- What you can't see in this beautiful cinematic shot
is that the spotlight in the back is made from a roll
of paper and the camera is being pushed on a skateboard
with one hand while the other hand is dimming up a light.
You're fading it in- - Yeah.
- On your phone, oh my god.
That's the creator Gawx and his videos
are like watching a fricking magic trick.
He captures these rich, dynamic, cinematic shots that look
like they would only be achievable on a Hollywood set.
- To film that, I used a C-stand to get a top down shot
and then I used two skateboards to move it
and I put the C-stand on the skateboards.
- No. - And that's my dad's hand
because the marker can't support the weight of the camera.
I like to have small details
that I know not everyone is gonna notice
but the people who pay a lot of attention
to the video are gonna say "Oh, that's cool."
- I'm sitting down with Gawx
and breaking down the first minute of one of his videos
to see if I can get to the bottom of the detail orientation
and craftsmanship that make his work so extraordinary.
(dogs barking)
(cow moos)
Gawx, we're gonna watch your video,
"I Finished a Sketchbook in 24 Hours"
and I think the thing that is so incredible
about your work is the amount of detail
and energy that you pack into every second-
- Thank you. - Of your videos.
Every second is meticulously crafted
and designed to be exactly what you want.
- Yeah.
- And I think it's a level of craftsmanship
and creativity that we rarely see,
not on YouTube, we rarely see in the world.
We rarely see people care this much
about every little detail and I think
that's just what really stands out about your work.
So what I want to do in this episode is really dive in
to all the details that make you who you are as an artist.
- Thank you very much.
I'm excited to do this and this is a great pick of a video.
- Okay, I'm stopping right there.
- Yeah. - How did you do this?
So you're obviously motion tracking the title.
- Yeah.
- We think it's a still title and then
as soon as the video comes in, it matches.
- Yeah. - How did you do that?
Are you using like After Effects or something?
- Yeah, for that I used After Effects.
First, I wrote the title in the video in the clip
and then I brought that to After Effects,
tracked the title,
the sequence with like the living room.
- Right.
- And then I did a still frame for the black section,
for the still section.
- And that's why it's not moving in the black section.
- Yeah, that's why it's not moving.
I want to have a little bit of surprise at the start.
- Right. - Like that
and I did that.
- You know what's funny about it is like a lot of
videos on the internet do like a cold open, you know?
- Yeah.
- Where like the first minute is really exciting
but what you're doing is you're sending us,
I mean, maybe I'm misinterpreting this
but it seems like a signal that you put a fuck ton
of hours and energy into the smallest details.
In the first three seconds of the video,
we know that like you're gonna give us a bunch
of really exciting detail and we need to watch closely.
- Yeah.
- Is kind of what that feels like.
- Yeah, maybe, I don't know if I did that on purpose
but yeah, I like to have small details
that I know not everyone is gonna notice but the people
who pay a lot of attention to the video
are gonna say "Oh, that's cool, that's interesting, yeah.
How does he do that?" - So I have to ask you,
how long, how many hours does it take
to like do all that motion tracking on this shot
and add that title like this?
Where now we zoom past it. - Yeah.
- Like you have to create layers and depth spaces
and things in After Effect, how long does that take?
- Well, I just used the tracking tool
and then I played with Gaussian blur
and a little bit of motion blur as well to make it smooth.
It takes around 40 minutes to an hour for the title.
(door creaks)
- Is that you? - That's my brother.
Yeah, that's my brother
and my dad opened the door and I filmed the shot.
- I was gonna ask how you're able to, so where's,
oh, your dad's behind the door?
- Yeah, he's behind the door.
(door creaks)
He opened it. - Yep.
- We did that a bunch of times because it was difficult.
- Yep.
- And my brother was standing there with the sketchbook.
- Okay.
Right there and you're filming it
and you did this kind of swooping shot.
- Yeah.
- To go in the door and then come out.
- Yes.
- It looks like there's light beams
coming through the window.
Do you have a fog machine or something?
Are you hazing before you shoot?
- Yeah, that's a fog machine.
Yeah, it's a fog machine with a,
I am lucky because my window has very good lighting.
The light comes, in the afternoon,
it comes right inside and I have some trees,
so it gives this really cool effect.
- Oh my god.
Okay, and then this light, what is this?
- That's,
when I turned I think 17,
my dad got me some lights for me to start making videos
and these are some Amazon lights, some newer Amazon lights.
It's funny because this video, I started filming it in 2022.
- Yeah.
- So you can see the lights in some shots
and I finished it in 2023 where I got new lights
and C-stands and then I said "Okay,
now I have these good lights.
I don't want them to be in the shots"
to make it a little more professional.
So you can see this difference in this video.
- Got it, okay. - Yeah.
- So these are the old lights that you had.
- These are the old lights, yeah.
- Okay, and this is your actual room
where you do all your work?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah and where I sleep as well.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- And so you said your dad helped you open the door,
that's your brother. - Yeah.
- But obviously the conceit is that this is you.
- Yeah, but he looks just like me.
(Jack laughs)
- And we can't really tell because he's hazed and backlit.
- Yeah. - So you can't see it anyway
and then you instructed him to just like
have his back turned and hold up the sketchbook like this?
- Yeah, to first have the hand here and then move it up.
- And then are you pulling focus or is this auto-focus?
- This is auto-focus. - It's auto focus?
- Yeah, it's auto-focus. - Okay.
- [Gawx] This is the most important
sketchbook I have ever had.
- Was this your idea for the opening shot of the film
to do this door push in? - Yeah.
- So you wanted this to be the opening shot?
- Yeah, I don't do storyboarding.
I kinda have everything in my mind and the only thing,
well, the main thing I had for the video was this shot.
Like I wanted this shot to be the first shot
and then go from there.
- And how did you come up with this idea for the shot?
Because this is a very striking thing to see on YouTube.
You don't usually see something that looks like this.
This looks like something
from a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film, you know?
It looks like "Amelie."
(classical ensemble music) (thunder booms)
- Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think I get my ideas from movies.
Like I watch a bunch of movies and then
like not on purpose but some of that sticks with me
and then I mix everything and I come up with these ideas.
- What movies do you like, what directors?
- I like, well, I like everything.
I like dramas, I like some dramas.
There's an Iranian director, his name is Abbas Kiarostami.
A Mexican, Inarritu.
Kubrick, oh, Kubrick is a huge inspiration, yeah.
- Yeah.
- For this video as well, yeah.
I watched a bunch of Kubrick films before filming this,
so you can see hints.
- Amazing.
Okay, and when you map out a video like this,
do you have the whole idea for the video in your head?
Do you have like an outline for the video
start to finish before you start shooting
or are you just kind of shooting things that look cool
and then you come up with a story as you're going?
- Well, I kinda have an outline but,
well, I know the theme of the video.
I kinda know how I want to do it.
But first, I film the shot
and then I say "Oh, how can I follow up?"
And I film the next thing.
- Really?
Okay, so you're actually like in production
getting cool shots that you think are awesome.
- [Gawx] Yeah.
- Maybe even before you know where the story is going.
- Yeah.
- Okay, so it's very like emergent.
- Yeah. - The way you tell stories.
- Yeah, because I draw, so I don't really know
what's gonna happen next in my drawing.
I don't know what I'm going to draw.
So yeah, I kinda go from there
and if I need to fix something
or maybe to film something more, I go back
and forward with editing, filming, editing, filming.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Amazing.
Okay, let's look at this lettering here.
- [Gawx] This is the most important
sketchbook I have ever had.
- Okay, so is this DaVinci Resolve?
Do you edit in DaVinci Resolve?
- No, I edit on Premiere.
- Oh, you do? - Yeah.
- Okay, got it.
So you do color correction in DaVinci Resolve?
- Yeah.
- Okay, so then how do you do that?
Do you take the clips into Da Vinci and then
color correct and then bring them back into Premiere?
- Well, first I edit everything in Premiere.
Then I export a ProRes file. - Yeah.
- No compression ProRes file. - Right.
- And I export the timeline to have the cuts.
Then I move that to Da Vinci, it's a mess,
I move that to Da Vinci, add the ProRes file,
then add the timeline, copy the cuts.
- Oh my god. - I color correct.
Then I export it on ProRes again,
bring it back to Premiere and do titles
and finishing details and then I export to post on YouTube.
- Okay, that's a ton of workflow.
- Yeah. - Is that because you like
Da Vinci's color correction suite better than Premiere's?
- Yeah, I love it, yeah.
- Are you reading a lot about color correction?
- No, no. - Okay, all right.
- I watch YouTube videos where I see, oh,
this color is great. - Yeah.
- How did they do it?
And I try new things.
- Which YouTube channels or videos
do you like for like color correction?
Because I've been watching a lot of
color correction videos too. - Yeah.
- Which are the ones you like?
- Well, my favorite is a YouTuber called serr.
He's great, he's from LA. - Okay.
- [Gawx] His colors are absolutely incredible.
- Wow, okay. - Yeah.
- Cool, and so you watch like his tutorials and stuff?
- Yeah, yeah. - Okay, cool.
Wow, awesome, okay, let's keep going.
- [Gawx] Why, you may ask?
Well, let me explain.
- Okay, one more question about voiceover in your videos.
So voiceover is a common theme in your videos
and then it looks like sometimes
you film after you've recorded your voice
and you're mouthing to match your voiceover.
- Yeah.
Well, I'm glad you asked
because a lot has changed since I last
answered this question two years ago.
For instance-
- How do you do voiceover?
Do you have a nice mic or something that you use?
Where do you record?
- I use Adobe Audition for my voiceovers
and I got a mic like five years ago, a Blue Yeti mic.
- Oh yeah. - Yeah.
- Those are great. - Yeah, and I use that one.
Maybe it's not the most professional
but it gets the job done. - It's a great mic
and it sits on your desk or something?
- Yeah, it sits on my desk and when I need it,
I just bring it. - Yep.
- Record my voice and- - Yeah.
And that's the Blue Yeti you said?
- The Blue Yeti, yeah. - Okay.
(dramatic violin music)
Okay, come on, like tracking shots and stuff, like what?
So what do you have, like rails above your desk
and the camera's tilted down, how do you do this?
- That's later.
The first shot is 2022, this is 2023.
- Okay.
- Well in the video, it's supposed to be 2019
because I built like a crazy story with this.
- Yeah.
- But to film that, I used a C-stand.
- Yeah.
- To get the top-down shot
and then I used two skateboards to move it.
So I put the C-stand on the skateboards.
- No, you have your C-stand on skateboards?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And you're moving the skateboards
with the C-stand hanging over the desk?
- Yeah, and that's my dad's hand.
That's not mine.
- What's your dad's hand? - The first one.
I had just started high school-
That's my dad's hand.
- That's your dad's hand? - Yeah.
- So you're doing the camera and you got your dad's hand?
- Yeah, he's supposed to be me.
You can tell because, yeah, he's older than me.
- And do you say like "Okay, open the computer now?"
Like how are you doing it?
- Yeah, I say "First draw and then open the computer."
We try some shots but I give them, yeah, I say "Now open."
- So you're like calling out instruction.
- Yeah, yeah, kind of directing.
- So let's watch this beautiful shot.
- Thank you. - By the way,
Gawx, this is so fun, man.
Like this is fucking beautiful work.
- Thank you very much. - It's so fun to dive into
and hear how you think about this and how you do this.
I think what's so exciting to me is like,
you know, like hearing that it's your dad
and that you got an Amazon light.
- Yeah.
- You're able somehow to achieve output
that looks on par with like the best movies in the world.
- Thank you very much.
- And you're doing it with like skateboards.
- Yeah.
- And it's just incredible.
So okay, let's watch how beautiful this shot is here.
- [Gawx] I got this one about four years ago.
I had just started high-
- Okay, is that the light from the actual monitor?
- Yeah, that's the light from the monitor.
It has some haze machine to get like a little bit beam
it gets so you can see the light.
Yeah, that's the light and I have a light over here
filming the whole thing.
- Okay, and is that like a soft light with like
some kind of a diffusion over it or something?
- Yeah, that's a soft light with this grid that you put.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Yeah, do you happen to know what kind of light it is?
- Yeah, it's an Amaran 60x.
- Amaran 60x. - Aputure Amaran 60x.
- Okay, all right, cool.
The glow of the monitor on the laptop and on your hand-
- Oh yeah. - Looks so nice.
- I wanted to get that.
So I opened this tab, which is just white.
- Yeah. - And has nothing on it
to get the light.
- Okay, got it.
So you actually preloaded a tab
that was white on the computer?
- Yeah. - Then did you turn up the-
- Yeah. - The brightness?
- The brightness, yeah. - So that you got this
lovely glow coming in.
- Yeah. - God, it's so beautiful.
Okay, I have a question for you about haze and fog.
So one of the things that you do really well
is you create these hazy memory sort of nostalgic feelings
by using the fog and the way light moves through fog.
How do you do that and make sure that you get really deep,
rich blacks and like dark colors as well?
How do you color correct those super hazy,
milky shots to make them look full?
- Well first, I don't try to put way too much fog.
If I put way too much fog, I open the windows,
let a little bit go out and then I film
and on Da Vinci when I color grade,
I just move the blacks down a little bit more
of contrast until I think the image looks good, and yeah.
- And then you go.
- I don't really use the histograms.
- Oh, you don't?
Okay, you don't use metering
or tools like that? - No.
I get confused with that and it gets slower.
So I go with the flow and if I export it
and the blacks look too black, then I go back and fix them.
- Okay, got it.
So you're really just using your eye.
- Yeah. - Looking at the screen
without looking at like meters or tools or measurements?
- Yeah. - Yeah, okay, cool.
- [Gawx] School and I needed
a new sketchbook since my previous eight-
- Okay, now the camera's tracking backwards.
So what is that now, skateboards again?
- Yeah, skateboards and a tripod
and that's me and my dad is filming.
- Okay, so your dad's pulling the camera back now?
- Yeah. - Okay, got it.
- [Gawx] Were already filled out.
After receiving it, I started carrying it around.
- Okay. (laughs)
So I love this about your videos.
There's this conceit that like there's a doorbell
and a package outside your bedroom.
- Yeah, that's good.
- Like that's kind of, I mean obviously that's the joke
but like where is the inspiration for that idea coming from?
- Well since I started,
every time I get a package, it's outside my bedroom.
- Yeah.
- So I don't know why I did that.
I didn't want to show the front door of my house,
so I used my bedroom. - Yeah.
- And it stayed.
Now every time I get a package,
it's outside my bedroom.
- It's so good. - Thank you.
- Is this, like when you're setting up a shot like this,
is this blown out?
Like are you getting zebras here?
Do you film with zebras?
- No, I don't but I use,
what the camera says if you're overexposed is plus two.
- Right. - Yeah, and it blinks.
- Oh, okay.
- So for that one, I was a little bit overexposed
but it was the look I wanted to get.
I wanted like this light behind me.
- Yeah.
So sorry, what's this plus two thing?
- Oh yeah, what is it?
Exposure compensation.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- And is that on the A-7S III, is that what you use?
- FX3. - Oh, the FX3?
- Yeah. - Oh, did you just get that?
- I got it in 2021.
- Okay, got it. - Yeah.
- So you shoot all of your videos on the FX now?
- Everything, yeah.
- And then obviously your room again is
super hazed right now, right? - Yeah, super, yes.
- A ton of haze. - Yeah.
- Okay, all right, cool.
- [Gawx] With me everywhere I went.
I used to draw in it almost every day.
- Okay, like even the way you pick up
the package there is so deliberate and funny.
It's almost like cartoony or something.
- Yeah, yeah, cartoony.
- Did you watch a lot of cartoons?
- I used to, "SpongeBob."
My favorite was "SpongeBob" but
I think this is more Wes Anderson style.
(frantic ensemble music)
- Yes. - Yeah.
- Oh, it definitely is Wes Anderson.
Oh, that's a good call out.
Yeah, it's like robotic.
You walk out. - Yeah, like.
- Yes. - Yeah.
- Oh, so cool.
- [Gawx] Everywhere I went.
I used to draw in it almost every day.
- Now the camera's tracking backwards there, right?
- Yeah.
- So who's shooting that?
- My dad or my brother, one of my dad or my brother.
- On a skateboard again? - On a skateboard, yeah
and those are difficult to get because
the skateboard moves a little bit
and it doesn't go still like a dolly would.
- Yeah.
- So for that one, it went a little bit like this
and then I just fixed that in post.
- Oh, you do?
So you track in post using After Effects
or something to make it smoother?
- Yeah, for that one, I used Premiere.
So I put like a ruler, a line, a guide
and I just placed it here.
- Oh, you just like keyframed it frame-by-frame?
- Yeah. - Really?
That looks like it's a three or four second shot.
So that's like 150 frames or something.
- Yeah.
- 150 keyframes tracking backwards.
- Yeah.
(Gawx laughs)
- My god.
- It gets crazy sometimes, yeah.
- So, (sigh) okay.
I don't even know how to frame this question.
It's just like why do you care
so much about all those little details?
There's so many videos on YouTube
where the camera moves a bit and people
don't spend six hours doing 180 keyframes-
- Yeah. - To make it perfect.
Why do you care so much about that?
- Well, I really like to make this type of video.
I have a lot of fun and I think I get
a little bit obsessive with the little details.
Sometimes there's one shot
where I feel it's a little bit off
and I just obsess over it.
I don't know if that's healthy
but I just want it to be perfect
and since I don't post that often,
it's like three months, two months between videos,
I want it to be really good.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- So okay, so then the trade-off in your mind is like look,
I'm not coming out with videos every week.
- Yeah.
- So I'm just gonna make really great videos
and if they come out every two months or three months, fine.
- Yeah.
- Okay, got it.
So you live right now with your, who?
Do you live at home or where do you live?
- Yeah, I live at home with my mom,
my dad and my brother.
- Mom, dad and brother. - Yeah.
- And it seems like everybody helps you with your videos.
- Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes they don't want to but (laughs)
I ask, "Now help me a little bit."
- Do they argue with you about shots
and stuff or are you calling the shots?
- No, not really.
Well, sometimes they suggest maybe we should do it this way
but mainly I tell them and we go from there.
Sometimes it doesn't work, what I had in my head.
- Yeah.
- So we try different things.
- Are they filmmakers too, is your brother a filmmaker?
- No, my brother is in high school.
He likes music production. - Okay.
- And my dad, my parents are musicians.
- Oh, they're musicians? - Yeah.
- So they're in the arts?
- Yeah, they're in the arts.
- How cool, are they professional musicians?
- Yeah, they play,
my dad plays in the Philharmonic Orchestra.
- Oh my gosh.
- And my mom used to and now she has a string quartet.
- Okay, so they're like super,
they must be really supportive and excited that you're-
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Okay, how cool, wow.
- And then they also help me,
well my dad helps me with,
now I use a lot of classical music,
so he helps me with the music selection sometimes.
I edit and I show him, "What do you think of this music?"
- Yeah, okay, so where are you getting that music?
- From the music licensing platforms,
mainly Musicbed and Artlist.
- Yeah. - I use those.
- It's so different again than everything else on YouTube.
It feels way more cinematic to use classical.
- Thank you.
- It feels very Kubrick actually to use classic.
- It's very Kubrick. - Yeah, yeah.
Okay, all right, let's keep watching.
- [Gawx] Without prior notice, I stopped.
- Those shots, it seems like there's some rotation.
Like what's happening there?
- So I wanted to show this passing of time
and working on different drawings.
That's why I have different lighting for each drawing.
- I see.
- And I filmed that with a slider,
a motorized slider, yeah.
- Okay, got it and is it a curved slider
or is the camera just on a spinner?
- Yeah, so it's a slider and you have two,
like one pole here which you can move
and if you move it like this, the camera moves.
- I see, right.
So the camera's literally going like this
as it goes on the slider.
- Yeah, like this.
- Okay, so you've just got a little motorized slider
and so that's your hand, your drawing.
- Yeah.
- And you've got an automated camera motion going.
- Yeah.
- And is it just going back and forth?
Is that what's happening?
- Yeah, it's going back and forward
and I changed the drawings with each movement and then
I did this matched cut, so I placed the clips
and tried to match them to do the cuts.
- Okay, so you're finding the exact point
in the camera motion- - Yeah.
- Where you can cut that the camera's in the same place,
the book is in the same place,
your hand is in the same place.
- Yeah.
- But it's a different drawing.
- Yeah. (Jack gasps)
- Let's watch this.
- [Gawx] Day until without prior-
- Right there. - Yeah.
- Notice. - Right there.
- Yeah.
- God, that's beautiful. - Thank you.
- What is this cinematic vocabulary
or whatever that makes us feel like this is time passing?
Is it the lighting change?
- Yeah, I think it's the lighting
because it's like different scenarios.
So you kinda feel like different days of me working on that.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- It feels like, yeah,
it feels like a long time has passed
when we see that motion tracking, different lighting,
different drawings.
- [Gawx] Until without prior notice, I stopped.
- And then the camera slider ended clearly here.
- Yeah.
- And stopped. - Yeah.
- And then you closed the book.
- And then I closed the book, yeah.
- And did you know, did you write the script first?
Because the story and the video
matches the script perfectly.
- I think for this one,
I went a lot back and forth between the edit,
the writing and the editing and the filming.
So I think I filmed the first shot,
then I filmed the next ones,
then I brought that to Premiere
and checked if it was working
without a script and the script
usually goes at the end of the video.
But just the rhythm, I want to get the rhythm right.
- In those two months, are you kind of starting to edit
and then shooting a little bit more
and then putting that stuff in?
- Yeah.
- And then editing a little more?
Okay, so you're like mixing editing, production,
post-production, it's all happening at the same time.
- Yeah, it's a beautiful mess but that's how I do it, yeah.
- I think that is such a great way.
It feels like that. - Yeah.
- Because you can,
yeah, you get a level of detail and I don't know,
you end up with shots like this.
- Yeah.
- That you may not have gotten
if you just tried to write it all first.
- Yeah, yeah, and I also
like to do everything chronologically.
So that's why,
yeah.
- Okay, so you're not like going
to the end of the video and then editing a scene here?
- No, no.
- You're literally going- - Yeah.
- Second-by-second until
you build the story you want to tell.
- Yeah.
- Oh, so cool.
I've talked to different creators
and editors and filmmakers about this.
Some people really love chronology
and some people don't work chronologically at all.
- Yeah.
- And it just seems like it's whatever type of-
- Maybe the people who don't work chronologically,
they're more organized or they have
their plan really well done.
Because I saw the Casey episode, he edits chronologically.
- Yeah.
- I have sorta two rules when it comes to editing.
One is that I can only edit chronologically.
I start with the first frame
and when I get to the last frame, the movie's done.
Sometimes I do like storyboard complex shots.
I think I might have done it for the floating sketchbook.
I have my notebook here if you want to see it but
it helps me a lot that I edit and film.
So I go back and forward.
So in case I need a shot to fit the rhythm
of the music or to fit the story, I can film that and then
bring it back to Premiere and continue with my edit.
- When I was trying to make,
'cause I made a video that was like a "Dear Casey Neistat"
video where I tried to kind of use his style
and when I made that video, I had
to make it chronologically. - Yeah.
(relaxed electronic tones)
- I couldn't like script it out too much first.
It couldn't match his style if I did it that way.
- Yeah. - So okay, here we go.
- [Gawx] And now that I look through it-
- Okay, come on.
So by the way, we're like 37 seconds into the video
at this point and the amount of detail
and beauty in these shots is like incredible.
They're just so packed with fun little pieces of eye candy.
It's no wonder that millions of people watch your videos.
Let's talk about this wonderful transition
over the letters here. - Yeah.
- How did you do that?
- I did a mask, not an exact mask,
like a really rough mask around myself.
- Yeah?
- To transition the type.
- [Jack] So you basically just like outlined a mask here?
- Yeah, like right here. - Okay.
- So I didn't have to outline the whole thing,
just the part that touches the table.
- Right, and you're using Premiere for the mask?
- Yeah, Premiere. - Okay.
- It's not perfect but- - Yeah.
- You don't need it to be perfect.
- The effect is so impactful and meaningful.
I mean, it works really well. - Thank you.
- So are you filming at 24p or how are you filming?
- Yeah,
23.97.
- Okay, 'cause you like that cinematic frame rate.
- Yeah, I like that cinematic look.
- Yeah, me too.
Okay, can we talk about the lighting here?
So is this your room or a different room in the house?
- My room.
- This is your room still? - Yeah.
- Okay, and so this is all yellow
but is it white walls and you have a yellow light?
What's going on here? - Yeah.
Well, the light is supposed to be motivated by this lamp
but it's a little bit exaggerated.
So it's this lamp and I have a big lamp over here.
- You used the term,
the light is supposed to be motivated by this lamp.
In other words, what you're saying is the conceit
is that the light is coming from here.
- Yeah, well part of the light,
maybe you don't see the rest of the room,
so you could imagine that there are other lamps,
like practical lamps over here.
But yeah, it's basically supposed to be
motivated by this little lamp right here.
- Yep, okay, that's great.
I mean, even the fact that you use the term motivated,
clearly you're watching a lot
of YouTube videos and stuff- - Yeah, yeah.
- On lighting and, okay, all right, all right.
What are your favorite YouTube videos on lighting?
What should we watch to make Gawx-style videos?
- There's an Australian cinematographer, Lewis Potts.
He's great, he did a really awesome video on lighting.
- Okay, great. - And also Danny Gevirtz.
- Yep. - He's great as well.
- [Jack] Okay, cool.
- [Gawx] Through it, I realized-
- Who's shooting this, how are they getting that push in?
- That's my dad, I think that's my dad, yeah.
- Okay, and skateboard again?
- Skateboard, yeah.
We filmed everything, the intro sequence on the same day.
Like in one hour, we filmed everything.
- Got it and did you ask him to push in really fast?
- Really fast, yeah.
- Why did you want a fast push in there?
- Because the music gets a little bit more energetic
and the story like is building up.
So I wanted faster movement than before.
- Got it.
- [Gawx] That there are only two pages left to go.
- So this is like a 24 lens
or something or like a 16 even.
This looks really wide. - Yeah, this is,
yeah, I think it's a 16 millimeter.
- Do you shoot on primes or do you use zoom lenses?
How are you getting like a super wide shot like that?
- I use a lot of lenses, like lot of different lenses.
But for this video, the wide shot is a zoom.
It's a 17 to 28.
Okay.
Do you know what lens it is?
Do you know who makes it? - Yeah, it's a Tamron.
- [Jack] Tamron, okay, okay, a 17 to 28 Tamron.
- 17 to 28 and for the rest of the video, I used a 31.4.
- Okay. - From Sigma which is APS-C,
so it doesn't cover the full frame sensor
of my camera but it doesn't really matter.
- [Jack] Okay, so the FX3 is a full-frame?
- Yeah. - Okay.
So this is like an actual 17 is what we're getting here?
- Yeah, this is an actual 17.
- Okay, wow, that's cool.
It looks, (laughs) again, it looks so cartoony
and wide and the distortion on your face,
the lens distortion is so nice.
- Yeah, I like wide lenses.
- Yeah, me too.
Yeah, okay. - I love them.
Well, two and a half,
since one drawing just needs some color.
(classical violin music)
- Okay, so this is a famous Gawx-style shot.
- Yeah, yeah, I've seen people
trying to discover how I did it.
- Okay, tell us about the rig, what do you got here?
- It's my FX3
with a SmallRig Magic Arm
which you mount on the camera on the cage
and then I mount it to the marker
so you get the locked-in perspective.
- So you're not actually holding the marker?
- No.
- You're just move,
oh, so it's not locked onto your wrist.
- No. - It's locked onto the marker.
- Onto the marker, yeah. - Back here?
- Yeah, and that's my dad's hand
because the marker can't support the weight-
- Right. - Of the camera.
So I had to hold the camera
and he's doing the marker movement.
- Okay, so let me see (laughs) if I got this right.
- Yeah. - So there's a marker.
- Yeah, it's like you're holding a marker.
- Here, like this. - Yeah.
- And there's a Magic Arm here.
- Yeah.
- Connected to the FX3 here. - Which is here, yeah.
- Okay. - And you're doing
the movement and I'm following you.
- Okay, so I'm going like this and you're following.
Okay, but the Magic Arm is attached to the marker.
So I'm just trying to make sure
that I move my hand at the right pace for the marker.
- Yeah.
- Fuck, that is so beautiful.
- Thank you. - It's so beautiful.
Where did you get the idea for that shot?
- I don't know, I used to do it,
before I had a Magic Arm,
I used to do that since some of my first videos
and I used to use tape.
So I taped the pen to my camera
and I don't know where I got that.
Maybe music videos.
Music videos are a big source of inspiration as well.
- Yeah, and you do this sometimes
with like forks as well when you're-
- Oh yeah, in this video, I did it with forks.
- You're like eating mango and stuff.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, okay.
(classical violin, flute music)
- That's 2022, so that's before, that's one year before.
- So this is a time-lapse from 2022?
- Yeah, from 2022 because this video wasn't supposed to,
I wasn't going to finish it
but I was checking my hard drives and I found
some sequences and I thought oh, let's finish this.
- So then is this on the rails that you had?
- Yeah.
- Okay, so this is a motorized slider.
- Yeah. - But in time-lapse mode.
- In time-lapse mode.
- And are you shooting one frame
like every five seconds or something like that, how do you?
- No, I just film and the files get huge but I just film.
- Oh, so you're just filming 24 frames a second?
- Yeah.
- And then speeding it up.
- Yeah. - So you're moving
the slider really slowly. - Yeah.
It moves like, you can program it,
so from here to here in 30 minutes.
- Got it. - Yeah.
- Okay, all right.
What kind of slider is this?
- It's a NEEWER slider.
It's the same brand of my old lights.
It's a budget slider.
- A budget slider, like on Amazon or something?
- Yeah, on Amazon. - I have one of those too
and it comes with a little USB plug
and you can kind of program it and do stuff.
- Yeah, they're great. - They're great.
I think mine was something like 250 bucks or 300 bucks.
- Yeah, mine as well.
Now it's dying, it's in its final stages but it still works.
(Jack laughs)
- Awesome, okay, let's keep looking here.
- [Gawx] Oh.
- We see this kind of shot a lot where you have
these massive backgrounds and this beautiful spotlight.
Where is this, how did you get this?
- That's in my room too.
For that, I used the lamp without the soft box
and I don't have like a spotlight,
so I used some paper to create the spotlight effect.
So I have this big lamp behind the sketchbook,
the sketchbook here.
Then I'm going in with
the skateboards
and I have another lamp right here which now will turn on.
- Okay.
- To rebuild, yeah.
- And do you hook it up to a switch
or something so you can move it in and then hit the switch?
- You can control it with your phone.
- Are you fading it in or did you like program a fade-in?
- No, I'm fading it in.
- You're fading it in on your phone?
- Yeah, like move.
- Like sliding the light up on your phone?
Oh my god, let's look at this.
- [Gawx] Sorry, needed some color.
- Okay, and you got some lovely like film grain here.
- Yeah.
- Are you adding that film grain in?
- Yeah, I'm adding that in DaVinci, yeah.
- So as part of your color correction,
you can add film grain? - Yeah, you can add.
- Do you add it on every shot
or do you add film grain on the whole timeline?
- No, I add it on every shot.
It's the same grain effect.
Sometimes I do little changes.
But yeah, I grade every clip separately.
- Okay, got it.
So maybe a little different grain depending on the shot?
- Yeah. - Okay.
- [Gawx] Color.
So today, I'm going finish a sketchbook in 24 hours.
- That's the one-minute mark. - Yeah.
- So you have this rotating sketchbook in the air.
(Gawx laughs)
How did you get this?
- These are two different shots.
So it's the background and the sketchbook shot.
I tied the sketchbook to a string,
then I filmed it rotating behind,
I don't have a green screen, so I used a green towel.
I filmed that, then I removed the background,
which I don't use green screens very often,
so that's a whole process.
So I had now the sketchbook
rotating in a transparent background
and then I added the background shot of me going in.
So I just mixed them and color corrected.
- So did you have to like zoom in on the sketchbook?
- Yeah, I zoomed in on the sketchbook
and the background is just a dolly in.
- A plate, yeah.
- [Gawx] I'm going to finish a sketchbook in 24 hours.
- And then you motion-keyed the sketchbook?
- I motion-keyed it, yeah, going down.
- Okay.
(upbeat music) - Let's do it.
♪ Ooh ♪
- Okay, this music choice here is so hot.
That "Ooh" like coming in right with act one
and it's so different than the classical music
we've been feeling to this moment, so
yeah, how do you find the right music
for the moment in a film that you're making?
- I think it's intuitive but I just try a bunch of options
and if I find something that feels right,
I edit a little bit and then decide
if I want to keep it or not.
- I have another question for you here.
- Yeah? - You sort of say things like
"I'm finishing a sketchbook in 24 hours."
So then we think like oh,
we're gonna watch you do this in 24 hours.
But all these shots take like days to do.
- Yeah, yeah. - So you're not,
are you actually filming yourself doing it in 24 hours?
- At first, I just filmed the time-lapses
of me drawing and all these shots because I can do that
and then I filmed this later.
So I film me drawing the sketchbook,
like just time-lapses and some simple shots
and then I build the rest of the story later.
- I see, okay.
So you actually do finish
a sketchbook in 24 hours? - Yeah.
But in this video,
well, it's spoilers if you haven't seen it,
I don't manage to finish it in 24 hours.
- Right, right, okay, got it.
Okay, so you tell the rest of the story
over the next month and a half?
- Yeah. - Okay.
Wow, so you're scrapping together skateboards
and Premiere and masks and like all these tools
that literally now most people in the world have access to.
- Yeah.
- You kinda don't have anything that like,
I mean, the FX3 is a nice camera.
- Yeah, it's nice. - It's a very nice camera.
But then you started shooting on your iPhone
and you're saying it looks just as good.
So like why does your shit
look so good compared to everybody else's?
- Well, I think it's the experience because sometimes,
well, sometimes I try something new
and it looks horrible, so I don't use it.
But
yeah, like you have to try, experiment with the shots.
Maybe it will look bad at the start
but if you try something different, it might look better.
Lighting is a great aspect of it
because the lighting can turn like
a very boring scene into something interesting.
So yeah, spending time on your lighting,
spending time framing the shots
is like the main thing.
I just spend time trying it for it to look good.
- Yeah. - And if it doesn't,
well maybe it will look better
in the future when you have more knowledge.
- This is kind of mind-blowing.
- Thank you. - Yeah.
Forgive the question, but how old are you?
- I'm 20.
Yeah.
- When you think about like your 20s and your 30s,
do you have goals about being a filmmaker?
Like do you want to do,
what sort of things do you want to do?
- Well, I want to be a film director.
I want to make movies.
I have to start with short films, which I also want to make
but yeah, the end goal is to make films.
- Yeah. - Like feature films.
- Right.
I mean, you're on your way.
(relaxed jazzy ensemble music)