Show Notes
All right. Welcome back to the gut check project. This is now episode number 25. With your host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. I'm Eric Rhaegar. And can today we got an awesome guest, Michael Williams joins us.
Well, like always, one of the coolest things about the gut check project is that we check our ego at the door. And once again, we brought in an expert. And we spent the last two hours being schooled on some stuff that we should have been schooled on a long time. Exactly. We don't know anything about Mike. How you doing?
Pretty good. How you doing? You don't go by my hair. I go by Michael. Michael. See, that's what I did. I did it wrong.
Yeah. Well, the one thing that we've done wrong a lot is the lighting in the studio, the green screen. We're having fun with trying to learn how to do this. So as it turns out, Michael is an expert in video green screen. He has been doing this for a long time, and we're going to get into that. And if you're a podcast or if you like watching this stuff, you're going to understand that everything is not as quite as easy as it meets the
eye. You said something earlier like you know, Eric, one thing I really like is just talking to experts. Regardless of the field and that's what we're doing today.
Yeah, well we had the financial experts on we had CBD takeout we've done Marisol, the queen of Thrones who's interestingly an expert in pooping which but that's very separate from what Michael does.
But well I do that.
Well, interestingly, I know that will do quid pro quo on this. I happen to be an expert in that in pooping, not in lighting. So since if we should trade back in the day, you helped us out with lighting, I'll make sure you poop. Okay.
Appreciate that. Well, awesome. Let's do a quick rundown today. We're going to talk quick update on thanksgiving for all three of us. And then we have a new unboxing that we're going to share with everybody in the gut check project. Then we're going to hop right over to what Michael does best. Absolutely. So Thanksgiving, I I'll just go and start. I went over to my brother's house, Brad hosted we fried Turkey. We baked a turkey. We ate a lot of food. I had a blast. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I don't really have Any crazy details about it we just we played games we hung out my family, his family, my mom, we had a great time. Why is it your favorite holiday? There's no pretense around Thanksgiving. You just it's family coming together hanging out and spending time we we bonded over some some athletic events, football and basketball. We watched on TV. We played games. The entire time we're together. You just eat great food. You get lazy. You wear pajamas. It's
nice. You know what, you're right. It's kind of like there. Michael, how was your Thanksgiving?
It was wonderful. We had our first Thanksgiving in our new house. So we just bought a house in McKinney and you know moved in of mccamey. Peru. Yeah. Okay. But, and we've been there just a couple of months and we had four of our kids there. So for a six right for the six. Yes, we have our six one on either coast, New York and Brooklyn and everyone in Burbank in California. And, you know, we think they could make I think I'll be here for Christmas. We ate you know that all the turkey and the green bean casserole and lots of sweets and then afterwards, retired to the backyard with a single malt Scotch in a cigar. Oh, that sounds. And you know, it's the only holiday that it's really you're expected to watch football so it was kind of fun. Ran
well I decided to not be quite as this particular Thanksgiving I decided that it was my time to take the family on vacation. And so we went to my wife's from Puerto Rico and we went to Puerto Rico but I chose at almost 52 decided to pick up a new sport which is surfing, because I've seen Point Break and you know a lot of others. And so as it turns out, it's hard, man, but it's rewarding now. So cool. So I took the family to Puerto Rico for a week and it was really cool, sat on a beach made some good friends and some Virginia people that were sharing the house. With us, and it was it was exactly what Thanksgiving supposed to be, which is be with family have some fun. It was not relaxing, like watching football, but it was relaxing, like drifting in the ocean. So it was super cool. And I hope that everybody out there had a great Thanksgiving as well.
Yeah, I hope so too. Hey, let's get to it. You want to get to the unboxing?
Alright, so let's talk about the unboxing. So why don't you hold up the box. So we're having some great feedback, what we've been learning. So in my clinical practice, I know that there are certain supplements that can change people's lives. And one of the biggest frustrations that people have is that they don't understand what to take. Well, we took it upon ourselves to vet certain science backed supplements, which have Certificate of analysis so that I know what affects people. So every time somebody comes into my office, they go, Oh, I've been taking this and nothing happened. What have you been taking? Well, let, let me give you the brand that I've researched and then they start seeing some changes in their life. So what we want to do is change the landscape of our community so that people become healthier. So every month, somebody can get a box called the KB MD health box, which is, comes with a little love letter and explains everything just like this. And what we want to do is offer products that can change your life. So Michael, for you, what we're going to do is explain what this box is, okay? And what this does is we want to make sure that certain things, protect your gut, help your brain help you sleep better, and if I can get those three things done, you're going to be a better person, you're going to be able to like crazy studios, you're gonna be able to do your movies and all that stuff at next level stuff. So Ericsson go through each product this month, this is just this month. unboxing. So first product, no mystery are trying to we talked a lot about it on sale. So we talked about that otra until a sponsor of the show our Tron teal is my baby. We developed this specifically for one of the only products which has been proven to help with bloating. But not only that the polyphenols in it helped with anti aging and anti inflammatory processes. So we know that everybody needs to be on this, you're going to be seeing a lot of information about this, about these molecules in the future. We're cutting edge on this super proud to have this in the box. Retail Price Is $40 3995.
Save a lot. And the cool thing that that letters you get to see how much yeah, so
basically what we're getting at here is that the total cost of this box is about $270. And you get this sent to your house every month where we free at a fraction of the cost of $147. Awesome.
Also another core product megaspore
Thanks for probiotics, so megaspore probiotics, so this is very confusing for people everybody comes up and asked me and they go, Hey, I'm on a probiotic Which one should I be on? I'm going to tell you one to be on a spore based biotic and what that means is that the probiotics, almost all of them get destroyed in our digestive tract, right? Because everybody says oh, they're good for me, but they really never make it to where they should be. We met kid on Krishnan who is the CEO and scientist behind this, we actually did a whole podcast with him if you want to geek out and look at this super cool stuff, but spore based biotics Plus Ultra and teal are synergistic, and they actually help diversify your bacteria. Brilliant dude. Next one is upgraded nano magnesium. Oh my goodness. Alright, so nano magnesium. A lot of people don't realize that we are actually deficient in magnesium and it's needed for cellular health. The reason why I love magnesium, because the nano encapsulated here crosses the blood brain barrier, calms your brain and actually helps replace your cellular magnesium, but helps you calm down in your brain so it's used also to sort of wind down at the end of the day. Next one really cool looking bottle. This is the Zen blend. So, Zen blend Zen blend is a fantastic blend of scientifically proven mushrooms. To help do exactly to augment what the magnesium is doing Reishi core topsis and a few other natural cow is in a Zen blend that helps you wind down at the end of the day. And a recent Joe Rogan episode where he had What's his name? Oh, the mushroom expert. Paul Stamets, Paul Stamets was talking about these specific mushrooms and how we all need to be on this for mental health and neuro regeneration. It's a
brilliant episode. This
is a this combination alone is absolutely insane. Because I'm on it. My kids are on it, everybody's on it. This actually helps you calm down deal with the world. Help your gut already and you start regrowing neural regenerative processes.
Next one, turmeric and ginger,
turmeric and ginger. We know that turmeric has been a staple of a lot of functional medicine people people take tumeric all the time. What's unique about the omeka Organics brand that we made a deal with here is that it has ginger omma and a few other ingredients that actually work to increase your nitric oxide, which Veysel dilates and allows you to absorb the tumeric. The ginger allows gastric movement of this and the omma has been shown to actually improve insulin sensitivity. So no joke. We've actually found a company and every one of these companies, we've talked to their CEOs, we've looked at their certificate of analysis, and we know that it's backed by science. If I'm going to take something like this, I'm going to help my insulin sensitivity. I'm going to make sure it gets absorbed. So that's one of my favorite versions of that.
I mean, if you're an athlete, this is looking like a pretty solid box.
Or if you're type one diabetic like I am, Oh, looks
awesome. Holy cow. Absolutely. You're type one diabetic
type one diabetic for almost 40 years.
Yo, you're doing a group Great job of controlling your insulin because, or your sugar I'm sorry, because Type One Diabetes is a tough disease, autoimmune disease where these products we are now seeing that autoimmune disease starts in the gut. So this is one of the things we're trying to do is help all kinds of people but autoimmunity is one of the things that we're trying to fix. Also, believe it or not, we still have three
products left what
the hell we're
done, we are not finished. Live wise naturals.
Alright, so live wise naturals. This is interesting because it's something that I really have not thought about until my practice. Almost everyone I check is vitamin D deficient. And now we figured out that being vitamin D deficient is related to coronary vascular disease, dementia and autoimmune disease. Yeah, yeah. So all my Crohn's and colitis patients, all my ulcerative colitis patients, they all would I always check vitamin D and I always make sure We're up on that and the reason why is because we live in a society now where we put sunscreen on everything we are indoors. We've got fake lighting going on right now and we probably just don't get enough sun and in our diet we're not getting the proper ingredients that are there. So almost everyone is vitamin D deficient.
The next one I believe is straight from New Zealand The Balm of Gilead manuka honey stick
Alright, so this is the one I've been waiting for. And here's why. Alright, so manuka honey has many medicinal properties. But I put this in the box this month because we're heading into the winter months. You can see on my lips I am chat chat chat. So I've been waiting for this one so I can do the rest of the show. Because he's applying it is literally I'm applying it to my lips right now. Because manuka honey, this is straight out of New Zealand and you'll never be able to find something like this here with it actually has real stuff. Remember when you get on and you start looking at Walmart and cheap things. You get what you pay for bottom line, like lighting,
green screen effects and whatever. You know a cool thing is if you order from us and get a kBm D health box, every single stick of manuka honey is applied to Dr. Brown's lips first.
Yes
that is my signature. It's like welcome back this one
that is not true that is a true freshman who got me got a seal on it and everything but the whole thing about manuka honey is it actually has a tremendous medicinal properties. This is actually a vegan version, grass fed all this other things you know, I said these grass, grass fed vegan vegetables
no but it's the distro and take a look at it. It's it's fantastic stuff.
The next one I'm going to go ahead and kind of hijack it because there is my green pills, which is awesome. If you're interested in having healthy products around Your home. My green fills is an all natural laundry detergent refillable laundry wash. So if you don't want to have more waste, you can order mail order from my Greenfield. And in your box you can have your very first container sent to you with laundry wash. And the cool thing is is whenever you need more wash, they just send you just this packet. You save this you just add water in our house Murray subscribe to my green pills almost two years ago. Kids love it. Your clothes smell clean and fresh. That also comes with a rinse. It's it's a beautiful thing. You save water you save a waste, and you basically save the environment we're on a septic system is this basically protects everything that we have.
So two quick things. Number one, I'm probably wrong on that particular maneuver being vegan. I don't think it is vegan. I think it's a tallow grass fed tallow balm. So if you're vegan, it might not be Good for your butt or you want to use it, but that is my that's probably my misstep. But the most important thing is here with my green fells. We know this the CEO of his company, Mr. Stephen is out and the things he does for the world. He has the my angels. Oh, yeah. What is that? The guy, Stephen, I apologize if I screw up the name. But essentially, he uses proceeds from this company and two others that he runs. And what they do is they take some of their money, they have a charitable arm, and they specifically go out and find women who've been victims of the slave trade. they negotiate with their captors, release them and then give them employment. They don't just free them and say, well, you're free now go find your way. No, they they actually will hand so the dryer angels that you write to the function as an all natural fabric softener whenever you subscribe to my greenfields It's a beautiful program. Stephen is a huge philanthropist. And he is Yeah, he started his whole business when he had nothing with knowing that the first 10% of everything that he earned would be going to charity. And now he is actually driving and he's the one that came to us and he's the one that's powering the member box. And that's why we're so honored to be involved with somebody who is so charitable, giving back and helping lives day to day but bottom line is the KVM D member box you if you take this, this is what I take every single day. The manuka honey will probably change out when it comes springtime, we'll find something more spring related. Eventually we're going to get to a point where we're going to have the perfect mix and change the health landscape so that people like Michael, that chronically deal with tight you know, issues like type one diabetes or anything, we can start making a difference in their life
kBm D health box calm that's kbd health box.com you can order your own health box this month. This is what's featured In the in this current month if you were to sign up, like and share, like and share not only the gut check project like it should just this episode to tell someone tell a family member or a friend, I want you to start living better. Check out what this box is about, save some money delivered to your home. You don't have to think about it. Everything's been vetted by position you, Dr. Brown, and essentially, let's, let's start off the year 2020 on the right foot, and we
got one last little bonus with that if you become a member of this. Oh, one other thing that I think makes a huge difference people's lives is CBD oil, yes. or full spectrum hemp. And if you become a member, you get steep, steep discounts. As a special gift to get our CBD oil, you get a code that allows you to get it dirt to
dirt cheap at KB MD health. And if you've been to the website in the last 11 days, 10 days, you've seen that the store is now fully operational. We had an incredible weekend. Thank you for everyone who participated in Black Friday, Cyber Monday. That was fun.
Are we going to start with discounts there? I don't think so. I mean, we want we don't want cost to be a barrier to entry for people to have quality CBD. So one of the things that we want to do and our mission is not to just say, Oh, the whole reason for having this box is so that we can get these quality products out at an affordable level. We just want to make we just want to change lives. I want to be like Stephen as well, and I want to make a difference in the world. That's the primary goal here and I believe that we are all Endocannabinoid deficient. And next week, when we talk, I'm going to get way into this FDA statement where they're saying we don't know if CBD is safe. We don't know this and that. I've got all the data on this and it's really fascinating. You may even be a two part show, but that's going into that so keep in mind that everyone probably needs some CBD. We're going to give you the best quality CBD at the best price action fraction of the price right and all of these things delivered to your home so that we can bring health to your home. That's the first part of the show. Now the coolest part,
our guests, our guests again, this is Michael Williams. Now Michael, you told me before we got started you have your own company called creative eco correct? I do I do based in McKinney, Texas, as to McKinney. So tell us a little bit about it.
So creative echo is what I like to call it a micro agency. So I've been in video production for quite a while when we get this mic in the right place. Usually I have a wireless lava
video guy. I'm a video guy. I'm not a radio guy. But But
why do I feel like he just started the show with I came down here to your really rinky dink
So, yeah, I was sitting there working on the Star Wars set and somehow I ended up here
I like a car battery lights and
So you guys called me to come down to you know, kind of do some consulting because I do a production video production maneuver about 30 years and, you know, back 16 millimeter three quarter all the way through the digital age and now finally file based digital, you know, so I worked as a graphics operator for live news, hated that get type and then became what I call paint monkey I started doing paint graphics and you know, animation doubler paint system, which is eons old, and then got my first Mac and 1988 I think it was the one yeah, it was it was a two X and actually was doing non compressed video in and out of the Mac in 1988 frame by frame, but it was not compressed. Is that still floppy disk and just as it didn't have floppy disk, okay. Yeah, the three and a half floppies. And you know, scuzzy to Loud chattering thing but and then hooked up to a regular tape deck and broadcast tape deck and we go out frame by frame by frame by frame and I was out putting animation from agencies you know all over the US getting them to tape sending them their video tape so they go into video production post production and actually cut their animation into their spot or whatever they were doing. Sure. So you know I did that for a while and then started my company when I got that Mac I was in post production at the time doing the paint work
to back you up a little bit. Were you educated in this at that time?
Yeah, I actually have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in video and film production and
so this is so they actually had that degree were there you were there really hard on the back and all that.
We didn't have Mac I mean the Lisa was out when I was in college but you know we did they were dedicated systems and you know, for very good, but
what is the lead? I mean, I feel like
Lisa is like one of the first production max that hit the market. Okay, and then you get the bat classic the big square box in the two X, you know, it was about this big that all heavies about anchor and you know I had a one gigabyte hard drive and my system had eight megabytes of RAM. So that was awesome back then
I'll just slow Yep,
yeah but i mean i'm sure then it was fast
then it was it was state of the art there's only a couple of these in the country you know with a new VISTA card in it and being able to pull in component video non compressed. So it was a lot of fun. And so you know, I've been in production for quite a while and now I have the what I call the micro agency because I've been given away creative I'm a creative at heart. I'm technical by necessity, but I have a you know dichotomy every morning I wake up and which brain is going to win, you know, the creative side, the left to the right side, you know, and I can set up roll anything technically just about any piece of equipment in production. And then on the other side of the camera and then produce something fun and creative and you know, meaningful that, you know, tells a story. So
when you're doing the productive side, does the creative side start kicking and regrow, I see where this is going to end up.
And without a doubt, I mean, I never lose sight of the creative, you know, the creative vision. And you just technically you want to learn how to augment that vision and make it better, you know, and tell the story better. Nobody's gonna do effects. If it's not telling the story, you hope it's not helping tell the story. So it's like you're
a director of a movie every single time you do any ad roll anything,
pretty much. So I didn't mean to pop that there. But yeah, so I will step in as a producer, a director. I'll get behind the camera as a director of photography, and then I'll pull the footage and avid an added for about 30 years and do all of my cutting, and then do some of the compositing there or jump in After Effects, do some multi layer compositing and turn it out to the audio design. And push it out encoded and away we go. So that's on the production side of things I do a lot of live streaming will go into corporate places and we'll set up set up a multi camera and live switch with video roles, you know audio stingers music I mean a full production and what live switch it and away we go.
So you said that you had if I understood you correctly back when you were in the in the early stages of before you started creative eco You said you did live news.
I worked at Fox News that's where I was first hired out of college was it channel was a channel four then
it was actually down in Houston. Oh down in Houston. Okay, what's a tale 26 Okay, hey, okay. Alrighty. So I'm just kind of curious, leading to what you just said that you've done on the creative side from doing the lighting and seeing the vision. What did you not like about doing live news compared to now doing a full creative production what was what were the limitations and doing a live news broadcast compared to this
alive news by Cast, everybody has a single position and you're an expert, that single position, you know, and it takes a crew, you know of people, obviously your director, your technical director, your producer, your camera guys, your audio guys, your graphics guys, and you know, all of the research that then goes on way before that and leads into it.
I mean,
I do a lot of different things and I, you know, I get bored easy. So if I'm sitting on a camera, I'm gonna sneeze, you know, if it's multiple days, day in, day out. So I like to jump around and learn and I've been learning for 30 years and you know that that was why I got out alive is plus I can't type fast so and I was a Cairo operator, which was doing the live CDs, you know, that show up right here in the lower thirds. But it just wasn't creative enough. And Funny enough, it was the same format, the same grind, just different content. And I like to change things up a bit and have some fun.
So let's see the reason why I was asking that questions. It seems to me that what you did is the evolution of where everyone is intuitively going to get their information. Now, when I was growing up, everybody watched the news. My parents watched the news in it. I don't really know anybody who really watches traditional news like they used to certainly not in the same numbers, certainly not by by percentage or capital, right. So you left the stodginess in the in the like you sent me is almost sound like you were describing a sterile environment for the way things were represented in now you're creative in what you want to do. podcast, people turn to podcasts more than they do traditional new shows. It's it's really interesting that that was what you just did, intuitively, on your own. That's what everyone's doing.
Exactly. And it's interesting because this this kind of shows the level of knowledge it's actually required to do something at the level that you're now doing things. So you have all these people that want to do YouTube videos, you have all these people want to do things we brought you in today, and you start looking at the studio and You just went, Okay. So this is why it doesn't look as good as it should. And you started going into such detailed analysis, which is so cool, because really what I want this show to be, is let's talk about the technical aspects because a lot of people want to say, Oh, I want to have my kitchen show for even my prank, hundred audience, whatever. So let's start breaking this down a little bit. Let's start looking at what we're dealing with here, what you changed up and the simple changes that you made for the lighting.
Okay, so when I came in, and of course, we're using what we have. And we've got some LED lights, we've got four LED panels, they they're probably about 400 LEDs at that at 300. Looking at them, LEDs per unit.
So before we get into that, let's just back up a little bit. Remember, Eric and I, we came from spoonie studio that was all set up. And we had so much fun doing that we got such great feedback from everybody. We're like, let's just keep going but it's been Eric and I tried to do this and Well you know what maybe we should bring in somebody like Michael who actually kind of knows and so he came in and looked at what we have and okay. The greatest thing you said was let's let's work with what you got.
I mean anybody can set up a studio you know he got he got a budget man, you got a real budget you can get, you know, real life real cameras, you know, you guys have great mics obviously. But, you know, on a budget, you can still set up a pretty professional looking studio. You know, if you don't have the money, the hundred hundred 50 bucks per light, sure for the LEDs. You can go to Home Depot, get a lighters, a Pinterest lighting kit, you know the little aluminum with a little clip on and then get a compact fluorescent daylight. That's the keys. You want it to be the same color temperature and 56 K or daylight is what you want. Otherwise, you're gonna look orange, and you know what's the balance of that? But you get one of those bulbs, the brightest one they have you put it in there and get two or three of those, light it up and you can do that for 3040 box you know,
so if I'm a so if I'm somebody that is starting out with my podcast, or I want to be a YouTuber I want to describe something by can go to Home Depot and you're saying Say that one more time it's 56 K.
So what you want to look for is your 56 K is 5600 degrees Kelvin, which is the light temperature of which sunlight is roughly a shade is a little bit lower. And then you go all the way down to the old school, the amber looking lights, you know, your mom and dad's lights as they're watching the news on live TV. Nobody's using but those are, you know, either tungsten or incandescent, but burns at a much lower temperature and it's warmer, brighter, the light, the more blue or white It is so and you can produce in any light temperature as long as they're all the same. If you mix it up then one has color orange or red one parts can be blue, like we set up in here and tuckson and we open the window blue lights going to come in
Reno is the interesting thing that he did. I mean, you gave us credit for thinking about backloading. That's pretty much where amount of your knowledge guessing knowledge stop. And then immediately you got you started drawing diagrams about how you're going to make light angles cross and cross each other to even out. Right. So
the issue we had here is one of real estate, its space sure we don't have the space that we need to, you know, create a nice, your piece of trust or something to hang our lights evenly at the same distance from the green screen for the background. So we had to go to the corners and then light across and to get it as flat as possible so that the green goes away and whatever you want goes there. So we cross the lights and it evens it out a little bit. And there's still some hot spots, we spent maybe less than an hour You know, coming in and looking around and say, Okay, let's make this work. And you know, it looks pretty good. There's a couple of hot spots, but for the most part, that Greedo key out one click, and you put whatever you want back there.
It's pretty sweet it's it's really cool and I think it's pretty sweet when he came in so so where do you guys train at I'm like I'm a button doctor
oh boy calls his wife says honey I'm gonna be I'm gonna be a little later and I thought
I was about so when I leave here
why why this field
my wife asked me that every day because it is not a nine to five job you know we get up at the crack of dawn we drive to a location we set up in we bring the truck all the stuff to set up and then we film all day and you know of course golden hour is you know, really our right after sunrise and you know, the hour right before sunset. That's the best lighting of your shooting outside. So we're shooting from you know, dawn to dusk, and then we gotta break everything down and pack it up and drive back so not a nine to five my wife's like, could you just be you know, a dentist or a CPA or something stay home. Yeah, I
there's Dennis and CPAs going. That's pretty much my
Yeah, so, but
I'm trying to think of jobs now that like are just, oh crna That's it. That's the one job.
But it's a lot of fun and and I tell people, you know, whenever they ask, you know, why do you through a six I haven't worked a day in my life. You know, I have so much fun. I love what I do. It's different every day. The topics are different, you know, I'm worrying about you know, gut check and you know, and that's important to me being a type one diabetic, you know, it's like, everything is based on metabolism and you know, you can't metabolize anything if your guts not working right so you know, it's your I go hang out with a helicopter and film you know, do air to air filming or climb up 200 feet on the tower and 200 feet out on your big crane and, and then heights. No, no, I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie. Oh, and then clip in and lean back and a camera and film The guy talking to me who's out on the Yeah would be fun. That was a lot of fun. And so I never know what I'm going to be filming
so you actually don't actually carry the cameras and stuff. Are you directing it? Are you are you
It depends.
Are you that on wall guy that
Netflix
sat there and I actually
I can't sit idle crew I drive him crazy because I hire crew and then I go do it and but
it's like you're hiring them to come watch you.
I always admired the people that got the camera shot more than the person doing it. You watch Bear Grylls do his stuff.
Yeah,
climbs trip just like there's somebody up there already filming you. That's
fine. Bad is bad. Yeah.
Or they're doing the terrain like down a steep mountain where there's where there's snow ski, and you got
somebody else don't even have poll.
Exactly the real hero to everything is The person that gets the shot
yeah definitely camera man or you know the unsung heroes of production
yeah get to the bottom of the run these posing and you look at the camera guys missing a leg shot
I love you.
But yeah, like I said I started out as a graphics operator I thought I wanted to be a digital artist you know, I wanted to be an artist some sort and when I went into college, I want to be a starving artist. So I got a technical background and then started editing and fell in love with editing because that's where the story is really told you can have horrible footage and a great editor and come out with something that's pretty darn good. And you got great footage and a horrible editor and it comes out like crap that has no job.
So the editing, I actually so I downloaded Final Cut Pro 10 you know to try and do some stuff with ABS and with zero training and oh my gosh, like all things it is it's so frustrating and You just you just get immediate humility. Anytime that I try and do anything that somebody else is really good at and you're like, oh, wow, I know what I can do. I can do a rectal, really good. But beyond that now I don't know.
Yeah, well, I mean, it gives you tired head you look at it and then after a while you get frustrated because it you it's not nearly as intuitive as you want it to be. Right. Right.
And not not right away anyway. Yeah, I mean, there is a deep learning curve on any editing software. Yeah, it's gotten so much easier. It wasn't a past.
Yeah, what you're talking about it with the equipment you were using and what they're able to do. I was thinking about this when you were saying that I'm thinking of movies now that I watch. I was like, Wow, those graphic effects can Assad and you realize they're pretty amazing for the equipment that they had?
Oh, yeah,
a lot of those without an optically you know, with film up until you see, you know, digital was there but not for film quality. And do you know you could get on a flame or fire your discrete logic big system you have the size of refrigerator the computers and onyx in get all in stock frame by frame but you get up to K images. Now we you know take it off a micro SD card drop it in a way we go, you know, a lot has changed and it's got a lot a lot higher resolution and a lot smaller form factor so makes you know, your creative vision easier to to maintain and keep focused on instead of having to worry about too much of the year. You remember Terminator?
Oh, yeah. That was a huge fan favorite for my my friends and I growing up was Terminator one. And then when finally Terminator two came out with the T 1000. And it became it was already animated. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I didn't even know what to think. I remember seeing that and looking back at Terminator one saying I love Terminator one, but I don't know what this is.
And this is amazing. That is a great question. So as somebody who's an expert that has been from the beginning and you you continue to evolve Which is also very fascinating to me because I would think that a lot of your people that were doing it with you back in the day have probably gone on to different fields. You're probably one of the few people that has stuck with the industry for 30 years and grown with the technology.
Yeah, there's, there's more of a thing you might think but you know, a lot of people will move on or just, you know, move into something different. But, you know, technology is definitely definitely changing. You've got to keep up with it. Are you going to get lost?
So as a as an editor, what movie when I asked you what is your favorite movie that you look at and you go from a technical aspect? This is brilliant.
Well, there's I don't have one favorite movie.
But there are there are several if you want to go back to one of the classics, you know, Citizen Kane, I mean, look at the the editing they did the opening scene where they push through a window. How the heck did they do that back then, you know, it's like you know, there's some music videos out there that are single shots. No editing just a single shot the whole time real time Yeah. It's I think was Madonna was the first one to do that. And of course you know Guy Ritchie
all that's rise,
you know her bow at the time and you know, so he was doing some cutting edge stuff, but I don't I don't know don't quote me that he actually directed that but i would assume so but
was the movie I'm sorry to interrupt but what was the movie that had? Was it the Birdman or something that was like no or yes for being it had something special about the way that they filmed it. Michael Keaton Michael
Keaton I'm not real familiar with the verb I didn't watch right
yeah, I think it was one take I think it was one stream or so I don't remember those shots I'm only didn't show
the whole movie but yeah, they really kind of embedded that and you know, it's fun to be able to tell the story and not have to cut away you know, to be able to just because we don't cut we don't blink and Okay, another shot. Yeah, we turn our heads we move. We will as Humans that's more natural for us to see the world that way. So it's, it's interesting that people are finally getting back to the way that human eye perceives reality rather than forcing your brain to take the story you want them to you. So you're cutting away to something you want them to see rather than turning and showing them you know, the way you would normally turn with your head or something like that.
Well, what's also fascinating about this is because of the YouTube phenomenon, the the non commercialize the non the non perfected type videos like our podcast,
yeah. Well, they're there. They can be more authentic. They're raw.
Yeah, they're real and they're not overproduced. Which you know, you can over produce things very easily.
Okay, so that brings up a different point. So with your production company, you probably run into all different types of different requests from customers of all different hills. High End corporate, low end a I just want to make a quick video. Is it hard to explain Blame to the over corporatize customer, hey, you really need to inject some personality here. Whether or not they take your advice could be completely different situation. But do you find that that's that's difficult to do even in today's world where that seems to be what people read
without a doubt, you know, it's all based on their personality, and it's not something they do all the time. They're not a TV personality. They're not a radio personality. They're a CEO of a tech corporation or, you know, whatever, and you gotta pull the stick out. Sometimes, you know, you being that kind of doctor, you got to pull that stick out and let them loosen up. I don't use
sticks in my job. everybody listening, please don't worry that I'm gonna use a stick.
You're pulling out little little loosen up a little bit. Yeah, that's
never loosens everybody up when you go to sleep.
But, you know, you got to get them loosened up and you got to get them to forget about the camera and the environment and then just talk to them. You know, I have You know, CEOs will come in, they'll have a script and they're, they're ready to just regurgitate that script, like, okay, let's read through it. And I'm like, do you know teleprompter here, you know, what's that? Like? Okay, well read through the script one more time. And we're gonna put down. It's like, No, no, no, no freak out like, no, we're just going to talk about it. I'm going to ask you questions, and you're going to respond. And we're going to get the real story, not, you know, something that's been too legal that we have to go through the legal later. But, you know, at least it's from the heart. And it's real. It's authentic.
We were, I've, like we were talking about before Eric, Eric's father. Well, but I didn't actually tell you about this. But the reason why Eric is so good at sound is because his dad was actually involved in radio most of his life. And so Eric was around this and enjoyed it. And his dad taught him and he was a musician and Eric's a musician. And tell me about that real quick. Oh, yeah. I mean, that my dad
was, he was grew up in Gainesville. And my dad when I was by the time I was born, he was the sports Director for the small kgs radio station which is still there today. And he also was a DJ out there at the radio station. He had plenty of friends all throughout DFW there were also in radio, dad played a self taught piano, drums, bass guitar, and he just, he was a true audio file without ever using the word. I mean, he's loved it. And so whenever he would toy around and tinker with stuff and mix with sounds, I just thought it was cool. Didn't have any idea. I was getting an education on it. And then within this opportunity presented itself and there's a lot of fun. So that's something when you when you say things that you never really worked a day in your life playing around with stuff like this, to me is just, it's fun. It's sick people that say like to tinker and this is just Yeah,
and I get to do it. You know, just about every day. It is a lot of fun. And there's a lot of hard work that goes all of
us. All of us are not working but one of us is getting paid.
That's right as consultant
But
so you know, technology has really enabled anybody to, you know, kind of pick up a camera and, you know, do a webcast or podcast or you know, even you know, cut it and don't do it live, you know, you can post it later.
So we, we've got a lot of different experts that they can talk to to help us both with the podcast and in a whole bunch of different facets. So one of the people that helps us with this show Now, of course, there's Ron Phillips, who's been on the show before. And then Paul Rogers is the guy that helps us cut and basically create promos, all the stuff that we're not any good at. And Paul does a fantastic job. He's really been helping give us some different guidance on how to move through topics and sometimes you don't stick to it all the way but we're trying to and but Paul is actually helping put together a package for a small city in North Texas to help, record and transmit their city council meeting. They were ready to throw down something like $100,000 on equipment and Paul's like, okay, you could also save $90,000 and let me help you with that. And it's amazing because you're right, the technology really is not that inaccessible anymore. No, not at all. And it's crazy because people just want to spend the money thinking they're getting the best and
brightest and it doesn't want that. So if I am a I'm an up and coming YouTuber, because I saw this fantastic stat where it's like Generation Y like 30% of the kids want to be youtubers is
there I want to be YouTube famous or famous, Snapchat famous or you know, whatever the whatever. Snapchat so I guess waning a little bit but Tick Tock or whatever knocking whatever is all the rage down, which is musically rehashed, I think but
so it's it's fascinating because Eric's Eric's kids gage and Mac actually were taking classes during high school on Final Cut Pro Which, which is what the class that his high school chose to do. And so now kids are coming out and they're learning this kind of thing. So as an expert seeing all of it, I'm a, I'm a dad. My kid is graduating, they've kind of done pretty well with playing around with different things. I want to give them a graduation present, which would be an audio and video package. Let's say less than $2,000 What would you do
the laptop in that or no, no, no, no, they've
already already got a laptop
and something you know fairly. This just so that you can sit
there like I'm thinking of gates. I'm thinking of the dangerous off to college. He's done a great job. They've got a they've got their the floaty thing, what's the drone?
So they've got it. So the
only thing would be a balloon. Yeah
in my generation anything we got off the ground was a floating thing
that floated a flag that says that's a fly dad it floats defies gravity to defies gravity. So whether you're a drone or a fly, right, throw a rock for all the same. So if I'm going to sit there and give a graduation present, we got Christmas coming up and you say, Listen, my child's really into this. They're kind of doing some small YouTube videos and stuff like that. Where are what would I give them like as a package gift, and I know I'm putting you on the spot here. But like if you didn't get all
your children, I would get a good either DSLR or you know, the new mirrorless digital cameras are awesome. And make sure it's you can change out the lens in that way you can grow into it. My personal favorite, Michael pop and again,
my production never never actually showed up. So
my personal favorite would be At this point in time yo cannon five D but that's more expensive the body on that you know three grand oh but you can get something I mean they shot house several episodes of house you know with the Canon five D and we can put them in places that you can't put the other cameras here the big
oh that makes sense so that like you got this you can come in here
and it's just it's just a great format you know of course I'm a Canon guy I've always loved canon, more so than Sony but Sony makes a great product says Panasonic you know I've got a Panasonic camera that I use for you know EMG production but we get something that if you can has an interchangeable lens DSLR type and they're gonna become cheaper because the mirrorless are out. And so maybe a wide angle or fixed 50 lens. And my favorite lens on the five D is my 7200 L series beautiful lands you get that nice soft that the field gorgeous lands. You know, but again that's a more expensive plans.
No no fortunately we're sponsored by all these products you're talking about. Yes. Yeah.
So just to recap so I would get you know a the best DSLR you can afford with you know, a decent lens and you can get one that is wide enough that has a zoom a little bit so you can zoom in and get different focal length. A good microphone. And you know, you could get a
What do you say good microphone attached to the camera or you mean a lapel mic
on what they're doing, you know, for a podcast, you know, these are great studio mics. If you're out in the field. You might want to get a wireless love or a wire, you know, boom or shotgun mic. You use different mics for different environments for different reasons. But just get road makes a great cheap mic that will hit on the on the hot shoe, plug right in the mini and it's not bad. It's a shotgun mic right on top of the camera. Very, very affordable. And then you know, maybe a light kit depending on what they're doing. They may not Don't need it but lights you know, it's all reflecting light, you don't have light it's going to reflect nothing and you're not gonna see any more black so you gotta have enough light and as we found out earlier that was your issue with your green screens earlier is that you didn't have enough light on the green and you know that wasn't enough. I guess Chroma difference. So is
so is there are there are there light kits that come with multiple lights and you can do different things.
Oh yeah. And you know, LEDs are wonderful. Now we didn't have the luxury of using LEDs. When I was coming up in production but LEDs, you know, it's a small form factor. It's super bright, you know, you can even go to Walmart or Home Depot or any Batteries Plus actually has some great LED panels that are battery powered. And you get a little skinny arm which is you know, a quarter 20 thread that can go in the hot shoe or you know on the camera or clamp on and you can put the light up here and you got to Gun light. very affordably.
Even. That is so cool because if the the number of lights that we have in here right now to get this amount of light back 20 years ago, we would be sweating.
Yes. Oh, without a doubt. Yeah, I mean it would be incredibly hot in here if it weren't because of the heat on the I'm sweating
by the way. So
what is what you say? Yeah, it would be worse
Yeah, I refused to like you know, everybody raise your hand like no no way.
Well, and then wait, final thing. So now Okay, so as a dad,
graduation gift is the expensive camera. You talk to the uncle that says Look, this is this is kind of thing we're dealing with. He's graduating. Why don't you do the lights? Why don't you know aunt Karen, you do the mic. And then what are we gonna do to video edit it.
So there are some good software's out there. You can get some cheap, almost free software. out there some of you know, but you get what you pay for. Probably I would say the best bang for the buck because you get a whole suite would be the Creative Cloud, you know, just do the Adobe Suite, get the production bundle so that you get Premiere Pro, which is a great editing software, you get after effects, you get Photoshop, you get Illustrator. I mean, depending on how much you want to pay per month, you can get the whole suite and do whatever you want. You know, they've got you know, soundbooth they've got, you know, all kinds of different tools, and you're paying like 59 bucks a month or 50 bucks a month for that. That would be the best but to go out and buy something you know, I'm an avid guy, Bill and Avid Media Composer. It used to be $100,000 on a system and then it came down to the price point recently and it was like two grand for the software and they just recently have gone back to The same model Adobe is with a monthly subscription is about 30 bucks a month as well okay? But there are some out of the box stuff depending on your Mac or PC. But the main thing you want to look for, you know is your edit interface you don't want to think about what you're doing you want to cut a story and just kind of have it the you know, just very natural you know, the whole way that the layout is the way you know the premiere let's see your change your your edit desktop, you know, avid wants to change your desktop. I think you leave had some real super cheap stuff, these come with the DVD stuff, and you can cut on that even you know, the iMovie you know, on a Mac, you can do some things there. Certainly from the presets because everybody uses them and you know, my my opinion over use presets and overused graphics just because you think they're cool is kind of
cheapens it thinking what kind of it doesn't have to be graduation gift. I think we kind of a cool thing. It is Your children are going to be using this technology anyways, your children are looking at YouTube, they're already interfacing with this, they're already looking at this, then if you give them the ability to tell the stories that they want to tell, then you can start directing. Hey, we're going so and so's getting married. Why don't you cut some disco and bring your iPhone, just cut some film and then you can edit it, you have the equipment, bring the bring your road might bring your light, then you can start having a documentation of whatever you want, in a really cool way because everything that I have right now is just snippets from from the phone. Right and, and I and I have all these old I mean, I evolved very quickly when things started changing. I've got little mini cams, I got HD, whatever DVDs, and yet I've got, as Jim gaffigan says it's very funny. He does a whole set on. It's like we don't have photographs anymore. We just have hard drives, like Well, there's my hard drive from Disney World. And that's my Wedding harddrive and that that's where we're at right now. I'm like oh, but if you can convert things to little snippets and movies this is the two minute thing because if you're good at it and fast at it when you give a gift like this to a family member that actually uses it yeah you're buying memories.
Oh yeah. Without without a doubt and most of us you know, we you know, probably probably about your age but grew up in the era where you know, is either film or is video Well I know we're
the same age because the jokes I'm saying you're the
so I mean, Christmas morning we wake up and you know, dad would flip on the super eight boom and then the lights come on. Boom. And we're like blind we're getting a headlights Yeah, we'll do something like I can't see any turn up lighting see spots for an hour? Yeah, yeah. Now you know, it's like you can you can if you get the footage and you never use these ever watch it you know it was on film you got to develop it and it's at the in the middle can for years and which is our family and recently a product of five years ago, maybe 10 years ago, digitized everything from my parents 50th color to music and, you know, did one, you know, a little segment for each of my siblings and for myself and then you started my parents and then you know, went through the whole family and all the way through there, you know, from literally black and white shot in the 50s on film, all the way through, you know, digital, almost so he was on that's cool. Hey, you know, and it was fun. It was a lot of fun took forever, never discount how long it will take to edit especially a project like that.
Oh my goodness, a trust me that's that's the thing. That's why learning how to edit it. edit anything in a rapid way is the key. When you sit down to about the equipment when you sit there and say the lighting and everything. That's what everybody focuses on. When everything shuts down, and it's on your computer and you start looking at it. Eric has watched me and Paul will laugh at this who's who's helped me with through this I didn't realize that there's a lag when it comes to the way that we're recording and the audio and I will sit here for an hour and try and move a soundbite a millisecond so it matches so it doesn't look like an old kung fu movie right where Eric and I are talking like I'm telling you that wow
yeah there's I mean depending on how you record and you know, you're recording you know, from your camera and you're running it into your laptop and running it through software and then it's running and running the file to your hard drive. Of course there's going to be some latency there you know, there's going to be it's not going to be real time there might be some audio drift depending on how you're recording and how your format is set up.
So this was the but when when he first showed up and started talking like this, he's like, Oh, I can see what's going on right here. You can have a little bit light drag over here. We need to change this in this room have audio drifted, you can have lighting I just went different language. Yeah, totally different language you have a you have a skill set. That is unbelievable. And I love that you've kept this passion for over 30 years you said yeah for over 30 years and I've thank you so much for coming here and helping us set this up and hopefully be easier for Paul to post edit this and yeah
yeah you probably got some help
so we can you know we set up pretty quickly and I didn't have time to tweak but it should be a lot better than it was and of course we do have some environmental issues but yeah, space
you knew where you were in trouble I was like okay, where are the makeup people?
Yeah, yeah I always carry in makeup mean it's huge because if you're sweating and shiny I mean nobody wants to listen to you you know you're just You look like a shifty you know sweating bullets and you're like nobody's gonna believe so get some you know some corn silk so just a little powder and not know
what's up. Go check projects that shifty as Dr.
Careful,
little power. I mean little things like that go a long way and little cheap
little powder goes a long way. We tried that once with Eric and it all got cut his upper upper mustache here and I'm like, Eric, you don't look like you were trying to hell and then I inhaled I caught it all out.
A little powder. But what's the beard? Right? That's right.
Well, Michael, thank you so much, Robin. My pleasure. This was this is only our 25th episode here on gut check project. But each episode, I feel like we're getting stronger. And now that we've, unfortunately had to try to build her own studio. We're we're learning
Yeah, and let's just go ahead and recap here. So what I think we learned what I got out of this episode number one is that we don't know a whole lot about there's experts in this field. But Michael, what I took away from this is is that you just gave a recipe for every father or mother to say my child likes to watch this. Now have a box that I can say, look, pull away from the computer, walk out into the world and do it yourself. Yes, start interacting with people again. Because that's one of the biggest things as we automate everything, and we isolate ourselves. It just leads to more and more of that depression and anxiety. And even though wherever, you know, even my children, they don't watch TV, but but though they have the YouTube people they watch and they've turned me on to some great YouTube people that I love some science stuff that I just geek out on, like, holy cow, and and of course, I sit there and I don't just watch it. But Lucas looks at me. He's like, isn't that cool? I was like, how did he edit?
Yeah,
I just look at that. Go. What? How did you get that angle? How did they zoom in
like that? That's crazy. Man. That's a cool point, though, too, because the technology and YouTube and these platforms aren't going anywhere. So what basically what you just said what Michael is just described on how to do it with that recipe is OK, so the technologies now going anywhere, how can I help my kids and my family members get back into being a human with
back into being a human with this technology? One great way to do it is to put a mic in front of somebody and say, Michael, tell me about yourself.
Give me Give me your story, your story. And you know, the great thing is that, you know, they're used to being in front of a laptop, and they've got this digital world. Well, they've got their little digital security blanket and a camera, you know, they that's their
digital security behind so cool. It's so cool. You can sit there, give a gift to your introverted child and say, Look, you're really good at this. You don't even have that. People like being on camera. Yeah. So you can take somebody and say you're behind the camera, you're protected. Ask a question. People like to tell their story. And when you start engaging like that, then you can turn that story and you can make them look like a hero after editing and go back to them and say, here you go. Yeah, this is your story. You become the hero you control. What's going on, and you now have the ability to interact with people, people come to you and go, that was so cool what you did. And now as a parent, if your child is being a little introverted and stuff, you can sit there and teach them how to come out of their shell with a camera.
Yeah. And it inspires creativity, you know, have fun thing to do is we gave my daughter I think she at the time was like 10 or 11. If we gave her my my five D, and she said, just go film some stuff. Let's have some fun. And she took around the house and shot all kinds of random weird stuff. And she's like, well, I want to make a perfume commercial. Perfect. Yeah, we didn't have Johnny Depp but we had this random thing. And it was it was awesome. Together 32nd spot and there's a lot of fun to see inside your kids brains. When you're not looking. You know, it's like what's going on in there. I had a lot of fun. That's cool.
My son a few years ago had to do a commercial and you can do it like either written or recorded or whatever. And I came home and they showed me He got my daughter involved, my wife involved they wrote a whole script. And I just came home to watch the end product which was unedited. But it was so funny to watch that and so and it was so well done for an iPhone just right, right clip clip clip, quick time put it together. I was so proud of that. And I just looked at I was like, that is a family moment. Everybody got involved. It was cool. But almost family moment I had to work so that they could afford to do that. That's a whole separate that's pretty much the theme of my life.
I understand that.
But that man, I like that. I like the whole idea that we just came up with right here. Yeah, you know, engage the put everybody so the Joe Rogan recent podcast with Joe Stanek was it? Paul? Paul Stamets Paul Stamets. So it's all about mushrooms and Sol Simon and a few other things. If you don't know anything about that listen to extremely wild. But he said the coolest thing ever, which was, the thing is, is that we are in a competitive world. And if everyone became a little bit more enlightened, a little bit more accepting and a little bit more willing to learn, then we would grow exponentially as a race, as opposed to what we're doing now, which is I'm trying to beat you to the next hurdle, right? But I try $10 think of where we could grow exponentially if everyone had the ability to go you're a really cool person. Let me pull out my digital journal and let let me learn about you
know, which which is well it is it is a digital journal, Colonel. So, one of the things I would recommend is you know, we shoot this and you know, you give to your kid they go to college. What
time they go
now, my phone
That's yours.
I don't know how
we get this turned off. It's on silent.
That's the weirdest thing. It sounds like it's coming through our sound system here. This weird does.
Yeah, I've got nothing running here. It
is coming from here. That is so weird. That's awesome.
Yeah. So the cool thing about video editing.
What mostly happened is my wife got into my Spotify account and it started playing here on Spotify on at home or my daughter more likely into that. But what I was gonna say is that, you know, you could go off to college and you shoot all this footage and they're gonna run out of space, you know, so I would recommend you get a Cloud account of something and have them upload it because then you have access to it. If you give him a hard drive, you'll never see it.
Yeah. Have
them upload it and you're paying for it. So say look, I'll archive it for you and then you've got access to that footage.
Yeah and I think now we're just I've been finally finally got my foot my kids phones. We talked about that a couple episodes ago and you having unlimited storage now with the iCloud is Oh, yeah, dirt cheap. It's it's not it's like, I mean, it's just I don't know where it's all going. I don't know. I mean, I keep thinking that like SpaceX is going to go, we're hitting data, we can't get through it too many pictures, right and stand the whole cloud thing. Someday we're gonna look up we won't be able to see sunlight, right? Just gonna be
a bunch of ones and zeros all over the sky. Right, right. We don't do anything about it. Well, I do know that you need to go. But we've had an awesome show here today. I do want to remind everybody to Like and share the gut check project. certainly appreciate everyone. The new website will launch at some point December we thought was gonna be before Thanksgiving, but that's not how websites go.
And most importantly, we're one of the few places right Now that you can actually purchase CBD online, Greg has there's been, as everybody's probably noticed, they're popping up all over hard like in buildings. But the reason why is because we went through all the meticulous process to actually have the ability to sell a vetted, CBD full spectrum hemp product called kBm D health CBD that we've got Certificate of analysis, I see the clinical benefit with people. And we are giving tremendous discounts because we know people need it. This is much more about us helping people much like you, giving this kind of advice to help people to have great video editing. We want to make sure that everybody ultimately has a better life. That's what the gut check projects about. It's about trying to improve lives.
Definitely don't forget to do you want to connect without drawn to it, you can go to love my tummy.com forward slash spoonie if you would like to learn more about the kBm the health marks go to KB MD health box.com or KB Md box.com. On the above take you there. If you'd like to connect with Michael Williams and creative Echo, is there a place to get rejected?
You know, my go to creative echo.net and you can find out more about what I do and you can book an appointment or you can get my email or any other contact information. So
that's also creative echo.net not calm, creative. echo.net connect with Michael Williams. Thank you so much for being a part of our 25th episode, like and share a gut check project. Thank you all very much. Once again,
thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate it. event.
See y'all soon.