WEBVTT - A Chat With Robin Schmidt 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.360 The coin Bureau Podcast is a production of My Heart Radio. 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:07.120 The metas should be a social experience, So if people 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.319 can't come and join in when we're doing stuff, then 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:12.080 it kind of falls down. If it's just a recording 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.800 of an event, No, well it's okay, But like we 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.439 need to do events where people can be part of it, participate, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.200 win prizes, you know, all of that kind of stuff. 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.120 So we have to figure out a lot. Yeah, it's 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:38.000 quite hard work, it sounds it. Welcome everyone to the 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.040 coin Bureau Podcast. My name is Guy and I have 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.320 a very special guest with me today. Now you may 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.280 have heard me in the past mentioned one of my 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.840 favorite YouTube channels of all, the Defiant, and we are 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:56.040 very lucky to have today Robin Schmidt, the man, the 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:02.640 face behind the Defiant. Robin is a content creator extraordinaire. 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:04.720 The work that he has done not only with The 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.720 Defiant but is now moving on to do elsewhere is 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.840 just incredible and very lucky to have him on the 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:14.600 line today. So Robin, thank you so much for joining us. 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.039 Oh that's a very very kind I mean, you probably 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:22.840 the face behind in front of something, but really taught you. 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.160 I'm the Assine which which I'm also fine because I 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:28.280 really did mess about and everything else. But I mean, 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:30.880 I would like to say that, um, from one content 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.120 credit to another, like what you've managed to accomplish with 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.240 Combia is impressive. I couldn't do what you do and 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.160 I couldn't do it the way that you do it. UM, 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:42.200 So you know, admiration is mutually my friend. Thank you. Well, 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.000 I mean right back at you as well, because I 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.960 remember we've we're we're all big fans of of of 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:50.080 the work that you do here. And I remember we've 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.360 watched so many of your videos and just gone, how 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:57.160 are they doing that? That's extraordinary? And you know obviously 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.080 because I think, well we'll talk about this in a 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.640 moment hopefully, but you have, UM, you have a filmmaking background. 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:04.920 That's been your Is it safe to say that's been 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.880 your whole career? Yeah, no, that's very safe to say. 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:13.800 For twenty three years. I think film has been the 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:15.480 love of my life. It was the thing I grew 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:17.600 up on and it was the thing that I thought 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.480 wasn't for me when I was growing up because I 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:24.120 was a musician. Originally I played the violin, the piano, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.720 I led orchestras, and I was a singer of chorister 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.200 in Westminster Cathedral, one of the foremost boys choirs in 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.000 the world. So that was the training that I had. 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.360 And then around about the age of sixteen seventeen, I 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:37.840 realized that I just had enough of it. I've been 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:42.200 performing in front of audiences up until that point, and 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.880 I just hadn't ever met a girl, and I hadn't 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:47.960 done sports and all these things that were just like, 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.400 I want to do that. And I also realized that 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:52.919 like the world of classical music was just not where 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.560 I wanted to go, and the film just seemed completely remote. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:57.560 It seemed the thing that other people did, very expensive, 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.280 very difficult to break into. But it just the thing 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.240 that I was determined I was going to get into. 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.919 And basically I became a content creator using the same 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.600 tools and things that people use now. Just back in 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.200 the days when it was Mac cos nine and you 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.600 had a little DV camcorder that you plug into an 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.560 iMac and that was how you record video. But fast 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:19.840 forward to where we are now, and yeah, I've spent 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.840 a long time looking at stuff through a lens and 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.680 then editing it in such a way as to make 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:27.799 it entertaining, so you pick up a few tricks along 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.240 the way, that's for sure. Yeah, and and so how 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:33.240 did you how did you kind of make the move 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:37.040 from from filmmaking, How did you how did you discover crypto? 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.200 How did you get to the defiance as it were? 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.600 It's a really sad story, right. There's there's this phrase 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:49.280 which is nothing is more destructive than mediocrity. And I 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:50.680 know it's kind of a weird thing to say, but 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.080 like I was moderately successful for most of my career. 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:56.720 You get these little moments where you're like, I'm about 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.680 to break out and I'm about to be successful. And 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.840 I never maximized those moments for various different reasons. I 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.320 think one of it was a little bit to do 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:07.960 with fear not trusting that I was good enough because 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:09.600 the thing, like I said, I think I'm really really 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.360 good at his music, but I don't do music. And 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.320 it's weird because that's the thing that I naturally am 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.080 the best at, but I don't do it. I do 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:21.400 film instead. So there's always been this feeling of imposter 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.040 syndrome when it comes to film, that it's someone else 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:25.839 is much better than me, and I'm simply meaning on 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.200 this thing that I had and using it for film. 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.960 And so all these little kind of periods in my 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.640 life where I won awards and I started to get openings, 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.800 you know, into bigger productions everything else, I kind of 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.480 fudged them. The last one I had was about ten 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.720 years ago where we suddenly blew up went viral and 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.279 we were making silly music video skits around the plot 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.200 of east Enders. So we take the plot of east 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.600 Enders that week and then in like turn into a 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.240 rap song, shoot the rap video, but do it like 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.160 to make it look like the original, so we do 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.080 like pop it like it's heart and it'd be and 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.280 why being a studio and like, but it was the 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.200 plot of EastEnders, and we got featured on radio while 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.359 we got featured on Fern Cotton if you know Fern Cotton, 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.919 Ferns the one um. But playing music videos on the 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.520 radio is so bizarre. And Saturday of this blew up. 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.880 But I just had my first child. I'd also just 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.599 shot a feature film, and so my wife was like, 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:23.840 it's time for you to kind of be a dad 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:25.839 and a husband and like probably be at home. So 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.800 I just kind of stopped and I moved to Holland 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.520 with my wife, and I was doing really well as 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:35.640 a commercials director. But I was shooting vacuum cleaners and 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.760 coffee cups and like plenty of budget everything else. But 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.520 I was just so bored and starting to really get 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.200 to that point where like you reached a certain age 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.279 and like I should be more successful than this. I 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:50.160 believe I'm better than this. What has gone wrong? And 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:52.600 I was just poor, broke and just trying to figure 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:54.880 out what to do in my life. And I was like, well, 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:56.480 what I need to do is I need to completely 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:01.120 reinvent myself and shoot a completely new bunch of work 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:04.640 because the word that I've done but previously doesn't represent me. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:06.480 It's not honest, and I need to show what I 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.240 can do. But problem is, filmmaking is expensive. So I 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.440 thought I need to find a way to solve the 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.320 problem of money, because I thought not having any money 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.480 was my problem. What I have come to realize through 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.120 crypto is that money itself is the problem. But that's 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.760 a whole other story. But it was just a random 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.560 discussion with my boss on the way down to a 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.200 shoot in Belgium where he was talking about this cryptocurrency 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:31.240 the board. He was like, oh my god, look it's gone. 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.040 Whoa Jesus. I was like, cryptocurrency? What is that? And 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.240 then then that was early two thousand and seventeen, that 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.320 cryptocurrency was eight and he was basically able to pay 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:41.919 off his entire mortgage. And I was like, well that 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.279 sounds like fun. Let's see what this is all about. 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.520 Fell down the rabbit hole of that and just kind 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.400 of looked at it and said this, this entire industry 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:55.359 is It is about storytelling. Everything is a story that 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.320 one person tells another in this very kind of linear fashion. 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.120 It's oral storytelling. Someone on Twitter says, oh, this is 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:04.320 going to go up, this is going to do this, 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.200 and everyone just buys it or figures out their own 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.600 version of that story, or they tell themselves the story, 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.240 which is I have done a good thing here. I 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:14.120 have bought this token and it will make me rich, 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.720 or I'm absolutely sure that this is a good investment 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.520 because this guy told me so, or you know, I 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:23.360 have done my homework because I have learned how to 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:25.760 be an analyst, and therefore this is a good investment. 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.880 We're all just telling stories. The Friends Center, So, well, 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:33.240 what I was also really kind of kind of I 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.520 found really weird was that no projects were any good 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:37.840 at telling their own story, and that's probably because they 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:39.400 didn't even know what that story was. If you're a 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.480 layer one, you literally are everything. You're just a blank 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:46.120 piece of paper essentially on which you can do anything with. 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.360 So how do you tell that story? So it's very, 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:51.360 very slowly I started to get to a position was like, well, 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:53.760 I know enough about this space where maybe there's a 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.040 room for someone like me to tell these kinds of stories. 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.680 And the rest was who would I do it with? 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:01.920 Where would I do it? So I was still working 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.840 shooting commercials at this point and just just having all 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:09.000 the creativity just bled out of me because like it's 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:13.240 particularly in bene Lux, like bene Lux's Belgium, Holland Luxembourg, 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.680 it's just boring. Everything is like we have to run 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:19.880 this decision via the team in Germany. I actually know 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:21.600 we have to run this decision by the team in China. 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.120 It's like why, like why why why can people in 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.800 China not see trees out of their windows? Well, because 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:29.360 there are no trees in China, but that's not true. 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.080 There are cheese. But this is an air filter product. 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.960 So you're imagine someone living in a fifty you know, 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.720 fifty story high block of flats. They don't see trees, 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:42.199 so they cannot be trees outside the window. I was like, okay, sure, 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.320 so there's the kind of battleity fighting it, and that's 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:45.800 that's why I was just like, I need to do 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.760 something different. And this opportunity came up to go and 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:51.880 meet the team at Harmony because I had invested in 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.120 them and had a chance to go through a syndicate 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.160 to invest in them. And I went to meet them 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.720 just on a whim, paying my flights out there, and 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:01.719 then pitched them an idea for a documentary, which is 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:07.800 to essentially take what is good about blockchain and get 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:09.280 it in front of an audience that didn't know anything 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.880 about blockchain. This is two thousand and eighteen. I pitched 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.439 this and it was It was basically one of those 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.120 crazy ideas where I wanted to see if we expose 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:21.480 the ideas of blockchain through pop culture through doing something insane. 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.360 And the idea was, how could we incentivize people to 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.720 not use Facebook and WhatsApp for an entire weekend and 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.760 how can we then pay them back the money they 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.400 would have made for you know, in terms of the 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.000 data they would have generated for the platforms. We will 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.280 return that value to them through Harmony tokens and then 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:40.960 maybe they can stay those tokens, maybe they can exchange them, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:42.640 but at least get them into people's hands in a 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.000 way that was kind of positive. And then it was like, well, 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.120 if we're getting people just to step off Facebook for 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.240 a weekend, what does that time look like? What are 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:51.640 they going to do with that time? Well, you know, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:53.800 can we put on a festival? Those kind of things. 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:55.400 That was sort of the idea, and it was going 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.240 to be this big, kind of tilted a windmill to 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.439 see if we can make something happen. We weren't able 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:02.280 to make that happen. But what it did do is 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.120 it got me a job with Harmony as their creative director. 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.000 And even then I wasn't making films, it wasn't making videos. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.000 And about four months into that job, I realized that 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.680 I missed making films so much that I was like, 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.599 I need to offer this up to Harmony as a 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:19.840 thing I can do in my role as credive director 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.439 and start telling their story. And then that's how we 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.520 sort of got into making YouTube videos for Harmony as 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:30.640 a really tough time. Oh my god, it was. It 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:37.080 was tough because making videos for a project is tough anyway, 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.800 because things moved quite slowly, but the audiences expectations move 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.240 very quickly, so they always want something new, and if 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:45.600 there isn't anything new, then you're kind of fidgeting around 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.439 trying to tell the story of maybe there's a project 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.400 that's building on it, maybe there's a new kind of 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.000 piece of tech. But on these remote layer ones like 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.880 Harmony was, there's not a lot being built, and it's 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:57.040 hard to get excited about a little bot, but we 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.600 tried to make it fun and creative. The other problem 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:02.560 was that Harmony had launched on Binance. It was one 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:04.920 of the first Binance I e O s that went 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.840 on the Binance decks, and there was just such a 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.760 bad smell about all of it. A lot of investors 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.400 got very badly burned by the performance of that token 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.800 and the promises that were made by that token, and 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.880 it just looked bad. And then we just got slaughtered 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.760 by the community and fighting our way back from that. 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.080 We're super tough because like everything you did was just 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:30.840 like no, you guys are scammers. Your scammers, your scammers, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.240 you scamras, scamras, scamras, scammeras, and like whatever you try 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.360 to do, put the CEO in front of the camera, 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.240 try and tell the positive story. Yeah, it didn't didn't work. 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.240 So um, we guysally got to the kind of Defy 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.160 summer phase of things, and I realized that Harmony probably 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.400 wouldn't have enough to kind of attract this kind of 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:49.520 Defy that was out there. But DeFi was the big story, 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.640 as you remember, So I thought, instead of us having 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:54.560 a product, maybe we could tell the story ourselves and 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.520 tell it in a really interesting and weird way. So 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.439 I reached out to the two defined us that is 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.280 that I knew, which was Bankless and the Defiant, and 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.000 they already interviewed Camilla away back and I went down 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.760 a certain way with Ryan Shawn Adams and then he 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.199 ghosted me. So I and well, you know, maybe we 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.679 should just shoot some videos with the Definer because that 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.360 seems to be a more positive place. Kamilla said yes, 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:19.280 So then we did this co production. Then we started 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:21.319 doing a weekly video where we would just tell the 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:25.079 story of Defy. What's going on Wifie all these different things, 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:27.840 um and that was a weekly thing and it did 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:29.480 really well, and then she offered me a job and 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:31.760 I was like, Okay, maybe this is what I should 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:33.920 be doing. And that's when we started building the defined 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.959 YouTube channel and grew it too. I think a hundred 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.720 and seventeen thousand subscribers in about fifteen months, so not 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.360 too shabby, not too shabby at all. It was. It's 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:48.079 an extraordinary channel. And I mean, just just going back 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.600 to what you were saying about this idea of you know, 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.880 feeling kind of creatively upper cul de sac, I guess 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.319 when not being able to show a Chinese audience trees. 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.240 I mean watching thinking back to thinking back to so 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.240 many of the videos that you made with a defiance 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.120 that that just seems the whole thing just seems to 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:10.679 be like this massive release of creative energy. And it was. 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.960 I mean, it just ticks. It just does so many 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.960 things so brilliantly. And I mean I think the best 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:21.720 of your videos were, you know, slightly just an archic 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.320 in a way, like you know, you could you could 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.120 see like the the ideas Department had just gone just 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.520 been allowed to go absolutely insane, and so you had 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.280 this kind of anarchism. You had this just boldness of 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.560 what you would what you would try. Obviously that the 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:41.480 skills that you and Alp as well just you know, 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.440 brought to the table in terms of in terms of 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.280 what you're able to do with a with a camera, 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.240 and then on top of it all, it would be 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:53.959 this incredibly like informative and often like brilliantly opinionated thing 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.880 as well. It was, it was absolutely it was. I mean, 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.680 some of those videos are just just extraordinary. UM And 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.280 I should say for the audience, I'm for those listening 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.480 and and watching, I'll I'll leave some links if that's 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:08.760 okay with you, Robin to to to some of my 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.800 favorite UM of you know, some of my favorites that 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.400 you you did with the Defined and in particular I 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:16.520 think that the work you did on n f T 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.600 S um the greatest n f T film ever made. 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.200 And then just this extraordinary light mic drop that you 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.840 did with um Why Gamers Hate n f T S 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.320 the two part, which I watched again the other day 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.320 whilst I was, you know, whilst I was kind of 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:37.440 gearing up for this is extraordinary, Like what you were 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.520 able to, what you're able to achieve and I remember 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:42.880 sort of me and my a lot of my colleagues 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:47.280 here at you know, coinbea just sitting around and going, wow, okay, 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.240 uh so the bar has the bar has been raised 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.720 quite quite high. And it really and I think, you know, 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.800 it's it's a it's from from from my point of view, 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.080 was kind of exhilarating and also a bit scary at 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.720 the same time, because you you suddenly see the bar 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.800 being raised this high and you're like, wow, this this 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:13.040 has come such a long way since a guy, you know, 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.560 since dudes just with a webcam kind of mounted awkwardly 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:18.720 on top of their monitor, just kind of yelling into 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:23.560 that with half their face showing. And suddenly here we 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.560 are with these really you know, amazingly kind of high 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:32.040 concept movies in a way. But yeah, it's that's it 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:34.200 was just such a such a such a glorious thing 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.240 to watch. But also, you know, crucially, and I go 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:38.880 back to what I said about, you know, the informative 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:41.800 nature of it, Like you seem to you seem to 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.200 be able to not lose sight of the fact that, okay, 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.360 this is this is great entertainment. But you've got it, 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:49.200 as you say, you've got to tell a story. You've 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:51.960 got to you've got to shed light on this project. 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:56.760 And and of course defy itself is such as such 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:58.520 a dense topic. I mean, it's one of the ones 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.800 that it's one of the Narlie Yeah, it is. And 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.000 to try and try and explain that to you know, 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:07.920 someone who who might be coming to it for the 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.280 first time is is so tricky. It really it really 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.000 keeps you on your toes. Did you, I mean, how 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.880 how easy was what was the I guess what was 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.640 the easiest part of all that for you? No, what's 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:25.120 the easiest part. But I think probably what we should 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:29.120 say here is that my background. Yes, I'm a filmmaker, 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:31.920 but I'm also I've always been a multi hyphen it 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.920 so I was always picking up a camera, trying to 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.080 understand how to use it, learning about lenses, learning about 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.800 specifics of you know, lighting has actually been one of 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.000 the latest skills that I learned. But I was always 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.440 shooting my own stuff and editing my own stuff and 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.120 then writing on top of that. But I also you know, 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.800 I read English at university and a lot of that 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:56.480 is to do with like just hardcore research. You just 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.160 read a lot, so I sort of had these background 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.040 skill sets that were setting me up for that. That's 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:03.800 that's sort of sitting in the background. And I've done 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.520 a lot of filming and lots of different types of situations, 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:11.280 particularly music videos or I've directed a feature film, so 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:13.400 I kind of understand the different ways that you can 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:17.919 tell a story and lenses can do certain things to 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.280 be you know, we're shooting this on seventy at the moment, 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:23.920 but it's like it's quite tight, it's quite photographic and nice, 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:25.720 but you can shoot things on wide lenses and suddenly 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:27.639 they become more cartoony in with There's a lot of 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.600 versatility in terms of what a camera can do that 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.800 people don't really exploit when they're shooting beautube videos, and 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:35.840 that's a shame because it's a storytelling tool at the 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.080 end of the day. So you learn all these tricks. 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:40.000 You know, how to tell a story in a different way, 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.719 why you use handheld, why you'd use a moving camera. 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:44.879 And we've done a lot of kind of tabletop product 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.919 photography type stuff where it just looks really expensive, but 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.159 like it's just a thing on a mirror with a 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:52.840 couple of nice lights, and that's it. It's very very 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.840 simple to do. But that's that all feeds into it. 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.440 So when you're asking me what's the easiest part of it, Honestly, 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:02.560 making films is the easiest part for me because like 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:04.960 that's what I've done my whole life. And I sort 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.080 of funny for me hearing you looking to go, oh, 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.560 ship the bar is raised. But like in the world 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.920 that I come from, that's normal. That's just the way 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.080 we do things. Um. But I realized then that I've 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.080 spent a long time just making that normal and getting 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.239 my ten thos in so that I can pick up, 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.919 you know, put something in the script and know that 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:27.480 even if you've only got two hours to shoot it, 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:28.960 we can still get it done because we know what 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.359 the solution is. Whereas for a lot of people like 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:33.120 just figuring out, oh, you need to put the light 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:35.359 here or that won't work because of this, like you 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:37.960 just kind of know that already. That's the easy bit. 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.359 The harbit for me in terms of all of this 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.920 is well, the couple of bits. One, like you said, 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:47.480 understanding defy and understanding where all the information was in 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.320 defy was a thing. But again, if you're in the 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.359 right telegram groups through in the right disco groups, you 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.920 can get that information that The next bit was just 0:18:55.800 --> 0:19:02.280 probably trying to figure out like when enough goofing around 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:06.280 was enough. I was always right, just I wanted to 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.240 make stuff that I wanted to make, and like we'd 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.639 always come up with a story for the week, and 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.240 I'd be like, well, this is the story, and maybe 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:15.320 I'm just gonna use tomatoes this week. I'm just gonna 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.560 tell them like I did the video on the Merge. 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:19.080 I was just like, I just had this vision in 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.399 my head of tomatoes, and I think it's because the 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:23.680 merge in my head was these two things squashing together. 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.520 I was like, that feels like tomatoes soup. It's like 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.439 blending tomatoes soups. So like, why don't we just use 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:30.960 tomatoes as a metaphor for all this? And that's a 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.280 really important point because, as you know full well, the 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:39.280 only visuals you get when talking about this business our websites. 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.159 So you do screen grabs of websites, and you do 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:46.000 screen grabs of Twitter accounts. That's it, and I get 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.480