- In this video, we're gonna go shot by shot,
and I'm gonna break down one of my videos that has a story,
and we're gonna see exactly how I go from script,
which is completely written out, to the full story,
and how I actually cut it together to tell that story.
Now, this is the second video in a series I'm doing
where I break down my scripts and videos.
And I think there's so much to learn
when you can see a script and how the research was crafted
into a story written on a piece of paper,
and what that actually turns into when you go out and shoot
and some of the different things that come up
when you're out shooting.
But before we dive in, I just wanna say a special thanks
to our sponsor of this video, which is Wirestock.
And when you're out filming these kind of stories,
you're gonna be shooting a ton of B-roll
to be able to help craft your story.
And the cool thing about when you're filming B-roll
is you can sell that as stock footage
and make some extra money off of the footage
that you're already shooting.
And Wirestock is a tool that's gonna help you
sell your stock footage much easier.
And so how Wirestock works
is once you cut down your footage
into 10 60-second clips,
you can upload it to their servers and they'll distribute it
to all the different stock footage agencies.
Now on top of that,
they also will go through and do all the metadata for you.
So as a creator, all you have to do
is shoot and edit your videos and upload them,
and then they take care of the rest.
It makes the whole process super simple.
Now on your Wirestock account,
you have access to a dashboard which shows you all the data
about your footage, and where it's being sold.
So, whenever I create a video,
I always am able to pull some different shots from that
that I can use and sell a stock footage.
Now, the cool thing about Wirestock
is if you do client work, they create a portfolio for you
so you can display all your work to potential client.
Now, they also have a smartphone app
which allows you to see all of your data,
but also you can just upload footage directly from the app.
And the cool thing about stock footage
is it doesn't have to be on super expensive cameras.
You can use your cell phone,
and create stock footage that will get sales.
So if you're ready to start selling your footage as stock,
make sure you head down description, check out the link,
and you can get started right away.
All right, so now let's get into breaking down this story.
So, the video that we're going through
is all about a Giant Rock out in the desert.
Not the most interesting topic in the world
because it's just a Giant Rock,
and there's not a lot around it.
And so I could've gone out
and just shot my experience exploring this rock,
but it would've been a really boring vlog.
It would've just been me like getting out to the location,
looking at the rock, and then, I don't know,
like talking about my experience.
It's not that interesting for a viewer.
So, adding the story component
of actually going out to the desert and exploring this
and telling the history about the weird kind of phenomenons
around this rock makes it a much more engaging story.
And even the most boring subject matter, like a rock,
can become a super interesting and engaging video.
So, for research,
what I did is just read a ton of different news articles.
And then I found just different sites
that talk about the Giant Rock and the history behind it.
And I basically took all this information,
looked at the big picture, and then crafted a story
that linked all the components together,
and something that could be told in a short form video.
Now, for this video, I just use my notes app
to write out the script,
and my scripting isn't super complicated.
I created some different paragraphs
and maybe some key things
that I want to film when I'm there, and that's it.
Moving forward on future projects,
I'm definitely gonna add more to this,
but you don't really need much of a script
to get started and to start working on your stories
to craft these kind of videos.
All right, so, let's dig into the story.
So, here's how I started it.
The desert never ceases to amaze me.
When you look around here
and there's nothing but, well, rocks,
and in particular, this Giant Rock, which is the focal point
for Native American communities, UFO conspiracies,
and underneath it, it was actually the home
to an eccentric man who apparently blew himself up.
And afterwards, was taken over by another man
who died before finishing his anti-gravity time travel
rejuvenation machine.
We have a lot to unpack in this video.
That was a pretty wordy intro.
So, when I was out filming, I did it a few different times
and this is what I ended up with.
(soft music)
The desert never ceases to amaze me.
I mean, when you look around,
it's just a whole bunch of rocks, but when we turn this way,
there is what's known as the Giant Rock.
And this rock has been the focal point
for Native American communities and UFO enthusiasts.
And there was a man who actually lived underneath this rock,
and he blew himself up.
Now, this is kind of a crazy story
and we have a lot to unpack,
but it's all centered around this one big boulder.
So next in my script, I actually wrote some notes
of how I want this intro to go
because I was figuring I was gonna be on camera
explaining the rock, standing in front of it,
but then I needed some different things
to move us into the story.
So what I have is driving shots, parking at the rock,
and walking around.
Just some quick notes for me to think about
when I get out there to actually film.
And so, here's the little sequence I made
out of those notes.
(gentle music)
Okay, so, the next part of my script goes like this;
it's some notes with a little bit of talking bits.
It says come around the corner
and do a quick talking to camera
about how you really understand how big this rock is
when you turn the corner.
It's kind of a jumbled mess, but I get what I meant.
I wanted to come around the corner
and just have like this experience of being there.
And I wanted to make it more vloggy,
less about reading off a script.
And so, I wanted to figure that out when I'm out there,
and make it more personal and just ad lib it
as I'm out experiencing the rock.
Now, I didn't actually put this section here, I moved it.
So I'm gonna keep going on the script
and you'll see kind of how this all ties together.
The next section says from a geological perspective,
this is a really big rock.
It's one of the biggest freestanding boulders in the world,
comprised of thousands of pounds of granite,
and standing about seven stories high.
It covers almost 6,000 square feet,
and the exact origin is unknown.
But, well, I guess I didn't finish that section.
And then I say B-roll exploring it, close up sections.
So I kind of tied all this together when I was out filming
and restructured a little bit.
And this is what I came up with.
So, before we get into the story
about the people that lived out here,
we need to talk about the special place on the earth
that this rock resides.
So, from a geological perspective, this rock is huge.
It's comprised of thousands of pounds of granite.
It's over seven stories high,
and it covers a base of around 6,000 square feet.
And when you're standing next to it,
you could just feel it's presence.
It's so big and so tall,
and it just towers over anything else in the area.
And the section is just to give you some backstory,
some facts about this rock,
before we get into the strange history around it.
So about a minute 20 into this video,
we've already set up what this story's about
and given you the history,
and now let's get into the actual story.
And so when you're crafting your videos,
you wanna make sure that you set up your story
on the front end, give some backstory,
and get right into the main meat of the video.
So, let's go into the main meat.
The man at the center of the story is George Van Tassel.
But the story doesn't start with him.
This location is out near the town of Landers,
and is down a road from Joshua Tree National Park.
There is said to be a vortex point here.
A vortex is believed to be a special spot on the earth
where energy is amplified.
The weird thing is whether you believe this
or you think it's all woo woo,
these vortex locations are located
where there are sacred sites
like the great pyramids in Egypt,
Macho Picchu in Peru, Stonehenge in Britain,
and the Uluru Rock in Australia.
Kind of a weird coincidence.
So, that section doesn't flow that well.
And one of the things when I'm out filming
is I'll say it a few times before I hit record,
and make it sound my own and make it sound more natural.
So, if you're sitting here writing, you know,
say things out loud and read through the script.
And it's gonna continually change
because even now when I was reading this,
I would've changed a lot of that,
which is what I did on set.
This is somewhere between Joshua Tree National Park
and the Mojave Desert.
That's not really that special,
but what is special is that this is an energy vortex.
Now, what's an energy vortex?
So, it's apparently a place where energy is amplified.
And whether you believe in all this energy stuff
or you think it's woo woo, it is a weird coincidence
that there are these different places on earth
where the energy is amplified,
and it's places where ancient spiritual temples were built,
like the Machu Picchu and Peru, Stonehenge in England,
and even the Great Pyramids of Giza.
Kind of a weird coincidence, but the Giant Rock,
is apparently at one of these energy vortexes.
So you could see how I dropped some of the information
from that initial paragraph,
and made it just sound much more natural.
And how I do that is basically doing the take a few times
and realizing that it's not coming off the way I want it.
And so I'll rescript things or restructure it
when I'm out there actually filming.
Now, sometimes I'll write down new notes and rewrite it,
but other times I'll just do it in my head
and then rerecord it a different way
when I'm out there filming.
Okay, so the next section goes like this:
Before the 20th century,
Native American communities would use this location
as a spiritual site and a meeting place
because it's the largest single object in the area.
It's called the Great Stone and symbolized the Great Spirit.
Before the 20th century, Native American communities
would use this as a meeting place,
and it was called the Great Stone,
which represented the Great Spirit.
And it makes sense.
It's the largest freestanding object in the area.
And that's probably what also drove Frank Critzer here
to use this as a place for his home.
So I added a sentence at the end,
which is gonna get us into the story about Frank Critzer.
So here's the next section.
In the '30s, a prospector named Frank Critzer
built a home underneath the rock using dynamite.
He engineered a rainwater system
and a tunnel for ventilation.
It became a cozy little apartment,
and was said to never get hotter than 80 degrees,
which out here is perfect for the summer days
when it gets well into the hundreds.
And then my notes for myself was explore the whole lights.
So I didn't know what to expect
when I was actually gonna be out there exploring.
So, I brought along some little light panels
if I could actually get deep into this.
And I just wanted to make sure
to get some footage of the apartment underneath,
which is, it's blown up now,
but I still wanted to try and get some of that footage
so I could put it over this section.
And then I have this next section,
which I grabbed into this.
He stayed there alone,
but made it a place for other people to visit
by creating an airstrip, and some roads, and a picnic area.
Critzer built an apartment underneath the rock,
and he used dynamite to blow it out.
He had a ventilation shaft for air.
He had a rainwater collection system,
really engineered it nicely
to be able to live underneath a boulder.
Now, the unique thing about being in this location
is that because of the granite, it never got super hot.
So, in the desert out here, it gets well into the hundreds,
and in his apartment underneath the rock,
it only got as high as 80 degrees.
Now, Critzer was a loner. He didn't live with anyone.
But he did set it up so that people could visit him.
There was an airstrip, he built a whole series of roads,
and he even had like a little picnic area outside
so people could come and visit.
This is his apartment down here, or what's left of it.
It's really not much down here, kind of just a hole.
So I added a little bit of vlogging elements
where I was exploring the hole,
and I just restructured this whole section
when I was out filming.
So I said it a few times,
restructured in my head and rewrote the script.
And so a lot of times when I'm going from script to video,
I'm trying to make it more engaging
by make it a little bit more personal,
rather than just reading off a script all the time.
So, here's the next section.
Critzer became under FBI investigation
shortly after the US entry into World War II.
He installed a shortwave radio antenna
on the nearby hillside,
and authorities came to talk to Critzer
about suspicions of being a German spy.
During this confrontation, he died somewhat mysterious
in an explosion under the rock.
This is where George Van Tassel comes into the picture.
He was an acquaintance of Critzer's
and George had visited the Giant Rock on multiple occasions.
He felt something strange out there,
and received a permit from the Bureau of Land Management
to operate the airport in 1945.
And so here's this section.
Critzer eventually became under an investigation by the FBI,
around the time that the US entered into World War II.
Now, the authorities thought
that he could potentially be a German spy
because he had an interest in shortwave radio,
and he lived out here by himself.
And so when they came to investigate
what was going on out here,
there's actually kind of a mystery
around what exactly happened,
but Critzer blew himself up underneath here.
And that's where George Van Tassel comes into the story.
He was an acquaintance of Critzer's
and used to come out here.
And he felt something strange
when he was around the Giant Rock.
So, after Critzer's death, he leased the land to be able
to operate the airport from the Bureau of Land Management.
Now, the next section goes like this.
In the early '50s,
he held meditation sessions on Friday nights
and claimed to have received thought transference,
which is telepathic communications
from extraterrestrials on Venus.
- Now, in the '50s, he started holding meditation sessions
in what was once Critzer's apartment.
And he claimed to have received thought transference,
which was basically telepathic communications
from an alien race on Venus.
So the next section goes like this.
He learned from these beings
that the body is an electrical device,
and aging was caused by a loss of power.
This is what sparked George's mission
to build a machine that can rejuvenate
and recharge the human body by collecting 50,000 volts
of static electricity in the air.
This device was called the Integratron.
The Integratron is a building in Landers
and not far from the Giant Rock,
and a place that me and you can visit today.
He learned from these beings
that our bodies are made of energy,
kind of like a giant battery.
And as we age,
it's basically just the process of us losing that energy.
So, he devised a plan from talking with these aliens,
to build a structure that could harness static electricity
from the air, and bring it back into our bodies.
And the machine that he decided to build
is called the Integratron.
It's a structure that's completely built with no metal,
and it still exists today.
And you'll notice that there might be some facts
added in here and there.
And that's because when I was going through my research,
I read a lot about the story
and about these different things that were going on.
And so, when I was actually out there doing the story,
some different things would pop into my head
and I might change it.
So I talk about the fact that the Integratron
was built with no metal.
That wasn't in the script,
but it's something that was interesting,
so I just threw it in.
And so when you do your research for a story like this,
you're really gonna start understanding all the components.
And you're actually going to start seeing the script
a little bit differently because you know more
than what you're necessarily putting in writing.
For 20 years, George would hold massive UFO conventions
and basically crowdfunded the construction of the structure.
Thousands would gather around the rock
to listen to his experimental ideas with those who believed.
The Integratron was 90% complete,
and Van Tassel getting ready to be the first human
to experience the power of it.
However, he died suddenly from a heart attack.
And when he died, his plans for completion of this machine
were lost because he never wrote them down.
And then I say shots of the Integratron
go inside of possible.
So for 20 years, Van Tassel would hold big UFO conventions.
There would just be thousands of chairs out here
on this big flat area, right in front of the Giant Rock.
They would talk about UFOs, talk about extra terrestrials.
But more importantly,
he used these as kind of a crowdfunding source
to be able to build the Integratron.
Now, the Integratron was 90% complete,
and Van Tassel was gonna be the first person
to experience this bolt of electricity to recharge his body.
But then he died suddenly.
And when he died, he lost the plans to the Integratron
because they were all in his head.
Now, his wife was always supportive of his direction in life
but after his death, she moved on.
There was plans of turning it into a disco, but eventually,
it turned into a Sound Bath Meditation Retreat Center.
And I've gone a few times and it's great.
Now, Van Tassel's wife was always supportive of him,
but after his death, she decided to move on.
And the Integratron didn't really have an owner.
There was talks of turning it into a disco,
but eventually one group took it over,
and it became a Sound Bath Meditation Retreat Center.
And I've actually gone and done a sound bath here,
and it's super relaxing.
It's a really cool experience,
but it would be interesting to know what would happen
if Van Tassel actually finished the Integratron
like he had planned in his head.
So to wrap up the story,
I wanted to talk about what's going on out there now.
Now the rock is Instagram famous,
and people come out here to offroad, camp, party, bonfires,
shoot fireworks, or guns.
There's trash everywhere
and graffiti on all the surrounding rocks.
Locals have tried to keep it clean
but has become a place to do basically whatever you want.
Now, the Giant Rock
has basically just become Instagram famous.
People come out here to take photos, to offroad,
to shoot guns, light fireworks.
And if you look around,
all of the rocks are just covered in graffiti.
The locals used to come out here and power wash
and clean up all these rocks,
and now it's just kind of left as is,
and it's kind of just becoming a mess out here.
So I had this next section written down,
which says more recently, a big chunk of the rock fell off,
and some think it's because of dynamite or bonfires.
Others believe it's an ancient prophecy coming true.
It's also been said to be from earthquakes
or military activity in a nearby Marine base.
Now I shot that, but I didn't actually use it in the edit
because I felt like my ending was dragging on too long.
So I wanted to chop off the ending
and really get into my takeaway.
And so, this is the final thing that I wrote down.
So whether you believe this is a vortex of energy
that can power the human body,
or just a big rock in the desert, you can't escape the fact
that there's something special about this place
that draws people in, and it has for centuries.
You can stand in the shadow of this rock
and feel its presence like a giant being standing over you.
There's things in this world that we don't fully understand
and probably never will.
Visiting places like this give us the ability
to stretch our imagination and think about the what if.
And when we're here, we could explore if we feel something,
like so many visitors have in the past.
So here's how it actually came together.
So, whether you believe in this idea of the energy vortexes,
or you think this is just a rock
in the middle of the desert, you can't deny the fact
that this is a place that draws people in.
When you stand in the shadow, you can just feel the presence
of a big being standing over you.
(gentle music)
Visiting places like this allow us
to stretch our imagination and think about the what if,
and we also get an opportunity
to stand next to the Giant Rock
and see if we actually feel something too.
Now, next, if you wanna see how I shot this video
and what choices I made to capture this footage,
check out this video right here,
and I'll see you on the next one.