are lines where I'm like I don't understand this and I don't think I'm meant to.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: I realize, like that's the whole point of it, and so to a question like that, I just I probably would, you know, turn it around on you and say like, does it?
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Does it truly matter?
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it depends on like yes, if this is your only source of income and you gotta like adapt to every tiny little thing that changes, then then I can maybe kind of relate or kind of see it, but you know, but then you have to ask yourself where the integrity is, and if it stops being the things you want to make, then I feel like I don't know.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: I would have a hard time connecting with that still if it was just the thing that I thought would be an adaptation for what the people are always wanting.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: And I know how that sounds.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: I know that comes like I'm this pretentious artist, you know like type I'm not.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: You know I just I'm not trying to be, but I know how that sounds and just to refute kind of that idea of something like that.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: You know it does come back to the fact that it probably shouldn't matter, but it's tough.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: I get where you're trying to get at that.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: You still got to play the game a little bit.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: You still got to play ball and I think I will always do that to an extent, but I will always make a line and make my manager just so upset Because, yeah, I mean, I just don't care enough.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: It's apathy I'm going to do me.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: I've always been happy being me.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: If that had to change one day, I probably would just retire.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: I think the question stems really from the fear of being left behind.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: And at the bottom of all of this is money.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: People want money and status and they're kind of conflated.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: But people need to live and they want to do something they want to do.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: But when the society and the industry moves faster than they can adapt, they fear about getting left behind.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: And I'm with you.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: I want to enjoy the process.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: I want to always do something I want to do and I think that's good, because I'm more of a jack of all trades as well.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: I'm master of none and I think that having as diverse interests and idea generation and business model as you can allows you to adapt a little bit more and go with the flow or not go with the flow, or is this something that I can ride a wave with or not?
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: So I think you know that as, as the artists and as art moves forward or moves sideways or however we we want to see it, I it.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: I don't want anything to get diluted.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: I think I agree with you on that.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: It's to maintain that I worry personally, and the reason why I ask that question is I worry personally that and I did a video on this about the integrity of artists and being kind of washed over and being spilling over into the content creation kind of world, and there is not necessarily one or the other.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: Certainly, as a writer and a musician, I think it's easy to lose focus on that and I think it's really important for us to remain as integral as possible to that and the process and your voice, sure, but I worry about the likes of you and I who seem to be diminishing in the world, and I ask that question because I want to know how we start propping it up and not just become the.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: It's not okay, I don't know.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm confusing your idea with another idea.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Maybe I'm confusing your idea with another idea when you say there's less and less of us in terms of the integrity usually is number one, the vision is number one, where a lot of the other things the business model and the audience and all these other things kind of come later.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: I thought that's what you're meaning by less of us yeah, no, I do.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: The less of us who put the integrity first, right at the top of the list.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: I got to push back.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: I disagree with that.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of us.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: I think that's part of the reason I wanted to.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, have my own show is always to remind people there's still a lot of us out there.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: We're just not probably at the top let me rephrase it then there's yeah, there's less of us being exposed.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: You know we're not fitting into the algorithmic oh yeah, and we never will.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Who?
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: the society is getting more influenced by essentially the the wrong values and the wrong belief system, and that's what I worry about under all of this is how society is influenced right, how society is impacted by something as small as the art world.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, well, that's the contemporary society we have, right, that's the contemporary society we have, right, I've always been fascinated by, you know, amateur, you know musicologists and historians that study this stuff, because art will always shape the culture and it's very cyclical.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: Culture will always shape the arts and I don't think, I'm not worried that that will ever stop.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: You know, yes, there will be, there will be.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: The machine will probably only get bigger.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, feed the algo.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: You know, whatever you got to do to to get the clicks and all those things, um, I think, you know, while while we're discussing it, I think I had the closest thing to answering that better is like, if I had this like shining hit, you know, let's say I wrote something and it was this big hit, um, I, I, of course, I would give serious consideration to writing a sequel to that, you know, be it, uh, an album or a book or a film or whatever like that, because, uh, but I think the difference between a lot of people like me and maybe some other other types of people is that it would still have to feel right, like, yes, I'm okay.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: I think there's nothing wrong with riding waves and, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being successful and playing the game sometimes and fucking killing it, and you're the next big thing A-lister, making all the money Go crazy, do that?
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: I just know for me and a lot of other people like me, that, um, if, if, that, if that sequel is that, if that next thing I did to help the hit or to become another hit based off that hit, um, was it still in line with my, my, my values and my vision and my integrity?
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't do it.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, interesting.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: Well, as we wrap up, then, I want to kind of finish with something along those lines but if you can tell us something a little bit about you, novo Day, the productions that maybe we don't know about, that you're willing to share and tell us why you know we, we want to, we, we want to find you and, and and uh, and buy your stuff a little personal tidbits.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: I love animals too, just like you.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: I come from a long line of people that love animals too.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Just like you, I come from a long line of people that love animals.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more with what you were saying earlier.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: I'm very familiar.