91: Behind the Scenes Q&A

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Hey everybody welcome to the still to be determined
podcast. This is the podcast that follows

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up on topics from the Youtube channel undecided
with Matt ferrell I’m sean ferrell I’m Matt’s

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older brother and I’m a writer and Matt you
want to say hi.

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Hi.
Before we get in the episode reminder. We

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have ways to directly support the podcast
you can visit stilltbd fm there’s a link there

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that allows you to throw some coins in a cookie
jar there’s also if you’re on Youtube there’s

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the join button below the video and you can
join and subscribe directly here. And directly

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support the podcast in that way eagle eyed
viewers on youtube will recognize that Matt

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and I are suspiciously wearing exactly the
same clothes we were wearing last week people

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who are listening to this audio only via podcast.
It was probably harder for you to recognize.

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But I’m sure you heard the the green blue
of my t-shirt and you were just like wait

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that sounds awful familiar.
Don’t never know.

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Yes.
There’s a reason for that this episode normally

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of course we revisit the topic that Matthew
has covered in his most recent video but not

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this week this week we are doing something
different. This is being recorded in the past

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for you for me, it’s the future.
For you? yes.

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Matthew I think it’s the present but we are
recording this in advance because of conflict

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schedule conflicts next week so we won’t be
able to have an episode directly tied to Matthew’s

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video but I thought it would be an interesting
conversation to talk about what is the life

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of video. So. Wanted to find out from Matt
things like how do the ideas start. How do

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they develop how long does a production take
and basically what is the start to finish

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process for his videos which at this point
I think it’s easy to say that. Matt your videos

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have a reputation for being highly polished
that they are in my estimation at least and

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I see this in a lot of the comments um tv
quality like newsroom quality where somebody

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would say and now to Matt with more about
tech and then you’d be sitting there and saying

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like. Hey here’s how agra farming works so
Matt a little bit deep background. You want

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to talk about your background as how does
the polish happen and how is it that you as

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a single person understand.
No hair.

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What all the wires and cables around you in
the room you’re sitting in right now. How

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they all connect and what they all do.
How they do my my well do you know? Sean my

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background goes like I’ve always been involved
in the creative fields during growing up college

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and grad school and my profession I’ve worked
as a creative director at a video game company

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for years. A Master’s degree in video production
shocker. It’s like that it might explain a

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lot so I’ve worked in theater and live performances
and audio recording and audio engineering.

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So it’s like I understand all the different
pieces and things you have to pull together

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and as creative director I understand how
everything from script to execution to. Ah,

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post-production comes together and how you
have to basically keep a consistent like feel

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for everything you produce and try to achieve
that level of quality I’m going for every

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week um for a long time I did the channel
completely by myself so I was doing all the

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research myself writing the scripts myself
filming doing all the editing very quickly.

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Um, became not sustainable because I was working
eighty to 1 hundred hours a week to produce

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a single episode and I was working week to
week literally so I was always under kind

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of like ah an 8 like a gun trying to get the
stuff completed so I could hit that weekly

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cadence.
Yeah. And the the initiation of the the of

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the channel was really just a marriage of
your interests in on the 1 hand the technical

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stuff of like making videos like you had an
interest in doing that.

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It’s change.
Is this.

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You had interest in tech in general and and
I think it’s safe to say I’m going to put

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words in your mouth. Um that your interest
in sci-fi and storytelling and kind of a vision

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and of the future.
Oh yeah.

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Fed into like well what is the tech now and
how is that how is that meshing with what

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is going on in our lives right now.
Yeah I mean the once again sean sean knows

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this I’m a sci-fi nerd and geek through and
through star wars star trek all that kind

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of stuff I’ve always been obsessed with ah
like futurism um like where things are going

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and it’s not just oh, that’s cool sci-fi but
like. Ah there’s a glimmer of something that

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I could see that actually becoming a reality
in thirty years one hundred years you know

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200 years on the road. Maybe we can actually
do that kind of thing. Um, so that has always

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been with me and being able to produce videos
and knowing what to do to produce a video

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on a vin diagram combined with my love of
technology and consumer electronics. And my

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concern about the environment. It’s like when
you put all those things on a vin diagram

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where they intersect is what drew me to produce
the videos that I produce it’s like sustainability.

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The environment technology video production.
That’s that’s the intersection of what I do.

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So then you start doing the videos and as
you said it you were hitting eighty to a hundred

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hour work weeks and I don’t know why you thought
that wasn’t sustainable and yeah, ah, where

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were you.
Um, getting burned out really fast doing that.

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Initially getting your ideas and for for topics
and did that change has that changed over

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time.
Oh that’s shifted. Um it was originally just

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what was going on in my life at the time like
I was doing videos on my tesla I was doing

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videos on my solar panels. You know I bought
a new electric lawnmower. It was like literally

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things that were going in my life were inspiring
the topics. And as time went on that start

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to evolve into ah looking at the comments
and hearing what the ah the themes were and

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the comments I was getting on my videos of
like what about you know, solar. You know

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what about does solar work for all homes does.
What about batteries that you can put in your

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homes for this and so I started seeing these
themes come up and would try to answer those

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questions that I was seeing come up again
and again. Um, and then today it’s a combination

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of comments plus I’m constantly combing news
articles on sustainability and environmental

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technologies. And so when I see ah a news
article that pops up that’s like a really

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cool piece of tech I’ll add it to my idea
board. So. It’s a combination of viewer comments.

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What’s going on in the news and just what’s
what’s catching my eye at the time I’ll put

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onto an idea board.
So You have an idea on your idea Board. You’ve

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got some loose idea around a theme.. What’s
the next step. Do you just start doing Google

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research and going deeper into it looking
for places where companies are actually using

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something. And then go from there or do you
very quickly move into a deeper dive on a

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specific company or tech.
Um, it starts more high level. It’s like typically

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I’ll go into that idea board which like right
now there’s literally over 100 things on that

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list right now I’ll go into that idea board
take 1 and I’ll do a little cursory kind of

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google searching to see. What’s actually deeper
in there to see if there’s more there and

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then I’ll also do a little bit of a vetting
process to see is there an interest in this

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beyond my interest like do I think my viewers
will be interested in this topic and if it

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passes those 2 criteria like Criteria criteria
where. There’s something more there and it

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looks like there might be viewer interest
in it then it becomes like it moves on to

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my process of okay, let’s actually make this
a video. It’s literally like you go to youtube

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and you can do a search for it and if you
see other videos. Um.

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How do you determine that there is viewer
interest.

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Can go to google trends and do a search on
Google trends and see if there’s kind of ah

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a bubbling interest on google searches just
things like if you see lots of articles popping

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up on different news sites about the same
thing. It’s like that’s a sign that there’s

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interest there because there’s a lot of people
talking about it. So that’s typically kind

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of what I’m looking. 4
So you zero in on what you’re gonna talk about

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and as you said you previously would do all
the research yourself at what point do you

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say? Okay I now know I’m gonna make this video
and then do you immediately hand off. All

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or a portion of that to somebody to help you
do the basic background research or do you

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work in concert with that person. What happens
there and where and who are these researchers

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you might use.
Yeah I still do some of the research myself

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because there are scripts I write myself?
Um, but there I now have a couple of guys

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1 his name is Antonio another 1 his name is
casiano um, these they help me with the real

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deep background research. So once I know there’s
a topic I want to do. I may not know what

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the angle is of the video like what’s the
angle I’m gonna take on this story I will

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have them or myself will go and do a really
deep research like try to find all the articles.

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The research papers the things that really
kind of like start to flesh out what’s happening

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on that topic and from that we have a conversation.
So if it’s myself I just come up with the

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angle on my own. But if it’s like casiono
antonio they come back to me with kind of

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an outline of what they found and I kind of
look through their outline look the research

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they found and together. We kind of come at.
Okay, we think the angle should probably be

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this. Let’s look at ah. Airships and blimps
from this point of view and let’s go down

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that thread and so then then what they do
is they take that deep research and they start

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to tease out and put together a first draft
of a script and then they send that to me

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and I look through the script I’ll make a
ton of comments I’ll give a lot of feedback

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I’ll start to integrate some of my home points
of view into it. Hand it back to them. They’ll

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do a revision and the final pass is always
me I always do a final pass on the script.

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Um, if there’s any gaps I see or anything
I think it needs to be moved or removed or

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something like like that I’ll I’ll do the
final edit and final pass on every script

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and that’s how we end up with what I end up
sitting down to film.

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Right? And that sounds very much like a ultimately
that’s a producer role like if this was a

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Tv show. You’d be. You’re talking about yourself
as producer.

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Yes, if I’m not writing if I’m not doing the
research and writing myself because there

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are still scripts I do that on but without
those guys. It’s like I wouldn’t be able to

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hit this weekly cadence with highly researched
topics the way they’re they’re turning out.

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Right? Well again, you go back to the idea
of of an 80 to a hundred hour work week if

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you try and slice that into manageable workweek
time. You’re literally talking about 3 to

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even possibly four people. Or more in order
to make it a ah manageable number for yourself

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and for you I imagine part of that is also
the changing of the hats you need to make

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time for recording so there you are being
director and performer. And then on top of

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that producer and initial researcher scriptwriter.
So the changing the hats I imagine you’ve

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broken up your week into different days or
different roles because otherwise chaos would

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rain. I can’t even imagine how chaotic would
be to say like oh from 11 to 1115 I have to

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do this and then I have to do something completely
different from 1115 to eleven 30 have you

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sliced your week up in that way to say like
Monday is my research day Tuesday is my script

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will be review day.
Yes.

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To a certain extent like I release videos
on tuesdays so tuesdays for me I may record

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an episode on that day but I tend to leave
my tuesdays open so I can reply to comments

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so I can keep my eye on how the recent video
is performing and respond to things in real-time.

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So I try to keep my tuesdays kind of loose
for that. Um, Mondays tends to be a recording

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day because it’s starting to fresh week and
I can record a video but I’ve even started

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to break up my week. Not not by the week but
by weeks where I’m doing things in batches

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like just last week I recorded 4 episodes
last week so I basically recorded one month

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of content in one week and now for the next
2 to 3 weeks I’m gonna be focused completely

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on vetting. Yes I mean I be I wish I could
do that I’m gonna be vetting topic ideas helping

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to revise some scripts and write a couple
scripts on my own over the next 2 to 3 weeks.

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Living on a beach. Yeah.
And by the time that 2 to 3 weeks is up I’ll

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probably have 5 or 6 scripts ready to film
and so I’ll probably film another 3 or four

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at once over a course of a week and then I’m
doing this I’m trying to do this batch cycle

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because it removes some of that task switching
which is really hard to do but even in doing

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what I’m trying to do here.
Um, yeah.

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I still have to I still have to review edits
from my video editor. You know a couple times

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a week I’m still having to get at random times
I’ll get a script from 1 of my researchers

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that I have to stop and review so I can give
them feedback in a more time-appropriate way.

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So it’s like there’s still task switching
that throws me off of kilter every once a

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while. But.
Um, right right.

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But this batch process that I’ve kind of landed
on is working much better than my old process

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for sure.
Yeah, so we’ve gotten you up to as you just

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brought it up yourself. You’re doing your
video recordings. Maybe there’s a day or several

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days where you’re putting together your videos.
These are not ready to go live the next day

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you couldn’t You would not be willing to publish
that.

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New.
And immediately. What’s the step that it what’s

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the next part of that life cycle for that
video where does that go.

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Um, well this is where the magic I think happens
and a lot of the credit I have to give to

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sonny who is my video editor. He is astonishedly
good I I love him as a human being and I love

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him as a video editor. He’s such a great guy.
Um, the video edits are tough. Because I like

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video edits that hide the cuts a lot of times
in Youtube videos. You’ll see just jump cut

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up or jump cut or jump cut I’m I’m old school
the way I learned and the way I was trained

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was you want a highly polished thing. You
do not show the edits so I like to have lots

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of b-rolled I can cover up a lot of those
edits and make it seem fluid.

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Right.
I Think that’s the Tv I think that’s the Tv

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readiness that I that I see and other people
see which is we have grown accustomed to seeing

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on Youtube somebody like suddenly jumping
and the audio if you were just listening audio

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wise you wouldn’t notice anything but video
wise you do see those jumps.

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Yes, yeah.
Sounds fine. Yeah.

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And it is a little it adds a a chink that
makes it seem more amateur it just absolutely

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yeah.
Can you hold a 1 second.

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Sunny This is the perfect example of a part
you would want to edit out.

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Angry Angry dog.
We had a delivery that required a signature

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I knew it was coming but I thought it was
gonna be a little later than it showed up.

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She’s angry.
While you were gone I said to sunny. This

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is an example of a part. You’ll want to cut
out. So.

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Yes, actually I have a different editor that
does the podcast. But yeah, um, okay, so where

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were we we were talking about the video edit.
Let me just roll back to my question so you’ve

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talked up to this point about the the life
of the video up to you filming and you’re

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and you’re filming your handful of videos
potentially in one week these are not ready

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to go live. You are not going to push the
button and put them out as is what’s the next

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part where do they go who do they go to.
Yeah, the the videos this is where the magic

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really happens in the videos. It goes to Sonny
who is my video editor and I Love this Guy.

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He’s he’s He’s a good human being and a very
talented video editor this is where it gets

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challenging because ah, you’ve brought it
up here. It’s I’m. Old school in the way I

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was taught on how to edit videos and you don’t
want to show the Cuts. You don’t want to show

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the edits you want to mask them all with b-roll
to make it look very polished and finished

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and if you notice on most Youtube videos there
tends to be lots of jump cuts and that’s the

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kind of thing I want to avoid in my videos
and so that makes this part. Challenging part

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and sunny does an amazing job with it.
And how much of the stock imagery stock video

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the there is sometimes incorporation of companies
promotional videos their own pr stuff I know

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that. They probably provide you with when
you initially reach out to a company if you’re

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talking about a specific company I imagine
you reach out and they provide you with probably

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a pr packet. Um the incorporation of all of
that that’s left in in Sunny’s hands

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Yes. Yes, like it used to be obviously all
me and when I first started working with sunny

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I would try to give him I would try to find
a bunch of the bee role myself and would give

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him like links and things like look here look
here look here today I don’t do any of that.

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It’s little I record my talking head footage
and. I pass the files off the script off to

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sunny and he does a better job at finding
broll than I ever did. So. It’s like he’s

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better at it than I ever was so it’s like
sometimes he finds footage where I’m just

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like how how did you find this and it’s like
listening to sherlock holmes. It’s like.

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Right.
Went to the company’s website and I saw this

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video there and I followed the link over to
here and I looked in the source and found

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the link on this youtube thing which made
me realize it was actually owned by this other

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company and somebody it’s like Sonny what
are you doing? It’s like he keep fine. He

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goes on rabbit holes to find incredible stuff
and that’s 1 of the challenges with Youtube

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too is like who owns.
Um, yeah.

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Yeah, and then he’s like and that’s how I
know Elvis Presley is alive.

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And but yeah, it’s it’s it’s the challenge
with what I do.. It’s like how do you? there’s

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There’s the rights issue. Yeah, obviously
you don’t want to use videos. You don’t have

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the rights to so typically what we’re doing
was we’re sticking to Youtube videos that

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are basically Pr material because there’s
never a question about using that stuff. Um,

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there’s times where like you mentioned I reach
out to companies directly like do you have

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anything additional that you can share with
the press and they will typically give me

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like a press kit or they’ll give me versions
of the video that without text on top of it

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companies like Tesla and things like that
they typically have press kits available that

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are free to use for the press.
Um, yeah.

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Um, and then we also have subscriptions to
stock photography sites like adobe and video

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blocks and things like that where we can pull
additional like aerial shots of solar parks.

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It’s like that kind of stuff we can just find
on those stock photography websites. So it’s

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a combination of a little bit of everything.
Um, yeah.

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But it takes a lot of sleuthing to pull it
all together.

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And what you’ve described at this point is
really Sonny had to learn your voice and once

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and once he learned what your voice was. He’s
able to do that on his own and really like

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it.
My Stalia my voice and style.

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It all seems like and again going back to
that is ultimately the role of the producer.

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A producer is putting their voice around the
entire package even if there are other people

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involved and that’s I think what has maintained
the consistency here is that it does seem

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to be your voice coming through.
Right? yep.

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And the other thing I would want to point
out is like there are things I’ve always wanted

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to do my videos but when I was doing it by
myself I didn’t have the time so I would have

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to take shortcuts and 1 of the things I always
wanted to do in my videos was to be a little

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more thoughtful with the music that’s being
used adding sound effects. Things to make

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the videos feel a little more alive because
a lot of times these videos have no sound

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at all to them and so since there’s somebody
that’s dedicated on editing these videos for

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me like Sunny. He’s doing all of that we’re
using more music we’re using more sound effects

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and the videos are looking a little more polished
than they did before because he’s completely

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focused on that. Before I would be like I
want to put sound effects I just don’t have

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the time to figure that out right now heads
have to move so it’s it’s been very helpful.

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So sunny works on a work schedule where he’s
getting effectively large amounts of work

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from you multiple videos potentially at 1
time his return to you must be spread out

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over a period of weeks I imagine you don’t
have a turnaround with him where he’s getting

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you. All 3 videos back within a week I imagine
it’s like on a weekly basis. You’re getting

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things Back. You’re giving an initial run.
Yeah, you get and you’re and you’re giving

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it an initial watch through and if there’s
any final polishing that is needed. He’s taking

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care of that.
I get about a video a week I get about a video

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a week from him. Yes.
Yeah, he sends me updates like as he’s working

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throughout the week he’ll say I’ve checked
in all my edits if you want to check it out

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and leave some comments and I can we use final
cuts I’ll open up final cut I’ll look at his

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edit and I can leave markers on the timeline
like change this change this I don’t like

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this clip or this is awesome I’ll leave him.
Feedback and he can make adjustments over

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the over the course of the week
And that’s built directly into the editing

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software. So you’re effectively looking at
the same project as if you’re sitting in the

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same room.
Yeah, it’s actually kind of ah a good and

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bad thing because it’s like because I’m a
video editor myself. It’s like when I open

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up the phone up project I can just go in there
and go tweak tweak tweetweak tweak and tweak

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stuff myself I try to avoid that as best I
can I try to leave feedback because if I’m

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tweaking things and he doesn’t know what I
changed. It’s like.

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Right.
Um, yeah.

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He’s not going to understand my voice so I’m
always trying to make sure I’m giving him

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feedback so that he knows what I’m liking
and not liking and he’s learned. It’s like

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his videos are all like ninety five percent
there almost every single time.

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So you’re getting the video back from him
in a final form. He’s like I’m done with this.

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You’re like I agree it’s ready to go live
typically how much time between you getting

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that final product and it going live how much
time is there. Are you getting these projects

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on Friday and it’s going live on Tuesday or
is there more of a.

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I typically we wrap up his portion of it on
wednesdays and then they publish the following

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Tuesday and the reason that we need that big
Buffer is a lot of my videos have sponsors

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and sponsors have to see the cut of the video
to give final approval on their segment. So

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typically what happens on Wednesday is is
i.

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More room there.
Export the vinyl videos I put them up somewhere

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where the sponsor can check them out and make
sure their portion is good to go and they

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give me feedback and usually Thursday or fridays
is where I’m published I’m putting them up

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on youtube scheduled ready to go on like Thursdays
or Fridays. So I don’t think about it over

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the weekend and they just launch automatically
on tuesdays.

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So it’s going live and you’ve got a community
of patreons around you supporting the production

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of all this how you don’t have to give specific
numbers. But what is your Patreon community

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00:21:32,310 –> 00:21:37,110
look like now how large a group are we talking.
Um, it’s a few hundred people now. It’s almost

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00:21:37,110 –> 00:21:42,780
a few hundred and it’s it’s bigger than I
ever would expected and my patrons are awesome

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I just like for my higher level patrons I
hold a monthly zoom call. So I’ve actually

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gotten to know a bunch of them like Rob van
de wau who is 1 of my original producers.

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He’s helped me on videos write scripts um
I’ve actually become friends with a lot of

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them. Um’s they’ve been incredibly supportive.
Not just with money but with you know, moral

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00:22:02,790 –> 00:22:08,380
support and feedback and story ideas but they
kind of the amount of money that I get from

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page found not to get in specific numbers.
It covers sunny like the patreon money the

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00:22:14,360 –> 00:22:19,430
way I look at that money is it’s helping to
fund a lot of the production itself. So it’s

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like it’s paying for sunny. It’s paying for
those stock video subscriptions. It’s helping

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00:22:23,490 –> 00:22:28,860
to pay for some of my research researchers
money. Um, so it’s it’s helping to kind of

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give me a nice baseline to make sure I can
cover the costs week to week of what it takes

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to produce the videos.
That’s all it’s very interesting because I’m

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always involved at the literally like the
last stage it. It goes live I watch it then

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you and I have a conversation I’m not involved
in any aspect of everything you’ve just described

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00:22:52,760 –> 00:23:00,440
and it’s. And it’s fascinating to me if you
consider our conversations then post release

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00:23:00,440 –> 00:23:07,420
part of the life cycle of the video each of
these episodes is actively engaged with and

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worked on and discussed over.
So.

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00:23:10,500 –> 00:23:15,640
A couple months. Yep.
More than a month it’s yeah it’s really it’s

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it’s a very interesting part of of what you’re
doing I think that the the skill that you

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00:23:23,270 –> 00:23:30,460
show and the talent that you’ve pulled in
around it is easily seen so this is just me.

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Complimenting you on putting together something
that’s ah, very good quality but also like

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clearly finding an audience so head tip to
you.

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Thank you and you are but you are part of
that Team. You are what you are part of that

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00:23:42,660 –> 00:23:46,400
team I mean this this conversation the post
conversation I do see as an important part

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00:23:46,400 –> 00:23:51,010
of the conversation. It’s the videos are a
a conversation between me and the viewer.

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So I’m always looking through the comments
in this podcast is meant as a way for us to

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kind of just discuss openly you’re you’re
coming at it from the every man point of view

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00:24:00,790 –> 00:24:01,790
which is what I Love. It’s like you. Yeah,
this scares me.

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00:24:01,790 –> 00:24:06,110
I am very happy to be the man on the street
coming in and saying but I don’t understand

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00:24:06,110 –> 00:24:14,910
solar panels because I don’t I don’t I am
scared so our listeners should tell us what

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00:24:14,910 –> 00:24:18,280
they think about this if any of you have any
thoughts about.

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00:24:18,280 –> 00:24:20,400
Ah, yes.
What we’ve talked about about the lifecycle

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00:24:20,400 –> 00:24:24,640
here. It would be great to hear from you.
You can find the contact information in the

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00:24:24,640 –> 00:24:29,210
podcast description and of course on Youtube.
The comments section is directly below the

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00:24:29,210 –> 00:24:34,400
video you can weigh in in either place. Don’t
forget, there are ways you can directly support

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00:24:34,400 –> 00:24:39,070
the podcast. surprise surprise we just talked
about 1 there’s patreon. There’s also still

324
00:24:39,070 –> 00:24:41,260
tbd fm or there’s this support the podcast
link and there is the sorry. Let me say that

325
00:24:41,260 –> 00:24:47,170
again. There’s still tbd dot fm. There’s also
the youtube. Join button which allows you

326
00:24:47,170 –> 00:24:52,530
to support us directly from Youtube please
be sure to give us a rating a review share

327
00:24:52,530 –> 00:24:56,920
us with your friends all of this really does
help the podcast. The podcast helps the channel

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00:24:56,920 –> 00:25:02,130
the channel helps Matthew and then Matthew
literally helps a village of people. Put together

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00:25:02,130 –> 00:25:06,240
these videos. Thanks so much for listening
everybody. We’ll talk to you next time.