Latest / Panels & Pacing: An Animation Editing Podcast / Episode 007 - Big Nate and The Invincible Fight Girl with Ben Ravid

Transcript

Episode 007 - Big Nate and The Invincible Fight Girl with Ben Ravid · Panels & Pacing: An Animation Editing Podcast

• 0:00
  If this is something you're really, really passionate about,
• 0:03
  this is it. You're in it for the marathon,
• 0:07
  not like the Sprint. Welcome to episode 7 of Panels
• 0:26
  and Pacing, an animation editing podcast.
• 0:28
  Today I'll be talking to Ben Ravit, an animatic editor whose
• 0:31
  credits include Nickelodeon's Big Nate, the Invincible Fight
• 0:33
  Girl, and the upcoming feature Slime.
• 0:35
  You and I don't actually know each other that well.
• 0:37
  I feel like we've met maybe one in one or two of our animation
• 0:40
  mixers, but we've kind of both pretty active in our, like,
• 0:43
  online Discord. So this is a bit of a different
• 0:46
  guess for me because I've, I've most previously had people that
• 0:49
  I've either worked with or, or, or seen a lot.
• 0:53
  It'll be interesting to, you know, find out a little bit more
• 0:55
  about your background and stuff. And, and yeah, so welcome.
• 0:58
  Yeah. For sure.
• 0:59
  No, thanks for having me on. Yeah, I definitely see you
• 1:01
  around Like, and I probably like one or two of the mixers and
• 1:04
  probably I'm a little overtly talkative in the Discord.
• 1:08
  So it's good to kind of meet up with you.
• 1:11
  I wanted to start by asking how you got started in an
• 1:14
  entertainment and where'd you start?
• 1:16
  Yeah, for sure. So I went to San Jose State
• 1:19
  University and I went to school for animation specifically.
• 1:25
  And so I didn't start out as any sort of editor or, you know,
• 1:29
  live action or learn anything about that.
• 1:32
  I I went, it was specifically like a 2D and 3D animation
• 1:35
  program. And when I graduated in 2017, I
• 1:39
  was like pretty lucky to fairly immediately like start getting
• 1:45
  animation work when I traveled down to LA.
• 1:49
  And so I worked in like advertising for a while at this
• 1:54
  like tech startup that used Premiere Pro as the animation
• 2:00
  tool to make like playable demo ads for iOS games where it's
• 2:07
  basically like you would animate a bunch of screens from the game
• 2:11
  that they were. It wasn't the game.
• 2:13
  It was like a fake demo where you would root out all these
• 2:16
  different routes and if they clicked in certain places on the
• 2:20
  screen, that would lead one tree to the next animation that you
• 2:23
  had made. So it kind of feel like they
• 2:25
  were playing the demo, but it was just being kind of
• 2:29
  railroaded. So I did that for a while and
• 2:33
  then I got into VFX and I got to work on like the Falcon and The
• 2:36
  Winter Soldier on the at the third floor and as like a brand
• 2:41
  manager for another thing. So I didn't, I didn't start out
• 2:47
  like as an editor. And then there was like a period
• 2:51
  which I hear used to be a little bit more normal of dry time
• 2:55
  where like I couldn't find any work as an animator for like 7
• 2:59
  months or so. And I had someone I went to
• 3:03
  school with, school with was working on Craig of the Creek at
• 3:07
  Cartoon Network as a production assistant.
• 3:10
  And they got a job as like an artist at DreamWorks.
• 3:14
  And they were like, hey, I know you've been looking for work.
• 3:16
  Would you want to try like taking over for me or like we're
• 3:19
  interviewing for this PA position since I'm leaving.
• 3:22
  And so I was like, yeah, I've been out of work for like 7
• 3:24
  months. I'll do anything at this point.
• 3:28
  And so I interviewed at Cartoon Network for that.
• 3:31
  And even though I ended up not getting it, the recruit at the
• 3:34
  time like really seemed to like me.
• 3:36
  And she was like, listen, I know you didn't get this one, but I
• 3:39
  have this friend who is working at this small studio 789, and
• 3:46
  you said you had a lot of experience in Premiere Pro, and
• 3:49
  she needs an assistant editor. Would you be interested in,
• 3:52
  like, you know, assistant editing for her?
• 3:54
  And I was like, yeah, that sounds awesome.
• 3:56
  And so she hooked me up with Duffy, Ella Duffy.
• 4:02
  She was like a producer on like the Rugrats and All Real
• 4:06
  Monsters and like all of those like klatchy, klatchy Supo
• 4:11
  Curtains. Yeah, it was really cool.
• 4:13
  And and I had like one of the like coolest, most helpful
• 4:17
  editors who I was assistant editing for.
• 4:20
  And that's really how I made the transition.
• 4:24
  And once COVID hit, I was kind of doing some just sort of like
• 4:31
  more brand managing work for this one other studio for like 3
• 4:35
  months before Titmouse contacted me and said, hey, I saw you
• 4:40
  specifically have or like experience in assistant animatic
• 4:45
  editing, which is different from like assistant editing.
• 4:48
  And we're looking for an assistant animatic editor.
• 4:50
  Would you want to like interview for this show?
• 4:53
  Chicago Party. And then from there, I was a
• 4:56
  Titmouse to Nickelodeon to Cartoon Network and yeah.
• 5:00
  Nice jumping from place to place.
• 5:02
  That's pretty normal. And no matter who I've talked to
• 5:06
  on or outside of this podcast about their career path, it's
• 5:10
  always very similar. There's no one, there's still no
• 5:13
  one path, although everyone kind of, you know, everyone's on
• 5:15
  their own little like, you know, trajectory here and there.
• 5:19
  I was curious just as a, as a brief detour, 'cause I, I, I, I
• 5:23
  saw that on your IMDb, the, the VFX stuff for Falcon, The Winter
• 5:26
  Soldier. How much did you like, what was
• 5:30
  your role kind of doing that? And and I guess as a follow up,
• 5:35
  like have you been able to see any huge similarities between
• 5:38
  the VFX world and the animation world kind of in your, in your
• 5:41
  experience? Yeah, there's definitely
• 5:43
  overlap. I was doing it was pre previous
• 5:47
  animation. So it was basically a lot of
• 5:49
  rudimentary animation in using like 3D models where you would
• 5:55
  map out the basic scenes of what was going to happen and the
• 5:59
  director kind of get a feel for what those scenes were gonna be
• 6:02
  like before they had to pay the real bucks to the actors to do
• 6:06
  like individual takes for those. So it seemed like they were
• 6:09
  getting most of the blocking done in previs before going to
• 6:13
  live. And then I had some of the
• 6:14
  people who were working close to me were doing stuff like masking
• 6:18
  out green screen and putting in sort of like the green screen
• 6:22
  backgrounds and all of that. And it was pretty interesting.
• 6:24
  And I would say that's the biggest overlap is like using a
• 6:27
  bunch of masking in the green screen, masking out all of that
• 6:29
  kind of stuff. And I'm always curious with the
• 6:31
  like Marvel and the Disney World stuff, like I know that what you
• 6:35
  were kind of like at a company doing like hire to do the VFX
• 6:38
  for them. So right, that's kind of.
• 6:41
  Thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:42
  No connection to Disney at all. Yeah, We did not call ourselves,
• 6:45
  like Disney employees. And they were super secretive
• 6:50
  about like, anything else that was going on in a cubicle, like
• 6:53
  next to you. Like you didn't ask the people
• 6:56
  who were like halfway across the room what they were working on.
• 7:00
  Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I have a friend that wound up
• 7:03
  with ILM for a a bit and and worked on some of the like
• 7:06
  Mandalorian type stuff. And yeah, it's the same kind of
• 7:09
  thing where even though that's like Bukas film, you know, the
• 7:12
  such historic connection between those those things that they
• 7:15
  were like here's your one shot. You only know you've only seen
• 7:17
  like 5% of the whole episode working on these couple shots.
• 7:22
  And and then they know like nothing else outside of that
• 7:24
  even even, you know, kind of technically under the same band.
• 7:28
  So it's always an interesting kind of.
• 7:30
  Yeah, this one was pretty interesting though, because like
• 7:34
  you're doing so many shots so fast, you are basically like
• 7:38
  getting between anywhere between like 8 and 12 shots a day.
• 7:44
  And so you really see like you're working on like the
• 7:47
  entire, because it's a pretty rudimentary animation.
• 7:49
  It's just blocking. You're like, you're really
• 7:52
  getting to see like your work on like almost every episode or
• 7:55
  like almost every scene, which is pretty cool.
• 7:59
  Nice. Moving on, kind of because
• 8:01
  you've had different types of projects, do you have one that
• 8:04
  you kind of always latch onto as like, oh, this is my favorite or
• 8:09
  this is my favorite either show to to watch and work on or, or
• 8:13
  group of people that you worked with on a show?
• 8:17
  Yeah, it's, it's tough because I've been working, I mean,
• 8:20
  compared to a lot of you guys in the Discord, I'm such a like
• 8:24
  greenhorn. Like I've been working for like
• 8:27
  kind of close to a decade. But I was also lucky enough to
• 8:32
  be put on the show Big Nate, which went on for years.
• 8:38
  And so even though I've been working so long, it's really not
• 8:42
  been on that many different, like different shows.
• 8:45
  Yeah. My favorite show that I've
• 8:47
  worked on in terms of like the people I've worked with was
• 8:50
  definitely Big Nate. It was, I think, like probably
• 8:55
  something that I'll never get to experience again, where it was
• 8:58
  such a well oiled machine that we came in under budget every
• 9:03
  single time, didn't ship a single episode late.
• 9:06
  I've only had to do overtime I think once or twice in my 3 1/2
• 9:09
  years of being on it. And everybody was so respectful
• 9:15
  of everybody else. Nobody made, like, anybody else
• 9:19
  feel like they were lesser than another one.
• 9:21
  Like, we helped our production team unionize at Nickelodeon.
• 9:26
  Yeah, it was such, like, a special job.
• 9:30
  And, like, I still keep in touch with a lot of people.
• 9:33
  From there. I get lunch with my old
• 9:35
  showrunner. My director, Kimberly Mills,
• 9:38
  moved into my apartment complex and I play Dungeons and Dragons
• 9:42
  with her and some of the storyboarders from the show.
• 9:46
  And then in terms of like shows that I got to work on that were
• 9:50
  super like in my bag, The Invincible Fight Girl.
• 9:54
  I'm like such an anime head. I've been watching anime my
• 9:58
  entire life. I like studied the way that like
• 10:01
  the pacing and the shots differ from American animation.
• 10:05
  And the thing they set out to do in The Invincible Fight Girl was
• 10:09
  not to make like an American anime, but to make an anime.
• 10:14
  And whether or not we were 100% successful in that, I think, you
• 10:18
  know, we did the best we could, but it was so fun getting to
• 10:21
  work on. And we had such incredible
• 10:24
  storyboarders, like a lot of people from the rise of the
• 10:26
  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who are just like insane
• 10:30
  storyboarders, basically animating the entire thing in
• 10:33
  storyboard. It was so fun to get to work on,
• 10:37
  to get to build a library of music and sound effects that
• 10:41
  would go well with that. And a lot of those shots go into
• 10:45
  my reel because it's just like super fully animated.
• 10:50
  Yeah, that's awesome. It's cool to just get to work on
• 10:52
  like any type of project. And and as an editor especially,
• 10:56
  you kind of have to be like a bit of a sponge for the style
• 10:59
  and the genre and the the pacing and kind of just like look and
• 11:04
  feel for whatever show you're working on and whatever style
• 11:07
  the creators are, are are wanting.
• 11:10
  But it's it makes it a lot easier when you're like, oh,
• 11:13
  this is what I would watch. This is what I'm really into.
• 11:16
  Or you have some kind of personal connection to like
• 11:18
  either the style or the characters or the humor.
• 11:21
  Like the couple shows that I always point to that I really
• 11:25
  just had fun working on and really am proud of are the ones
• 11:28
  where the sense of humor was like for me, I was the I was the
• 11:32
  demographic of the show. So a couple of my like a dull
• 11:35
  animation shows, including this, the recent one I just finished
• 11:37
  Tripla. That one was just like, you
• 11:39
  know, I just like, I got it and the show got me and, and, you
• 11:43
  know, got my humor. And then this was kind of made,
• 11:46
  made it fun, even though it's, it's a lot of hard work to, to,
• 11:50
  to make a show funny and good. And then the personal
• 11:53
  connection, like working on frog and toe, for example, you know,
• 11:57
  that that's a show for kids, but that's a classic book series
• 12:02
  that a lot of us grew up reading as kids.
• 12:05
  And, you know, the, everyone on the show was really excited
• 12:09
  about working on that, that, that project and, and wanting to
• 12:13
  honor the original tone of the books.
• 12:16
  And that was also kind of like really fulfilling.
• 12:18
  It's nice when you keep in touch with people and you can still,
• 12:20
  you know, just kind of like go through, you're like, oh, let's
• 12:22
  get our trip launcher. Let's yeah, hang out after shows
• 12:25
  are done. That kind of hey, that builds
• 12:27
  your network, but then it also kind of like builds your social
• 12:29
  network and build, builds some lasting friendships and.
• 12:32
  Stuff. And it's, it's so important to
• 12:33
  have stuff like that too, because like, if we're honest
• 12:37
  here, a lot of the time you're not going to get a work on the
• 12:41
  show you're working on is not like your frog or toad or your
• 12:44
  like special interest or like you're going to have to work on
• 12:48
  probably quite a few like stinkers in your time in the
• 12:52
  industry. But what I learned very early on
• 12:56
  is like, even if the show that you're working on, you don't
• 12:59
  think personally is going to be very good, the people that you
• 13:03
  work with, your team is the most important thing.
• 13:06
  And so you just have to keep in mind that it's the team that
• 13:09
  you're working with more so than the thing that you're creating a
• 13:13
  lot of the time. Yeah, hopefully because you're
• 13:15
  making a show, someone greenlit it somewhere and thinks that
• 13:18
  there's an audience for it. So whether or not you are the
• 13:20
  audience for that, you, you do have to kind of take yourself
• 13:24
  out of it to a certain extent. If you're not, like if you're
• 13:27
  not the audience, it's there's an audience somewhere for it.
• 13:29
  Yeah, someone's gonna like. It kind of helps put your best
• 13:31
  effort forward to to make sure that whoever the show is for is
• 13:34
  getting the the the best product.
• 13:36
  Yeah. No one wants to phone it in.
• 13:37
  Everybody wants to make, like the best kind of show that they
• 13:40
  can. Yeah.
• 13:41
  Do you, I guess I think you may have brutally mentioned someone
• 13:45
  that that that may have acted as like a mentor coming up.
• 13:48
  Do you have anyone else you want to talk to or or go more in
• 13:52
  detail about people that have helped you along the way?
• 13:55
  I've been, yeah, I've, I've been very lucky to have a lot of
• 13:58
  people helping me out right now. I've, I Mark Emerson, who is in
• 14:04
  our Discord, he is kind of like a de facto mentor to me as well.
• 14:11
  He's like pretty good friends with one of my best friends,
• 14:14
  Andrew Sibner, who's an Imagineer.
• 14:17
  And so I'll like meet up with Mark and he'll reach out to me
• 14:21
  with jobs and stuff. And it's important to have those
• 14:24
  kind of people. Mitch Watson, who was my
• 14:28
  showrunner on Big Nate, we kind of get lunch every once in a
• 14:31
  while and catch up, and he tells me what's going on with his
• 14:34
  life. I joined.
• 14:37
  It's called the Hollywood Radio Television Society, HRTS.
• 14:44
  And so I actually have a mentor who I've been very bad about
• 14:48
  reaching out to recently named Chevy Chen, who was like a
• 14:54
  producer on shows like Royal Pains and Burn Notice and that
• 15:00
  kind of stuff. And I actually just reached out
• 15:02
  to him earlier today. But keeping in contact with
• 15:05
  people is so important, even if sometimes you let it slide.
• 15:08
  And we can't really do this on our own.
• 15:10
  It's it's not a world in which you can be sort of an island.
• 15:14
  And most of the jobs you're going to get, especially right
• 15:18
  now, it seems like, are because, you know, people and people
• 15:23
  think that you are either very good and at what you do and more
• 15:27
  importantly, like a nice person to work with who is reliable.
• 15:33
  So yeah, it's super important to to have people and to shout
• 15:37
  those people out for doing everything they can.
• 15:40
  Yeah, it's funny you mentioned Mark cuz hopefully he he is OK
• 15:44
  with the with the shout out. He and I met our kids, went to
• 15:48
  the same preschool and there was one birthday party I was at
• 15:51
  where and his, our kids, he's he's got two kids.
• 15:54
  I have two kids that are both the same age.
• 15:55
  So they were like in the same classes.
• 15:57
  And so there's one birthday party we were at where I was
• 15:59
  sitting with one of the parents that I knew who also happened to
• 16:02
  be an editor, that an editor that I met back in my reality TV
• 16:05
  days. And I overheard, heard him
• 16:08
  talking about animation editing. And my ears parked up and I was
• 16:10
  like, oh, you're an animation editor.
• 16:11
  I'm an animation. And there was another, another
• 16:14
  dad in that preschool, Knicks and Otis who's who was yeah,
• 16:18
  we'd also animation editor. Yeah.
• 16:20
  And so, yeah, the three of us will would occasionally get, get
• 16:24
  drinks and and, and talk shop, both parenting and work stuff.
• 16:29
  So yeah, it's nice to kind of like within your outside of work
• 16:32
  network sometimes you're, you know, it winds up being a small
• 16:35
  world. So yeah, for sure, it's a super,
• 16:37
  super, super fun. Mark and I are actually working
• 16:40
  on like, a political campaign for someone who's running for
• 16:43
  Burbank City Council. And I'm doing, like, shorts.
• 16:47
  I think I could talk about it now.
• 16:48
  His name is Chris Yousefi, and he was like a producer in the
• 16:51
  entertainment industry for a while.
• 16:53
  And he's running because he feels like things need to make a
• 16:58
  change in Burbank and we need to make it sort of a nicer, more
• 17:02
  equitable place for people to come and start their families.
• 17:06
  Maybe from these mentors or just stuff you've come along the way,
• 17:10
  do you kind of have any like go to advice that you like giving
• 17:14
  people? It's hard, I will say.
• 17:16
  It's like so hard to beat this, the cynicism right now.
• 17:21
  There are so many parts of me that every day think that like
• 17:27
  wonder if it's worth it to like try and persevere right now,
• 17:32
  because it seems like every day there is more and more people
• 17:36
  trying to beat you down, whether it's corporate mergers or AI or,
• 17:44
  you know, constant rejection. I, I think one of my biggest
• 17:48
  advice is just like, it's OK, as bad as it can feel to, to work a
• 17:53
  survival job while you need to, if this is something you're
• 17:55
  really, really passionate about, this is it.
• 17:59
  You're in it for the marathon, not like the Sprint.
• 18:03
  And like they can't make you quit if you don't want to quit
• 18:07
  and if you need to survive. I'm currently working at Trader
• 18:11
  Joe's. I've been at Trader Joe's for a
• 18:13
  year and a half now. And it can, it can be a real
• 18:17
  blow to your identity, like especially when you're working
• 18:21
  in a creative craft, like your job becomes such a big part of
• 18:25
  who you feel you are. Maybe it's like that for
• 18:27
  everybody and it's easy if you're working out something
• 18:30
  like Trader Joe's for a year and a half to feel like, was I ever
• 18:34
  any good in the 1st place? Was I cut out to be this right?
• 18:39
  So it's important to think about like if you are the kind of
• 18:42
  person who can pivot like that, if you can survive in a, in a, a
• 18:49
  job market that is increasingly 3 months of work to nothing to
• 18:55
  three months to hopefully six months to nothing, like it's
• 18:58
  becoming increasingly unstable or unstable.
• 19:02
  And I hope we do something to mitigate that.
• 19:06
  I've, I've heard that the pendulum always swings back and,
• 19:11
  and I, and I hope that sometime in the future, like we'll get to
• 19:16
  a place where people are making shows again.
• 19:21
  But I think it's important to come in with clear eyes right
• 19:24
  now about how difficult the time it is in the industry and
• 19:29
  whether you're someone who is ready or like willing to deal
• 19:33
  with that. Yeah, IIA lot of people that
• 19:36
  I've worked with have pivoted to other career choices at at this
• 19:40
  point. And I've certainly considered
• 19:42
  it. So there's that.
• 19:43
  I think being flexible. I think when I was going to
• 19:46
  college, they said like focus on one thing.
• 19:50
  Like if if Disney wants to know that you're really locked in on
• 19:54
  one thing. So if you apply as a production
• 19:57
  person, they don't want someone who's also going to like, want
• 20:00
  to be an editor or like a painter.
• 20:02
  And I think that has turned out to be completely incorrect
• 20:06
  advice at this point where companies want someone who can
• 20:11
  do 5 different things now. So being a Jack of all trades
• 20:16
  is, I think, more beneficial to you than someone who specializes
• 20:20
  in just one thing. Yeah, yeah, I've certainly found
• 20:24
  that that that last bit to be true.
• 20:27
  I think even the like idea of algorithm based or like
• 20:31
  analytics and retention based stats that kind of dictate a lot
• 20:37
  of what is a success and what's not a success on that stuff.
• 20:40
  I've, I've found that you're, you're not only kind of just
• 20:43
  like editing to what like feels like a, like a natural kind of
• 20:47
  like storytelling rhythm. Like you got to kind of think
• 20:50
  in, in terms of, and like catching someone's attention in
• 20:53
  30 seconds or 15 seconds or 10 seconds.
• 20:55
  And yeah, I mean, I've been in the same boat in terms of job
• 20:58
  postings and, and just kind of feeling the kind of doom and
• 21:02
  gloom of like, is this all that's available to me now?
• 21:05
  Is this all like I, I, I can hope to do if I want to continue
• 21:09
  to consider myself an editor or consider to call myself an
• 21:11
  editor, consider continue to work as an editor?
• 21:15
  And it's, it's tough. It kind of like, to me, it feels
• 21:18
  like 1/2 pivot because I am, I am still kind of hope of you,
• 21:22
  you know, holding out hope that like, not only will the pendulum
• 21:25
  swing back a little bit, but like somewhat of the type of
• 21:29
  work that we, we we've worked on in the past will return in a, in
• 21:34
  a similar form. Like some, some things may be
• 21:35
  different, some, you know, it may, it might be shorter runs
• 21:39
  and cooker schedules and tighter budgets.
• 21:41
  And hopefully there's still a day that I can work on ATV show,
• 21:44
  you know, work on ATV show again, work on some animation
• 21:46
  again, work on something again that will closely resemble the
• 21:50
  stuff that I've worked on in the past.
• 21:51
  Because I know that's what I've kind of, that's the skill set
• 21:55
  that I've built up. And that's what I know that like
• 21:56
  I can, I can do this, this other kind of like digital stuff and,
• 21:59
  and whatever kind of like almost feels like you're relearning a
• 22:03
  whole new thing. And, and there's this whole crop
• 22:05
  of people that have come up alongside this this digital
• 22:08
  industry that are maybe more well suited to kind of
• 22:12
  understand that off the off the bat or, you know, are a little
• 22:17
  bit more willing to pay at the rates that people pay in the in,
• 22:20
  in that thing. And, you know, aren't, aren't
• 22:22
  concerned about maintaining a union job to maintain union
• 22:26
  benefits and just need like, you know, fast cash or whatever.
• 22:31
  Yeah. So not to discourage any of that
• 22:33
  of that stuff. You know, I think for people
• 22:35
  just starting out, like that's the market right now.
• 22:38
  Like if you're, you know, especially if and when TV and
• 22:43
  feature stuff come along, like they're going to look for the
• 22:45
  those of us that have have decades of experience and are
• 22:49
  just currently not working for those jobs.
• 22:52
  And not the people that are fresh out of film school or, you
• 22:55
  know, I've cut a few YouTube shorts or whatever.
• 22:59
  And you know, if you like doing that, like more power to you.
• 23:03
  Like there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with being someone
• 23:06
  who enjoys making those TikTok edits, making those YouTube
• 23:09
  edits. Like we had people like that.
• 23:11
  We had YouTube poops when I was growing up and all that kind of
• 23:14
  stuff. It's been around forever.
• 23:15
  It's just so different and not why I, you know, wanted to
• 23:21
  become an editor. It's not like I'm here.
• 23:24
  I'm really interested in just telling stories.
• 23:26
  Like I want to make something that like makes people feel
• 23:31
  emotion that tells some sort of story.
• 23:34
  And like to me, I still grapple with like, yes, sometimes I get
• 23:40
  offers for doing like shorts for TikTok and all that kind of
• 23:45
  stuff. And sometimes it even pays like
• 23:47
  pretty good money to me. It's like when I when I have to
• 23:51
  do TikTok stuff and like all this short form, it's like, I
• 23:56
  get it. It's just, it's so uninteresting
• 23:59
  to me. And like, maybe that's like what
• 24:02
  I don't know if there's a better word than like first world
• 24:05
  problem kind of thing of like, oh, you have to like get paid to
• 24:09
  work on something that you're not particularly interested in.
• 24:12
  I don't know, I don't know. There is a bit of kind of like
• 24:17
  rosy glasses when you talk about working in the entertainment
• 24:20
  industry just because it is kind of like this weird like bizarro
• 24:25
  world thing where there are real jobs and there are real hard
• 24:28
  working people and, you know, craps, people like, you know,
• 24:31
  carpenters that build sets and and electricians and gaffers and
• 24:34
  grips and all that kind of stuff.
• 24:35
  But like the end price that we're working toward is not
• 24:37
  letting up a house. It's the Odyssey or whatever it
• 24:40
  is, you know? Yeah, these things that that
• 24:42
  people enjoy, sit and watch two, 2 1/2 hours or three hours for
• 24:47
  or a whole season of 10 hours of a season for and enjoy the ride
• 24:52
  and don't think that much about how much work goes into it.
• 24:55
  There is always kind of conversations about like, and
• 24:58
  This is why I like a lot of the when, when like the strike
• 25:01
  happened. And when some of the like lower
• 25:03
  craft union stuff comes up, contract stuff comes up.
• 25:06
  And there's always kind of like a little bit of a concerted
• 25:09
  effort to differentiate between like, Hey, we're not the like
• 25:12
  million and air actors and writers and, and stuff that are
• 25:16
  asking for better work conditions.
• 25:17
  Like we're the ones that are, you know, middle class or, or
• 25:21
  not even, and working behind the scenes to make this stuff
• 25:23
  happen. And, and yes, my job day-to-day
• 25:26
  is like, oh, I get to watch fun characters bounce around the
• 25:28
  screen and I get to like work with funny people and, and
• 25:31
  whatever. And I'm not like jump house to
• 25:33
  house fixing people's pipes and whatever.
• 25:35
  You know, it's like there's, there's a clear difference
• 25:37
  between that type of stuff. But it is like, you know, it's,
• 25:41
  it's a trade, you learn, it's a craft, you learn and you become
• 25:44
  an expert in what you're what you're working on.
• 25:46
  And that knowledge becomes valuable in a certain sense.
• 25:50
  Yeah, you're making like you're making a multi $1,000,000
• 25:54
  product. Like, yeah, sure.
• 25:57
  It's like, you know, fun stuff, but a company is not going to
• 26:01
  keep you. There's a lot of money riding on
• 26:04
  the line here. And that's why we have to become
• 26:07
  like experts in what we are because like, if we mess up,
• 26:10
  then like millions of dollars are lost.
• 26:13
  And so I don't know, I, I just wish that everybody along the
• 26:20
  line were treated more equitably, especially with like
• 26:26
  now everything is becoming so gigafied.
• 26:29
  And it's one of the worst things that I think could possibly
• 26:34
  happen, especially in a in entertainment industry, because
• 26:38
  if you don't feel safe in your occupation, if you don't feel
• 26:43
  like your job is going to be here next week or next month, if
• 26:47
  you're not, if you don't have healthcare, if you're having to
• 26:51
  work three jobs, how are you going to make any sort of
• 26:55
  entertaining product? Like it's not, it's not like
• 26:59
  plumbing or, you know, all of that kind of stuff where all
• 27:04
  there is a sort of correct fit to it.
• 27:07
  And whether you're tired, like if you have the tools, you can
• 27:11
  get the job done. You need to be able to be in a
• 27:15
  space where you are creative and where you do feel, you know, if
• 27:20
  not rested, at least secure. And as we increasingly,
• 27:27
  increasingly see lower pay, lower turn around times, lower
• 27:31
  employment periods, people wonder like why we're not
• 27:36
  getting movies on like the the sort of quality level of just
• 27:43
  like 20 years ago. And it's like, how are we
• 27:46
  supposed to we're we have less time to make things, we're
• 27:51
  getting less money for making it.
• 27:54
  Everything is being shipped out to like cheap VFX houses in
• 27:59
  other countries to avoid paying artists here.
• 28:02
  And so it's just like, like how, how are we supposed to make a
• 28:05
  Jurassic Park nowaday that that equals the classic Jurassic
• 28:09
  Park? We can't.
• 28:10
  Yeah, there's a lot of people in the industry just kind of
• 28:14
  searching for answers. It's kind of those questions.
• 28:16
  And it's easy to feel lost in the in the kind of uncertainty
• 28:22
  of of all of it. And the people, the prominent
• 28:25
  people that are that, that you see talking about it are not
• 28:28
  always the ones you want to have answering those questions or
• 28:31
  kind of speaking on behalf of, of everybody.
• 28:33
  But I think that, you know, behind the scenes, there's,
• 28:36
  there's still enough people that have the desire to create.
• 28:40
  And you have platforms that are not beholden to any kind of
• 28:43
  corporate overlords or, or studios that have budgetary
• 28:47
  restrictions or, or new AI, you know, initiatives and, and
• 28:52
  whatever that like, you know, it's, it's the kind of like, if
• 28:54
  you build it, you, they will come, you know, the people who
• 28:58
  are creative and want to be creative will continue to be
• 29:01
  that and want to create stuff and figure out ways to do it.
• 29:04
  And maybe a new model or new kind of way of working our
• 29:08
  industry will kind of build, build along that.
• 29:10
  I mean, that is kind of what happened with the with the
• 29:12
  digital space. It's a little bit more wild
• 29:15
  Westy than traditional Hollywood is.
• 29:17
  But, but there are really kind of comparable big stoop, big,
• 29:21
  you know, digital only studios that have kind of built up a
• 29:24
  huge structure around themselves.
• 29:25
  And in the 20 year, 2030 years that, you know, this is kind of
• 29:28
  been building. And so, you know, I think that
• 29:31
  the enough people outside of the headlines figuring out like,
• 29:36
  well, I still want to do this. I'm going to figure out a way to
• 29:38
  do this. And maybe you know.
• 29:39
  Those people amaze me too. Like, they're incredible.
• 29:42
  Like I, I wish I were that kind of person.
• 29:46
  Like, I can't even imagine the amount of hard work they put in,
• 29:49
  the ingenuity they have to like come up with to like like people
• 29:55
  like Kiana Mai and like like the obsession guy and all of these
• 30:00
  people, the back rooms. Like they are like doing such an
• 30:07
  amazing job of navigating what is like an increasingly hostile
• 30:11
  environment and just like going for it.
• 30:15
  Like what's his name the the Amphibia guy who is making that
• 30:20
  new like Nutcracker type indie animation, like all of these
• 30:24
  indie things. It's so amazing to watch like a
• 30:28
  new people rise up out of the ashes of the old and kind of
• 30:32
  like become the leaders for the new indie movement.
• 30:35
  And you're right, it's like the Wild West.
• 30:39
  And I hope that it goes somewhere right now as amazed
• 30:43
  about like the indie stuff as I am.
• 30:45
  Like it, it's all grit. Like there's no, there's no
• 30:49
  money there. Yeah.
• 30:51
  It's just, it's all just pulling yourself up and fighting every
• 30:55
  day to make something you're super passionate about.
• 30:57
  And I think that like, people really need to understand that
• 31:00
  when they say like, why don't you guys just go indie?
• 31:02
  Why don't you guys just like indie's the new big.
• 31:04
  And it's just like there's no money in it.
• 31:07
  Like you have to be such a special kind of person to fight
• 31:12
  your way through this and breakthrough.
• 31:16
  And I I really want to give my props to them.
• 31:18
  Yeah, I want to dip into outside stuff like you mentioned dozen
• 31:24
  Dungeons and Dragons. Do you have any other kind of
• 31:26
  outside like hobbies or talents or passions that you do kind of
• 31:30
  outside of of of editing work and.
• 31:33
  I wish I had more. I Yeah, Well, I love Dungeon
• 31:36
  Dragons. I read a lot of comics.
• 31:38
  Right now I'm going through the entire Dungeon Crawler Carl
• 31:42
  series. I don't know if you've heard of
• 31:44
  that. It's like sweeping through my my
• 31:46
  Trader Joe's store like wildfire.
• 31:48
  And it's it's really fun, really chaotic.
• 31:52
  And I started it like at the end of June and now I'm already on
• 31:58
  book 5 out of like there are 8 books right now.
• 32:02
  They're really easy reads. I think Seth MacFarlane is
• 32:05
  executive executive producing ATV show about it and Diane, I
• 32:10
  love cooking. Cooking is like a huge part of
• 32:13
  my life. Or I I I started a YouTube
• 32:16
  channel. I never ended up actually
• 32:18
  uploading anything to where I was like recreating dishes from
• 32:23
  different anime and and animated shows, and I have a few of those
• 32:27
  recorded. I just like never like uploaded
• 32:30
  anything. For a while I've, I've also kind
• 32:32
  of like I, I dip in and out of different kind of hobbies and
• 32:37
  things I've. I mean, you can tell by my
• 32:39
  background I've. I've always been a big sports
• 32:42
  fan. Yeah.
• 32:43
  I found a lot more other sports fans back when I was working in
• 32:46
  reality TV than than an animation.
• 32:50
  I kind of found that like there weren't a lot of sports fans
• 32:52
  there and then and then, you know, there was always the kind
• 32:55
  of like one of those like trite jokes of those like, Oh yeah,
• 32:57
  you like the sports ball, let's go, go goatee, you know, like
• 33:00
  kind of like. So I always like we'll use that
• 33:04
  as a bridge, you know, shared hobbies, kind of dipping back
• 33:07
  into advice and working and working on shows and and getting
• 33:12
  friendly with the people that you're working on.
• 33:13
  Like shared hobbies is 1 is 1 great icebreaker.
• 33:16
  Just kind of a way to to meet people and get the, you know,
• 33:20
  friendly with people in a way that is not like directly tied
• 33:24
  to the the the the tasks that you're doing.
• 33:27
  When I was in reality TVI was a big wrestling fan and there was
• 33:30
  a big coke contingent of, of, of other Essex fans, either ones
• 33:34
  that we we all worked on one of the the, the shows that was WWE
• 33:40
  Total Divas. And it kind of like rekindled
• 33:43
  the the the child and a lot of us.
• 33:45
  And we started watching together and, and part of the show
• 33:48
  because they were always filming all the WWE events.
• 33:51
  We would get to like, go, we would go to like the Monday
• 33:54
  Night Raws and stuff like that together.
• 33:55
  Like, as you know, I was like a field trip, a group field trip.
• 33:58
  That's so cool. We'd all like leave early on a
• 34:00
  Monday and go down to Staples Center and, and go.
• 34:02
  And a bunch of us went to WrestleMania when it was in San
• 34:06
  Jose in 2015. And so, yeah, it was, it was a
• 34:11
  little bonding with a group. And yeah, some of those people
• 34:15
  who I haven't worked with in years, but I'm still in touch
• 34:17
  with and and, you know, kind of regularly chat with her.
• 34:21
  I was feeling very, very secure in my lack of, like, sports
• 34:24
  knowledge in my particular friend group for so long.
• 34:28
  And then suddenly and inexplicably, all of my, like,
• 34:32
  closest friends all at once got super into both baseball and F1.
• 34:37
  And now I'm the only one who's like, why is everybody so
• 34:40
  suddenly into sports? I and not the one that I know
• 34:44
  anything about basketball, Right.
• 34:46
  I think Sohei Otani brought a lot of people into baseball.
• 34:50
  Yeah, a lot of people here have Dodgers fever.
• 34:52
  It was cool. I was in Japan when they won the
• 34:55
  World Series. We were actually in a sports bar
• 35:00
  when like, it happened and people were going crazy.
• 35:03
  Baseball's been one of the ones that's been my lifelong, one of
• 35:07
  my lifelong's favorite sports, but not Dodgers.
• 35:11
  I assume are you are? You a boss?
• 35:13
  Yeah. A boss guy.
• 35:14
  Yeah, yeah. There.
• 35:15
  I had some stretches recent years where where I was rooting
• 35:18
  for the Dodgers. I kind of turned on the Red Sox
• 35:21
  for a bit after they traded Mookie to the Dodgers and
• 35:23
  started following him. Mookie Betts to and I still
• 35:27
  really like him. And but I think I've I've in the
• 35:31
  last couple years, I've kind of switched, switched back.
• 35:34
  And I mean, I've never stopped being a Red Sox fan.
• 35:36
  I just kind of was like, oh, they they had some down years.
• 35:38
  And, you know, it's easy to get caught up in in in a good team
• 35:43
  when you're in the city where the the team is happening.
• 35:45
  And you know, I love going to games.
• 35:48
  So yeah, I would just kind of like, yeah, I'll go and root and
• 35:52
  whatever. So.
• 35:54
  Yeah, I grew up, yeah. I grew up in the golden era of
• 35:57
  the Lakers, you know, down here in Long Beach.
• 36:01
  And my whole family was a real Lakers family.
• 36:04
  And so I grew up with, like the whole Kobe Bryant, Shaquille
• 36:08
  O'Neal and all Pau Gasol. So just by default, yeah, it's
• 36:14
  tough. It's tough having a team that
• 36:16
  you're like growing up with and then they suddenly become not
• 36:19
  all that great after like they what, people retire, get traded
• 36:23
  away or all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I had a lucky stretch in
• 36:27
  my teens and 20s with, with all my Boston sports teams getting
• 36:31
  getting championships and, but, and I was, yeah.
• 36:36
  And then I was out here when the when Dodgers and Red Sox played.
• 36:39
  And so I got to go to the game where the Red Sox beat the
• 36:41
  Dodgers in 2018. So that was exciting.
• 36:45
  My past showrunner was a big sports fan.
• 36:47
  And he had he had, he's a big football fan.
• 36:50
  And I was like ended up in a in a fantasy Football League with
• 36:54
  with him and, and some of his friends.
• 36:56
  And we had some mutual friends anyways.
• 36:57
  And so that was kind of fun as like as I like, yeah, we get to
• 37:01
  come in on Monday and it's like, all right, let's talk about what
• 37:04
  the like the games that just happened and like, oh, this, my
• 37:07
  team was playing yours this week and this happened whatever, you
• 37:10
  know. So yeah, a nice kind of easy
• 37:13
  like. And it's like, all right, at
• 37:14
  least we got something to talk about if we don't have anything
• 37:16
  else in common. But.
• 37:16
  Look, it's nice to have just the, yeah, some mutual interests
• 37:21
  where if you don't know what you're gonna talk about, you can
• 37:23
  kind of just go to catch the game yesterday and then you got
• 37:27
  something easy. Yeah, we want to kind of switch
• 37:31
  into our freak out geek out segment.
• 37:32
  That's where that's where one of us kind of picks a topic and,
• 37:35
  and maybe something that's freaking out, freaking us out
• 37:37
  or, or making us anxious or, or nervous or angry.
• 37:40
  And the other one kind of picks a topic that we're excited about
• 37:42
  and wants to geek out. So I usually have been leaving
• 37:46
  it up to the guests if you want to want to pick something or.
• 37:49
  Let's let's freak out about the DGA and IOXY recommending that
• 37:57
  like they push the merger through.
• 38:00
  I understand what a difficult place the guilds are in.
• 38:06
  They have a responsibility towards people to try and get
• 38:12
  more shows made, keep their membership high.
• 38:16
  I, you know, there's more information coming out every
• 38:18
  day, what their reasoning behind it is, what the specific asks
• 38:23
  they're they're asking for are probably not as detrimental as
• 38:28
  like the headlines make it seem. From what I've seen, they're
• 38:32
  asking for Paramount and Warner Brothers to be kept separate,
• 38:37
  even though they their merge is supposed to be kept separate
• 38:40
  entities. And also 45 day theater
• 38:45
  theatrical releases. And like that Ellison keeps his
• 38:49
  promise of like 30 movies a year going.
• 38:53
  And it just seems so naive to me to believe that like, if he says
• 39:01
  yes to that, that that will be anything that he keeps you
• 39:05
  remotely true towards. I was one of the people working
• 39:08
  at Nickelodeon when Skydance merged with Paramount.
• 39:12
  And, you know, people were talking about how this could be
• 39:14
  like a really good thing. And like, you know, Ellison is
• 39:18
  actually really, he's one of those people who's actually
• 39:20
  really passionate about movie making and making TV.
• 39:24
  And, you know, and so we thought, well, maybe this will
• 39:27
  be OK. Like, monopolization is
• 39:29
  obviously never good. And more people having more
• 39:34
  options and more competition, driving up wages and not driving
• 39:38
  down wages as ideal. But like, if this guy's actually
• 39:42
  really passionate about making movies and television, we need
• 39:45
  some of that back at the top. And then Paramount took over and
• 39:51
  they cancelled every show that was being worked on at
• 39:55
  Nickelodeon, at the very least, I don't know about elsewhere.
• 39:58
  And since then, all that's come out is the Avatar movie that was
• 40:04
  already being worked on when they took over.
• 40:08
  And SpongeBob has continued. But to my knowledge, they
• 40:12
  haven't greenlit a single new show, a single new IP.
• 40:16
  It's basically a ghost town at Nickelodeon.
• 40:19
  I wouldn't be surprised if they just shuddered it or, you know,
• 40:23
  renamed it Paramount Animation Studios and mainly some
• 40:27
  corporate thing. So I have been given absolutely
• 40:32
  no reason to believe that this person would prioritize any sort
• 40:39
  of show making once taken over. And it seems like a lot, but a
• 40:43
  lot of it is just, you know, him interested in it for other
• 40:47
  reasons and continuing to monopolize who is in charge of
• 40:52
  what everybody sees, all coming from one source and who those
• 40:57
  sources might be friendly towards, right?
• 40:59
  So it seems bad to me. It seems quite bad.
• 41:03
  Trying to be cautiously optimistic and look on the
• 41:06
  silver lining of it. But I've seen no reason to
• 41:09
  believe that those Silver Linings would ever be.
• 41:13
  Yeah, I think my, I mean, I generally agree.
• 41:16
  I think the thing that is hard for me to kind of latch onto and
• 41:21
  kind of develop a strong opinion one way or the other is that
• 41:26
  like I don't know how much any of the guilds kind of coming out
• 41:32
  pro or con or whatever, Like I don't know how much that's
• 41:35
  really got. Yeah.
• 41:36
  I mean, it's like there is a a bit of it's a tactic to, you
• 41:41
  know, try to throw as many roadblocks at something as
• 41:44
  possible. But especially with, with the
• 41:46
  current administration, they're very not pro labour.
• 41:50
  So think that it does come as a surprise that the that they that
• 41:54
  IoT and TGA did what they did the headlines a little
• 41:57
  misleading and there is a bit of nuance to it.
• 42:01
  And I think that like, given the situation of like, well, we're
• 42:06
  obviously against the merger, but this being the reality of
• 42:09
  this, the sooner we know whether it's going to happen or not, the
• 42:15
  better we, we, we have, the easier it will be for us to
• 42:19
  strategize like how to kind of react.
• 42:23
  So the unknown of it. And and I guess, you know, the
• 42:26
  the grunt of this thing like pushing up, pushing the push up
• 42:28
  the OR keep the original court date does kind of seem like
• 42:35
  maybe one of their only options at the moment to kind of like do
• 42:39
  something. You know, and it's I'm sure
• 42:43
  there's a big pro and con chart that was kind of very, you know,
• 42:47
  non ideal, but they were looking at and, you know, not, not that
• 42:52
  I fully want to give like Matt Logan and stuff like the benefit
• 42:55
  of the doubt. But like, I think that there is
• 42:59
  a lot of stuff that we as members, especially we as
• 43:03
  members, but even as people just consume in the news, don't get
• 43:06
  the full picture of the why. And that in itself might be a
• 43:10
  problem, especially for for memberships and stuff like that.
• 43:13
  But that is one of the biggest things about how big the IATSE
• 43:17
  is. You know, everyone wants more
• 43:19
  work. Of course, I know that I'm not
• 43:22
  fully aware of every information that these decisions are being
• 43:26
  made with. So that's kind of where where
• 43:29
  I'm at with it. I kind of feel like there's this
• 43:32
  merger is an inevitability that will eventually happen, and I
• 43:35
  don't know how much yelling into the void we can do to stop.
• 43:39
  It, I think I'm like both 50% cynical and 50% like an eternal
• 43:45
  hopeful. And I, it's an extremely
• 43:48
  precarious and dangerous personality type to have because
• 43:53
  you realize you're in a bad situation and you still hold on
• 43:57
  hope that it can improve. And it puts me personally in the
• 44:01
  state of paralysis where I just keep on hoping things get
• 44:06
  better. And so it's hard to feel so out
• 44:09
  of control. What I can hope we we can't keep
• 44:13
  merging all of these companies until there's only one Uber
• 44:17
  corporation that pays you $500.00 for like 7 month's work
• 44:22
  and has you working 17 hours a day.
• 44:26
  Like the end game here is just going to be it's total collapse.
• 44:31
  Like it's total the end game is total collapse and eventually
• 44:35
  something will spring up from beneath that.
• 44:38
  But who knows how long is that, like how long that will take?
• 44:41
  Like in, in terms of like ioxy and DGA, Like I understand the
• 44:46
  position they're in, but they have to be better about
• 44:50
  communicating their intentions to the people below them.
• 44:54
  Like as as much of A responsibility as you have to
• 44:58
  keep us employed, you also have to keep our morale up.
• 45:01
  Like it's a huge thing. You have to make it so that
• 45:04
  we're not hopeless in this. And so far, it feels pretty
• 45:10
  hopeless. Yeah, yeah, the morality of
• 45:12
  things, a good thing to bring up because a lot of people's first
• 45:15
  and foremost stuff is like, will I be OK?
• 45:17
  Will I continue to be able to do this job?
• 45:19
  Will I be able to kind of continue to to work in this
• 45:21
  career? And I know that they don't have
• 45:22
  answers to that, but like, or sometimes you end up as an
• 45:25
  editor, like being the, you know, a psychiatrist to the, to
• 45:30
  the people you're working with. Like, I do kind of feel like the
• 45:33
  unions need to adopt some of that mindset of, of in their
• 45:38
  communication of like we understand that this is kind of
• 45:42
  unprecedented times and there's a lot of uncertainty and that
• 45:44
  kind of stuff. And we have uncertainty about
• 45:46
  that. And, you know, here's what we're
• 45:48
  doing or, or here's resources to help you figure that out.
• 45:52
  I have recently seen a bit more resources for like dealing with
• 45:56
  mental health stuff and like when you're, you know, periods
• 45:58
  of unemployment or, or career pivoting.
• 46:00
  So like, that's good to see. It's a kind of your point
• 46:02
  earlier of like, you know, we have the skills to do these
• 46:06
  jobs. We have the expertise and the
• 46:09
  knowledge over years of, of time doing it, but we are still human
• 46:13
  and we do still kind of need mental health resets and, and,
• 46:17
  and, and resources to kind of like deal with that.
• 46:20
  We are not machines. We are doing the creative things
• 46:25
  that require human, but humans also require certain safety Nets
• 46:29
  to, you know, kind of maintain what we're what we're able to
• 46:33
  do. So.
• 46:33
  Yeah, I, I can't, I, I can't imagine anything would do like
• 46:40
  the job better than just returning to like the cable
• 46:43
  model and like having 22 to 26 episode seasons and having shows
• 46:54
  that have, you know, six seasons, 12 seasons, like it
• 46:59
  just doesn't exist anymore. And the the concept of stability
• 47:06
  is probably one of the most essential things that we need
• 47:12
  back. You just cannot continue to work
• 47:15
  when it when you feel so incredibly unstable.
• 47:20
  Yeah, I also kind of feel like audience, like stability is
• 47:23
  actually a good use, good term to use from both sides of the
• 47:26
  coin here. Because the stuff you're talking
• 47:28
  about, like the cable model of like 22 episodes, you're like
• 47:32
  with these characters week to week, You're, you're, you're,
• 47:35
  you're paying attention to the storylines, you're invested.
• 47:38
  And it's kind of like a comfort. It was like, oh, I'm checking in
• 47:42
  with my friends every every week.
• 47:44
  And like, I think, you know, how many times do you watch a, watch
• 47:47
  a show where it's like this only has 8 episodes, like, and I got
• 47:51
  to wait an hour a year and a half for the next season.
• 47:54
  Like audiences don't like that. And I mean, how many of us like
• 47:59
  grew up watching The Office and still quote office jokes and and
• 48:02
  there's office meet, you know, Michael Scott memes all over the
• 48:04
  place and stuff like that? Like what's the next version of
• 48:07
  that? Like, yeah, that's like.
• 48:09
  Monoculture. Yeah.
• 48:11
  Like everybody's watching the same thing and can bond over
• 48:14
  that week to week. Yeah.
• 48:16
  And when you release stuff in binge models, like exactly like
• 48:19
  you've said, like everything you've worked on is done is out
• 48:22
  in one day, then they have to wait 123 years.
• 48:27
  Whereas if you've made longer seasons that were released week
• 48:31
  to week, you could start working on the next season while
• 48:35
  previous episodes are still being released.
• 48:37
  So that by the time the next season drops, it'll only have
• 48:41
  been like the summer has gone by and it feels like you're like
• 48:45
  returning to old friends after a summer break rather than like
• 48:49
  someone's been missing for three years.
• 48:51
  And now you have to reacquaint yourself with all the storyline
• 48:54
  that you met. Like you've forgotten that and
• 48:57
  bringing like actual commercials back because no amount of
• 49:02
  subscription money is going to every equal ad revenue or like
• 49:07
  such important parts to the entertainment industry.
• 49:11
  And I feel like when commercials went away, it broke the
• 49:18
  ecosystem. Like every little piece of
• 49:20
  nature is so important into keeping this like delicate
• 49:24
  ecosystem healthy. And when you took away
• 49:29
  commercials for the most part, like a lot of big name actors
• 49:33
  get their, their start in commercials and like, that's
• 49:36
  where they get their SAG cards and then they train up and then
• 49:40
  they become big actors and that feeds down and you know, you
• 49:44
  sell your product. I get ad money.
• 49:46
  Everything, every little thing is like so important.
• 49:50
  And it used to make so much money for everybody involved.
• 49:56
  And then tech came in and decided that they needed to
• 50:01
  disrupt that ecosystem and make billions for themselves while
• 50:05
  basically like raising the raising the soil so that it's
• 50:11
  basically like scorched earth and everything is so out of
• 50:17
  whack now. And it has been since like
• 50:20
  Netflix began streaming what, 1015 years ago or whatever.
• 50:24
  Yeah, yeah. It is interesting because I feel
• 50:27
  like storytelling models changed because commercials went away.
• 50:31
  And I kind of feel like two things of that were like when I
• 50:34
  watch my kids watch stuff, if they're watching like a Disney
• 50:38
  show, for example, Disney went away with even like Disney
• 50:40
  Junior, like doesn't do commercials.
• 50:42
  So like they'll just watch the thing straight through and then
• 50:45
  they'll watch like a Nickelodeon show and that'll have
• 50:47
  commercials on it. And then they'll be like, oh,
• 50:49
  that toy that I saw in this commercial I want.
• 50:52
  And so you can see immediately what commercial like the effect
• 50:55
  the commercials was supposed to have.
• 50:56
  Yeah. Also we've been re watching a
• 50:59
  lot of reality shows, Vanderpump Rules for for example.
• 51:02
  And and I remember from my reality days, like we would
• 51:05
  build up to a commercial break and tease what happens after the
• 51:09
  commercial break to keep people watching.
• 51:12
  And you know that you don't need to do that because you don't
• 51:14
  have a commercial break. But yeah.
• 51:17
  And that actually is one of the things from editing to the
• 51:19
  standpoint, one of the things that I help me learn how to get
• 51:24
  to the point of what the of what the drama of, of a story is
• 51:28
  like. You have 15 seconds.
• 51:29
  All right, these three lines get get you to understand like this
• 51:34
  next tease that you're you're trying to do like what the next
• 51:36
  drama on the end of the episode's gonna be.
• 51:39
  It was established and it was effective.
• 51:41
  Looking back on it, there are so many commercials that from like
• 51:44
  the 90s that I love now too. Like there are YouTube channels
• 51:47
  dedicated to just playing old commercials and you got all
• 51:50
  these fun little jingles. Now as like an old person, when
• 51:55
  I'm watching, I actually I'm I've decided not to pay for like
• 51:58
  ad free anything at this point just because I'm on such a
• 52:02
  soapbox for how important commercials are.
• 52:05
  And I find myself enjoying cutting to an ad break so I can
• 52:09
  get up and get a glass of water or go to the bathroom and having
• 52:13
  like a set point to like stretch my legs and not just be sitting
• 52:17
  and staring for 30 whole minutes.
• 52:19
  Yeah, I was going to say because you, you're talking about like
• 52:21
  waiting three years or waiting X amount of years for your, your,
• 52:25
  your things to come back. I think that can, that can bring
• 52:28
  us into our into our geek out. We kind of both talked about
• 52:32
  this the the new Spider Man movie that just came out.
• 52:35
  And we don't need to talk spoilers or anything like that
• 52:38
  in case people haven't seen it. But that's going to be my my
• 52:40
  geek out. I really enjoyed it.
• 52:42
  I think it was a nice kind of kind of different type of of of
• 52:49
  Marvel movie, superhero movie where it wasn't just kind of
• 52:52
  centered around like I mean, it, it wasn't just centered around
• 52:55
  like what's this big CGI battle that we can get to?
• 52:58
  We're kind of had a much more of an emotional stakes both from
• 53:02
  the hero side and the villain side.
• 53:04
  And that is kind of really interesting to see.
• 53:07
  I think that was it was a great way of using Tom Holland, who,
• 53:15
  you know, in the Spidey role has been great.
• 53:17
  But like you haven't really got to see a lot of the kind of like
• 53:21
  acting range. Yeah, yeah.
• 53:23
  He's kind of only been asked to play the kind of like teenage
• 53:28
  Peter Parker, kind of like, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a little gun.
• 53:31
  Here's all these big superheroes like, oh, I'm sorry to interrupt
• 53:33
  a little. So you got to go see his range
• 53:37
  and that was nice. I think that the use of other
• 53:42
  Marvel characters that are, you know, are always inevitable
• 53:45
  cameos in these in these things like where, where, where's well
• 53:49
  done. And I think because him and John
• 53:51
  Barrett, they'll have a existing chemistry being in so much stuff
• 53:54
  together. But like, yeah, the the
• 53:56
  relationship between Punisher and Spider Man was really fun to
• 53:59
  watch. And in a way that like, I
• 54:01
  enjoyed the Punisher character more than I maybe did watching
• 54:04
  the Daredevil recent Daredevil series.
• 54:06
  And I didn't watch that much of the Punisher TV show, but, but I
• 54:10
  like John Berethal and it was great to kind of see him.
• 54:13
  I I always love when I can watch a movie and tell if the actor
• 54:16
  was having a ton of fun playing, Oh yeah, you know, being in the
• 54:19
  movie. And that that kind of that came
• 54:20
  across with with with the Punisher.
• 54:23
  That's my yeah, I really, I really agree.
• 54:25
  I love the movie. And I'm kind of like, I don't
• 54:28
  know if this is controversial or not, but like I've always been a
• 54:31
  believer that like Tom Holland is like the best spider man that
• 54:35
  we've gotten. I prefer Tom Hollands like Peter
• 54:38
  Parker and spider man to Tobey Maguire.
• 54:42
  And I think Tobey Maguire was a really, really good Peter
• 54:46
  Parker. But for me, even way back then,
• 54:50
  he was always a little bit too much of like a serious spider
• 54:56
  man. Like he never had any of the,
• 54:57
  the fun quipping and like bombast that I growing up loved
• 55:03
  as a Spider Man fan. I, I've been like a Spider man
• 55:05
  Superman fan since I was six years old.
• 55:08
  I'm 33, so almost 30 years now. And for me, Tom Holland always
• 55:13
  had that sort of more fun Clippy Spider Man and then the a very,
• 55:20
  really good Peter Parker. I think where a lot of the Tom
• 55:23
  Holland films fall short is that they've never captured.
• 55:29
  And they came close with Volter and Homecoming, but they've
• 55:32
  never captured the, like, absolute lightning in a bottle
• 55:36
  that were the Willem Dafoe, Green Goblin and Alfred Molina,
• 55:40
  Doctor Octopus performances. Yeah.
• 55:42
  And they've just never, they've never achieved a villain that
• 55:46
  iconic brand New Day might be my favorite Tom Holland movie or
• 55:51
  Tom Holland Spider Man movie because they finally allowed him
• 55:54
  to stop being like Iron Man Junior and like really show off
• 55:59
  like him being Spider Man. Avoiding, you know, any
• 56:03
  spoilers, but you know, he's been doing this for a while now.
• 56:08
  He is like, the most kind of seasoned hero we've seen so far
• 56:12
  as Spider Man. And I like that it's sort of
• 56:17
  gotten to a point where they needed more of a psychological
• 56:24
  problem during this movie because he's been doing the
• 56:28
  heroing so long that, like, his Rose Gallery aren't really a
• 56:32
  problem for him anymore. Yeah, He can kind of just show
• 56:35
  up and be like, OK, we're doing this.
• 56:36
  I put you away before, let's get this done by lunchtime.
• 56:39
  And so they needed something. And in the comics, he was sort
• 56:44
  of an asshole. He was an asshole who knew had
• 56:47
  like amazing people around him that helped him keep that in
• 56:51
  check. I think that he has become
• 56:53
  really Santa Peter Parker has become really sanitized in since
• 56:58
  like the, you know, 2000s and something.
• 57:01
  And they everybody sees him as like a cupcake sweetheart.
• 57:04
  Oh, he is like the best boy ever.
• 57:06
  And he would never do. But no, he's always been kind of
• 57:09
  like in his thought bubble. He's like, I should just, I
• 57:12
  should just let this car hit him and then Flash will see what a
• 57:16
  nerd I am. And then he's like, but I knew I
• 57:19
  couldn't do it. So I sprang into action and you
• 57:21
  know, and I think you get a little bit more of that edge in
• 57:26
  this movie as well. Not quite the same.
• 57:29
  It's more dealing with loneliness and work life balance
• 57:36
  and all that kind of stuff, but it was there.
• 57:39
  Yeah, just like he's. I mean, it's not a spoiler to
• 57:43
  say that the premise is that, you know, it's off of the Frebus
• 57:46
  movie that like no one knows who Peter Parker is.
• 57:48
  So like essentially he's operating as Spider Man and then
• 57:52
  just like a guy that's like, all right, what?
• 57:54
  You know, he's like Spider Man's his full time job.
• 57:56
  What does this guy do when he isn't able to have friends or
• 57:59
  isn't able to, you know, have a lot of interest or isn't able to
• 58:03
  or be with a love interest or who does he reach out to for for
• 58:07
  guidance? He is actually on his own, like
• 58:09
  he's got Avenger friends, but he's not like partnering with
• 58:13
  with anybody on the regular. He's kind of got like a weird, I
• 58:17
  don't want to partner with you, but I sometimes have to with
• 58:20
  Punisher. That that is is part of the
• 58:22
  humor. He doesn't seem to really like
• 58:25
  like Frank to a certain point in the movie.
• 58:29
  Frank kind of just seems him as a little like looking at a
• 58:31
  little little pest. So that was.
• 58:34
  One of my biggest pet peeves in all Spider Man movies because
• 58:37
  it's like such a big part of the comic book is that he just does
• 58:40
  not let anybody know his secret identity.
• 58:42
  He's like one of the only people who will always keep his mask on
• 58:45
  it, but he'll just like if he's going to eat, he'll like raise
• 58:47
  it above his like nose. And, and in every Spider Man
• 58:51
  movie, so many people like immediately find his secret
• 58:55
  identity, like every And it's like 1 of become one of my
• 58:58
  biggest pet peeves just because of how often it is.
• 59:01
  And it was very gratifying in this one to see like he keeps
• 59:05
  his mask on basically like the entire time, which I think is
• 59:10
  probably difficult when making a movie because you want to have
• 59:14
  someone like Tom Holland have his FaceTime on screen.
• 59:18
  You know, you've got these actors, you're paying a lot.
• 59:21
  You need to see their face, but I this is like definitely the
• 59:26
  most you've seen Spider man in mask not taking it off for
• 59:30
  anybody. Nobody's finding out his secret
• 59:32
  identity if he's not allowing them to, and I just really
• 59:36
  appreciate that for. Sure, and and again, despite all
• 59:39
  the other MCU people linked to it or in it did kind of just
• 59:44
  feel like a stand alone Spider Man movie.
• 59:47
  The stakes you're caring about are Peter Parker and not about.
• 59:50
  Like general? It's like what?
• 59:51
  Does this mean for the Fantastic Four?
• 59:53
  What does this mean for Doomsday or whatever?
• 59:55
  So that was that was nice as a watch.
• 59:58
  Yeah, they need to. I think even for the bigger
• 1:00:00
  guys, they need to get back to doing just like these, smaller,
• 1:00:04
  self-contained with a lot more practical effects.
• 1:00:09
  Because like, I watched Ant Man Quantum Mania and when you do
• 1:00:13
  something like that and you're in a fully CGI world with no
• 1:00:17
  practical effects and everything just looks like like a video
• 1:00:20
  game, you are not. You're just not buying into
• 1:00:24
  what's happening on the screen nearly as much.
• 1:00:27
  It doesn't feel real. It doesn't feel like you're in
• 1:00:31
  this place anymore and it becomes so dull.
• 1:00:35
  And then in this one, there's so much practical effects going on.
• 1:00:39
  They're using like live wire. Or like, you know, and a non CGI
• 1:00:44
  suit too. It's a real popular suit.
• 1:00:46
  Yeah, really. No nano, no nanobots anymore.
• 1:00:49
  Yeah, like a practical. Flipping his mascot?
• 1:00:51
  Yeah. Yeah, ninjas are on high wires.
• 1:00:54
  Like actually doing these kind of old Kung Fu movie type things
• 1:00:59
  and it just looks so good. And it it was so successful for
• 1:01:03
  me. Yeah, that's a good note to end
• 1:01:05
  on a nice good positive movie review.
• 1:01:08
  Yeah, on an animation on an editing podcast, which as bad.
• 1:01:11
  As everything is, we can all love Spider Man.
• 1:01:13
  That's the only way I would want a podcast with me to ever end.
• 1:01:18
  All right, well, yeah, thanks for sitting with me.
• 1:01:20
  And yeah, it was a nice chat and hopefully things turn around and
• 1:01:25
  we're all back and working on fun shows again.
• 1:01:27
  So I hope one day we can work together on something.
• 1:01:29
  We're all gonna work together on the best show ever. on YouTube,
• 1:01:40
  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your
• 1:01:42
  podcasts. We're on Instagram and Threads
• 1:01:44
  at Panels and Pacing Podcast all spelled out.
• 1:01:46
  See website and e-mail links in description.