IFH 123: What is Cinematic Virtual Reality with Jason Diamond

Alex Ferrari 4:02
So guys today on the show we're gonna talk about the next great big thing that's gonna take over the industry virtual reality that's what they just want. Everyone keeps saying and you know what, and very might well be the next wave. I don't know if it's ever going to take over what we consider traditional storytelling because I think there is a segment of the population that wants to be told a story and not experience a story. But I don't know I you know, they're, they're better men than me out there talking about this, and much more intelligent guys than me out there talking about this. So I wanted to kind of dive into it today. And I got on the show Jason diamond from Super sphere VR, you know him and his brother Josh. They build VR rigs and have worked with a ton of Fortune 500 companies, as well as independent films and so many other different clients. New York Fashion Week, Minnesota Twins, and you know, a lot of big VR gigs. And they are getting known in the industry as the VR guys. So they understand the technology, they understand what they're doing with it, and what can be done with it. So we talk a lot in this interview about cinematic VR, you know, because there's VR for, you know, video games, and kind of like, you know, experiences. How does this apply to storytellers? How does this apply to us as filmmakers, and storytellers to tell our stories, it's just another tool like anything else. And that's what I was curious about, I really, you know, kind of dug in with Jason, and really figured out is this something that I'll be able to use in the future? Justin Lin, the director of the Fast and Furious some fast, Furious movies and Star Trek Beyond, he just directed a movie, a little VR movie called help, which is honestly, I have to say pretty frickin awesome for Google. And it was very interesting, it was a very interesting viewing experience. I didn't watch it in VR watching on YouTube. But you can kind of tell that it's this immersive storytelling tool. It's really interesting. And I'm really curious to see where it goes in the future, the cost of getting into VR has come down dramatically. So now you can, it's affordable. For filmmakers, I use that term very loosely. But considering it used to cost you know, hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of dollars, to get full rigs up, set up and you know, all that kind of stuff. Now it's becoming much more accessible to the general population. So it should be really interesting to see where this all goes, in the next coming years. So sit back and enjoy my conversation with Jason Diamond. I like to welcome to the show, the one and only Jason Diamond. How you doing? How you doing?

Jason Diamond 6:50
Good.

Alex Ferrari 6:51
So you're gonna you're here to educate the indie film tribe, indie film hustle tribe and myself on this new technology that keep hearing about so much called Virtual Reality. And I'm gonna be honest with you the last time I actually really even paid any thought to virtual realities when I saw it in the Lawnmower Man.

Jason Diamond 7:09
Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 7:09
Back in the 80s. Yeah, it was I think you and I are both from the same vintage. So we like

Jason Diamond 7:15
I like that term, the same vintage.

Alex Ferrari 7:18
Thank you. That I remember how horrible it was back in the 80s. In that movie was like 89. And, and I actually, I wanted like a video game, you know, like an arcade. And they had a virtual reality thing. And I went in there, and it was just so horribly clunky. And I was like, wow, this is Yeah, back then back. Yeah, yeah. So that's the last time I really even thought about virtual reality. So but I've been hearing about it as a buzzword for the last few years and all these new cameras and things coming out. So please explain virtual reality in its current form to me, like if I was a child,

Jason Diamond 7:55
Oh, okay. Well, you know, I think back then, the issue, you know, conceptually, things like that have been around forever. I mean, look at William Gibson's Neuromancer. Like all that stuff. The cyberpunk stuff was essentially a VR type, description. And I think it's been proven that people like Arthur C, Clarke, and other you know, sci fi writers typically will pre date actual scientific discoveries with fantasy, scientific sci fi discoveries, because they're not bound by the laws of science, or math or whatever. And somehow, they always come up with the same stuff. But, um, I mean, I don't know what the actual definition of virtual reality is, other than to simulate reality. in its current form, I think there's actually multiple bullet points, Roman numerals, tears or whatever you want to call it as descriptors to that moniker. And then after that comes AR and xR, you know, mixed reality stuff, which I think Apple will probably go for straight out of the gate, but I think virtual reality, you could define as multiple tiers of we'll call 360. Video, be mono or stereo, stereo preferable in a lot of cases to really add some depth and roundness to what you're looking at. That 360 video does not allow you to move freely through the space. You are an observer within a predefined bubble for actual lack of anything other than literally a sphere you're standing inside of. And then you have the more well i 360 video can be immersive, you know, depending on the content and what you consider the word immersive to really mean if someone's engaged in the content. Then they are immersed, for lack of a better term and I'm sure everyone has their own thoughts on this kind of stuff.

Alex Ferrari 9:59
There's been there's been many movies that you are so immersed in that you like complete yours you have

Jason Diamond 10:04
IMAX and other you know widescreen is supposed to immerse you in wrapping you curve TVs you know anything to sort of blot out your sense of current reality to put you in a quote unquote virtual reality whether it's a headset or even just a TV screen so that you can move forward into the the more what will currently which will go away soon enough also but will currently call tethered you know headsets like Oculus or vive vive however you want to say it or any number of you know, knockoffs or other people making similar products or even the Gear VR is probably the best known mobile version of 360 video or apps but for like a full room scale interactive which you would call I guess the ability to move around a space have your body physically move your field of view inside an action would be more unity based you know installations or installations but you know, experiences using game engines to you know, do rendering things that video games have been doing for 10 years or more you know, the VFX industry has been working in spherical video for years right so so bringing that type of type of technology to a instead of using it for reflection maps or global illumination you know or first person shooters you're you're changing the controller of your view from your hands to your head

Alex Ferrari 11:40
right now and yeah, cuz we've all played video games that you're completely immersed in the world which is basically what most of those first person shooters and and those kinds of adventure games and things like that war world Warcraft and things like that Yeah, but that's all generated in the computer so what's cool now is that you're doing it all live with like an actual camera or multiple cameras now I have seen the I've seen your setup on one of your behind the scenes that you did with the Minnesota Twins that had the four cameras that were all kind of like a very wide angle lens so it kind of gets the entire spectrum I was over at cinna gear this year over here in LA and I tested out a like these little balls that had like I don't know probably 10 or 15 cameras GoPro had something similar that like as his little sphere that just kind of records the whole world around it. What is that? Is that similar to what you guys were doing or is it just different?

Jason Diamond 12:35
Well you there's two types of acquisition cameras we'll call them you have you have I don't even know what you non integrated and integrated Okay, we'll call it that a integrated camera is like the john or the Ozo where you have a camera that is purpose made for VR, it is a single housing that has multiple lenses, it's not multiple cameras, it's multiple lenses and whether or not those lenses are actually camera modules or whatever doesn't matter there they are all purpose built to talk to each other be Gen locked to have global shutter if possible and work together as a as a functioning one button one setting type thing even if you can manipulate each one separately you are working in an ecosystem that is built to do that. Right right that is an integrated camera and a non integrated camera with no I'm not making a judgment aligned between these purely descriptor but the the non integrated camera is what most of us or most of the community is forced to use it this time which is to take existing cameras and put them together to create you know a multi viewpoint 360 camera to create the sphere and equal rectangular and whatever else you're shooting panoramas if that's what you do. And so you know sighs to dovetail into your Minnesota Twins comment and in a black magic Greg is when you know GoPro was the first company that people made non integrated rigs with because the cameras tiny and you want to get the sensor planes as close to each other as possible and the nodal point and the lens and all that stuff to reduce parallax so that you you so that you you are you are covered in as many you know cameras as possible when you cross the stitch. When you get closer to the camera you want to be able to be seen still be seen by multiple lenses. closest to the camera is a hotly debated point. About a lot of you know, if you someone sees a rig, the first thing they'll say is how close can you cross the stitch line.

Alex Ferrari 14:40
And can you explain the stitch line because I know that might be

Jason Diamond 14:43
fine. So let's take the four camera Blackmagic rig right so you just can think of it in your head as a north south east west as a plus sign. Right? So coming out of the plus sign, let's imagine a V off the tip of each plus and that's the field of view You have the sensor of the lens, right? In our case. And in most VR camera cases, you're using a fisheye. So let's use 180 degrees as the field of view, so you have a flat line. In our case, we're using fisheye lenses, in most camera cases using fisheye lenses. So we can consider the field of view 180 For this example, so So coming off of each plus you have a, you have a straight line across, right, those length, those lines will converge in the 45 degree diagonals of each of the plus. Right, so so the areas where the lenses don't specifically see the edges of the fields of view, overlap, that's the parallax point. So based on how close you are, to the field of view overlap, you will not be seen by enough of both of lenses in which case you can't you can't use that footage, because you can't handoff any content from one lens to the other. Does that make Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. Okay, so so given that, um, you know, that's when, when people say so well to backup slightly, so the more the better overlap that you have, the the closer, someone can come to the camera, potentially, although, although with in a VR sense, you know, because it is virtual reality, you know, if someone stood two feet from you, it probably wouldn't be very comfortable, you probably wouldn't want it that to be, I mean, outside of a specific narrative need to do that. So in most scenarios, people aren't going to come two to three feet from the camera. But that is again, I mean, I'm sure there's tons of people listening to this, who know about VR, who were like, That's bullshit, you know, whatever. But that's, you know, it's, I'm just speaking on any larger, General, General scale here. Anything is possible, if it works for the narrative, or whatever your experience, right? So if you want to, if you want to throw your horizon off and make people nauseous, because you're doing it on purpose, to make someone feel something, sure, do it, but know what you're doing to your audience, you know, instead of just making crappy VR, again, those are two separate things, but

Alex Ferrari 17:22
no, so so a lot of people you know, aren't going to be able to go and see like the pyramids or the Great Wall of China, for example, and they didn't have the resources to even get there or the time will VR be something that will give them the opportunity to kind of experience being at those places.

Jason Diamond 17:38
Absolutely. And, you know, again, depending on the level of the experience, you you could do a guided tour through the through Giza, you know, you could do you could do Petra or whatever, you know, you could easily make someone feel like they're there and feel the scale of the of the place that they're shooting or the experiences, I read an article over the weekend, about a nursing home, where a company has been bringing in exactly what you're saying like these, these elderly people will, will no longer be able to travel to Italy or, or France or Egypt or Bangkok or wherever to see the things they want to see. And, and virtual reality in even in a in a 360 stereo video cades allows them to allows them to experience the that location from their bed, which I think is a is a wonderful thing. I mean, you can think of it on multiple levels, even looking for like PTSD, or getting over a fear of heights. Or a fear of spiders or cats or clowns. Sorry, my brother just close the door. You know, a fear of cats or clowns or whatever.

Alex Ferrari 18:55
Yeah, read something or read something about that like about arachnophobia like having a fear of spiders, they can help with that.

Jason Diamond 19:01
Right? I mean, you know, immersion therapy is has been around for a long time, but it's you having to actually do that thing. Hey, you're afraid of heights. Let's go to the let's go to the Empire State Building and go to the observation deck like Well, sure, that may be the ultimate in the end the best way to do it. But what if you live in a town that only has two storey buildings? What if you can't get anywhere to do that? And honestly, it's expensive and what if you also have a fear of crowds? You know, we're, you know, so I think I think there's actually an endless potential endless array of options of how VR can impact people. even beyond entertainment. I think the entertainment industry for VR is actually very small.

Alex Ferrari 19:52
Yeah, I was gonna actually say some Steven Spielberg came out and said that he thinks and I'm gonna quote him. I think we're moving into a dangerous medium with virtual reality. The only reason I say that is that is dangerous is because it gives the viewer a lot of latitude and not take the direction of the storytellers. But but they make their own choices of where to look how they how do you tell a VR story? as a filmmaker, when you want audiences to, to access everything, when you have when the audience has everything, like the access at once, how do you tell a story? And

Jason Diamond 20:23
guess what? I read that? I read that quote when he said it at Cannes, and I couldn't believe that he said it for two reasons. One that he is the advisor to Robert Stromberg, his company called the VR company, it would seem kind of disingenuous to the company, you're advising to say that VR is a dangerous media, storytelling. But to it's not very forward thinking for someone who has created I think one of the strongest visual languages for cinema for what he does in our lifetime creative. Yeah, but not even that, like there are Spielberg shots just like there are Hitchcock shots or whatever. Yeah. And so someone who created his own signature, legacy language for cinema to say that he's afraid of something trumping that is seems narrowminded I, and I'd love to have this conversation with him in person, if anyone can make that happen.

Alex Ferrari 21:20
You and me both brother. But you know,

Jason Diamond 21:22
let's take let's take VR aside out of that comment. And let's say, you know what, I went to the movies with my kid over the weekend to see to see a movie in the theater, in the comfy seats laying back for children. And if someone's bored, you know how I know that they're looking at their phone in the theater. Yeah. Right. So they have just as much of an opportunity to disengage from the screen without having goggles on. As if they had goggles on good storytelling, be it narrative nonfiction documentary, whatever it is, if it's not engaging, it doesn't matter what freedoms, in my opinion, what freedoms the viewer has, if they're not engaged, it doesn't matter. Tons of studies have shown that when people put on goggles, heat maps, tons of heat map data has proven this, they look left runs right, once Up, down back, they kind of explore their space. And then they look, they look literally look forward. So So if the story cannot engage them to look where they should be looking, at least this is first viewing stuff, right? Of course, when I rewatch I watched Miller's Crossing for the millionth time over the weekend because Jon Polito died and Yeah, I know, rewatch that. And I'm looking at things that I you know, listening to words I that I wanted to pick up on focusing just like you can listen to a song, you love a million times and just listen to the drums or just listen to the bass or whatever. So there's multiple viewings, you can't take into account, but on the first viewing, it is your opportunity to give the viewer the experience that you want them to have, at least, you know, I mean, right out of the gate. And I think that good solid storytelling. Again, not using that in a strictly narrative sense, we'll just use it as an overall story as a story. Is, is what you need is what you need. And in that language has not been defined yet. So I'm not saying that that's easy. And it's not like ever, you know, the only way to do to learn it or to develop your own is to do it and make mistakes. Not everything you're going to do is going to work right because

Alex Ferrari 23:34
you're basically at the infancy of this media. Yeah. I mean,

Jason Diamond 23:37
and it's and, and to, to his point, to Spielberg's point, yes, because the viewer has freedom to to disengage, you know, yet stay inside the world, right? Because in the theater, you could disengage but you're breaking the wall and you're on your phone and you're not in the world anymore, but if you disengage with the main plotline in VR, you have the ability to look out the window, explore, explore, hold on, you have the ability to look out the window explore look around the world you're in which I don't think is a bad thing because you know, I if when we do narrative things I like to try to build in secondary and maybe even tertiary plotlines that if the viewer decided to to not follow the main storyline would still get you know the person they're talking to in the conversation gets up and walks away at a certain point right? So then Okay, well, I can't look in that direction anymore. I can but now there's boring that person left maybe I'll re engage with the person in front of me, who is you know, delivering the lines or whatever it is. It's a basic example but you know,

Alex Ferrari 24:51
no, I get you and I get you a completely and there's there's one movie with there's a couple that come to mind. But one specifically that I would have loved to have a VR experience with was Apple avatar, because our world is so beautiful, like you just want to live there, like you just want to walk around and see

Jason Diamond 25:08
what James Cameron that would be a room scale VR thing I would imagine experience because because the world is, you know, if you could walk around and walk up to the characters while they're having their conversations and stand there with them and be a part of a battle or whatever, it's not a game per se, although it could be, but I think the ability to to be there and move around with in that case would be the best implementation of that. And then, you know, moving down the road, and you know, what they call the six degrees of freedom is what everybody's moving towards, which is being able to even in a 360 degree, and that that's mainly in, in video, right? in video games, you have that because you can move around and look around stuff if you move your body parallax changes. You know, if you've never if anyone listening or you have never put on the HTC Vive or vive I'll say that every time I say in both ways. And do just do Google's Tilt Brush that is the most mind blowing app ever. It's so simple, oh, I can draw a circle and then I can walk around it. And that's pretty bad and, and draw around it and draw through it and draw volumetrically and draw with clouds and all sorts of stuff. You know, that is the that's the ultimate, you know, VR experience. We can't do that with video. Eventually we will be with Whitefield and and other LIDAR and other types of technology that gives us Depth Map information and allows us to create occlusion and parallax and things in in video captured environment.

Alex Ferrari 26:48
So basically we're all heading towards the holodeck. I mean yeah,

Jason Diamond 26:51
pretty much is xR for lack of a lack because there's no headset, right? You just want it to the environment you're walking into an environment it's like Hunger Games, or or those kind of things where you are Westworld. I think the trailer for Westworld shows that they're they're simulating or at least showing that they have control over an environment from a faraway. But yes, the holodeck is the overall goal. I think goal for certain things. You know, you I guess everyone could have a holodeck in their house depends what the technology is. But you know, the void I think I don't know if you know about that in Utah currently is similar to that in that you have a tethered experience because I think they put a they put something on your back that holds the, the all you need for the goggles and everything. And you walk around in a black warehouse, right? Right in the goggles, you're seeing and and working things out and you pick stuff up and then I think they have real things that you grab in certain areas or like go to but it could be I might be speculating on some of this, but someone was describing it to me, and I hadn't been there. But you know, that is the current experience of that. And it's supposed to be incredible.

Alex Ferrari 28:12
Now did you get the chance to see Justin lens VR short film help? Yeah. What did you think? What did you think of that?

Jason Diamond 28:19
I thought was amazing. I mean, that's the mill the mill does incredible work. That is a that is a great mix of CG and video. But it's done at a very high level. It's very expensive. Okay, not a lot of people that can do that.

Alex Ferrari 28:36
Yeah, the indie. The indie world is not doing VR anytime soon.

Jason Diamond 28:40
Well, they are but not you wouldn't be able to Unless Unless your friends company that is helping you like in traditional media your friends company would be you know, a small production company that owned a red or something lended to you to make your indie film. If you had a friend who's a small production company that had a unity developer and CG you know VFX guys, I'm sure you could pull that off but yeah, in a normally budgeted environment it would be very hard to do something at that level. But but that doesn't matter I mean, I mean, we're we're working at a certain level and some jobs are bigger than others and you work to give each job its Do you mean like you would in anything else? Right tries to try to figure out how to how to offer the most because at the same time, we're push trying to push the medium forward, as is everyone else who's currently creating VR. I would hope that every job is done to try to make the medium as much poorly worded, but as you know, better than it currently then you currently left it.

Alex Ferrari 29:45
So basically, VR is just a it's a new, it's a new platform. It's a new tool, like anything else. It's like, you know, when, when certain technological advances came into play, like shooting 3d or color or sound, it's just another it's just an Another thing, it's just a it's a pretty big leap from where we are and and how to include that. But let me ask you, how do you think it's going to affect the film and television industries in the future? Like do? Do you foresee it ever overtaking narrative film? as we know it today? Are narratives not

Jason Diamond 30:15
going to know? Because they don't overlap? Okay. Yeah, I

Alex Ferrari 30:18
didn't think so Harry, I

Jason Diamond 30:19
don't think you can tell the same, like you can't make the Godfather, the Godfather master or, you know, whatever, you know, in, in VR, the script could be the same, but the execution would be different enough that I don't think they would overlap. I mean, I could be completely wrong, and I'm sure someone will comment or something and say, I'm an idiot, but I just, you know, the visual language is not set in stone. And I personally, I don't think it ever will be, you know, BB the BBC put out something saying that they want, you know, they want to create a VR guideline, you know, a book, you know, best practices or whatever. And, sure, best practices are huge, definitely key, certainly for pipeline management, data management, on set, you know, workflows and things like that, from a visual storytelling standpoint. I think there can be guidelines, but you know, again, you know, we've done we've done content where a client wants a shot that technically you would say to them, that doesn't work. You can't do that in VR, right? But we do it. And, you know, obviously, of course, you want to, you want to give alternatives. So you say, well, let's do your shot. If we don't think it's gonna work, then we'll do it the other way. Obviously, you want to have options, hold on. So, but guess what the shot they wanted, totally worked. And it was awesome. It's a golf piece. And they wanted the camera on the ground. And this was a five Red Dragon rig plan. So we have the camera like a foot and a half from the ground with a cup like basically what would be you know, maybe a foot in front of your feet. And and Paul azinger who's 1993 PGA champion, putting at you, this is just the last shot, there's a whole piece with him, but he's putting at you, and drops it right in the cup. But you, when he walks up to you, you feel like he's like 10 feet tall. But it doesn't matter. Because at that moment, contextually in the shot, it makes total sense that you did that somewhere else it wouldn't work. Right. Right, right. So so and we may never be able to do that shot again. You know, I mean, there are visual language, visual language, where you will call it visual language, cues, ideas, shots, that may be context specific to a movie. And you you will never do again, there will be other things that I think you will use over and over again,

Alex Ferrari 32:57
right, just depends what kind of story you're trying to tell them what kind of exactly what type of experience you're doing, whether it's an immersive experience, like walking through the Pyramid of Giza, or, or, you know, doing a golf shot,

Jason Diamond 33:09
you know, or, or you know, what, doesn't always have to be immersive, maybe it's just a training video that a new plumber is needs to learn how to, you know, put in a piece, and he can sit in his house and watch a training video that shows them how to take the piece apart and do it. And if and if you went even a step further, and you had the two hand controllers from a vive, you could, you know, actually manipulate the part and do the operation. Like that kind of stuff is personally, I think, going to be way more impactful than Spielberg's VR movie. Right? Right to the to the world to the overall technology, helping people and helping mankind move forward. movies do do that, because they create regular movies, they create, you know, you have the ability to empathize with people, hate people, like people love people, or experiences. And I think you could do the same with VR. But I think, I think manufacturing and workplace safety and like we said earlier, PTSD and other things like that, I think, will have a lot larger, lasting impact on the world than movies. Right.

Alex Ferrari 34:21
And I think that, you know, if we're going to go into the holodeck example, that the holodeck is what we're all kind of going for, and I'm trying to think about watching a movie in the holodeck. You know, it's a completely different experience of like watching the Godfather, let's say in a holodeck, like you're there with my view and in the movie would be in the watch goes away, right? You're in the movie, you're hanging out, you're hanging out with the guys, you're sitting on the couch, watching this thing go down, which is a completely different experience right away. Coppola directed you to watch the film. So I think that and this is just my personal experience, from what we've discussed so far. I think Think that VR has a much larger capacity to help like you said help humanity in many other ways other than storytelling. And other than, you know, competing with a movie or a television show, I think there will be those aspects of things in the future but even if, even if today we had the holodeck we had the technology of the heart like you know you and I could walk in and I'll you know walk into the Godfather you know, walk into Jaws, you're on the boat, you know and like, it will be fun but I don't know if it's, I don't think it's gonna be that it's not going to be as impactful as like what you just said with a surgery training or walking you know walking the great wall or that kind of stuff. And the million of us kind of things that could be done with it I don't I just don't think it's going to have the impact Well, I

Jason Diamond 35:44
think I mean, I think I think to backtrack a little bit and be slightly contradictory to myself I think I think movies and and entertainment has a huge place in VR Of course I just think I just think that they won't maybe they won't be called movies maybe it'll be called experiences maybe it'll be something else it's not you know, I think I got into a debate with a couple people on Twitter about the term cinematic VR right people take these words like cinema and apply them to what they think see in their head You know, they want they want 24 frames per second and and that look to translate to VR and currently it cannot because you actually want more frame rate at a certain point it at least in the goggles on on a computer maybe not if you're just clicking and dragging. But on the headset, you know your eyes move fast, your brain refreshes very fast. And you need higher frame rate to really when you turn your head not feel like you're drunk or there's a stagger of frames you know, with motion blur and other things you need to feel like you're there like, you know, I don't know about you, but like, I have a thing, where I feel like I noticed framerate changes in the real world. Like if I'm feeling a specific way or I'm feeling like sort of groggy or whatever that may be I'm seeing in a in a perceived higher framerate, playback and 24. Right. Like but you know, people say when they're in a hyper alert state when they're in a when they're in a really busy and whenever the day flies by that maybe you felt like you were in 18 frames a second. I mean, like your body will you know, sometimes it's really bright outside obviously your pupils narrow and everything's happened simulates camera irises and things that you feel a sharp shutter kind of vibe, right? You know, you feel these things and you want these things to to move into VR. I don't think we have the, the cameras to do that yet with.

Alex Ferrari 37:40
But they're getting there. They're

Jason Diamond 37:41
getting there, I think, and I think they're going to be larger structural changes, it's not a deficit to the current cameras available. I think that there is technology that needs to come into play to manipulate time and space to function differently in a spherical environment than it does on a flat plane sensor being forced to curve with a fisheye lens, right? I think and we're forcing, right? That's fine. There's nothing we can do about it, it is what it is. And going back to the Blackmagic cameras, you know, to to make a rig that that we that because we come from a traditional cinema world that we have reds and you know have we got one of the red helium is 8k Super 35. I mean, you know, we we appreciate resolution and, and dynamic range and depth of field and all those things. And in VR, those things haven't been fully explored yet to see if they really work on a larger scale. And we do make rigs out of the red sensors and the red cameras and based on what I was saying before, there are parallax things with that because the cameras are have a physical size and let's we can take them apart and make a new thing then they can only be so close, right being physical limitations. So so moving from the GoPro, like I said, to go all the way back to what we could consider one big digression. GoPro, you know was what people were using to start to make home homebrew rigs because they were small and are small and affordable and affordable and inherently have a wide field of view. Right? So you know, GoPros are small, affordable, they inherently have a wide field of view and they can be very close. So you can do rigs that have smaller parallax and other things because they are close together. But they don't have genlock they don't have this they don't have that now they do but we're talking you know, a few years ago when whenever it was starting so everyone's looking for tiny camera, tiny camera, tiny camera, wanting better sensors, better sensors, better lens options better, you know, what can we do? So then, you know, last year Blackmagic came out with or maybe a little longer ago with the micro line micro cinema micro studio and All of a sudden you have a very tiny form factor that has SDI has genlock has their their db 15 sub you know sub connector that they provide the pin outs for so you can make your own cables and do other things you have this somewhat open platform with a reasonable sensor, super 16 size sensor with good dynamic range that if you use the Cinema Camera records pro rez internally at 60 frames attend at or you can you know have a nice 10 bit 10 bit video SDI out of the micro studio and recording to anything you want in our case we recording to the Apollo the Apollo convergent design Apollo Apollo's because we want to have as few recorders as possible on the on the rig. And the rig we're using is his Alex Clive's mini Ifor and we've known Alex for a long time and we work together on a nine Camera Rig nine Blackmagic camera rig that we used on a chromat Red Bull Fashion Week piece last September. But that's not as mobile as a four camera rig and traveling to Minnesota do this Minnesota Twins piece, we need to be able to pick it up and like be on the field and running and moving and a four camera rig is is easier for that. The Nine Camera Rig would give us a better resolution because we had more overlap and can make a bigger stitch like a 9k stitch. Excuse me, we get a 6k stitch out of the 4k black magics. But we have to operate at 30 frames a second because those cameras topped out at 30 frames at at 4k.

Alex Ferrari 41:46
Well let me ask you, what do you think the What do you think the VR experience is going to be in the future like if ours projection is concerned how people will experience like huge domes,

Jason Diamond 41:55
domes, we did a piece we did a dome piece this year for the panorama music festival with a company called invisible light network that was shot on reds. And they mixed it in a aftereffects environment. And we shot these dancers in a black room wearing black with different illumination things lights coming from under the camera and whatever and and then the visible light network took it all and put it together and that was in a 180 70 foot inflatable dome. And I think I wasn't able to go see it. When they when they added finally finished but I think domes are incredible because you can experience something on a mass scale. Without goggles, you can get still get high resolution you can still get ambisonics audio in the way that instantly ambisonics in the same way it is with headphones, but you're still feeling the audio from directional, you know, theatrical style audio where it's all around you. And it's it's amazing. It is a different type of experience. I mean, much like watching a movie on your phone is different than watching it on a 70 foot screen. I mean, it's they feel different. They both have their positives and negatives. And, you know, I think I think that there will be multiple technologies in the future that will, I wouldn't say ubiquitous, but we'll sort of start to carve out sort of certain exhibitionist models, like domes, like the void, like, you know, really high quality, let's say maybe even IMAX goggles or something that have, you know, two screens, one per eye, or there's a company that we really like, called called alfagar. They make these glyphs headphones. They look like Beats headphones, but they have, you know, retinal projection lenses in the in the band, and you flip it down and you look like LeVar Burton for next generation, but you're doing retinal projection, and you're not looking at a screen. And I think over time, that type of technology to take us away from screens and then these big, bulky things will will make the experiences even easier to do and more even more immersive.

Alex Ferrari 44:30
Now what I have this this is a question I've been dying to ask anybody doing VR, How the hell do you hide your crew in a 360 degree view?

Jason Diamond 44:38
Well, depending on what you're doing, the crew can actually be in the shot. But they can't act like crew. Public environment, they can just walk around, right, right, right. Um

Alex Ferrari 44:54
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Jason Diamond 45:05
I just did a shoot for a company on the street, we were shooting, you know, just literally put the camera down on the median. And we're recording, you know, 1015 minutes of, of action that with, you know, around the street, and I was just standing on the street corner on the opposite corner just like on my phone waiting for the for in this case for the director to call cut, right, but nobody knows that I'm working on the crew, I just look like a guy in the street on my phone, like, but in the case of the golf course you obviously we can't be on the golf course. So we had to hide behind trees, we had to build a for the red camera, we operate it wirelessly from a from a small di t car. So we with full control and some other things. And so we had to build a DI t card on a hand truck. So it was really narrow, or we could move it fast on a golf cart or whatever. And you just find the biggest tree and everyone stands in a line, you know, behind the tree and looks at the monitor. And if you can't see the camera can't see you just like any normally in this case, it's always looking in all directions, right? So sometimes it's challenging. I mean, you have to on a scout, you have to look for where people are gonna hide like, we need staging for, for in green room for talent or staging for gear, but we also need crew staging per shot. Sometimes, I mean, so it's a challenge. It's fun, though to like, it sounds everybody run and hide.

Alex Ferrari 46:35
It's like we're kids again. Yeah. Now how do you light a VR scene, like with lights and stuff like that for more of a cinematic arbitrages?

Jason Diamond 46:42
Well, you have multiple options. So you can, you can if you don't want to do any painting or comping, then you can use obviously Fincher style, just you know, high wattage practicals, you can hide lights, we had to do a thing for David Chang with Momofuku up in Toronto. And we put, you know, small LED and fluorescent bulbs up under the aluminum, you know, cooking hoods and stuff to use the aluminum as a bounce, but also to hide hide lights, the camera couldn't see behind the counter, you know, and using occlusion to our advantage. But if you wanted to pay now, and in this in one shot for this, we did, we put a we needed a light to hit the guy. So we put a light up on like a internal balcony, kind of second half floor thing, hit the talent with the light, when the shot was over. Obviously, you have to make sure no one's crossing the that into that we'll call it a quadrant, for lack of a better description right now, if no one's crossing across there, then it doesn't matter when when you wrap that shot, you take a clean plate of the room, or even just that area, and then you sell that camera, that lens that whatever for that take in and then it's gone. It's not even a it's not even a paint out, you're just subbing a take into a quadrant stitching it in, right? So you could do that. Or you can literally put something in and do traditional paint and roto and paint it out. Don't have the ability to do whatever I mean, it really comes down to budget desire, ability and, and need.

Alex Ferrari 48:23
Got it. Now the other big question is post production workflow, right? How do you do cut this? How do you process all of this data? what's the what's normal workflow? On an on like the twins situation

Jason Diamond 48:39
on the twin thing we came back we have our we have our progress, you know, for pro res files, we sync them up in this case, we used AVP. And we signed them up and did a daily stitch. So we're we're just doing rough blends, making sure everything's aligned horizon straight, you know, and any audio we have is sunk in and, and we have a traditional dailies workflow, right. So it's not that the quality visual quality is less per se, but we are not focusing on really fine stitches, we just need to be able to watch it in a 360 environment while we cut, we do that in Premiere. premiere is always consistently getting better with the tools that they are adding in for VR, and they just announced I think today, they're IBC sort of sneak preview that they're adding in like actual VR aware options in Premiere where it's something it knows that content is is equal rectangular, or what have you. So it automatically puts you in the environment. And and and they've added the metadata in meeting encoders. So when you export it automatically has the VR metadata tags. So you can say you can export and not have to inject the metadata Like you have to do for YouTube, and other things like that. So it's moving forward. When we cut, we cut in, we cut in Premiere, because premiere has resolution independence and other things there's other people do cut in Final Cut 10 because it has the similar resolution independence, how

Alex Ferrari 50:20
about how about resolve? Do you ever use resolvers?

Jason Diamond 50:22
We haven't yet. And we were working with Blackmagic you know, to try and get some VR stuff in there. Um, I think fusion, I have, you know, some friends that use fusion to stitch and do things like that. And we're looking into that, as well. nuke is a obviously cost effective for most people, but their care VR stitcher is, is, is probably the best one at this point. But anyway, we create our dailies we use we use, you know, stuff like Tim dashwoods 360 toolbox to do any image manipulation in terms of, you know, rotating the smear, offsetting doing any image manipulations or things, you know, transforms we need to do to the equirectangular there's things like mocha VR, where we can do any painting or that kind of stuff. There is there's a whole lot, winter's coming out, I think, sorry, mocha VR is in beta right now. And so I don't know if that's an NDA thing, but let me just, I'll just let me just, I'll say something else. And then and then you have mocha, which you can use to do paint outs and other things like that, and tracking and, and all sorts of, you know, pseudo visual effects things to remove and add things. And, and then we, we, when we're finished, we, we go back to our original media, and we do our fine stitching for just the media, we're using

Alex Ferrari 52:02
just the shots and what do you what do you call a great, or do you call it and then

Jason Diamond 52:05
we grade in, in either resolve or scratch? Gotcha. For stereo scratch currently has the best grading environment for VR, they spent a lot of time working on it, assignment that expensive anymore. Resolve is also the default, you know, we grade, all of our stuff is graded and resolve, you know, traditionally media wise, and again, like I said, if it's mano VR, then we do that in resolve as well. But, and then we and then we publish it wherever, you know, wherever we're doing via a custom app, or YouTube or Facebook or, you know, whatever the client's needs are. But on but see moving forward into the future. It's going to be cloud based stitching. So you have companies like john, excuse me. So you have companies like john that have a they have their integrated camera, and then they have their giant cloud services, their pipeline. So you can take you take their footage, you upload it, after you shoot, you organize it in their in their media manager, you push it up to the cloud, and it's stitched for you in the cloud in Manoa, and computational stereo. So pretty cool. And you have companies like pix vahana that are working towards the same you know in a consumer facing john is pseudo consumer facing right now you have no there will be and there will be more companies like that. Human beings do not need to align cameras and stitch them. Computers are perfect are perfect slave armies to do that. What humans do need to do from a stitching standpoint is the artistry of comp, paint and roto which have a computer can never really do so but the computers should take us to 95% and as we all know the final 5% is always the hardest but I'd rather focus on that and let things happen in the cloud we're only we're only limited by our internet service which is which is a shackle of the overlords you know currently because because you know other places in the in the world have you know where's it Norway or Denmark have a it's in the citizens bill of rights that you have minimally a gigabit available to you at reasonable prices

Alex Ferrari 54:24
That's amazing. Yeah imagine Can you imagine

Jason Diamond 54:27
Yeah, so I mean you know, that is there are limiters that are beyond anyone's control that will we all know will eventually go away. So so I think being able to look past those and and plan for the future and, and develop pipelines and workflows that allow us to do more creative work and less tedious manual work that's unnecessary for humans to do. I think is the future and one my brother and I are and super severe our our company is clearly focused on

Alex Ferrari 55:02
Can you Yeah, can you talk a little bit about super sphere VR?

Jason Diamond 55:04
Yeah, so super sphere is is my brother and myself, Lucas Wilson, Doug Allen Steen and hm woman we are a we're full service company from IP and technology to production and and creative so we kind of consider consider ourselves like a Creative Labs company because we can, my brother and I operate our traditional production company they didn't fortress the same way we are both a full service and an all a cart company. So if someone comes to us and just wants us to shoot something and hand it off, great, if somebody wants us to do something from concept to completion, awesome, like what do you need to do let's talk about the best way to do it no matter what part we're handling, and to make sure that everything is seamless, because we're going to hand off to you the same way we would hand off to ourselves. So we're not going to cut corners for you because we don't cut corners for ourselves. So we like to you know, do things the right way. We also push boundaries and try to do new things on every job that we can learn on and and push into the next job. Perfect.

Alex Ferrari 56:17
Now one last thing the you guys talked about the Blackmagic camera can you talk about you because I know you guys are big fans of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera well can you talk a little bit about why you like it on a technical standpoint because I know a lot of a lot of people kind of poopoo on the camera because there's not a read and it's not Alexa and trust me I've shot with all of them but I've just shot my my first feature is everybody who's listening to this podcast knows on the Blackmagic cinema 2.5 and I'm a huge fan of the camera because I've been a colorist for 10 years so I know what the the raw image can give me yeah what's your vibe on it and get tell us why you're such big fans of it.

Jason Diamond 56:52
Um well i mean i think Blackmagic in general has done a great job you know bringing affordable by affordable that doesn't mean low quality, affordable cameras to people to be able to do what they want to do and not worry about I don't have the money to rent an expensive camera right and because there's a lot of people who don't who can make great content and make a living right so everyone that we choices the consumer always wins in these scenarios because we just have choices right choices are great for us. I think Blackmagic did a great job focusing on you know in the original camera the two and a half k sensor is a gorgeous sensor I think the 4k sensor they came after it had some issues because they were fighting the global shutter thing and that just eats dynamic range and I think that was a learning experience for them which was solved it with the 4.6k sensor in the in both the bigger size and the and the mini Versa I think that also is is I have not shot with it but the images I've seen in the people I know have them agree that it is it is the true successor to the two and a half k sensor

Alex Ferrari 58:07
so as a four shows So right now you would not suggest shooting with the 4k you would go right to the 4.6

Jason Diamond 58:13
I would personally because I because they've the 4k sensor needs a lot of light because because of the global shutter is awesome but you may not always need that I mean I haven't had a global shutter on my reds for ever literally ever. And unless I'm really doing you know whipping and there's stuff driving by fast and whatever is not noticeable. So so I think smartly they went for the global shutter for the 4k camera because it is something people were requesting and a lot of people were bitching about, Well why can't we just have a global shutter sensor and you say well here's why it's hard because you can have a global shutter sensor but in the in this case it eats dynamic range and would you rather have a little more in the top end or low end depending on how you're exposing? Or do you want the Do you want to kill rolling shutter that's an that's a side effect of DSLR the DSLR revolution for whatever whatever you want to call it is once everybody learned what rolling shutter was you know prior to the early 2000s and even 2006 or seven or red came out no one really the average public didn't know what a CMOS sensor was what read in read in a read out times where it didn't know what the rolling that film has rolling shutter descriptively you know because time is still time. It still takes time for light to hit something a sensor as it does you know film plane is global shutter but your film is moving past it's moving in a direction so therefore it's still a line by line type thing. Someone will say I'm wrong. I'm being very generalized your it film is moving it's still moving past and getting data at different times. A global shutter sensor is opening and closing like a phantom that is getting Have a full exposure and close as as the 4k Blackmagic sensor is became a larger answer about Blackmagic but I'm just saying I'm just saying I think it's smart for them to try those things I think the 4.6k sensor is the combination of everything they learned on the two and a half k in the 4k sensor

Alex Ferrari 1:00:20
Na Na Did you have you used the meta bones adapter

Jason Diamond 1:00:24
so we never use meta bones on the two and a half Ks we use them on the micro studios with the with the broken ons to get a wider field of view because in in in traditional media I could back up I could adjust my frame in VR I want the whole fisheye and the only way to get that is to shrink the image down as much as possible now of course we're still using a four by three sensor would be great but we they don't make that so because the fisheye is circle is a circle So currently we are losing information on the top and bottom of the of the fisheye so you know being able to shrink the image down as much as possible gets us as much field of view either top and bottom or if you flip the camera on its side you get a field of view left to right we use the micro studio and cinema cameras in portrait mode because we would rather have and deal with overlap then have to put a camera up top gotcha because because if they're in portrait mode, then you get the full width of the fisheye and if you have 180 or 185 degree lens or even you know coming soon, companies are making 220 degree lenses if they're in portrait then they're going to touch at the top in the bottom and I can paint out a tripod and I can have all my frames converge at the top and then I just have to worry about vertical seams which honestly I prefer to horizontal seams anyway

Alex Ferrari 1:02:00
right so then so just for everybody listening to metal bones is this adapter you put on to the camera which actually helps with the crop factor and also gives you another stop of light as well correct well

Jason Diamond 1:02:09
it's a it's a well it's a it's a piece of glass it's magnifying or shrink magnifying shrinking the image it's reducing the image in size so it is taking the image circle which would normally let's say cover half the sensor it's squeezing that image circle down because it's squeezing it down it's the pixels are doubling up on each other giving you a perceived brightness exposure you're not getting any you're not getting another stop that would give you a true stop that would give you like more depth of fields are less depth of field rather but you're getting you're getting a mathematical stop of brightness because you're doubling pixels you're cramming more information into the same into a smaller zone like over sampling it's like over sampling for lack of a better description but in their higher high highly you know netta bones I think probably makes the best ones are expensive but you know that piece of glass if that's a cheap piece of glass your image quality goes down real fast

Alex Ferrari 1:03:12
got it all depends on the kind of glass you're using.

Jason Diamond 1:03:14
Well of course the front the front the front glass is that is the key

Alex Ferrari 1:03:18
always now would you use them with the rookies

Jason Diamond 1:03:22
rochen ons I have here right in front of me. Nine fisheye twos eight mil fisheye twos they're a little slow three five is a little slow yeah but until someone makes like a one for sure you know F or MFT mount you know fisheye I think we're stuck with it but i mean but also you know the problem is is is you know you don't want shallow depth of field on a fisheye know for the most part and like I said those are those might be narrative or other tricks you would use later for shot or things but you most of the time you need infinite depth of field

Alex Ferrari 1:04:06
so the last two questions I asked all my guests which what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life in general whoa that's like an Oprah moment I now Steve

Jason Diamond 1:04:21
let me let me go I'm gonna say something that you can insert back in the other thing about the Blackmagic camera okay so the reason we use the we really like the Blackmagic micro and cinema studio and cinema cameras is you have a super 16 sensor, I'll be at 16 by nine giving you this high quality image in a super small form factor. It allows us to do things closer to the way we see them in our heads from a traditional standpoint with with a traditional sensor and other things dynamic range and and what have you put in a VR environment so they're they're super helpful and they're not expensive. Which is maybe the best point about them? I don't know. But okay. Now Okay, so to answer your

Alex Ferrari 1:05:09
question, yes, to answer my question, what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in the business or in life?

Jason Diamond 1:05:21
There's a lot of them. I think, I don't think this is something I learned by having not done it and gotten in trouble and had to learn how to do it. I would say that collaboration and listening to other people, is maybe the best thing to learn. And I think Luckily, being an identical twin, I was sort of foisted into that, by nature. Does I know plenty of people, plenty of brothers and sisters, and even twins who don't get along and our case, based on our growing up and the things we went through and other things, we sort of were forced to rely on each other. And we did naturally have that collaborative nature. And I think it's really hard to listen to other people. I I'm not I mean, my wife says to me all the time, are you listening to me? I'm saying, and

Alex Ferrari 1:06:21
so listen, as an as a good one.

Jason Diamond 1:06:24
Yeah. So I honestly I think listening and, and being open to other people's ideas. That doesn't mean you have to take their idea. It doesn't mean you have to do what they say or but hearing other people's input is very key, because you can't know everything. Even if you think you do about something. You can't. JOHN McLaughlin, one of the greatest guitar players ever still practices hours every day, because he does not know everything about the guitar that he wants to know. Rand. And, and same thing for, you know, when I was an editor, on avid years ago, you would meet someone who'd say, Oh, do you do this this way? No, I do it this way. Oh, wow. You do it? Two keystrokes. I do it in five. Yep. Great. Okay. And that's on every every application. But you know, I just think communication is is a very big deal. And I think that's, that's a lesson. Yeah, it's a lesson to learn. Even if you think you already know it, just think about how you interact with people.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:34
And then the last question is, what are your three of your favorite films of all time?

Jason Diamond 1:07:39
Oh, Jesus. You know, I'm gonna say this one because I, because I said I just watched it over the weekend, Miller's Crossing, and I told my kid who's 10 he asked me what I was watching and I said, this is one of my favorite films, Miller's Crossing, so I can't, okay, I can't I can't go against what I said to my child, of course.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:56
Good film. Very good. Yeah. Can't go wrong with the Cohens can't really No, no,

Jason Diamond 1:08:00
no. Um, I would say, I'm gonna is totally cliche. It's totally ridiculous. But I'm gonna say Star Wars, of course, as a is a favorite, but it's a favorite because it's influential in my life, and the entire entertainment industry, and none of us would be where we are without it.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:21
Yes, it changed the game. It changes the game without a question.

Jason Diamond 1:08:24
Yes. So when I say that third movie, I want to say something new. I want to say something new that I really loved because there's tons of old movies that I love so

Alex Ferrari 1:08:35
Batman vs. Superman obviously didn't even have joking

Jason Diamond 1:08:41
You know what? I'm gonna say the witch

Alex Ferrari 1:08:44
Oh, wow, the witch I heard that was really good. That movie

Jason Diamond 1:08:47
is awesome. My friend My friend described it as a as a it's a heavy metal movie. It's like a slow do me heavy metal movie. But it's not like it's like a song. It's like a really slow do me heavy metal song. And it's and there's nobody famous in it. And there's it's not predicated on anything other than being an awesome movie.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:11
Very good. Very cool. Now where can people find you?

Jason Diamond 1:09:14
They can find us at our traditional production company. The diamond bros comm is our sort of repository for all the stuff we do as directors. Super sphere VR comm is our VR company. We're on Facebook. Jason diamond on Twitter my brother's Josh underscore diamond on Twitter. We're sort of all all around and all seeing eye

Alex Ferrari 1:09:41
you are how Yes,

Jason Diamond 1:09:43
Illuminati.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:47
This is Jason thank you so much for being you've you've educated myself and the tribe on VR, which I was very ignorant before we started speaking. So I feel a little bit more comfortable with VR now. So thank you.

Jason Diamond 1:09:57
Yeah, thank you. I hope it only made some sense.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:00
It did man. Thanks. That was a really fun interview. I really liked talking to Jason. And, you know, VR. Again, I don't know what the future lies for VR, because a lot of times when you hear that, you know, when 3d was all the rage when avatar came back in, and that was going to change the industry, and everything's going to be 3d, and it has its place, but it didn't change everything, everything didn't just automatically go to 3d. It's just another storytelling tool. So I think VR will be the future, I think there will definitely be a place for it. In in cinema, and in storytelling, I don't know. I don't know how that works as a director, because as a director, you are directing, you're telling the audience where to look, you're telling the story, visually, we're in the VR experience, you're just literally in the story you're in. So imagine being in the room in The Godfather, and not being told what to look at. It is just a different experience. You're not, you're not like, I'm not being told, look at Marlon Brando's lips, right now, as he says this, or you know, or like and citizen, can you see rose, but if you weren't a VR experience, that that part would not be as impactful. So I'm really curious about seeing what can be done with the technology. Moving forward, I don't know if we'll ever replace, and I might famous will be saying it, I don't know if it'll ever replace traditional storytelling, with edits and cuts and images like that, because you're being taken on a journey. As a director, and as a filmmaker, as a storyteller, you're telling the audience, what you want to look at, where you want to look at, at what time and the power of editing and what you can do with the power of editing. Whereas the VR experience is literally you're just walking around in that environment, and experiencing that story firsthand, which is a completely different experience than traditional cinema. So I do have a feeling that it will have a place in the future, I don't think it's going to take over I don't think it's going to be the thing that everybody watches but who knows, in 30 or 40 years, that's my might be that where the audience wants to go. And they don't want to look at traditional look at animation. I mean, traditional animation is rare now other than coming out of Japan, you know, the you know, Disney pretty much after princess in the frog stopped doing traditional animation. And now they're only doing 3d animation. So you know, I don't know, the future is very interesting. It's I'm really going to be curious to see what happens with VR. But at least now you and I are both a little bit more educated on VR and what, what it takes to make VR work. And we'll see what happens. So if you guys, any of you guys are doing any VR projects out there, please drop me a line. I love to hear about what you guys are doing. If it's specifically cinematic or storytelling, as opposed to you know, just an experience in VR. That doesn't interest me as much but if you're doing something storytelling wise, or something along cinematic VR, I definitely would love to hear it and see what what you guys in the tribe are doing. So don't forget to head over to free film book calm. That's free film book calm to download your free filmmaking audio book from Audible, and guides. If you haven't done haven't taken those master classes yet. You've got from Warner Hertzog or Aaron Sorkin, for God's sakes, man, it's insane. These are great courses. They're like insane film schools within a four or five hour period. The things you learn from these master classes are I mean, I learned a ton from the Aaron Sorkin ordinance or Hertzog, they have Hans Zimmer, the composer of The Dark Knight coming out so you really understand what they're doing. And then to insane acting classes by Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman. And as directors, you really need to understand what and how to talk to actors. And these courses really help you do that. So head over to indie film hustle.com Ford slash masterclass to gain access to those classes. And as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive and I'll talk to you soon.