January 22, 2025 • 45 mins
In the first section, Jose and Laurel talk about how they use their new Fostex RM3-DT Active Rack-mount Monitor with Dante and their Triad-Orbit T3C Tripod. They also discuss the challenges of figuring out new gear.
The second section (23:19) contains thoughts on brainstorming inspired by John Cleese's YouTube video on "Creativity in Management", focusing specifically on the mindset necessary for productive brainstorming (and also complaining a bit about those who are unhelpful in a brainstorming session).
The third section (34:04) is an update on the studio's latest short (working title "Elle's First Day"), and their continuing challenges in working with motion capture (mocap) gear.
RM3: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/RM3DT--fostex-rm3-dt-active-rack-mount-monitor-with-dante
John Cleese: https://youtu.be/Pb5oIIPO62g?si=orkZ-JC-spber9tu
BWA's webpage: https://baconwrappedavocado.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, Laurel, I don't feel like working today, you know?
(00:03):
Well, let's talk.
All right, let's talk.
Hey, welcome to our podcast today.
It is January 8th, 2025, first podcast of the year.
Very cool.
It'll take me till June to remember the year.
Oh, I know.
And then things go so fast.
Oh my goodness.
I just can't believe how fast years go.
(00:26):
Yeah.
Now we're starting old.
No, it's so ridiculous, right?
Like before you know it is like summer and then before you know it is Christmas again
and you're trying to find presents and money to buy presents with.
And yeah.
Thinking, did we pay off the last round yet?
(00:47):
Yeah, no, I was just, you know, I got to say probably not.
So hopefully, you know, when we're 80 and about to expire, that's when we'll be like,
hey, we finally paid all the Christmas presents for you guys.
(01:08):
So that's your present.
You don't have to pay them after we die.
Oh, boy.
All right.
We're going to talk about some gear today.
We're going to talk about some creativity stuff, of course, and maybe give an update
on our various projects.
(01:30):
Yeah.
Studio.
Yeah.
On our animation studio and various projects.
All right.
So let's start by talking about some gear.
And you know, first, I wanted to talk about this thing that I don't know if everybody
goes through this or not.
But there's this thing that I have with patience for new gear, you know, where that's not the
(02:00):
thing you have.
No, lack of lack of patience for new gear, which is crazy when you think about it, because
I am a geeky gear person.
Like I love having new gear, you know, audio gear is probably, you know, ranks up there.
It's one of my favorites.
(02:22):
Video gear, of course, anything to do with the studio, you know.
But I will confess that my first impression of things is that I am going to return this
thing, you know, almost universally, almost universally.
I don't care what it is.
(02:43):
You know, even the network switches or whatever, oh, I am going to return this thing.
This thing just doesn't work.
Now, to be fair, almost nothing does work the first like three hours we work with it.
That is the truth.
Now, I don't know if this is an actual quote, but I've heard people say, you know, that
(03:06):
Einstein said that the meaning of insanity was trying the same thing over and over and
expecting a different result.
Well, Einstein didn't use any gear because that is essentially, you know, like I don't
think Einstein ever tried to plug in a USB device because basically what you do there
(03:28):
is you turn it around and then you turn it back the same way that you had started.
And then it works.
So I don't know about that.
But it seems like with gear, it goes like that, that I try and try the same things over
and all of a sudden it works.
(03:49):
Yeah, it feels like that.
Though a lot of times, obviously, it's not.
You do hours of research after three hours of networking, then you do a whole bunch of
hours of research to find out who is actually using it and how they are using it and how
they got it to work.
And then you find out like that one little step that you missed that they didn't mention
(04:09):
in the instructions or whatever that makes everything make sense.
That's right.
We had these little boxes.
Oh, I forgot the name of them right now.
Have.
Yes, that's right.
Cast.
Cast from Cranborne, I think is the name of the company.
(04:31):
These are really cool little boxes that what they do is if you use XLR devices like microphones,
for example, and you're trying to run a long cable instead of running like for ginormous,
ginormous cables, you can use a networking cable with these boxes and they basically
(04:52):
carry the analog.
These boxes are not even powered or anything.
So they just carry the analog signal through a cat five networking cable cat five or above
now.
Do they?
I was like, you know, so I go and I go and I say, well, you know, we use cat eight.
(05:16):
The website says cat five or above until seven or something like that.
It said five, six or seven.
And I was like, well, we have cat eight cable, which is, you know, it's probably way more
than we need.
But, you know, we so I went online and I bought some cat five because that's what it seemed
to prefer.
(05:37):
No, it's not working.
You know, it's not working.
We're like, I'm like, I'm going to return these boxes.
They just don't work.
But and this is the problem with like not specializing because part of the problem is
there's usually one or two words that you think you understand that you don't.
(06:00):
Right.
Because in small print and a little asterisk or something was the word shielded.
Unshielded.
No, I think it has to be shielded.
Now we're going to have to look it up.
But it matters which one it is.
Right.
No, our cable was unshielded and it requires a shielded cable.
(06:21):
And we didn't know, you know, what the difference was.
Anyway, turns out we try the cat eight cable, which is already shielded.
Oh, and there's two types of shielding and you have to get the right one.
And that's that's just faithful because I was like, you know, I go through these stages
(06:42):
where it's like, I'm going to return this.
Maybe I got a broken one.
It's the second stage.
Maybe maybe this is a broken one.
It's not so bad, but it's maybe broken.
And then the.
Oh, OK.
It works.
Oh, this is great.
This is wonderful.
(07:04):
And so the gear we were going to talk about today, they are these stands and I'm looking
at them right now.
You can't see me looking at them.
By the way, we're thinking of adding video to this podcast.
That way, when we're talking about things, we can show them to you.
But we're actually going to wait for more gear to arrive before we we turn on the camera.
(07:29):
So these tripods, these are triad orbit tripods.
And I had heard really good things about them.
I had watched videos about them and I thought, OK, that's that's wonderful.
You know, now here's the the thing.
At first, when I put it together or when we I don't think there's anything to put together,
(07:53):
maybe we just the casters for the wheels.
Yeah, I think we just put the casters on.
OK.
I was like, OK, this is this is terrible.
First of all, I, you know, I extend the the tripod arm or whatever it is.
The middle bar that goes up the middle bar.
(08:15):
By the way, I don't know if you've already realized that I say everything wrong and then
Laurel corrects it.
So the the bar, I extend the bar and then I'm trying to shrink the bar and the stupid
bar doesn't go down.
And I think this is broken.
This is I guess it's not that it doesn't go down at all.
(08:35):
It's that it goes down partway and then it bounces at the bottom.
Yeah, it starts bouncing.
Slowly bounces the rest of the way down.
What the hell is going on here?
I just wanted this thing to go down and then the adapter at the top.
I wanted to switch it for a different adapter.
I can't figure out how to unscrew this thing.
I was about to get a wrench and try to unscrew this thing.
(09:00):
Well, it turns out that the thing has two features that I didn't realize.
Number one, it's got some air pump thing.
It's got like a pneumatic brake almost that.
Yeah, that you can't explain your fingers as it all collapses.
Right.
When you on, you know, or on Titan or whatever, losing.
(09:24):
Yes, thank you.
In order for the gear not to just fall down with gravity, they have this like air thing,
which makes it actually really, really nice.
Number two, the adapter at the top doesn't unscrew.
(09:46):
It actually has a quick release system.
And I'm like, you know.
But the collar that you pull down on does in fact look like screws.
Right.
It's just.
In our defense, it looks like it should not screw.
But here's the thing.
(10:07):
I bought this for a reason and I'm thinking that at some point I knew or I had seen some
video that said all these features and went, oh, but by the time I received it, I was like,
oh, I know about it.
Forgotten all about that.
(10:28):
I went from this thing is like garbage.
I can't use this to this is the best tripod ever invented in the world.
I was missing all that stuff anyway.
Which you know, just to say sometimes when you're disappointed in something, doing a
(10:50):
few hours of research online actually is well worth the time.
And and also the manual is very useful.
Manuals are useful and to be honest.
Manuals are useful.
Yes.
Well written and in color.
Oh my gosh.
(11:10):
For our next piece of gear that we were going to talk about.
But one thing that I've been using AI for actually, which to me it's like fantastic
is the idea that I can go to chat GPT and upload a manual and then I don't have to read
it.
I can just upload the manual, download it from the website, upload the PDF to chat GPT
(11:36):
and then say, hey, chat GPT, how do I actually, you know, release this adapter from the top?
And I must tell you, I also love that feature.
I don't use it personally, but I used to be the chat GPT.
That's true.
Laurel, this thing doesn't work.
Can you please fix this thing?
(11:59):
All right.
So that leads us to our next piece of gear that we were going to talk about today.
And that is the Fostex RM3-DT.
I believe that's the name of it.
It's really close and we'll have it fixed in the comments.
(12:22):
And I will tell you, you know, we don't want to do like product reviews, like other websites,
like here's all the features and blah, blah, blah, especially because this is audio and
you know, you're not going to see any of that.
Push this button here and get this effect.
Yeah, this is how many inputs and blah, blah, blah.
No.
So what we're going to do is like, whenever we talk about gear is more of, this is how
(12:46):
we use it.
This is what we found out.
Especially for the triad, tripods.
Thank you.
What turns out to be that the feature that was the most useful was the quick release
on those adapters because now we can take, we can get multiple adapters and easily take
(13:12):
one of the devices that's on the tripod out and put another one in.
So we're going to use that for lighting actually.
Yeah.
They have like ends that work for lights, ends that work for cameras, ends that work
for boom poles.
They've got like multiple boom poles that you can put in single boom poles, multi-head
(13:32):
boom poles.
They've got all kinds of cool things.
And one of the things that we're getting actually is an adapter for one of them that is like
for laptops that is going to fit the Fostex.
And so that will be a quick release thing that we can also take down and then put a
(13:55):
light adapter and use.
We turned this massively cool and expensive tripod into Dave from Ikea.
Into a cheap Ikea then.
So anyway, Fostex RM 3DT.
And this is how this box, how I became aware of this box.
(14:19):
So basically I'm going to try to describe it, but it's basically if you've seen any
audio rack mountable gadgets or gear, you know, it's basically long and skinny, I guess,
or is it a way that?
(14:40):
It's basically fits into one unit of a rack mount.
So it's long, it's skinny, it's deep.
And what it is, is a monitoring piece of gear.
So basically it has two speakers built in and lets you hear, but it also because it
has the dash DT, which is what we needed is a Dante version of it.
(15:05):
They sell one without Dante, but I think the difference was like maybe even less than a
hundred bucks.
So you might as well, you know, if you can just get the Dante one and in case you switch
to Dante later.
Especially for us since everything is Dante.
Yeah, everything for us.
But here's what happened.
For some reason, our Yamaha mixer, which is the DM3, it goes to the computer and it uses
(15:31):
plugins to make our sound sound a little bit better.
And also, yeah, anyway, we're going to talk about all that at some point probably.
But it connects to the computer through USB and sometimes, I don't know, it gets tired
or something.
So, yeah, so the sound goes to the computer and comes back and it's supposed to get recorded
(15:51):
when it comes back.
Right.
Is the, is the audio that comes back with plugins added and all that stuff to the mixer
from the computer that gets recorded?
Well, if the connection to the USB gets tired for some reason, it just stops connecting.
And the outcome of that is that we can do multiple takes on the mixer and the mixer
(16:16):
will gladly say it's recording.
But it's recording nothing.
But it's recording nothing.
So we did some mocap sessions for animation that where we did like five takes and then
all of a sudden we were like going to review them and there's nothing recorded.
So we...
(16:36):
This was obviously the facial and voice mocap, not the body.
Right, right.
So because of that, I started looking and I found this thing, which is perfect for us.
Basically what it does is it has some meters for audio meters and they're supposed to be
very accurate meters.
(16:57):
You tell it to monitor two down to channels, you know, left and right, whatever.
And it just gives you how loud your volume is with the meters.
And also if you want to do a playback, you can do it on the device.
There, because it has its little speakers.
And it has speakers.
(17:17):
And because our microphones are away from the mixer and away from the computer so that
we get better sound and we're kind of enclosed ourselves in a little sound booth, then we
can't see exactly the mixer when we're recording.
And even the...
(17:38):
It's possible to tell with the iPad app for the mixer, but since there's a lot of things
you can do with that, like we had been using that to hit the record buttons and stuff,
which puts you on a different screen, which means you have to like look at the little
meters that are teeny, teeny tiny at the top of the screen.
(18:00):
It was just, we were missing it.
And so this gives us something that we can put at eye level.
And it seems like, why would you buy an extra thing just for that?
Well, it's because it just saves us time because we were not noticing.
And there were many times when we would go through and we're like, all these files hold
(18:20):
nothing.
They're just blank.
And the nice thing is, I think it saved us last time, maybe.
Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but we were like, oh, we don't see the levels.
But at the same time, we were trying to get the unit to work.
But this is another instance where I was like, oh, this is not working right.
(18:42):
First of all, now I kind of hacked it a little bit, but it's not a hack.
Don't think that I'm some master hacker or anything like that.
I didn't open it or anything like that.
It's just the fact that the unit is supposed to let you monitor two channels, either Dante
or Analog.
(19:03):
And because we have a Dante network, you would think, well, we can only use the Dante portion.
But with the Analog to Dante adapter of some sort, or maybe with, like, we have a piece
of gear that converts Analog to Dante, or sorry, Dante to Analog in this case, we were
(19:24):
able to send the signal also through the Analog.
And then it has a switch that lets you, you know, in the front, you can just press the
button and either monitor the stuff that's coming in through the Analog or stuff that's
coming in through the Dante.
So basically what I call the hack is that I am able to monitor four channels now with
(19:49):
that.
Four Dante channels in a sense, because I have the two actual Dante channels and then
I have the two Dante that I converted to Analog that I'm also sending to the unit.
So basically the original audio before it goes to the computer and then the audio after
it comes back from the computer.
(20:09):
Right.
Or we can actually change it so that it's, when we do the playback, we can do two channels
that are for the playback to see what got recorded or the two channels before, you know,
just prior to getting recorded.
So yeah, exactly.
(20:31):
So yeah, the thing that, the unit is wonderful by the way.
One thing that I was very surprised by was that the quality of the speakers is actually
really good.
You know, like for two little tiny speakers on a box, we were not, we did not have high
expectations, but they sound good.
Yeah.
(20:52):
And they're not as probably good as the monitors that we have, the Yamaha monitors that are
for monitoring audio, but it's not like a cheap speaker thing that you, you know, plug
into your computer on your desk.
It's actually, you know, decent audio coming out of the unit.
(21:13):
And what we wanted it for was just to tell us that it did anything record.
But also seeing those levels is great, but the funny thing I was getting to was that
again, this thing was just beeping at me.
Like, you know, it's got lights that give you a status in the front and they blink and
(21:34):
they do whatever.
And you're like, why are you yelling at me?
Why are you, what, what do you mean by these two blinking lights in the front?
And I looked at the manual that was printed.
I came with it, came with it.
And I couldn't tell from the description.
I was like, this description doesn't tell me, you know, now the printed manual they
(21:57):
give you is black and white.
It's black and white.
We went online, downloaded the manual.
That one is in color.
It tears how color really matters in this case, because if it's green lights or if it's
red lights or if it's amber lights, they mean different things.
And it was impossible to tell from the black and white manual because what's, and I think
(22:24):
the problem was that they had created the manual in color.
So they were assuming you could see the color.
And so the words weren't describing the color because they thought you could see the color.
And so the black and white version of the manual just did not give the information that
we needed.
But the unit itself works great and thanks to it, we can now tell if we're actually recording
(22:49):
any audio or not.
And yeah, it's a pretty good unit.
The sound is clear on it.
You can toggle between the analog inputs, like I said, and the Dante inputs.
And I think that's about all we have to say about that.
(23:09):
Yeah, those are the two latest pieces of gear.
Might not be the very latest, but the ones we're talking about today.
All right, so we're going to switch topics to creativity.
All right, so when it comes to creativity, now there's this video that we found again
(23:30):
recently because I'm pretty sure we watched this before, but it is by John Cleese.
Yes, Monty Python, several movies, Fish Called Wanda was one of our favorite movies with
him in it.
He has a YouTube or there's a YouTube video about him giving a talk to a management group.
(23:57):
And the video is titled John Cleese on Creativity and Management.
So if you go to YouTube and search for that, John Cleese on Creativity and Management,
I think this video is great.
It has five things, I think is what he says, that are important for creativity.
(24:17):
And I think we're going to take one at a time or take pieces and maybe not.
I think we remember what all five of them are.
Yeah, at this point, we don't remember what they are.
Two of them I think have to be time, is time.
But there is something that he made.
He made a statement about the people that you brainstorm with and what that session
(24:42):
is like.
And the idea that, and I think I've faced this, that there are people that you bounce
ideas off of and say, hey, I'm thinking of writing a story like this.
And why is it that some people like you say that to encourage the idea?
(25:09):
You know what I'm talking about?
They fuel you.
I don't know if that's a verb.
They give you energy.
They give you, you say something and they say something and you go, oh, that's, you
know, yeah, I can also add that or I can do whatever.
(25:32):
But then there are people who just kill it, you know, like kill all your emotion, your
energy and stuff.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
And in the video he talks about not so much different types of people, but the, that people
(25:54):
have two modes and there's the open mode and the closed mode and the open mode is for creativity
and the closed mode is for editing.
And so if you have a person who can't get into the open mode, you don't want to brainstorm
with them.
Or even if there's a person who can, but is not there, that's, you can't brainstorm with
them.
If someone's in a closed mode, they're going to be shutting you down because they're looking
(26:15):
at practicalities and they're just, they're in the editing critical mode, which is necessary
eventually, but is horrible for brainstorming.
Now I've had that with various friends and I'm not of course going to name any names,
but they are friends that I have that whenever I have an idea, they're just really good about
getting into that open mode.
(26:36):
You know, they, they, it's like playing, right?
And that's what, uh, John Cleese talks a lot about this play mode, this open mode being
like, we're just playing, we're like being silly with our ideas.
We're going in different directions.
There's nothing, there's no wrong answer.
There's no wrong answer.
Even if it's ridiculous, impossible, crazy.
(26:59):
But I've had the friends who are like, Oh, uh, I have an idea for a movie too.
So that, that, that's one friend, you know, like the, the friend that you say, uh, I'm
going to, uh, you know, like, for example, you say to somebody, Hey, I have this idea
(27:20):
for a movie.
What do you think?
They say, Oh, well, I have an idea for a movie too.
And it would go like this.
Right.
Yeah.
So there's, it's, there's not just the modes, but there's the people who are actually better
at listening and engaging with you on your idea.
And there's the people who hijack the conversation for their own, right?
Because the, the friends who are like energized me are the ones who take my idea and they
(27:44):
go, Oh, that's really funny.
And what if that, you know, you know, like, I remember talking about the hand, uh, with
a friend and him suggest, you know, in case you don't know, we have a character who is
a severed burn hand, you know, it says a little bit different from the other hands that are
severed in different things.
(28:06):
That is pretty.
And uh, you know, and I remember talking to a friend about it and the friend, first of
all, uh, there are the people that you talk to that say, Oh, that's been done.
I've seen that.
I've seen that in a, you know, completely kill the idea.
Right.
(28:26):
This friend didn't do that.
This friend said, Oh, you know, it'd be funny is if then the hand meets the foot, you know,
and so they start brainstorming with you and you go, Oh, that is hilarious.
Yeah.
And then you start thinking, Oh man, yeah, you know, I could have a foot too.
That's severed and they fall in love or something like that.
Right.
Uh, but there's a friend who says, Oh, I've seen that I've seen, I don't know why they
(28:50):
do that, but they're in that closed mode instead of the open mode, you know?
Yeah.
And, and there's different kinds of clothes, right?
I mean, cause sometimes you'll say stuff to me and I'll be like, I don't want to try and
animate a foot.
And then there's the people who just, just the idea as, you know, it's already been done.
(29:12):
You can't come up with anything.
Oh, you mean like the Adams family?
Yeah.
Okay.
No.
Yeah.
They just started a new version of that.
You know, okay.
Fine.
Uh, but there's also the person says, Oh, you know, uh, actually I have a idea about,
uh, you know, something else, you know, and knows, you know, and, and that, and here's
(29:35):
what I wanted to do with it.
Right.
And so different story.
So the foot one, it builds into and gives more energy, but then those, when they were
going in a different direction, they just hijack and ignore your story and pick up on
theirs.
Some people give that vibe, right?
Some people have the vibe where they're excited.
You have this stuff, they need this stuff and they're sort of wanting to hijack the
(29:57):
resources.
And other people have that vibe where you have the stuff, you shouldn't have the stuff.
You're wasting the stuff.
You're never going to succeed with that stuff.
They have a better idea.
You really ought the, you know, the stuff should be theirs because their idea is better
and you're just wasting time and money.
And it's like what used to, uh, drive me crazy is the people who, uh, would hear what you
(30:23):
were doing and would say, uh, Oh, I'm glad, you know, you and your family found a hobby,
uh, to do, Oh my gosh, that was such a killer.
Because we're trying to actually do this professionally.
We're trying to make movies.
We're trying to make animation and it's not a hobby for us.
(30:44):
It's, uh, it's, and yes, it's been a long and painful thing trying to get things launched
and you know, calling it a hobby just seems to minimize the amount of pain and effort
we've put into trying to make this a real profession.
Okay.
But yeah, it's not like we're, you know, uh, going golfing or something like that to, uh,
(31:06):
you know, as a family, not that there are people, I'm sure there are people who are
trying to do that professionally too, but, but they're normally not trying to do both,
right?
You're normally either putting in the time and effort to make it your professional thing
or you're just chilling out with your kids and on the three par, you know, right.
(31:26):
The reason that we have this stuff is because we are trying to make this a business and
we have bought things that we felt we needed anyway, uh, going back to the whole creativity
thing is finding a group of friends, finding people who can get into that open mode.
(31:47):
And we highly recommend you listen to this video.
Yeah.
Because I mean, you can be friends with all the different kinds of people, but you need
to be able to brainstorm with people who will help you.
And, you know, and a lot of times it becomes a give and take.
So yeah, sometimes you'll be brainstorming with them about their ideas, but you need
to know that you have a group that can brainstorm with you in that open mode on your project.
(32:11):
And I know when Laura and I, and she just mentioned the thing about, uh, edit, editing
the, the actual implementation of things.
And there are times when we need that as well.
You know, you have an idea and now it's time to talk about, well, how are we actually going
to do this?
(32:31):
You know, the scene you just described, uh, if you're doing a live action, it's going
to involve, you know, a helicopter and closing the highway and, you know, those things can
not be done like that.
Uh, but there is a time and I think we use different buzzwords, like I'm just thinking
out loud right now.
(32:52):
In other words, we're in open mode.
We're just going to brainstorm back and forth and anything is fine.
You know, as crazy as the idea sounds, let's just do it.
You know, let's just talk about it.
And then comes the, all right, well, I think this is the way it's.
(33:12):
Right.
Normally once you've got it down to a couple of ideas, then you need to start evaluating
them practically and see which one you can actually do right now.
And the other thing that is, and I think we've talked about this already in other podcasts
is that, uh, to go along with that is that usually your first idea is not the best idea.
(33:34):
It's just the obvious idea.
And so you do need that time to keep generating ideas until you get to the actual creative
idea.
Right.
So, so that's, uh, why it's also necessary to have that time with somebody, you know,
to be able to get to the truly creative idea.
(33:56):
Uh, and then you can get into the, how are we actually going to implement this?
Yeah.
Exactly.
All right.
Well, talking a little bit about our, uh, studio projects.
What we've been working on most recently, uh, is an introduction of a new character
that our office made for us.
(34:17):
Yes.
Yes.
We have a new character and her name is La Giorona, uh, which comes from, uh, I think that she
originated in Spain or is what we were reading.
I can't remember if it was Spain or Mexico.
Okay.
But it translates to the crying lady.
Uh, and, uh, you've seen probably movies about her, you know, but she's, she's a waitress
(34:40):
at the, uh, Darra Kelly diner.
Yes, she is.
But she's not very comfortable yet in her new job and she takes every minor failure,
very, very personal.
Very personal.
So that's coming up next.
(35:01):
And you know, we're at the stage where we recorded the faces, we wrote the script, we
recorded the faces, we recorded the sound.
All that is fun.
Uh, and I, I did, uh, fun in, in air quotes, in air quotes.
Uh, but the part that is not even close to fun, not even the air quotes could save that.
(35:21):
Not even close to fun.
It's where we do the body mo-cap, uh, that goes along with it.
Which is funny because I mean, when it works and we're doing it, it's really, we often
like it once we're into it, if it's working.
The trick is once we're into it and if it's working.
(35:43):
And afterwards is, uh, one of those like, oh, why, you know, this wasn't that bad.
Why, why, why did we like shy away from this?
But uh, part of it for me at least is that, uh, well, there's a couple of challenges.
One is like, uh, you know, these suits that are one size fits all.
(36:04):
Well, they're not exactly one size fits all.
We aren't all.
We're not all.
And uh, number two, uh, you know, talking about like at the beginning of the show, we
were talking about gear and how at first it doesn't work and we wanted to return it.
Oh my gosh.
Mo-cap gear is the most finicky, unpredictable gear in the world.
(36:30):
Every time we do mo-cap, there's a different challenge.
It's sort of like, you know, you know, this time it's not recognizing this part of the
body.
And you know, no matter what I do to calibrate is not calibrating and, uh, and it's funny.
I mean, it's, we're not dissing a particular system because we've used like three or four
(36:50):
different systems now.
And, and some days one of them will be like working perfectly.
And we're like, oh my gosh, we should, you know, why do we avoid mo-cap?
This is working great.
This is so much fun.
And then the next time that particular system will not work no matter what, but one of the
other systems will work.
And then some days none of them work.
(37:11):
Honestly, it is one of the reasons why we have multiple solutions for mo-cap because
sometimes one of them works and sometimes for whatever reason it decides not to work.
Uh, you know, it's getting interference from something or it's like, I don't know.
The computer is unhappy with it or something, but it's just not working.
(37:36):
So it's really, it's just that emotional uncertainty going into it.
It's the dread.
It is.
And it's because you have to put all this gear on.
It takes so long to get ready to start recording.
You need like five minutes.
I mean, our, our little animations, I think this one is two minutes long.
(37:59):
Yeah, two minutes long.
And so you need like two minutes, but you know, you need a few takes of it anyway, just
because you're also acting besides all the technical stuff and trying to get like one
good take where you hit your marks and did your thing and the gear hit its marks and
(38:20):
did its thing.
Oh my God.
You know, and, and just, uh, in case you don't understand what we're talking about, um, we
record, uh, two main parts, you know, whenever we record our animations, uh, we do most of
it instead of like animating by hand, the characters, we are animating ourselves doing
(38:42):
the movements.
So and doing the facial expressions.
So we record our audio and our face on one stage.
And what we figured out is that we can do that separate from the rest of the body.
And thank goodness getting all of that to work together was just a nightmare.
Yeah.
And we realized, and, and, uh, and the secret was that we have, uh, what we call a reference
(39:07):
video with the timing of when we're supposed to act with our bodies and our face at the
same time.
So as long as we do our performance to that video, we will be able to sync our body movements
to our face movements.
And sync all the characters with each other and end up with a cohesive movie.
(39:30):
But if you've seen performers, uh, you know, sometimes they show you behind the scenes
of like Lord of the Rings or something like that, uh, where the character has a helmet
and a camera that, uh, you know, on it and they have all these dots and all these sensors,
whatever on their body.
(39:50):
Uh, we tried to be like that before with the helmet and all that stuff and realize, oh
my gosh, we can't get this gear to all work.
And some of it is, of course they have better gear.
Some of it is they have more space and some of it is they have like a whole team working
with them to make it work.
(40:12):
I want you to know, I'm not saying I'm the best, but I want you to know something.
I've been a software developer for over 30 years.
I build our own computers here.
I'm not afraid of gear at all.
You know, I, I can, I can, you know, look at the software and see what's happening.
(40:35):
I can read logs to see if, you know, something's wrong, what the errors are and try to work
around them.
But let me tell you, this thing is terrible.
I could not get all the software to work.
But anyway, again, it's not against any one system.
They're all really good when they work, but there are days that they're having off days
(40:59):
and you throw, you throw in the, uh, the software that captures your face with the stuff that
captures your body, which are two different ones and forget it.
So we, we realized we were going to be, you know, if we did a video that showed us the
timing of when you're supposed to perform with your body and your face, and we follow
(41:22):
that as a recipe, every time we record a segment, then we can easily sync them later.
And we started that because we had to do it anyway, to sync up because we're playing all
the characters.
Right.
So, you know, we had to sync everybody's dialogue and stuff so that it sounds like they're talking
(41:43):
to each other.
Um, when it's really just us, you know, doing each of the characters.
So then as we're like, you know what, we have to seek this, maybe we can just peel off the
audio and the face and not deal with three or four different softwares at the same time.
So we were able to do the faces and we normally do the faces first and the voices.
(42:09):
And that is okay.
We are, I'm not telling you that that is the most fun thing to do, but that is like, okay,
fun, you know, like, yeah, we can do that.
You know, um, when it comes to the mocap thing and I have to get in the suit and, uh, I have
(42:30):
to know if I ate, you know, uh, fried chicken yesterday and if I'm going to fit in the suit
or if I need to get on the treadmill for, you know, a couple of days before I get into
the suit.
Now I completely cheat and I don't use a system that uses, I, I'm just not putting myself
through that.
So we actually sort of made our own suit, uh, with a different system that just fits better
(42:56):
for us.
But um, yes, in both cases between having to change into the uncomfortable clothes that
show off everything that you've normally tried to hide with your clothes.
It's a good thing we're married, you know, because we are not putting this on in front
(43:17):
of anybody else.
However, there've been so many times when the kids come home and you just know they're
like, oh my gosh.
Yeah.
And they just go to the other room.
Okay.
Yeah.
Right.
So anyway, that's where we're at.
We have to finish.
We gave ourselves some time because of the holidays and uh, you know, took some time
(43:39):
off, but now we're back and we're trying to finish our two minute, uh, video.
We're trying to do them more frequently.
Thankfully, we realized looking at other animation studio, uh, YouTube videos that they are not
released as often as.
We feel like we needed to other videos like gear reviews and things like that, because
(44:02):
animations just take time.
So, but we figured if we can do one every three weeks, if we could get it down to two,
it would be miraculous.
If we could get it down to three, it'd be miraculous.
But if we can release a short video every three weeks, I think that would be great.
(44:24):
And I think having the goal of three weeks just helps make it happen.
So even though we don't hit the three weeks, uh, now this time, of course, it's the holidays
we did take time off.
So if we don't count that we might still have the three weeks, but, um, you know, we're,
we're more likely to get it in three to four weeks.
(44:46):
If we're aiming for three weeks, then if we say, let's just try and get this done sometime
this, you know, year or don't give ourselves a deadline, then it ends up dragging out forever.
Partially because life is just busy and we've got a lot of balls in the air and partially
because the smoke hat part is really, you need a deadline to get yourself into the suit.
(45:11):
And honestly, when it's working and you're acting, it's, it can be fun.
I mean, the reason we're going into this whole thing is because acting is fun.
We actually like playing all these characters and I think they're fun, but, but the process
can be a little painful.
The process is painful.
Yes.
(45:32):
All right.
Well, we should get back to work then.
All right.
Better step back.
Why we're gonna do
Hey, Laurel, I don't feel like working today, you know?
(00:03):
Well, let's talk.
All right, let's talk.
Hey, welcome to our podcast today.
It is January 8th, 2025, first podcast of the year.
Very cool.
It'll take me till June to remember the year.
Oh, I know.
And then things go so fast.
Oh my goodness.
I just can't believe how fast years go.
(00:26):
Yeah.
Now we're starting old.
No, it's so ridiculous, right?
Like before you know it is like summer and then before you know it is Christmas again
and you're trying to find presents and money to buy presents with.
And yeah.
Thinking, did we pay off the last round yet?
(00:47):
Yeah, no, I was just, you know, I got to say probably not.
So hopefully, you know, when we're 80 and about to expire, that's when we'll be like,
hey, we finally paid all the Christmas presents for you guys.
(01:08):
So that's your present.
You don't have to pay them after we die.
Oh, boy.
All right.
We're going to talk about some gear today.
We're going to talk about some creativity stuff, of course, and maybe give an update
on our various projects.
(01:30):
Yeah.
Studio.
Yeah.
On our animation studio and various projects.
All right.
So let's start by talking about some gear.
And you know, first, I wanted to talk about this thing that I don't know if everybody
goes through this or not.
But there's this thing that I have with patience for new gear, you know, where that's not the
(02:00):
thing you have.
No, lack of lack of patience for new gear, which is crazy when you think about it, because
I am a geeky gear person.
Like I love having new gear, you know, audio gear is probably, you know, ranks up there.
It's one of my favorites.
(02:22):
Video gear, of course, anything to do with the studio, you know.
But I will confess that my first impression of things is that I am going to return this
thing, you know, almost universally, almost universally.
I don't care what it is.
(02:43):
You know, even the network switches or whatever, oh, I am going to return this thing.
This thing just doesn't work.
Now, to be fair, almost nothing does work the first like three hours we work with it.
That is the truth.
Now, I don't know if this is an actual quote, but I've heard people say, you know, that
(03:06):
Einstein said that the meaning of insanity was trying the same thing over and over and
expecting a different result.
Well, Einstein didn't use any gear because that is essentially, you know, like I don't
think Einstein ever tried to plug in a USB device because basically what you do there
(03:28):
is you turn it around and then you turn it back the same way that you had started.
And then it works.
So I don't know about that.
But it seems like with gear, it goes like that, that I try and try the same things over
and all of a sudden it works.
(03:49):
Yeah, it feels like that.
Though a lot of times, obviously, it's not.
You do hours of research after three hours of networking, then you do a whole bunch of
hours of research to find out who is actually using it and how they are using it and how
they got it to work.
And then you find out like that one little step that you missed that they didn't mention
(04:09):
in the instructions or whatever that makes everything make sense.
That's right.
We had these little boxes.
Oh, I forgot the name of them right now.
Have.
Yes, that's right.
Cast.
Cast from Cranborne, I think is the name of the company.
(04:31):
These are really cool little boxes that what they do is if you use XLR devices like microphones,
for example, and you're trying to run a long cable instead of running like for ginormous,
ginormous cables, you can use a networking cable with these boxes and they basically
(04:52):
carry the analog.
These boxes are not even powered or anything.
So they just carry the analog signal through a cat five networking cable cat five or above
now.
Do they?
I was like, you know, so I go and I go and I say, well, you know, we use cat eight.
(05:16):
The website says cat five or above until seven or something like that.
It said five, six or seven.
And I was like, well, we have cat eight cable, which is, you know, it's probably way more
than we need.
But, you know, we so I went online and I bought some cat five because that's what it seemed
to prefer.
(05:37):
No, it's not working.
You know, it's not working.
We're like, I'm like, I'm going to return these boxes.
They just don't work.
But and this is the problem with like not specializing because part of the problem is
there's usually one or two words that you think you understand that you don't.
(06:00):
Right.
Because in small print and a little asterisk or something was the word shielded.
Unshielded.
No, I think it has to be shielded.
Now we're going to have to look it up.
But it matters which one it is.
Right.
No, our cable was unshielded and it requires a shielded cable.
(06:21):
And we didn't know, you know, what the difference was.
Anyway, turns out we try the cat eight cable, which is already shielded.
Oh, and there's two types of shielding and you have to get the right one.
And that's that's just faithful because I was like, you know, I go through these stages
(06:42):
where it's like, I'm going to return this.
Maybe I got a broken one.
It's the second stage.
Maybe maybe this is a broken one.
It's not so bad, but it's maybe broken.
And then the.
Oh, OK.
It works.
Oh, this is great.
This is wonderful.
(07:04):
And so the gear we were going to talk about today, they are these stands and I'm looking
at them right now.
You can't see me looking at them.
By the way, we're thinking of adding video to this podcast.
That way, when we're talking about things, we can show them to you.
But we're actually going to wait for more gear to arrive before we we turn on the camera.
(07:29):
So these tripods, these are triad orbit tripods.
And I had heard really good things about them.
I had watched videos about them and I thought, OK, that's that's wonderful.
You know, now here's the the thing.
At first, when I put it together or when we I don't think there's anything to put together,
(07:53):
maybe we just the casters for the wheels.
Yeah, I think we just put the casters on.
OK.
I was like, OK, this is this is terrible.
First of all, I, you know, I extend the the tripod arm or whatever it is.
The middle bar that goes up the middle bar.
(08:15):
By the way, I don't know if you've already realized that I say everything wrong and then
Laurel corrects it.
So the the bar, I extend the bar and then I'm trying to shrink the bar and the stupid
bar doesn't go down.
And I think this is broken.
This is I guess it's not that it doesn't go down at all.
(08:35):
It's that it goes down partway and then it bounces at the bottom.
Yeah, it starts bouncing.
Slowly bounces the rest of the way down.
What the hell is going on here?
I just wanted this thing to go down and then the adapter at the top.
I wanted to switch it for a different adapter.
I can't figure out how to unscrew this thing.
I was about to get a wrench and try to unscrew this thing.
(09:00):
Well, it turns out that the thing has two features that I didn't realize.
Number one, it's got some air pump thing.
It's got like a pneumatic brake almost that.
Yeah, that you can't explain your fingers as it all collapses.
Right.
When you on, you know, or on Titan or whatever, losing.
(09:24):
Yes, thank you.
In order for the gear not to just fall down with gravity, they have this like air thing,
which makes it actually really, really nice.
Number two, the adapter at the top doesn't unscrew.
(09:46):
It actually has a quick release system.
And I'm like, you know.
But the collar that you pull down on does in fact look like screws.
Right.
It's just.
In our defense, it looks like it should not screw.
But here's the thing.
(10:07):
I bought this for a reason and I'm thinking that at some point I knew or I had seen some
video that said all these features and went, oh, but by the time I received it, I was like,
oh, I know about it.
Forgotten all about that.
(10:28):
I went from this thing is like garbage.
I can't use this to this is the best tripod ever invented in the world.
I was missing all that stuff anyway.
Which you know, just to say sometimes when you're disappointed in something, doing a
(10:50):
few hours of research online actually is well worth the time.
And and also the manual is very useful.
Manuals are useful and to be honest.
Manuals are useful.
Yes.
Well written and in color.
Oh my gosh.
(11:10):
For our next piece of gear that we were going to talk about.
But one thing that I've been using AI for actually, which to me it's like fantastic
is the idea that I can go to chat GPT and upload a manual and then I don't have to read
it.
I can just upload the manual, download it from the website, upload the PDF to chat GPT
(11:36):
and then say, hey, chat GPT, how do I actually, you know, release this adapter from the top?
And I must tell you, I also love that feature.
I don't use it personally, but I used to be the chat GPT.
That's true.
Laurel, this thing doesn't work.
Can you please fix this thing?
(11:59):
All right.
So that leads us to our next piece of gear that we were going to talk about today.
And that is the Fostex RM3-DT.
I believe that's the name of it.
It's really close and we'll have it fixed in the comments.
(12:22):
And I will tell you, you know, we don't want to do like product reviews, like other websites,
like here's all the features and blah, blah, blah, especially because this is audio and
you know, you're not going to see any of that.
Push this button here and get this effect.
Yeah, this is how many inputs and blah, blah, blah.
No.
So what we're going to do is like, whenever we talk about gear is more of, this is how
(12:46):
we use it.
This is what we found out.
Especially for the triad, tripods.
Thank you.
What turns out to be that the feature that was the most useful was the quick release
on those adapters because now we can take, we can get multiple adapters and easily take
(13:12):
one of the devices that's on the tripod out and put another one in.
So we're going to use that for lighting actually.
Yeah.
They have like ends that work for lights, ends that work for cameras, ends that work
for boom poles.
They've got like multiple boom poles that you can put in single boom poles, multi-head
(13:32):
boom poles.
They've got all kinds of cool things.
And one of the things that we're getting actually is an adapter for one of them that is like
for laptops that is going to fit the Fostex.
And so that will be a quick release thing that we can also take down and then put a
(13:55):
light adapter and use.
We turned this massively cool and expensive tripod into Dave from Ikea.
Into a cheap Ikea then.
So anyway, Fostex RM 3DT.
And this is how this box, how I became aware of this box.
(14:19):
So basically I'm going to try to describe it, but it's basically if you've seen any
audio rack mountable gadgets or gear, you know, it's basically long and skinny, I guess,
or is it a way that?
(14:40):
It's basically fits into one unit of a rack mount.
So it's long, it's skinny, it's deep.
And what it is, is a monitoring piece of gear.
So basically it has two speakers built in and lets you hear, but it also because it
has the dash DT, which is what we needed is a Dante version of it.
(15:05):
They sell one without Dante, but I think the difference was like maybe even less than a
hundred bucks.
So you might as well, you know, if you can just get the Dante one and in case you switch
to Dante later.
Especially for us since everything is Dante.
Yeah, everything for us.
But here's what happened.
For some reason, our Yamaha mixer, which is the DM3, it goes to the computer and it uses
(15:31):
plugins to make our sound sound a little bit better.
And also, yeah, anyway, we're going to talk about all that at some point probably.
But it connects to the computer through USB and sometimes, I don't know, it gets tired
or something.
So, yeah, so the sound goes to the computer and comes back and it's supposed to get recorded
(15:51):
when it comes back.
Right.
Is the, is the audio that comes back with plugins added and all that stuff to the mixer
from the computer that gets recorded?
Well, if the connection to the USB gets tired for some reason, it just stops connecting.
And the outcome of that is that we can do multiple takes on the mixer and the mixer
(16:16):
will gladly say it's recording.
But it's recording nothing.
But it's recording nothing.
So we did some mocap sessions for animation that where we did like five takes and then
all of a sudden we were like going to review them and there's nothing recorded.
So we...
(16:36):
This was obviously the facial and voice mocap, not the body.
Right, right.
So because of that, I started looking and I found this thing, which is perfect for us.
Basically what it does is it has some meters for audio meters and they're supposed to be
very accurate meters.
(16:57):
You tell it to monitor two down to channels, you know, left and right, whatever.
And it just gives you how loud your volume is with the meters.
And also if you want to do a playback, you can do it on the device.
There, because it has its little speakers.
And it has speakers.
(17:17):
And because our microphones are away from the mixer and away from the computer so that
we get better sound and we're kind of enclosed ourselves in a little sound booth, then we
can't see exactly the mixer when we're recording.
And even the...
(17:38):
It's possible to tell with the iPad app for the mixer, but since there's a lot of things
you can do with that, like we had been using that to hit the record buttons and stuff,
which puts you on a different screen, which means you have to like look at the little
meters that are teeny, teeny tiny at the top of the screen.
(18:00):
It was just, we were missing it.
And so this gives us something that we can put at eye level.
And it seems like, why would you buy an extra thing just for that?
Well, it's because it just saves us time because we were not noticing.
And there were many times when we would go through and we're like, all these files hold
(18:20):
nothing.
They're just blank.
And the nice thing is, I think it saved us last time, maybe.
Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but we were like, oh, we don't see the levels.
But at the same time, we were trying to get the unit to work.
But this is another instance where I was like, oh, this is not working right.
(18:42):
First of all, now I kind of hacked it a little bit, but it's not a hack.
Don't think that I'm some master hacker or anything like that.
I didn't open it or anything like that.
It's just the fact that the unit is supposed to let you monitor two channels, either Dante
or Analog.
(19:03):
And because we have a Dante network, you would think, well, we can only use the Dante portion.
But with the Analog to Dante adapter of some sort, or maybe with, like, we have a piece
of gear that converts Analog to Dante, or sorry, Dante to Analog in this case, we were
(19:24):
able to send the signal also through the Analog.
And then it has a switch that lets you, you know, in the front, you can just press the
button and either monitor the stuff that's coming in through the Analog or stuff that's
coming in through the Dante.
So basically what I call the hack is that I am able to monitor four channels now with
(19:49):
that.
Four Dante channels in a sense, because I have the two actual Dante channels and then
I have the two Dante that I converted to Analog that I'm also sending to the unit.
So basically the original audio before it goes to the computer and then the audio after
it comes back from the computer.
(20:09):
Right.
Or we can actually change it so that it's, when we do the playback, we can do two channels
that are for the playback to see what got recorded or the two channels before, you know,
just prior to getting recorded.
So yeah, exactly.
(20:31):
So yeah, the thing that, the unit is wonderful by the way.
One thing that I was very surprised by was that the quality of the speakers is actually
really good.
You know, like for two little tiny speakers on a box, we were not, we did not have high
expectations, but they sound good.
Yeah.
(20:52):
And they're not as probably good as the monitors that we have, the Yamaha monitors that are
for monitoring audio, but it's not like a cheap speaker thing that you, you know, plug
into your computer on your desk.
It's actually, you know, decent audio coming out of the unit.
(21:13):
And what we wanted it for was just to tell us that it did anything record.
But also seeing those levels is great, but the funny thing I was getting to was that
again, this thing was just beeping at me.
Like, you know, it's got lights that give you a status in the front and they blink and
(21:34):
they do whatever.
And you're like, why are you yelling at me?
Why are you, what, what do you mean by these two blinking lights in the front?
And I looked at the manual that was printed.
I came with it, came with it.
And I couldn't tell from the description.
I was like, this description doesn't tell me, you know, now the printed manual they
(21:57):
give you is black and white.
It's black and white.
We went online, downloaded the manual.
That one is in color.
It tears how color really matters in this case, because if it's green lights or if it's
red lights or if it's amber lights, they mean different things.
And it was impossible to tell from the black and white manual because what's, and I think
(22:24):
the problem was that they had created the manual in color.
So they were assuming you could see the color.
And so the words weren't describing the color because they thought you could see the color.
And so the black and white version of the manual just did not give the information that
we needed.
But the unit itself works great and thanks to it, we can now tell if we're actually recording
(22:49):
any audio or not.
And yeah, it's a pretty good unit.
The sound is clear on it.
You can toggle between the analog inputs, like I said, and the Dante inputs.
And I think that's about all we have to say about that.
(23:09):
Yeah, those are the two latest pieces of gear.
Might not be the very latest, but the ones we're talking about today.
All right, so we're going to switch topics to creativity.
All right, so when it comes to creativity, now there's this video that we found again
(23:30):
recently because I'm pretty sure we watched this before, but it is by John Cleese.
Yes, Monty Python, several movies, Fish Called Wanda was one of our favorite movies with
him in it.
He has a YouTube or there's a YouTube video about him giving a talk to a management group.
(23:57):
And the video is titled John Cleese on Creativity and Management.
So if you go to YouTube and search for that, John Cleese on Creativity and Management,
I think this video is great.
It has five things, I think is what he says, that are important for creativity.
(24:17):
And I think we're going to take one at a time or take pieces and maybe not.
I think we remember what all five of them are.
Yeah, at this point, we don't remember what they are.
Two of them I think have to be time, is time.
But there is something that he made.
He made a statement about the people that you brainstorm with and what that session
(24:42):
is like.
And the idea that, and I think I've faced this, that there are people that you bounce
ideas off of and say, hey, I'm thinking of writing a story like this.
And why is it that some people like you say that to encourage the idea?
(25:09):
You know what I'm talking about?
They fuel you.
I don't know if that's a verb.
They give you energy.
They give you, you say something and they say something and you go, oh, that's, you
know, yeah, I can also add that or I can do whatever.
(25:32):
But then there are people who just kill it, you know, like kill all your emotion, your
energy and stuff.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
And in the video he talks about not so much different types of people, but the, that people
(25:54):
have two modes and there's the open mode and the closed mode and the open mode is for creativity
and the closed mode is for editing.
And so if you have a person who can't get into the open mode, you don't want to brainstorm
with them.
Or even if there's a person who can, but is not there, that's, you can't brainstorm with
them.
If someone's in a closed mode, they're going to be shutting you down because they're looking
(26:15):
at practicalities and they're just, they're in the editing critical mode, which is necessary
eventually, but is horrible for brainstorming.
Now I've had that with various friends and I'm not of course going to name any names,
but they are friends that I have that whenever I have an idea, they're just really good about
getting into that open mode.
(26:36):
You know, they, they, it's like playing, right?
And that's what, uh, John Cleese talks a lot about this play mode, this open mode being
like, we're just playing, we're like being silly with our ideas.
We're going in different directions.
There's nothing, there's no wrong answer.
There's no wrong answer.
Even if it's ridiculous, impossible, crazy.
(26:59):
But I've had the friends who are like, Oh, uh, I have an idea for a movie too.
So that, that, that's one friend, you know, like the, the friend that you say, uh, I'm
going to, uh, you know, like, for example, you say to somebody, Hey, I have this idea
(27:20):
for a movie.
What do you think?
They say, Oh, well, I have an idea for a movie too.
And it would go like this.
Right.
Yeah.
So there's, it's, there's not just the modes, but there's the people who are actually better
at listening and engaging with you on your idea.
And there's the people who hijack the conversation for their own, right?
Because the, the friends who are like energized me are the ones who take my idea and they
(27:44):
go, Oh, that's really funny.
And what if that, you know, you know, like, I remember talking about the hand, uh, with
a friend and him suggest, you know, in case you don't know, we have a character who is
a severed burn hand, you know, it says a little bit different from the other hands that are
severed in different things.
(28:06):
That is pretty.
And uh, you know, and I remember talking to a friend about it and the friend, first of
all, uh, there are the people that you talk to that say, Oh, that's been done.
I've seen that.
I've seen that in a, you know, completely kill the idea.
Right.
(28:26):
This friend didn't do that.
This friend said, Oh, you know, it'd be funny is if then the hand meets the foot, you know,
and so they start brainstorming with you and you go, Oh, that is hilarious.
Yeah.
And then you start thinking, Oh man, yeah, you know, I could have a foot too.
That's severed and they fall in love or something like that.
Right.
Uh, but there's a friend who says, Oh, I've seen that I've seen, I don't know why they
(28:50):
do that, but they're in that closed mode instead of the open mode, you know?
Yeah.
And, and there's different kinds of clothes, right?
I mean, cause sometimes you'll say stuff to me and I'll be like, I don't want to try and
animate a foot.
And then there's the people who just, just the idea as, you know, it's already been done.
(29:12):
You can't come up with anything.
Oh, you mean like the Adams family?
Yeah.
Okay.
No.
Yeah.
They just started a new version of that.
You know, okay.
Fine.
Uh, but there's also the person says, Oh, you know, uh, actually I have a idea about,
uh, you know, something else, you know, and knows, you know, and, and that, and here's
(29:35):
what I wanted to do with it.
Right.
And so different story.
So the foot one, it builds into and gives more energy, but then those, when they were
going in a different direction, they just hijack and ignore your story and pick up on
theirs.
Some people give that vibe, right?
Some people have the vibe where they're excited.
You have this stuff, they need this stuff and they're sort of wanting to hijack the
(29:57):
resources.
And other people have that vibe where you have the stuff, you shouldn't have the stuff.
You're wasting the stuff.
You're never going to succeed with that stuff.
They have a better idea.
You really ought the, you know, the stuff should be theirs because their idea is better
and you're just wasting time and money.
And it's like what used to, uh, drive me crazy is the people who, uh, would hear what you
(30:23):
were doing and would say, uh, Oh, I'm glad, you know, you and your family found a hobby,
uh, to do, Oh my gosh, that was such a killer.
Because we're trying to actually do this professionally.
We're trying to make movies.
We're trying to make animation and it's not a hobby for us.
(30:44):
It's, uh, it's, and yes, it's been a long and painful thing trying to get things launched
and you know, calling it a hobby just seems to minimize the amount of pain and effort
we've put into trying to make this a real profession.
Okay.
But yeah, it's not like we're, you know, uh, going golfing or something like that to, uh,
(31:06):
you know, as a family, not that there are people, I'm sure there are people who are
trying to do that professionally too, but, but they're normally not trying to do both,
right?
You're normally either putting in the time and effort to make it your professional thing
or you're just chilling out with your kids and on the three par, you know, right.
(31:26):
The reason that we have this stuff is because we are trying to make this a business and
we have bought things that we felt we needed anyway, uh, going back to the whole creativity
thing is finding a group of friends, finding people who can get into that open mode.
(31:47):
And we highly recommend you listen to this video.
Yeah.
Because I mean, you can be friends with all the different kinds of people, but you need
to be able to brainstorm with people who will help you.
And, you know, and a lot of times it becomes a give and take.
So yeah, sometimes you'll be brainstorming with them about their ideas, but you need
to know that you have a group that can brainstorm with you in that open mode on your project.
(32:11):
And I know when Laura and I, and she just mentioned the thing about, uh, edit, editing
the, the actual implementation of things.
And there are times when we need that as well.
You know, you have an idea and now it's time to talk about, well, how are we actually going
to do this?
(32:31):
You know, the scene you just described, uh, if you're doing a live action, it's going
to involve, you know, a helicopter and closing the highway and, you know, those things can
not be done like that.
Uh, but there is a time and I think we use different buzzwords, like I'm just thinking
out loud right now.
(32:52):
In other words, we're in open mode.
We're just going to brainstorm back and forth and anything is fine.
You know, as crazy as the idea sounds, let's just do it.
You know, let's just talk about it.
And then comes the, all right, well, I think this is the way it's.
(33:12):
Right.
Normally once you've got it down to a couple of ideas, then you need to start evaluating
them practically and see which one you can actually do right now.
And the other thing that is, and I think we've talked about this already in other podcasts
is that, uh, to go along with that is that usually your first idea is not the best idea.
(33:34):
It's just the obvious idea.
And so you do need that time to keep generating ideas until you get to the actual creative
idea.
Right.
So, so that's, uh, why it's also necessary to have that time with somebody, you know,
to be able to get to the truly creative idea.
(33:56):
Uh, and then you can get into the, how are we actually going to implement this?
Yeah.
Exactly.
All right.
Well, talking a little bit about our, uh, studio projects.
What we've been working on most recently, uh, is an introduction of a new character
that our office made for us.
(34:17):
Yes.
Yes.
We have a new character and her name is La Giorona, uh, which comes from, uh, I think that she
originated in Spain or is what we were reading.
I can't remember if it was Spain or Mexico.
Okay.
But it translates to the crying lady.
Uh, and, uh, you've seen probably movies about her, you know, but she's, she's a waitress
(34:40):
at the, uh, Darra Kelly diner.
Yes, she is.
But she's not very comfortable yet in her new job and she takes every minor failure,
very, very personal.
Very personal.
So that's coming up next.
(35:01):
And you know, we're at the stage where we recorded the faces, we wrote the script, we
recorded the faces, we recorded the sound.
All that is fun.
Uh, and I, I did, uh, fun in, in air quotes, in air quotes.
Uh, but the part that is not even close to fun, not even the air quotes could save that.
(35:21):
Not even close to fun.
It's where we do the body mo-cap, uh, that goes along with it.
Which is funny because I mean, when it works and we're doing it, it's really, we often
like it once we're into it, if it's working.
The trick is once we're into it and if it's working.
(35:43):
And afterwards is, uh, one of those like, oh, why, you know, this wasn't that bad.
Why, why, why did we like shy away from this?
But uh, part of it for me at least is that, uh, well, there's a couple of challenges.
One is like, uh, you know, these suits that are one size fits all.
(36:04):
Well, they're not exactly one size fits all.
We aren't all.
We're not all.
And uh, number two, uh, you know, talking about like at the beginning of the show, we
were talking about gear and how at first it doesn't work and we wanted to return it.
Oh my gosh.
Mo-cap gear is the most finicky, unpredictable gear in the world.
(36:30):
Every time we do mo-cap, there's a different challenge.
It's sort of like, you know, you know, this time it's not recognizing this part of the
body.
And you know, no matter what I do to calibrate is not calibrating and, uh, and it's funny.
I mean, it's, we're not dissing a particular system because we've used like three or four
(36:50):
different systems now.
And, and some days one of them will be like working perfectly.
And we're like, oh my gosh, we should, you know, why do we avoid mo-cap?
This is working great.
This is so much fun.
And then the next time that particular system will not work no matter what, but one of the
other systems will work.
And then some days none of them work.
(37:11):
Honestly, it is one of the reasons why we have multiple solutions for mo-cap because
sometimes one of them works and sometimes for whatever reason it decides not to work.
Uh, you know, it's getting interference from something or it's like, I don't know.
The computer is unhappy with it or something, but it's just not working.
(37:36):
So it's really, it's just that emotional uncertainty going into it.
It's the dread.
It is.
And it's because you have to put all this gear on.
It takes so long to get ready to start recording.
You need like five minutes.
I mean, our, our little animations, I think this one is two minutes long.
(37:59):
Yeah, two minutes long.
And so you need like two minutes, but you know, you need a few takes of it anyway, just
because you're also acting besides all the technical stuff and trying to get like one
good take where you hit your marks and did your thing and the gear hit its marks and
(38:20):
did its thing.
Oh my God.
You know, and, and just, uh, in case you don't understand what we're talking about, um, we
record, uh, two main parts, you know, whenever we record our animations, uh, we do most of
it instead of like animating by hand, the characters, we are animating ourselves doing
(38:42):
the movements.
So and doing the facial expressions.
So we record our audio and our face on one stage.
And what we figured out is that we can do that separate from the rest of the body.
And thank goodness getting all of that to work together was just a nightmare.
Yeah.
And we realized, and, and, uh, and the secret was that we have, uh, what we call a reference
(39:07):
video with the timing of when we're supposed to act with our bodies and our face at the
same time.
So as long as we do our performance to that video, we will be able to sync our body movements
to our face movements.
And sync all the characters with each other and end up with a cohesive movie.
(39:30):
But if you've seen performers, uh, you know, sometimes they show you behind the scenes
of like Lord of the Rings or something like that, uh, where the character has a helmet
and a camera that, uh, you know, on it and they have all these dots and all these sensors,
whatever on their body.
(39:50):
Uh, we tried to be like that before with the helmet and all that stuff and realize, oh
my gosh, we can't get this gear to all work.
And some of it is, of course they have better gear.
Some of it is they have more space and some of it is they have like a whole team working
with them to make it work.
(40:12):
I want you to know, I'm not saying I'm the best, but I want you to know something.
I've been a software developer for over 30 years.
I build our own computers here.
I'm not afraid of gear at all.
You know, I, I can, I can, you know, look at the software and see what's happening.
(40:35):
I can read logs to see if, you know, something's wrong, what the errors are and try to work
around them.
But let me tell you, this thing is terrible.
I could not get all the software to work.
But anyway, again, it's not against any one system.
They're all really good when they work, but there are days that they're having off days
(40:59):
and you throw, you throw in the, uh, the software that captures your face with the stuff that
captures your body, which are two different ones and forget it.
So we, we realized we were going to be, you know, if we did a video that showed us the
timing of when you're supposed to perform with your body and your face, and we follow
(41:22):
that as a recipe, every time we record a segment, then we can easily sync them later.
And we started that because we had to do it anyway, to sync up because we're playing all
the characters.
Right.
So, you know, we had to sync everybody's dialogue and stuff so that it sounds like they're talking
(41:43):
to each other.
Um, when it's really just us, you know, doing each of the characters.
So then as we're like, you know what, we have to seek this, maybe we can just peel off the
audio and the face and not deal with three or four different softwares at the same time.
So we were able to do the faces and we normally do the faces first and the voices.
(42:09):
And that is okay.
We are, I'm not telling you that that is the most fun thing to do, but that is like, okay,
fun, you know, like, yeah, we can do that.
You know, um, when it comes to the mocap thing and I have to get in the suit and, uh, I have
(42:30):
to know if I ate, you know, uh, fried chicken yesterday and if I'm going to fit in the suit
or if I need to get on the treadmill for, you know, a couple of days before I get into
the suit.
Now I completely cheat and I don't use a system that uses, I, I'm just not putting myself
through that.
So we actually sort of made our own suit, uh, with a different system that just fits better
(42:56):
for us.
But um, yes, in both cases between having to change into the uncomfortable clothes that
show off everything that you've normally tried to hide with your clothes.
It's a good thing we're married, you know, because we are not putting this on in front
(43:17):
of anybody else.
However, there've been so many times when the kids come home and you just know they're
like, oh my gosh.
Yeah.
And they just go to the other room.
Okay.
Yeah.
Right.
So anyway, that's where we're at.
We have to finish.
We gave ourselves some time because of the holidays and uh, you know, took some time
(43:39):
off, but now we're back and we're trying to finish our two minute, uh, video.
We're trying to do them more frequently.
Thankfully, we realized looking at other animation studio, uh, YouTube videos that they are not
released as often as.
We feel like we needed to other videos like gear reviews and things like that, because
(44:02):
animations just take time.
So, but we figured if we can do one every three weeks, if we could get it down to two,
it would be miraculous.
If we could get it down to three, it'd be miraculous.
But if we can release a short video every three weeks, I think that would be great.
(44:24):
And I think having the goal of three weeks just helps make it happen.
So even though we don't hit the three weeks, uh, now this time, of course, it's the holidays
we did take time off.
So if we don't count that we might still have the three weeks, but, um, you know, we're,
we're more likely to get it in three to four weeks.
(44:46):
If we're aiming for three weeks, then if we say, let's just try and get this done sometime
this, you know, year or don't give ourselves a deadline, then it ends up dragging out forever.
Partially because life is just busy and we've got a lot of balls in the air and partially
because the smoke hat part is really, you need a deadline to get yourself into the suit.
(45:11):
And honestly, when it's working and you're acting, it's, it can be fun.
I mean, the reason we're going into this whole thing is because acting is fun.
We actually like playing all these characters and I think they're fun, but, but the process
can be a little painful.
The process is painful.
Yes.
(45:32):
All right.
Well, we should get back to work then.
All right.
Better step back.
Why we're gonna do
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