It's been a long time since I've set up lights here in the studio to do my presentation talk.
You know, nowadays, we do that in the blue studio up there which is just a lot more efficient.
We're saving time and that's something that I wish to talk about in this video.
So, no tutorial about editing tricks or camera techniques but I want to share a personal story from myself.
A personal experience as a filmmaker, a huge struggle that I think that any person who wants to go
into the film industry needs to hear about.
So, as you guys have probably realized, I've quit presenting CopyCat,
the weekly series in which we recreate a visual effects, etc.
So, Yannick is doing that right now
and there's of course a very big reason behind it why I'm not making those videos anymore.
And for that I want to go 10 years back.
I was a film student and I had this group just with friends.
We were making short films and everything went well.
It was a little fun and one day we decided to make a bigger short film.
We were with 20 or 30 people eventually, and we were making this short film.
And me as the only person who was doing film school, I felt like I needed to have everything under control.
So I was directing the film. I was producing it. I was doing the camera, the light, the sound, everything.
I was going to every person on the set telling them what to do.
I don't think that many people had creative freedom and that was a huge mistake.
The short film also didn't turned out so great.
And I think I'm kind of doing the same mistake here at CineCom.
This YouTube channel has turned into a business.
You know, what's turned out as just uploading some random videos,
we are now working with five people on this channel full-time which is really strange.
So I've been hosting Creative Tuesday.
I've been hosting Copycat Friday and I've been managing this business.
That's right.
At a certain moment, you come at a point where you need to manage a business
and I still don't know how to do that.
So, everyday, I'm trying to figure out how to manage this thing right here which is costing me a lot of time.
So I'm doing three things every week.
So that means I have to work seven days a week just to be able to do all of this.
And is it any good?
No.
I'm not managing the business properly and I'm not making the videos properly.
So that's why I gave Yannick the full control over CopyCat Friday.
That's right.
Sometimes, I don't even see the video until the very end.
Sometimes, I don't even know what Yannick is doing and it's very scary.
It's very scary for me to let go and to give Yannick that freedom.
But I have to because if you tell other people what to do, you're just creating copies of yourself.
Bad copies of yourself.
Because every person is unique and they kind of want to grow into their own unique style
but they can't because they're not getting that freedom.
You as a camera person made mistakes at the very beginning
and you've learned from those mistakes and are now a better cameraman.
If you're telling your camera guy what to do, he can never make those same mistakes
and not learn from those mistakes.
So when working with people, you just have to let go.
You need to give them the creative freedom and also give them the opportunity to make mistakes
so that they can learn from that and, eventually, grow creatively
because now I only have to work on Creative Tuesday, managing the business, and that's it.
Yannick can now fully concentrate on CopyCat,
so we got more time by just giving more responsibility to the other people here.
Lorenzo, also, has more time now because he doesn't have to work on so many projects at the same time.
So he has been making these animations within the CopyCat videos, which look great.
I love those animations.
And I was able to bring back CineBattle, which I've been enjoying so much.
Creatively, it's just been so great for me.
It's one of those days a week where I can just turn off a knob in my head and just have fun, you know?
Without thinking about anything else because managing this business has been really tough on me
and YouTube isn't making it easier.
YouTube has been making a lot of changes through the platform
which isn't really creator-friendly and I think everyone knows about that.
We had things like the Ad Apocalypse, you know, now with your algorithm change and everything.
So it's really hard on YouTube to keep this business running and to figure out how things work.
We're not getting much support from YouTube either.
So it's just–
It's really, really hard.
Mentally, it's really exhausting.
So that is the reason why I've given CopyCats to Yannick.
And it has been on my personal life, on Yannick's personal life, Lorenzo, and Gilles, in all of our lives;
It has been so much better.
Now, of course, I'm still here the entire week and I'm still appearing in the CopyCats
but I'm not directing and then producing it anymore.
So that is the tip that I wanna give to you guys:
give freedom to the people on the film sets that you're working with,
even if those are just your friends who don't know anything about film; let them do their thing.
Everyone has something creative in them.
Otherwise, they won't come and help you on a film set, you know, they just want to be creative.
So let them be creative. Let them do their thing.
After that short film that I made 10 years ago, that group of friends fell apart.
We don't see each other anymore.
There even has been a big fight and it was never told to me directly
but I am very positive it was because of that, because I wanted to have control over everything.
So if any one of those guys are watching right now, I'm truly sorry.
I'm truly sorry about that.
I made a big mistake there.
Now talking about short films, you guys know that we've also been working on a short film now
for an entire year or almost two years.
Well, here's the scoop.
I've been working super hard on the edits.
I'll finally have time for that as well because Yannick is doing CopyCat.
So that is positive.
And during that short film, I did the production side
because a lot of you guys for wondering 'Hey, what was your role in the film?'
Well, I did the production.
I let Eric Toms do the directing.
I let Yannick do the dupey thing, the lighting.
Lorenzo was the camera guy and a ton of other people did their thing as well
and I gave freedom to everyone there.
And now the film sucks.
That's not true. It's just a joke.
The film is actually turning out really good, really good.
I'm expecting the edit to be done in December and you guys will be seeing some teasers this week.
Yeah.
So that is coming very soon, guys.
Finally. Finally. Finally.
But it's just–
The thing is it's just been so much work.
I don't have time.
It's a struggle. Every trade has that struggle, not having time.
Well, find people to help you with stuff.
That's the moral of the story
Anyways, thank you guys so much for watching and I really hope that you've enjoyed this video,
that you've learned something out of my speech here
and that you can take that with you in your creative career.
And, as always, stay creative.