What did we just do?
We did it! We did it.
Today is the last day of filming for our Time film,
and it's been a journey.
It has been over four years
that we've been working on this...
We bought 1,000 CR2032 batteries,
2,100 LEDs,
1,500 bamboo stakes,
3 rolls of gaffer tape--
My fingers are almost bleeding.
A necessary step.
6 minus 33 is 27.
I mean, I have 33 feet to do the math in my head, right?
Tell me about the technical side of things...
... Ramsey.
What do you want to know?
We taped three LEDs directly on to the watch battery--
Sticky tape on the toothpick--
--which attached to a toothpick--
--exactly.
Tape's coming off, this tape is going on--
--and then the clips going on there--
--which then attach to the bamboo skewer--
You put the final product on the window,
one of us is going to come and grab it,
and we'll run up there and put it up there.
That day that we built the model,
it really was brutal.
It took us way longer than we thought,
so we ended up running from the car to the berm.
It was windy, and it was 100 degrees.
It was 100 degrees. Just running full speed,
back to the car, to the berm, back to the car, back to the berm--
--and by the end of the day we were truly exhausted.
Shattered.
...yeah.
Now we have to pick them up!
All right see you guys later!
And then once we got home and reviewed the footage,
that's when we realized--
It's not good enough!
We had to do it again.
So, we had always planned to go back
to film the Human Timeline, the smaller model,
so while we were going back to do that model
we decided let's just redo the universe model.
Make it better.
Make it better, and easier,
so we just put the lights right on the ground.
But that required us to hand solder
every single one of the lights
so it would be ready
when we got out there
to just be assembled and placed.
That was months of soldering,
just sitting there in the evening,
soldering little lights.
And I'll be pretty happy
if I don't ever have to solder a light
ever again, actually.
It was worth it,
but it was an absolutely brutal second shoot.
Because it was just the two of us,
out there in the middle of the pandemic...
The second time we went it was a similar thing
where both of us were just full speed
trying to pull this model together,
we had very little footage again to work with,
showing the actual build of it.
We have about 40 minutes
until we're supposed to get
the shot of the timeline,
but
the drone's not working,
so I've been trying to fix it,
and I'm gonna lose my mind!
Wylie--
I don't know if it was sunstroke, or--
--it was heatstroke, I think!
I mean, he was in terrible shape
by the time he was done.
I was a little bit worried
that we were gonna have to go to a hospital that night.
I didn't realize how much effort it would be to walk
7 kilometers,
and every 10 meters,
stop, and bend over,
and put something on the ground.
Because you end up doing like, 800 squats.
You become completely exhausted.
We got swarmed by bees!
At some point the bees took our campsite, and we--
I was ready to leave our stove.
I was like, it's theirs now.
I have to give Wylie credit for that--
It was a funny moment,
I dressed up in sweatpants
and all the layers in the desert.
Wylie is clearly much braver than me.
He went over and knocked over
the pot that had the water
that they were drinking.
He's running backwards. Interesting.
And then the bees dispersed.
But where do bees come from in the middle of nowhere?
Why are there bees out there?
Somebody tell us where desert bees come from.
Good job Wylie.
So...
where were we?
Just now?
Like, in the conversation? Or, like, here?
The reason why I wanted to make
this behind the scenes view into the project
was because we were hoping to film everything
before my daughter was born.
And so, part of how we picked our location,
it had to be four and a half miles
of open empty space,
it had to be a place where you could fly a drone
within driving distance of Los Angeles,
and because it was so close to my wife's due date,
it had to have cell phone service.
And so we were literally like, cross-checking maps...
Where do we get cell coverage?
Where's a drone legal?
Where is their space?
And now,
she's old enough to watch
and critique the film.
Do you know which one the space bar is?
Which one?
The big wide one.
Yeah, that one.
What'd you think?
And do you think life is short?
Yes.
Yeah, I think life is a gift,
and short,
and we forget those things too often.
[Music]
The universe
is not against you
The universe,
is not against you.
It went through a lot
just to give you a chance
it must've wanted you pretty bad
no pressure though
the universe went through a lot, but
no pressure bro
you don't gotta be perfect
you don't gotta be a saint
just don't waste it
this was not a mistake
You're doing it wrong,
dissecting the bird, trying to find the song
it's a miracle
that you're here at all!