August 28, 2025 • 52 mins
Brit Cruise—educator, filmmaker, and producer of Pixar in a Box—takes us on a journey through the fusion of storytelling, science, and education. From his early days editing videos with dual VCRs to his innovative work at Khan Academy, Brit reveals how deep focus, analog creativity, and a love for explanation helped shape his approach to teaching complex subjects through immersive visuals. With storytelling as the core, he shares how each lesson in Pixar in a Box connects school-taught concepts like math and physics to the movie magic of Pixar, showing students that what they learn can have real, creative application. Throughout the conversation, Brit explores his philosophy that creativity is “the ability to deal with unknowns,” emphasizing iteration, structure, and the power of simplicity. He also gives us a glimpse into the upcoming storytelling curriculum at Pixar in a Box, where students will storyboard their own shorts from scratch. For filmmakers, educators, and curious minds alike, this episode is a masterclass in how to bring clarity, authenticity, and joy into the learning and creative process.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four thirty four.
Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
breath and try again. KT Whitten broadcasting from a dark,
windowless room in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
When we really should be working on that next draft.
It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
screenplay bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I am your.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Humble host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by
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(01:37):
Dave Bullis.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
My guest today actually teaches at at Conacademy and he's
the producer for Pixar in a Box, an amazing course.
It's one hundred percent free, by the way, Wink wink.
And then my guest also teaches computer science. He teaches cryptography.
I mean, brilliant, brilliant guy with guests cruise. Hey, Britt,
(02:01):
thanks off for coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Hey Dave, happy to be speaking with you.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
So, you know, Britt, you have such a unique background.
I mean, you know, you're involved in so many great things.
So I want to know when you were growing up,
did you always have this sort of this love of
not only teaching, but also of creative problem solving and
sort of like computer science.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, as a kid, like like most people involved in filmmaking.
Very early on, I got obsessed with, you know, the
home video cameras, and as soon as I got my
hands on VCRs, I started trying to cut together videos,
you know, starting with family vacations and whatnot. But very soon.
What I realized early on is the kinds of videos
(02:48):
I was making once I moved beyond the family videos
were explanation style videos, kind of similar to what was
on TV at the time. I grew up with Bill Nye,
so I kind of bent that way, and very quickly
I realized that, you know, I could hand in school
projects in video form. I kind of forced my teachers
(03:10):
to do that, and I I kind of found my
way into explanation style videos really early, even though it
wasn't my one passion, but it's something that came up
right away.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Yeah, you mentioned the home video cameras. You know, a
lot of guests also had that same childhood experience where
they're picking up you know, the super eight cameras or
maybe even a little later like a big VHS box
cam quarders and start. You know, then that's all I
got their start, and you know, in making their own
films totally.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I remember My setup now was I had two VCRs
for editing and to mix sound in I ran I had.
I had an early computer thanks to my mom, and
I would run an audio cable with a mic jack
going to RCA cables running diagonally across the room into
the VCR, so I could next sound from the computer
(04:03):
and video from the VCRs. And that was my first setup.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Oh, that's actually brilliant. That was fun, I mean especially
for I mean, because what were you seven or eight.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
At the time. Yeah, six seven.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
I mean that's a brilliant idea for a kid to
come up with, which explains a lot about you, Britt. Mean,
it's like, I think that's why you know you're you
know you're in the position you are you have to
there's there's moments of brilliance. And you know when I
when we talk about computers, what kind of computer was it, Britt,
Was it like one of those old Apple two's or
was it something similar?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
No, my friend had an Apple. I had one of
the early box computers. It was my Actually, my mom
had an early Tandy laptop, one of the first laptops,
so I grew up on dos. But then the computer
I'm describing I remember it was a given from a
friend of my dad's and it was a big, boxy one.
I don't know, but it was before like the compact
(04:55):
Presario Wave.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Oh gotcha, gotcha?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You know?
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I mean you ever take I mean, do you still
have that computer laying around like somewhere in storage?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
No? No, that one's so gone.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I actually, maybe a couple of months ago, I was
going through stuff and I had my I still have
my first computer that I got, and I was a
little late to the party with it. But I you know,
my first computer was in the nineties, uh, probably the
late nineties, and I remember pulling this thing out and
my god, I look at it and go, how the
hell did I use this thing? It's it seems so
(05:28):
archaic and it's huge, and I'm like, you know, it's
it only uses a fifty six K modem.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
When you're passionate, though, yeah, nothing else anything will get
you to anything will work, any tool will work if
you're motivated.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
That's a great saying, Brett. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep that, uh,
because I'm gonna that is a a great piece of advice,
you know, because mainly I use it, you know, for
for writing too. And I mean I even had word
processors that I remember using, and I looked at some
of them, you know, the other day I was looking
through I'm not not in personal online some of the
old word processors, and I'm like, man, the size of
(06:06):
these things so like a piece of luggage.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah. We had a typewriter too. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I know some people who you know, who are younger
listening to this have no clue what a typewriter is.
But but I've used the typewriter brand. I remember the
Remember when you had to change the uh, if you
made a mistake, you had to put that like a
little card in to sort of backspace it out, wait
it out. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, I wish I still had a typer. Actually, it's
a nice way to folk stay focused.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah, you know, I was saying that somebody else the
other day. You know, it's like laptops are great, you know,
phones are great, but the problem is is that it's
too easy to get distracted with them because of the Internet.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Yeah, the context switch is the real killer. It just
that's the number one thing people waste time on. They
probably if they count it in a day. When I
say context switch, I mean an interruption of any kind.
Doing one thing and then doing another. If you do
that hundreds of times per day, it's a few minutes
per switch you waste. And that's why people waste three
to four hours a day. Early on, about six years
(07:13):
ago or seven years ago, I noticed this and one
day I just threw my phone out and I never
looked back. I've never owned a smartphone, and that's again
one of my great time savers.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So do you just have a flip phone now or
no phone at all?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I don't. I have a landline.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Oh okay, yeah. You know there was a program that
I you know, I had a couple different people on
the podcast, and we were always talking about this because
some people have to use a laptop and for the work,
and so we would need in there for the research.
But you know, even when I'm trying to do it,
sometimes the phone, the phone is the biggest distraction for me.
(07:48):
The laptop not so much because the phone, you know,
you're always being You're always at someone's beck and call,
which I think you some days, I say to myself,
but I go, you know what if I could take
a vacation and not carry my peh with me, I
don't think, you know what I mean, I think that
would be a real vacation because if I went on
a vacation somewhere and I had to carry my phone
or my laptop around, it would it would there be
no point to it. No, So you know, taking a
(08:13):
break from the phone as is something that you know,
I I have found is important, just leaving it in
another room, turning it off completely. And for the laptop,
there's a program I found called Antisocial and there's also
another one called I forget what it's called, but it's
it's about the same people who make anti social and
basically it just blocks out certain websites so that way
you can't access them.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yep. And I often just have days where I turned
the Internet off and it's really it really helps.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Yeah, it definitely does. And you know so, so, but
what does a normal day for you look like?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Like?
Speaker 3 (08:46):
What? What?
Speaker 4 (08:46):
How is your day structured in terms of when you're
creating and teaching and all and doing all the things
that you do.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
I try to break up my day into two halves,
So I really hate scheduling meetings and breaking up a
day into hours and half hour chunks. I only work
well in half thinking about a day in two runs
of creation. So there's a morning creation phase and there's
an afternoon creation phase, and then otherwise I try to
(09:14):
bucket all my natual meetings on one day. That's what
I really try to do. So I have a day
where I'm just sitting around on meetings, and then the
other two days the other four days of the week,
if things are going well, I am just locked into
one task and staying on that for two to three hours,
then a break bike ride two to three hours. Now
(09:35):
your day is done. Now I have two kids. Now
I don't work past four o'clock. If you're working. I
used to work late at night, and once I stopped
doing that, it really helped because it helped focus me
so that at the beginning of the week, if I
know I'm done at four, I really have to write
out the day before what I want to accomplish the
next day, and that has kept me very organized.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
So it seems to be that you know, if you
can if you start working at four, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
After a word from our sponsor and now back to
the show.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
You're so focused on getting it done, meaning that there
is it's like you have a window of opportunity, and
in that window of opportunity you say, Okay, it begins here,
it ends here, And in the middle is where I
have to do all the where I have to do
all my work because once four o'clock hits the windows
closed exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
So I really cherish those two to three hour chunks,
and I'll and during those chunks all either depending on
the type of work I'm doing. If I don't need
a computer, I'm out on my bike, bike to the river,
sit by the river, work on paper. That's where I
get my best work done. Often I'm on the computer.
If I can, I take my laptop somewhere, I go
(10:52):
to the coffee shop and work. And otherwise, when I'm
stuck in an editing hole, then I'm at home in
my office editing. I will one caveat is yeah, when
when you're anyone who is at an editor, it's very
hard to stop working. So there are the days, there
are the very scary weeks where you can't even count
how many hours you spent editing. And that happens to me.
So it was all night, So.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Britt when you're using that pen and paper, so are
you just grabbing a notebook and just a pen, you know,
and you're just you know, you know, writing ideas as
they come, and you're working on projects. Do you ever
have a problem maybe transcribing that back to the laptop.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
No, actually I never, But I often do things in layers,
So I'll write a bunch of scribbles that don't always
make a lot of sense. What I find is just
the process of writing is more important than what you
even have on that page, because it's my form of
building memory. So I'll go out write something down, and
I'll have six pages of chicken scratch, look like a
crazy person. But then I I'll just leave that in
(11:50):
my bag. The next day, I'll go out and write
again what I was working on. I'll try to simplify
it into some sort of bullet point thing, and then
by the time I get back to the laptop, I
usually have, you know, a readable piece of paper. But
even if those papers blew away, it would be fine
because the process of writing on a paper for me
helped me build and clarify my thinking. And then I
(12:12):
can just sit down on that laptop and bang out,
you know, a script of whatever I'm doing in a
very focused flow. Thinking Now just out loud. If I
was trying to do that on a laptop from the beginning,
I would never get anything done because again I would
be switching context. I wouldn't be on the page.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Yeah, you know, the only because I mean, I love
notebooks and writing using an actual pen. The biggest challenge
that I mean, I've I face is trying to get
that writing back onto a laptop, you know, I mean,
because now you're transcribing, you know what I mean, And
now I always find it it's a little it feels
a little redundant sometimes to me because you feel like
you're doing the same work you just did, if you
(12:51):
know what.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I mean, totally. I guess I should clarify. When I'm writing,
I'm often just drawing pictures and doodling. I'm not actually
writing down sentence for sentence and then transcribing. Yeah, that
wouldn't work. Once I'm at that level of I can
actually write down the words of for example, the narration,
I'm on the computer, So it's really that brainstorm phase,
(13:12):
structure phase. I stay on the page.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
So what are some of the bigger projects that you
can talk about that you're working on right now?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
So in the in one world. I am working on
year three of Pixar in a Box, which is a
really big, very exciting project. The goal here of this
project is to show how the movie making process that
Pixar works, but more specifically, how things that kids are
(13:42):
learning in school are used at Pixar in the making
of their films. So Pixar in a Box has been
structured over three years. Year one we focused on the
math connections, So what do you learn in math class
that they actually use at Pixar. For example, in particle
simulations to make water, they're using Newton's equations from physics.
(14:03):
So you know that boring stuff you're learning in school
that seems boring when it's presented to you, is used
in this very exciting domain. Year two of Pixar in
a Box focused more on science, the connections, the connections
to science. Right now, I'm working on the last lesson,
which is a hair simulation lesson. How they simulate hair
at Pixar. Well, it uses a mass spring system, which
(14:25):
is Hook's law. Another thing you hit in school. But
most exciting and we're writing right now is year three.
I Picks are in a Box is really the whole
point of it is going to be called the art
of storytelling, so that will be a storytelling curriculum. We
purposely push that one last because I always knew it
would be the hardest one to make work online.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Yeah, you know what that's actually, you know, from from
just my standpoint, that's the one I would really like
to be to see, not because I'm not interested in
an animation or how Pixar does everything, but just from
you know, a writing, storytelling perspective. You know, everybody is
always interested to see how Pixar does what they do.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yes, and we're all so excited about the pressures on
to make sure this is really strong. And the one
hard part is with year one and two. With the
cool thing about Pixar in a Box is it's a
fully interactive, very engaging experience. You're not just watching a
video and doing a test. You are watching a short clip,
(15:29):
then playing with a piece of interactive software you saw
on that clip, and then you follow along video exercize
video exercise. You're participating throughout and creating throughout. So, for example,
with that water simulation lesson, not only are you learning
how they do it, you are making your own particle
simulator along the way. That's easy to kind of conceptualize
(15:49):
in math and science, but in the storytelling world again,
it's very hard to think about online activities you're going
to do in between learning about their storytelling process. So
that's really the challenge is really figuring out, Okay, it
won't be too hard to make really great videos that
communicate how storytelling works at picks are and how the
(16:09):
individual storytellers, what their process is. What will be hard
is the handoff to the user to say, okay, now
it's your turn. Now it's your turn. Because the goal
of our storytelling curriculum is pretty ambitious. It is you
start with nothing, you go through six lessons, and at
the end you have storyboarded your own short. So that's
that's the scope. Is people leave this lesson with a
(16:33):
storyboarded short on paper, and so that's the goal and
that's where we are still working on the steps to
get you there.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
That's absolutely amazing, brit Is that is see you know,
I see a less screenwriting courses online from all different
people and all different places. And the crux of it is,
at the end, you don't really do you know what
I mean? You should be in my opinion, creating something
as you're going you know, even if if it's a treatment,
if it's an outline. That's why when you said it's
(17:03):
going to be a storyboard for your own short, that
is killer. That is key because you should be creating
as you're learning, so you you know what I mean,
Like you learn and create, create and you learn right exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It's it's exciting to hear your excitement and it's got
some goosebumps because I'm like, yes, we got to push
forward on this.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
You could go back to Pixar and be like Dave
Bullis really likes and we'll say who is that? But
uh but uh, you know, I mean it's amazing, what
what what what Pixar is doing? And I wanted to
ask you, but you know, as we talk of Pixar
on a box, you know, how did you become a
producer of Pixar in a Box?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Backing up, I was, well, immediately I was working at
con Academy and and what I was doing there at
the time is thinking of how we could co produce
content with partners. And I dip my feet a little
bit in with NASA the year before where we kind
of looked at all of NASA's content and thought, okay,
(18:02):
what can we do to kind of curate this and
make it work on con Academy so it will just
you know, aligned to standards. And it was, you know,
an interesting linear flow. But the NASA project was really
a curation one looking at what they had and then
and NASA is such a big organization. There's just all
these different departments that make educational content, so it's like
grabbing from a thousand things trying to find the twenty
(18:24):
that work and putting that into a lesson format. That
was like a baby first step in experimenting how we
could work with partners. And then right around that the
time that ended, someone at con Academy kit Heraski used
to work at Pixar, and said, you know, there's someone
at Pixar who's you know, interested in maybe doing something
(18:46):
with us. And at the time, Tony DeRose is the
chief scientist at Pixar, was doing a TED talk and
he has a talk called Math in the Movies, which
is like a one hour talk talking about you know,
what you learn at school is relevant at Pixar, and
he they were working on a physical exhibit the Science
behind Pixar, which is now traveling around the US. I
(19:07):
saw it in Boston last so he had this he
had this one hour talk, which was successful. Then it
became a museum exhibit with a bunch of interactive things
you could do. But then his next vision was, we
wanted to reach more people by creating some sort of
online version of what I'm trying to do in the museum.
And what was really exciting is in that first meeting
(19:28):
when they came in, I was like, yes, I have
to be in that meeting. They didn't have any idea
what they're going to do yet. It was just like,
we know we want to do something online. We know
our guiding principle, but we don't know what the thing
we're putting online is. So it was this opportunity to
work on an exciting project that was a blank slate
from the beginning. And that's and I was like, no
(19:49):
one could stop me at that point, jumping in and
grabbing the reins. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
I mean, because you know, you look at Pixar in
a box.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
And it just looks, you know, so well put together.
There's so many talented people working on that. You know,
has there ever been a challenge we're working on Pixar
in a box that that it's almost beyond sort of
a resources standpoint, or if you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Britt Wait, can you repeat the question just so I'm clear.
When you say resources, what do you mean, like.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Maybe there's not enough people, maybe there's enough time, you know,
just something that maybe like there was an element to
pick her on a box that maybe somebody wanted to
implement but they just couldn't, you know, either through time
or just didn't have enough you know, time or people
to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, it's hard. I mean everything about the project has
been a challenge, but they're all great challenges because the
project is fun. So it started right with a Getting
funding for this project was difficult, but once Disney eventually
funded it, that gave the freedom to actually spend some
time conceptualizing what the lessons would be. And that's that
(21:07):
is where we wasted. I don't want to say wasted,
because it was development. That's where the majority of our
time went. Initially what does this lesson look like? And
we actually just a small group of us rebuilt the
same lesson, which is our environment modeling lesson like four
or five times over and over and over until we
could find a model that worked. So the and the
(21:30):
challenge there is, i Icon Academy, We're about, you know,
producing stuff fast, low quality. It's not about production value.
It's about you know, being clear and being engaging and
being personalized content. Pixar came in needing a very specific
bar to be hit in terms of production values, and
the hard part was finding that middle ground between something
(21:50):
that Pixar thought was visually appealing enough, but con Academy
thought was, you know, fast enough to produce that we
could actually scale this out and not waste all year
one on video And finding that middle ground blending live
action and blending graphics was really hard. But once we
found that middle ground in terms of production, we were
(22:11):
able to crank out the other lessons fairly quickly in
terms of uh lessons I've worked on before, Like, we
really managed to find a system that we could crank
these out.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
And you also, Picture on a Box has a podcasting element,
which I think is a phenomenal idea as well. Mm hmm,
because I think podcasting, you know that it's sure they
can get the you know, there's a video element through
the you know video and audio through the con Academy.
There's there's lessons and then also I mean having that
that audio element so that way, you know, if someone's
out for a walk at the gym, they still put
(22:43):
that on and hear a whole other aspect, you know,
because it's just you know, they're busy doing whatever, but
they're either they can have time to listen.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Totally, and that reminds me that one of the again,
it's just all challenges. Another challenge was who would be
in these videos and would it be one person through
out would it be multiple people? Having multiple people it's
a very tough scheduling problem. Ultimately we went for someone
different in each lesson and ultimately two or three people
and that was very difficult to schedule, but it was
(23:12):
so worth it because it's so nice now to look
at that content and anywhere you dive in, you're going
to meet somebody new and it's very authentic.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
So, you know, as we talk about challenges with Picture
on a Box, you know, what was the biggest challenge
that you've faced and how did you overcome that?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
I think for a moment.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
So well, you know, while you're thinking I'll just you know,
just add you know, I a creative problem solving. You know,
somebody once told me that anybody can write a check,
you know, but the real sort of mark of a
good producer or a good anybody is the creative problem solving.
And it sounds like to me, Britain, that you're full
of creative ideas and full of just genius ways to
(23:56):
sort of figure out problems that don't require you know,
just okay, you know, we'll just you know, here's money.
We'll use it that way. If I think you're a
guy that sort of puts his you know, thinks not
only analytically, but also thinks on different planes about how
we can actually creatively solve problems.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
That helped me think of what it was.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Thank you, rob My ramblings help somebody. I'm glad bright No,
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
In terms. So, one thing was at the time, kon
Academy's exercise platform only allowed certain kinds of questions, right
like from multiple choice to dragging a point around a
grid ordering boxes, the type of questions you do when
you do a math test. But we clearly wanted the
(24:43):
exercises to be very different. We wanted you to actually
be doing things and working on simulated pieces of software
that people that Pixar used. That was my goal, like,
let's look at the software you guys are using and
let's build a stripped down version of that. And we've
done that for things like we have a color correction suite,
we have an animation suite. We have all this stuff,
(25:04):
but it was stripping them down to the very core elements.
So you know, any animation suite has a billion buttons,
takes forever to learn. We had to build an animation
suite that would work within like a minute. So we
stripped everything away except you know, there's keyframes and a
play button and you can do linear interpolation or Bezier interpolation.
(25:24):
What are the functions the essential functions needed to simulate
that software. Then figure out a way to actually make
those simulated environments work on Kon Academy, which is a
whole issue in building that out on the back end.
But coupled to that, the opportunity I saw in that
in working on these very complex interactive exercises is there
(25:46):
was a free thing that came out of it, which
is the graphics we needed in the video which is
I was always worried about, how are we going to
do graphics for two hundred videos. It's so much work,
is and with iteration, it's just a nightmare. Real. I
put a stake in the ground and said, all the
graphics in all our videos will be screen captures of
(26:07):
the exercises. So the pieces of software we build that
you get to play with going through the exercises, that's
the visuals you see in the video about ninety five percent.
There's some other ones you have to make on top
of it. But it was really great because it meant
there was a ton of legwork to build the software
for the interactive exercises that are really fun and visually appealing.
(26:27):
But then when it came to video production, it was
really just a matter of cutting together a live action
shoot with screen grabs from an exercise and then boom,
it just eliminated a whole job of having a full
time graphics person.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, and that see, that's that amazing creative problem solving.
I was talking about you seem like a guy, Britt, Well, actually,
I know you're a guy who can just think on
the fly like that and just sort of you know,
even when you're in brainstorming sessions, you know, because I
think with projects like Pixel in a Box, I could
see a lot of sort of you know, obstacles and
(27:01):
just that you're just both creatively financially like you said,
you know, you know Disney had to finance it, and
you know, and just just I think, you know, having
those that creative ability at so much that it's almost
you know, it's unquantifiable, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
I think, I like my definition of creativity is ability
to deal with unknowns. That's my working definition of what
a creative person is. It's it's not even like are
you a great writer? It's can you deal with unknowns?
And do you do you embrace unknowns? So this project
was great. It was all unknowns, but the driving force
(27:35):
was that vision of what it will be at the
end was so strong that it was like this this
project was me saying, I'm sending back to my twelve
year old self because I remember, like anyone, when the
first time you see toy story, everyone has a story
about that. I was in grade eight toy Story came out.
I told my teacher we got to do animation, and
he's like, we don't even know where to start, and
(27:56):
I remember going to buy three D movie Maker, which
is a really old three dmodeling program, great, great software,
and like convince my teacher to buy it, and you
put it on all the computers. But then there's a
question of like, now what do we do, and that
whole headache of a year with toy story and trying
to integrate it into the classroom, like regurgitated. When I
had this Pixar meeting, and I'm like, here's the chance
(28:17):
to actually do something that is fully aligned to those
films that inspire kids. So that having that end goal
allows you to just blow through all the challenges because
you're just like you know where you're headed.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
You know, I really like that definition of creativity. So
so your definition of creativity is how you deal with unknowns, I.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Would say, a billet, sorry to cut you off. The
definition would be the ability to deal with unknowns, the
ability to deal with unknowns.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
So let's just say we're you know, we're writing, you know, Britt,
and you know, as we were writing, so we're sort
of putting pieces of a puzzle together, you know, you know,
both both consciously and subconsciously. You know, we're trying you know,
we're trying to fit all this together. Do you think that,
you know, maybe creativity is sort of as we're going
(29:08):
actually writing in that moment and just things are coming
up naturally, you know, do you think that would probably
be like the purest form of creativity.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah, because at every step it's like there's a branching effect.
At every step there's a multiple options, which is a
branch of things, and then each option leads to other options,
and it just branches out so quickly. There's so many
avenues you can go down, and you can't be intimidated
by that. So like one thing some people might do,
(29:38):
I'm just trying to make this up. Let's just imagine
a hypothetical person who isn't quote unquote creative, which is silly.
They might have an idea and then stick to that
just because they had a new idea that was connected
to that. And if you change the new idea, then
I'd have to go back to the old idea. And
if your seven ideas deep, it's so scary to go
back and rip it up and rebuild and rebuild and rebuild.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
But if you're not afraid of those unknowns and how
those unknowns connect to each other, I would say if
there was this other quote unquote creative person, they would
be more than willing. And they even enjoy that process
of breaking it down and starting again and again and again.
And like you say, I like that puzzle analogy, I
guess yeah, they would enjoy rearranging the pieces again and
(30:32):
again and again to see how they fit together.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
You know, when you're talking about branching out, you know,
that's something that I've seen too. You know, when you're writing,
you have a lot of you know, options, you know
what I mean, and you sort of go, well, okay,
I can go option A, but if I or I
can go option B, and then they sort of have
their own sub branches, you know, and then sort of
there's a there's a phrase that I hope I remember correctly.
I think it's called decision fatigue, where eventually you get
(30:59):
so tired becau you're like, okay, well if I choose
a you know, let's just say a two like branching,
and and you know, and this is this is I mean,
whether we're coding or whether's screenwriting. You know, I mean,
you know, we're we're always sort of whether either way.
You know, there's I think there's a lot of overlay.
But if you choose like option A, for instance, and
you say, okay, we have two branches, I can go
(31:19):
A one or a two. If I choose A two,
well that makes that changes everything else I already did.
But if I choose B two, you know, and I
think eventually I think as we're writing, I think a
lot of times decision fatigue causes us to stop more
than you know what I mean. I think it causes
us to go, oh geez. But if I did this,
you know what I mean, where you're sort of sitting
(31:41):
there going, oh, man, what should I do next? I
don't know, man. And I think that's when people sort
of go online just sort of trying to figure it out,
you know what I mean. I think they have to
go all right, let me just check Twitter real quick
and i'll see if I'll see if you know, the
decision comes to me.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
One that's interesting. I like decision fatigue, and that's where
those distractions are nice because you can having to make
decisions for a second and just zone out completely. But
telling me about decision fatigue reminds me of the So
another project I'm working on is my YouTube channel Art
of the Problem, and that's an hour long video series
(32:18):
which explores the origin of modern fields of study and
the way to do that. But my approach to doing
that is looking for an ancient question that humans have
always been solving and follow that question through time because
the question never goes away, just our way of solving
it does. And in writing those episodes, they're definitely the
(32:39):
most difficult thing I've ever done. It's really a process
of trying to rewrite history, and that is something that
I find most draining in the writing process.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
Yeah, the old logic questions. I like that a lot
because there's one question that is you know, I always
go back to whenever I'm writing, and that question is
why just literally w h y question mark? You know,
And it's sort of I think that, you know, that
question has plagued philosophers throughout time and every and every
culture and all of the planet. And I think that
(33:13):
you know, why why question mark? If you could sort
of figure out or maybe I shouldn't be use term
figured it out, if you can sort of create an
answer to that question, it will be your answer. But
it's like you just said, it's sort of like the
you know what, everyone's going to have a different answer
(33:34):
to that, and how people have answered it throughout time totally.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
That's really fascinating when you think about things through the
lens of what is the driving question? And again that's
exactly what I do with the problem. It's a great
way to look at the world. And what you do
find is it's amazing how the same question will have
the most like opposing decisions are almost orthogonal to each other.
(34:00):
And then but the answers or the when I say decisions,
I guess I mean solutions. The solutions to problems through
different eras also reflect the era that you're living in,
which is just I find very interesting.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yes, yeah, and you know what, what does a culture
say at that point? You know what, what is the
country going through at that point?
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (34:20):
Because personally, Brett, I think right now in America it's
like a reflash of the seventies, just just culturally economically.
It just feels that way to me. Probably completely wrong,
but uh, I think that's why why cinema is getting
back to that gritty, grind house. You feel, at least
in the independence of the independent side of things. Uh,
you know, and I also you know, just just in general,
(34:42):
I think, you know, I see a lot of parallels.
But but but you know, yeah, I mean, you know,
problem solving and our perspective how we solve those problems,
especially when we're writing a perspective as we go into
the to write. You know, it's it's so important because
I think, you know, when our perspectives we go in,
that affects every decision we make. M hm, yes, So
(35:06):
you know, Brett, So you know, as we're talking about
you know, storytelling, you know, and we're talking about Pixar
in a Box. You know what if somebody was going
to take the course which is on con Academy, if
someone was going to take the course, what's what's one
thing you know you want them to take away from
from the course.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I would say one is. One interesting thing is that
every topic on Pixar in a Box is featured, is
taught by a different host, and the people we got
to teach each lesson are actually the people who work
in that department. So it's a rare case to really
dive in. And if whatever your department you're interested in,
(35:46):
whether it's rendering or whether it's storytelling, you can zoom
in and actually get to meet that person. And we've included,
aside from the lesson itself, which we've tried to make
as gaging as possible, there's getting to know videos, which
I find really valuable. There for a minute video how
what did you do as a kid? How did you
get here? And watching all of those getting to know
(36:09):
videos are I find really fascinating because you see a
lot of parallels. But it also can help you build
a mental model for you know, your own path.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yeah, you know, I I started taking I actually watched
the intro video and I was looking around to with
the different lectures. I like, how I think it's I
think it's labeled Class two or level two. It's much
more detailed and algorithms and computer science and you know
sort of you know, the real real like atom level,
uh of how things are actually created Pixar, And the
(36:41):
first level was actually getting you know, getting an intro class.
You know, you're seeing how, you know, all these things happen,
and you're you're sort of you know, seeing how on
the on the on the surface, you know how things
are created too.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Oh, you just reminded me of the the The challenge
with Pixar in a Box we faced was just that
what level of difficulty would these lessons be? And we
batted that around a lot, like if we're getting into math,
when do you get into the math? And we finally
landed on a model where we would break every topic
into two pieces, and lesson one would be all about
(37:16):
getting you comfortable with a process or a tool that
they use. So with animation, you get you actually use
a keyframe editor and you learn how to make an animated,
realistic bouncing ball. And then it's the second lesson where
we peel back the layer of the onion one layer
and we show you how those tools work. And that
division was really important because there's a lot of people
(37:38):
who actually don't maybe care how the tools work, They
just want to see what the tools are. So with
this model we were able to appease both crowds, and
I'm really happy we did that because every lesson one
on Pixar in a Box and every topic you don't
have to be worried about, Like rendering might sound really scary,
but guess what. Our rendering lesson doesn't require any mathematics,
(37:58):
but the second part does, so you don't have to
worry about dipping your feet in anywhere.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
So and that's great. I'm glad I can remind you,
by the way, brand I'm glad again my my ramblings
help somebody out. But but you know, you know, when
I saw Pixar on a Box, I mean, it's just phenomenal.
And you know, do you have an anticipation date an
anticipated date of when you know the whole storytelling part
of Pixar a Box will be.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Up in twenty seventeen. We'll start rolling it out. We'll
do it sequentially, so there'll be six lessons in that
storytelling unit and by the end of February we will
be rolling out our first one and then that'll roll
into the summer. So by September next year, that whole
(38:45):
storytelling curriculum will be finished.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
That is That is amazing, Brett. You know, and I'm
going to link to Pixar on a Box in the
show notes again. It's on con Academy. And you know
con Academy is an is an open source worst online
Uh what is is Is it classified as an moc
brit No.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
It's not classified as a mook because you know, mooks
are all about creating packaged courses you can take, where
kon Academy is really trying to be there to help
you with the concept you need so you can fill
in the gap you need on whatever journey you're on.
So it you know, it's a resource, a free resource
that spans many many concepts, and it's designed so that
(39:30):
you can you know, jump in and out to get
the thing you need that you need help with, versus
you know, a collection of packaged courses like like you
see on the mooks. So it's different in that way.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
So, Britt, you know, just out of curiosity, do you
ever think that these online classes are basically going to
replace colleges.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
I don't think they'll replace colleges. I just think colleges
will evolve, you.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Know, I I've you know, I actually used to work
at a college and a lot of some of the
profet as we're actually talking about the mocs and basically
you know, what they thought of them.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
And we'll be right back after a word from our
sponsor and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
I think the bigger colleges, like you know, the IVY
leagues will never have to worry about anything, you know,
no matter what I think, if if they're not actually
teaching education, they'll be a there'll be a glorified summer camp,
you know what I mean. I don't think if college,
if those colleges like Harvard, Yale, Prison, if they adapt correctly,
which they will because they usually have incredibly smart people,
(40:36):
you know, running them, I think they'll that's what will happen.
They'll if they're not teaching education, they'll be you know,
sort of like almost like a hedge fund, or or
they'll they'll be like a you know, a glorified summer camp.
You'll go there for a summer, have fun or whatever.
I don't know, because I mean, I'm always interested about
the future of education and the place of college. You know,
(40:58):
It's always interesting to I mean to me, honestly, I
think the some people flourish at college, and there's others
like myself, who struggled a lot in college, and I
kind of looked back, Britt and I kind of don't
really think my college education was really worth the cost,
if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
I feel the same way. And I think that basically
with free online education, what you can do is really
raise the bar of what's expected of students when you
enter school, and then you can focus less on making
sure you know X, Y and Z and more on
the collaborative nature of school and the project based learning
(41:40):
that goes on in school, which when I look back, yeah,
a lot of the information I sat through I just
could have learned online. But there were a few very
specific things I do remember, and everything I remember that
was valuable going back to high school were the collaborative things.
So drama in high school biggest learning experience putting on
place for me. And then in school I studied engineering.
(42:03):
You know, it was working with a group of people
to make a robot that could play the drums. And
it's it's in those collaborative environments that real learning happens.
So I don't think that's going to go away, and
and I think the colleges will learn that and they'll
just go more in that direction and less in you know,
lectures maybe could be replaced with something else. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
I also think micro master is going to become big.
I see a lot of it, like on Edax and Corsia,
you know, just about creating a micro master's course, and
you know, I'm seeing that more and more but you know,
it's just but I'm glad you feel that way too, Bretta,
because you're an incredibly intelligent guy. So you know, there's
a there's a guy. There's a book that I read.
It was called one hundred or fifty or one hundred
(42:45):
Alternatives to College, written by a guy named James Altacher.
And I got to talk to James probably about a
year ago and not a lot for the podcasting. He
actually said the same thing. He actually got out of
college with a degree and they had to send him
somewhere else at how to code, even though his degree
was in computer science, and they said, you know, hey,
you know we're going to send you this boot camp.
We're going to do all this and that, and finally
(43:07):
he said, you know, what the hell was it worth?
He said, I spent all this money going to college
and I get bumped out and all of a sudden,
you know, we can't I can't even code. I mean,
what was the point of all that?
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Yeah, I can relate. That was kind of the same way.
It's sad.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Yeah, I mean, and my former college I actually used
to teach multimedia classes because they the teachers that got
hired to teach them didn't know how to do anything.
And I mean that with all sincerity, but they literally
one guy actually came to me and said, hey, Dave,
I haven't picked up a camera in fifteen years, and
they want me to teach the video the Introduction to
(43:41):
Video Production class. So I had to sit down with
him and I said, okay, so we're going to be
shooting for an SD card. We were using the Panasonic
HMC one F and I hit record on the camera
and I said, now when I hit it again, it's
going to create. It's going to start and stop that
file and that's its own digital file. And he says, whoa.
He was Dave, wait a minute, you're going way too fast. Yeah,
(44:03):
and I said, what I said, you're going to be
teaching the course and and this is too fast.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
He had.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
His idea was he could stay one step ahead of
the students by training with me. That was his secret plan.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
And it's only going to the speed only increases with
time on it, with technology, So it's a losing race.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Yeah, it really is. I mean, the thing I mean
that was his I mean because I think if he
was trying to get, you know, his head wrap around
the cameras and it's just you know, I, you know,
I'm so glad I don't teach them anymore or do
anything there anymore. But but that that.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Was the sign.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
I think colleges like that are going to go under
I think all of these small private colleges that are
that live and breathe through having one hundred percent enrollment
are just going to all go under that.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Again. When I graduated, I did a computer science degree
at McGill. I again struggled through the whole thing, and
then I said, it was so painful that I started
a YouTube channel to just try to recommunicate what I
had learned and I had. I'm still doing that to
this day, and it's been very cathartic to you know,
(45:12):
spend months struggling on a video that was connected to
months prior that struggling in school, and then recommunicated in
an eight minute video that then people say, ah, you
open my eyes. You made that clear for me. And
I'll hear from people who either finish school and are
still watching those videos because they it feels good to
(45:33):
have something clarified. But I'll also hear from people who
haven't yet gone to university and we'll watch one of
the Art of the Problem series and say like that
has changed my worldview. Now I'm going to school knowing
what I want to learn, and that makes me very
happy because when I went to school, I didn't know anything.
I didn't know where I was going, I didn't have
a firm grounding, and it's very sad that it wasn't
(45:55):
ntil after school and communicating it back on YouTube that
I fully absorb the lessons I was supposed to learn
in school.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
See, and that that's invaluable. I think that's why a
lot of the times those online classes are are You know,
if I was if I was a high school senior
right now, that's all I would be doing. Would was
would be doing online classes right now?
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Oh man, It's just a different world now, and the
quality is increasing so quickly. Just five or six years
ago on YouTube, if you were trying to learn, there
was not a lot out there. Now if you search anything,
not only is it there, but there's probably six or
seven versions of it, and the top version is probably
really well produced. So things are trending in the right
(46:36):
direction when it comes to finding online resources big time.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
And also you can get the I just downloaded Unreal
Engine four and it actually is the whole engine you
can use to actually build video games, and it's one
hundred percent free.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
And legit, that's so cool. That's a rabbit hole. I'd
be scared to go down, but sounds very interesting.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Yeah, I wanted to make my own little first person shooter,
just something very small and fun and just have a laugh.
And then that is something. I mean, I have so
many film projects I want to get done, but I
was like, you know, let me just try this real quick,
and you know, just trying it out. But that but
that is something too. I agree brit that I would
be like a rabbit hole, you know, it would be
hard to get back from, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
Yeah, I've been want I actually think that's great though,
when you're stuck on something to go work on a
totally different project. I have to have three things on
the go. It's the only way I work. But making
a video game has always been in the back of
my mind. But again, I just I know the hours involved,
so I haven't even touched it yet.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
Yeah, it's uh, and from what I've heard, it's just
very time consuming. It's like it's just one of those things.
But there's so many scripts that I want to write
and this and that, and you know, doing this podcast
that sort of keeps up, you know, keeps me busy enough.
But uh, but you know, Britt, you know we've been
talking for just about forty five minutes now, you know,
(47:52):
is there anything sort of inclosing that we hadn't haven't
discussed said that maybe that you wanted to bring up,
or is there anything you wanted to do maybe mentioned
Just to sort of put a period at the end
of the sentence.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
I would just kind of amplify something I've been hearing lately,
which is this is a dawn of a new era
where it is a world Sorry, it's a dont let
me start again. I'm going to amplify something I've already
heard a few times, which is that this is a
new era that will be very friendly for creatives and
(48:26):
people who create online where it's just starting to happen.
Where we were in a world recently where you're either
at the very top of your industry and you're making
a ton of money or you were a nobody and
you made no money. But now people who can have generate,
you know, small audience, whether it's ten thousand, whether it's
one hundred or one thousand, or ten thousand or one
(48:48):
hundred thousand. We're getting into a world where you will
be able to sustain yourself, and with things like the
Internet Creators Guild, which I recommend anyone joining, which just
launched the year. Creatives online are starting to reorganize and
the business models are changing. YouTube's evolving if you're in
(49:08):
the video medium, and I do think if anyone is
either starting now or they started a little while ago,
and you know they're not making any revenue from their art,
I think just stick with it because in about five years,
I think an internet eyeball will be worth the same
as a TV eyeball, and right now they're off by
like two orders of magnitude. So I think we're getting
(49:30):
into a new year where it's very creator friendly and
you can kind of build your own audience from the
bottom up and not have to attach yourself to some
sort of machine to make a living.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
Yeah, I fall into the former. So the ladder camp
nobody who makes no money. That's me. So hopefully, I mean,
you know, hopefully I can I can do something.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
But I mean I would call you that, Britt, because
I mean, you know you're a part of pixel on
a Box. You know, you did out of the Problem,
you know, all all this great stuff, Britt. So I
don't I don't think you're a nobody.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
I think your podcast great and it's it's it's just
amazing to see people who just like plow away at
something and just build it. I think the people building
stuff online now in ten years are going to be
very happy they did it.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
Well. Thank you, Brit.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Awesome. I love it so Brit.
Speaker 4 (50:31):
Where can you find you right online?
Speaker 3 (50:34):
So you know, my website is brick Cruise dot com
and I'm on Twitter and part of the problem. You
can find me on YouTube. That's where I kind of
publish the majority of my videos.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
And I'll link to that in the show notes as well,
everybody I'll look to also Pixar on a Box And
also Brett, I gave you a follow on Twitter, by
the way, and I actually found your Twitter account before
you a couple days ago. I was like, oh, I'm
gonna make sure to follow him, and uh, you see
what we see what he's tweeting, and uh, you tweet.
You tweet a lot of interesting stuff, by the way,
and uh, and I like people like that who tweet,
(51:09):
you know, really cool stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
Right on, I follow you too.
Speaker 4 (51:12):
Okay, cool, thank you, but uh, Britt, I want to
say thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to everything,
uh that you that you come up with. And again
I'm looking very interesting picture on a box season. Uh
was it what we call season three? I guess we're
gonna call it ours?
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Yeah, season three, Well that's internal name, but it's the
storytelling unit.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
I'm really looking forward to that as well. Britt Cruz,
I want to say thank you so much for coming
on and I really do want to wish you the
best for everything.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Thanks so much, Dave. Let's catch up again.
Speaker 4 (51:40):
Oh yeah, anytime you want to come back on, Britt,
please let me know. I'd be more than happy to
have you on. Thank you so much anytime, buddy, Take care, cheers.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot
tv for it slash for four. Thank you so much,
for listening to guys as always, keep on writing no
matter what. I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
Screenwriting dot tv.
You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four thirty four.
Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
breath and try again. KT Whitten broadcasting from a dark,
windowless room in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
When we really should be working on that next draft.
It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
screenplay bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I am your.
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Humble host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by
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Now.
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Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
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(01:37):
Dave Bullis.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
My guest today actually teaches at at Conacademy and he's
the producer for Pixar in a Box, an amazing course.
It's one hundred percent free, by the way, Wink wink.
And then my guest also teaches computer science. He teaches cryptography.
I mean, brilliant, brilliant guy with guests cruise. Hey, Britt,
(02:01):
thanks off for coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Hey Dave, happy to be speaking with you.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
So, you know, Britt, you have such a unique background.
I mean, you know, you're involved in so many great things.
So I want to know when you were growing up,
did you always have this sort of this love of
not only teaching, but also of creative problem solving and
sort of like computer science.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, as a kid, like like most people involved in filmmaking.
Very early on, I got obsessed with, you know, the
home video cameras, and as soon as I got my
hands on VCRs, I started trying to cut together videos,
you know, starting with family vacations and whatnot. But very soon.
What I realized early on is the kinds of videos
(02:48):
I was making once I moved beyond the family videos
were explanation style videos, kind of similar to what was
on TV at the time. I grew up with Bill Nye,
so I kind of bent that way, and very quickly
I realized that, you know, I could hand in school
projects in video form. I kind of forced my teachers
(03:10):
to do that, and I I kind of found my
way into explanation style videos really early, even though it
wasn't my one passion, but it's something that came up
right away.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Yeah, you mentioned the home video cameras. You know, a
lot of guests also had that same childhood experience where
they're picking up you know, the super eight cameras or
maybe even a little later like a big VHS box
cam quarders and start. You know, then that's all I
got their start, and you know, in making their own
films totally.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I remember My setup now was I had two VCRs
for editing and to mix sound in I ran I had.
I had an early computer thanks to my mom, and
I would run an audio cable with a mic jack
going to RCA cables running diagonally across the room into
the VCR, so I could next sound from the computer
(04:03):
and video from the VCRs. And that was my first setup.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Oh, that's actually brilliant. That was fun, I mean especially
for I mean, because what were you seven or eight.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
At the time. Yeah, six seven.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
I mean that's a brilliant idea for a kid to
come up with, which explains a lot about you, Britt. Mean,
it's like, I think that's why you know you're you
know you're in the position you are you have to
there's there's moments of brilliance. And you know when I
when we talk about computers, what kind of computer was it, Britt,
Was it like one of those old Apple two's or
was it something similar?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
No, my friend had an Apple. I had one of
the early box computers. It was my Actually, my mom
had an early Tandy laptop, one of the first laptops,
so I grew up on dos. But then the computer
I'm describing I remember it was a given from a
friend of my dad's and it was a big, boxy one.
I don't know, but it was before like the compact
(04:55):
Presario Wave.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Oh gotcha, gotcha?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You know?
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I mean you ever take I mean, do you still
have that computer laying around like somewhere in storage?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
No? No, that one's so gone.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I actually, maybe a couple of months ago, I was
going through stuff and I had my I still have
my first computer that I got, and I was a
little late to the party with it. But I you know,
my first computer was in the nineties, uh, probably the
late nineties, and I remember pulling this thing out and
my god, I look at it and go, how the
hell did I use this thing? It's it seems so
(05:28):
archaic and it's huge, and I'm like, you know, it's
it only uses a fifty six K modem.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
When you're passionate, though, yeah, nothing else anything will get
you to anything will work, any tool will work if
you're motivated.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
That's a great saying, Brett. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep that, uh,
because I'm gonna that is a a great piece of advice,
you know, because mainly I use it, you know, for
for writing too. And I mean I even had word
processors that I remember using, and I looked at some
of them, you know, the other day I was looking
through I'm not not in personal online some of the
old word processors, and I'm like, man, the size of
(06:06):
these things so like a piece of luggage.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah. We had a typewriter too. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I know some people who you know, who are younger
listening to this have no clue what a typewriter is.
But but I've used the typewriter brand. I remember the
Remember when you had to change the uh, if you
made a mistake, you had to put that like a
little card in to sort of backspace it out, wait
it out. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, I wish I still had a typer. Actually, it's
a nice way to folk stay focused.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah, you know, I was saying that somebody else the
other day. You know, it's like laptops are great, you know,
phones are great, but the problem is is that it's
too easy to get distracted with them because of the Internet.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Yeah, the context switch is the real killer. It just
that's the number one thing people waste time on. They
probably if they count it in a day. When I
say context switch, I mean an interruption of any kind.
Doing one thing and then doing another. If you do
that hundreds of times per day, it's a few minutes
per switch you waste. And that's why people waste three
to four hours a day. Early on, about six years
(07:13):
ago or seven years ago, I noticed this and one
day I just threw my phone out and I never
looked back. I've never owned a smartphone, and that's again
one of my great time savers.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So do you just have a flip phone now or
no phone at all?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I don't. I have a landline.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Oh okay, yeah. You know there was a program that
I you know, I had a couple different people on
the podcast, and we were always talking about this because
some people have to use a laptop and for the work,
and so we would need in there for the research.
But you know, even when I'm trying to do it,
sometimes the phone, the phone is the biggest distraction for me.
(07:48):
The laptop not so much because the phone, you know,
you're always being You're always at someone's beck and call,
which I think you some days, I say to myself,
but I go, you know what if I could take
a vacation and not carry my peh with me, I
don't think, you know what I mean, I think that
would be a real vacation because if I went on
a vacation somewhere and I had to carry my phone
or my laptop around, it would it would there be
no point to it. No, So you know, taking a
(08:13):
break from the phone as is something that you know,
I I have found is important, just leaving it in
another room, turning it off completely. And for the laptop,
there's a program I found called Antisocial and there's also
another one called I forget what it's called, but it's
it's about the same people who make anti social and
basically it just blocks out certain websites so that way
you can't access them.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yep. And I often just have days where I turned
the Internet off and it's really it really helps.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Yeah, it definitely does. And you know so, so, but
what does a normal day for you look like?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Like?
Speaker 3 (08:46):
What? What?
Speaker 4 (08:46):
How is your day structured in terms of when you're
creating and teaching and all and doing all the things
that you do.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
I try to break up my day into two halves,
So I really hate scheduling meetings and breaking up a
day into hours and half hour chunks. I only work
well in half thinking about a day in two runs
of creation. So there's a morning creation phase and there's
an afternoon creation phase, and then otherwise I try to
(09:14):
bucket all my natual meetings on one day. That's what
I really try to do. So I have a day
where I'm just sitting around on meetings, and then the
other two days the other four days of the week,
if things are going well, I am just locked into
one task and staying on that for two to three hours,
then a break bike ride two to three hours. Now
(09:35):
your day is done. Now I have two kids. Now
I don't work past four o'clock. If you're working. I
used to work late at night, and once I stopped
doing that, it really helped because it helped focus me
so that at the beginning of the week, if I
know I'm done at four, I really have to write
out the day before what I want to accomplish the
next day, and that has kept me very organized.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
So it seems to be that you know, if you
can if you start working at four, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
After a word from our sponsor and now back to
the show.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
You're so focused on getting it done, meaning that there
is it's like you have a window of opportunity, and
in that window of opportunity you say, Okay, it begins here,
it ends here, And in the middle is where I
have to do all the where I have to do
all my work because once four o'clock hits the windows
closed exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
So I really cherish those two to three hour chunks,
and I'll and during those chunks all either depending on
the type of work I'm doing. If I don't need
a computer, I'm out on my bike, bike to the river,
sit by the river, work on paper. That's where I
get my best work done. Often I'm on the computer.
If I can, I take my laptop somewhere, I go
(10:52):
to the coffee shop and work. And otherwise, when I'm
stuck in an editing hole, then I'm at home in
my office editing. I will one caveat is yeah, when
when you're anyone who is at an editor, it's very
hard to stop working. So there are the days, there
are the very scary weeks where you can't even count
how many hours you spent editing. And that happens to me.
So it was all night, So.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Britt when you're using that pen and paper, so are
you just grabbing a notebook and just a pen, you know,
and you're just you know, you know, writing ideas as
they come, and you're working on projects. Do you ever
have a problem maybe transcribing that back to the laptop.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
No, actually I never, But I often do things in layers,
So I'll write a bunch of scribbles that don't always
make a lot of sense. What I find is just
the process of writing is more important than what you
even have on that page, because it's my form of
building memory. So I'll go out write something down, and
I'll have six pages of chicken scratch, look like a
crazy person. But then I I'll just leave that in
(11:50):
my bag. The next day, I'll go out and write
again what I was working on. I'll try to simplify
it into some sort of bullet point thing, and then
by the time I get back to the laptop, I
usually have, you know, a readable piece of paper. But
even if those papers blew away, it would be fine
because the process of writing on a paper for me
helped me build and clarify my thinking. And then I
(12:12):
can just sit down on that laptop and bang out,
you know, a script of whatever I'm doing in a
very focused flow. Thinking Now just out loud. If I
was trying to do that on a laptop from the beginning,
I would never get anything done because again I would
be switching context. I wouldn't be on the page.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Yeah, you know, the only because I mean, I love
notebooks and writing using an actual pen. The biggest challenge
that I mean, I've I face is trying to get
that writing back onto a laptop, you know, I mean,
because now you're transcribing, you know what I mean, And
now I always find it it's a little it feels
a little redundant sometimes to me because you feel like
you're doing the same work you just did, if you
(12:51):
know what.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I mean, totally. I guess I should clarify. When I'm writing,
I'm often just drawing pictures and doodling. I'm not actually
writing down sentence for sentence and then transcribing. Yeah, that
wouldn't work. Once I'm at that level of I can
actually write down the words of for example, the narration,
I'm on the computer, So it's really that brainstorm phase,
(13:12):
structure phase. I stay on the page.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
So what are some of the bigger projects that you
can talk about that you're working on right now?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
So in the in one world. I am working on
year three of Pixar in a Box, which is a
really big, very exciting project. The goal here of this
project is to show how the movie making process that
Pixar works, but more specifically, how things that kids are
(13:42):
learning in school are used at Pixar in the making
of their films. So Pixar in a Box has been
structured over three years. Year one we focused on the
math connections, So what do you learn in math class
that they actually use at Pixar. For example, in particle
simulations to make water, they're using Newton's equations from physics.
(14:03):
So you know that boring stuff you're learning in school
that seems boring when it's presented to you, is used
in this very exciting domain. Year two of Pixar in
a Box focused more on science, the connections, the connections
to science. Right now, I'm working on the last lesson,
which is a hair simulation lesson. How they simulate hair
at Pixar. Well, it uses a mass spring system, which
(14:25):
is Hook's law. Another thing you hit in school. But
most exciting and we're writing right now is year three.
I Picks are in a Box is really the whole
point of it is going to be called the art
of storytelling, so that will be a storytelling curriculum. We
purposely push that one last because I always knew it
would be the hardest one to make work online.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Yeah, you know what that's actually, you know, from from
just my standpoint, that's the one I would really like
to be to see, not because I'm not interested in
an animation or how Pixar does everything, but just from
you know, a writing, storytelling perspective. You know, everybody is
always interested to see how Pixar does what they do.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yes, and we're all so excited about the pressures on
to make sure this is really strong. And the one
hard part is with year one and two. With the
cool thing about Pixar in a Box is it's a
fully interactive, very engaging experience. You're not just watching a
video and doing a test. You are watching a short clip,
(15:29):
then playing with a piece of interactive software you saw
on that clip, and then you follow along video exercize
video exercise. You're participating throughout and creating throughout. So, for example,
with that water simulation lesson, not only are you learning
how they do it, you are making your own particle
simulator along the way. That's easy to kind of conceptualize
(15:49):
in math and science, but in the storytelling world again,
it's very hard to think about online activities you're going
to do in between learning about their storytelling process. So
that's really the challenge is really figuring out, Okay, it
won't be too hard to make really great videos that
communicate how storytelling works at picks are and how the
(16:09):
individual storytellers, what their process is. What will be hard
is the handoff to the user to say, okay, now
it's your turn. Now it's your turn. Because the goal
of our storytelling curriculum is pretty ambitious. It is you
start with nothing, you go through six lessons, and at
the end you have storyboarded your own short. So that's
that's the scope. Is people leave this lesson with a
(16:33):
storyboarded short on paper, and so that's the goal and
that's where we are still working on the steps to
get you there.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
That's absolutely amazing, brit Is that is see you know,
I see a less screenwriting courses online from all different
people and all different places. And the crux of it is,
at the end, you don't really do you know what
I mean? You should be in my opinion, creating something
as you're going you know, even if if it's a treatment,
if it's an outline. That's why when you said it's
(17:03):
going to be a storyboard for your own short, that
is killer. That is key because you should be creating
as you're learning, so you you know what I mean,
Like you learn and create, create and you learn right exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It's it's exciting to hear your excitement and it's got
some goosebumps because I'm like, yes, we got to push
forward on this.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
You could go back to Pixar and be like Dave
Bullis really likes and we'll say who is that? But
uh but uh, you know, I mean it's amazing, what
what what what Pixar is doing? And I wanted to
ask you, but you know, as we talk of Pixar
on a box, you know, how did you become a
producer of Pixar in a Box?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Backing up, I was, well, immediately I was working at
con Academy and and what I was doing there at
the time is thinking of how we could co produce
content with partners. And I dip my feet a little
bit in with NASA the year before where we kind
of looked at all of NASA's content and thought, okay,
(18:02):
what can we do to kind of curate this and
make it work on con Academy so it will just
you know, aligned to standards. And it was, you know,
an interesting linear flow. But the NASA project was really
a curation one looking at what they had and then
and NASA is such a big organization. There's just all
these different departments that make educational content, so it's like
grabbing from a thousand things trying to find the twenty
(18:24):
that work and putting that into a lesson format. That
was like a baby first step in experimenting how we
could work with partners. And then right around that the
time that ended, someone at con Academy kit Heraski used
to work at Pixar, and said, you know, there's someone
at Pixar who's you know, interested in maybe doing something
(18:46):
with us. And at the time, Tony DeRose is the
chief scientist at Pixar, was doing a TED talk and
he has a talk called Math in the Movies, which
is like a one hour talk talking about you know,
what you learn at school is relevant at Pixar, and
he they were working on a physical exhibit the Science
behind Pixar, which is now traveling around the US. I
(19:07):
saw it in Boston last so he had this he
had this one hour talk, which was successful. Then it
became a museum exhibit with a bunch of interactive things
you could do. But then his next vision was, we
wanted to reach more people by creating some sort of
online version of what I'm trying to do in the museum.
And what was really exciting is in that first meeting
(19:28):
when they came in, I was like, yes, I have
to be in that meeting. They didn't have any idea
what they're going to do yet. It was just like,
we know we want to do something online. We know
our guiding principle, but we don't know what the thing
we're putting online is. So it was this opportunity to
work on an exciting project that was a blank slate
from the beginning. And that's and I was like, no
(19:49):
one could stop me at that point, jumping in and
grabbing the reins. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
I mean, because you know, you look at Pixar in
a box.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
And it just looks, you know, so well put together.
There's so many talented people working on that. You know,
has there ever been a challenge we're working on Pixar
in a box that that it's almost beyond sort of
a resources standpoint, or if you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Britt Wait, can you repeat the question just so I'm clear.
When you say resources, what do you mean, like.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Maybe there's not enough people, maybe there's enough time, you know,
just something that maybe like there was an element to
pick her on a box that maybe somebody wanted to
implement but they just couldn't, you know, either through time
or just didn't have enough you know, time or people
to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, it's hard. I mean everything about the project has
been a challenge, but they're all great challenges because the
project is fun. So it started right with a Getting
funding for this project was difficult, but once Disney eventually
funded it, that gave the freedom to actually spend some
time conceptualizing what the lessons would be. And that's that
(21:07):
is where we wasted. I don't want to say wasted,
because it was development. That's where the majority of our
time went. Initially what does this lesson look like? And
we actually just a small group of us rebuilt the
same lesson, which is our environment modeling lesson like four
or five times over and over and over until we
could find a model that worked. So the and the
(21:30):
challenge there is, i Icon Academy, We're about, you know,
producing stuff fast, low quality. It's not about production value.
It's about you know, being clear and being engaging and
being personalized content. Pixar came in needing a very specific
bar to be hit in terms of production values, and
the hard part was finding that middle ground between something
(21:50):
that Pixar thought was visually appealing enough, but con Academy
thought was, you know, fast enough to produce that we
could actually scale this out and not waste all year
one on video And finding that middle ground blending live
action and blending graphics was really hard. But once we
found that middle ground in terms of production, we were
(22:11):
able to crank out the other lessons fairly quickly in
terms of uh lessons I've worked on before, Like, we
really managed to find a system that we could crank
these out.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
And you also, Picture on a Box has a podcasting element,
which I think is a phenomenal idea as well. Mm hmm,
because I think podcasting, you know that it's sure they
can get the you know, there's a video element through
the you know video and audio through the con Academy.
There's there's lessons and then also I mean having that
that audio element so that way, you know, if someone's
out for a walk at the gym, they still put
(22:43):
that on and hear a whole other aspect, you know,
because it's just you know, they're busy doing whatever, but
they're either they can have time to listen.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Totally, and that reminds me that one of the again,
it's just all challenges. Another challenge was who would be
in these videos and would it be one person through
out would it be multiple people? Having multiple people it's
a very tough scheduling problem. Ultimately we went for someone
different in each lesson and ultimately two or three people
and that was very difficult to schedule, but it was
(23:12):
so worth it because it's so nice now to look
at that content and anywhere you dive in, you're going
to meet somebody new and it's very authentic.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
So, you know, as we talk about challenges with Picture
on a Box, you know, what was the biggest challenge
that you've faced and how did you overcome that?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
I think for a moment.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
So well, you know, while you're thinking I'll just you know,
just add you know, I a creative problem solving. You know,
somebody once told me that anybody can write a check,
you know, but the real sort of mark of a
good producer or a good anybody is the creative problem solving.
And it sounds like to me, Britain, that you're full
of creative ideas and full of just genius ways to
(23:56):
sort of figure out problems that don't require you know,
just okay, you know, we'll just you know, here's money.
We'll use it that way. If I think you're a
guy that sort of puts his you know, thinks not
only analytically, but also thinks on different planes about how
we can actually creatively solve problems.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
That helped me think of what it was.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Thank you, rob My ramblings help somebody. I'm glad bright No,
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
In terms. So, one thing was at the time, kon
Academy's exercise platform only allowed certain kinds of questions, right
like from multiple choice to dragging a point around a
grid ordering boxes, the type of questions you do when
you do a math test. But we clearly wanted the
(24:43):
exercises to be very different. We wanted you to actually
be doing things and working on simulated pieces of software
that people that Pixar used. That was my goal, like,
let's look at the software you guys are using and
let's build a stripped down version of that. And we've
done that for things like we have a color correction suite,
we have an animation suite. We have all this stuff,
(25:04):
but it was stripping them down to the very core elements.
So you know, any animation suite has a billion buttons,
takes forever to learn. We had to build an animation
suite that would work within like a minute. So we
stripped everything away except you know, there's keyframes and a
play button and you can do linear interpolation or Bezier interpolation.
(25:24):
What are the functions the essential functions needed to simulate
that software. Then figure out a way to actually make
those simulated environments work on Kon Academy, which is a
whole issue in building that out on the back end.
But coupled to that, the opportunity I saw in that
in working on these very complex interactive exercises is there
(25:46):
was a free thing that came out of it, which
is the graphics we needed in the video which is
I was always worried about, how are we going to
do graphics for two hundred videos. It's so much work,
is and with iteration, it's just a nightmare. Real. I
put a stake in the ground and said, all the
graphics in all our videos will be screen captures of
(26:07):
the exercises. So the pieces of software we build that
you get to play with going through the exercises, that's
the visuals you see in the video about ninety five percent.
There's some other ones you have to make on top
of it. But it was really great because it meant
there was a ton of legwork to build the software
for the interactive exercises that are really fun and visually appealing.
(26:27):
But then when it came to video production, it was
really just a matter of cutting together a live action
shoot with screen grabs from an exercise and then boom,
it just eliminated a whole job of having a full
time graphics person.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, and that see, that's that amazing creative problem solving.
I was talking about you seem like a guy, Britt, Well, actually,
I know you're a guy who can just think on
the fly like that and just sort of you know,
even when you're in brainstorming sessions, you know, because I
think with projects like Pixel in a Box, I could
see a lot of sort of you know, obstacles and
(27:01):
just that you're just both creatively financially like you said,
you know, you know Disney had to finance it, and
you know, and just just I think, you know, having
those that creative ability at so much that it's almost
you know, it's unquantifiable, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
I think, I like my definition of creativity is ability
to deal with unknowns. That's my working definition of what
a creative person is. It's it's not even like are
you a great writer? It's can you deal with unknowns?
And do you do you embrace unknowns? So this project
was great. It was all unknowns, but the driving force
(27:35):
was that vision of what it will be at the
end was so strong that it was like this this
project was me saying, I'm sending back to my twelve
year old self because I remember, like anyone, when the
first time you see toy story, everyone has a story
about that. I was in grade eight toy Story came out.
I told my teacher we got to do animation, and
he's like, we don't even know where to start, and
(27:56):
I remember going to buy three D movie Maker, which
is a really old three dmodeling program, great, great software,
and like convince my teacher to buy it, and you
put it on all the computers. But then there's a
question of like, now what do we do, and that
whole headache of a year with toy story and trying
to integrate it into the classroom, like regurgitated. When I
had this Pixar meeting, and I'm like, here's the chance
(28:17):
to actually do something that is fully aligned to those
films that inspire kids. So that having that end goal
allows you to just blow through all the challenges because
you're just like you know where you're headed.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
You know, I really like that definition of creativity. So
so your definition of creativity is how you deal with unknowns, I.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Would say, a billet, sorry to cut you off. The
definition would be the ability to deal with unknowns, the
ability to deal with unknowns.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
So let's just say we're you know, we're writing, you know, Britt,
and you know, as we were writing, so we're sort
of putting pieces of a puzzle together, you know, you know,
both both consciously and subconsciously. You know, we're trying you know,
we're trying to fit all this together. Do you think that,
you know, maybe creativity is sort of as we're going
(29:08):
actually writing in that moment and just things are coming
up naturally, you know, do you think that would probably
be like the purest form of creativity.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah, because at every step it's like there's a branching effect.
At every step there's a multiple options, which is a
branch of things, and then each option leads to other options,
and it just branches out so quickly. There's so many
avenues you can go down, and you can't be intimidated
by that. So like one thing some people might do,
(29:38):
I'm just trying to make this up. Let's just imagine
a hypothetical person who isn't quote unquote creative, which is silly.
They might have an idea and then stick to that
just because they had a new idea that was connected
to that. And if you change the new idea, then
I'd have to go back to the old idea. And
if your seven ideas deep, it's so scary to go
back and rip it up and rebuild and rebuild and rebuild.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
But if you're not afraid of those unknowns and how
those unknowns connect to each other, I would say if
there was this other quote unquote creative person, they would
be more than willing. And they even enjoy that process
of breaking it down and starting again and again and again.
And like you say, I like that puzzle analogy, I
guess yeah, they would enjoy rearranging the pieces again and
(30:32):
again and again to see how they fit together.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
You know, when you're talking about branching out, you know,
that's something that I've seen too. You know, when you're writing,
you have a lot of you know, options, you know
what I mean, and you sort of go, well, okay,
I can go option A, but if I or I
can go option B, and then they sort of have
their own sub branches, you know, and then sort of
there's a there's a phrase that I hope I remember correctly.
I think it's called decision fatigue, where eventually you get
(30:59):
so tired becau you're like, okay, well if I choose
a you know, let's just say a two like branching,
and and you know, and this is this is I mean,
whether we're coding or whether's screenwriting. You know, I mean,
you know, we're we're always sort of whether either way.
You know, there's I think there's a lot of overlay.
But if you choose like option A, for instance, and
you say, okay, we have two branches, I can go
(31:19):
A one or a two. If I choose A two,
well that makes that changes everything else I already did.
But if I choose B two, you know, and I
think eventually I think as we're writing, I think a
lot of times decision fatigue causes us to stop more
than you know what I mean. I think it causes
us to go, oh geez. But if I did this,
you know what I mean, where you're sort of sitting
(31:41):
there going, oh, man, what should I do next? I
don't know, man. And I think that's when people sort
of go online just sort of trying to figure it out,
you know what I mean. I think they have to
go all right, let me just check Twitter real quick
and i'll see if I'll see if you know, the
decision comes to me.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
One that's interesting. I like decision fatigue, and that's where
those distractions are nice because you can having to make
decisions for a second and just zone out completely. But
telling me about decision fatigue reminds me of the So
another project I'm working on is my YouTube channel Art
of the Problem, and that's an hour long video series
(32:18):
which explores the origin of modern fields of study and
the way to do that. But my approach to doing
that is looking for an ancient question that humans have
always been solving and follow that question through time because
the question never goes away, just our way of solving
it does. And in writing those episodes, they're definitely the
(32:39):
most difficult thing I've ever done. It's really a process
of trying to rewrite history, and that is something that
I find most draining in the writing process.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
Yeah, the old logic questions. I like that a lot
because there's one question that is you know, I always
go back to whenever I'm writing, and that question is
why just literally w h y question mark? You know,
And it's sort of I think that, you know, that
question has plagued philosophers throughout time and every and every
culture and all of the planet. And I think that
(33:13):
you know, why why question mark? If you could sort
of figure out or maybe I shouldn't be use term
figured it out, if you can sort of create an
answer to that question, it will be your answer. But
it's like you just said, it's sort of like the
you know what, everyone's going to have a different answer
(33:34):
to that, and how people have answered it throughout time totally.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
That's really fascinating when you think about things through the
lens of what is the driving question? And again that's
exactly what I do with the problem. It's a great
way to look at the world. And what you do
find is it's amazing how the same question will have
the most like opposing decisions are almost orthogonal to each other.
(34:00):
And then but the answers or the when I say decisions,
I guess I mean solutions. The solutions to problems through
different eras also reflect the era that you're living in,
which is just I find very interesting.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yes, yeah, and you know what, what does a culture
say at that point? You know what, what is the
country going through at that point?
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (34:20):
Because personally, Brett, I think right now in America it's
like a reflash of the seventies, just just culturally economically.
It just feels that way to me. Probably completely wrong,
but uh, I think that's why why cinema is getting
back to that gritty, grind house. You feel, at least
in the independence of the independent side of things. Uh,
you know, and I also you know, just just in general,
(34:42):
I think, you know, I see a lot of parallels.
But but but you know, yeah, I mean, you know,
problem solving and our perspective how we solve those problems,
especially when we're writing a perspective as we go into
the to write. You know, it's it's so important because
I think, you know, when our perspectives we go in,
that affects every decision we make. M hm, yes, So
(35:06):
you know, Brett, So you know, as we're talking about
you know, storytelling, you know, and we're talking about Pixar
in a Box. You know what if somebody was going
to take the course which is on con Academy, if
someone was going to take the course, what's what's one
thing you know you want them to take away from
from the course.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I would say one is. One interesting thing is that
every topic on Pixar in a Box is featured, is
taught by a different host, and the people we got
to teach each lesson are actually the people who work
in that department. So it's a rare case to really
dive in. And if whatever your department you're interested in,
(35:46):
whether it's rendering or whether it's storytelling, you can zoom
in and actually get to meet that person. And we've included,
aside from the lesson itself, which we've tried to make
as gaging as possible, there's getting to know videos, which
I find really valuable. There for a minute video how
what did you do as a kid? How did you
get here? And watching all of those getting to know
(36:09):
videos are I find really fascinating because you see a
lot of parallels. But it also can help you build
a mental model for you know, your own path.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yeah, you know, I I started taking I actually watched
the intro video and I was looking around to with
the different lectures. I like, how I think it's I
think it's labeled Class two or level two. It's much
more detailed and algorithms and computer science and you know
sort of you know, the real real like atom level,
uh of how things are actually created Pixar, And the
(36:41):
first level was actually getting you know, getting an intro class.
You know, you're seeing how, you know, all these things happen,
and you're you're sort of you know, seeing how on
the on the on the surface, you know how things
are created too.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Oh, you just reminded me of the the The challenge
with Pixar in a Box we faced was just that
what level of difficulty would these lessons be? And we
batted that around a lot, like if we're getting into math,
when do you get into the math? And we finally
landed on a model where we would break every topic
into two pieces, and lesson one would be all about
(37:16):
getting you comfortable with a process or a tool that
they use. So with animation, you get you actually use
a keyframe editor and you learn how to make an animated,
realistic bouncing ball. And then it's the second lesson where
we peel back the layer of the onion one layer
and we show you how those tools work. And that
division was really important because there's a lot of people
(37:38):
who actually don't maybe care how the tools work, They
just want to see what the tools are. So with
this model we were able to appease both crowds, and
I'm really happy we did that because every lesson one
on Pixar in a Box and every topic you don't
have to be worried about, Like rendering might sound really scary,
but guess what. Our rendering lesson doesn't require any mathematics,
(37:58):
but the second part does, so you don't have to
worry about dipping your feet in anywhere.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
So and that's great. I'm glad I can remind you,
by the way, brand I'm glad again my my ramblings
help somebody out. But but you know, you know, when
I saw Pixar on a Box, I mean, it's just phenomenal.
And you know, do you have an anticipation date an
anticipated date of when you know the whole storytelling part
of Pixar a Box will be.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Up in twenty seventeen. We'll start rolling it out. We'll
do it sequentially, so there'll be six lessons in that
storytelling unit and by the end of February we will
be rolling out our first one and then that'll roll
into the summer. So by September next year, that whole
(38:45):
storytelling curriculum will be finished.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
That is That is amazing, Brett. You know, and I'm
going to link to Pixar on a Box in the
show notes again. It's on con Academy. And you know
con Academy is an is an open source worst online
Uh what is is Is it classified as an moc
brit No.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
It's not classified as a mook because you know, mooks
are all about creating packaged courses you can take, where
kon Academy is really trying to be there to help
you with the concept you need so you can fill
in the gap you need on whatever journey you're on.
So it you know, it's a resource, a free resource
that spans many many concepts, and it's designed so that
(39:30):
you can you know, jump in and out to get
the thing you need that you need help with, versus
you know, a collection of packaged courses like like you
see on the mooks. So it's different in that way.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
So, Britt, you know, just out of curiosity, do you
ever think that these online classes are basically going to
replace colleges.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
I don't think they'll replace colleges. I just think colleges
will evolve, you.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Know, I I've you know, I actually used to work
at a college and a lot of some of the
profet as we're actually talking about the mocs and basically
you know, what they thought of them.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
And we'll be right back after a word from our
sponsor and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
I think the bigger colleges, like you know, the IVY
leagues will never have to worry about anything, you know,
no matter what I think, if if they're not actually
teaching education, they'll be a there'll be a glorified summer camp,
you know what I mean. I don't think if college,
if those colleges like Harvard, Yale, Prison, if they adapt correctly,
which they will because they usually have incredibly smart people,
(40:36):
you know, running them, I think they'll that's what will happen.
They'll if they're not teaching education, they'll be you know,
sort of like almost like a hedge fund, or or
they'll they'll be like a you know, a glorified summer camp.
You'll go there for a summer, have fun or whatever.
I don't know, because I mean, I'm always interested about
the future of education and the place of college. You know,
(40:58):
It's always interesting to I mean to me, honestly, I
think the some people flourish at college, and there's others
like myself, who struggled a lot in college, and I
kind of looked back, Britt and I kind of don't
really think my college education was really worth the cost,
if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
I feel the same way. And I think that basically
with free online education, what you can do is really
raise the bar of what's expected of students when you
enter school, and then you can focus less on making
sure you know X, Y and Z and more on
the collaborative nature of school and the project based learning
(41:40):
that goes on in school, which when I look back, yeah,
a lot of the information I sat through I just
could have learned online. But there were a few very
specific things I do remember, and everything I remember that
was valuable going back to high school were the collaborative things.
So drama in high school biggest learning experience putting on
place for me. And then in school I studied engineering.
(42:03):
You know, it was working with a group of people
to make a robot that could play the drums. And
it's it's in those collaborative environments that real learning happens.
So I don't think that's going to go away, and
and I think the colleges will learn that and they'll
just go more in that direction and less in you know,
lectures maybe could be replaced with something else. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
I also think micro master is going to become big.
I see a lot of it, like on Edax and Corsia,
you know, just about creating a micro master's course, and
you know, I'm seeing that more and more but you know,
it's just but I'm glad you feel that way too, Bretta,
because you're an incredibly intelligent guy. So you know, there's
a there's a guy. There's a book that I read.
It was called one hundred or fifty or one hundred
(42:45):
Alternatives to College, written by a guy named James Altacher.
And I got to talk to James probably about a
year ago and not a lot for the podcasting. He
actually said the same thing. He actually got out of
college with a degree and they had to send him
somewhere else at how to code, even though his degree
was in computer science, and they said, you know, hey,
you know we're going to send you this boot camp.
We're going to do all this and that, and finally
(43:07):
he said, you know, what the hell was it worth?
He said, I spent all this money going to college
and I get bumped out and all of a sudden,
you know, we can't I can't even code. I mean,
what was the point of all that?
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Yeah, I can relate. That was kind of the same way.
It's sad.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Yeah, I mean, and my former college I actually used
to teach multimedia classes because they the teachers that got
hired to teach them didn't know how to do anything.
And I mean that with all sincerity, but they literally
one guy actually came to me and said, hey, Dave,
I haven't picked up a camera in fifteen years, and
they want me to teach the video the Introduction to
(43:41):
Video Production class. So I had to sit down with
him and I said, okay, so we're going to be
shooting for an SD card. We were using the Panasonic
HMC one F and I hit record on the camera
and I said, now when I hit it again, it's
going to create. It's going to start and stop that
file and that's its own digital file. And he says, whoa.
He was Dave, wait a minute, you're going way too fast. Yeah,
(44:03):
and I said, what I said, you're going to be
teaching the course and and this is too fast.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
He had.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
His idea was he could stay one step ahead of
the students by training with me. That was his secret plan.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
And it's only going to the speed only increases with
time on it, with technology, So it's a losing race.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Yeah, it really is. I mean, the thing I mean
that was his I mean because I think if he
was trying to get, you know, his head wrap around
the cameras and it's just you know, I, you know,
I'm so glad I don't teach them anymore or do
anything there anymore. But but that that.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Was the sign.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
I think colleges like that are going to go under
I think all of these small private colleges that are
that live and breathe through having one hundred percent enrollment
are just going to all go under that.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Again. When I graduated, I did a computer science degree
at McGill. I again struggled through the whole thing, and
then I said, it was so painful that I started
a YouTube channel to just try to recommunicate what I
had learned and I had. I'm still doing that to
this day, and it's been very cathartic to you know,
(45:12):
spend months struggling on a video that was connected to
months prior that struggling in school, and then recommunicated in
an eight minute video that then people say, ah, you
open my eyes. You made that clear for me. And
I'll hear from people who either finish school and are
still watching those videos because they it feels good to
(45:33):
have something clarified. But I'll also hear from people who
haven't yet gone to university and we'll watch one of
the Art of the Problem series and say like that
has changed my worldview. Now I'm going to school knowing
what I want to learn, and that makes me very
happy because when I went to school, I didn't know anything.
I didn't know where I was going, I didn't have
a firm grounding, and it's very sad that it wasn't
(45:55):
ntil after school and communicating it back on YouTube that
I fully absorb the lessons I was supposed to learn
in school.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
See, and that that's invaluable. I think that's why a
lot of the times those online classes are are You know,
if I was if I was a high school senior
right now, that's all I would be doing. Would was
would be doing online classes right now?
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Oh man, It's just a different world now, and the
quality is increasing so quickly. Just five or six years
ago on YouTube, if you were trying to learn, there
was not a lot out there. Now if you search anything,
not only is it there, but there's probably six or
seven versions of it, and the top version is probably
really well produced. So things are trending in the right
(46:36):
direction when it comes to finding online resources big time.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
And also you can get the I just downloaded Unreal
Engine four and it actually is the whole engine you
can use to actually build video games, and it's one
hundred percent free.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
And legit, that's so cool. That's a rabbit hole. I'd
be scared to go down, but sounds very interesting.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Yeah, I wanted to make my own little first person shooter,
just something very small and fun and just have a laugh.
And then that is something. I mean, I have so
many film projects I want to get done, but I
was like, you know, let me just try this real quick,
and you know, just trying it out. But that but
that is something too. I agree brit that I would
be like a rabbit hole, you know, it would be
hard to get back from, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
Yeah, I've been want I actually think that's great though,
when you're stuck on something to go work on a
totally different project. I have to have three things on
the go. It's the only way I work. But making
a video game has always been in the back of
my mind. But again, I just I know the hours involved,
so I haven't even touched it yet.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
Yeah, it's uh, and from what I've heard, it's just
very time consuming. It's like it's just one of those things.
But there's so many scripts that I want to write
and this and that, and you know, doing this podcast
that sort of keeps up, you know, keeps me busy enough.
But uh, but you know, Britt, you know we've been
talking for just about forty five minutes now, you know,
(47:52):
is there anything sort of inclosing that we hadn't haven't
discussed said that maybe that you wanted to bring up,
or is there anything you wanted to do maybe mentioned
Just to sort of put a period at the end
of the sentence.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
I would just kind of amplify something I've been hearing lately,
which is this is a dawn of a new era
where it is a world Sorry, it's a dont let
me start again. I'm going to amplify something I've already
heard a few times, which is that this is a
new era that will be very friendly for creatives and
(48:26):
people who create online where it's just starting to happen.
Where we were in a world recently where you're either
at the very top of your industry and you're making
a ton of money or you were a nobody and
you made no money. But now people who can have generate,
you know, small audience, whether it's ten thousand, whether it's
one hundred or one thousand, or ten thousand or one
(48:48):
hundred thousand. We're getting into a world where you will
be able to sustain yourself, and with things like the
Internet Creators Guild, which I recommend anyone joining, which just
launched the year. Creatives online are starting to reorganize and
the business models are changing. YouTube's evolving if you're in
(49:08):
the video medium, and I do think if anyone is
either starting now or they started a little while ago,
and you know they're not making any revenue from their art,
I think just stick with it because in about five years,
I think an internet eyeball will be worth the same
as a TV eyeball, and right now they're off by
like two orders of magnitude. So I think we're getting
(49:30):
into a new year where it's very creator friendly and
you can kind of build your own audience from the
bottom up and not have to attach yourself to some
sort of machine to make a living.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
Yeah, I fall into the former. So the ladder camp
nobody who makes no money. That's me. So hopefully, I mean,
you know, hopefully I can I can do something.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
But I mean I would call you that, Britt, because
I mean, you know you're a part of pixel on
a Box. You know, you did out of the Problem,
you know, all all this great stuff, Britt. So I
don't I don't think you're a nobody.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
I think your podcast great and it's it's it's just
amazing to see people who just like plow away at
something and just build it. I think the people building
stuff online now in ten years are going to be
very happy they did it.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
Well. Thank you, Brit.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Awesome. I love it so Brit.
Speaker 4 (50:31):
Where can you find you right online?
Speaker 3 (50:34):
So you know, my website is brick Cruise dot com
and I'm on Twitter and part of the problem. You
can find me on YouTube. That's where I kind of
publish the majority of my videos.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
And I'll link to that in the show notes as well,
everybody I'll look to also Pixar on a Box And
also Brett, I gave you a follow on Twitter, by
the way, and I actually found your Twitter account before
you a couple days ago. I was like, oh, I'm
gonna make sure to follow him, and uh, you see
what we see what he's tweeting, and uh, you tweet.
You tweet a lot of interesting stuff, by the way,
and uh, and I like people like that who tweet,
(51:09):
you know, really cool stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
Right on, I follow you too.
Speaker 4 (51:12):
Okay, cool, thank you, but uh, Britt, I want to
say thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to everything,
uh that you that you come up with. And again
I'm looking very interesting picture on a box season. Uh
was it what we call season three? I guess we're
gonna call it ours?
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Yeah, season three, Well that's internal name, but it's the
storytelling unit.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
I'm really looking forward to that as well. Britt Cruz,
I want to say thank you so much for coming
on and I really do want to wish you the
best for everything.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Thanks so much, Dave. Let's catch up again.
Speaker 4 (51:40):
Oh yeah, anytime you want to come back on, Britt,
please let me know. I'd be more than happy to
have you on. Thank you so much anytime, buddy, Take care, cheers.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot
tv for it slash for four. Thank you so much,
for listening to guys as always, keep on writing no
matter what. I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
Screenwriting dot tv.
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