- Today we're here in Venice beach checking out
a really cool little device and then--
- He looks like an evil villain.
(Gene laughing)
- You do look like an evil villain.
You look like you would go and destroy Sonic.
(drone whirring overhead)
- Ooh.
I was so scared, I thought it was gonna
hit me in the face so wow!
(slow piano music)
(dramatic music)
(kids playing)
- [Gene] Oh you're so close to stuff.
- [Man] Watch out for that little kid!
- [Gene] Oh my god, there was a little kid!
(group laughing)
(drone whirring)
(guys laughing)
- [Gene] That's crazy!
Flying through railings and everything,
like nothing, you don't even think about it,
you just kinda go and do it.
This is crazy, every few seconds,
he flies this close to something.
That was nuts!
Did you guys just see that?
That he's just doing that like, no problems.
So the man that built and is flying this crazy contraption
is Robert McIntosh, who basically
is the OG of viral drone videos.
You guys have probably seen him flying around here
in Venice and seen this clip,
where he flew through a Ferris Wheel,
and even just flying through those rings.
That clip was nuts, right?
My brother sent that to me when I was first starting
to fly drones, and he was like, "Look at this!
"This is insane!"
and I remember watching and being like,
"This makes no sense, how is this,
"this must be, this must be CG!"
But it wasn't CG, it was real life,
and it was just, this!
(drone whirring)
- People like to call it a cinewhoop.
- [Gene] Cinewhoop? - Cinewhoop.
- [Gene] This teeny little thing is a drone,
and this is a hacked-apart GoPro right here.
- This is not a bomb, don't worry.
We go from this, to this.
- [Gene] Oh weird.
- So this is what you're left with.
The screen is literally just attached on here
just to adjust the settings.
- [Gene] Generally see what the GoPro is recording,
and then you can just disconnect the screen after that, huh?
Wow, okay.
- [Robert] So we're ready to go.
- [Gene] Look at that thing!
(drone whirring)
So how long you been flying drones?
- Since 2007.
- [Gene] I imagine when you told people about drones,
people were like, "What?
"What is that?"
- Yeah, people were like,
they didn't even call them drones back then,
they were like, "Is that a plane?
"Is that a helicopter?"
- Are they hard to fly?
- I don't think they're hard to fly,
because when I started, we didn't' have Mavics
and all this automated, GPS, fly-itself,
autopilot stuff, so.
We should have you fly one,
see if it's hard to fly.
(laughing)
- Oh oh oh, okay.
But I'm gonna use this one that I can crash,
so I don't feel guilty.
I'm going.
Ah!
It's so hard to just stay in position.
How do you have so much control with this thing?
Oh! That was ama--
- [Robert] You are a natural!
- I got an adrenaline rush off of that!
- You are a natural!
- The tricky part is you can't just let go
of the controller and have it float there.
You have to constantly focus.
How do you even know when you're going lower,
and I can't believe you fly this thing
through little cracks.
- You just get used to it.
Look how good you did for your first time,
you didn't even crash or like bounce off the ground once.
- That was scary!
Weather affects this little drone
a lot more than others, huh?
- Weather always affects like, precision.
If you're trying to do something real precise like this--
- [Gene] Yeah.
- You gotta like wrestle the wind, you know?
- [Gene] Yeah.
Do you still get a little bit of adrenaline,
every time you do that?
- A little bit, yeah.
(laughing)
Especially when you bump into something,
you're like, "Ah!"
- [Gene] And when dogs come and try to murder it?
- Exactly.
(drone whirring) (dog barking)
- So you don't have, like, that much range, necessarily?
- No, like, the battery is limiting.
- Uh huh. - 'Cause the battery
will maybe fly for like three and a half minutes,
if you really wanna push it--
- Uh huh.
- With all this payload on there--
- Right.
- But also if you're in like a city area,
you're gonna get less, reception.
- Uh huh.
- You know, you're gonna get, like, radio breakup.
- When you lose reception with these things,
it just kinda drops out of the sky, right?
- Yeah, if you totally lose reception,
yeah it'll drop out of the sky,
but you get indicators of,
if the reception's getting bad.
- So what are the main components?
- You need your drone, you need your video feed,
your "FPV feed," and then you also need your recording.
Then you gotta be able to control the thing with the radio,
and you gotta be able to see where you're going
with some goggles.
- And then, there's two cameras on this thing.
So this one is for the goggles, 'cause it's gonna
transmit a live feed to you,
and then this is the camera that's recording the 4K.
- Exactly.
- And this is a chopped-up GoPro, right?
- Exactly, yeah, so that was, or still is, a Hero 6.
It's completely naked,
all it is is just the motherboard,
a lens, and the sensor, and some buttons
to turn it on and off,
and somewhere to plug in the USB power.
- Were you flying GoPros,
and then you're like, "This is too heavy.
"I need to make it smaller."
- Exactly, yeah.
I was getting some attention way back in the day
for flying a GoPro and making it stable and look cool,
but then more people started doing it, so, like,
well how do I step it up?
How do I get people to notice me?
I know, I'll just make the drones smaller,
and fly through tighter spaces.
- Yeah!
- It was just so exciting to be able
to carry one of these cameras around,
but it looked so terrible,
so I kinda became obsessed with making it look better
and stabilizing it.
You know, I came up with a few tricks,
and my own technique for getting things
to look smoother than the rest.
Eventually we turned it into a product, ReelSteady.
- Actually I've talked about ReelSteady
a couple of times before,
and the first time I ever bought it
was way before I ever even started YouTubing.
There's a few shots I really wanted to have super smooth,
but we didn't have time to set up the gimbal,
so I just hand-held it, and I was trying to figure out like,
what's the best stabilization I could do in pose,
and I came across ReelSteady, and I'm like, all right.
I bought the license for after-effects,
then now, it's just like,
that's same technology's here in GoPros.
- Yeah, it makes it way easier, it's way faster,
and because we're using the gyro data instead
of doing image analysis, it's way more reliable, too.
- I posted a little picture of this,
and asked on Instagram what you guys wanna know about it,
and pretty much everybody's like,
"Can we get a build guide?"
"Tutorial on how you made it!"
"How to build one?"
"Pricing, how difficult is it to--"
Everyone wants to know how to make one.
Including myself.
I need your help, 'cause, I cannot figure out,
I don't even know how to solder.
- We can-- - What is soldering?
How long is it gonna take us to put it together?
- I don't wanna over-promise, you know?
- Uh huh.
- But I think we get it done pretty quick if we hustle.
- Yeah, like a couple hours?
- Yeah, maybe a couple hours.
- Okay, cool.
- Famous last words.
(Gene laughing)
- "But can it do a kick-flip?"
- You know, we could probably make that happen.
(Gene laughs)
- "Is it stabilized footage?"
Well, the best way to record it is unstabilized,
and then-- - Exactly.
- Stabilizing it with ReelSteady.
We're getting some ReelSteady promotion out of this.
- Good plug.
- And it really is like one of the the best stabilization
apps out there for GoPro.
I've compared it to other stabilization in the past,
and I think I have a code for five bucks off it,
or something, right?
- Yeah.
- So link in description, go check it out.
"Will there be a YouTube video?"
Yeah, that's what this is right now.
"Please make a review about it and the difference
"between flying this and other DJI drones."
It's a lot cooler, but it's also a lot trickier.
- It's like a hot rod compared to like a luxury car.
- Yeah.
- That's a little hot rod, that you put together,
and a DJI is like your daily driver, luxury car,
reliable-- - Right, yeah.
"How many times did you crash this?"
- This thing?
Today, I don't think we crashed it--
- Yeah. - We crashed into Sam's arm.
(drone whirring)
- "Can you fly it under a moving truck?"
- Maybe.
(Gene laughing)
- I like how, I always do this, when I'm' thinking,
but I have nothing.
But when you do it, it's like--
- It's one of the advantages.
- You always look like you're thinking.
- Exactly.
- [Both] Hmm?
- "Top speed?"
- Top speed, uh, maybe 25 miles an hour without the wind.
- "I bet TSA has some questions about it."
- No, it's not too bad really.
- "How hard or easy is it to fly?"
It was, okay, I've had a lot of experience with the Mavic,
and those kinda of fully-automated smart drones,
and I was able to at least get it
to stay up in the air,
but it was tough, like I imagine
you'd need a lot of practice with it.
- That was pretty good for your first time ever--
- Yes!
- You didn't crash once.
- I really wanna get one of these and fly it,
I just don't wanna go through the headache
of figuring it out,
and how to put it together,
so I'm so glad that you are here,
building this thing in part two.
This is so funny.
Chris Rollins, my buddy, he's into FPV,
and he's the one that kinda got me into it originally.
He just sent me this clip.
He's probably like, "You gotta check this out!"
Chris doesn't know we're here,
he doesn't know I'm meeting up with you or anything,
and I think that's hilarious.
Chris!
- [Chris] What's up, buddy?
- Do you know who shot it?
- [Chris] I knew his name, I don't--
- Robert McIntosh.
(everyone laughs)
We're filming a video right now, so I'm recording this.
One of the things I just found out, that Robert shot,
was the "Pretty Sweet" intro.
- [Robert] It was exciting for me, at the time,
for sure, yeah,
that someone would put that much trust
in me to get a shot,
that was super sketchy and risky to do,
you know?
- [Gene] Were you nervous,
shooting for Spike Jonze?
- [Robert] So nervous!
- [Gene] Because he's someone you don't wanna let down.
- [Robert] No, you don't.
You don't wanna let them down,
and you don't wanna let like
the other hundred people there down,
that got up early to go shoot that.
You got one chance with these confetti cannons,
to launch the confetti cannons,
and if you don't get it right,
or you didn't hit record,
or you got the exposure wrong,
you don't get to do it again, you know?
- [Gene] Where were you flying that?
- [Robert] Okay, so this was back
before we started flying these small drones,
with small cameras. - Uh huh.
- This was like a DSLR,
with a full rectilinear, wide-angle lens,
so it's pretty heavy, and it had a gimbal on it,
but it was like a servo-gimbal,
so like the old-school, jittery, gimbals,
before we had these nice brushless gimbals--
- Yeah. - Like we have today.
It had 12 inch propellors,
and for reference,
what we were shooting with today
were two inch propellors.
And right now, there's like 12 inch propellors
on both sides of his head,
like inches from his hair,
spinning so fast that it's taking off.
- I'm surprised they had that much trust,
of just letting this giant thing--
- Me too! - Fly right over,
oh my god!
I would have been, I would have peed myself there.
- Ty Evans is running the servo gimbal,
and you can see he's pointing down here,
and right here, he's about to save me
'cause I almost crash into the ground.
- Oh!
My god! - And he points up
just at the right moment,
to kind of save the shot,
and make sure we're not seeing all ground at that point.
- So was that not intentional,
to get that close to the ground?
- No, not at all!
(Gene laughing)
- Well, it works, it looks really cool.
- That was me going full throttle,
trying to catch it,
before it hit the ground.
- Oh my god!
- And then this guy got way too close,
and that freaked me out,
there's people doing backflips and stuff,
very distracting, when you're like
trying not to run into people.
And then this guy went too early,
so I'm like, "Oh, god, I better get it!"
I hurried, and then just barely got him landing there.
- Oh my god!
That is nuts!
And these are all through those kinda of, like,
poor reception FTV goggles, that you were wearing?
- Oh yeah, this was before we even had,
like the nice goggles that you used today.
These were video glasses,
that you get in like the Skymall catalog, you know?
So basically I had a beanie over my face,
with like these little video glasses on.
- You must have been so happy right here,
like-- - Oh, yeah.
- We did it! - Just to be here,
at this point, I'm like okay, we're still in the air,
nothing's breaking, no one's thrown anything
at the copter yet.
- And this is terrifying,
and this is slow motion.
That is unreal!
- And this is, we had like a big announcement
on the megaphone, like,
"Everybody heads up, we don't know what's gonna happen
"when we launch the confetti,
"we don't know if it's gonna get tangled up
"in the propellors, so everyone just be aware
"for this giant, 20-pound copter to fall on you."
- Did you use real ReelSteady to stabilize that shot?
- It's like an early incarnation of it.
- Oh, okay.
- Before we kind of started to automate things.
- So, around this time, when Spike Jonze
starts calling you, saying, "Hey, stabilize their footage."
That's probably when you're like,
"Maybe I should make this into a software."
- Definitely, especially 'cause it took me
like two weeks to stabilize this.
- Oh really?
- Because like, to stitch everything together,
and like make sure there's
- Yeah. - no hiccups or bumps,
in it, and stuff.
- So now, we can watch real time.
- This scene is actually pretty funny.
- Oh there is sound!
- You can hear the copter struggling.
- I'm kind of imagining how tough it must have been
to fly through those little gaps
with something as wide as an Aspire.
That is nuts!
- Yeah!
- I need you to teach me your ways!
- I was so happy when it was over!
- So how cool was it hanging out with Robert, huh?
So shout out to Robert for kinda giving us a little tour
of the drone, and oh look what I got!
Next time when we hang out, we're gonna take this
and relocate this camera over here,
and then take a GoPro,
smash it up into little itty bitty pieces,
and then put that onto here.
And don't forget to check our Robert's company,
ReelSteady.
If you want the smoothest GoPro footage, ever,
that's what you gotta get.
And I'm not just saying that because I'm buddies
with the founder, and he's helping me
put all this together, but legit,
I bought their software, way before I knew Robert.
Anyways, let's wrap this up by reading a few comments
from my last video, which was this guy,
the iPhone 11 Pro Max.
Camera on this thing, mm-hmm!
I was so impressed at the quality coming out
of this super wide angle lens.
Speaking of wide angle lenses, how's this lens look?
Looking pretty good, it's a brand new lens.
It's the 15 to 35 RF lens that I've been waiting for
for a while, is it super sharp?
I hope so, it was expensive!
And I bought it!
Top comment was from Rel-a-Bull-Gla,
I'm so sorry, I can't say your name.
"Potato Jet is the best YouTuber!
"He speaks to us like a close friend
"and never makes you feel like he is superior
"or more successful than you."
Well that's probably because I'm currently
not that much more successful than you!
Once I hit a million subs, like,
I'm getting my Lamborghini, and I'm just gonna--
"The wide angle lens is cool but I'm honestly
"more impressed by the stabilization,
"especially in the shots of you hiking through the hills."
Yeah, I was surprised, too!
Walking, hand-held with this, I was showing my buddies,
and they were like, "That's a gimbal shot, right?"
How sweet is that?
I'm actually gonna go on a road trip,
and I think I'm just gonna film pretty much everything
on this phone!
"The iPhone is a camera to him more than a phone."
Yeah, honestly, if it wasn't for these upgraded cameras,
I would probably still have like a Blackberry.
Its actually kinda funny if you think about it,
like, these are still called phones.
Like I feel like it being a phone is the least significant
thing a smart phone does.
Like I can't even think of the last time I actually
talked on the phone.
Well actually now I did, like 20 minutes ago.
"The ultra wide angle lens does not have optical image
stabilization, only software stabilization."
Really?
I swear I double checked it, and it said
the wide angle had optical image stabilization.
Oh, okay!
So it says the wide angle lens
has optical image stabilization.
When I heard that, I thought that it meant the ultra wide,
but the ultra wide does not.
Be sure to subscribe to Potatojet,
where he's 100% right, 50% of the time!
"Isn't that the church from 'Westworld?'"
I think that is, it's a hike that we were doing
out in Malibu, but apparently they do a lot of filming
around there.
What's sad is half that set got burned down
in the last year.
At least the church was still there,
but everything else was pretty much burned down,
so that kinda sucks.
"I can't un-see the fat version of Jet Li."
Let's just end the video here.