Sidney Diongzon (YouTuber & Filmmaker)

Welcome to the golden hour podcast. I'm your host, Dave Maze. This is our second episode. In today's episode we speak with Sidney Dion's and who's a filmmaker turned YouTuber who's just full of amazing personality. I really enjoyed my conversation with him. The first thing we talked about was the name of this show, the golden hour podcast.

All right , we're here with Sydney i n thank you for coming to the golden hour podcast. T here supposed to be a big logo right there, but I visually see it. T hat's good. Yeah, golden hour. What do you think of that name? I think it's cool. I mean we all go for the golden hour. Exactly the best time. The perfect time, t he, let's do a podcast. I t's g oing t o be about an hour long t hat you c an also take it the other way, like golden hours, like the best years of your life when y ou're like really old. O oh, going very meta here. So I 'm Sydney, you're from, s hh. We were just talking about this earlier. Where are you from? M e? So I was born in Chicago but moved out to California when it was about one. So pretty much, you know, r ace here most of my life, you know, grew up in a small town, u h, East of LA called Corona. Uh , but spent a lot of my time , uh, in orange County at the beaches. I went to film school at Chapman university, but , uh, and just kinda traveling all throughout California. And so I'm a true blue. So cowboy. And you're a married man as well? I am a married man. I married a beautiful English girl. We have to half British half. Well , English isn't like, she doesn't just speak English. Right . She's from Britain, England. Yeah. So I got two , two kiddos that are half British, half American and half Filipino. Well , I guess that's third. I watched one of your videos. You briefly mentioned you lived in England . Yeah . So I moved out to England , uh, to be with my wife. Um, and also I'm like, well, why not? And you know, yeah, of course. And so , uh, what's funny is that when I moved out there, you know, trying to look for a job, I couldn't find a job because I was American. Really . It was really weird to me. And so I'm like, well, I need to make money. Um , so I just started shooting weddings and then , uh, I am, I just shot weddings most , uh , most of my time there. What does that like work to your advantage? To be American tote? Uh , in a way, yeah. In the way that a British person here is kind of like, Oh, they're British. Totally. Yeah. Like, you know, it's a , but what's cool about, you know, shooting weddings in England is that I had to, because before then, when I live in California, you know, I'd built up all my gear on my lights. I had my little home studio and my buddies and stuff like that. And so when I moved out to England, I had to learn real fast, like to have a studio , uh, that can fit in my backpack, that can take anywhere on a train, you know, that I can go do shoots, weddings here or a commercial project there that everything I had is in my backpack. So I'm so thankful for my time in England because I'd learned that skill where I just, if I can fit everything in my backpack, at least the essentials, then, you know, I don't, I don't want to do it. I think it's so valuable to go to other countries in general for everybody, especially Americans. Cause we live in such a bubble. Totally. Uh, every country is different. And uh, the Western countries like England are similar in some ways, but there's so many things that are different. It's perspective too . Like, you know, like for , for us American especially, you know, growing up in Southern, hanging around orange County, yeah, we are in a bubble, in a safe bubble, you know, so to speak. And you know, you have certain , uh, perspective on things, but when you go to other countries and you see different perspectives and different opinions, it's, it's, it's so influential and inspiring in a way. And so, yeah, I mean, if , if people get a chance to travel, even live out of a country for , for a little bit, then definitely do it. I totally agree. So we're going to get this thing started off with this little segment called one word rapid fire. We've got Rockwell in the back with the timer. Oh, I'm just going to ask you like a few, just quick questions. One word answers. Okay. You got 60 seconds. Let's see if we can get through them at 60 seconds. If not, no worries. Alright , ready? Here we go. And Canon Sony or Nikon? Sony. Do you prefer doing YouTube or commercial work? YouTube gimbal or handheld? Handheld. Do you prefer production or post production? Production. Do you prefer shooting as a one man band or working as a team? Working as a team, Mac or PC, Mac, iOS or Android. iOS. Uh , iPhone 10 S or Google pixel? Three. Ah , overall, overall iPhone for pitchers, pixel three. Which do you prefer to take photo or video? Video. Spaghetti with meat sauce or Alfredo? All of it. Oh, nice. We did it. How much time we have left. Oh, there you go. Can we like, you know, have a competition. Whoever can finish it the fastest. Like I want to hold that record. Oh yeah. Told from this point on. Hopefully enough , if someone beats me, I'm going to come back and do it again. We'll get Jason Vong in here. Here we go. Cool. So , uh, some of those questions that I asked , um, YouTube or commercial work, you kind of hesitate for a second. Do you still prefer shooting? Like say you got hired to do a commercial, that'd be fun. Absolutely. I would absolutely do it . And I think the great thing about commercial work is that you are creating a concept. You know, you're creating something from nothing and creating it to this. You're building something and typically have a story . You have a budget. Yes, of course you have all that stuff. But the creative aspect of it, it's like you're working with a team and you're trying to figure it out together. And when things don't go as according to plan onset as they do, yeah . You as a team figure it out and you come up with a better product. And so, you know, if I ever get a chance to do commercial work, then yeah, we'll always do it. Yeah . YouTube under the hand. It's great because you can just be, you, you can share your thoughts and ideas and you know, you know your life really. So on a personal matter, YouTube, you know, definitely wins. But for a , for a creative than me and I'll , I would go for commercial. Yeah. Dude, I can relate to so much because , uh, when I started watching some of your videos, I really resonated with it because we kind of have a similar personality. I don't know if you watched any of our videos, but I'm a total like nutcase when I get on camera. Um, I'm really heavily inspired by Chi Wong . I love Kai w. I also love Tim and Eric. Awesome show, great job. I love a lot of that stuff. So , um, I found there's a little bit of a hole in our niche of like not crazy entertainment value with everything. A lot of these guys that we listed, they're all amazing and they are entertaining in their own right, but like as far as the way that you perform on camera, like you're eating a bowl of cereal during the intro or whatever. Right? Like, that's totally you. And that's what I love about you. What would you have to say about that? Oh, thanks . Well , uh , I, you know what I learned in my very , uh, first vlog that I tried to do about two years ago , um, because I did the whole Casey Neistat thing, you know, I wanted to be this and try to even edit the same way he did. And then when I, when I saw the lack of use , um, and like the amount of effort that I put into it and the site , it was just kind of frustrating where Mike, why , why am I doing this? Um, you know, the, the video was good and all that stuff, but then I it , which is so frustrating that I just feel like, you know what ? Screw it. I'm not going to do the whole YouTube thing. I'm just going to start making content for myself. Things that I love to do. I'm just going to be me. And funny enough, the next video that I made started going viral. And so that was the , that's when it was clear . It was my very first from a film journal with my son. So I like filming these little, you know, little micro documentaries with my family and , uh, and that resonated with people I guess. And that when that video started getting a lot of views, it clicked in me. Um, and I was like, wow, I just have to be me. That's it. You know what I mean? Like there's only so many, you know, there's a lot of YouTubers out there. There's only one Casey Neistat. There's only one Peter McKinnon and there's only one you . And so, you know, people trying to be like those people, it's , it's, it's not, you're only doomed for failure. Exactly. Um, and so, you know, for something like YouTube, the only way to succeed is to be yourself and to create content that you're going to enjoy. Because if you're going to make content that you're not going to enjoy that you're struggling, then what's the whole point? Is that what I mean? So ever since then I'm like, you know what? I like cereal. I'm an eight . Certainly my intro is , I'm going to do it.

Be yourself. It's so important. It's the one thing that you don't want to do and you're in high school. But the one thing that makes you unique as a creative, I love the comedy and the energy that Sydney has in his work, and I think that it's really special what he's done on his YouTube channel. Specifically in my conversation with Sydney , I then asked him about a project that really stood out to him that was most impactful.

You know what's crazy is that this whole YouTube thing, first click back in 2007 when I, me and my friend made this video for a church, we worked at a video about divorce and you know what it does to families and stuff like that. But then we put it on YouTube, you know, not expecting that for it to get many views. But I get this message from, from the sky from Ohio, and he goes, Hey, thanks for making this video because of that, I'm gonna make things right with my wife. Well , that was the very first time that I saw the power of video and , and a platform like YouTube. So that resonated with me and where it kind of pushed me to want to do this YouTube channel because like I've experienced a lot of things, but you know, and I love gear and I want to share my passion, you know, about gear on YouTube, but I want to be able to teach people how to tell these stories so that they in turn can tell better stories than I ever will. And if I can make a little video saying, Hey, you know, this is how you rack focus or whatever, and that might click with somebody, but that person might be the next Spielberg, then man, that's the legacy that I'm going to leave. You're equipping them to go do what you did with that video or totally . Because at the end of the day, you know, like, you know, YouTube is great and all, but it shouldn't be the be all end all. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, sure. You know , uh, I'm so blessed to have sponsors and all this stuff, whatever. But like, man, like, is that, is that going to be my life or am I going to pass it down and, and , and tell those generations that passed that down. Yeah , that's, that's legacy. Totally such a [inaudible] thing to say. It is. We both listened to him, so I'm a big fan. Um, so , uh, YouTube, we're kind of briefly talking about it here and there. Your utuber yes. Anybody who doesn't know already. Um , tell me about what happened when you decided, okay, you know what, I'm gonna get super , I'm going to go for it. Be consistent. I'm going to make content. When did that happen for you? Oh, that's a good question. I think , um, I think when , uh , it all started when , um, when we were about to have her first born and, you know, just, just kind of seeing how my wife would struggle with that today. And I was, you know, working at a full time job. Um, what was that, by the way? I worked at a university , uh , as you said , Pacific university out in Glendora or Azusa, California. And , uh, so I worked there and , uh, and I love the job. It's a great, great, great place. And, but to see my wife struggle, you know, through the days, you know, pregnancy and all that stuff, like really got to me. And, you know , I just, I just wanted to help and be there and, you know, being Filipino, I grew up with a family of nurses and doctors and so naturally I just wanted to help out. Um, and so I just, and at the same time I was kind of growing YouTube on the side , uh, and then, you know, thinking maybe one day I can go full time, but that, that was the moment I was like, you know, I need to do this. Wow . You know, I need to, I need to pursue this full time , uh , one day so that I can be there with my family. And so if she ever struggles or if my kids get sick, whatever, I can stop filming right then and there and be there for them. So I wanna be able to have that freedom. And so that, that was the moment for me. Wow.

Sydney really wanted to show respect for his full time job, but it was the creative freedom that attracted him to pursuing YouTube. I then asked him about what it's like to take on all the roles of a traditional film set yourself.

Like what was it for you when you were just the realization of the freedom of YouTube? I mean, it's amazing because you're the producer, the director, the star, the shooter. Yeah. I mean it is amazing. You know, and when you, when you make something, you know, as a production team, you know, you all share the credit, whether you're the director, editor , uh , or even, you know, PA. But you know, when you're making your video, you get all the credit and also all the hate, you know , having that said, but you know, at the same time like to have that ownership to, to say that I get to create this as a living. Like just, there's nothing more powerful than that. Like, it's just, it's such a, it's such a , a F a freedom that you just feel knowing that you just made something, even though I may not be a great video, but you did it and you put it out there for people to like or hate or whatever it is. But you get to put it out there. Cause the one thing, you know, for all filmmakers, the one goal that we have is to have our , our films , uh , distributed, right? You know, you go to film school after film school, you do the whole studio route and you know, climb up the ladder, eventually become a PA producer, director, whatever in hopes that you might get to know some people in their distribution studio so that you can make films and then, you know, be on your Merry way. But because of YouTube that just, you know, cut the entire mill man out of it. And so now everybody who has a phone and internet access can make a video on YouTube and make a career out of it eventually. And in what's crazy like, you know, we have these little devices in our pockets and they're really tiny now. You know, it is not only a a full on production studio but it is a distribution center as well right there in the Palm of your hands. And that is amazing to me. And so, you know, we don't have any more excuses, you know, it's like, it's right there. Just make something. I totally agree. And I think the thing that was holding me back was like, well, I'm not going to be able to have the budgets that I'm used to having, you know, $10,000 or a music video or whatever. Like I don't have $10,000 but once you start scaling back and it's like, well, how can I get creative with a slider? How can I get creative with some cheap lighting to make that look nicer or to shoot on an a 6,300 or something. We had a lot of your big video views are coming from cheaper cameras, cheaper setups, things like that. W are you seeing that people are gravitating towards that for you on your channel? Yes, totally. And it's funny cause when I, when I bought the eight 60 180 , 6,500 super tiny cameras, by the way , um , you know, a lot of people could only afford those cameras because they want a four K that will at the time that was the most affordable cane under $1,000 at the time. It probably still is. And you know, and I think because people bought that they , um, bought those cameras, they kind of resonated with the content that I made and were astonished at as to how much quality that you can get from that camera by doing, you know, certain little things, you know, like getting a prime lens or by using proper lighting and stuff like that or getting good audio. Yeah . And so , um, I , I, you know, upgraded eventually to, you know, [inaudible] Sony seminar three and then to Sony [inaudible] , but still people resonate a lot more with the cheaper cameras, which, which really fascinates me and I love, I love that because there's a lot of underdog filmmakers out there and I want to get those cameras so that I can relate with them to show them, Hey, this is how you turn a tiny camera into a full on production camera. When I was in high school, I learned how to play the guitar and Eddie van Halen was one of my favorite guitar players of all time. The eighties rock God from the band van Halen. I'm sure you've heard of them , but I was really depressed because I had this cheap, crappy guitar and it didn't sound right. It didn't sound like Eddie van Halen. But then I've learned that it's actually not the guitar that matters, but the player behind the guitar, the same is true with Sydney. It's not the camera that matters, it's the creator behind the lens. What is your process when you get a piece of gear to review it? Um, so , uh, that's a good question. Um, and then just like, I think we all do it different too. Yeah. And it's , and it's crazy cause it's like in my closet, it's a bunch of you I haven't reviewed yet and I'm like, I'm done. Like I need to review this. Yes . Small, small rigs. Like where's that review? Yeah, exactly . Sorry. Um, so yeah, I mean what I do a lot of time actually I start out if I want to review like a slide or whatever, you know, the first thing I almost always do is listen to music. You know, cause sometimes I might trigger something, you know, and so , uh, listen to a lot of music bed and a lot of sound Stripe. And so I just kind of just browse through as I would listen to Spotify. So music that is licensable licensable yes. Yeah. Not just copyrights . Music is post Malone. Exactly. Yeah. So I would listen to the , the music sites that I personally use to that, that I can license through through my videos. And even, you know, and they have mobile apps as well and so I can listen to it on my, on my way to work or whatever. And so if a song clicks with me, that might trigger an idea that might lead to another idea or whatever. And so most, most times I listen to music that'll inspire me to make the video. Yeah , I never heard that one before. And then do you actually use the thing or are there times where you like you get the thing that just came out, like you have it the day of? Yeah. You , you open the box and just review it, right? Like I do that all the time. Oh, you mean like unboxings we'll like unbox it, but like just read a spec sheet and hold it. You know what I mean? Like you got the [inaudible] , the day comes out, you know that if you upload that video today, you will get more views than if you upload it tomorrow. Right. You're not going to have time to go do a shoot. Right. So I guess you call that just a first look. Yeah, that'd be more of a first impressions kind of thing. You know what I mean? I'm like, I did a first impressions video on the Z and we will lab , um, and against entertaining review. Yeah . I hope so. And I just click baity title. Exactly . Great though. I love, thank you . The uh, the background changing cuts and things, it was great. Oh, thank you. Very, I appreciate that. Um, but yeah, I mean those kinds of things is normally our first impressions kind of , and then, yeah , I think it's fair just to use a product for at least a month, you know, to have a good idea of what it can do. And so typically, yes, your idea of to get the views, you want to be able to do a first impressions, which is good because people do want to , what , what it looks like. I , we'll see what it looks like out of the box. Yeah. But, you know, at the same time, people do want a full, thorough, truthful , um , review of the product. But I think that can be done after I've used, you know, spent some time with that product. I , yeah, I agree completely. Caleb pike is the best. He's the most patient reviewer of all times . So good. So good. And so sweet. He just releases a seven three review like last week. Yeah. And it's because he like spent a long time figuring it out. Yeah. And I like, I have a lot of respect for that cause he's not just like falling for the clickbait in the quick like the quick money or the quick hits, you know. And I think in a perspective, yeah , that's the correct thing to do is just make work that you're proud of so that at the end of your life you're like that age 73 review was great. Yeah. Definitely not gonna be thinking about the age 73 when I'm dying. Probably the days seven 10. Yeah. Well he, he and Phillip Blum are amazing. They, they, they take their time and review , view, view products like properly. Um , I'm definitely not that patient. Like I want to be able to open it and try it out. Like, Hey, this is cool. We should try this, this, this, this , this. In most cases that works for me. Um, but you know, if I, if I do like an update video that, you know, we can always make a video about that. Yeah . But uh, but yeah, I get, I get too antsy . I just want to just, this is what it is. Yeah. That's amazing. I have a story about Philip bloom , uh, back when like he was at his height. Uh, I posted a video, I was I think 20 years old, 28 now, so eight years ago. Um, and he retweeted it and it got a Vimeo staff pick. Nice. Because of his retweet, it got us staff picking because of the staff pick . Like I had a lot of opportunities handed to me and I had no experience in professional anything. It was always just weddings and like random corporate videos. And it was a little mini doc that I made and it really taught me that like, wow, I can actually call myself a director saying all that to lead to the question, did you have any moment in your career where you're like, I'm a filmmaker, I'm a director. And it's okay to say that and not be pretentious about it. You know what I mean? Yeah , yeah. Um, I think I learned that , uh, in film school, okay . I didn't go to film school. Uh , and I'm glad you didn't. It's a very expensive, very, very expensive. Um, I mean if you can afford it and by all means, but , uh, what I learned in film school, I mean, you go into film school with a lot of people that think that the best director in the world, and that's kind , kinda hard. You know, you kind of go in and you kind of get your pride taken away cause it's like all your video wasn't as good as whatever. Um, but I , I learned, you know, in my freshman year that that's okay . You know , let, well , you know, fail and fail fast. And once you fail fast, you learn faster. And you know, once you get over yourself, you know, after you stop crying, then you become a better director, a better person, you become stronger. And so , um, it was until the end of film school and I was like, you know what? I did it. I worked my butt off and I'm a, I'm a filmmaker, I'm a director. I'm not ashamed to say that. And I'm going to do what I can to, to make content, you know, and share it with the world however I can. And , uh , at the same time, that's when YouTube started, you know , blown up. So, yeah , a good timing. I suppose YouTube, YouTube is great because you don't have to be perfect. And like I'm used to being a little bit more polished with commercial work and that's one of the things I love about is like you get it out. Yeah. And there's definitely some mistakes in the videos , uh, because of the, just the speed of the editing that you sometimes have to do. And it's just like, it's out and it's done. And that's what I love about it is just, okay, let's move on to the next one. Learn from that, apply it to the next video. Yeah . And people can forgive it. Like people like seeing the jump coast , they like seeing all this stuff. It makes, it makes your content a little bit more authentic in a way. Uh, at the same time, you know, when they see something that's really polished, it's like, Whoa, I didn't know you can do that. And so, yeah, that's , that's why I , that's why I love YouTube in the community. It's like, it's like you're , it's almost like a little mini film school where you kind of get to show your stuff and you get to look at teaks here and there and , uh, and to, to, to surprise them every now and then with some pretty, you know, cool gems. It's a , it's pretty cool. Do you have any uh , fans that like are always there in the comments that like say the same thing over and over? Always the , uh , first, first like notification squad and like , gosh , you guys are awesome. So that , that, I mean that , that's always nice. You know what I mean? Like no matter how many subscribers I get, like I will always, you know, be grateful for that. And you know, I do my absolute hardest to comment every single comment. You know what I mean? You'll, you'll see in some my YouTube videos, you know, comments are like 300 and you know, whatever, like half those comments are mined . Well , but that's like replying to everybody because you know, their comments mattered to me and I want them to know that like, I want them to know like, Hey, thank you so much for watching my video even though I don't feel it was a good video or even you got like, you know, a few views. Thank you so much for watching it because I'm really, really, really grateful that you know, my content got to be seen by so many people.

I was so impressed with Sydney's overall gratitude towards just everything in his life. I want to encourage you to think about people in your life that matter, who made a difference, big or small, and show gratitude towards them. For this next segment, we pulled some images from Sydney's Instagram account and we wanted to hear a story behind that image. The first image is of a young child in Africa wearing sunglasses. So I've got this image here of this little boy. Can you tell me about this image?

Yeah. So that was at a little , um , orphan village in Eldoret. And , uh, I w I wanted to fly drone , um, and everyone just loved it. Like, Oh, what does that , is that airplane airplane? I'm like, Oh no, no, no, this is a drone. And so they're like, maybe 200 kids just kind of surrounding us. And they just thought we were the coolest people in the world. And he kept looking at my sunglasses, my cheap little sunglasses. And I'm like, here, you can have these. And so to me , you know, even though, you know this, this orphan kid in a, in a small town in Eldoret in Africa , um , even though he lives out there, when he put on those sunglasses, he was like any other ordinary kid, you know , in the States or in England or whatever, you know. And it's like, you know, there's no, just because you're from another country or in different situation, does it make you any less valuable than a person, you know, in a different place. And so like, he just felt so cool, you know, wearing those sunglasses, let him keep him. Oh yeah, of course. You know, this day he's still probably just like walking around rye . I hope so. Yeah. So cool. So yeah. And so that was, that was really cool. We got to fly the drone, I got to chase kids with the drone. So that was really fun to see like a hundred kids running away. And it was, it was cool. It's probably one of the best moments of my life to be honest. Oh wow. Yeah, it was really cool. We pulled a good image then. You did. Yeah. Tell me about this image here. It looks like England. That was my wedding. That's your one. That's my wedding. Yeah . Yeah, yeah. That's me. Can you tell me about your wedding? Totally. So I actually have two weddings. So I'm, I'm married an English girl. Oh, it was, I was nervous and I thought you have two wives. [inaudible] Oh , is this going live now? So we , uh, we got married , uh, twice one legally here in the States. We just got , we did a quick, a little ceremony at the beach in Dana point, California. Oh 10 miles from, or a 10 minutes from Dana point. Oh, very cool. Yeah. Yeah. So we , uh, we just got our friends like, Hey, we're getting married today. Can you hop in a car and go to the beach? And, you know, we didn't even get a license soon . Just like, you know, this is, if the cops come up, we'll just have a bonfire. Oh my God . It was, it was really fast . It was like, it wasn't really at all. There mean was there, you know , uh , and so , and our closest friends were there. And , uh, it was like the coolest, spontaneous thing we've ever done. And so that's when we officially got married. And then a few months later we went out to England to have that traditional English wedding with her family and friends and stuff like that. And so, so that was shot by my good friend Nick Radford . Uh, it's funny that wedding actually launched his career. Uh, so he's traveling all over the world shooting weddings and so he's doing really well. Does he live in the States? He does. He live out there for you then, huh? Yeah, we flew them out and uh , we've been good friends and , but that wedding just looked beautiful on the portfolio. Oh man. Yeah. I mean you can get, I mean, foggy London. That's, that's pretty amazing. It's so perfect. So, yeah, so that, so that was a picture from our second wedding. I love that you say that. This second one, the next image that we looked at is of a director's chair. Something that you would see Steven Spielberg sitting in take an inside of what looks like a movie set. And how about this image here? What's that from Dina ? Does everyone . Okay. So that is a , from a a time when me and my buddy got super amped because he knew we just bought our first camera. So we started a production company back in, Oh, I don't know, 2005, but we were so excited that, you know, we , we have money now, you know, not from our parents or whatever, but we , uh, hundreds of dollars, hundreds of dollars. So the first time you buy , of course our director chair , the most pretentious thing you can ever buy as a filmmaker. But it meant so much to us cause like, Oh , we got to have [inaudible] or a slate, but to sit on it and like this feels, this feels nice and it has your name on it. It did. We had it, we had it embroidered. That's amazing. So for somebody who's just now getting started, and this is a question you get all the time, I'm sure, but someone who's just getting started , uh, what would you tell them? I mean, every parent that I meet that finds out that I'm a YouTuber, usually the first thing they say is my son wants to be YouTube or my daughter wants to be YouTube or , um , in fact, I saw online, I think there was some sort of survey or something like, it's literally the number one profession that high schoolers really want . Wow. Like it's surpassed everything else. It's so trendy. Uh, you know, it's definitely, I feel like we're still in the wild West of it. The big corporations still haven't figured out yet. And so people like us who just have a camera and a computer like can make a living now. I hope that that continues in that last , uh , and the corporations don't ruin everything. Yeah . It's for somebody who's starting out, a high school kid who is just like, you wants to be a film maker, what would you tell them ? Like should they go to film school? Should they buy a camera and just start going and like, what's some advice that you would give somebody who's starting out? Well before they decide going to a film school, they should consider that YouTube is the best film school in the history of mankind. Amen . You can look up anything you want to learn and learn everything you know on YouTube for free. By the way, I mean you can pay for courses by all means, but you know, everything is on the internet. It's for free. So if you hadn't learned the after effects when I was a teenager, you go see if you will learn how to plump , you know, do some plumbing, then you go to YouTube, right? It's the best university in the world. And you know, the second thing is to just start filming in. Even though you may not afford a camera at the time, just use your phone. Like, you know, every high schooler has a phone these days. And so a lot, a lot of cameras now for K and if you don't have a phone, that one guy i s listening to this, it's okay. Find one, you'll find one. Yeah, you'll find one. I'm sure you'll find one somewhere on the ground, you know, pick it up a s yours. But you know, whatever you have in front of you, just start, start filming. You know, you may not create the best content a nd first, and that's okay. And you may, y ou may fail a lot of times maybe in that first year, but you're just finding yourself. And by the way, you're still in high school. And so, you know, you're not gonna probably figure yourself out until you're in your 20s and so just start, start with something because as a creator, you know, you have to trust in your own evolution as a creator and as a person that you'll get better one day. But you just got to start. And one of the things that you said earlier at the very beginning of our conversation that I want to reiterate is that don't copy other people just for the sake of copying them. You can steal ideas from them, but make it your own. And that's hard to say for somebody new who's brand brand new, because all they really have reference of is what somebody else has done. I know that. I mean, I'm sure you were just like me too. But like when I first first started, when I was like a kid or 14 years old, I would just literally copy Spielberg like with my low VHS camera and totally pull like little helicopters on strings and whatever. Right? Like , uh , not real helicopters of course, the little hot wheels, but , um, but yeah, like if you can just be yourself, it's so easy to say now as an adult and not in high school. All I ever wanted to do when I was in high school was not be myself and be the cool kid, which I never was. Yeah. That's what I needed. Um, so great advice. Um, well I do want to say to that because I think a lot of it has to do with two things. One , um, uh , perspective and the other probably the most important one is, is knowing your, your own identity. You know, a lot of people put their own identities on subscriber ships and all this stuff, whatever, when that's like far from it. Like your identity does not, you know, is not based on that at all. And I think I made a video this , uh, I kept getting comments about, you know, Hey, you're such a Peter McKinnon copycat, whatever. Oh, you know, so I made a video , you know, addressing that issue and you know, while Peter is amazing and I , and yes, his work has influenced me greatly. Um, you know, we're definitely not the same and I think it's important to respect creators like Peter and Casey and all that stuff, but also to acknowledge , uh , and respect yourself. And that even though that you may not be a Peter McKinnon on the flip, Peter McKinnon will never be you. Exactly. And I think that's the perspective that people should grap on as they're growing on YouTube or want to pursue, pursue YouTube. You want it, you want to be able to secure yourself in that identity. Be rooted in that foundation. And that way when you start growing, then you know, you're not going to waiver to left with the right. You're going to just, you know, keep booming straight, straight ahead, you know, being true to yourself. So, and it's a hard thing to do. It really is. You know, what else is hard is consistency. And that is kind of the secret sauce to success on YouTube. And you know this, and I know this and it's the one thing that a lot of educators who are teaching other YouTubers , uh , drill is consistency. Whether that's one week, two week, three week, one a month, whatever it is. How do you stay consistent and like have a life? I try to, so I mean , uh, I mean I have a family, I got kids. So life is very busy. Uh, and I've tried that. I have two kids. I try to organize myself. I use an app called Trello and I kinda have ideas. Oh, very cool. There you go. So I use Trello to help organize my ideas and to organize like, you know, different gear reviews or concepts, whatever on a, on a calendar. And I tried to stick to it as best I can and it never happens. But you know, I try to post, you know, one or two times a week, I should probably get better at it on the same day every week. I try to, I really don't know . You know, now that I'm doing live stream, you know that that's a very easy way to create content if I ever need to, but you know, yeah, consistency is very important and that's something that I need to get better at.

Oftentimes the only difference between a successful creator and a non-successful creator is the fact that one is doing consistent work and one isn't. You can sit and dream and create ideas all day long and they might be amazing concepts, but if you're not actually executing and creating a body of work, you're going to go nowhere. So if you're listening to this podcast right now and you can resonate with what I'm saying, you're not doing anything about the ideas you have in your mind the night urge you to go out and make it happen. In fact, this very podcast is me executing something that I've never done before. I've never hosted a podcast before. The set that we're using still isn't even completed yet and the format of the show is probably going to change over time. But we're doing it and we'll figure out the details as we move forward. My interview with Sydney was actually the very first episode that we've ever recorded internally. I was wondering if Sidney was enjoying our conversation and thankfully he told me how he was feeling while I was looking over my notes. I'm just looking through my notes. Just this fun by the way. Oh yeah, yeah. How is this going? Any notes? No, I think this is, this is

great . I mean, especially that, you know, you're gonna see , you guys gonna edit it. I mean, I think you're capturing the vibe of the fun conversation and that's what it's about. You wanna be able to capture a conversation. Yeah. And so I think you guys have been great. This is awesome. Yeah. Okay. So this question is, I love this question cause I came up with it and I'm just kidding. If you could have a collab or if you could hang out with any artists dead or alive, who would it be? Oh wow. That is such a good question. You can , uh , collaborate with them. You can work with them. Uh, somebody that inspires you, somebody that's alive today who have whatever you want. Oh wow. Um, you can give me a list if you will by it. Okay . Yeah, a bunch of people are coming to mind. I would absolutely love, love, love to have worked with Alfred Hitchcock. Oh my gosh. She like in film school, I was just blown away by the stuff that he did and even though I may not be on par to the stuff we see, you know, and movies today, just the techniques that he used at that time just amazed me. And , and, and I'm more interested in the reaction of people than the actual movie itself, but like just to , to read up on the history of how people reacted to his movies like vertigo and, and birds like to S it's just inspiring. And it just floored me like, wow, you , you created all this suspense, you know, with black and white camera or whatever. Um, and the still, you just captured people's hearts and attention . There's so much to learn from composition of older films. If you look at the twenties and thirties, fifties, all that because they didn't have jibs and steady cams back then. And so a lot of the, the composition that they were using was so creative and the, the movement of actors and going from point a to point B, if you have a , a slight pan to the left, that's perfectly cool , uh, choreographed with the actors and there's so much to learn there. Oh yeah. Like West Anderson does it like so well. Oh yeah. That's why his movies feel so nostalgic almost because nobody really, well , that's not true. There are other filmmakers that do it. Yeah . Yeah. But it just feels like an older film. Yeah. Because he's using those techniques. Yeah. Is there anybody else that comes to mow? Alfred Hitchcock? Um, uh, chase Jarvis, he , uh, is an amazing soul lager for, he's still alive. Yes. Chase. I love you. Uh, yeah, it's very much alive. Uh , he , um, he was probably the first YouTube utuber um, to, to make me want to do YouTube. He started making these little how to videos. Like, Hey, this is how he packed his , how I organize my stuff. I'm going to, I'm a Nike shoe. Here's how I'm it lighting it up. And I'm like, this is huge. Here's this, you know, huge photographer giving free advice on the internet. And like, I kinda want to do that too. And so , uh, to, to meet them one day and to work with one day would be an awesome, like full circle kind of thing for me. So I'd love to work with chase Jarvis and , um, and then I would, I w I would love to work with Peter McKinnon mainly because I have a bone to pick with that guy. What's your bone if you may? So, so send me that video, you know , I'm not Peter McKinnon. And so he, he commented back saying, Hey dude, this is hilarious. We should collab. I'm like, yeah dude, let's do it. I haven't heard back since. So , so if you're listening, let's call out and you will be listening. We're going to have him on. Oh, good, good. I hope he responds and I hope he doesn't beat my little up , you know, one word, a competition. Yeah . I have a little bone to pick to . Not a bone to pick, but a funny tidbit. I used to be a magician. I was a full time illusionist for about six years. I met him at a magic conference like literally eight years ago and we really hit it off. And we were buddies on Vimeo. Okay . Because he was working for illusionist and theory 11 which are these huge magic , uh, websites. And that's what he was doing before YouTube. By the way. He kind of mentions it every once in a while, but he knows a lot of people don't know what those websites are. But I'm like, we're both magicians. It's cool. So yeah, and we were friends for a while on Vimeo, just acquaintances and then like he started getting really big and I was like, Hey bro. And like great work, you know? Awesome. Like nothing, no response. But it's cause he gets probably a thousand probably comments and he doesn't remember me. I'm sure. So I'm sure he does. Oh well we'll hit it off. He's awesome. I love the guy. Yeah, he's great. And he's done. I think he's a great case study for us as YouTube is too, because like he proved that in 2018 in his case, 2017 you could still go from zero to a million. Yeah . It's still possible. Yeah . And not only that, but like he is a niche. Like it's our niche. Yeah . It's not just like Logan and Jake Paul and Eliza Koshi who are just flat out entertaining and like for a younger demographic, he is literally the demographic that we all have. So it is possible. I don't know exactly how he pulled it off either because his , I guess there actually are like millions of filmmakers and photographers out there, which is awesome because now that, that YouTube has become a platform for everyone of those people to share their work. And so , uh , Peter and Mattie and all them , like they, they kinda just leveled out the playing field for the rest of us. They make it possible. And that's something that I think we should all be grateful for. And I , it's just amazing that to see her , you know, in, you know, my generation, my time, like wow, like this is the golden age of YouTube. Like anybody can be anybody and do anything on this platform. And so it's a , it's people like them Casey of course, to Gary V and you know, it's even Levi or friend, Levi, friend Levi at crushing me . I'm making like really great friends on YouTube. Like, you know, some of my closest friends are from [inaudible] , from YouTube, you know, and so like Jason Vong , like he, he's one of my good buddies and you know, I , I , I have this game to get to hang out with them while you're here. Yeah. Yeah. We'll hang out later today . This weekend I had this game and he doesn't know it yet, but the first time we met , um, I wanted to do a YouTube collab with him. And I'm like, Hey dude, you want to go on a helicopter with me first time you've ever met me? And you know, he , he said yes. He said yes. He goes , uh , okay. I'm afraid . He told me on the day, I , I'm , I'm a , I'm afraid of Heights. I'm like, Oh dude, I am so sorry. You come back at any time . It's like, Oh no, no, no, no. That's okay . So now I had this little game to take him to all these little places and we'll a bungee jumping and skydiving one day. He has no idea unless he's listening to this. Any last words , uh, to the audience? I mean, we've kind of gone over a lot of things, talking about storytelling, talking about starting from scratch , um, giving back, serving in different fields. Anything that you'd like to say to, to anybody listening to this that, ah , yeah. Um, that's , that's a good question. Uh , in fact, it reminds me of a little story , uh , of , of when we moved to Texas. We were, you know , kinda shopping for decor and stuff like that. And so we go to the shop , um, and you know, my wife's buying all these things. I'm just kind of walking around like, okay, whatever. But then there's like this pillow hidden in the corner. I was like this dirty little pillow and it said live a good story. And I'm like, Oh, that's kind of cool. Then I started walking around the store, but every now and then I'd kept going back to this pillow hidden in the corner and I just kept looking at the words, live a good story. And it kinda impacted me so much that I had to buy it. It was only for display, wasn't for sale. I'm like, I just need, I need to have it from my office. And so I took it home, I put it in my, in my little YouTube home studio and I just looked at it, you know, for like five minutes. And I'm like, man, that is like my life motto from this point on to live a good story. And so whether that means something for, you know, a person to do a lot of nonprofit work or whatever, or to start a business or to go to medical medical school or whatever it is, whatever you decide to do, do your best to live a good story, you know, and to pass that story on to your kids. So that they can pass that on and ah man, like right now I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it, but yeah, that's the last thing. I can leave live a good story. Wow. I think we have a show title right there. Hey, there you go. Hey , welcome. Thank you so much Sydney . It was a pleasure meeting you. Likewise be friends for a while . We will be forever, forever and ever. All right, thank you.

Live a good story. What a great message for every single one of us to take away from with our interview is Sydney . We want to think Sydney , do Youngs and again for being on this show. If you want to follow his work then I encourage you to go check out his YouTube channel. If you haven't already, it's just Sydney dog's in on YouTube and we'll link it in the show notes of this podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, then make sure to subscribe to it in your iTunes or podcast player. Also, it really helps us out if you rate this podcast and leave a little comment about one of your favorite things about the show. And lastly, if you have a friend who would be interested in this show, then please share this podcast with them. This is really just the beginning of the golden hour podcast and we're really excited about what this show is going to become. Once again, I'm Dave Mays . This is the polar pro golden hour podcast. See you next time.