Why @YesTheory Refused a $1,250,000 Movie Deal

it's every filmmaker's dream 1.25 million dollars to make the documentary you've always wanted and they said no but if you want your movie in cinemas you need Studio money right Rock they were here because we're going to tell you how we can watch the film in the cinemas project Iceman is a documentary about the man who completed an Iron Man Triathlon in the most dangerous place on Earth and and this movie was funded entirely by the subscribers of the YouTube channel yes Theory because of yes Theory Amar the director of project Iceman was able to make the movie ended with full creative control if I'm honest this movie was astounding there's the Iceman I'm really proud to help fund the stream with a thousand other yes they're in fans foreign I invited the director Amar and the editor Victor to share their experiences in the editing process of project Iceman and delved deep into their intriguing creative philosophies this is that conversation this is probably a special moment for you guys because I think you even meant it off camera you haven't really had the opportunity for YouTube to really talk about the whole processary this is our therapy session yeah yeah I'm trying to I'm trying to be uh show affection here come on I know we went through a lot but it's it's actually funny we can joke about it but like having that intensive experience with people you don't know spending that much time together not compromising with art like you're creating art so you can compromise and working with this guy who does not compromise he does not let anything go like 80 has to be 100 yeah it's I mean we basically went from a process that was 37 days of the hardest work that I've ever done in my life that he's ever done in his life the anders has ever done his life and this guy did an Iceman in Antarctica and we went straight from that to Landing in Copenhagen to go live on the virtual premiere for to only two days after that start a full Premiere tour that lasted 50 days oh wow so and then you know even when we were in La obviously Victor Kim came to the premiere but we you know barely had the moment to we just like you know hugged and celebrated but this is truly the first time that we got to talk about the the editing process of this film which yeah you know is truly like one of it is the proudest thing that we've ever created that that and and something that I'm you know so proud to see people interacting with so well right now for the opportunity to create to show um Just A New Path for creators and filmmakers to you know believe that they don't have to be always seeking this like oh only when I have to get somewhere so that production company can believe in me you kind of broke a new ground in that sense a lot of uh creators even a lot of filmmakers they have to find let's just say like the funding they have to find okay how I want to do this massive project but maybe I might not even have the skills to probably do so all the resources to do so from my perspective it looked like just by the new nature of you building the yes fairy community and building it to this really really like fantastic point it kind of just seems natural like yeah all right let's make a film and I forget like like you you did a lot of that you did a lot of the steps to get to the point where you had the resources to go all right off we go yeah there's an article that I read very early on in my S3 career and it was talking about the concept of a thousand true fans and how an artist you know people are so fixated in in in in building up and continuing to like get more followers and make more videos when you actually do the math you know in this case if you have if you're someone if you're a filmmaker that has a hundred thousand followers on Instagram ask yourself is there a thousand people in there that would be willing to pay 50 bucks to give you fifty thousand dollars which is a pretty good budget for it for you to create whatever it is that you want our true power is the fact that we that we have people's attention in the most organic way production companies no matter what size they are they they don't have that and that's the part that I've been blessed to to always be aware of and are yes their Journey so we did the Wim Hof documentary in 2019 and that was the first like long-form experiment like just felt like there's a there's something to do there and we did it and it worked really well even though at the beginning like it didn't really perform well at all it was like that gave us the confidence to do the second one and the Lost Pyramid was the the second one we did in Guatemala with like an amazing lineup of or filmmakers and creators The Narrative of just really wanting to drive the the talent and the digital space to be making things that can compete with you know what goes up on Netflix and the things that can you know be up in theaters but then we decided that before we put it on YouTube there we were gonna um put on a paywall and we did the pay what's fair model people paid any anywhere from a dollar and someone I think paid the highest was fifteen hundred dollars oh wow just like out of like wanting to support the film and that made us realize like oh my God those people know that this film was gonna go live on YouTube in a month because we were very transparent with that but they still wanted to support because this idea of of really wanting to carve a new path for people to be making films differently and be telling stories outside of all the agendas of I mean you know the politics in this town and all what comes into making a production and working with big money that gave us the confidence that with with when we ran into the the big wall with having gotten to a point where we got the offer for you know 1.25 million dollars great money for to make a documentary and I did one the first production meeting with the full team and uh right away you just know that that's not a process that will lend itself to actually creating this like piece that has such depth and Collective energy that was that has been put throughout time and literally people put their lives on the line and those people that are in that meeting rooms they're talking about like Insurance can like covet testing and and all things that are like we can do these things but let's start by setting the tone by talking about what is the intention and I was like wow I don't want any of this this money is like probably yeah it looks sexy on paper but we can probably do it for a lot less a lot better that can potentially support everything you need and so that can take care of a lot of the costs of production but at what cost exactly exactly and that's what I think what people fail to realize that you work in the process and you go into this and you think that well okay let me accept the money so I can make this Vision happen and I can get this you know art or message that I want to put out to the world but the reality is you do that and you you lose a bit of yourself every time you make a compromise and then all of a sudden you realize that this film that is about transcending perceived limitations and ordinary doing extraordinary the film all of a sudden is becoming more about climate change and I'm like of course I want to talk about climate change but this one is not about climate change again if you're a creator that has built the community around you and people that believe in what you're making promise it's not so hard to harness that and actually be able to create the stories and the things that you want to make and that's why it was so freaking important that the process of the film also gets to reflect what the film is actually about how would you to describe the feeling of this film this is like some of the the buzzwords that are obviously any filmmaker strives to yeah to really you know put in the thing that they're creating but yeah the rawness of what we showed in this documentary is and I can comfortably say that is unparalleled this is a documentary that was made with the guy that was nobody he was not an ath he was not a professional athlete he was just a business consultant a guy that wore a suit going to to work I will complete the first ever Iron Man Triathlon in Antarctica the Iceman I'm doing it to prove the limitations only perceptions of what we can achieve that through passion extreme dedication and self-belief even the ordinary person can achieve the extraordinary and the beauty of the story is that through his experience watching YouTube and watching the Creator community and the way we captured our stories and how we shared our Journeys on YouTube that I think in a way made him aware that those are also important moments that you should capture so it's not just that we you know we had this film is this you know cinematic piece that was filmed on the Reds and the Aries and it's also this the best stuff in this film is the things that were filmed on the iPhone yeah those are the things that you can't recreate that was the part of this film that made me feel like there's this beautiful infusion between the authenticity that we have felt throughout the past decade from digital creators on YouTube in the way we're used to Journeys being shared and something at a like this human world-class feat of doing something that has never been done before and the way it should be represented and how epic it should look and the combination of these two things I think in my mind was gonna like really offer an experience for the viewers that that they have never seen before and you know so far that's been the that's been the feedback so when I saw this film in cinemas uh the first shot got me and I knew okay this is gonna be something special I know it's currently in cinemas but I want to share the viewers this sequence absolutely and what it took to get it to the finished product you wanted it to be so that was actually one of the first things that that I knew we wanted to create with this film is a way for people to enter the universe that this film is going to create in a very effective way that also wasn't a cold opener and then three months before two years before there was like all these like very classic ways of starting a documentary so I wanted to create an environment that was so abstract where you are almost lost in time and space you just don't know what's going on but there's a specific feeling that you get out of it there is fear there's anxiety there's unsettling you're hearing you're hearing one thing but you're seeing something else you're constantly seeing this Dynamic contrast but it also allowed us to give a reference to something that's going to happen a lot more later in the film that is pretty significant which is the storm in a way that again wasn't the cheesy classic way of you know just showing bits and flashes of it we still did that but in a very in a very effective way you know Victor and that was that's really his like where he where he shines like to be able to visually Express things that give a particular feeling and uh and a way for us to introduce characters Stakes this future climactic event that that we want people to have patience for because you know you're gonna go on a journey for an hour and 40 minutes before you get there or 30 minutes before you get there and a way to just like tie everything together and kind of give you that feeling of like okay we're watching something different so yeah just you know setting up the scene explaining that this is not made by one of the companies that you would expect to be made by there's no big distributor it's just the people so it just already sets the tone this is a very different type of documentary it gave me chills straight away [Music] oh this has a backstory we had the idea of of can you actually do frost can you time lapse it this is a liquid that when put on any surface and heated it looks like Frost and it's growing naturally it's like irony this is heat I want to be inside of Anders is mine yeah you still haven't seen his face yet we're not gonna show his face clearly up until you know a little point I want to show this process of he goes to a Frozen part of his mind to be able to access a certain memory a certain feeling a certain fuel that then throughout the film is going to continue to drive and that's kind of where we wanted these shots of like okay it's gonna be cold I'm interpreting it is like Isis is fuel yeah yeah it's the place yeah the place that he will have to visit the Frozen places in his mind that you'd have to visit oh wow because those frozen places are the places that end up making you conform end up making you lose like your sense of the free child in you wow depict the universe and some of the things that are happening in the film in a way that are still abstract and not give away anything but just puts you in the sphere [Music] the main thing that you hear even though it's so distorted the energy of it is so high it's actually the point of the film that I tried every single time watching the film it's the point when when Anton brings Anders out of the tent and pushes him to to finish wow he's speaking to him in Danish and he's screaming all these things and even though it was in Danish the first time I I watched it in the raw footage I didn't understand he was saying but it gave me the exact same feeling whether I understood what he was saying or not and that's why like one of the first things you hear is the moment of like him becoming the Iceman it was only in that moment but you don't realize that it's very hard to even even if you hear it later only maybe if you speak Danish you will spot it but yeah I think also this first part is packed with story because it's it's about going into his mind going into this Frozen place but also walking on that snow in the Quick Cuts in the beginning he's also reaching for his brother uh and you actually hear authentic audio from like which is from his brothers yeah so in the first minute you already seen all these things so much setup and it's a removal of context that makes me now want to demand the context yeah and it's just yeah it's beautiful so here is like the first idea of the perceived limitations this invisible wall that we that gets built around us and then all of a sudden he switches from the Iceman to this dude in a suit so you're stating the theme of the film straight away visually yeah yeah exactly and then you instantly see him be put in boxes he checks in he's put in an elevator every part of it he feels so disempowered he feels like he's just one part of a big machine that is just moving no this is my favorite part with the laser it's sort of the complacency of the society and expectations put upon him that sort of swallows him we've gotten so many questions about how how the laser how did the laser do that those are the happy accidents oh yeah that's the frame rate of the camera not being able to match oh not being able to match the laser and no matter how many tries even that first shot of me saying it's the first expression of the perceived limitation being formed it's only that because because we couldn't match the frame rate and even though what you were seeing with your eye was a complete triangle a pyramid around him the camera was seeing the thing forming and it would keep looping wow so that was like yeah but people people think it was like some CGI or some some crazy work but it's just a happy accident that actually the second I saw it on the camera was like holy F that's exactly what we need so like the Happy accident and inspired the intent of the image exactly oh wow exactly that's fantastic and then here that's the first time you're gonna see where the film mostly takes place where the mission takes place in Anderson's mind that's his living room and the white board you constantly see this white board throughout the film yeah and then we use the Whiteboard to introduce characters events I believe the ordinary can achieve the extraordinaire to prove this I'm doing something that has never been done before that water is not cold either oh yeah and he was in there for five hours and and the the ice cubes is not ice cubes it's like yeah yeah so everything in here even though the sex to say is practical effects because he had to be in there for so for so freaking long you didn't want to bring him back to his experiences [Applause] everything [Music] and your elements you're seeing this projection something happening in the background again the feel of the story is which I don't want to spoil too much but his first phone was a child playing playing football with his dad but I'll just I'll just leave it at that because later on you'll understand why is it so relevant that that's the projection ah the time not perfect so why this change it was just the reference of how the rug will be pulled from underneath them so quick and I don't know if you've noticed the trigger point for this entire switch is him saying big brother yeah which when you watch the film you'll understand that this is I would say the primary relationship that you that you kind of see the story evolve through yeah and and it becomes a story about how this Brotherhood and this love is what saves the project is what saves Anders is what gets him to to come out and finish and finish the race wow um so it's like the prophecy of the whole film in Anderson's first words you know that where you visibly see him speak on camera is him as a child saying Big Brother and all these props that's actually just real like that's the notebook he was had throughout the time and so it's like the packing of you know as many and again I really believe in like the energy of the stuff even the props of what you put on there it's an authentic prop yeah you cannot put your finger on what it is exactly but you know I that felt real like like yeah and so like that's just it's the it's those attention to details exactly what I really really like about that whole opening sequence is you to an extent did summarize the entire movie but it was just a pure removal of context and just a feeling of Vibes and it's the feeling yeah and then the entire movie is then giving context to that entire sequence yeah and so there's a really really nice like sort of loopback I don't quite understand what happened here and then Upon A re-watch I Now understand everything of what's been showcased in that sequence exactly and that was we talked about this all the time we want to make sure that the second time someone gets to watch the film they now notice yeah why is it the projection of him playing football yes why is it certain things are in the frame the very every little little thing has been put with intention but it's only for the one like for when you know the whole story and you come back to to dig those things out the way I see it is this intro is only part one to a two-part thing because yeah what will give power to this intro is what follows the intro right yes and all of a sudden so we showed there you know that these guys are going to end up in a show and then you start with these like naive guys yeah like this guy like they look like complete amateurs they're just like pushing the thing and the first scene of the film is they just drop everything on the bridge going into uh onto the boat and they're laughing so you almost you already know something as a viewer yeah that is so unsettling of what their future is gonna be and they have no idea they're laughing celebrating they're taking the ship to Antarctica they have no idea what it waits you gave the audience this dramatic irony yeah it's like we like you here's you guys innocently thinking oh this is gonna be a cake walk it's like you don't know how you are yeah exactly and I think that's that's also one thing that that I was very aware of is like giving the odd audience a place of feeling empowered in the story yeah because you you're competing with so much attention so much that is taking their attention so you really gotta make sure that you give them satisfaction of like oh we know something that none of these guys now you've given me good reasons to stay and want to watch this entire movie yeah there was a lot of intention going into every detail you see in this film like a lot of these things just the the first two minutes of the film is it's like very intentional and that was your like that that was condition the condition of working with Mr from the start was that like things have to be a certain way let's do something that nobody has done before yeah yeah and I think uh it's it's beautiful to see and also beautiful to see and hear like your reaction as well because what makes it come alive is that we made a film that mattered to all of us but but putting that out there and actually having the same reaction from others is like the most beautiful thing of filmmaking I mean the message is so important as well when you're on the other end of it you're exhausted you're tired and totally agree you kind of resent and hate the movie a little bit but then and then and it's like and then you're so glad it's done and then I Believe In Like A year's time maybe even two years because even I've had that you don't look back at this and be like oh I made this and then like I think when you're in the thick of it you hate what you're doing and then when you reflect on it and the year it is later you then begin to love and appreciate the film that you made yeah like my job as the editor is just to present opportunity like I want to be the guy the percent opportunity and we had discussions about this as well when you have an idea about something it's my job uh to to make that happen and of course with your guiding as well but also like working in in the whole of the project I have to be completely in love with everything and everyone in the project and I have I have like that's that's pivotal for me I have to love the project so much that I will do it like uh before like I don't even think about breakfast I think about the Iceman so when you go out of it it's sort of like the the opposite experience because you need to decompress the the sort of things that you you had to tell yourself in order to make yourself go that extra wrecked almost you're correct by just completely rejected yeah I I actually had like uh I needed like a time off I mean the premiere in La was the most beautiful cathartic release of emotion that I probably ever had in my life I was high for like five days and and you you had the most beautiful presentation but being in a project you have to love it so much or actually like you have to make yourself love it so much at least that's how it works for me hello cheeky Segway in traditional media the crew gets residuals for the work that they produce and for a long time YouTube didn't have that option until now stir let's create a split their AdSense with their team if you're an editor producer writer or thumbnail artist stir can allow you to take your cut of the Project's AdSense automatically that means you don't have to do the maths it does it for you which is bloody great because I'm really crap at maths stir's credit feature also lets crew members get credited for their work simply paste the video into stir request a credit and once approved it appears on your profile this is web media's version of IMDb so don't miss out on this opportunity to get credit for your work with most documentaries you have like a vague vision of how you want this film to be and so you kind of get as much coverage as you can and you get all the story beats they think are probably the best thing and you capture those moments and then all the footage comes in and then suddenly and we've all experienced this the I call it the oak moment when you look at all of this and go wait where the the story and so what was even a process like of trying to with the overwhelming of footage going okay how can we tell the story that we want to tell well what we say took 37 days to get this added that people end up watching but it took four and a half months of so many back and forth to figure out everything that wouldn't work I knew exactly how it should feel but the way the way it looks is just the flow that you that you reach once you set the parameters on yeah what are the feelings and what is it that you want people to get out of the story at the end so it was definitely a very non-linear process and so many times we had to we basically just put a bunch of sticky notes like what's behind you on on the window at the S house and every single day there was some sort of like oh yeah and you just keep doing that until until there's a an energetic flow and that and that's the thing that was like there's not really basis of the and again I've never studied filmmaking I've never I have no formal education any of this but I just know that there's a feeling and I should trust it and as long as I just like protect for that then we should be good then I think you know it was a beautiful just Brotherhood of between you know Enders Victor and I I mean you talk about Anders did the Iceman and then he came for another Iceman with this edit and he was Anders was like cutting footage himself I just watched more footage than than anyone out of out of anyone in the post-production team and just watch the most amount of footage that's interesting because I think for him going through the actual process he does know how it feels and so he could look for his footage and went this represents represents how I felt the most this should be the shot to use in a lot of moments I thought we had coverage for certain parts of the film that we did in other parts we had coverage to parts that I did not think that we had so I would say a lot of times especially if you're in the director's seat you kind of wanna like you know you're waiting for the formal process of assistant Editor to come in and cut footage and give you string outs and you need to watch that but I think you underestimate just what exists in the negative space is that and that's and that's the part that is like so hard to to teach especially when you're so uh when you have a very particular Vision or have a very particular opinion of what makes the cut and that's also where I realized that the foundation of the editing process which is like to cutting down footage doesn't actually need an assistant editor you need someone with really really good feeling and intuition to be so connected to the footage and for it to feel less of like this draining um just cutting footage I'm trying to find the good stuff the things that are visually good you're just going to give it to someone who almost has never done this before yeah when you're trying to build a story uh I think a lot of people end up building it out of theory rather than out of what actually exists in the footage and then that ends up creating such a huge time and efficiency I think knowing your footage like one comment one look on someone's face can change the whole vibe of the scene can change the whole film or change the whole expectation for something to happen and I think falling in love with like there's so many theoretical whatever is on YouTube there's so many lectures about story that we love to plan on our story and that's that's not the work of the documentary the work of the documentaries being in there like actually looking at the footage or or talking about the footage you've seen and stuff like that and I think it's easy to as you spoke about before they clown up with climb uh Mount Everest and then they go through interviews afterward and they they try to make up a movie about that but I think the most crucial part in this and that was what was very important for you as a director was that let's never use an interview that's that's with something that even with the look of someone's face can like exchange uh two two sentences the film was being created in a way that was just again way mortal it's like your traditional documentary of just like all these interviews and the build up of how crazy it was and where we all almost died and there was just one shot of the tent that you can put and you and someone will reach the conclusions like they almost died you don't need to say it so the word YouTuber yeah what does that mean to you is there something in the I identity of a YouTuber more so than the use of the platform because there's nothing really creators exist on such a diverse plane that it's not necessarily like a like a Common Thread apart from the fact that we're all using the same platform so I do yes Theory and YouTube is one of the platforms that leverage that yesterday leverages to be able to tell stories I'm not just trying to reach people on YouTube um we're really going for everyone that we can and and I think people different people in different places really to different art forms and but as I said like the number one priority is to always create something Timeless something that is not just appealing to the The Taste or the trend today something that can continue to to grow throughout time and I think for context for just people to know when Anders announced this project as I said he was an ordinary guy but he announced the project by making YouTube videos the best part now is that you see this documentary in a epic everything is you can go watch this guy almost like with the Vlogs that he was doing on his you know on filming on his phone and the awkward editing and you just realize that oh yeah like maybe if you had gone on to this guy's YouTube channel you would have thought like I mean this has never happened is anything it's not that good anyways like but you forget that we have this platform and the opportunity for visibility that is unlike any time we've ever lived if you make videos on YouTube you have to be a YouTuber and that has to be your identity when you could just be someone that wants to use YouTube as their platform of Storytelling I'm like endlessly grateful for YouTube and my childhood there's a kid who grew up in Egypt I'm you know I haven't not from here and and I've you know YouTube is how I sought out the world and how I realized that there is more that exists so I like to think of my stories like I'm the child of the internet because so much of my life has been impacted and has moved forward because of the internet my ability to use it in a very different manner and I think that's very effective though by where I came from and just the immense of the opportunity that it always represented and how that shaped my understanding for what these tools actually mean and can do in our lives you gave me a whole new perspective on the idea of a YouTuber and we're definitely outbreaking the the limitations the perceived limitations of a YouTuber one of those instances is this is a movie that's now out in the cinemas and this is a movie that your optimistic is going to be part of nominations for Best documentary for the Oscars next year we submitted the application we did everything we can we've put the effort and but there is no attachment to any external factors because at the end of the day I don't know who watches these documentaries or know what defines how they make the decision to watch them but I just trust that if it's under the right eyes then I I know that the message will will reach him and hope I hope that they give a chance to to reach more people because obviously it would be so so huge to to get that like stamp of approval and obviously everything that comes with more and more people knowing about project I spend not just through the YouTube sphere this is one of those instances where you kind of just throw it out into the wild and just let the world respond exactly and just hope for the best and be and be okay with whatever happens yeah and I think one of the best things that happened right after we finished the film even though it sounded craziest to go on the store seven countries eight cities nine different shows over a month and a half you just instantly saw what you created work you instantly saw explosive laughs cries people walking out thinking about their entire existence and and questioning what they want to do in life and you have like the film works and we've seen it I just hope that that all these different things can help the movie get more exposure and and allow more people to know about project I spent because I think the message deserves to be seen by everyone you made the message you wanted to tell you still made it for you and you're happy that you're able to say that for yourself and you've put it out then I was like this is mine I want to give this I want to give this to you guys and I'm so happy that everyone who does see it sees it and I hope that you guys had an emotional experience for this yeah exactly exactly at the end of the day you will just make the one that you want to write the one that you believe will live for long continue to resonate and that one 100 that's my feeling 100 and also the other I think interesting thing that might some people would be interested in is like we showed a version in the in the virtual Premiere and we obviously knew that there was still a few more tweaks so the film was up to like 92 done and then we got it to 97 in another cut and then there was like a 99.8 because I don't well 100 is not good but yeah so it's um the opportunity to watch people like we had a six thousand person focus group for the film over a month and a half watching people be from at least 80 different countries be there and know how it like resonated cross-culturally and this and that so I've had the strongest focus group that's why in my mind there's nothing that can shake like I'm not there's no expectation or attachment to anything else apart from just like I hope that that the hard work and all the all the things that were put on the line for this film come to fruition by more and more people coming coming around it so we've talked about creativity a lot like like how we feel onto the screen and that's a beautiful part of the process but part of it is also the practicality the software and the hardware to help support you to make sure you can express how what's going on under here would the sheer amount of footage the sheer amount of cameras everything you have to organize how did you even manage to make that process work the film was edited on a laptop that looked like this wow and solely a laptop that looked like this that was connected to a bunch of hard drives on a desk at the S house in Venice Beach and we use DaVinci in my opinion the greatest editing software to ever exist and it wasn't even because of like whatever options that it gives you for coloring and all these like very it's just the ability to access files with such speed that I've never ever seen before and again I'm not I'm not an editor so but I've sat I spent countless hours next to editor watching them watch the spinning wheel of death and I can't remember if that happened in 37 days of just beating that out of that laptop that was also an amazing opportunity because we editing yesterday we had some Final Cut yeah so this was also my first opportunity on DaVinci but luckily we're so blessed that he is a da Vinci editor and I think in a way I went into this process uh after conversation with Sam Calder he was like he was like oh yeah go for Da Vinci and I when I was talking to burning boat about like how we want to do the Edith and the initial infrastructure I asked for DaVinci and I think because of that that's how we end up with Victor probably because you're a da Vinci editor so this thing that you're going to see on the big screen was edited on all the tools that most of the people in our in our industry have I think making the Practical Parts frictionless gives you so much more opportunity to be creative yes there is zero chance that this film would have worked if we had even at least had two crashes a day that's the Practical part that I've been you know and then obviously there will be more that I'll I'll synthesize and put down but I really pick in the same way as I pick the people around you the software is one of those people that you're this the person yeah the main takeaways of of this film are way less about the technicalities of filmmaking and the technicalities of how you make a documentary every process is so unique to its own circumstances to its own characters that that make that process and what my one of my biggest emphasis points throughout the the premiere tour was people try to make this comparison or you know they're always like oh it's not about the the destination it's about the journey and you just realize like when you're trying to do something that has never been done before something great something that is hard meaningful fulfilling the journey most of the time really really sucks yeah the only thing that you can control are the people that you surround yourself with and the heart and the intention and their their Drive what fuels them of why is it that they're doing the thing that they're doing and that's the only thing they control because you're gonna have a thousand curveballs being thrown at you in the editing process the creative process is the most unpredictable unschedulable like yeah I would imagine yeah you just control like when this guy wants to he's a kickboxing champion he could have beat the that's the craziest part like like what do you want like are we gonna get through when I'm really frustrated at like you know him doing something in a certain way or he's like not happy with the way I'm communicating something to him like those are the moments that matter so that's why for filmmakers only tell stories if you want to create something great tell stories that you give so much of a about because it's gonna suck most of the time yeah and and so you better be with people that you love the people that know why is it that they're also making the thing that you that you want to create and that's where you make it way less about the outcome of whether the film actually gets the views that you want or gets the recognition or the awards because as as Victor said it's about who you become in that process and and and how it changes you and and now I'm like I'm so much more confident going into different parts of my life with learnings from a very particular creative process that reflected so much in in different different parts of my life what would you say then is the biggest lesson you guys learned going through that process with everything that we did not break and there were so many times where we could have like like there were so many times where someone could have like broke down like but we did not break and and and I think for me just surrounding yourself with the right people for the right cause the biggest thing is know your why you would die for yeah and know who you would die for that with that suck that's the simplest way of putting it you guys are willing to die for this film oh yeah yeah like I see a world where the algorithm is driving what gets too shown to the whole world and another series about a serial killer and another documentary about some pedophile and another thing about some top Twisted thing that that we have in the world and of course we got to be aware of those things but there are so many more beautiful positive stories from our world there are real life superheroes that instead of spending 200 250 million dollars is like trying to make a film about some imagine like there is the inspiration exists within our world and that's why I wanted to through this experiment hopefully get to just show shine a light on maybe a new way for for more of these stories to come up because even though this we're connected but we're more lonely than ever and yeah they're we're missing we're missing hope we're missing inspiration we're all like we're just walking like looking down every you know all the time and it's I would die for this message and I and that's you know it's it's a it's the message of yesterday it's the message of it's consistent with everything that I've done in my life so yeah it's not like this film particularly about what it stands for and and what and the and the belief in the potential that it has to break out of YouTube yeah to show that you know the people that start watching us on on their phone we've created something that's broken out to the biggest screen there is and and in a way that is you know respectable and and and can have actually evolved that storytelling formula that people grew up with and we grew up with on you know over the past seven years to something that can communicate the message and even grander way you have a very like unique philosophy of life and I think that philosophy life is also an informing the creativity in the films and the content that you want to make yeah what the algorithm dictates is a very fleeting moment in Humanity's choice so maybe there's something that is reflected right now it's like the biggest thing on YouTube but I always think in 10 20 years what are the Timeless stories that are going to last to continue having that Legacy not the thing that worked this year I'm blew the hell up that is one of the biggest flaws of algorithmic based content it's like this is the video of the day and you watch it and you went okay I guess that was fun and you've essentially forgotten about it the second it's finished content that makes you think about that movie just for a couple more days a few more weeks or even in a year or two times like there's a message or a reminder or the theme of the film that reminds you on how to behave and how to be better yeah that's why movies like this for me think feel very very important to make thank you man wow what an honor I mean most of what happens when you kind of like passes through you so you've obviously seen so much and you're so tapped into the creative community so coming from you it means it means the world man thank you for sharing your story guys thank you

Channel: The Editing Podcast

Views: 45,662

Keywords: yes theory, project ice man, editing, editing project ice man, editing yes theory, video editing, film editing, documentary editing, editing a documentary, ice man

Id: lrSFtnO04ls

Length: 39min 24sec (2364 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 20 2022