Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from com.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to Text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: and joining me in the studio is Mr Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: co host of Stuff. They don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard his voice full horror. Hey Matt, Hey, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful to be in this room with you, sir.
Speaker 1: It's it's wonderful to have you on that microphone. We
Speaker 1: have done a couple of episodes of tech Stuff together
Speaker 1: where you mostly asked me questions, and that was purposefully done.
Speaker 1: I think it was a C E S episode or
Speaker 1: forty three something like that. It was what, yeah, what
Speaker 1: you did? And I just got to sit there and
Speaker 1: listen to the stories. Yeah. And this time it's gonna
Speaker 1: the shoe is on the other flip, my friend. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be asking you questions. You're going to be
Speaker 1: telling stories. So for those who do not know, Mr
Speaker 1: Frederick has done many things here and how stuff works. Uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, you have produced episodes of tech Stuff in
Speaker 1: the past. I have you have sometimes been the one
Speaker 1: saying they're listening as Chris Polette and I would chat
Speaker 1: on and on about something. Yes, prior to super producer
Speaker 1: Noel being here. I was generally the person behind what
Speaker 1: he does. It was sometimes sometimes Matt, sometimes it was Tyler.
Speaker 1: Once in a while it was somebody else. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you guys were great, but then you've got more and
Speaker 1: more work to do in your in the other job
Speaker 1: you had. Yes, the actual reason that we were hired,
Speaker 1: so Matt, for people who do not know, you were not, Like,
Speaker 1: I was not hired to be a podcaster or a
Speaker 1: video guy. I was hired to be a writer. You
Speaker 1: were not hired to be a podcaster. What were you
Speaker 1: hired to do? I was hired to be an intern. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's not really hired. Were paid? Yes, we were paid
Speaker 1: interns and our videographer had to leave. So I came
Speaker 1: on a originally um as an employee of How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: officially getting paid through I guess the standard payment from
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works Inc. Back in the day or whatever
Speaker 1: it was, as a videographer. So you are a videographer? Uh?
Speaker 1: And be your role has evolved over time? Yes? So
Speaker 1: what tell people what it is you do today? Like,
Speaker 1: what is your your main responsibility here at How Stuff Works?
Speaker 1: My main responsibility here is to produce stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know, and that I think that is
Speaker 1: my primary goal now when you're when we're talking about
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. We're not just
Speaker 1: talking about the audio podcast, but also the video series, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: the video series in fact, and I would say probably
Speaker 1: primarily because originally it was a video series. Uh, just
Speaker 1: it was just a video series. So this responsibility involves
Speaker 1: working very close Slee with your co host Ben Bolan. Oh,
Speaker 1: very closely. Yeah, to the point where the two of
Speaker 1: you can be inseparable for the portions where you're getting
Speaker 1: ready to shoot. Uh. You are very often the guy
Speaker 1: behind the camera during the actual shooting. Yes, mostly, I
Speaker 1: would say. Yeah. So sometimes if you ever watched stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, and you see that
Speaker 1: they're in some sort of creepy location, usually it's Matt
Speaker 1: who's doing a double duty at that time, actually triple duty.
Speaker 1: You're shooting, you're monitoring audio, and you're keeping an eye
Speaker 1: out in case you need to make a run for
Speaker 1: it because you're gorilla movie making at the time. Yes,
Speaker 1: usually I'm monitoring audio, making sure the shot is correct,
Speaker 1: and then kind of keeping watch. Yeah, that's a good assessment. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I've been. I've been the subject of gerrilla filmmaking where
Speaker 1: the director made it known to me that there was
Speaker 1: not necessarily clearance to shoot where we were shooting at
Speaker 1: that time. Wait what We do our best to keep
Speaker 1: it above board. Yeah, yeah, I mean occasionally it's just
Speaker 1: one of those things where you're like, well, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and shoot here. I think it'll be fine, and
Speaker 1: then ultimately we might be told hey, you guys shouldn't
Speaker 1: be in here, and then we're like, okay, we won't
Speaker 1: be in here. Yeah, you're doing you are. I know
Speaker 1: this looks like just a big empty basement, but technically
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff going on that we can't
Speaker 1: have you here while we're doing it, like like wiring
Speaker 1: part of the building. Because keep in mind, the building
Speaker 1: we are in right now, Pont City Market that's where
Speaker 1: our office is is UH is still largely unoccupied on
Speaker 1: certain floors. So um, that leads the potential for awesome
Speaker 1: location shoots, but obviously we have to clear everything with
Speaker 1: the building first to make sure that everyone is safe
Speaker 1: and we're not going to get in the way of
Speaker 1: any construction crews. Yes, insurance in a building like this
Speaker 1: is a big deal. Yeah. Yeah, and uh and obviously
Speaker 1: the safety of other people also very important. So it's
Speaker 1: not just our safety but the safety of other folks.
Speaker 1: So we take it very seriously as much as I'm
Speaker 1: being flippant earlier. Uh. Now, when you're talking about produce
Speaker 1: a show like stuff they don't want you to know,
Speaker 1: some of our shows here at how Stuff works are
Speaker 1: fairly straightforward, right, Okay, I'll go with you there, But
Speaker 1: I would say that the ones that even look pretty
Speaker 1: straightforward to have a lot of stuff going on in
Speaker 1: the back end. Sure, you have to do lots of
Speaker 1: things like you have to. You have to make very
Speaker 1: careful edits to make sure that the everything flows properly.
Speaker 1: You want to make sure that the sound is just
Speaker 1: perfect because sometimes levels are different at different points. And
Speaker 1: also we often will include things like supplemental video to
Speaker 1: help illustrate a point. Stuff they want you to know
Speaker 1: is one of the I think more heavily produced videos
Speaker 1: compared to some not not all, I mean, we do
Speaker 1: have some that are are equivalent. So I want you, Matt,
Speaker 1: to walk me through what it's like to produce a
Speaker 1: typical stuff They don't want you to know. So from
Speaker 1: the point where you've identified what the subject is going
Speaker 1: to be to the point where it's published online, can
Speaker 1: you walk me through? Well, first thing I would say
Speaker 1: is identifying what we're going to uh do use as
Speaker 1: a subject is a big part of the story. Because
Speaker 1: we generally get our audience too. They will interact a
Speaker 1: lot of times and kind of lead us on a
Speaker 1: thread that will take us to a bigger story. And
Speaker 1: once we once we've established what the story that we
Speaker 1: want to tell, and I would say Ben does of
Speaker 1: that end because I'm usually over in this cave editing um.
Speaker 1: So once we've established that, we will go and then
Speaker 1: I will go to these various places on the internet
Speaker 1: like archive dot org. We have several places that we
Speaker 1: go like video blocks or I stock photo and try
Speaker 1: and gather as many images and assets that I can
Speaker 1: that will pertain to that story. Then then there's this
Speaker 1: other back end after we record the audio, which is
Speaker 1: a process in itself where we'll sit in this room
Speaker 1: and have been do his creepy voice right, which still
Speaker 1: to the stay cracks me up because you know people
Speaker 1: have listened to Ben on my show where Ben has
Speaker 1: just been and when Ben has just been or if
Speaker 1: you've watched you know, brain stuff or what the stuff
Speaker 1: one of the episodes that has been on it, you
Speaker 1: hear Been just being himself. Uh. And then you compare
Speaker 1: that to the character the persona version. That's some stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, and it just seems
Speaker 1: so not Ben. He is that character for me now,
Speaker 1: and when he's playing regular Ben, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: a and for a lot of people who are fans
Speaker 1: of stuff they don't want you to know. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of the response or like he's not doing his
Speaker 1: voice where pitching it down a little bit. I can't
Speaker 1: even do it. Here's where it gets crazy. I can't
Speaker 1: do it either. It's impressive. We only have one person
Speaker 1: in the office who can really mimic Ben, and that's Annie.
Speaker 1: She's really well. She dressed up as Halloween that one
Speaker 1: year she did a smashup of and the visuals here Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she she mimicked him from an imagery perspective anyway. Alright,
Speaker 1: So so Ben is writing you are you? You get
Speaker 1: to the part where you record the audio. Alright, move on,
Speaker 1: now we get the audio, and what I have to do,
Speaker 1: particularly with his audio is chop up every single sentence
Speaker 1: and or even sometimes word, because what I like to
Speaker 1: try and do is make it match up with the
Speaker 1: sound the theme music that I've written for the show,
Speaker 1: so that it feels you wrote the music for the show.
Speaker 1: I did. I recorded and wrote the music just with
Speaker 1: a little MIDI controller. Still, that's incredible. Well it it's okay.
Speaker 1: I think I think any discerning creator of music would
Speaker 1: laugh at it. Come on, I'm well from someone that
Speaker 1: can plank out a tune on a ukulele, it's really impressive. Okay,
Speaker 1: I didn't forget thank you, I love you, made a
Speaker 1: couple of videos you awesome stuff. Um. Okay. So I
Speaker 1: matched that up so that it has almost a lyrical
Speaker 1: feel to it um spoken word almost um. And it
Speaker 1: has a very driving beat in the song. So when
Speaker 1: it matches up, it just works so well. See that
Speaker 1: that's incredible to me, Like you have to have a
Speaker 1: real ear for that. I I can appreciate it when
Speaker 1: it's done, I can't imagine actually constructing it. So what
Speaker 1: what tool? Well, what's the the editing suite that you're
Speaker 1: actually using when you're doing this? It has evolved over time.
Speaker 1: Originally it was the old Apple soundtrack application that we
Speaker 1: used to use, and then using that in tandem with
Speaker 1: Final Cut Final Cut seven in particular, and now we're
Speaker 1: using all Adobe products, so Premiere Audition, those are the
Speaker 1: two primary ones and after effects. So you're using this
Speaker 1: software to to get this effect where you're matching up
Speaker 1: the cadence of the the delivery to the score of
Speaker 1: the episode. So that lays down sort of your guideline
Speaker 1: for audio. Yes, what's what about the visual side? Okay,
Speaker 1: so I've got there are a couple of assets that
Speaker 1: remain the same throughout each episode, so you've got kind
Speaker 1: of the standard intro of the house that says on
Speaker 1: it and things that we shot gosh eight years ago
Speaker 1: maybe um, and then the c t A. You don't
Speaker 1: have to change very much, just plug in a couple
Speaker 1: of things. But when you're starting to c t A
Speaker 1: by the way, I apologize, yes, that's the place where
Speaker 1: you go, hey, subscribe or click on this video. So
Speaker 1: if you've ever wondered, uh, you know, you see that
Speaker 1: it's almost ubiquitous now in YouTube videos. But Call to
Speaker 1: Action and the reason why you see it everywhere is
Speaker 1: because it works. It works, and we want to hear
Speaker 1: from you. Yes, absolutely, the this may be a little
Speaker 1: too behind the curtain, but the click through rate generally
Speaker 1: in those c t a s, even on the biggest YouTubers,
Speaker 1: ranges between two you to like five, which means someone
Speaker 1: actually watching the video then clicking on the next video,
Speaker 1: so it's actually really low. But the subscribe function there
Speaker 1: is usually the best thing, and stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know has a lot of subscribers, so it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those things again you want to you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're producing things so that people listen and watch them,
Speaker 1: but we're doing so out of a genuine desire to
Speaker 1: to impart cool information and to create a dialogue. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's, there's the there's the business side of it that, yes,
Speaker 1: you want more views because that's good business, but there's
Speaker 1: from us as content creators. And by the way, we
Speaker 1: don't all like the word content, but we use it
Speaker 1: because what else are we gonna say storytellers? As storytellers,
Speaker 1: we want an audience to hear the story, and we
Speaker 1: want to hear more stories in return. Yes, while we
Speaker 1: all enjoy talking to ourselves and you know, learning about
Speaker 1: these wonderful things ourselves it's much more fulfilling to know
Speaker 1: that someone else now has this information. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: I remember, I can't I'll never forget the first time
Speaker 1: I got a listener email and flipped out because for
Speaker 1: a while it just felt like Chris and I were
Speaker 1: talking into a microphone and then it would just go away. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know exactly, I know exactly that feeling, right, So
Speaker 1: all right, so I'm sorry I got you off track.
Speaker 1: So certain assets like the opening and the closing remain
Speaker 1: remain the same from episode episode. You don't have to
Speaker 1: change those, But then everything else has to be in
Speaker 1: a way. It has to be just filled in, so
Speaker 1: you make sure you've got coverage. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the time, the first pass that I'll do is, let's say,
Speaker 1: and that when I gathered footage earlier, if there's anything
Speaker 1: that I know matches up directly with the subject matter
Speaker 1: or will fit perfectly to um either contrast with what
Speaker 1: Ben is saying, two create a you know, a third
Speaker 1: idea position. Yes, a lot of times like I'll just
Speaker 1: lay that in and I won't mess with it. I
Speaker 1: won't do any of the zooming or any that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff or effects on it. I'll just leave it
Speaker 1: in there. Now I know I've got this um, then
Speaker 1: I will start filling in the hard stuff, which a
Speaker 1: lot of times is if I have to go and
Speaker 1: pull let's say, a quote from an article or something
Speaker 1: and actually type it in through premier or something. I'll
Speaker 1: do that kind of stuff. Then the next pass, once
Speaker 1: I've got the whole thing filled in, I have to
Speaker 1: color everything, which is a whole separate thing that normally
Speaker 1: it would be another person's job. Yeah, that's okay, that's fine.
Speaker 1: I I love I knew nothing about it when I
Speaker 1: first started here. So you've you've actually developed brand new
Speaker 1: skill sets by necessity, which is true for everyone in
Speaker 1: the video and audio departments. Oh, I think so, and
Speaker 1: even I mean especially the podcasters and writers and editors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's It's also true for writers and editors who started
Speaker 1: off as editors and writers and then and then graduated
Speaker 1: to a type of performer. Yeah. For some of us,
Speaker 1: we had had a performance background. Ben Bolan as an
Speaker 1: improvisational comedy background has a ham taking up the spotlight background.
Speaker 1: So it was not a big transition for me. But
Speaker 1: some of us, like Josh and Chuck, well, Chuck had
Speaker 1: done music. You know, but they had not necessarily sat
Speaker 1: down to be a performer in the classical sense. And
Speaker 1: now you know there are That's our flagship show. So anyway, um,
Speaker 1: you you have developed this new skill as a colorist
Speaker 1: as well. Sure so so can you can you explain
Speaker 1: a little bit about what that entails, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard things like color correction or whatever, but what
Speaker 1: does that actually mean. Really, it's just using plugins from
Speaker 1: a program like like after Effects or Premiere, where you
Speaker 1: are manipulating the color values on any given shot or image.
Speaker 1: And what would be the purpose for that? Really? You
Speaker 1: want to match. Either you're either going to match the
Speaker 1: entire video right to try and make things feel like
Speaker 1: they fit together, or you're going to try for some
Speaker 1: kind of emotional or effect. You're trying to affect the
Speaker 1: viewers perception of this image, so you're trying to emphasize
Speaker 1: it in something and and it's a weird thing, like
Speaker 1: trying to influence the way someone looks at this image,
Speaker 1: maybe sees it a little differently than the way it
Speaker 1: was originally there. Yeah, because you only have so much,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can just alter the thing that is
Speaker 1: already existing. It's not like you can go out and
Speaker 1: it's not like you have like, oh, let's turn this
Speaker 1: this angle seventy degrees so that we can look at
Speaker 1: it from a different way. We can't do that, yes, not,
Speaker 1: not unless we're in specifically going out and shooting b
Speaker 1: rollers or that we have some computer graphics thing that
Speaker 1: we have developed in house and thus can manipulate it
Speaker 1: that way. But most of the time we're talking about
Speaker 1: gathering assets from other sources. Yes, that is kind of
Speaker 1: what the show was built upon. Well, and it makes
Speaker 1: sense for stuff they don't want you to know. It
Speaker 1: has almost it feels almost like it has elements of
Speaker 1: found footage in it. It has this very patchwork kind
Speaker 1: of approach, not not in quality but the feel of
Speaker 1: like it's all these different sources of information that are
Speaker 1: combining to tell this one story, which is important especially
Speaker 1: with the tone and and uh and the aim of
Speaker 1: that show. So I think, I think you guys do
Speaker 1: a really great job. All right, So you do your
Speaker 1: color pass. Yes, what happens next? Okay, now comes the
Speaker 1: overall effects pass. So this would be adding things like
Speaker 1: noise to footage and or images to give it the
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. Feel so sort
Speaker 1: of that grainy look. Yeah, it makes it like, let's
Speaker 1: say I got an image that is just pristine from
Speaker 1: my stock of maybe a person's hands on a keyboard. Okay,
Speaker 1: so after I've color corrected it so it's not so saturated,
Speaker 1: the colors aren't so bright, and it still looks like
Speaker 1: a picture that someone took on purpose to look really nice.
Speaker 1: What I'll do is kind of break the image a
Speaker 1: little bit by adding some noise or again doing some
Speaker 1: other things with color shifting, which would is a little
Speaker 1: it's a little complex, but basically will make the thing
Speaker 1: look like someone screwed up when they were using their
Speaker 1: old eight millimeter cameras, right, And that's a specific effect
Speaker 1: that you're going for. It. It helps again kind of
Speaker 1: create the tone and the feel of the show. So
Speaker 1: it is fun to have all of these competing things
Speaker 1: of what what do I want the overall story to tell?
Speaker 1: Like what story do I want this video to tell?
Speaker 1: Then what what story to want this one image combined
Speaker 1: with this sentence to tell and then trying to do
Speaker 1: that on a video basis. So that's yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that there's a huge amount of artistry and and uh,
Speaker 1: technical ability that has to go into making this work.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it was one of those things
Speaker 1: that has been a learning process, and I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: still learning. Oh yeah. There isn't a day that goes
Speaker 1: by where I don't go, oh, I can do this now,
Speaker 1: way easier I could have. I could have taken ten minutes.
Speaker 1: When Okay, So so we said that I started here
Speaker 1: as a videographer, and uh, well, not too long into
Speaker 1: that journey of learning how to be a videographer because
Speaker 1: I was fresh out of college. I got a degree
Speaker 1: at Georgia State in film and video production, and I
Speaker 1: really only knew what I had learned in a couple
Speaker 1: of classes where I actually got to hold a camera.
Speaker 1: I would say, my strengths are not there, that is
Speaker 1: not where they lie. They lie in this storytelling. I
Speaker 1: don't know we'd call it, I guess as an editor.
Speaker 1: And very quickly after that, we began hiring people and expanding,
Speaker 1: and we decided we wanted to make these things called podcasts,
Speaker 1: and we weren't really sure what they were. We had
Speaker 1: some ideas for what they would be, and I found
Speaker 1: that if I was behind a computer and taking things
Speaker 1: that Tyler actually Tyler Klang, who became our videographer at
Speaker 1: the time, shot if I took those things, I felt
Speaker 1: like I had a lot more. I don't know, there's
Speaker 1: more finesse for me back there. Um, I'm not really
Speaker 1: sure where I'm going with this, Jonathan, But all I'm
Speaker 1: all I'm saying is that the shooting shooting video and
Speaker 1: doing it really well, especially with the new cameras that
Speaker 1: around these uh these SLR camera cameras that have just
Speaker 1: some complex lenses that we were able to shoot at
Speaker 1: resolutions that a few years ago would have been unheard of. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and knowing how to make the best image from
Speaker 1: that device is just something that you have to really
Speaker 1: focus a lot of your time on. No pun intended,
Speaker 1: No one intended with focus. But but that is not
Speaker 1: my I don't think it is. I mean, hence, hence, Wow,
Speaker 1: am I really going to say that? That's why I
Speaker 1: continue to shoot on this Sony e X one, which
Speaker 1: is an older camera. Um, but it it does one
Speaker 1: thing that's really awesome for our show, in particular, it
Speaker 1: can it has built in x l R, which is
Speaker 1: just the way you connect up like this, Mike that
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you on a John this talking to
Speaker 1: you on UM. You can connect that directly to the camera.
Speaker 1: So when you're recording audio with Ben for our show,
Speaker 1: I don't have to have a separate piece of equipment
Speaker 1: hooked up, you know, with a mike that's hooked up
Speaker 1: to Ben and then also man the camera, so you
Speaker 1: don't You also don't have to then worry about marrying
Speaker 1: the audio track with the video track, which is a
Speaker 1: whole separate thing. And if you have something like pluralize,
Speaker 1: that's a really great program that you can match up
Speaker 1: audio video. You can way easier than it used to be. Yes,
Speaker 1: like it used to be. You know the slates that
Speaker 1: you've ever seen in any behind the scenes video of
Speaker 1: any television or movie production. They have a slate that's
Speaker 1: the clapboard where they have the name of the scene,
Speaker 1: the number of the take, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: They clap it. The reason they clap it is that
Speaker 1: snapping sound is the que to match the video or
Speaker 1: the the image if you're shooting on film I don't
Speaker 1: know who is these days, assuming you are with the
Speaker 1: audio track so that the two match up, and if
Speaker 1: you get that off even a little bit, that's where
Speaker 1: you get that that Kung Fu movie effect of it
Speaker 1: looks like it's everything's been dubbed. Yes, And there can
Speaker 1: be problems with sinking where it will go out of
Speaker 1: phase or out of sinking. There is a list of
Speaker 1: problems that can come with that. So I don't appind
Speaker 1: it being the old dinosaur. Yeah, I still use that
Speaker 1: old camera, but it's great. It's still shoots to an
Speaker 1: ADP and it looks fantastic, and I would say it
Speaker 1: kind of lends itself to our show even. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you this. From from the moment when uh
Speaker 1: you are actually recording the audio and you or even
Speaker 1: from the moment when you start gathering the assets to
Speaker 1: the moment that it gets published, how much time has passed? Well,
Speaker 1: it varies quite widely depending on the subject matter and
Speaker 1: what footage is available. Um. Sometimes it will take two
Speaker 1: full days, so sixteen twenty hours. Um. Sometimes it will
Speaker 1: take a week, a full week of sitting there and
Speaker 1: trying to make it work. And how frequently do you publish?
Speaker 1: We currently only published twice a week. But if it
Speaker 1: takes a week to do one episode and you published
Speaker 1: twice a week, that's why I am currently just now
Speaker 1: editing the audio and starting to sync up some video
Speaker 1: for the one that comes out this Friday. Well, it
Speaker 1: won't be this Friday when this publishes, right, but but
Speaker 1: in other words, we are recording this on a Thursday afternoon, yes,
Speaker 1: almost into Thursday evening at this point, and you have
Speaker 1: a show that publishes tomorrow that you are currently working on. Wow.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. And that's where we've been, Jonathan since uh
Speaker 1: since the first batch of five. So how long have
Speaker 1: you been doing this show? Oh? Gosh, I think two
Speaker 1: thousand late two thousand eight is when I began production
Speaker 1: on Wow. Okay, so that's the same year the tech
Speaker 1: stuff started, so you you guys were not far behind us.
Speaker 1: And um, I think I was the one who actually
Speaker 1: came up with the title of your show. You did.
Speaker 1: We were in the kitchen of our previous office and
Speaker 1: you and I were talking and you said stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know, and I think you said
Speaker 1: it jokingly. Yeah. It just shows that even my jokes
Speaker 1: are amazing ideas and people need to pay me more. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: that this has been fascinating, So so tell me, like,
Speaker 1: what are some of the you know, you've learned a
Speaker 1: lot honestly and clearly, not all of the lessons that
Speaker 1: you've learned for today are applicable to when you first
Speaker 1: started out because of different software suites all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. But what are some tips that you would
Speaker 1: have given, uh Matt from two thousand eight, things that like,
Speaker 1: here's some general things I have found that are really
Speaker 1: effective in my job that would have saved you some
Speaker 1: some heartache back in the earlier days. Well, the first
Speaker 1: thing that Jerry and I have had many a meeting about.
Speaker 1: Jerry is the head of production here. Yeah, she's also
Speaker 1: the mysterious producer of stuff. You should know. She really
Speaker 1: does exist. Yes, she's a real human she is. She's awesome,
Speaker 1: she is. Well. One of the big things is you
Speaker 1: have to learn when enough is enough and it's good
Speaker 1: enough to publish. Right. I sometimes have a problem of
Speaker 1: over complicating things, and especially when I was early making
Speaker 1: the show, so I would I would be here here
Speaker 1: being just the office wherever the office of house that
Speaker 1: works is. I would be here way too long working
Speaker 1: on things like well after hours, yeah, way beyond anytime
Speaker 1: someone should be working. And that was a problem because
Speaker 1: I just couldn't live with not feeling like it was perfect.
Speaker 1: I can understand that. Like the idea that I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hard to let go when you when you are
Speaker 1: when you're crafting something and it matters to you and
Speaker 1: you know other people are going to see it, then
Speaker 1: you know it's it's very hard to let go. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I've gotten a lot more blase about it because I've
Speaker 1: done it for so long now. I mean, I still
Speaker 1: have high standards that I want to meet, but I
Speaker 1: also can walk away a lot, a lot more readily
Speaker 1: than I could back in the day when we first
Speaker 1: started doing this kind of stuff. And I mean it's
Speaker 1: no joke. Guys, the video crew in general here at
Speaker 1: how stuff works. Some of the hardest working people in
Speaker 1: our office. No seriously, you guys have got I mean,
Speaker 1: considering the amount of video that we are producing here
Speaker 1: at the office, um, and we always are trying to
Speaker 1: do more. You guys are working really hard to make
Speaker 1: sure that that stuff stays. Uh. You know that's publishing
Speaker 1: on time. Noel's the same way. He produces a lot
Speaker 1: of audio podcasts is right now and I guarantee you
Speaker 1: this is true. He is working on something else, like
Speaker 1: the next audio podcast or the one that you just
Speaker 1: recorded and Ben he is editing that right now while
Speaker 1: he's monitoring. Yeah, he's he's nodding at us right now, implacably.
Speaker 1: He's also making beats. Okay, well that's fair. So Knowle's
Speaker 1: master multitasker. I am not. I'm a unitasker if there
Speaker 1: ever was one, But I mean we could tell other
Speaker 1: Let's tell a couple of interesting stories about the video department,
Speaker 1: just so folks can know some stuff. Like we joke
Speaker 1: about you guys occasionally, like we'll make a little reference whatever.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure people who have listened to the show
Speaker 1: for a long time have ped up little things here
Speaker 1: and there about the video crew. So some of the
Speaker 1: interesting things that you may or may not know. UH
Speaker 1: for a while in our office that was in Buckhead,
Speaker 1: which is uh a neighborhood in Atlanta, affluent neighbor in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood in Atlanta. I personally was not a big
Speaker 1: fan of that office space, even when we were on
Speaker 1: the fifteenth floor. You know, it's just you know, I
Speaker 1: mean the break areas had a lot of character, but
Speaker 1: no one ever went to them, Like if you ever
Speaker 1: went into the big we had this enormous break room
Speaker 1: had had previously been an executive office. Yeah, we and
Speaker 1: and then we converted that into a giant break room,
Speaker 1: which was cool to look at and cool to shoot
Speaker 1: video in, but almost no one went into except for
Speaker 1: some of the sales or developer people. They would go
Speaker 1: in there and play foosball, but the rest of us
Speaker 1: never bothered to touch it. Um so uh. I was
Speaker 1: never a huge fan of our space there, But there
Speaker 1: was a while are our old podcast studio was a
Speaker 1: little alcove in an oddly shaped room, and that oddly
Speaker 1: shaped room served as both the audio podcast studio and
Speaker 1: our video studio. So we could not shoot video in
Speaker 1: the studio and do a podcast at the same time
Speaker 1: because it was all the same space. Uh. The podcast
Speaker 1: part was curtained off because it was it was almost
Speaker 1: it's just this little alcove. Ye. The reason why I
Speaker 1: bring this up and how I I'm bringing it back
Speaker 1: to video is that for a while there was so
Speaker 1: much work going into video and there we was so
Speaker 1: like you guys, your resources were stretched so thin. That
Speaker 1: ad meant that some of you guys were working crazy hours,
Speaker 1: like so far into the night that once in a
Speaker 1: blue moon, someone would stay over and that was why
Speaker 1: When I walked into the audio podcast room, I was like,
Speaker 1: why the hell is there this huge pile of green
Speaker 1: fabric laying on the ground. It was one of our
Speaker 1: extra green screens that Tyler had folded up into a
Speaker 1: sleeping cot. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. To be fair, Matt, I
Speaker 1: mean I also slept in the office more than once
Speaker 1: because I had to shoot television spots at five in
Speaker 1: the morning occasionally, and uh, I'd be done by I
Speaker 1: would get to the office and I would go into
Speaker 1: there was a room called the cool room, which was
Speaker 1: not cool. It was very warm, but it had a
Speaker 1: couch and I would sleep on that. I slept on
Speaker 1: that couch more than once. So, I mean, it's happened
Speaker 1: to all of us. We've all worked like crazy hours
Speaker 1: to get the stuff we love done. And you know,
Speaker 1: you don't hear people complain about it. They really want
Speaker 1: to get the stuff done. So, uh, tell me give
Speaker 1: me an example of of, like one of your favorite
Speaker 1: memories so far of working in the video department of
Speaker 1: how stuff works. Okay, I'll tell you one, very very
Speaker 1: early one. I got to travel with Jerry and Tyler
Speaker 1: and Rock Sand with Marshall Brain to New York I
Speaker 1: think in two thousand seven. I believe it was in
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. It was around the time that How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works went public, okay, and we got to go
Speaker 1: in behind the NASDACK sign. I don't know if you're
Speaker 1: familiar with the giant NASDAC sign in New York. And
Speaker 1: we got to go behind it and basically we were
Speaker 1: told how it worked. We got to take video of
Speaker 1: all the moving pieces and all the LEDs. It was incredible,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was just trying to imagine when
Speaker 1: something like when an opportunity like that would come along
Speaker 1: in my life if I didn't work here. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: had similar they've been they've been kind of a little
Speaker 1: punctuation marks in my long career at How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: because Matt and I were we've been here a long time.
Speaker 1: Like there there are a lot of people we think
Speaker 1: of us whipper snappers because they've been here, like, oh
Speaker 1: I joined in two thousand eleven, right whatever, um, But yeah,
Speaker 1: there have been moments that are kind of like punctuation
Speaker 1: points where we've done some incredible stuff. Not not to
Speaker 1: say like my day to day job I think of
Speaker 1: as incredible, but there's certain things that go well beyond
Speaker 1: that where I'm like, Wow, I can't believe I had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to do this amazing thing. Have you talked
Speaker 1: on the show about your ww E recent thing? I
Speaker 1: did not. I have not talked about it. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: I got the opportunity to go shoot some behind the
Speaker 1: scenes material at w w E SmackDown taping here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and uh w w E gave me incredible amounts of access.
Speaker 1: I got to talk to people of the crew. I
Speaker 1: got to talk to referees who are the leaders of
Speaker 1: the ring crew. We got to shoot shoot video of
Speaker 1: the light rig being put together, the stage being put together,
Speaker 1: they Titan tron lifted into place, the ring constructed. We
Speaker 1: got to go under the ring. We were the first
Speaker 1: video crew ever allowed to go under the w w
Speaker 1: E ring. That was my favorite part now where I'm
Speaker 1: there with referee Charles Robinson, who's the He was overseeing
Speaker 1: the ring crew the ring construction, and he was telling
Speaker 1: me all about like how the ring, how the ring
Speaker 1: construction is different from the way it was back in
Speaker 1: the old days. I got to put the ropes on
Speaker 1: the ring so and they held up so I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything. That's very important very tight. They are extremely tight. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They said that if it if it doesn't leave a
Speaker 1: well it's not tight enough. Um. Yeah. And then I
Speaker 1: got to talk to some of the superstars like right
Speaker 1: Back and uh and seth Rawlins, and I got to
Speaker 1: talk to Natalia who was amazing, Like everyone was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: So that's the kind of opportunity that that I never
Speaker 1: would have had if it wasn't for How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: and the thing that I got hired to be a writer,
Speaker 1: you know, and now I'm doing this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So uh, it's really cool that you were able to
Speaker 1: join me talk about your show. I'm glad we got
Speaker 1: to do this behind the scenes. I hope I get
Speaker 1: to do more of these with some of the other
Speaker 1: shows here at How Stuff Works. I think this is
Speaker 1: a great forum for it. And it's also nice to
Speaker 1: hear about, you know, what it as you do and
Speaker 1: and the steps that are involved in just making a
Speaker 1: single episode of stuff they don't want you to know
Speaker 1: come to life. I am very glad that we got
Speaker 1: to do this. Thank you, Jonathan. I didn't even go
Speaker 1: into the encoding process and uploading and publishing it all
Speaker 1: that past. Maybe I'll have you on again, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that because because we are doing so much
Speaker 1: more video here at Hell Stuff works, that it might
Speaker 1: be fun to sort of talk about, uh, the second
Speaker 1: half of that process, the actual Okay, you've got the
Speaker 1: video to where you want it to be, Now how
Speaker 1: do you get it to the point where it is
Speaker 1: going to go up so that people can watch it?
Speaker 1: So stay tuned because I'll probably do an episode about
Speaker 1: that in the future, and and Matt, maybe I'll have
Speaker 1: you on or uh, Yeah, it'd be great to have
Speaker 1: this kind of conversation and really go into the details
Speaker 1: about it. This has been an incredible episode of tech
Speaker 1: stuff for me. I didn't have my computer open, you didn't.
Speaker 1: I just closed it because I was like, we're just
Speaker 1: gonna have a conversation and see how it happens. So
Speaker 1: if you enjoyed this episode, guy, let me know if
Speaker 1: you want to hear more stuff like this, like learn
Speaker 1: more about the behind the scenes technical aspects of how
Speaker 1: stuff works. I can talk to lots of people. I
Speaker 1: can talk to the people who published the stuff on
Speaker 1: the websites. We can talk to editors about how the
Speaker 1: articles are shaped so that they're ready to go up live.
Speaker 1: On the sites. We can talk to other folks on
Speaker 1: the video crew, everything from how we set up video shots,
Speaker 1: to the equipment that we use, to the ways we
Speaker 1: work around limitations. Because sometimes limitations are the best things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they make you be resourceful and creative. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: why I argue the original trilogy of Star Wars is
Speaker 1: superior to the prequels because it didn't have the money.
Speaker 1: Lucas had limitations and he had to figure out ways
Speaker 1: around them. And then by the time the prequels came around,
Speaker 1: he had no limitations. And now we see what happens.
Speaker 1: Oh man, when does this published? This will probably publish
Speaker 1: towards the end of April. End of April. Well, by
Speaker 1: the time that you've heard this, I will be just
Speaker 1: returning from the convention. Star Wars Convention in Anaheim. Oh
Speaker 1: you're gonna go to that, Yes, Tyler and I and
Speaker 1: Holly are going out. Well, to be fair, Holly did
Speaker 1: used to work for the fourth dot net, right, some
Speaker 1: Star Wars dot com. It might have been the one
Speaker 1: I was actually thinking of. So I am jealous, but
Speaker 1: I can't. She's got the credentials and I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: just a fan. She's actually worked for stuff that's related
Speaker 1: to it, So I will I will definitely hit you
Speaker 1: up to ask what the heck happened at that you
Speaker 1: have holly On soon? Yeah, maybe I'll have holly On
Speaker 1: to talk about, um, the Star Wars fandom and the
Speaker 1: technical side of that, as long as I make it
Speaker 1: semi technical fits right, Yeah, pops pop stuff. So I
Speaker 1: can't talk about stuff necessarily. Yeah, she's going to experience
Speaker 1: it all Tyler, and I will just be standing in
Speaker 1: front of her, behind her somewhere with a camera. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like your experience of Dragon Con. Yeah, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish I could really like enjoy this, but instead
Speaker 1: I got to point this camera this bald guy talking
Speaker 1: about things. We'll probably do it again this year too.
Speaker 1: All right, well, Matt, thank you again. Remember stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. Amazing show. If you've not
Speaker 1: checked it out, go look up some episodes. There are
Speaker 1: tons of different topics. Uh, there are some that will
Speaker 1: really open up your eyes as to the crazy clandestine
Speaker 1: stuff that has happened over the past also as well
Speaker 1: as just an examination of how, you know, how intrusive
Speaker 1: certain ideas can become even when there's not a shred
Speaker 1: of evidence to support them. Yeah. So it's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: Check it out, and if you have any suggestions for me,
Speaker 1: right to me. You know. If you want to hear
Speaker 1: more episodes like this, send me an email that addresses
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuffworks dot com, or drop me
Speaker 1: a line on Facebook or Twitter or tumbler at all three.
Speaker 1: I am text stuff hs W. We'll talk to you again.
Speaker 1: Really so. For more on that and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: how stuff work dot com