July 15, 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):
You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the INDIEILM Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight eleven.
Cinema should make You forget You're sitting in a theater,
Roman Polanski.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle podcast, where we show you how to survive
and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
the film biz.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I am your humble.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
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today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
My guest today actually teaches at Conacademy and he's the
producer for Pixar in a an amazing course. It's one
hundred percent free by the way, wink wink. And then
then my guest also teaches computer science. He teaches cryptography.
I mean, brilliant, brilliant guy. With guests Brit Cruz, Hey Britt,
(02:16):
thanks off for coming on the show.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Hey Dave, happy to be speaking with you.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So, you know, brit 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 4 (02:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
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.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
But very soon.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
What I realized early on is the kinds of videos
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
(03:22):
projects in video form. I kind of forced my teachers
to do that, and I I kind of found my
way into explanation style.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Videos really early.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Even though it wasn't my one passion, but it's something
that came up right away.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
You know, you mentioned the film 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
you got their start and you know, in making their
own films totally.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
I remember my setup now was I had two VCRs
for editing and to mix.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Sound in I ran I had. I had an early
computer thanks to my.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
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 mix sound from
the computer.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
And video from the VCRs. And that was my first setup.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Oh that's actually brilliant. That was fun, I mean especially
for I mean because what were you seven or eight
at the time.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Yeah, six seven.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I mean that's a brilliant idea for a kid to
come up with, which explains a lot about you, Britt.
I 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 those 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 5 (04:49):
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
(05:10):
Presario Wave.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Oh gotcha, gotcha?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I mean, did you ever? I mean, do you still
have that computer laying around like somewhere in storage?
Speaker 4 (05:18):
No? No, that one's so gone.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
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, probably the late nineties,
and I remember pulling this thing out and my god,
I look at it and go, how the hell did
(05:41):
I use this thing? It seems so archaic and it's huge,
and I'm like, you know, it's it only uses a
fifty six K.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Modem 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 3 (06:00):
That's a great saying, Bret. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep
that 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 uh, 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
(06:20):
size of these things so like a piece of luggage.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
We had a typewriter too. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
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.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Bread.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
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 4 (06:45):
Yeah, I wish I still had a typer.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
And actually it's a nice way to stay focused.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
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
it's too easy to get distracted with them because of
the Internet.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
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
(07:28):
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 3 (07:39):
So do you just have a flip phone now or
no phone at all?
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I don't I have a landline.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
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 internet 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.
The laptop not so much because the phone, you know,
(08:05):
you're always being You're always at someone's beck and call,
which I think is some days I say to myself, Brett,
I go, you know what if I could take a
vacation and not carry my phone 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 break
(08:28):
from the phone, as say, is something that you know
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 Anti Social, and there's also another
one called I forget what it's called, but it's the
same people who make Anti Social, and basically it just
blocks out certain websites so that way you can't access them.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
And I often just have days where I turned the
Internet off and it's really it really helps.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, it definitely does. And you know, so so Britt,
what is normal day for you look like?
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Like?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
What 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 5 (09:08):
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
(09:29):
bucket all my natural 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
(09:50):
your day is done. I now I have two kids.
Now I don't work past four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
If you're working, we'll be right back after a word
from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
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 3 (10:22):
So it seems to be that, you know, if you
stop working at four, you're so focused on getting it done.
That meaning that there is it's like you have a
window of opportunity, and in that window of opportunity you say, okay,
it's 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
(10:44):
o'clock hits.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
The windows closed exactly.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
So I really cherished those those two to three hour
chunks and all 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 to the coffee shop and work.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
And otherwise, when I'm stuck in an editing hole that
I'm at home in.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
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.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Weeks where you can't even count how many hours you
spent editing. And that happens to me. So it goes
all night.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
So, 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 5 (11:43):
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.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
So I'll go out write.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Something down and I'll have six pages of chicken scratch,
look like a crazy person. But then I'll just leave
that in 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.
(12:19):
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 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
(12:42):
be switching context.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
I wouldn't be on the page.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, you know, the only because I mean, I love
notebooks and writing using an actual pen. The biggest challenge
that I mean I face is trying to get that
writing back into a laptop, you know, I mean, because
now you're transcribing, you know what I mean? And now
I always 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.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
And if you know what 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, structure phase, I stay
(13:29):
on the page.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
So, Brett, what are some of the bigger projects that
you can talk about that you're working on right now?
Speaker 5 (13:37):
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.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
The goal here of this project.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Is to show how the movie making process that Pixar works,
but more specifically, how things that kids are 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
(14:11):
at Pixar. For example, in particle simulations to make water,
they're using Newton's equations from physics. 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.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Year two of Pixar in a Box focused.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
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 is Hook's law.
Another thing you hit in school, but most exciting and
we're writing right now is year three of Pixar in
a Box is really the whole point of it is
(14:49):
going to be called the art of storytelling, so that
will be a storytelling curriculum.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
We purposely push.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
That one last because I always known it would be
the hardest one to make work on line.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
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. Uh not because I'm not interested
in an animation or how Pixar does everything, but just
from a you know, a screenwriting, storytelling perspective, you know,
everybody is always interested to see how Pixar does what
they do.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Yes, and we're all so excited about the pressures on
to make sure.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
This is is really strong.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
And the one 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 then doing a test.
You are watching a short clip, then playing with a
piece of interactive software you saw on that clip, and
then you follow along video efter size video exercise.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
You're participating throughout and creating throughout.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
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 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,
(16:18):
it won't be too hard to make really great videos
that communicate how storytelling works at picks are and how
the 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
(16:40):
at the end you have storyboarded your own short. So
that's the scope is people leave this lesson with a
storyboarded short on paper, and so that's the goal, and
that's where we are still working on the steps to.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Get you there.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
That's absolutely amazing, Brett. That is see you know, I
see a less screenwriting courses online from from all different
people and all different places, and 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 it's
a treatment, if it's an outline. That's why when you
(17:18):
said it's 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 5 (17:29):
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 3 (17:35):
You could go back to Pixar and be like Dave
Bullis really likes it, and they'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 in a box, you know, how did you become
a producer of Pixar.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
In a box.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Backing up, I was, well, immediately, I was working at
con Academy, and what I was doing there at the
time is thinking of how we could co produce content
with partners. And I dipped 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, what
(18:17):
can we do to kind of curate this and make
it work on con Academy. So it was 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
(18:38):
a thousand things trying to find the twenty 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,
(19:00):
interested in maybe doing something 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 they were working on a physical exhibit,
the Science behind Pixar, which is now traveling around the US.
(19:22):
I saw it in Boston last So 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 when they
(19:43):
came in, I was like, yes, I have to be
in that meeting.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
They didn't have any idea what they're going to do yet.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Work on an exciting project.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
That was a blank slate from the beginning, and that's
and I was like, no one could stop me at
that point, jumping in and grabbing the reins.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, I mean, because you know, you look at Pixar
in a Box 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 it's almost
beyond sort of like a resources standpoint, or if you
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Britt, Wait, can you repeat the question just so I'm clear.
When you say resources, what do you mean.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Like maybe there's not enough people, maybe there's not enough time,
you know, just something that maybe like there was an
element to Pixar 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 4 (21:01):
Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
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 is where we wasted.
(21:23):
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 and the challenge there is Icon Academy.
(21:47):
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 specifcific bar to be hit in terms
of production values, and the hard part was finding that
middle ground between something that Pixar thought was visually appealing enough,
(22:09):
but con Academy thought was, you know, fast enough to
produce that we could actually scale this out and not
waste all year on one video. And finding that middle
ground blending live action and blending.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Graphics was really hard.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
But once we found that middle ground in terms of production,
we were able to crank out the other lessons fairly quickly.
In terms of UH lessons I've worked on before, Like
we we really managed to find a system that we
could crank these out.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
And you also, uh, Pixar 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
(22:58):
just still put that on. And here 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.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Listen 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 throughout
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
(23:26):
that was very difficult to schedule, but it was 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 3 (23:37):
So, you know, as you talk about challenges with picture
on a Box, you know, what was the biggest challenge
that you faced and how did you overcome that? I
think for a moment, 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
(23:58):
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 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 do that way.
(24:20):
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 4 (24:30):
That helped me think of what it was.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Thank you problem my ramblings help somebody. I'm Glad Brett. No,
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
In terms.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
So one thing was at the time, kin 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.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
But we clearly wanted the exers size is to be
very different.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
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.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
And we've done that.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
For things like we have a color correction suite, we
have an animation suite. We have all this stuff, but
it was stripping them down to the.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Very core elements.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
So you know, any animation suite has a billion buttons,
it 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. What are the functions the essential functions needed
to simulate that software. Then figure out a way to
(25:46):
actually make those simulated environments work on kN 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 was a free thing that came out of it,
which is the graphics we needed in the video, which
(26:07):
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. I realized
I put a stake in the ground and said, all
the graphics in all our videos will be screen captures
of the exercises.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
So the pieces of software.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
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.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Fun and visually appealing.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
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 3 (26:56):
Yeah, and that s that's that amazing creative problem solving
was talking about you seem like a guy Britt Well, actually,
I know you're a guy who can 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 with projects like Pixel in a Box,
I could see a lot of sort of you know,
obstacles and just just just both creatively financially, like you said,
(27:20):
you know, you know, Disney had to finance it, and
I'm you know, and just just I think, you know,
having those that creative ability add so much that it's
almost you know, it's unquantifiable, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
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
(27:51):
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 sentence 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.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I was in grade eight Toy Story came out.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
I told my teacher we got to do animation, and
he's like, we don't even know where to start. And
I remember going to buy three D movie Maker, which
is a really old three D modeling program, great, great software,
and like, convince my teacher to buy it, and you
put it.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
On all the computers. But then there's a question of like,
now what do we.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
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 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 3 (28:46):
You know, I really like that definition of creativity. So
your definition of creativity is how you deal with unknowns.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
I would say a billet, sorry to cut you off.
The definition would be the ability to deal with unknowns.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
The ability to deal with unknowns. So let's just say
we're you know, we're writing, you know, Brett, 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,
(29:20):
you know, maybe creativity is sort of as we're going
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 5 (29:33):
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,
(29:53):
I'm just trying to make this up. Let's just imagine
a hypothetical person who isn't quote unquote creative, which is silly.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
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.
But if you're not afraid of those unknowns and how
those unknowns connect to each other, I would say if
(30:32):
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
again and again to see how they fit together.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
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
(31:14):
so tired because 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
(31:35):
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
(31:57):
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 could 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 4 (32:10):
See that's interesting.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
I like decision fatigue, and that's where those distractions are nice,
because you can stop having to make.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Decisions for a second and just zone out completely. But
telling me about decision fatigue reminds me of.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
The So another project I'm working on is my YouTube channel,
Art of the Problem, and that's an hour long video
series which explores the origin of modern fields of study.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
And the way to do that.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
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 most difficult thing I've ever done.
It's really a process of trying to rewrite history, and
(33:01):
that is something that I find most draining in the
writing process.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, the the old logic questions. I like that a
lot because, Uh, there's one question that that is, you know,
I always go back to whenever I'm writing, and that
question is why just literally w h y question?
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Mark?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
You know, and it's sort of I think that, as
you know, that question has played philosophers throughout time and
every and every culture and all of the planet. And
I think that you know why why question mark, if
you could sort of figure out or maybe I shouldn't
even use that term figured it out, if you can
sort of create an answer to that question, it will
(33:43):
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 to that, and how people have
answered it throughout.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Time totally, 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
(34:14):
to each other. 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 3 (34:29):
Yes, yeah, and you know what what does a culture
say at that point? You know, what is the country
going through at that point 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 I think that's why
why cinema is getting back to that gritty grind house
(34:51):
you feel at least in the independence of the independent
side of things, you know. And I also just just
in general, I think, you know, I see a lot
of of parallels. But uh 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 to write. You know,
(35:12):
it's it's so important because I think, you know, when
our perspective as we go in, that affects every decision
we make. Mm hmm, yes, So 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
(35:33):
the course, what's what's one thing you know you want
them to take away from from the course.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
I would say one is.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
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 whatever your
department you're interested in, whether it's rendering or whether it's storytelling,
(36:05):
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.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
Videos, which I find really valuable. There for a minute
video what did you do as a kid? How did
you get here?
Speaker 5 (36:22):
And watching all of those getting to know videos I
find really fascinating because you see a lot of parallels.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
But it also can help you build a mental model
for you know, your own path.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Yeah, you know, I started taking I actually watched the
intro video when 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 of
how things are actually created Pixar, and the first level
(36:58):
was actually getting you know, getting an intro plays. 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 5 (37:09):
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
(37:32):
getting you comfortable with a process or a tool that
they use. So with animation, you get you actually use
a key frame 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.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Show you how those tools work.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
And that division was really important because there's a lot
of people 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
(38:13):
any mathematics, but the second part does, so you don't
have to worry about dipping your feet in anywhere.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
So and that's graay. I'm glad I can remind you.
By the way, Bran, I'm glad again my ramblings help
somebody out. But you know, you know, when I saw
Pixar in 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 4 (38:40):
Up in twenty seventeen. We'll start rolling it out.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
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 next year,
that whole storytelling curriculum will be finished.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
That is, that is amazing, Britt. Uh, you know, and
I'm going to link to Pixar on a box in
the show notes. Uh. Again, it's on con Academy and uh,
you know con Academy is an is an open source
online Uh what is is? Is it classified as as
an moc Brit No.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
It's not classified as a mook because you know, mooks
are all about creating packaged courses you can take, where
con 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.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
So it you know, it's.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
A resource, a free resource that spans many many concepts,
and it's designed so that 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.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
So it's different in that way.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
So, Britt, you know, just out of curiosity, do you
ever think that these online classes are basically going to
replace colleges?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
I don't think they'll replace colleges. I just think colleges
will evolve.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I've you know, I actually used to work at a
college and a lot of some of the professors we
are actually talking about the mocs and basically you know,
what they thought of them. And 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 they're not actually teaching education, they'll be a there'll
(40:42):
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, 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
edge fund, or or they'll they'll be like a you know,
(41:03):
a glorified summer camp. You'll go there for summer, have
fun or whatever. I don't know. I mean, I'm always
interested about the future of education and the place of college.
You know, It's always interesting to me. I mean to me, honestly,
I think the some people flourish at college and and
(41:24):
and there's there's others like myself who struggled a lot
in college, and I kind of look 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 4 (41:35):
I feel the same way.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
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 collab collaborative nature of
school and the project based learning that goes on in school,
(41:58):
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. You know, it was
(42:20):
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 3 (42:40):
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 mean, 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 A one hundred or fifty
(43:01):
or one hundred Alternatives to College written by a guy
named James Altacher. And I got to talk to James
probably about a year ago, and not 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 to learn 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,
(43:22):
We're going to do all this and that. And finally
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, I can't even code? I mean, what was
the point of all that?
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Yeah, I can relate. That was kind of the same way.
It's sad.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
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
(43:58):
video production class. So I say down with him, and
I said, okay, so we're going to be shooting to
an SD card. We were using the Panasonic HMC one
and 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, here's Dave.
Wait a minute, you're going way too fast. Yeah, And
(44:19):
I said, what I said, You're going to be teaching
the chorus and and this is too fast.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
He had.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
His idea was he could stay one step ahead of
the students by training with me. That was his secret plan.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
And it's only going to the speed only increases with
time on it, with technology, So it's a losing race.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
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 wrapped around
that cameras and it's just you know, I you know,
I'm so glad I don't teach it anymore or do
anything there anymore. But but that that.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
Was the sign.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
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 5 (45:06):
Again, when I graduated FRO, 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 doing. I'm still
doing that to this day, and it's been very cathartic
(45:27):
to you know, spend months struggling on a video that
was connected to months prior that struggling in school and
then recommunicated in an eight minute.
Speaker 4 (45:38):
Video that then people say, ah, you open my eyes.
You made that clear for me.
Speaker 5 (45:43):
And and I'll hear from people who either finish school
and are still watching those videos because they it feels
good to have something clarified. But I'll also hear from
people who haven't yet gone to university and will 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
(46:04):
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 until after school and communicating it back on
YouTube that I fully absorbed the lessons I was supposed
to learn in school, see.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
And that's in valuable. I think that's why a lot
of the times those online classes are are. You know,
if if I was a high school senior right now,
that's all I would be doing. Would would be doing
online classes right now?
Speaker 5 (46:32):
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
(46:52):
direction when it comes to finding online resources big time.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
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 5 (47:05):
And legit, that's so cool. That's a rabbit hole. I'd
be scared to go down, but sounds very interesting.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah, I wanted to make my own little first person shooter,
just something very small and fun and just to 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 with
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 4 (47:31):
Yeah, I've been wanting.
Speaker 5 (47:32):
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.
Speaker 4 (47:38):
It's the only way I work.
Speaker 5 (47:40):
But making a video games always been in the back
of my mind. But ye again, I just I know
the hours involved, so I haven't even touched it yet.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Yeah, it's uh, and from what I've heard, it's just
very time consuming. It's okay, 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, No, keeps you busy enough.
But but you know, Britt, you know we've been talking
for just about forty five minutes now, you know, is
(48:09):
there anything sort of enclosing that we hadn't haven't discussed
said that maybe that you wanted to bring up, or
is there anything you wanted to maybe mention Just to
sort of put it, Perio.
Speaker 5 (48:18):
At the end of the sentence, 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
(48:40):
be very friendly for creatives and 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 small audience, whether
(49:01):
it's ten thousand, whether it's one hundred or one thousand,
or ten thousand or one 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 this year, creatives online
are starting to reorganize and the business models are changing.
(49:23):
YouTube's evolving if you're in 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.
(49:45):
So I think we're getting 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 2 (50:00):
Right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
back to the show.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
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't. I can do something. But
I mean I would call you that, Britt, because I mean,
you know, you're a part of Picture on the box.
You know, you get out of the problem, you know,
all all this great stuff, Britt, So I don't. I
(50:30):
don't think you're a nobody.
Speaker 5 (50:32):
I think your podcasts 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 3 (50:44):
Well.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
Thank you, Brick awesome. I love it so brit.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Where can you find you online?
Speaker 5 (50:51):
So you know, my website is brick Cruise dot com
and I'm on Twitter and part of the problem.
Speaker 4 (50:58):
You can find me on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
That's where I kind of published the majority of my videos.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
And I'll link to that in the show notes as well.
Everybody I'll look to also Pixar in a Box. And uh. Also, Britt,
I gave you a follow on Twitter, by the way,
and I actually found your Twitter account before you a
couple of days ago. I was like, oh, I'm gonna
make sure to follow him and uh, you see what
We'll see what he's tweeting. And uh, you tweet. You
tweet a lot of interesting stuff, by the way, and
(51:23):
uh and I like people like that who tweet, you know,
really cool stuff.
Speaker 4 (51:27):
Right on. I follow you too.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
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 interested to pick her on a box season.
Uh was it what we call season three? I guess
we're gonna call it ours?
Speaker 5 (51:44):
Yeah, season three, Well that's internal name, but it's the
storytelling unit.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
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 4 (51:55):
Thanks so much, Dave. Let's catch up again.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
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 cheerious.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
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 Indie film huscle
dot com.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
Forward slash eight.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
To eleven, and if you have it already, please head
over to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe and leave a
good review.
Speaker 4 (52:23):
For the show.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
It really helps us out a lot, guys.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Thank you again so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
Guys, as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
E F I L M h U S T l
E dot com.
You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the INDIEILM Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight eleven.
Cinema should make You forget You're sitting in a theater,
Roman Polanski.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle podcast, where we show you how to survive
and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
the film biz.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I am your humble.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
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(01:42):
want to order it, just head over to www dot
filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy
today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
My guest today actually teaches at Conacademy and he's the
producer for Pixar in a an amazing course. It's one
hundred percent free by the way, wink wink. And then
then my guest also teaches computer science. He teaches cryptography.
I mean, brilliant, brilliant guy. With guests Brit Cruz, Hey Britt,
(02:16):
thanks off for coming on the show.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Hey Dave, happy to be speaking with you.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So, you know, brit 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 4 (02:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
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.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
But very soon.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
What I realized early on is the kinds of videos
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
(03:22):
projects in video form. I kind of forced my teachers
to do that, and I I kind of found my
way into explanation style.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Videos really early.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Even though it wasn't my one passion, but it's something
that came up right away.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
You know, you mentioned the film 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
you got their start and you know, in making their
own films totally.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
I remember my setup now was I had two VCRs
for editing and to mix.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Sound in I ran I had. I had an early
computer thanks to my.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
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 mix sound from
the computer.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
And video from the VCRs. And that was my first setup.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Oh that's actually brilliant. That was fun, I mean especially
for I mean because what were you seven or eight
at the time.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Yeah, six seven.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I mean that's a brilliant idea for a kid to
come up with, which explains a lot about you, Britt.
I 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 those 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 5 (04:49):
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
(05:10):
Presario Wave.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Oh gotcha, gotcha?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I mean, did you ever? I mean, do you still
have that computer laying around like somewhere in storage?
Speaker 4 (05:18):
No? No, that one's so gone.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
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, probably the late nineties,
and I remember pulling this thing out and my god,
I look at it and go, how the hell did
(05:41):
I use this thing? It seems so archaic and it's huge,
and I'm like, you know, it's it only uses a
fifty six K.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Modem 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 3 (06:00):
That's a great saying, Bret. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep
that 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 uh, 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
(06:20):
size of these things so like a piece of luggage.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
We had a typewriter too. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
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.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Bread.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
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 4 (06:45):
Yeah, I wish I still had a typer.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
And actually it's a nice way to stay focused.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
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
it's too easy to get distracted with them because of
the Internet.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
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
(07:28):
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 3 (07:39):
So do you just have a flip phone now or
no phone at all?
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I don't I have a landline.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
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 internet 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.
The laptop not so much because the phone, you know,
(08:05):
you're always being You're always at someone's beck and call,
which I think is some days I say to myself, Brett,
I go, you know what if I could take a
vacation and not carry my phone 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 break
(08:28):
from the phone, as say, is something that you know
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 Anti Social, and there's also another
one called I forget what it's called, but it's the
same people who make Anti Social, and basically it just
blocks out certain websites so that way you can't access them.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
And I often just have days where I turned the
Internet off and it's really it really helps.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, it definitely does. And you know, so so Britt,
what is normal day for you look like?
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Like?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
What 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 5 (09:08):
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
(09:29):
bucket all my natural 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
(09:50):
your day is done. I now I have two kids.
Now I don't work past four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
If you're working, we'll be right back after a word
from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
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 3 (10:22):
So it seems to be that, you know, if you
stop working at four, you're so focused on getting it done.
That meaning that there is it's like you have a
window of opportunity, and in that window of opportunity you say, okay,
it's 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
(10:44):
o'clock hits.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
The windows closed exactly.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
So I really cherished those those two to three hour
chunks and all 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 to the coffee shop and work.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
And otherwise, when I'm stuck in an editing hole that
I'm at home in.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
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.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Weeks where you can't even count how many hours you
spent editing. And that happens to me. So it goes
all night.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
So, 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 5 (11:43):
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.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
So I'll go out write.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Something down and I'll have six pages of chicken scratch,
look like a crazy person. But then I'll just leave
that in 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.
(12:19):
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 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
(12:42):
be switching context.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
I wouldn't be on the page.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, you know, the only because I mean, I love
notebooks and writing using an actual pen. The biggest challenge
that I mean I face is trying to get that
writing back into a laptop, you know, I mean, because
now you're transcribing, you know what I mean? And now
I always 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.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
And if you know what 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, structure phase, I stay
(13:29):
on the page.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
So, Brett, what are some of the bigger projects that
you can talk about that you're working on right now?
Speaker 5 (13:37):
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.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
The goal here of this project.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Is to show how the movie making process that Pixar works,
but more specifically, how things that kids are 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
(14:11):
at Pixar. For example, in particle simulations to make water,
they're using Newton's equations from physics. 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.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Year two of Pixar in a Box focused.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
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 is Hook's law.
Another thing you hit in school, but most exciting and
we're writing right now is year three of Pixar in
a Box is really the whole point of it is
(14:49):
going to be called the art of storytelling, so that
will be a storytelling curriculum.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
We purposely push.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
That one last because I always known it would be
the hardest one to make work on line.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
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. Uh not because I'm not interested
in an animation or how Pixar does everything, but just
from a you know, a screenwriting, storytelling perspective, you know,
everybody is always interested to see how Pixar does what
they do.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Yes, and we're all so excited about the pressures on
to make sure.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
This is is really strong.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
And the one 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 then doing a test.
You are watching a short clip, then playing with a
piece of interactive software you saw on that clip, and
then you follow along video efter size video exercise.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
You're participating throughout and creating throughout.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
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 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,
(16:18):
it won't be too hard to make really great videos
that communicate how storytelling works at picks are and how
the 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
(16:40):
at the end you have storyboarded your own short. So
that's the scope is people leave this lesson with a
storyboarded short on paper, and so that's the goal, and
that's where we are still working on the steps to.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Get you there.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
That's absolutely amazing, Brett. That is see you know, I
see a less screenwriting courses online from from all different
people and all different places, and 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 it's
a treatment, if it's an outline. That's why when you
(17:18):
said it's 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 5 (17:29):
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 3 (17:35):
You could go back to Pixar and be like Dave
Bullis really likes it, and they'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 in a box, you know, how did you become
a producer of Pixar.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
In a box.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Backing up, I was, well, immediately, I was working at
con Academy, and what I was doing there at the
time is thinking of how we could co produce content
with partners. And I dipped 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, what
(18:17):
can we do to kind of curate this and make
it work on con Academy. So it was 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
(18:38):
a thousand things trying to find the twenty 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,
(19:00):
interested in maybe doing something 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 they were working on a physical exhibit,
the Science behind Pixar, which is now traveling around the US.
(19:22):
I saw it in Boston last So 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 when they
(19:43):
came in, I was like, yes, I have to be
in that meeting.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
They didn't have any idea what they're going to do yet.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Work on an exciting project.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
That was a blank slate from the beginning, and that's
and I was like, no one could stop me at
that point, jumping in and grabbing the reins.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, I mean, because you know, you look at Pixar
in a Box 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 it's almost
beyond sort of like a resources standpoint, or if you
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Britt, Wait, can you repeat the question just so I'm clear.
When you say resources, what do you mean.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Like maybe there's not enough people, maybe there's not enough time,
you know, just something that maybe like there was an
element to Pixar 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 4 (21:01):
Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
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 is where we wasted.
(21:23):
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 and the challenge there is Icon Academy.
(21:47):
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 specifcific bar to be hit in terms
of production values, and the hard part was finding that
middle ground between something that Pixar thought was visually appealing enough,
(22:09):
but con Academy thought was, you know, fast enough to
produce that we could actually scale this out and not
waste all year on one video. And finding that middle
ground blending live action and blending.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Graphics was really hard.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
But once we found that middle ground in terms of production,
we were able to crank out the other lessons fairly quickly.
In terms of UH lessons I've worked on before, Like
we we really managed to find a system that we
could crank these out.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
And you also, uh, Pixar 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
(22:58):
just still put that on. And here 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.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Listen 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 throughout
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
(23:26):
that was very difficult to schedule, but it was 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 3 (23:37):
So, you know, as you talk about challenges with picture
on a Box, you know, what was the biggest challenge
that you faced and how did you overcome that? I
think for a moment, 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
(23:58):
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 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 do that way.
(24:20):
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 4 (24:30):
That helped me think of what it was.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Thank you problem my ramblings help somebody. I'm Glad Brett. No,
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
In terms.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
So one thing was at the time, kin 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.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
But we clearly wanted the exers size is to be
very different.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
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.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
And we've done that.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
For things like we have a color correction suite, we
have an animation suite. We have all this stuff, but
it was stripping them down to the.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Very core elements.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
So you know, any animation suite has a billion buttons,
it 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. What are the functions the essential functions needed
to simulate that software. Then figure out a way to
(25:46):
actually make those simulated environments work on kN 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 was a free thing that came out of it,
which is the graphics we needed in the video, which
(26:07):
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. I realized
I put a stake in the ground and said, all
the graphics in all our videos will be screen captures
of the exercises.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
So the pieces of software.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
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.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Fun and visually appealing.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
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 3 (26:56):
Yeah, and that s that's that amazing creative problem solving
was talking about you seem like a guy Britt Well, actually,
I know you're a guy who can 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 with projects like Pixel in a Box,
I could see a lot of sort of you know,
obstacles and just just just both creatively financially, like you said,
(27:20):
you know, you know, Disney had to finance it, and
I'm you know, and just just I think, you know,
having those that creative ability add so much that it's
almost you know, it's unquantifiable, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
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
(27:51):
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 sentence 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.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I was in grade eight Toy Story came out.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
I told my teacher we got to do animation, and
he's like, we don't even know where to start. And
I remember going to buy three D movie Maker, which
is a really old three D modeling program, great, great software,
and like, convince my teacher to buy it, and you
put it.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
On all the computers. But then there's a question of like,
now what do we.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
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 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 3 (28:46):
You know, I really like that definition of creativity. So
your definition of creativity is how you deal with unknowns.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
I would say a billet, sorry to cut you off.
The definition would be the ability to deal with unknowns.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
The ability to deal with unknowns. So let's just say
we're you know, we're writing, you know, Brett, 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,
(29:20):
you know, maybe creativity is sort of as we're going
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 5 (29:33):
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,
(29:53):
I'm just trying to make this up. Let's just imagine
a hypothetical person who isn't quote unquote creative, which is silly.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
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.
But if you're not afraid of those unknowns and how
those unknowns connect to each other, I would say if
(30:32):
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
again and again to see how they fit together.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
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
(31:14):
so tired because 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
(31:35):
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
(31:57):
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 could 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 4 (32:10):
See that's interesting.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
I like decision fatigue, and that's where those distractions are nice,
because you can stop having to make.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Decisions for a second and just zone out completely. But
telling me about decision fatigue reminds me of.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
The So another project I'm working on is my YouTube channel,
Art of the Problem, and that's an hour long video
series which explores the origin of modern fields of study.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
And the way to do that.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
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 most difficult thing I've ever done.
It's really a process of trying to rewrite history, and
(33:01):
that is something that I find most draining in the
writing process.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, the the old logic questions. I like that a
lot because, Uh, there's one question that that is, you know,
I always go back to whenever I'm writing, and that
question is why just literally w h y question?
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Mark?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
You know, and it's sort of I think that, as
you know, that question has played philosophers throughout time and
every and every culture and all of the planet. And
I think that you know why why question mark, if
you could sort of figure out or maybe I shouldn't
even use that term figured it out, if you can
sort of create an answer to that question, it will
(33:43):
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 to that, and how people have
answered it throughout.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Time totally, 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
(34:14):
to each other. 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 3 (34:29):
Yes, yeah, and you know what what does a culture
say at that point? You know, what is the country
going through at that point 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 I think that's why
why cinema is getting back to that gritty grind house
(34:51):
you feel at least in the independence of the independent
side of things, you know. And I also just just
in general, I think, you know, I see a lot
of of parallels. But uh 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 to write. You know,
(35:12):
it's it's so important because I think, you know, when
our perspective as we go in, that affects every decision
we make. Mm hmm, yes, So 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
(35:33):
the course, what's what's one thing you know you want
them to take away from from the course.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
I would say one is.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
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 whatever your
department you're interested in, whether it's rendering or whether it's storytelling,
(36:05):
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.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
Videos, which I find really valuable. There for a minute
video what did you do as a kid? How did
you get here?
Speaker 5 (36:22):
And watching all of those getting to know videos I
find really fascinating because you see a lot of parallels.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
But it also can help you build a mental model
for you know, your own path.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Yeah, you know, I started taking I actually watched the
intro video when 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 of
how things are actually created Pixar, and the first level
(36:58):
was actually getting you know, getting an intro plays. 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 5 (37:09):
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
(37:32):
getting you comfortable with a process or a tool that
they use. So with animation, you get you actually use
a key frame 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.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Show you how those tools work.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
And that division was really important because there's a lot
of people 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
(38:13):
any mathematics, but the second part does, so you don't
have to worry about dipping your feet in anywhere.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
So and that's graay. I'm glad I can remind you.
By the way, Bran, I'm glad again my ramblings help
somebody out. But you know, you know, when I saw
Pixar in 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 4 (38:40):
Up in twenty seventeen. We'll start rolling it out.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
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 next year,
that whole storytelling curriculum will be finished.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
That is, that is amazing, Britt. Uh, you know, and
I'm going to link to Pixar on a box in
the show notes. Uh. Again, it's on con Academy and uh,
you know con Academy is an is an open source
online Uh what is is? Is it classified as as
an moc Brit No.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
It's not classified as a mook because you know, mooks
are all about creating packaged courses you can take, where
con 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.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
So it you know, it's.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
A resource, a free resource that spans many many concepts,
and it's designed so that 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.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
So it's different in that way.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
So, Britt, you know, just out of curiosity, do you
ever think that these online classes are basically going to
replace colleges?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
I don't think they'll replace colleges. I just think colleges
will evolve.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I've you know, I actually used to work at a
college and a lot of some of the professors we
are actually talking about the mocs and basically you know,
what they thought of them. And 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 they're not actually teaching education, they'll be a there'll
(40:42):
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, 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
edge fund, or or they'll they'll be like a you know,
(41:03):
a glorified summer camp. You'll go there for summer, have
fun or whatever. I don't know. I mean, I'm always
interested about the future of education and the place of college.
You know, It's always interesting to me. I mean to me, honestly,
I think the some people flourish at college and and
(41:24):
and there's there's others like myself who struggled a lot
in college, and I kind of look 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 4 (41:35):
I feel the same way.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
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 collab collaborative nature of
school and the project based learning that goes on in school,
(41:58):
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. You know, it was
(42:20):
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 3 (42:40):
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 mean, 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 A one hundred or fifty
(43:01):
or one hundred Alternatives to College written by a guy
named James Altacher. And I got to talk to James
probably about a year ago, and not 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 to learn 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,
(43:22):
We're going to do all this and that. And finally
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, I can't even code? I mean, what was
the point of all that?
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Yeah, I can relate. That was kind of the same way.
It's sad.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
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
(43:58):
video production class. So I say down with him, and
I said, okay, so we're going to be shooting to
an SD card. We were using the Panasonic HMC one
and 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, here's Dave.
Wait a minute, you're going way too fast. Yeah, And
(44:19):
I said, what I said, You're going to be teaching
the chorus and and this is too fast.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
He had.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
His idea was he could stay one step ahead of
the students by training with me. That was his secret plan.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
And it's only going to the speed only increases with
time on it, with technology, So it's a losing race.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
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 wrapped around
that cameras and it's just you know, I you know,
I'm so glad I don't teach it anymore or do
anything there anymore. But but that that.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
Was the sign.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
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 5 (45:06):
Again, when I graduated FRO, 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 doing. I'm still
doing that to this day, and it's been very cathartic
(45:27):
to you know, spend months struggling on a video that
was connected to months prior that struggling in school and
then recommunicated in an eight minute.
Speaker 4 (45:38):
Video that then people say, ah, you open my eyes.
You made that clear for me.
Speaker 5 (45:43):
And and I'll hear from people who either finish school
and are still watching those videos because they it feels
good to have something clarified. But I'll also hear from
people who haven't yet gone to university and will 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
(46:04):
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 until after school and communicating it back on
YouTube that I fully absorbed the lessons I was supposed
to learn in school, see.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
And that's in valuable. I think that's why a lot
of the times those online classes are are. You know,
if if I was a high school senior right now,
that's all I would be doing. Would would be doing
online classes right now?
Speaker 5 (46:32):
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
(46:52):
direction when it comes to finding online resources big time.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
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 5 (47:05):
And legit, that's so cool. That's a rabbit hole. I'd
be scared to go down, but sounds very interesting.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah, I wanted to make my own little first person shooter,
just something very small and fun and just to 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 with
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 4 (47:31):
Yeah, I've been wanting.
Speaker 5 (47:32):
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.
Speaker 4 (47:38):
It's the only way I work.
Speaker 5 (47:40):
But making a video games always been in the back
of my mind. But ye again, I just I know
the hours involved, so I haven't even touched it yet.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Yeah, it's uh, and from what I've heard, it's just
very time consuming. It's okay, 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, No, keeps you busy enough.
But but you know, Britt, you know we've been talking
for just about forty five minutes now, you know, is
(48:09):
there anything sort of enclosing that we hadn't haven't discussed
said that maybe that you wanted to bring up, or
is there anything you wanted to maybe mention Just to
sort of put it, Perio.
Speaker 5 (48:18):
At the end of the sentence, 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
(48:40):
be very friendly for creatives and 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 small audience, whether
(49:01):
it's ten thousand, whether it's one hundred or one thousand,
or ten thousand or one 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 this year, creatives online
are starting to reorganize and the business models are changing.
(49:23):
YouTube's evolving if you're in 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.
(49:45):
So I think we're getting 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 2 (50:00):
Right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
back to the show.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
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't. I can do something. But
I mean I would call you that, Britt, because I mean,
you know, you're a part of Picture on the box.
You know, you get out of the problem, you know,
all all this great stuff, Britt, So I don't. I
(50:30):
don't think you're a nobody.
Speaker 5 (50:32):
I think your podcasts 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 3 (50:44):
Well.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
Thank you, Brick awesome. I love it so brit.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Where can you find you online?
Speaker 5 (50:51):
So you know, my website is brick Cruise dot com
and I'm on Twitter and part of the problem.
Speaker 4 (50:58):
You can find me on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
That's where I kind of published the majority of my videos.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
And I'll link to that in the show notes as well.
Everybody I'll look to also Pixar in a Box. And uh. Also, Britt,
I gave you a follow on Twitter, by the way,
and I actually found your Twitter account before you a
couple of days ago. I was like, oh, I'm gonna
make sure to follow him and uh, you see what
We'll see what he's tweeting. And uh, you tweet. You
tweet a lot of interesting stuff, by the way, and
(51:23):
uh and I like people like that who tweet, you know,
really cool stuff.
Speaker 4 (51:27):
Right on. I follow you too.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
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 interested to pick her on a box season.
Uh was it what we call season three? I guess
we're gonna call it ours?
Speaker 5 (51:44):
Yeah, season three, Well that's internal name, but it's the
storytelling unit.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
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 4 (51:55):
Thanks so much, Dave. Let's catch up again.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
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 cheerious.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
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 Indie film huscle
dot com.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
Forward slash eight.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
To eleven, and if you have it already, please head
over to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe and leave a
good review.
Speaker 4 (52:23):
For the show.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
It really helps us out a lot, guys.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Thank you again so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
Guys, as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
E F I L M h U S T l
E dot com.
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