00:00:00
How much can we talk about? Like who
00:00:02
sent us? Can we talk about that?
00:00:04
>> Why not? I don't know. Just I don't
00:00:06
know. Yeah,
00:00:07
>> cuz we ended up making the video.
00:00:08
>> Yeah. Um we did.
00:00:10
>> So Ferrari Well, we got a video made for
00:00:13
Cars with Miles.
00:00:20
>> Yo, what's up people of the internet?
00:00:22
Welcome back to another episode of the
00:00:24
Waveform Podcast. I'm your host,
00:00:26
Marquez, and we have a different set
00:00:29
today and a different set of people
00:00:31
because we're doing a bonus episode. So,
00:00:33
we'll be back with your regularly
00:00:34
scheduled programming on Friday like we
00:00:36
always do. But, let's go around the
00:00:38
table and introduce ourselves because
00:00:40
it's not the normal set of people.
00:00:41
>> Hi, I'm Rich.
00:00:43
>> Hi, I am confused for Rich. I'm Eric.
00:00:46
>> I'm still Andrew.
00:00:47
>> So, we're all here to talk about our
00:00:49
year in the life project because it was
00:00:51
so sick that it deserves a little bit
00:00:53
more unpacking. We spent an entire year
00:00:56
recording everything that was happening
00:00:58
both in the studio and with our teams
00:00:59
around the studio traveling across the
00:01:01
country making videos and then we put it
00:01:04
all into one I keep saying featurelength
00:01:08
film whatever we want to call it uh one
00:01:10
of the biggest most ambitious most uh
00:01:13
challenging undertakings of any of the
00:01:14
MKBHD channels that we've ever put
00:01:16
together and we're really proud of it.
00:01:17
uh and Eric and Rich were the sort of
00:01:19
masterminds who made this possible but
00:01:22
also like came up with it and
00:01:23
architected like how we were I I like to
00:01:26
say building the bridge as we were
00:01:28
crossing it which was really fun.
00:01:30
>> Yeah.
00:01:31
>> So I think
00:01:31
>> we nearly fell off that bridge
00:01:33
>> many times. Many times the design
00:01:36
bridge.
00:01:37
>> Yeah.
00:01:38
>> Yeah. So uh I think you should you guys
00:01:40
should take it from here. We want to
00:01:41
know some things that you might not know
00:01:44
watching Year in the Life that you guys
00:01:46
know. So, I guess I'll give I'll give
00:01:48
some context and then I'll pass it over
00:01:50
to Rich and we can talk about like what
00:01:53
like actually starting it looked like.
00:01:55
But when Rich and I started on the
00:01:58
studio, we like asked everyone like,
00:01:59
"Oh, what do you like doing?" And we got
00:02:01
a lot of pitches of like, "I want to go
00:02:02
to one of Marquez's frisbee games and
00:02:04
like we do a video talking about that or
00:02:07
like um you know, we should do a vlog or
00:02:10
you know, like sort of classic YouTube
00:02:11
stuff." And it was really hard because
00:02:13
it's like, oh, would people click on a
00:02:15
video about like how we make the
00:02:17
podcast? Would people click on a video
00:02:18
about how we made one specific intro?
00:02:20
Like the more specific it gets, the more
00:02:23
I think people give themselves excuses
00:02:24
to be like, "Ah, it's probably not for
00:02:26
me." But, but working here, you kind of
00:02:28
sit around and you realize like this is
00:02:29
a really unique workplace because of the
00:02:32
vibe and not necessarily because of any
00:02:35
individual project. And so we were
00:02:39
thinking about like how do you capture
00:02:41
the vibe but still have a title where
00:02:43
people would click on it. And at the end
00:02:45
of 2024, a very difficult year, I was
00:02:49
like, it would be kind of sick to do
00:02:50
like a year in the life video about
00:02:52
2024. And then I pitched it and everyone
00:02:54
was like, let's not rehash that. Let's
00:02:57
never do that. But
00:03:00
>> but what if we did a year in the life
00:03:02
for 2025? And so at the beginning of the
00:03:04
year, we were like, we're gonna do this
00:03:06
video and we like set up a camera and
00:03:09
then and then it got really difficult
00:03:12
>> really quickly.
00:03:13
>> We had also already done I think the
00:03:16
first ever day in the life we did was a
00:03:19
one of the busiest days we've ever had.
00:03:20
So we're like, let's do a day in the
00:03:22
life so you can see what a whole team
00:03:23
does on our busiest day. Then I think
00:03:25
you kind of uh talked about it, but we
00:03:28
were talking about like how the podcast
00:03:30
is made slowly turned into a week in the
00:03:33
life. Yeah.
00:03:34
>> Because we realized so much of making
00:03:35
the podcast was based around like how
00:03:37
can we make this weekly thing in the
00:03:40
confines of everything else we're doing
00:03:41
in a week.
00:03:41
>> Exactly.
00:03:42
>> And then the next logical step was
00:03:44
clearly skip month, go to year.
00:03:46
>> Right. Cuz if we didn't if we did month,
00:03:48
it would just be September. But by the
00:03:49
time we had the idea, it was like
00:03:51
November 2024. So, I was like, "Well,
00:03:53
let's just let's just do the year one
00:03:55
cuz it's going to be hard enough to do."
00:03:57
>> Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the most fun
00:03:59
parts of it was actually having us just
00:04:00
start to capture everything cuz that's
00:04:03
one of the ideas for the reason we
00:04:04
started a podcast is because we were
00:04:06
like, we kind of have a lot of
00:04:08
techreated conversations and they're not
00:04:10
necessarily videos, but they are
00:04:12
interesting and we kind of like talk
00:04:13
about the news a lot and we have takes
00:04:14
on things. How do we
00:04:16
>> maybe we just like sit down and actually
00:04:18
formalize this? And we made the podcast
00:04:19
out of that. And I think Yel, as we're
00:04:22
affectionately calling it, was a whole
00:04:24
bunch more of that where anything
00:04:27
interesting that's ever happening or
00:04:28
maybe even not interesting, just
00:04:29
anything that's happening, let's just
00:04:31
get it on camera just in case. Yeah.
00:04:33
>> And then we just kind of went from
00:04:34
there.
00:04:35
>> So I feel like the place to start is
00:04:36
like, Rich, what was our tech stack
00:04:39
coming into January? cuz I want people
00:04:41
to like leave this podcast episode being
00:04:43
able to make their own yol and as the
00:04:46
technical visionary for this. Where did
00:04:49
we start? Like what was the first camera
00:04:52
we had? And then we can kind of talk
00:04:53
about how we
00:04:54
>> added different tech to begin with.
00:04:56
>> Sure. Uh we shoot most of you probably
00:04:59
95% on C70 which is kind of our
00:05:02
workhorse cameras. We have three of them
00:05:04
in the office. There's always one on
00:05:06
either mine or Eric's desk and it's
00:05:08
always ready to go. It's got a It's got
00:05:10
a 416 on it. It's always got a card in
00:05:12
it. It's ready to go. The problem is
00:05:15
when we're shooting everything.
00:05:17
>> Yeah.
00:05:18
>> It's a ton of space.
00:05:20
>> Yeah.
00:05:21
>> January was like really difficult for
00:05:23
I'd say like three main reasons. We shot
00:05:25
everything, but we didn't know what we
00:05:27
were shooting and we had no story.
00:05:30
>> Yeah.
00:05:30
>> One of the first things that we shot was
00:05:31
like a really busy day where Andrew like
00:05:34
>> I think it was Brandon was supposed to
00:05:35
go on a shoot with Marquez for the Sam
00:05:37
the new Samsung. It was actually Samsung
00:05:40
launch plus the XR headset which is why
00:05:42
we're going here.
00:05:42
>> One of our shooters got sick. So now I
00:05:45
have to meet Marquez in California
00:05:48
tonight so tomorrow we can shoot an
00:05:50
exclusive shot of the Google Samsung XR
00:05:54
headset. The only problem is we had all
00:05:56
this pod stuff scheduled for today
00:05:59
because we need to record a bonus pod.
00:06:01
Then we need to watch Unpacked. Then we
00:06:03
need to record an episode about
00:06:04
Unpacked. And then I need to be on a
00:06:06
plane by 5:30. might be my longest day
00:06:08
of the year total, but let's start it.
00:06:12
>> And so I was like, Andrew, film that.
00:06:15
>> And I was like, I will try and a lot of
00:06:19
me being like, I'm still stuck in the
00:06:21
airport. And then later like, I am
00:06:23
tired. And it was pretty boring.
00:06:25
>> It was like and like so so like that was
00:06:29
all of our January coverage was pretty
00:06:30
much just that cuz like everything else
00:06:32
was just us like walking around the
00:06:34
studio. We realized like, okay,
00:06:36
>> we're shooting everything, but we don't
00:06:38
have like a purpose.
00:06:39
>> Yeah.
00:06:39
>> So, and then that made the edit really
00:06:41
hard, too, because we didn't know what
00:06:42
we were selecting for. So, we were just
00:06:44
like wafting through stuff.
00:06:47
>> I feel like anyone that's ever tried to
00:06:49
like make a vlog knows what you're
00:06:50
talking about. Like, we've all had that
00:06:52
experience of I recorded everything for
00:06:53
a week. This will be easy to turn it
00:06:55
into a video. And you're sitting there
00:06:56
like, wait,
00:06:57
>> it's brutal. It's So, the the two things
00:07:00
that like helped are I asked Mariah to
00:07:02
take a pass on the edit. I took a pass
00:07:04
and everyone was like, "This sucks." And
00:07:07
so then I I asked Maria like take a pass
00:07:09
on the edit. And what she did is she she
00:07:11
found like podcast interviews and clips
00:07:14
from across the other channels that she
00:07:17
could sprinkle throughout. And I was
00:07:19
like, "Oh, these are like the chapter
00:07:21
markers. Like everything like these are
00:07:23
payoffs and all of the coverage is
00:07:25
setups." And then once that clicked, we
00:07:28
had like a little micro format. We still
00:07:30
didn't know like where the story was
00:07:31
going or like what like when to choose
00:07:34
what actually made it in the cut versus
00:07:35
didn't. But we had a rhythm and so that
00:07:38
was kind of like step one. um like we
00:07:43
it's it's showing the creation and then
00:07:45
like you get the payoff of like oh that
00:07:47
thing was was made or like if it's a
00:07:49
external thing like a podcast interview
00:07:51
like your thing with Trevor Noah the
00:07:52
whole point of those was to show like um
00:07:56
this is a theme that we'll be setting up
00:07:58
or like like a larger conversation that
00:08:00
we could establish. And so Mariah
00:08:02
created like that basis for the language
00:08:05
and then from there it was just like
00:08:07
stepping up to like how do we actually
00:08:08
like make anything that we want to use.
00:08:11
>> Mhm.
00:08:12
>> Cuz yeah like the Andrew coverage did
00:08:14
just didn't make the cut.
00:08:15
>> Unfortunately I mean I totally
00:08:17
understood as I'm filming I was like
00:08:18
yeah this is like kind of a crazy me
00:08:20
talking about that right then sounds
00:08:22
interesting. I get last minute called to
00:08:24
spend 24 hours in San Francisco. But
00:08:26
then when you're living it, you're like,
00:08:28
I've haven't done this. Which I think
00:08:30
also along the way,
00:08:32
>> we have a whole year of not just you
00:08:34
guys got better at capturing it and we
00:08:36
got better equipment in capturing it,
00:08:37
but like everyone started being like,
00:08:40
>> Rich, we need the cam like come over to
00:08:42
this side of the office. It was like a
00:08:44
ingrained in us to be like capture this,
00:08:45
capture this, capture.
00:08:46
>> It was definitely like one of those
00:08:47
things where like Harper was like film
00:08:50
every meeting and Harper would like at
00:08:52
the beginning of every week be like we
00:08:54
have this, this, this, and this. Which
00:08:55
of this is yiddle coverage? Who's the
00:08:57
who's the yiddler as we effective
00:08:59
affectionately would refer to them as?
00:09:01
Yeah. To like to grab each of these. I
00:09:03
So the next deleted scene that I want to
00:09:05
talk about is in February when Rich and
00:09:07
Miles flew first class
00:09:08
>> Oh.
00:09:09
>> to Portugal
00:09:10
>> to the car.
00:09:10
>> How much can we talk about like who sent
00:09:13
us? Can we talk about that?
00:09:15
>> I not just I don't know. Yeah,
00:09:18
>> cuz we ended up making the video.
00:09:19
>> Yeah. Um we did. So Ferrari, well we got
00:09:22
a video made for Cars with Miles.
00:09:27
>> So we didn't end up
00:09:28
>> we didn't make that video. So we we
00:09:31
scrapped that video,
00:09:32
>> right?
00:09:32
>> So and that was like
00:09:34
>> I'll I'll put a pin in that because that
00:09:36
was actually important to the
00:09:37
storytelling. I was fighting to keep
00:09:38
this scene in
00:09:39
>> Year in the Life. But yeah, our February
00:09:41
big thing that we cut was this trip. Do
00:09:42
you want to describe your lovely trip?
00:09:44
>> Sure. Yeah. Um this unfortunately got
00:09:46
deleted. So maybe at some point in the
00:09:48
future we can show the audience. But it
00:09:50
was 3 days I believe of me and Miles in
00:09:53
the beautiful southwestern coast of
00:09:56
Portugal.
00:09:57
>> Rich and I are in Portugal for
00:10:01
a Ferrari thing.
00:10:02
>> We had a camera, an action camera
00:10:04
basically suction cup to the front right
00:10:07
side of the car. We keep going and then
00:10:09
we hit a bump which is like check on the
00:10:11
GoPro just to make sure you know it's
00:10:13
still there, which you know I'm assuming
00:10:15
it is. He looks over and he's like,
00:10:17
"Yeah, let's go." We we relate to
00:10:20
everything.
00:10:20
>> Yeah.
00:10:21
>> And we lost a camera which had a lot
00:10:23
bunch of footage on it. Um and then we
00:10:25
get Portuguese McDonald's, which turns
00:10:28
out it's just like American McDonald's.
00:10:30
So pretty pretty bad.
00:10:31
>> Was it the Dodi Celindri?
00:10:33
>> It was It was a convertible, too. We had
00:10:35
the top down.
00:10:36
>> Show the hand movements. There's an
00:10:37
Italian.
00:10:38
>> It's an Italian car.
00:10:39
>> I feel like I have to. Sorry. It was
00:10:42
wonderful. It was beautiful. The problem
00:10:44
was I think I didn't know what to
00:10:46
capture yet, right? Because this is like
00:10:47
a month into us doing year in the life
00:10:49
and so I'm like what kind of coverage do
00:10:50
we need? And I think that was a big
00:10:52
problem for me and throughout the year
00:10:53
that
00:10:54
>> that really helped was like oh okay like
00:10:57
this is the kind of coverage we need. We
00:10:58
need like setups as in like oh here's
00:11:01
where we are in terms of you know
00:11:02
setting or
00:11:04
>> this is what we're shooting this is why
00:11:05
we're shooting it. This is why it's
00:11:07
challenging. Like eventually like we we
00:11:10
could kind of figure out like
00:11:11
>> what we wanted. Yeah,
00:11:13
>> but at this point
00:11:17
>> the Portugal I'm really disappointed
00:11:19
because we lost all that footage, right?
00:11:23
>> Well, we lost the actual footage up for
00:11:25
the video.
00:11:26
>> Like the I guess the GoPro that you had
00:11:28
or like the phone that you had that you
00:11:30
used to shoot a bunch of the footage
00:11:31
fell off the car
00:11:32
>> unfortunately. Yeah, it was
00:11:35
>> Yeah. So, it was suction cuped at some
00:11:37
point during our drive. it had fallen
00:11:40
off and we unfortunately only had like
00:11:43
an hour left before we had to get back
00:11:44
to the hotel or else the shuttles would
00:11:46
be leaving and we'd be stranded there.
00:11:48
And so we like turned back and we we
00:11:51
probably searched for that camera for an
00:11:53
hour or so cuz it had all of our like
00:11:55
you know kind of like bumper shots and
00:11:58
all this like great coverage and we're
00:11:59
like oh man this is a bummer to lose
00:12:01
that that footage. I was like, from a
00:12:03
story perspective, this is so great
00:12:04
because it shows stakes, right? Like I
00:12:06
think the big issue that I had with util
00:12:10
one that is already being solved by 2 is
00:12:14
in one, we just keep constantly winning
00:12:16
all the time. Like it makes working here
00:12:20
look really easy, but that's just
00:12:21
because when stuff went really bad, we'd
00:12:23
like lock in and not know.
00:12:25
>> We lost all the footage, so we can't
00:12:27
show.
00:12:28
>> Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So, two months
00:12:30
down, month three, there's another trip
00:12:32
to South by Southwest. And I was just
00:12:35
like, Rich, we are going on this trip.
00:12:37
>> We got to go.
00:12:38
>> Both of us are going to shoot
00:12:41
everything.
00:12:42
>> Mhm.
00:12:42
>> And I think that this was the turning
00:12:44
point for us.
00:12:45
>> Oh, absolutely.
00:12:46
>> Yeah. So, like we went to Southby with
00:12:47
all the with all the pod boys. Um,
00:12:50
>> there's a great story about this.
00:12:52
>> Wait, what's
00:12:52
>> the hotel story,
00:12:53
>> bro? Oh, two. My god,
00:12:57
>> I forgot about that.
00:12:59
>> There's so much good stuff. There's so
00:13:02
much good stuff that did not make the
00:13:03
cut.
00:13:03
>> Tell that story.
00:13:04
>> Somewhat know this. Which hotel store
00:13:07
are we talking about? Cuz there's
00:13:08
>> I just know like Southby is really
00:13:10
confusing and we're figuring this out
00:13:11
right now. Booking again. But like in
00:13:13
order to get a hotel at Southby, you
00:13:15
need a badge. And Vox handles our
00:13:18
badges. So Vox booked our hotels, but
00:13:20
since you guys aren't hosts on the
00:13:22
podcast, we had to get you hotel rooms.
00:13:24
And after this episode, I could send
00:13:26
this to Vox. Yeah. But like you had to
00:13:29
get hotels somewhere else.
00:13:31
>> Yeah. So we just found a place that Rich
00:13:33
could book with like Hilton points or
00:13:35
something that was like 30 minutes
00:13:36
outside of Austin.
00:13:37
>> But it was cheap.
00:13:38
>> It was really cheap.
00:13:39
>> Under 100 bucks.
00:13:40
>> It was like It was like It was like a
00:13:42
hundred bucks. Rich and I were just
00:13:43
going to like share a a bed. Did you
00:13:46
guys get your money's worth? So,
00:13:48
>> no, we did not.
00:13:49
>> No, I would argue we kind of did.
00:13:51
>> So, we show up and they're like,
00:13:54
"There's no clean water." And we were
00:13:56
like, "No, no, no hot water."
00:13:57
>> And it's like 11:00 at night. We're
00:13:59
freezing. We're tired. We're like, "I
00:14:01
just want to shower and go to bed." And
00:14:02
they're like, "There's no hot water."
00:14:04
>> Yeah. So, they were like, "So, we'll
00:14:06
give you half off on the one room you
00:14:08
have." And I like look at Rich and I'm
00:14:10
like, "I think we're balling out.
00:14:14
Keep the $100 we gave you. Two rooms.
00:14:19
>> So, Rich and I get our own fullsized
00:14:22
bed.
00:14:22
>> Nice.
00:14:24
>> Um, there was also like no breakfast
00:14:26
there
00:14:28
>> and it wasn't the hotel has breakfast
00:14:29
anymore, unfortunately.
00:14:31
>> But, um, are you sure it was I remember
00:14:34
trying to run the water and I think like
00:14:35
a brown sludge came out.
00:14:37
>> Oh, my room just had cold water. So,
00:14:40
between two rooms, it was
00:14:42
>> either way, we go to Southby, we film
00:14:44
everything. Rich and I stink, but in a
00:14:46
good way because that footage was
00:14:47
stanky, too.
00:14:48
>> It was great.
00:14:49
>> Um, C70 is not great in low light, but
00:14:52
it, you know, it's all good.
00:14:54
>> That was the shoot that you guys came
00:14:55
back and you like begged Marquez for
00:14:57
Sony's. You were like, "Please."
00:14:58
>> And then literally like two two shoots
00:15:01
later, we were like, "Never mind. Never
00:15:02
mind. We're going back.
00:15:04
>> We should have always trusted you." It's
00:15:06
mostly that that's the one low light
00:15:08
shoot. I mean, other than being like in
00:15:10
the back of a car or like on a plane or
00:15:12
something, it's like it's usually pretty
00:15:13
decently lit and stuff.
00:15:15
>> Yeah. But
00:15:16
>> that C70 color, Rich, like the color job
00:15:18
you did is just like so fantastic.
00:15:20
>> Beautiful.
00:15:21
>> It is a great camera to work with.
00:15:22
That's why we love Canon.
00:15:24
>> Do you guys want to
00:15:25
>> on our fine cut? So, no notes on story,
00:15:29
no notes on move this, no notes on cut
00:15:31
this. The only notes that people could
00:15:33
leave are color grading and audio. Do
00:15:36
you guys want to guess how many notes we
00:15:38
got?
00:15:39
>> Yeah.
00:15:39
>> Five days to upload.
00:15:40
>> By the way, by whatever miscommunication
00:15:42
we had on that was really frustrating
00:15:45
because I I told you I said this is
00:15:48
unmixed.
00:15:49
>> No, no, no. I know.
00:15:50
>> So, only leave notes on missing sounds.
00:15:53
>> We just we just sent it to everybody.
00:15:55
>> No, but you specifically said, "Do not
00:15:57
leave notes on missing sounds. Only
00:15:59
leave mix notes."
00:16:01
>> Oh. Oh, that's
00:16:02
>> so all of the notes we got were useless
00:16:05
>> to be fair.
00:16:06
>> The mix is still really good.
00:16:08
>> Eric, also if you're not, we put
00:16:12
everything in Frame.io and the amount of
00:16:13
times this was watched by people in the
00:16:15
studio is
00:16:16
>> wild. I think I watched it once a month
00:16:18
cuz we cuz
00:16:19
>> the thing evolved,
00:16:21
>> but
00:16:21
>> yeah, the cut that I watched was not
00:16:23
what even got uploaded.
00:16:24
>> I've watched so many different cuts of
00:16:26
Year in the Life. But there's a point
00:16:28
where this the video gets so big that
00:16:30
even though Eric will be like don't
00:16:32
comment on XYZ
00:16:33
>> you'll just forget that by minute 40
00:16:35
>> it's not even well that and also some of
00:16:37
them are like
00:16:38
>> this is too important of a thing I have
00:16:41
to leave the note because just if for
00:16:43
some reason it doesn't it feels
00:16:45
>> like it will be more detrimental later
00:16:48
>> to be I know that kind of sounds
00:16:49
backwards but there's things like
00:16:51
>> curses some I don't know sometimes
00:16:53
there's things where like I have to say
00:16:56
this graphic is messed up. We're like,
00:16:58
what's just like if we don't his home
00:17:00
address is showing in minute 38 on on
00:17:03
like on our second to last cut on our
00:17:05
fourth watch through, Rich goes, "Oh my
00:17:08
god, that's the company credit card."
00:17:10
>> I think this was like the day before
00:17:12
upload, just just so you guys know,
00:17:14
>> Rich, thank you.
00:17:15
>> Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:16
>> Thank you.
00:17:18
>> Like, oh my god, we've learned so many
00:17:22
things. We had to do like such fine
00:17:24
details on it. And that's like but yeah,
00:17:26
we had like 300 notes the week before
00:17:29
upload.
00:17:29
>> Yeah.
00:17:30
>> Like the week before. So that was like
00:17:31
not that's not including the story
00:17:33
conversations and like the the weekly
00:17:35
meetings and blah blah blah. But
00:17:36
>> um the flow that we got into after
00:17:39
Southby was like when things really
00:17:40
clicked because it was Southby and then
00:17:43
um I took like a a trip to Peru. Shout
00:17:47
out Berwanos. And then and then and
00:17:50
Chicago just cuz. And then um while I
00:17:54
was in Peru, Harper and Mariah ran point
00:17:56
on interviewing every single person
00:17:57
here.
00:17:58
>> Mhm.
00:17:58
>> And then once we had the interview
00:18:00
coverage and actually good travel
00:18:03
footage, we were like, "Oh, we have the
00:18:06
first 15 minutes." Like, "We can figure
00:18:08
this out." And so once and once we sent
00:18:10
that video at the on the first day of
00:18:12
April, everyone's like, "April fools,
00:18:14
whatever." And they watched and they're
00:18:15
like, "Wait, this is actually kind of
00:18:17
good." That's when the momentum started
00:18:19
to build. And by like May and June,
00:18:21
everyone was like, "This video is coming
00:18:22
out. I know that I can put my time into
00:18:24
it. I know that I can think about it."
00:18:26
Cuz we've had other videos. Ellis and
00:18:28
Adam are both certified and how to use a
00:18:30
ham radio because we spent three months
00:18:32
on the studio channel
00:18:34
>> trying to get them to call the ISS.
00:18:36
>> Mhm.
00:18:37
>> And we just scrapped that video. I
00:18:39
completely forgot about that.
00:18:41
>> Yeah. So like, so like I to like So like
00:18:43
I think having that that come out and
00:18:46
Rich and I just going and shooting the
00:18:47
coverage, I think that was the moment
00:18:49
where everyone realized like, oh, the
00:18:50
video is going to come out.
00:18:52
>> Yeah.
00:18:52
>> And then it was off to the races.
00:18:54
>> Format wise, it was really fun cuz I
00:18:56
think you when you see the title year in
00:18:58
the life and you when you know what a
00:18:59
vlog is, you kind of just picture just a
00:19:01
chronological super super super long
00:19:03
day, like a long vlog in in straight
00:19:05
order. And I think some people might
00:19:08
find that interesting in its own way,
00:19:10
but I think the the way obviously we
00:19:12
were able to structure things and like
00:19:13
bring stories through, loop things
00:19:15
through the whole video and the
00:19:17
recurring uh I've watched it now with
00:19:19
people who are seeing it for the first
00:19:20
time because I've seen the cut so many
00:19:21
times. noticing different things people
00:19:23
pick up on like the Snoop Dog wine
00:19:25
bottle and how that keeps recurring or
00:19:27
just like various things that sort of
00:19:29
bring people's attention back in all
00:19:31
made it feel not obviously produced is
00:19:34
one thing but like just cohesive and it
00:19:37
made me really proud of it. So it was it
00:19:39
was exciting to do that.
00:19:40
>> I like a piece of advice if you want to
00:19:42
do that like I think so many vlogs are
00:19:46
runon sentences. So many vlogs are this
00:19:49
happened and then this happened and then
00:19:50
this happened and then this happened and
00:19:52
it gets really really really diff it
00:19:54
gets difficult for the editors because
00:19:56
they don't know what to place focus on
00:19:58
when everything is equally weighted.
00:19:59
It's difficult for like Ellis as he's
00:20:01
doing like music decisions because he
00:20:03
like you can't tell what the difference
00:20:05
between beats are. And so everything
00:20:07
that we were doing was thinking like
00:20:09
what is our punctuation like where is
00:20:11
something going to end? And then we'd
00:20:13
reverse engineer. So like the summer was
00:20:15
oh the punctuation ends when Marquez
00:20:17
comes back from China and then the then
00:20:20
that's that gives us clear setup of like
00:20:22
we have to film a bunch of stuff before
00:20:23
Marquez leaves and like that then I also
00:20:26
know what to cut because if we're
00:20:27
shooting something and it doesn't
00:20:29
intersect with Marquez is going to China
00:20:30
soon then it's then it's all gone
00:20:33
because we're just focused on that
00:20:34
sentence right now. And then once that's
00:20:36
done it's like oh Marquez comes back
00:20:38
from China and literally the day he's
00:20:39
back busy season begins. Okay it's
00:20:42
smartphone season now. Now there's like
00:20:43
a main thesis for that which leads us to
00:20:45
iPhone which and so like the the key was
00:20:48
like we just had to figure out where the
00:20:51
cut was going. That's what made cutting
00:20:53
like um November and December really
00:20:56
really hard because we had already been
00:20:58
through the hardest things we could do
00:21:00
and we shot tons of videos in November
00:21:02
December but it was just like you you've
00:21:04
already made your iPhone videos. Like
00:21:06
seeing you make a a Pixel video is like
00:21:08
that's not impressive anymore cuz we we
00:21:10
watched you do it right. It's not like
00:21:12
there's any tension in like are they
00:21:13
going to be able to pull it off and
00:21:15
there's no mystery either.
00:21:17
>> So like figuring out what we wanted to
00:21:22
ultimately like that's where the three
00:21:23
questions idea came from. We just like
00:21:25
pulled everyone in for interviews right
00:21:27
at the end of the year to ask them,
00:21:28
"What are your three questions to
00:21:30
describe 2025?" And then Rufus did a
00:21:32
full score piece. And then we kind of
00:21:35
knew like, "Okay, three questions for
00:21:37
2025, blah blah blah blah blah." And
00:21:39
then that'll ring with the three
00:21:41
questions that describe 2026.
00:21:42
>> Yeah,
00:21:43
>> that's that's the ending. And it all led
00:21:45
>> three words. Three words.
00:21:46
>> Oh, three words. Three words. English.
00:21:48
>> I love you.
00:21:51
>> Joel Sixers are up. Joel still dreams.
00:21:55
>> Dude, we've won five games in a row.
00:21:56
Maybe like
00:21:58
>> a 40 piece. It's
00:21:59
>> Wait, can I just say something that
00:22:00
Ellis was very proud of that people may
00:22:02
or may not have noticed.
00:22:04
>> Yeah.
00:22:04
>> The moment in Yidd when Philadelphia
00:22:07
comes on the screen he put like
00:22:10
>> Ellis, do you want to describe it?
00:22:12
>> Every location has its own signature
00:22:14
sound except for one. I don't remember
00:22:16
which one.
00:22:18
>> No, New Jersey had one. New Jersey had
00:22:19
an arcade machine. a kung fu slap from
00:22:22
an arcade machine.
00:22:23
>> The Philadelphia one was an eagle
00:22:25
screeching and the sound of a car window
00:22:27
being shattered.
00:22:29
>> Oh wow, nice.
00:22:30
>> That's not the thing that I'm most proud
00:22:31
of.
00:22:32
>> And I probably, you know, it's it's not
00:22:33
right to talk about this without Rufus
00:22:35
here because he was the one that really
00:22:36
like
00:22:37
>> did a lot of this labor on it, but
00:22:40
something that Rufus and I are both
00:22:41
really proud of in Yidd is like no one
00:22:43
would know how many of the sounds in
00:22:45
Yidd are fake. Um, like the entire intro
00:22:49
sequence, there's not a other than
00:22:52
Marquez's voice, there's not a single
00:22:54
sound that was recorded. Every sing even
00:22:56
like the montage.
00:23:07
Of course, it's not just tech reviews,
00:23:09
it's also car reviews.
00:23:15
So, it's not just phones and it's not
00:23:17
just cars. We also do a podcast in here.
00:23:20
>> Every single clip in the montage was
00:23:22
silent and we re-recorded everyone's
00:23:24
lines, everyone's movement, every shirt
00:23:26
swish, every footstep was walking around
00:23:29
with a microphone and he'd be like,
00:23:30
"Hey, jump."
00:23:32
>> Or he'd say like, "Say congratulations."
00:23:34
Or he'd say like, "I hope this works."
00:23:36
And he'd just like run up to people and
00:23:37
tell like give people lines and then
00:23:38
>> pulled me into a robot room and was
00:23:40
like, "Say something funny. Go."
00:23:42
Like we just spent a lot of time like
00:23:44
going around the office and recording
00:23:46
the sound of every room because it was a
00:23:48
lot easier for us to just mute a lot of
00:23:50
the clips he gave us and then recreate
00:23:52
our own rooms
00:23:54
>> than uh than work like the C7 footage.
00:24:06
>> Okay, this gets into one of the themes
00:24:08
of the piece that I think is very
00:24:10
interesting. Because I think that
00:24:12
there's a lot I think there's a great
00:24:13
deal of humor in the fact that from
00:24:15
within like literally the first 15
00:24:17
minutes to the end, we keep being like,
00:24:19
"YouTube's the best. I don't want to do
00:24:21
movies. YouTube is great. We don't need
00:24:24
Hollywood." And then we're like, "We're
00:24:25
going to fully mix the entire thing with
00:24:28
Foley Sound."
00:24:29
>> Yeah.
00:24:30
>> And it's going to be 90 minutes and you
00:24:32
should probably watch it on your TV and
00:24:34
we're going to do a little director's
00:24:35
commentary episode. Like, do you guys
00:24:38
like how do we reconcile the dissonance?
00:24:40
I can I think that a lot of times and
00:24:42
I've talked to I remember having this
00:24:44
question I think it was in the Will
00:24:45
Smith interview of like what's it
00:24:47
because he was doing YouTube videos and
00:24:49
obviously Hollywood movies and what's
00:24:51
the biggest difference between the two?
00:24:52
>> My Will Smith impression.
00:24:53
>> Yeah. And a lot of it
00:24:59
>> knife and
00:25:00
>> a lot of it comes down to when working
00:25:03
on Hollywood movies, you have an idea in
00:25:05
your head and you have a goal for a
00:25:07
thing you want to create and you spend a
00:25:09
whole lot of time on it. All of this is
00:25:10
the same for us. And then you finish
00:25:12
working on it and it doesn't come out
00:25:14
for three more years while it's being
00:25:17
worked on. And that gap is the
00:25:20
frustrating part. And I think for us, we
00:25:23
have the same thing. We have this
00:25:24
process. We have a vision of what we
00:25:25
want to create. We work really hard on
00:25:27
it. We put a lot of effort into making
00:25:28
it as good as possible. And then it's
00:25:31
out. Yeah. We picture locked year in the
00:25:34
life January 7th, 2026. So we
00:25:38
essentially fully edited the entire
00:25:40
thing over Christmas break. took one
00:25:43
week to do notes, pickups, finalize the
00:25:45
last five minutes, shoot the first five
00:25:48
minutes because the first version of the
00:25:49
first five minutes was me shot on iPhone
00:25:51
reading the lines like just like trying
00:25:54
to vibe it out.
00:25:55
>> Yeah. Spoiler, wasn't actually
00:25:56
September.
00:25:57
>> Yeah, you got the idea.
00:26:00
>> Yeah.
00:26:00
>> And then um Yeah. And then we
00:26:03
essentially finished it and then Rufus
00:26:06
and Ellis had three weeks to sprint out
00:26:08
the entire audio. You had two weeks.
00:26:11
It's crazy out the entire audio.
00:26:13
>> Two weeks is sprinting because in our
00:26:14
world two weeks is four or five videos.
00:26:17
But like the amount was four or five
00:26:19
videos was insane. But I think also like
00:26:22
you're saying why did we take so much of
00:26:24
all this?
00:26:26
I would like to hear your guys' thoughts
00:26:28
because listen,
00:26:29
>> I watched a bunch of cuts of these. When
00:26:31
I'm looking at you guys in the room
00:26:33
here, I did nothing for this video. I
00:26:35
was a person in it. The amount of work
00:26:37
you all put in, I can't even put into
00:26:39
words. I did everything.
00:26:40
>> Shut up, Adam.
00:26:44
>> But like part of this is like this is
00:26:47
the first time we did it.
00:26:49
>> The amount of variables that happened
00:26:51
over a year, the amount of
00:26:54
>> pieces of equipment that we recorded on,
00:26:56
the amount of hard drives and computers
00:26:59
and files that we were in the ether.
00:27:03
Like at a certain point, I'm assuming
00:27:06
LSU you guys realized like, yeah, we
00:27:08
have to do all of this stuff because
00:27:10
it's just there's so much going on. it
00:27:13
like winds up becoming one of the I
00:27:16
don't want to say easier things to do
00:27:17
but like in order for it to work
00:27:20
the audio like in order to make a full
00:27:23
it's feature length it's documentary
00:27:25
style like to get the vibe going and a
00:27:28
million like you you always get perfect
00:27:30
audio off of the DJI Osmo that David
00:27:32
forgets to turn on like in the car or
00:27:35
like my phone
00:27:37
>> stuff like that is mind-blowing because
00:27:38
yeah like the initial cut is like David
00:27:40
forgot to turn on the DJI Osmo and you
00:27:43
hear like music in the background and
00:27:44
the sound of the road going by and like
00:27:47
>> like you you two like perfectly fixed up
00:27:50
the audio so like you could always it's
00:27:52
just ins it's just insane.
00:27:54
>> Credit words where words dude the the
00:27:56
dialogue was really a Roffus
00:27:57
championship run like that was I guess
00:27:59
so I guess technically it did spend
00:28:00
three weeks in audio post because the
00:28:02
first week was just Rufus doing dialogue
00:28:04
>> for that sequence we we actually locked
00:28:06
September 1st. Yeah,
00:28:08
>> we turned around September and got it
00:28:10
locked by the top of December cuz we
00:28:12
knew something would go wrong. So, like
00:28:14
we were just like, let's just find 20
00:28:15
minutes to figure out what would go
00:28:17
wrong.
00:28:17
>> Rufus and I had a lot of conversations
00:28:19
in December about how we wanted Yidd.
00:28:25
And it became pretty clear after like
00:28:27
two or three of those conversations the
00:28:29
workflow we needed to do, which is like
00:28:31
not the MKBHD workflow, but very much
00:28:33
the like cinema Hollywood audio post
00:28:37
workflow. My god, I'm getting tired like
00:28:39
thinking about this project. You're
00:28:42
still recovering like Yeah. Um
00:28:45
>> but uh I don't know. We definitely did a
00:28:47
bunch of really funky stuff. You know,
00:28:49
Riv and I had this really funny
00:28:50
conversation on Mix Day, the morning of
00:28:53
Mix Day, where he was telling me about
00:28:54
this video he had just watched of these
00:28:57
remixers doing TV shows like reality TV
00:29:01
in LA where they'll have two mixers on
00:29:04
three computers going through the same
00:29:07
set of speakers so they can hear what
00:29:09
the other person is doing. And we were
00:29:10
like,
00:29:11
>> how on earth do they like how do you mix
00:29:14
anything hearing someone else's work at
00:29:16
the same time? And after mixing Y for
00:29:18
like 3 hours, we were like, we need to
00:29:20
do this. And we immediately plugged his
00:29:22
computer into the same set of speakers
00:29:23
and it like made everything so much
00:29:26
easier.
00:29:27
>> I can't
00:29:29
Chinese Bible and Mozart in different.
00:29:32
>> So we had two we had two computers with
00:29:33
identical ProTools sessions up that were
00:29:36
timeline synced with uh with them both
00:29:40
going through the same computer. So we
00:29:42
were able to like make adjustments on
00:29:43
both of our machines that we'd sync up
00:29:45
at the end. And if we got somewhere
00:29:47
where a sound effect was missing or a
00:29:49
piece of music was missing, I could keep
00:29:51
going forward in and mixing while Rufus
00:29:54
auditioned sounds, then we would be in
00:29:56
agreement like that's the right sound
00:29:58
effect. He would blip it to me and I
00:30:00
would drop it in on the main session.
00:30:01
>> Blip is like fancy airrop. Blip is
00:30:04
>> not even. It's
00:30:04
>> blip is like
00:30:05
>> it's just better airdrop.
00:30:07
>> Yeah. If you're not if you're not
00:30:08
blipping, you ain't living. That's what
00:30:10
>> I got to say. We use Airdrop a lot
00:30:12
around the studio to like pass around
00:30:13
files, whether it's a PDF or a thumbnail
00:30:15
or a entire like B-roll section or
00:30:18
footage.
00:30:19
>> I don't trust Airdrop to work more than
00:30:22
60% of the time, especially as files get
00:30:26
past half a gig.
00:30:27
>> Yeah, half a gig. That's it. Blip. I I
00:30:30
remember being in like the basement of
00:30:33
Newark airport, you know, that
00:30:34
underground gate at the very back of
00:30:35
terminal C and getting a blip from
00:30:38
Harper at the studio of like a 350
00:30:40
megabyte short and it was just like
00:30:42
downloading done.
00:30:43
>> I was like, wow.
00:30:44
>> Okay,
00:30:44
>> Blip is amazing. I love Blip.
00:30:46
>> Shout out to Blip.
00:30:48
>> It brings me to one of my my big
00:30:49
questions actually. Okay.
00:30:51
>> How much storage do we think we can
00:30:54
estimate we actually shot to for the
00:30:57
entire year of all the things we
00:31:00
captured?
00:31:00
>> I have that number.
00:31:02
>> You do?
00:31:03
>> With me at this moment in in my Slack.
00:31:05
>> How do we uh
00:31:06
>> I mean I I don't think it's exact, but
00:31:08
it's it's the size of the pro of the
00:31:10
Final Cut uh
00:31:12
>> library. Do we want to do prices
00:31:14
>> whatever the highest
00:31:16
>> tier? Do we want to do prices right
00:31:18
folder? So, like everything. All the
00:31:20
graphics, all the exports, like all the
00:31:22
B-roll, all the all everything. Yeah.
00:31:25
>> Wait, everything that made it?
00:31:27
>> No. Everything we shot
00:31:29
all source material.
00:31:31
>> Honestly, I have no idea.
00:31:32
>> I should be this answer.
00:31:34
>> I have no idea. I assume you I'm
00:31:36
probably the only one that knows the
00:31:36
answer besides Ellis. Yeah. So,
00:31:38
>> Rich did all of the data management,
00:31:40
which was like such a feat.
00:31:43
>> I had to ask Marquez for a new drive.
00:31:45
Like,
00:31:45
>> oh, that does give you some cont. No,
00:31:47
there there were times where I would be
00:31:49
like, "Oh, Rich, did we have something
00:31:50
from this?" And he would have to like
00:31:52
unplug one drive to plug another one in.
00:31:55
Like the the amount of just random bays
00:31:58
of storage next to Rich's desk for this.
00:32:00
>> Okay, wait. I have I have like a crazy
00:32:03
rich pull story. So, when we're in like
00:32:05
November or December, we're sending cuts
00:32:08
for people for like final final notes.
00:32:10
Tim leaves a really good note where he's
00:32:12
like, "We've shown like struggles with
00:32:14
the merch and then all of a sudden the
00:32:16
merch is ready for the merch shoot in
00:32:18
this cut. Like we need a version of the
00:32:20
cut where we we see like a triumphant
00:32:22
moment with the merch before they go
00:32:24
into shooting all of like the the
00:32:27
photos."
00:32:28
>> Yeah.
00:32:28
>> And I was like, "That's so true." And I
00:32:30
was like, "Rich, do we have the
00:32:31
coverage?" And so Rich goes and he takes
00:32:33
every single merch meeting that we have
00:32:35
because we have them all labeled.
00:32:36
>> PS them into a timeline. It's a three
00:32:38
and a half hour long timeline. And he
00:32:41
and and this is before Final Cut had
00:32:42
transcripts. So he just goes through and
00:32:44
he listens to the whole timeline on 2x
00:32:46
speed and he finds a 15-second clip of
00:32:49
them saying, "This looks really good."
00:32:52
>> Oh, it was like Brandon on Zoom, right?
00:32:54
>> Yeah.
00:32:54
>> Oh my.
00:32:55
>> And oh, and the audio was messed up at
00:32:57
that time. We we like we um for for a
00:33:00
month and a half out of the year, right
00:33:02
before Rufus joined, we we got lucky on
00:33:04
this actually. Um we hadn't checked the
00:33:06
footage. We were just filming and there
00:33:08
was something wrong with the XLR cable
00:33:10
that plugged the microphone into the
00:33:11
camera. And so for a month and a half,
00:33:14
we had pretty much no workable audio and
00:33:16
we just had to figure out how to edit
00:33:17
around it. And then like between audio
00:33:19
team and like just like creative editing
00:33:21
most I I haven't seen a single comment.
00:33:24
>> But yeah, brutal.
00:33:26
>> All right, are you all going to make
00:33:27
your guesses?
00:33:28
>> Rich is going to have photographic
00:33:29
memory of 2025 just
00:33:33
>> um
00:33:33
>> while you guys guess, I just want to say
00:33:34
one more thing about audio because It's
00:33:36
not not that interesting. Is um we did a
00:33:38
fader mix on this. So, we watched
00:33:41
through with faders and just uh just did
00:33:44
it all live. It was really really fun.
00:33:46
>> Can I say something since you make it
00:33:48
sound like we're not talking about audio
00:33:49
anymore, even though I'm sure we will
00:33:51
talk about audio later.
00:33:52
>> When we were watching, there's a moment
00:33:55
where Rich is hiding from Miles in the
00:33:58
dark and you do the like uh reverb this.
00:34:03
>> Yeah.
00:34:03
>> Claire just goes, "That was awesome. And
00:34:06
I was like I was like if Ellis saw if
00:34:09
like Ellis or Rufus saw Claire who's
00:34:11
like just watches our stuff every once
00:34:13
in a while is not an audio movie nerd at
00:34:15
all like understand how triumphant a
00:34:19
like audio clip was in that. I was like
00:34:20
they would be so proud.
00:34:21
>> You know what's funny? Rufus did that as
00:34:23
a joke.
00:34:24
>> Oh really?
00:34:25
>> He threw it in the slack and then we
00:34:26
watched a cut and and it didn't make it
00:34:28
into the cut and I was like bro that has
00:34:30
to get added back.
00:34:31
>> That's really funny. She loved she
00:34:33
thought it was so funny. like it added
00:34:35
to that scene.
00:34:35
>> It was really good. Yeah.
00:34:36
>> Rufus, Mariah, and Harper are like
00:34:39
definitely the three people who are not
00:34:41
in this room who deserve so many
00:34:45
flowers.
00:34:46
>> Yes.
00:34:46
>> Um Yeah. Like those were definitely the
00:34:49
three people that helped really
00:34:50
accelerate it from like the Rich and
00:34:53
Eric manic power hour
00:34:56
into like this is a part of the company
00:34:58
culture and we're all like really deeply
00:35:01
into it. All right, let's do numbers. I
00:35:02
just saw Eric's number and mine's so so
00:35:05
much different.
00:35:05
>> No, no, no. Andrew. Oh, Marquez is
00:35:08
pretty close.
00:35:08
>> Okay.
00:35:09
>> I I figure a terabyte a week.
00:35:11
>> What did you put, Marquez?
00:35:12
>> I have written 28 terabytes.
00:35:14
>> Okay. And uh Eric, you have
00:35:16
>> I I have a terabyte a week.
00:35:18
>> So 52 terabytes. And then
00:35:20
>> I put 8.1.
00:35:21
>> Uh the correct answer the whole project
00:35:22
is 37.57
00:35:25
terabytes.
00:35:26
>> Damn. Because I think my context for
00:35:29
that was you rich you were like all
00:35:30
right I think I asked you how much
00:35:32
storage do we need to make sure we have
00:35:35
to make Yel 2 like you don't have to
00:35:39
think about like not having enough
00:35:41
storage and I think the the tiers were
00:35:45
3264
00:35:47
96 and you were like yeah as long as we
00:35:50
have over 50 we're good and I was like
00:35:52
all right okay okay all
00:35:57
the price is exponential after 30 days.
00:35:59
>> Yeah, the price goes up. But yeah, I was
00:36:00
like, okay, that that is a lot.
00:36:03
>> It's going to help. So, like, you know,
00:36:05
Rich, you can talk about this more, but
00:36:06
like a big lesson that we had was um we
00:36:10
were there came a point where we were
00:36:11
physically moving server arrays between
00:36:14
my desk and Rich's desk. We were back
00:36:16
and forth. We could share a cable, but
00:36:17
then Mariah would be doing a cut and
00:36:18
we'd So, then we'd have to pass a a
00:36:20
separate server to Mariah so Rich and I
00:36:22
could work on it while Mariah like cuts
00:36:24
up something. And then eventually Rufus
00:36:26
had to work on something and so he'd
00:36:27
have to pick up the server, take it to
00:36:29
his desk, plug it in, plug it into his
00:36:32
computer, and then he would have to go
00:36:33
and proxy all the footage. So he'd take
00:36:35
all the footage that made it into the
00:36:36
cut and then rerender it in like a 720p
00:36:38
or 1080 proxies and then he could edit
00:36:41
locally on his computer. And so
00:36:43
eventually
00:36:45
when we don't have to do that, days will
00:36:48
be saved.
00:36:49
>> Yeah, that is the plan. I mean, we want
00:36:50
to have this be as now that we've done
00:36:52
our first ever version of it. There are
00:36:55
so many things that we've learned about
00:36:56
the the production, about what we do
00:36:59
shoot and what we might already know we
00:37:00
don't have to shoot and then how we put
00:37:02
this together. Also, story lines and
00:37:04
arcs are going to be different, too. The
00:37:05
first one's always the first one. You're
00:37:07
introducing characters. We're
00:37:08
introducing, you know, the flow of the
00:37:10
year and how things normally go. In the
00:37:12
second one, you can correct me if I'm
00:37:14
wrong. You can kind of assume that
00:37:16
people are familiar with the characters
00:37:17
now, that people are understand the arc
00:37:19
of the season now, and maybe there are
00:37:21
more interesting different dynamics for
00:37:24
part two.
00:37:26
>> We will see.
00:37:26
>> That just made it into the cut.
00:37:28
>> I don't want to.
00:37:31
>> That just made it that just made it into
00:37:33
the cut of the microphone.
00:37:35
>> That just made it into the cut. Yeah.
00:37:36
No, I mean we've already started doing
00:37:38
our interviews for 2026 and the
00:37:40
interview question that um we've asked
00:37:42
everyone we've pulled in so far is what
00:37:44
is the greatest sequel of all time in
00:37:47
your opinion? We've gotten some uh some
00:37:50
some good takes there. My personal
00:37:52
favorite take is is Shrek 2. Um, but I'm
00:37:56
like my Yeah. My vision for 2026 is I
00:37:59
want to treat it like The Bear season
00:38:01
two, where The Bear season one is about
00:38:04
the action and the plot of running the
00:38:08
day-to-day life in this restaurant, and
00:38:11
The Bear season 2 is much more about the
00:38:14
people behind the restaurant where you
00:38:16
focus uh a lot on individuals
00:38:18
>> going through their own kind of lives
00:38:20
and you get to live with people a little
00:38:22
bit more. um instead of like just the
00:38:25
ensemble as a whole. So yeah, we're
00:38:27
definitely thinking through like what
00:38:29
the structure is gonna look like and the
00:38:31
answer is probably gonna steal a lot
00:38:34
from like 20 minute episodic television
00:38:38
more than more than anything. Yeah, I'm
00:38:40
excited.
00:38:41
>> Be commercials
00:38:42
>> um if you or someone that you know would
00:38:45
like to sponsor your in the life too,
00:38:46
please reach out to Jonno. He'll
00:38:48
probably tell you no.
00:38:51
>> Thank god we didn't have an ad read. We
00:38:53
we we had a sponsor who was interested
00:38:56
and then like through like you know back
00:38:58
and forth or whatever it's like okay
00:38:59
this just isn't going to work.
00:39:01
>> Oh my could you imagine halfway through
00:39:03
just being like
00:39:04
>> thank you to Bombas.
00:39:06
>> I think that's probably ideal. I don't
00:39:08
know why but I feel like well I guess I
00:39:09
do know why there are certain videos
00:39:10
that feel like they have to be just in a
00:39:14
flow state.
00:39:14
>> Yeah.
00:39:15
>> And some things kind of interrupt that
00:39:17
flow state and Yodel is one of those
00:39:19
things where you want to stay in it.
00:39:19
This is the only video I've ever seen
00:39:21
where the attention goes up over time.
00:39:23
>> I have
00:39:23
>> Yeah, maybe like one or two videos on
00:39:25
MKBHD in the last year that do that
00:39:27
where the graph is actually increasing
00:39:29
and like way above the normal line
00:39:31
>> and that's really satisfying.
00:39:32
>> I'm seeing like every day like the
00:39:34
average number of people who finish the
00:39:36
video goes up.
00:39:36
>> That's sick.
00:39:37
>> By like thousands.
00:39:39
>> Yeah, I do remember seeing cuz we we did
00:39:41
this as a a collab on YouTube. A lot of
00:39:44
people, you know, we have to be very
00:39:45
careful about using these tools, but we
00:39:46
launched it as a collab. No regrets
00:39:47
about that. So we can see the analytics
00:39:49
and it's like if you sort comments by
00:39:52
newest you can kind of get a sense of
00:39:54
the like flow of you know there was the
00:39:57
day one viewers obviously people who
00:39:58
were watching right away like hell yeah
00:40:00
>> were very excited super you know jazzed
00:40:02
about it great then you get the day two
00:40:04
day three viewers now we're at like the
00:40:05
one week later someone who like saved it
00:40:07
and bookmarked it and was going to watch
00:40:08
it and forgot about it and came back and
00:40:10
like much more casual viewer and those
00:40:12
comments are starting to flow in and I'm
00:40:13
reading those and it's all all of them
00:40:15
are uniquely interesting and positive.
00:40:18
Whether it's like here's a timestamp of
00:40:20
something I really enjoyed I thought was
00:40:21
hilarious or here's six paragraphs of I
00:40:23
never comment on the videos but I had to
00:40:25
comment on this one. Here's a whole
00:40:26
bunch of stuff. A lot of lot of really
00:40:28
fun stuff there.
00:40:29
>> Comments on this are fun because
00:40:32
>> one they just keep coming in. Like
00:40:34
normally 24 hours later comments die
00:40:36
pretty hard. These are still flowing
00:40:39
>> but because the video is so long it's so
00:40:41
hard for someone to comment about a very
00:40:42
specific spot. And I think also because
00:40:44
it's so long so many more people are
00:40:46
watching it on TV. So, generally they're
00:40:48
more comments of the vibe of the whole
00:40:50
thing. One, they're the most positive
00:40:52
comments I've ever seen.
00:40:53
>> Two, everyone loves Ellis. It's just
00:40:56
Ellis show. It's just like they are the
00:40:59
best.
00:41:00
>> Um, but then I do really love when there
00:41:02
is find if there's a time stamp
00:41:05
>> and I watch I'm like, this person
00:41:07
>> liked this part enough to pause this
00:41:10
like hour and 30 long minutes video to
00:41:12
specifically point to a very specific
00:41:14
part. and like finding those have been
00:41:16
really fun. And then I feel like I go
00:41:18
back and then relive that scene because
00:41:19
it still is our life.
00:41:21
>> The most insane and
00:41:25
>> crazy and weird thing about this is
00:41:27
somebody decided to add year in the life
00:41:28
to letter boxed which is that's like
00:41:31
that's where you can log the movies you
00:41:32
watch and review them.
00:41:34
>> I'm curious since it now is like a
00:41:36
90-minute video and we all have our
00:41:37
favorite parts. What is everyone's
00:41:38
favorite? It can be a quote or a moment.
00:41:40
>> Nintendo my pants.
00:41:42
>> That was my favorite too. Everyone's
00:41:43
second favorite everyone's second
00:41:45
favorite quote from
00:41:47
>> uh or moment from uh the year in the
00:41:49
life.
00:41:49
>> Mine is Eric's where he's like talking
00:41:52
about you playing golf and he was like
00:41:55
Marquez doesn't feel it like an artist.
00:41:57
He feels it like an athlete.
00:41:58
>> Mhm.
00:41:58
>> And I remember watching that cuz I had
00:42:00
seen multiple cuts and none of my cuts
00:42:03
had that line in it. And when I heard
00:42:05
that line I was like
00:42:06
>> it clicked.
00:42:07
>> That's Yeah, that's how it happens.
00:42:08
>> I I got a couple notes that are like ah
00:42:10
the golf thing just isn't working. like
00:42:11
the audience doesn't care about golf and
00:42:13
I'm like no no no no like
00:42:14
>> there's a bigger story
00:42:15
>> like yeah yeah yeah like we have to
00:42:16
figure out a way to like communicate why
00:42:18
this beat matters. We got comments too
00:42:20
that were like we got to cut the Snoop
00:42:22
Dog bottle of wine because we only had
00:42:24
two clips of it.
00:42:25
>> Rule of threes, you need a setup, a
00:42:27
reminder, and a payoff.
00:42:28
>> Um and so we had to do a setup with the
00:42:31
with like the Slack graphic later. And
00:42:33
so yeah, there were a couple beats
00:42:34
there. I have I have one, but I want I
00:42:36
want Rich to go first.
00:42:37
>> I have two and they're both Andrew
00:42:39
related.
00:42:40
>> Oh, okay. Um, the first one is when
00:42:42
Google came to our offices in
00:42:45
>> I don't think people understand that
00:42:47
part of the clip, but yeah. Can you
00:42:48
explain it?
00:42:49
>> So, I remember I was right by Alex's
00:42:51
desk and then everyone was as in Andrew
00:42:54
Marquez, David, and all the Google
00:42:56
people were, you know, at our lunch
00:42:59
table and I'm like, "Alex, go ahead and
00:43:01
pull up like the Verge article on like
00:43:03
the Pixel whatever, right?" The leaks.
00:43:05
Yes. And I'm like, and then I shoot that
00:43:07
and I just pan over it and Andrew just
00:43:09
dead pans the camera and he's just like,
00:43:11
>> what? That was so funny.
00:43:12
>> They're showing us the phone so everyone
00:43:14
online only knows the leaks and I see
00:43:16
you guys across the room doing exactly
00:43:18
and I immediately catch it and I just
00:43:21
stare and you turn the camera at me and
00:43:23
all the Google people are talking and
00:43:24
right through them I'm just pointing at
00:43:26
you guys like I see what you're doing.
00:43:28
>> I only Yeah, I saw that on second watch.
00:43:30
I thought that was amazing. My other one
00:43:32
is when we were doing the iPhone air um
00:43:34
intro and then it's you on the small HD
00:43:36
and you're doing like this because
00:43:37
you're a ghost because we had we had to
00:43:39
do um kind of a uh an opacity thing so
00:43:43
that we could see the iPhone air. It's a
00:43:45
very small moment. I think you have to
00:43:46
be really paying attention to see that.
00:43:48
But
00:43:48
>> it's a fun little kind of Easter egg.
00:43:50
I think my one of my favorite parts was
00:43:53
our first live stream, which is kind of
00:43:56
this really funny thing of like us not
00:43:58
expecting what's going on and then some
00:44:00
technical difficulties, which it doesn't
00:44:02
capture in there, but like Rufus finds
00:44:04
the one problem that we had and kind of
00:44:06
saves everything. But like the two
00:44:08
moments of that is everyone guessing how
00:44:09
many people and guessing really far
00:44:11
down. But when Ellis gets asked, he's
00:44:13
just like,
00:44:17
I don't know. just like very like you
00:44:19
can just tell he's cooked at that
00:44:21
moment. We've already just like
00:44:24
>> we're already exhausted. It's it hasn't
00:44:27
even started.
00:44:30
What's going to happen?
00:44:30
>> Ellis knew that that was like for Yiddo.
00:44:32
So he like starts the clip like very
00:44:34
like serious like oh I'm going to give
00:44:35
an answer and you could just see him
00:44:36
break in that scene.
00:44:38
>> I see the break see his soul leave his
00:44:40
body and then right after it's just so
00:44:42
funny the clip and the really awesome
00:44:44
graphics around it of like we're like
00:44:46
we're live. No, we're not live. And
00:44:48
we're all We are live and we just don't
00:44:50
know it. And then it's like, no, no,
00:44:51
we're live, but they can't see us. And
00:44:53
it's just Marquez on the live stream.
00:44:54
And I'm like, I I think they can see us.
00:44:58
I'm on the thing right now.
00:44:59
>> So, I thought that was
00:45:00
>> that was fun. I remember that happening,
00:45:02
too.
00:45:11
My favorite moment was not a moment but
00:45:13
a sequence that takes place from about
00:45:15
55 minutes till about 1 hour 12 minutes
00:45:18
that internally we called club Apple.
00:45:22
>> Um because
00:45:23
>> oh my god like we haven't even talked
00:45:25
about the Apple event yet.
00:45:26
>> Yeah. So, like I don't know if you guys
00:45:27
notice on your watch through, but all
00:45:29
the music between
00:45:32
flying to Apple and finishing the iPhone
00:45:39
air intro is all dance music. Um,
00:45:43
exactly. And we spent a lot of time
00:45:45
trying to figure out like how do we make
00:45:48
this sequence that's actually takes
00:45:50
place over the course of like almost two
00:45:52
weeks in real life feel like one
00:45:57
continuous
00:45:58
like onslaught of work. Um and we it
00:46:03
started off as me putting the track in
00:46:06
the actual Apple event thing, the sort
00:46:08
of like uh like UK style base garage
00:46:11
stuff. um and being like, "Hey, Rufus,
00:46:14
like, look how funny this is. Like, it's
00:46:16
it's Apple Park, but it's like club
00:46:17
music, you know?"
00:46:19
>> And he was like, "Wait a second."
00:46:20
>> Yeah.
00:46:20
>> This really works. Cook.
00:46:22
>> Yeah. I just thought that was so much
00:46:23
fun to put together. And it's so much
00:46:24
fun to watch like the relentless club
00:46:26
music. There's like a few cuts where
00:46:27
like the music cuts out for Tim and then
00:46:29
we go right back to Marquez and it's
00:46:30
like the the um the comp that I was
00:46:34
using as I was cutting that sequence is
00:46:36
The Pit, the TV show The Pit. It's about
00:46:40
um an ER and an entire season takes
00:46:43
place over the course of a 12-h hour
00:46:45
shift in an ER. So every episode is one
00:46:47
hour in real time.
00:46:48
>> Wow.
00:46:49
>> And so you're switching from one patient
00:46:50
to the other patient to the other
00:46:51
patient to the other patient. And it's
00:46:52
one of those things where like you know
00:46:55
every time that you think it will relent
00:46:57
like every time someone goes to take a
00:46:59
break they're just like nope someone's
00:47:01
about to die. And then they like run
00:47:02
back. And I was watching the pit and I
00:47:04
was like it's like us BUT WE'RE DUMB.
00:47:08
IT'S LIKE US, BUT WE'RE SILLY.
00:47:12
>> And so, and I feel like the club music
00:47:14
like perfectly encapsulated that. I grew
00:47:17
up with an uncle in the music industry.
00:47:20
He's a composer for film and TV. The
00:47:22
whole reason that I'm here and I do this
00:47:24
is because I got to see Uncle Carlos
00:47:27
doing his work every day. And as
00:47:30
somebody who would sit and watch him
00:47:32
score for hours and hours and hours, it
00:47:35
was so familiar and satisfying and fun
00:47:38
to see Allison Rufus cook on music and
00:47:42
make that a part of like a core part of
00:47:44
the story. The fact that Year in the
00:47:46
Life has a theme, like a little like a
00:47:48
little theme song from like beginning,
00:47:50
middle, and end is just like such a cool
00:47:54
joy. I'm so proud of the music on this.
00:47:57
I definitely want to do a limited
00:47:59
release merch drop where we sell a CD.
00:48:01
>> Yo,
00:48:02
>> let's not do that.
00:48:03
>> But are we gonna do the car?
00:48:07
>> I'm the only person in here that owns a
00:48:09
CD player.
00:48:10
>> It's a vinyl.
00:48:11
>> It's vinyl. It's got to be vinyl then.
00:48:13
>> Oh, vinyl.
00:48:14
>> Or cassette.
00:48:15
>> I'm the only one in here that owns a
00:48:17
cassette cassette player.
00:48:18
>> Ellis, just buy the whole limited drop.
00:48:20
I know how much you make.
00:48:22
>> Yeah,
00:48:23
>> but we should. Are we going to make the
00:48:24
cargo room shirt? because that was that
00:48:27
was like half the comments.
00:48:28
>> It It was a pretty spiked moment in the
00:48:31
video.
00:48:31
>> It was people really like
00:48:32
>> David with that one.
00:48:34
>> Yeah, I think
00:48:35
>> I was surprised it didn't make the cut
00:48:36
on the initial. I'm not going to lie.
00:48:39
>> If anyone really quick TLDDR is like we
00:48:41
wanted to make like the core shirts for
00:48:43
each one and that didn't feel like the
00:48:44
core core of our
00:48:47
every shirt they showed us was a banger.
00:48:48
We could have released every single one.
00:48:50
It just would have been too many and a
00:48:51
lot of work to do that. But um
00:48:53
>> that marriage meeting was like an hour
00:48:54
long, right? That was a really long
00:48:55
merch meeting and that was one of
00:48:57
>> seven three minutes of selects. Baby,
00:48:59
that's how we edit.
00:49:00
>> I would say very good representative
00:49:02
selects of like the beats and the arc of
00:49:04
the meeting. It was like very
00:49:06
>> Yeah. Very well done.
00:49:07
>> We figured that one out.
00:49:08
>> Can I throw I don't want to just do a
00:49:10
million things of what my favorite was.
00:49:11
But there's one other thing that I don't
00:49:13
think anyone recognized which was during
00:49:14
Apple event.
00:49:15
>> Mhm.
00:49:16
>> There is the point where Marquez and
00:49:18
David are at the event. So Ellis, Adam,
00:49:21
and I are in a room watching all of it.
00:49:23
And Eric comes in with the camera, and
00:49:25
it looks like we're talking about
00:49:27
something super important, but if you
00:49:29
really, really listen, it's Ellis and I
00:49:31
talking about how the opening to Higher
00:49:34
by Creed sounds just like Sugar Were
00:49:37
Going Down by Panic at the Disco. Um,
00:49:40
not sorry, sorry, sorry. Fallout Boys.
00:49:42
Fall. Wow. I'm going to get
00:49:43
>> as well as a Paramore song. Yeah, it's
00:49:46
like us arguing about like
00:49:49
>> so if you really listen to that because
00:49:51
Adam's just like hey at the camera and
00:49:52
Ellis and I are like almost shouting at
00:49:54
each other about
00:49:55
>> it sounds so much more like creed.
00:49:58
>> I feel like that's come up before
00:50:00
>> I have not seen we've talked about it at
00:50:02
work but I didn't see a single comment
00:50:03
about that probably because it's too
00:50:05
specific but there are so many little
00:50:06
parts where if you lived it you're like
00:50:08
people aren't going to understand that
00:50:09
or like it's too short of a a clip of
00:50:12
it. Yeah.
00:50:12
>> Also then immediately after Adam going
00:50:15
welcome, welcome to Apple or whatever
00:50:17
that Tim Good morning is fake. And I
00:50:20
just got lucky that he says good morning
00:50:21
the exact same way. Every single time
00:50:24
>> he hit us with a triple good morning
00:50:26
this year.
00:50:26
>> Oh
00:50:27
>> yeah. It was huge.
00:50:30
>> Has anyone not said their favorite part?
00:50:31
You
00:50:32
>> I have a favorite. Adam, have you given
00:50:33
one?
00:50:34
>> My favorite part
00:50:35
>> or any any any stick lines? I think my
00:50:38
favorite part like re-watching it back
00:50:40
and like as a viewer because I
00:50:42
specifically made I intentionally for
00:50:44
the last like two weeks of you guys
00:50:46
editing like did not look at it. I was
00:50:48
like I'm making it a point to not even
00:50:50
look to leave notes. I'm not even like
00:50:52
>> the way to do it.
00:50:52
>> Nothing. I just want I'm actually going
00:50:54
to do at the end. So yeah, you should do
00:50:56
that. Highly recommend it.
00:50:57
>> I'm not I'm just going to edit it with
00:50:58
my eyes closed.
00:51:00
But the day before, no, when you guys
00:51:03
were uploading that day, Alex and I were
00:51:05
doing one final watch through and just
00:51:07
making sure that like nothing like no
00:51:09
like no company credit cards were out or
00:51:11
something like that. So we were watching
00:51:12
it at his desk and there was a point
00:51:15
where Rufus is explaining how he scored
00:51:19
the iPhone intro and holy crap the
00:51:22
before and after on that had like it
00:51:24
gave me chills. I was like that was
00:51:26
beautiful.
00:51:26
>> The sound stuff was really cool. I think
00:51:28
the sound files next to the OnePlus 13S
00:51:32
intro. Seeing that I think
00:51:35
>> people know our intros are crazy.
00:51:37
>> I think seeing that extra level in the
00:51:39
tracks was like a
00:51:40
>> I think it clicked for people.
00:51:41
>> That was only like twothirds of the
00:51:43
tracks, too. The rest of them didn't
00:51:44
even fit in the screen
00:51:45
>> Yeah. I do have a favorite moment. I've
00:51:48
watched it with people. I remember uh
00:51:50
it's when Eric and Ellis were trying to
00:51:54
get through the airport at the last
00:51:56
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At the last second,
00:51:58
boarding was closing in like eight
00:52:00
minutes and they were just getting
00:52:01
through security and the bag was getting
00:52:03
checked and at that moment I was like
00:52:06
>> 99.9% of people put the camera down and
00:52:09
just like we have to make this flight
00:52:11
but not Eric and not Ellis.
00:52:14
>> I dude first of all the DJI Osmo is so
00:52:17
much fun to shoot with.
00:52:18
>> Yeah. And second, I the entire time I
00:52:20
was just like, "Yes,
00:52:23
Content is going to cook in the intro."
00:52:30
I was like, like the second we were off
00:52:32
the escalator, I was already yelling
00:52:34
like, "Move, move, move." Like, you can
00:52:36
see like me like picking up pace, but
00:52:38
I'm like I'm yelling as much as I can
00:52:40
because I knew I was like, "This is
00:52:42
going to be select." Yes, this is I was
00:52:44
I was watching it on the tiny DJI Osmo
00:52:46
screen on the airplane. And I watched it
00:52:48
like three times and I was just like
00:52:51
>> in my head there was never any shot that
00:52:53
you guys were going to miss the flight.
00:52:54
But there was the like
00:52:56
>> we got to get the bag on the flight.
00:52:58
Please have room for the bag. And we got
00:52:59
the bag.
00:53:00
>> What did you say exactly? There's
00:53:01
something Ella says in line.
00:53:02
>> He goes, "David, take this back."
00:53:04
Because
00:53:04
>> no, no, before that it was like um
00:53:06
>> said, "We've never gotten this close to
00:53:07
missing a flight, but
00:53:09
>> but it seems pretty possible."
00:53:11
>> And it's just it's perfect. Can we talk
00:53:14
a little bit about the James Cameron
00:53:15
interview because that was something
00:53:18
dude
00:53:18
>> that was something that in the the
00:53:20
post-production audio room we had like
00:53:24
50 million conversations about because
00:53:28
actually the James Cameron interview we
00:53:30
talked about it is like the most
00:53:33
profound part of the movie
00:53:35
>> and also the silliest part of the movie.
00:53:38
And Marquez I don't mean to throw you
00:53:40
under the the bus.
00:53:41
>> I haven't seen it under the But Marquez,
00:53:44
you don't you don't watch a lot of
00:53:45
movies.
00:53:45
>> I haven't seen it.
00:53:46
>> Right.
00:53:48
>> Short on this. Marquez, there's 13 James
00:53:51
Cameron movies. And so and so and so
00:53:53
there's something really funny about
00:53:55
like what we were talking about in the
00:53:57
room is that the you know James Cameron
00:54:00
says this thing to you Marquez where he
00:54:02
talks about the the cinematographer the
00:54:05
the the filmer becoming the star and
00:54:09
their perspectives becoming the
00:54:11
narrative which we thought was a
00:54:14
hilarious thing for James Cameron to say
00:54:16
to you because that's your whole thing.
00:54:19
Your perspectives on tech are the
00:54:21
narratives. You are the filmmaker. You
00:54:23
are the star. He clearly had
00:54:25
>> no idea who you are, what you do.
00:54:27
>> It was really interesting.
00:54:28
>> Meanwhile, you're sitting there having
00:54:30
never seen a single one of his movies,
00:54:32
not knowing anything that that he does.
00:54:35
>> And somehow you both arrive at this like
00:54:38
ultra philosophical poetic thing about
00:54:41
the future of media and the convergence
00:54:43
of cinema and YouTube. And like we were
00:54:46
like, how how on earth do we communicate
00:54:49
how profound and stupid this
00:54:52
conversation is?
00:54:53
>> Meanwhile, Bos is just sitting there in
00:54:56
some like outfit. He obviously didn't
00:54:58
pick himself. He's just like,
00:54:59
>> "Yeah, yeah, totally." Like think people
00:55:01
are going to buy meta glasses. It's just
00:55:03
like that whole scene is like
00:55:05
>> that's too funny.
00:55:06
>> You couldn't have like Yeah.
00:55:08
>> I remember in the moment thinking so I
00:55:10
had two like like visuals of that
00:55:13
conversation. one was in the moment I
00:55:15
was like I'm asking James Cameron like
00:55:17
someone who's clearly super visionary
00:55:18
about what he thinks about the future of
00:55:20
film making and hearing his answer I was
00:55:23
I was first expecting something like
00:55:24
that I'd probably never heard before and
00:55:26
then I'm hearing him describe something
00:55:28
that almost like resembles new world
00:55:30
like media like creators being part of
00:55:33
their creations and I was like oh that's
00:55:35
interesting I guess he's probably saying
00:55:37
that because it's me and then after I'm
00:55:41
like thinking back about what he head
00:55:43
and I'm like that actually felt like a
00:55:45
very organic like new thought for him
00:55:47
which is good because it it organically
00:55:51
arrived at the thing that I would have
00:55:52
described as a future also which is the
00:55:54
thing that we're already doing.
00:55:55
>> So I thought that was that was actually
00:55:57
interestingly profound and it it worked
00:55:59
out to be
00:56:00
>> Cameron is somewhere in his submarine
00:56:02
watching this and he's just he's just
00:56:04
smiling. He's just like do you want to
00:56:07
come on my submarine? We had like 50
00:56:09
million different pieces of music under
00:56:11
that before we finally decided on the
00:56:13
sort of Philip Glass minimalist
00:56:15
classical music.
00:56:16
>> That was a good one, too.
00:56:17
>> All right, I want to share
00:56:20
my
00:56:22
favorite beat cuz I thought it was also
00:56:24
quite profound, even though it's like
00:56:27
not actually profound, but I found it
00:56:28
profound. Mhm.
00:56:30
>> Um, so the the whole reason I'm here
00:56:34
right now is because Miles Somerville
00:56:36
decided to make a lot of really good
00:56:38
YouTube videos while we were living in
00:56:39
Chicago and I knew how to use a gimbal
00:56:43
and we were friends. So I'd hold the
00:56:45
gimbals while he made the videos and
00:56:46
then Marquez recruited Miles and then
00:56:48
Miles was like, "You should talk to
00:56:49
Eric." And then I went into a Zoom with
00:56:50
Marquez and I was like, "Hey, you're in
00:56:52
the live, mate." And then
00:56:56
>> this accent.
00:56:58
Anyways, um so like Miles is the whole
00:57:01
reason I'm here and he came up with me
00:57:03
and a group of six other kids. Um I
00:57:08
tomorrow fly to Mexico City to go hang
00:57:10
out with these six guys. We were all
00:57:12
groomsmen in one of uh one of our
00:57:15
weddings. Um we're like very very close
00:57:17
friends. We all still work in the
00:57:18
creator economy or tech. We're like we
00:57:20
were nerds when we were 14 making
00:57:21
YouTube videos and we're still nerds
00:57:22
now. And so it was really important to
00:57:25
me to try to find a way to tell Miles's
00:57:31
story and how many ways it intersects
00:57:35
with here. Because Miles only found me
00:57:38
because I made a YouTube video when I
00:57:39
was 13 called MKBHD is Spider-Man. And
00:57:42
then Miles for literal decades would
00:57:45
hear MKBHD in his comments because
00:57:48
people would compare them. And then as
00:57:50
he came here, we made a video. I I I sat
00:57:55
down and I interviewed Miles. And I'll
00:57:57
I'll give you guys this this clip. I sat
00:57:59
down and interviewed Miles the hour
00:58:01
before he came and he started here.
00:58:03
>> And the the clip opens with him being
00:58:06
like, "Everyone wanted to compare me to
00:58:08
Marquez, but I guess
00:58:09
>> by technicality, I am MKPhD."
00:58:12
>> And so like and so there's there's all
00:58:13
these like sort of like bizarre things.
00:58:14
And so it was really interesting to sit
00:58:16
down with Miles and get to have a
00:58:17
conversation with him where so much of
00:58:19
his brand curation and thinking about
00:58:21
how to position himself and thinking
00:58:23
about where the cars comes from comes
00:58:25
from like I can lean into a sense of
00:58:28
humor that is inherently not Marquezish.
00:58:30
And I think that there's almost this um
00:58:33
there's this joy and this tragedy and
00:58:35
how much of his internet identity has
00:58:37
been informed
00:58:39
by this place.
00:58:42
And so
00:58:44
I think one of the open threads that we
00:58:47
opened at the end was this conversation
00:58:50
with Miles where he talks about his
00:58:51
relationship to journalism and how he
00:58:53
doesn't consider himself a traditional
00:58:54
journalist and even though YouTube has
00:58:57
opened all these doors and gotten him at
00:58:59
the table because of the sense of humor
00:59:01
that differentiates him in the digital
00:59:03
world, it also bars him from this
00:59:05
traditional class, this this sort of
00:59:08
elite class, whatever you might want to
00:59:10
call it. And I think at the end of the
00:59:12
day, the thing that I'm most proud of
00:59:14
with this piece is that hopefully in
00:59:16
1015 years, when the creator economy
00:59:18
just is the economy, when new media is
00:59:21
just the standard for media, we can look
00:59:24
back at this time where we were still
00:59:26
the upstarts, but very clearly
00:59:28
positioned to become the next elite, the
00:59:31
next big ones, and we can see the
00:59:35
conflicts and the back and forth and
00:59:38
have a a a really crystal clear
00:59:41
understanding for what was going through
00:59:43
the minds of the people who were living
00:59:46
through that changing of the guard. We
00:59:48
are at the biggest transition point in
00:59:50
the history of media and it causes a lot
00:59:53
of issues for a lot of people.
00:59:55
>> Mhm. And I hope that this piece can help
01:00:00
start to outline the templates for what
01:00:02
being the responsible, upstanding, and
01:00:07
better form of of of new media can be in
01:00:10
the next 5 or 10 years. I I hope that
01:00:13
what we do will be remembered as as
01:00:16
quite important because it's certainly
01:00:18
important to people like me and Miles.
01:00:20
Yeah, I think there's been a a lot of I
01:00:24
almost wish we had a year in the life of
01:00:25
so many of the years that we've had
01:00:27
here. Uh
01:00:29
>> 2017 would just be like you and me
01:00:32
sitting there and I like I used to 2017
01:00:35
I used to not leave until you were done
01:00:36
which meant the last four hours of most
01:00:38
of my days was just watching you edit.
01:00:42
So like things have changed a lot but uh
01:00:44
yeah they might have been a little more
01:00:45
boring back then. Yeah, but I do I I do
01:00:47
have memories of like if you all the way
01:00:49
back to 2017 like being the only
01:00:51
YouTuber at the tech event. Like I have
01:00:54
a lot of those memories and then being
01:00:56
one of three YouTubers at the tech event
01:00:58
and then being like, "Oh, oh, your first
01:01:00
tech." Oh. And then then there's seven
01:01:02
of us and then there was tw and then
01:01:04
then it was half
01:01:05
>> and then suddenly that you know they are
01:01:07
setting up camera like lights and like
01:01:09
stuff for it to be like suitable for
01:01:11
videos and suddenly they're thinking a
01:01:12
lot more about it and it's become really
01:01:14
really interesting to follow all of that
01:01:15
over the years to get to the point where
01:01:17
we are now where it feels like you know
01:01:19
we have we have like electric cars and
01:01:21
we have gas cars we have hybrids if you
01:01:22
want to make the the car analogy it's
01:01:24
like we're kind of like hybrids now
01:01:25
we're like getting to this next stage
01:01:27
where EVs are everywhere and it's
01:01:29
clearly still in the future but we're
01:01:30
clearly moving moving in a direction and
01:01:33
it's cool to be able to now have this
01:01:35
landmark this snapshot of time where we
01:01:37
can see where we're at
01:01:39
>> and uh Yidd is going to be crazy
01:01:42
compared to this one
01:01:44
>> cuz we we we just know that a lot of
01:01:45
changes
01:01:46
>> once we hire James Cameron to make it
01:01:48
2040 Cyborg Cyborg James Cameron is like
01:01:52
that. Can I uh throw something on top of
01:01:55
that that I think you should be that I
01:01:58
think about I was thinking about this
01:01:59
recently and it it stems in perfectly
01:02:01
here that I think you should be pretty
01:02:02
proud of is you talk about how you
01:02:05
slowly watch this the YouTube media make
01:02:08
it into like the journalist invites and
01:02:09
we're getting further and further in
01:02:10
that. you've created not just a team but
01:02:14
a group of channels to the point where
01:02:16
I'm seeing now
01:02:18
you've mentioned this before like you
01:02:19
think waveform is now a top 10 tech
01:02:21
channel just on its own like I think
01:02:24
everything under our like I think studio
01:02:26
is probably in there I think autofocus
01:02:28
is like I think the the this little
01:02:30
empire that's been created here is it's
01:02:33
stemmed out and each channel lives on
01:02:35
its own so well that we're going to
01:02:37
events now and at an Apple event I'm
01:02:39
hearing a PR person being like
01:02:41
Why? We need Ellis on the sound thing of
01:02:44
this. Like they're picking people from
01:02:45
this team that they need to be inviting
01:02:47
to this thing that's not just you
01:02:49
anymore. That's just like this team has
01:02:51
the stuff that we've created here is big
01:02:53
enough in
01:02:54
>> this new media world. Like again like
01:02:57
Miles, I think all of us here go to a
01:02:59
place and don't consider ourselves
01:03:00
journalists in the sense of journalists
01:03:03
who went to journalism school and follow
01:03:05
those standards. It's a different type
01:03:07
and you know we do it very differently
01:03:09
but it's still an important thing. Um
01:03:12
you've built a a place for us all to
01:03:14
come here and everyone here is like
01:03:18
crazy important in this world right now
01:03:20
>> and it's kind of wild to think about
01:03:23
that like individuals of us are getting
01:03:25
I got invited to fashion week.
01:03:27
>> Oh yeah.
01:03:27
>> I don't know why I don't think that's
01:03:29
that important but like weird weird
01:03:31
level. Obviously. Obviously.
01:03:36
>> Why is that surprising, Andrew? I'm
01:03:38
surprised.
01:03:39
>> I should be I shouldn't be laughing. I
01:03:41
shouldn't be laughing.
01:03:41
>> No, no, no. I mean, again, we're all
01:03:43
funny.
01:03:44
>> It's a podcast.
01:03:44
>> Dude, you you've people in this office
01:03:47
now are getting invited to different
01:03:48
things because of the stuff we all
01:03:50
create. And that's kind of wild. We've
01:03:52
seen a lot of channels
01:03:54
>> come and kind of die off. And you didn't
01:03:56
just keep going. You built a surrounding
01:03:59
cast that they are all part of the ethos
01:04:01
now. That's kind of wild.
01:04:02
>> The the thought that I had right after
01:04:04
watching it when it was live that I put
01:04:06
into Slack was basically,
01:04:09
damn, I got lucky. I got a lot of
01:04:11
talented people that and everyone who's
01:04:13
here has we kind of gotten here in a
01:04:16
different way. like you've told your
01:04:17
story and Miles has his story and Andrew
01:04:19
has his story and Rich has his like
01:04:20
everyone has a different way that
01:04:22
whether it was like I saw Vin and
01:04:24
Brandon's work or I put out a Google
01:04:26
form and people submitted or I just like
01:04:29
had just just random recruiters reach
01:04:31
out to me with people like there's so
01:04:33
much luck that has somehow turned into
01:04:36
this incredible group of people. I feel
01:04:37
very lucky for it. Uh I I kind of have
01:04:40
no choice but to like make the most of
01:04:41
it and hopefully uh do a lot more of
01:04:43
this stuff.
01:04:44
>> That's why we're going to do Y till we
01:04:45
die, baby. Exactly.
01:04:47
>> 2 ghetto furious.
01:04:49
>> The greatest sequel of all time. Well,
01:04:51
I'm excited for it. Well, that feels
01:04:53
like a good place to cap it off.
01:04:55
>> Do you have anything else you think we
01:04:58
you're excited to share that maybe we
01:04:59
missed? Anyone here? I mean, like I once
01:05:02
again want to say the amount of work
01:05:05
that went into this.
01:05:08
There's no words to really talk about
01:05:09
how much it went in. I hope everybody is
01:05:11
like insanely proud of it. And I think
01:05:13
there's lots of ways we can make two
01:05:15
better on all fronts for everybody.
01:05:19
Yeah. Um
01:05:20
>> but thank thank you. It's one of the
01:05:22
coolest things I've ever watched and
01:05:24
>> being able to
01:05:26
>> we get to like show our families in the
01:05:28
future this and it's like it's like I'm
01:05:30
thinking of it now as do you know how
01:05:32
people on TikTok are finding the like
01:05:34
handy cam footage from high school 2003
01:05:37
that they're posting? Like
01:05:39
>> we get a 4K version of that that we get
01:05:41
to I mean our kids will be like 4K what
01:05:43
is this garbage but that's that's pretty
01:05:45
wild
01:05:47
>> Olivia Harper Mariah
01:05:50
Rich Rufus Ellis and Andrew showed up
01:05:54
too
01:05:56
>> Marquez signs the tracks signs the
01:05:58
checks. I mean, Tim did a great
01:06:00
thumbnail that's different than Tim's
01:06:01
thumbnail was fantastic and Brandon gave
01:06:03
creative direction and Vin G like oh my
01:06:07
god everyone contributed
01:06:08
>> every like we don't make things on the
01:06:10
studio channel where pretty like every
01:06:12
single person touches every single
01:06:14
studio video and honestly the reason we
01:06:15
do it is because strategically when we
01:06:17
do the videos are better and they do
01:06:19
better.
01:06:20
>> Yeah.
01:06:21
>> But this one was definitely just like
01:06:23
>> Yeah. It was just so cool to see
01:06:25
everyone rally behind it and we make
01:06:27
good work. proud of what we do. Go watch
01:06:29
Year in the Life if you somehow watched
01:06:31
this entire podcast episode about it
01:06:32
without having seen it.
01:06:34
>> Spoilers. There's spoilers clearly.
01:06:38
>> Yeah. Go watch our labor of love. Back
01:06:40
to our regularly scheduled programming
01:06:42
of course on Friday, but we'll see you
01:06:43
over on the studio channel. Peace.
01:06:46
>> Bye.
01:06:54
I could keep Marquez's camera wide open
01:06:56
and he would still be in focus
01:06:58
throughout the whole podcast.
01:06:59
>> I think Marquez is at like 2.8 eight and
01:07:01
David and I are at like 56 and we're
01:07:04
still out of focus on what we're talking
