- To me, creativity is that trance.
You are not really conscious.
You are just the thing that you're making.
- What you're describing
is my favorite fucking thing in the world.
- How many hours of my labor
will it take to save me 500 bucks?
I kinda think I'm in it for the edit.
Like, that's the part where I get in a flow.
That's the part where it just, the time ...
The pace makes you better.
The quantity makes you better.
- Van Neistat is an artist, filmmaker,
and creator of the YouTube channel, The Spirited Man,
which has gained almost half a million YouTube subscribers
since he started the channel a little over a year ago.
He is also the brother of the one and only Casey Neistat,
and he and Casey made a TV show for HBO in 2010
called The Neistat Brothers.
- [Casey] This show is about my brother and me,
but this is not a reality show.
- Casey originally went the YouTube route,
and Van went on to make TV commercials
and work with artists like Tom Sachs,
exhibiting his work around the world.
Van's YouTube videos are unlike any other videos on YouTube.
- [Van] He wondered if his detail fetish was harming others.
- And I was so excited to sit down with him
and talk about what makes his voice so unique.
(cow moos)
Okay. I wanna start with something you said
in an interview earlier this year.
You were talking about wanting your own kingdom.
- Mm!
- And I very much feel like you now have your own kingdom.
And so my question, first question for you is,
how's your kingdom?
How's it feel?
- It's good. The court has not revolted.
The kingdom is good.
I need more subjects, I think,
because as you know, when you're like a DIY person,
you kinda take on the whole, the whole operation.
And I have a very extreme weakness
of not being able to delegate.
And so, you know, there's so much going on.
There's the family and then ... there's, no!
There's two things going on.
There's a personal life,
and then get a video made every week.
But I mean, they're so complicated, these videos,
and yet I don't feel like I can delegate
any part of the process, including like,
taking out the garbage.
'Cause I'm like, "Well, nobody wants to do,
they're gonna be insulted.
These kids all went to USC Film School," you know?
- Yeah.
- So, the kingdom's great,
and Tom Sachs,
we're working on a project together
and we're doing these AM, like 6:00 AM phone calls.
9:00 AM for him.
And he brought up the kingdom thing the other day,
and he's like, "You're doing it man!
And it's real and it's good."
And I was so happy.
But the reason I said that is 'cause
I had been a collaborator for so long.
- Yeah.
- So late into my life.
And then finally I, you know,
I don't know how, but somehow I was like,
you know, this will be my own thing.
- Is the delegation thing because you're so ...
You care about the details so much?
And so if somebody does the details differently,
you don't like that?
Or is the delegation thing something else?
Why ...
- I, yeah, it's a great question.
You know, I think it has something to do with,
it's like my disposition.
Like, I'm a maniac.
I'll be all nice and sweet on the, you know,
in my professional life,
but I'm like a crazy maniac,
so I don't wanna like, unleash that guy.
And it's a, like delegating is a skill,
that I've never really developed.
And in the edit-
- Yeah.
- Okay? - Yeah.
- So I'm very careful to usually write everything
ahead of time, and then I just shoot a shot list.
Shooting to me is like, you know,
I don't really take it that seriously.
- Really? Some people ... - Yeah yeah, no.
I don't.
The fastest way to do it
is essentially the way I wanna do it.
- So you script the video first.
- Basically, not a hundred percent of them,
but almost all of 'em.
- And then you speak it through.
You hold up a mic and you basically ...
- Yes.
- [Jack] Monologue the video.
- Yes.
And I try not to start unless I have the breakthrough.
Like, oh, this is the, this is the thing.
This is the like, little hook that people are gonna like.
- See, it seems to me like you couldn't
delegate the scripting.
I can't delegate ...
- No. Can't dele-
No.
- It's, the scripting is what I have to say.
- [Van] Yes.
- That is like, me as an artist.
- [Van] Yes.
- I can't go to somebody else and say,
"Hey, write a script for me about what I believe."
It like, doesn't work.
I can't, it never comes back right.
I've tried it a thousand times.
- [Van] Yes.
- And I can't, I can't ...
Scripting, I can't delegate.
But have you, I guess, after that,
shooting, post-production,
like anything else?
- Shooting, I don't care.
Just shoot it. I don't care.
But editing!
Sometimes there's ...
There's a breakthrough in the editing.
Sometimes it's like, "Oh whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!"
Because you're so far into it.
You've been sleeping on it and sleeping on it
and sleeping on it.
Whatever you're making, that in the editing,
sometimes just a turn that, I'm sorry,
no one's gonna get.
And my brother made me feel very good about this,
because he said he was giving some gigantic lecture
in front of 10,000 people.
And someone said,
"After you hire an editor,
who's the first employee you hired?"
And he's like, "Who said I hired an editor?"
And I also heard on the Colin and Samir Show,
I heard them talking about Emma Chamberlain,
how she said, you know,
"I could delegate editing,
but that's when I'm in it for."
And I kinda think that that's true too.
I kinda think I'm in it for the edit.
Like, that's the part where I get in a flow.
That's the part where, just the time ...
- Yeah.
- And it's also like the sculptural part.
It's what everything's,
it's what everything's leading up to.
- It feels like the same thing as
the crafting of a Toyota logo, or whatever it is.
- I feel the same way.
- [Jack] That's what editing is.
- Yes.
- It's the detail orientation, the polishing,
the maneuvering to get it just right.
- Mhmm.
- And I definitely feel that from your edits.
So you don't work with an editor at all?
Have you ever worked with an editor, or for your channel?
- Sometimes I'll have,
I work with a guy named Braxton Haugen,
who's great, you should check out his channel.
But sometimes I'll have like, the pre-editing stuff,
like, save all this in the different folder,
you know, in the folders according to what
camera it was shot on.
And then load it all into the timeline and cut it down.
Cut obvious stuff out.
And ... some, like, a few things I've done,
like eight things I've done that way, but no.
- Yeah. Not like, narrative cut.
- I waste a lot of time.
- [Jack] Yeah.
- In a bad way.
And I wanna ...
- Do you feel like it's actually a bad way?
- [Van] Yes.
- Is it actually a bad way? Really?
- Yes. Yes.
- But doesn't, like ...
There's a, it reminds me of that video about,
about detail orientation.
- Yeah.
- Where you basically said,
I think I forgot the exact quote,
but you said something like,
"I'm willing to suffer the consequences
of my obsession with details,
because I want them to be right."
- [Van] Mhmm.
- And so I guess, I guess,
is it a bad way if you get it just the way ...
Is it bad?
Is it a waste of time if it's just the way you want it?
- But that's not what I waste time on.
- What do you waste time on?
- Wasting time on things that like,
a 16-year-old intern could do.
So like, while,
I don't know, washing the truck,
vacuuming the studio floor.
One thing I would love to have a professional do,
but you'd have to be so smart to do this,
that this person doesn't exist.
Put my tools away.
Put my stuff away.
Because it, I don't know,
when you're working, I think this is what creativity is.
And I think this is why people want to be creative people,
is because to me,
creativity is that trance where you are just ...
You are not ...
It's like being on drugs.
You are not really conscious.
You are just the thing that you're making
and blah, blah, blah.
And you're, ah, and ...
Oh wait!
I know, I'll use the soldering iron.
Nee!
And then a whole mess and stuff.
But everything has to be exactly where it always is,
because you won't be able to be in that trance
if you have to stop.
"Where is the resin?
Where is this ...
Where is a toothpick to stir the resin?"
- How much of your time do you spend in that state?
Because what you're describing
is my favorite fucking thing in the world.
- [Van] Yeah. Yeah.
- It's the best feeling in the world.
What does it for me is also editing.
- Yeah.
- It's post-production,
storytelling through post-production.
- Yeah.
- The jigsaw puzzle of assembling a story
and revealing the thing. It just ...
- It is a puzzle.
It is a puzzle!
- It's a puzzle. - It's a puzzle!
- It's a puzzle. - That's what we're doing!
- And sometimes there's a missing piece.
- [Van] Yes.
- And I, fuck, it's so ...
I just love searching for that missing piece.
- Yes, yes!
- And putting that in the right place.
And it connects the things.
And it's just, I love that!
So when I'm in that moment, literally,
I mean, I will not eat.
I will not go to the bathroom.
I will wake up and it's fucking three in the morning.
- [Van] Yeah.
- And I've been ...
And I'm, I feel like I'm ...
It feels like waking up from a dream.
- Yes.
- [Jack] Honestly, is what it feels like.
- Yeah.
- That's my favorite state to be in.
How much of your time do you spend in that state?
As an artist?
- This is a great question.
Okay. Do you have kids?
- I don't.
- Okay. Obviously that changes everything.
- [Jack] Yeah.
- But, let's see.
How much of my ...
I would say it's maybe four hours a day.
If I'm lucky.
And then on an editing day, or if I'm like,
at the finish line, and it's like,
if I can just go hard, and I'll be done today,
and then tomorrow is for everybody else.
Which sometimes happens on Thursdays,
which is the greatest.
- Why Thursdays?
- 'Cause I post on Fridays.
- [Jack] Oh, okay.
- And so, I would say on those days, I might get eight.
But my precious time is like,
I wake up at four in the morning, five days a week.
And then my precious time is like,
four till my son has to go to school,
which is around eight something.
And that's like, zero distractions.
- Yeah.
- And then, you know, each day is different.
And they overlap.
So there's like, there's like a full writing day,
then there's like a writing overlapping with shooting day.
- Yeah.
- Then there's a shooting overlapping with editing day,
which is today.
And then there's a full editing day.
And then there's a, like a posting day,
that might overlap with a little tiny bit of editing,
or just a go-through.
And so the, the like,
shooting, editing days,
is when I'm indulging in the, in the flow state.
And ...
I, yeah.
I mean, but the building is what I'm,
like the build!
Oh, there's also the building though!
And you build stuff too.
- Yeah.
- So the ...
I hate shooting when I'm building,
and I know that I'm getting the right to make,
to spend five hours on ...
This thing I'm making this week is like,
I smelted lead fishing sinkers
to make a heavy base for my new camera
so I can put it on the dashboard of my car
without it sliding around.
And like, I know that I can indulge in melting these,
you know, fishing weights, because I'm shooting it.
And sometimes I just, when I'm really indulging,
I don't shoot.
And I'm just making beautiful little da da da.
And then sometimes I'll go back and fake it,
or sometimes it just doesn't make it in the thing,
and it's this ...
You know, people are like,
if money was no object, what would you do?
I was like, same thing, but I wouldn't shoot it.
But also, I think the truth is,
if money was no object, I would just spend money.
That's all I would do.
- So the shooting is like,
the enabling mechanism that, for you,
I guess makes it universal.
It's like the thing that, that is the,
the value generating portion of what you do?
- Yes.
It's why, it's what allows me to do it.
Because that's what people will support.
- Right. - Right.
- Right. So it's almost like the,
the business model of your detail obsession.
- Yeah.
- [Jack] Is storytelling.
- Yeah.
Or it's like the ...
The making is the advertising budget
for my video making, or the other way around.
- [Jack] The other way around.
- [Van] Yeah.
- The video-making is the advertising budget.
- The video-making is the advertising budget for my ...
- [Jack] Yeah.
- Hand-making.
- That's so funny.
So for you ...
'Cause what's interesting about that is,
I started from there as well.
- [Van] Mhmm.
- Where, it sounds like for you, the product,
the like, thing that lights you up
is the making of the stuff,
and the smelting and the repair.
- Mhmm.
- And like, that is your purpose on earth.
And then the video-making is a way to make that work.
Which for me, like, as a musician ...
- But it used to be the video-making!
It used to be!
- Oh, so that's different?
- In the beginning of the video-making,
in the first 10 years of the video-making.
- Yeah, like Neistat Brothers and all that.
- It was the other, everything was feeding the video-making.
- So that, when did that change for you?
- I think it was when it was like,
the overhead started to get high
and I really had to have money.
- [Jack] Yeah.
- You know, I had to have ...
You know, it had to be,
I couldn't just be, I couldn't just be reckless anymore.
You know, it had to just be ...
Last, you know, it had to be focused,
and especially like, having the kid,
and all this stuff.
And then with YouTube, the schedule of it, right?
Boom, you know, the faster you get 'em up,
the more the the algorithm's gonna promote you.
And, you know, I don't know.
The system I'm trying to develop
is how do I have both, you know?
- Can we talk about the schedule for a minute?
- Mm.
- There are some artists who really love that.
- Mhmm.
- Kind of on one end of the spectrum.
There's artists on the other end of the spectrum,
who for them it's like this oppressive clock of doom
to like, have to put something out.
- [Van] Yeah.
- Like to serialize the creation of art.
- Mm.
- I think, for some people,
that's a constraint that's exciting.
And it creates more artistry in themselves,
and they enjoy like, living up to that challenge.
And for other folks, they're like,
"Look, I want time and I want space.
I don't want a fucking algorithm telling me when to upload.
If the video's not ready Friday, fuck it.
The video's not ready Friday,
and I'm gonna take my bloody time."
I've seen folks on the full spectrum.
What's your, is that how you think about it?
Or where are you on that spectrum?
Or how, yeah. Do you like being on a schedule?
- So about a year ago, about a year ago,
I was like a half, maybe I was almost a year into the,
or maybe I was like six months into the channel.
- [Jack] Into the grind.
- And it was very successful.
It was insanely successful for the amount of time
it had been up.
Faster than my brother.
I mean, I had my brother's help,
because he could promote me, but you know,
faster than, I got to 400,000 subscribers
faster than he did.
But I was working really hard and doing two a week,
and I was just becoming a total maniac.
And my mental health was just unwinding.
And when my mental health goes,
I get very angry, very full of rage.
And I'm like, tapping into that war,
you know, gene or whatever.
And so my psychiatrist said to me,
"Take a break. Take a break from the schedule.
Can you take a break from the schedule?"
And I said, "Okay."
And so for the, my first video of 2022,
I said, "Take as long as you want to make this."
To myself. And that was my schedule.
And it ended up taking like a month!
It was like a month.
I mean, granted, it was like the Christmas,
New Year's, duh duh duh duh duh month,
where you're getting interrupted all the time.
And it was pretty good.
It was the one, the one with the Kurt Vonnegut thumbnail.
- [Jack] Uh-huh.
- But I still felt the same weird pressure.
I still felt the same time constraint.
And there's that, there's a great,
I think it's Revisionist History podcast
with Malcolm Gladwell,
and Gladwell talks about slow artists versus fast artists.
And Picasso did 65,000 works of art,
which is three pieces a day for 60 years.
And then I think the other one was like,
Cézanne or somebody like this.
Somebody really super slow.
So there's that, and then there's,
do you remember the director's label DVDs that came out?
- This is our thing that we've got in common.
- Okay. Okay. Okay.
- I fucking watched those videos ...
- [Van] Okay, good, okay.
- Frame by frame.
- Right. Okay.
- A hundred times.
I studied Michel Gondry.
- This is the one I'm gonna talk about.
- Until my brain exploded.
- Yes. - Yes.
- And in the beginning he says, "For this DVD,"
it was a collection of his short films.
"I had to decide with going ...
Between going for quality and going for quantity.
And I went for quantity, because quantity lasts."
Which is like, so antithetical to my thinking.
I still don't have my head around it!
Because quality lasts!
The pyramids last, 'cause they're well made!
- [Jack] But quantity ...
- But quantity lasts.
- Leads, no no!
Quantity yields better quality!
- I agree.
- This is the part that like,
the part that I can't quite get.
- [Van] Yeah.
- I see videos like yours.
- Mhmm.
- And your just insane detail orientation.
- Can you see that?
I just feel like I'm cutting corners the whole time!
I'm like, "All right, just let this slide."
- That's crazy! That's crazy.
- "You know what, you're the only one who's gonna ...
Who's gonna see this."
- I mean, the pacing.
The, even the meticulousness of your labeling,
the studio, the fucking date on your pencil.
Like everything, it's just, it's insanely meticulous!
- Okay.
- And there's a piece of me that respects that so much,
that I, like, I wanna be that guy.
But then at the same time,
I have this deeply held belief that
I will only improve as an artist
after making 5000 versions of the thing that I'm making.
Like- - Yeah.
- In the Picasso spectrum versus Cézanne spectrum, like,
I see Picasso, I'm like,
you know, of those 60,000 works that Picasso made,
200 years later, 100 years later,
people are talking about 20 of 'em.
- Yeah. Guernica.
- And he didn't know which 20.
- Correct.
- When he was making them.
- This is how I think about it. Yes.
- And so ...
So yeah, I could spend six months working on one
and put it out, and hope that that's the one.
- [Van] Mm.
- Or I could make 60,000!
- [Van] Mm.
- And 20 of 'em are probably gonna stick!
- Yeah.
- And like, and, like if I make 60,000,
I'm gonna be pretty good by the time I'm at like, 30,500.
I'm gonna be pretty good at it.
- Yeah.
- And so I just try to make a lot.
But it's not because I don't care about quality,
it's because I care about quality.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And I think that this is the lever to quality.
Does that make sense?
- Yeah.
And that's ultimately I think why I do it.
'Cause I'm just like, no, the pace makes you better.
The quantity makes you better.
You learn a little bit, you know,
every time you do something again,
even a little teeny little tweak.
And there's that, there's like a zen saying that
the wheel smith cannot explain
what he spent 20 years learning.
Like he can't teach you how to make the wheel,
'cause there's so many tiny little
teeny, teeny, teeny details including like,
where the chisel goes in the chisel holder.
- Maybe that's why it's hard to delegate.
- Thank you! Yes!
- Right?
Because it's like, you're forced to explain.
- Yes!
- What you want, and how you would make something,
which ... you're a wheel maker after 20 years,
and it's in your blood and your eyeballs
and your hands and you can't explain it.
- Yeah.
- Okay. Can we talk about Michel Gondry for a second?
- [Van] Yes. Good.
- Well, what I wanted to,
I wanted to draw a difference between your videos
and Michel Gondry videos.
- Okay.
- Because Michel Gondry's videos,
I think the main difference is pacing.
- Mm.
- Michel Gondry's videos are, it's like,
every two seconds something is happening.
Whereas what I admire about your videos,
and what I think is ...
Separates your videos from literally
everybody else's on YouTube.
- Oh, that's very sweet. Thank you.
- [Jack] 15 seconds of silence.
(footsteps crunching on gravel)
(ambient music)
- [Van] Cloudy today.
But clouds are good in these parts.
- Your videos are more like watching a movie,
or listening to a podcast,
than it is like, watching a Michel Gondry video.
Don't get me wrong, I love Michel Gondry videos.
But you use silence.
It seems, I don't know why you're doing it.
- Mm.
- But it seems like you're giving the viewer
a chance to reflect on themselves
as they're learning from you in your videos.
And so there'll be some dialogue,
and then there'll be 15 seconds of silence
with a little beautiful pad, you know,
some beautiful, you know,
ethereal kind of music playing,
and then some beautiful shots.
And you give me time, as a viewer,
to like, think about what this video means to me.
And I so appreciate that generosity in your videos.
How are you thinking about silence in your videos?
And I guess, why are you using silence so much?
Why are you giving us ...
Is that just, does that come natural to you?
- Okay no, it's two reasons.
Or, it might be three, but it's two primary reasons.
And one of them is Andrey Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time.
Have you read that book?
- [Jack] No, I haven't.
- Okay. You have to read it.
- Okay. - Okay.
It's an assignment for you.
- Okay.
- And he wrote it,
I think it's the last thing he ever wrote.
And he was dying when he wrote it.
And he talks about all of the,
he talks about it in such non woo woo terms.
Just, the job of filmmaking.
And so, I read that book,
and then I immediately of course like
watched all of his movies.
And his movies, you know,
he's making them behind the Iron curtain,
almost all of them.
And they're slow, but ...
You're drawn in, your subconscious is drawn in.
They're like Lynch movies in that way.
And they're slow.
And slow means there's less work you have to do.
There's less shooting, there's like,
less moving the camera, there's less editing.
But, and this is the chief thing that I got from him,
he said something like, you just,
you're not experimenting with the camera.
You are getting the job done.
You have the confidence in that shot.
You know what the shot is,
and that's what's gonna go in there,
you know how long it's gonna be.
And the experimentation might be with the performance
or so forth, or some little tiny tweaks in there.
But, and I think it was the,
you know, just, be confident this is what the shot is.
Be confident what this movie is,
and be confident that you're hooking the audience
so that they care.
And they'll go all the,
'cause that's all that we're doing.
- Yes.
- All that we're doing is getting them to watch to the end.
That's what all this trouble is for.
And the second thing, I made a feature film with Tom Sachs.
We co-wrote it.
I directed it and it was, we shot it live.
And then I went back and shot all this little stuff,
it's called A Space Program.
And I worked with a composer named Grey Gersten,
who did a lot, like the first,
all the videos of my first year,
and then he got so many offers
that I couldn't afford to work with him anymore.
So ... And he's unbelievable.
He's such a great artist.
Like on every level.
But he just got composition.
And one of the things when we were editing,
and I'd take his music and put it into scenes,
is he'd say, "You need to put breaths in."
- Yes.
- So that people can digest what you've just fed them.
- A thousand percent!
- And that was the implementation.
Grey Gersten. That was the imple-
And every time I'm making something, I'm like,
"No, no, no. It's not about speed.
It's not about, 'Hey look at this!
Look at this! Oh, look at this thing!'"
You know?
- Yeah!
No, that's, I literally use the word "breath."
- [Van] Yeah.
- When I'm talking about those moments.
- [Van] Yeah.
- It's like a trumpet player.
They, you know, output this incredible
creative musical phrase.
And then they take a breath.
- [Van] Yeah.
- And there's a little bit of silence.
Miles does this really well, and then it's the next one.
- And he'll dump the spit out.
- [Jack] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And, you know who does this really well?
- [Van] Hmm.
- Podcasters.
I think podcasters do this really well,
which is why I compared your filmmaking
to watching a podcast, because ...
- Now hold on.
- [Jack] Yeah.
- I wanna interrupt you just for clarification.
So podcasting, you have the like,
Joe Rogan, where it's just a conversation like this.
- Right.
- [Van] But then you have like ...
- [Jack] Narrative podcasting.
- This American life.
- [Jack] That's what I'm talking about.
- Okay. Okay. - Yeah.
- Yeah, those guys.
- Narrative podcasting. - Are geniuses.
- [Jack] They are geniuses!
- Another thing is, I'm trying to do,
to make my videos so that you don't have to watch them.
That's part of it too.
- Oh, that's really interesting!
- They're so you don't have to watch them because,
while I'm making stuff, I,
you see, I always have the earbuds in.
- Right. - When I'm making stuff.
I'm listening to podcasts and stories and books on tape.
- [Jack] Yeah, and comedians.
- It's like, it's like Ritalin for me or something.
- Yeah.
- It allows, it quiets the noise.
- Yeah. I love that.
I love that. Okay-
- But I interrupted you.
- No no no, so well,
I was just gonna say,
I think podcasters are almost like,
the narrative podcasters.
- Right.
- They're like the modern creator generation of filmmakers.
- Yes.
- Because the way they tell stories
is more like filmmaking stories,
more so than the way YouTubers tell stories.
Which is again, what separates I think,
your videos on YouTube from most other people's videos.
Yeah, the podcasters are,
they're making stories that have these breaths,
that have moments of silence.
They give us a space to reflect.
It's that, I think in one video you called it,
"We're tricking you with the conflict and the resolution.
We're tricking you to watch the middle."
Is what you said.
- Yeah. That's what we want to tell you.
That's our propaganda, is in the middle,
but we gotta trick you with like,
a little treat at the end.
- Yeah. You gotta set it up.
- Yeah. - Okay.
So this takes me into my question about storytelling,
which is, how do you get people to watch the middle?
How do you get people to care enough to keep going, right?
This is ...
- You have to ask a question in the beginning,
that they're, while they're watching,
they get a little bit hypnotized about,
but then they also have to be like,
"Yeah, but what about the!
What about the!"
- And then you don't resolve it.
Until the ending.
- No! That's right.
And that's their reward.
And then you resolve it.
And this is what Mamet,
I think David Mamet said this, is that,
"The ending has to be both a surprise and inevitable."
And that's the trick.
And that's what you have to suffer for.
And that's why most people quit.
Is because that wall of where is that,
that's why you also do it in the beginning with the writing.
'Cause you don't wanna go duh duh duh,
and then be like, "Oh no, it's this!
I'm gonna go back and shoot,"
which is how I used to work.
That's how Casey and I used to work
when we were doing the TV series.
- Wait, where you wouldn't come up
with the whole plot structure beforehand?
- I would be, I would have a,
I wouldn't have like the hook at the end.
I wouldn't have like the irony at the end.
That's like the plot point too, like,
that brings you to the conclusion,
and it just wasted so much time.
And it's less disciplined than sitting at that,
I'd use a manual typewriter, sitting at the typewriter.
And just- (imitates typewriter)
And also, it's not as pleasant.
Because when you get that hook,
when you get that, "Oh, this is what it is,"
you're on vacation at that point!
You're just putting it down. You're just putting it down.
And then when somebody in the comment ...
I don't read the comments,
but I read all and respond to all the Patreon comments
that come to me.
Like, Patreon is how you communicate with me.
It's like my office hours.
And when someone specific, a Patron who's paying me,
specifically mentions something that was like,
"Well that's where it was."
It's, that's the ...
To me, that's like the heartbeat.
Is like, okay.
The whole thing worked.
I'm just gonna keep going.
Or when someone says, "That's my favorite one."
- Yeah.
- "This is my favorite one."
Then you're like, okay.
The numbers ... The numbers matter.
The numbers fucking matter.
But that stuff matters more.
And that stuff encourages you.
And, to me it's like,
well the numbers are gonna come.
Because if you can do this,
the numbers are gonna come.
And my channel hasn't, it hasn't caught on yet!
As much as, you know, it's very popular.
I do about a hundred thousand views per video.
But it's still, it hasn't caught on.
You know?
- This reason to keep going.
- [Van] Mm.
- That you're talking about right now.
For me, it, again,
it calls back to the video that you made, The Crisis,
where you talk about Tolstoy's definition of art.
- [Van] The author's simple definition of art
was that it is the transmission of feeling
the artist has experienced.
- To another person. - That's the only ...
That's the only definition I'll accept.
- [Jack] Yeah.
- And that's like, that, 'cause that's hard.
"Art is just, I don't know,
'cause then the modernists came along, and like,
you know, Duchamp, he just wrote, you know like ...
He just wrote R. Mutt on a toilet,"
and it's like, okay,
now that's what everyone's trying to do.
- [Jack] Right.
- 'Cause that's easy.
And no, what Tolstoy said,
which puts, to me,
that puts the comedians at the top of the artist food chain.
- Yeah. - Highest.
Because ... Andrew Schultz says,
he's like, "You can fake sad, you can fake angry,
can't fake funny."
- [Jack] Yeah.
- And those people can transmit funny,
and funny is the best one.
Of all the emotions.
And that's why they get paid,
and that's why they're so successful.
Especially now, the good ones.
- And that's congruent though with what,
with what you're talking about
in terms of the reason to keep going, right?
What you're saying is like,
when I hear from somebody who watches my shit
that this was moving to them.
- [Van] Yeah.
- That is the resolution of the transmission
of the feeling to that person.
- Yes.
- Right? That's what, that's the feedback
that you're getting, is like,
I gave a feeling to another human.
- It worked. Yes. Yeah.
- And I spent all this time and energy
and shot it and scripted it, and you know,
did the whole thing.
And this person felt the thing I wanted them to feel.
- [Van] Mm.
- And that makes it worth it to you.
- Yeah. Or is it ...
They felt what you wanted them to feel,
or they felt the feeling that you felt.
- [Jack] Mm.
- I think that that is the ...
That's what Tolstoy says.
- Yes.
- He says it's a feeling,
you're trying to like, translate this feeling.
I mean, there are some things that like,
you know, have you seen,
I think it's called The Worst Person In The World.
- [Jack] Oh, I've wanted to see that
and I still haven't seen it!
- [Van] Watch it tonight.
- [Jack] Okay.
- I mean I, Americans don't make these movies anymore.
- Yeah.
- And they, this is what they made in the 70s,
but it's one of these like ... you know?
And like, even if it's unpleasant, it's still good.
It's the feeling, I don't know the ...
The indulgence in feeling.
That's why we love art!
- I was talking about this last night with some friends!
Two musicians that I love dearly.
We were talking about 10 out of 10 experiences in life.
- Mhmm.
- And we all agreed that actually,
a lot of our 10 out of 10 experiences were not positive.
- Yeah.
- The 10 out of 10s were like,
that moment where you finished the album,
and you're like, "Fuck this person."
Like the first time I heard a Kendrick Lamar record,
and I listened to the whole thing while reading the lyrics.
- [Van] Yeah.
- And I was just like, "This tragedy of a human being."
- Yeah.
- 10 out of 10!
- Yeah.
- But not like, positive 10 outta 10.
Like, just the deepest feeling of sorrow and ...
- Yes.
- And loss, and ...
- Yeah.
- But it, but that is the 10 out of 10 experiences
that I think we all crave.
And you know, the great artists are able to give us
those experiences, which is why they're the great artists.
- Mhmm. And the great great great ones,
they do it like, over and over and over again.
I don't know how that ... yeah.
- So ... There's a tension.
- [Van] Yeah.
- That I feel, and I know a lot of artists feel this.
And I have a feeling you think about this.
On the one hand, artistry is the transmission
of a feeling to another person.
And the power, the purpose, the joy,
comes from getting feedback around that success.
It's like, "I gave this person that thing
that I was feeling.
Now I feel more understood.
I know they get me a little bit more.
I connect with them."
And yet, making art for other people is a dangerous path.
How much do you think about audience
when you're making stories?
How much are you thinking about
the successful transmission of the feeling
versus enjoying being in the flow
and doing your thing and making art for yourself?
- It's kind of like ...
You know that your conscience voice, it's very quiet,
and it just kinda tickles you?
I think about it like that.
Like little ...
And it's very detailed little things.
It's not big picture stuff.
Big picture is just like,
"Well, if they don't like this,
it won't get enough views and I'll go poor
and that'll be the end of it."
But for little things, I'm very cognizant of,
"Okay, if this two seconds doesn't need to be in here,
and a million people watch it,
that's 2 million seconds I've wasted ..."
(Jack laughs)
"Of people's, of human beings' time."
And so like, for this last video I did
where I drove up to Montana
to get the engine switched out of my truck,
which was like two weeks ago,
but feels like a year ago.
There was one shot where I'm introducing like,
that the engine overheats,
and that's why I'm getting a new engine.
One of the reasons.
And I opened that sequence with a shot of the thermostat,
and then I go back to the thermostat,
and it bothered me.
It just bothered me a little, little bit,
every time I was editing it.
But you're editing so fast,
that you just kinda leave things,
and then I slept on it, went back,
and then the day I was gonna upload it,
right before the upload, I just, I pulled it out.
'Cause I'm like, no, they don't ...
They don't need that.
So I do think about the ...
I think about the audience's time, but ...
You know my ...
There's this book called The YouTube Formula,
and it's basically how to optimize the algorithm on YouTube.
- Yeah.
- And I read this book like,
maybe six months into having my channel,
on my brother's recommendation, I believe.
Because the guy who wrote this book
is like an expert in optimizing views and everything.
He works with Mr. Beast.
And I read this, and it was like,
the exact opposite that I've ever been taught
by all of the people that I know
that have artistic integrity.
It was like, the opposite of that.
It was like, "Go back to your analytics a month later
and watch the views and watch where the people drop off,
and find the videos that have the highest number of views,
and then just keep making those videos over and over again."
I'm like, the whole reason I'm in this
is 'cause I wanna keep doing all the weird stuff,
and like, I wanna go through the woods!
You know, with the, you know, I wanna cut.
I wanna cut the stuff down and kinda, I don't know!
But you know, you have to also,
you're trying to find where's the balance,
where's the balance?
I'm trying to discover new like, genres,
within my, like, little sub-genres within my work.
And so one of the things on this,
with this Montana movie,
one of the things is like,
"Oh, I fucking love talking while I'm driving the car."
Like this is a little, and the sound's pretty good,
and like, I'm in my Land Cruiser,
'cause it's an old engine and da da da.
But I have a Tacoma, and it's like a sound studio in there.
Or if you're driving like a Lexus or something?
They did an ad where they record like,
Pablo Casals or something,
playing cello in the back of one of those Lexuses
going 50 miles an hour, 'cause they're so quiet.
And so I'm building,
this week's video is about me building that rig
so that I can do that,
but I've discovered a new ...
But that's just a little tiny little tweak.
Oh, he's talking in his car
instead of talking in his studio.
And I, oh, and I listen to the Patrons.
And I take their, sometimes they'll be like,
"You should make a video about something."
And I make it.
There's a lot on there.
A lot of videos I've made came from the ideas from Patrons.
- Hmm.
Is that because you want to serve that community more?
Or is it because you think the ideas are better?
- I think it's both.
But you know, also,
you gotta come up with a new thing every week.
- [Jack] Yeah.
- You know?
And some, it used to, before I had Patreon,
for me Patreon is like,
I'm taking advantage of my patrons.
Because before, and I made an episode about this,
before Patreon, on my Mondays,
which is like solely writing,
a lot of my Mondays were just spent
on what's the big picture idea?
And that should be kind of immediate.
You should have just file folders full of those
that you can't get to. And I didn't have that.
And so with the patrons, it's like,
"Oh, I had an idea like this."
And then this patron said to do this, I'm just gonna do it.
Like, forbidden practices in the shop.
That was a patron's idea.
Number seven, no trip wires.
It's connected to a sledgehammer,
goes around the leg of a tripod.
- This book that you read about filmmaking on YouTube,
or optimizing YouTube, or whatever the book is about.
- I think it's called The YouTube Formula.
- So this is the other thing that
I'm not surprised you didn't like this book, because ...
And yeah, I'm not exactly sure how to frame this, but ...
Some ... like for me, I'm a very outcome-oriented person.
Which isn't to say that I don't love processes
and making things and details, and like, I do.
And I think, in order to be an artist,
you kind of have to get lost in the grind.
You know?
And I don't know, I,
there is also a very large piece of me, like,
just as a person, I really think about,
five years from now, 10 years from now,
and I'm trying to like, get there.
- Mm! Yes.
- And sometimes it makes me, if I'm being really honest,
it makes me feel like less of an artist.
- Hold on, let me get my head around it ...
- Because, I see someone like you.
- So you, okay, so you're seeing a goal.
Or no, you're conceiving some goal
that's probably arbitrary.
And then you're like, okay,
in five years I wanna, I don't know,
sell out Madison Square Garden.
And then as you're working towards ...
- How do I get there? What choices do I need to make?
- Yeah yeah yeah.
You're thinking, oh, that's not what an artist does.
- Because I see someone like you,
and I hear, even your response to that question.
I don't know.
And look, I'm not saying I hate this about myself.
I actually think a lot of,
lot of like the good things in my life
are because I'm outcome oriented
and because I set goals, and try to hit them.
And I also ...
maybe it's just a inferiority complex or something,
but I struggle ...
I struggle seeing people who don't have that at all
just fucking make the greatest, most exploratory art,
and find interesting things like,
"I love vlogging in the car."
I'm like, I think a lot of outcome-oriented people
don't wander as much,
and so much artistry happens in the wandering,
it happens in the experimentation, in the trial.
- But you did that!
You did do that at some point, right?
- And I still do, to some extent!
- Yeah.
- But I do it because I know that
that's where I can find artistry.
- Okay.
I'm gonna tell you a couple things
that'll make you feel a lot better about this.
- [Jack] Okay.
- Okay. You should, I don't know if you've seen it,
but re-watch the Ken Burns documentary about Mark Twain.
- Okay. I haven't seen it.
- The only reason ...
Not the only reason, but a major reason why we
still read his books,
and a lot of those monster books that he wrote?
- Yeah.
- He was in trouble, and the only way to get out of it
was to write his way out of it.
He like lost, he lost a fortune on some stupid gadget
that he like, invented.
He invested like all of his money, and he lived like a king.
He was super, super rich.
But my point is like, he was just, he could make writing.
That's where he could make money.
And he knew his money-making skill was writing,
and in the end,
we got his great books because he had debts,
and because he needed money for stuff.
And ... - Oh my god!
- I think, you know what I mean?
- Yes!
- It's not, like you take these romantic characters.
No, they weren't like that.
They were just like us. They were probably worse.
- Yeah. - You know?
Or Caravaggio or whatever, you know?
People writing themselves out of jail because, you know ...
- You know what that reminds me of?
- Yeah.
- It reminds me of the Beatles' time in Hamburg.
Do you know about their time in Hamburg?
- Where they were just,
that's where they got their 10,000 hours?
- They were a covers band.
- [Van] Yeah.
- They played six nights a week.
- Yeah.
- And they were just grinding through covers
for like three years or something!
- And three of those early years,
which is like 20, 40-year-old years.
- Yes, totally!
Totally! - Yeah.
- And they were doing it because it was the only ... right?
They needed the income, they needed the work,
and they had to do it, and it was their treadmill.
- [Van] Yeah.
- It was the version of the treadmill from the 60s.
But, so this is the other reason, by the way,
that I like the grind,
because I feel like the grind actually
does output significance, right?
It outputs meaning and purpose, for me, as an artist.
Not every time.
But like, you know, one in 50?
You know?
It's like, and I'll take that, you know?
- Yeah. - I'll take that.
Okay. Okay, wait.
Let's transition one more time.
I do wanna get to Michel Gondry.
Can you tell me a little bit about how ...
I guess, what works of his you enjoy,
and how he's influenced your work in particular?
- Okay so ...
I know old guys always talk about before the internet.
But, before the internet,
and before New York, where I lived in New York,
there was, I had zero access to any kind of art.
Any kind of art that was being made today,
besides pop music, and music videos.
And what I know now, but I didn't know back then,
is that those videos were the art of the era.
And they were made by probably the best art in the era,
'cause there was a lot of money in it.
- A hundred percent.
- And I didn't know that
that's what I was experiencing, was art.
And then I started making my own videos in 2000.
I bought a video camera, iMac,
digitized the family home videos
and edited them to like a one hour thing.
And then after that, I had a camera,
so I was making videos every single day.
- We had the same life.
- And so, I think those came out in '98, '99, those DVDs.
And there was a Spike Jonze one,
a Michel Gondry one,
and then Chris Cunningham was the third one.
And, watching Michel Gondry,
it was the, he was utilizing resources
that I had access to.
I mean, besides like,
okay, he's doing The White Stripes videos and stuff.
I don't have The White Stripes.
But like the, technically there wasn't anything,
like I could see how it was made,
and it was made so ingeniously
because he was considering the machinery
of how it's being ...
He was, the entire paradigm like,
okay, I'm gonna do animation,
which is one frame at a time,
but each frame is gonna be Legos,
that has to be taken,
and he did it on graph paper.
Did, he directed Eternal Sunshine, right?
- [Jack] Yeah.
- And that was just a monster.
It's like Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry,
there should be a law.
(Jack laughs)
- I think it's the greatest movie of all time.
I love that film so much.
- I mean ...
- Talk about transmitting feelings.
- And it's probably the sensitivity of those two people.
- Mhmm. Totally, 'cause Charlie's a total softie.
- And then he walked off of Green Hornet.
They gave him his big, big Marvel movie,
Michel Gondry, and he said,
"Take my name off of it."
And it's like, wow.
And he suffered for that.
He definitely suffered from that.
He's probably the most talented guy of his generation,
and he's not the richest and, you know?
And, so those DVDs, we had access to all of this stuff
that wasn't commercially viable.
And it was so effing encouraging.
And you know, I did ...
We used to do these Lower Manhattan
Cultural Council fundraiser videos,
'cause Tom Healy ran the LMCC,
and he'd hired Casey and me,
and he'd pass really well.
And they had the most, it was like,
that party was the party in New York that night,
with security and everything.
And one of the honorees was Michel Gondry
in one of the videos.
And he was there, and he watched it!
And I remember, Bjork was another one!
And she wasn't watching, she was just eating.
She doesn't watch stuff on ...
She doesn't watch movies or anything.
So she was just eating her soup
while this thing was playing.
But Michel Gondry was glued to the thing!
And I was just like ...
- That must have felt incredible!
- Now this is unbelievable.
This is unbelievable.
- Oh, how cool!
Maybe let's close with ...
Your sense of mystery.
And maybe you don't think of it like this.
But we've talked a little bit about stories.
We've talked about ...
Some surprise.
We've talked about watching the middle
and getting people to watch the middle.
- [Van] Mhmm.
- By making them feel like
it's gonna be worth it at the beginning,
and then making it worth it at the end.
- [Van] Mhmm.
- But the other thing that's interesting about your videos,
and the one that really comes to mind for me ...
Is there's a video.
I think the title is something like,
"What to do when things are hard."
- Mm.
- Or when things get hard, or like,
what to do about hard times.
- Yeah. Okay, yeah yeah yeah.
- And ...
And the video ends ...
And you show this clip of you kind of listening.
You're going like this, and you're like,
you're listening to something
and you're watching this,
the best day of your life.
- Yeah.
- Where you took that, you took a plane,
after the Hudson,
after the plane crashed in the Hudson River.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Yeah yeah yeah.
- And you're watching the best day of your life.
And the video is called, "What To Do About Hard Times."
And the whole time,
at least when I was watching this video, I was like ...
"What am I ... is he talking about what to
do about hard times?"
You're talking about looking at the best day of your life.
Remember the best of your life.
I was like, trying to figure out what was going on.
- Mhmm.
- I was doing a lot of work.
My brain was working, while watching this video.
And then in the last, maybe second and a half of the video,
as you're watching this best day of your life,
you crack, and you start to cry.
- And the truth will set me free.
And I know someday I'll find the key.
But now, I'm trapped.
Oh yeah! Yeah yeah yeah.
Oh, 'cause you know,
I was listening to Trapped, by ...
It's Jimmy Cliff, but it's,
I was listening to Bruce Springsteen,
and that song, you know the song, right?
- I don't know the song.
- Oh my god.
Write it down and listen to it.
And this is ...
This is where I go ...
Oh my god.
I can't even talk about it without crying, because ...
And that's where I, and I,
a long time ago, I was like,
I've gotta make a video about this song,
about what this, about Bruce Springsteen,
about what this song does for me.
And it's about ...
He's like ...
Oh, it's hard to talk about,
'cause it, you know,
I'm a very like, sensitive person.
He just talks about ...
He's like, I'm fucking stuck.
I'm in this situation.
You're smarter than me.
You've got me against the rope.
And I'm gonna fucking, I'm gonna get out of it.
I'm gonna fucking outsmart you.
I'm gonna outwork you.
And he's like, "But now I'm trapped!"
And it's like, and that's the part of the song
that's like the explosive part.
Like ...
But now I'm trapped,
and that's the part that he's screaming.
And it's like, that is exactly what it feels like.
That is exact, like when I get,
like when you get real, like ...
(makes whooshing sound)
Because I was having the,
that was probably exactly,
almost exactly a year ago.
And I was just, that was when I was talking about earlier,
when I was just working way too much
and in my rage and it just ...
It's like the last fuel you have
is that fucking fight or flight,
is the fight to get the, and I was doing like,
I was trying to do two a week, and ...
And that was like, I was like, really like ...
Like, I was like, torching thing.
Not literally, but like,
was kind of destroying all the people around me.
And that's what it felt like.
'Cause I had to get this video done.
I had to, and that's what I'm listening to,
and I was just like, the thing was like,
I'm so sensitive to that song, that I was like,
I know if I'm listening to that,
even with the camera on and all this stuff,
like, I'm not an actor,
but I know I'm just, it's going to break,
it'll, I can't get through it.
- Van, thank you for doing this.
- Oh man. This is a dream of mine!
- This was really fun!
I feel like we could go another five hours.
- Oh yeah!
Oh yeah yeah yeah.
- We could do five hours on just Michel.
- Yeah.
- But thank you for hanging with me.
- All right! It was great.
Thanks for having me.
- You're welcome.
(upbeat music)