How AI Changed Advertising Forever | A Chat with Dave Clark

A Conversation with Dave Clark| Episode 05

How AI is Changing Advertising Forever | The Curious Refuge Podcast 05

Welcome to Episode 5 of The Curious Refuge Podcast. In this episode, we chat with the extremely talented film director and writer, Dave Clark. Dave Clark is a UTA-repped writer and director in the feature filmmaking space and is commercially repped at Secret Level for advertising work. He has recently amassed millions of views for his AI directing work, featured several times in Forbes, NBC, and No Film School. Over his career,

Dave has created commercials, immersive engagements, and brand spots for several companies, including Snapchat, Ciroc, Hewlett Packard, Pepsi, Lobos Tequila, Intel, and more. Outside of filmmaking, Dave is a successful creative director, working alongside Diddy and other notable figures in the entertainment industry.

He also has creatively partnered with actors/activists like Michael Ealy, George Clooney, the late Michael K. Williams, and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to help fight for justice and inclusion through narrative storytelling. Check out the episode to get

Dave's insight into the future of advertising and commercial production.

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How AI is Changing Advertising Forever | A Conversation with Dave Clark

Below is a transcript of episode 05 of The Curious Refuge Podcast.

The Curious Refuge Podcast 05 | How AI is Changing Advertising Forever

Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Curious Refuge podcast. I'm Caleb and I am super excited about this week's episode. This week we have Dave Clark on the podcast. Now, you may be familiar with Dave's work online.

Dave is a UTA rep's writer and director in the feature filmmaking space and is commercially repped at secret level for his advertising work. We've actually chatted with Secret Level a few times. They're awesome people. He has recently amassed millions of viewers for his A.I. directing work, and he was featured several times in Forbes, NBC and no film school.

Congrats. Over his career, Dave has created commercials, immersive engagements and brand spots for several companies, including Snapchat, Hewlett-Packard, Pepsi, Lobos, Tequila, Intel and more. No big deal outside of filmmaking. Dave is a successful creative director working alongside Diddy and other notable figures in the entertainment industry. He is also creatively partnered with actors and activists like Michael Ealy, George Clooney and the late Michael K Williams and the leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to help fight for justice and inclusion through narrative storytelling.

Dave, thank you so much for hopping on the podcast. Thank you for having me. You already know I'm a huge fan of everything you guys do, and every time we talk, it's always a fun time. So thank you. Well, it's funny because we met Dave for the first time at the Sony lot and we hit it off, but there was a lot of people there weren't able to have like a very long conversation.

But it's funny because you may actually know Dave, because I knew him as afraid to sleep online. And so, you know, he's like, My name's Dave. I was like, he's like, afraid to sleep. I'm like, my gosh. And I feel like the A.I. world is like that. It's like, you know, you meet somebody and they're like, Yeah, I'm Tony.

And then like, they share their, like, discord profile handle, you know, that's just something weird. And you're like, my God, it's so great to meet you. So, yeah, let's go meet. You know, it's funny, totally true, because, you know, like, I'll tell some of my my buddies and colleagues and like, yeah, you know, I met Kayla and she'll be over here as refugee.

Like, why you met them? Like. Like, you know, because, like, today. well, they're like, No, these guys are the rock stars of the face of A.I. right now when it comes to just like you know, because everyone, like, I think there's another podcast that you did. I think Shelby said something about, you know, we're always watching Tim at theoretically during our lunch breaks and there's like, you could say the same thing for watching Korea's refugee videos.

When that video drops, it's like you drop what you're doing, pull out your iPhone or on your laptop or your iPad, and you just you watch it, you know, you kind of veg out, but same thing. So a lot of buddies of mine who are, again, big filmmakers, directors and, you know, advertising industry, they all love as refugees gone.

So there you go. So. Well, the same is true about your content. Every time I see it, I'm like, all right, like, let me go. I want to be the first to watch this viral thing before it gets picked up in The New York Times or whatever other. Sozzani I would be curious too. You've had such an amazing career so far, and it's only just going I feel like you're just we're looking at a graph of your success and where you're headed.

It's like you are just this right now and I'm what What got you started in filmmaking and yeah, can you tell us a little bit of the story that brought you to this point right now? Absolutely. It's and I love telling the story because it's it's kind of messed up, but it's kind of it kind of like shows how I am as a father today.

But my dad was like, he would collect every VHS you could ever imagine. So and I grew up, so my dad was in the Air Force. I grew up kind of in a military kid all over the place. So at the time we were living in Frankfurt, Germany. And so he would you know, he would obviously get stationed or travel to like Korea or when my mother is from more like Japan and all the other places.

So he'd always bring back these like really messed up, like Japanese or Korean films, some of them or some of them just like fantasy, some of them animation, like, you know, manga style stuff and, you know, I was like five years old and I was like, watching this stuff. And he would like say, Hey, you check out this cartoon I just got, You might dig it.

And it was like Ghost in the Shell or Akira. And I was like, if I should have been watching this at five. But, but I think I'm for it because it, like, opened me up to, like, this idea of, like international creation and film. And it's not just like, you know, because I also grew up in the States also.

And, you know, I have a lot of friends that, you know, watch some of the same movies that I watch growing up, but they didn't watch a lot of the international stuff like that and get introduced to manga and to my college or like high school and like I was already introduced to some of the most, like groundbreaking films, you know, in the eighties, you know, age five, eight, six.

So I always think time and they also introduced me to Wes Craven, which is one of my favorite filmmakers in the OR space, obviously Nightmare on Elm Street. John Carpenter And then and then and then James Cameron, when it comes to the Terminator films, was probably my biggest like leap into because I saw that movie when I was like five or six.

I don't even know how young I was, but when I saw that, I was like, Holy hell, like, that's what I want to do. I don't know what it is I want to do, but something like and I want to either be like the robot or I want to be the guy I like talking to the robot. I didn't know about filmmaking at the time, but when I was little, that's how I looked at it.

I was like, I want to be like making that robot do cool things. And that's kind of how I like. From there, it just like went on and I went into like an art high school and like started painting and getting into fine arts. And then from there I got into a Pratt Institute out in Brooklyn, which is one of the was one of the top art schools When I went there and I studied fine arts, I studied filmmaking and and then that kind of got me into the advertising world.

I think like at that time when I graduated, like Facebook just came out, which is funny because my sister actually went to Harvard Law. So I went, I was actually on the kind of his when when Mark Zuckerberg was like there during that whole like social network thing, if you watched the movie. So that was was very interesting to be in Cambridge and be on the Harvard campus during that time because it reminds me of a lot of what we're seeing right now with A.I..

It's like it was very small niche tech community. You had people from MIT, you had people from Harvard, and they were just kind of like talking on their own little versions of Discord and chat back then and about this new tech about like, you know, creating something where we can get like people together and and talk online. And and it really does remind me a lot of how I is working just with like it started very small knit and even though yes it's millions of people probably using media now, it still feels very small Like like you say, you can see some of the some of the top notch most groundbreaking work.

And then you said, I know that guy. So it's kind of it's kind of cool, right? So, yeah, So fast forward, did my advertising career in New York then got heavily into screenwriting, start optioning scripts across to L.A. and meeting producers and stuff, and then met my wife, who is from San Diego, and it was like, she's not moving to New York.

She's like, I'm like, really not leaving the 72. And Sunny is I was like, I should make my way over there. I'm a filmmaker. I should be on the on the West Coast. So that's how I ended up here. And yeah, since then I've been writing films. I shot an indie feature, I shot a bunch of shorts, director, a lot of commercials.

Like I said, I just got into DGA as a commercial director, a film director, and and then yes, and then on top of all this, yes, I love being part of what people are calling me, though, the pioneering group of of filmmakers and creators. That's cool off. I'll take that. People want to say that because I just think it's just a great tech that a lot of artists and a lot of not even just artisan people in general are going to be able to use and tell their stories in ways they never imagined before.

That's awesome, man. And I would go one step further. I would say like at this point, you are probably one of the most, if not the biggest, a pioneer when it comes to creating concepts and showing people what it's possible with the tools. And so I do. Thank you, man. It's really cool to see your work. It's so interesting that you have that foundation of like art, like you you started I don't know, It's just it's very obvious in your work that there's more going on here.

Like then you just like showing up and using the tools. Like there is a deeper understanding of how to, I don't know, put a project together in a very artistic way. And so that's very interesting and it's good to hear. And I just I, I love your projects and they're all very beautiful and inspiring and you're doing the best work right now.

So. So I would love to backtrack then, because you were successful before messing with artificial intelligence. You know, I think for most artists to have scripts options, to be wrapped, to direct an indie feature like these are like Bucket List, like would love this to happen in my career, and yet this was already your reality. And so I would love to hear more from you about why do you think you were so successful before all of this stuff started happening?

And how did those lessons you learned or the things that you overcame to become successful in that part of your career? How did that help you with this transition to? A I think it comes down to just like technique and tactic and storytelling. I think because I came from because I, you know, my sister, a writer, she majored in literature at Duke.

You know, she's obviously, you know, lawyer, graduated from Harvard. I think it was around a lot of people who were writers. My father was a writer. I was a great storyteller. So I think I try to marry that with my love of visual mediums, art, painting, graphic design, and then something like filmmaking. And I think that's what I brought into or what what brought me into A.I. because I'm just anything I can get my hands on that can help me tell whatever story I want to tell.

That's something I'm going to gravitate towards. And I think something like A.I. is is just so revolutionary and the stories we can tell them that visually we create. You guys craft some of the most hilarious things I think I've ever seen on Internet. And, you know, you know, you didn't do it in like, months. You know, you did it in a certain amount of time, and it still got just as much buzz and comments and likes and shares and anything.

So I think it's a great point to prove that if you have something to share, have something to say, you can get it out there with the right tools. And I think I kind of ramble a little bit. I don't know if I answered your question. Well, that's that's hopeful. And and I'm so curious, too, because you saying that, you know, your dad was a writer sister, you know, is involved in writing as well.

Was creativity something that was encouraged in your household growing up? Because, you know, when I think of a military family, it's not I'm not exactly typically thinking of you know, that military dad being a writer at the same time, for sure. So I'm curious about that dynamic and what that was like for you. So and so interesting. So so this actual the son enjoying right here is actually done by my grandfather, whose name was whose name was Dave Clark, and my dad's name is Dave Clark also, which is is crazy crazy when it comes to when you're getting mail.

If you're still living at home at the time. But so my my grandfather was a great artist. And that's kind of where I think where I got a lot of my my DNA is from him. And then he was also a schoolteacher, which is interesting. And so was my my grandmother, also a schoolteacher, both taught history and art.

And then he was like, you know, probably one of the best, I think, painters I've ever seen. I have a lot of his work. My dad has a lot of his work. It was shown in the museums and like the south and stuff back in the day. Some of it still might be in museums, but I think seeing him create really compelling stories and I think I put something on Twitter the other day that was like, you know, a story my father told me about, you know, his time in the sixties during segregation, like taking a chance and trying to date someone who was in the same racism.

It was a big gamble. And, you know, today you can kind of marry anyone you want. But I was like, that kind of story. Like, that's that's something you could you could visually tell and I really compelling way. And I just think about all these people who have these amazing stories that can now tell them. I think people get lost in this idea of like and I don't want to get too deep into politics because I'm currently in the middle of some threads or on threads not arguing, but having debates about A.I. and art.

But I don't want to go there on this. I just want to say that I think everyone should be happy and excited about the capabilities of storytelling and creating whatever you want to call it. You want to call it art, you can call it content creation, whatever. It's giving everyone a chance to tell these amazing stories that otherwise they once, once couldn't, which I think is amazing.

Yeah, I, I totally agree. Like we talk a lot about the démocratie rising power of A.I.. And it's really interesting because I think up until the A.I. revolution, the word democratizing, most people would really have a very positive outlook, like democracy. Yes, like, let's make things available to all people. This is the first time that I've seen making things available to all people.

I push back so hard by a creative industry. It's it's very interesting. But I think it's also cool to see, you know, like you talking about your dad and the experiences that he had and, you know, he use writing to tell those experiences and to to share that with others. It seems like, you know, for him to tell that experience through film at that time would have been really challenging because of obviously lot the logistics and politics that go into bombmaking.

But now with A.I., he could tell a story hypothetically about his experience using filmmaking and narrative storytelling, which is really interesting. So it feels like it's it's unlocking a larger storytelling medium for people who normally would have maybe only been able to, let's say, write a book or, you know, a more kind of individualized expression experience before. It sounds like you have been pretty optimistic towards A.I. in these tools, which is amazing.

And I think that is also you being a pioneer. You have to be right. Was there a point that you were nervous towards these tools? Maybe in the beginning, As someone who has experience as a filmmaker and has trained, you know, professionally, like how it might impact you? I would love to hear your experience there. Yeah. No, that that's a that's a great that's a great question.

And I'd be lying to say if I wasn't terrified in the very beginning, you know, I think anything new and something that feels like it could threaten what you do is terrifying. And that's why I sympathize with a lot of these artists, because I try to tell them like, look, I'm an artist, You know, I went to art, I went to the one of the best art schools in the world.

Like, I get it. You know, I was starving. I was living on couches when I first graduated. Like, I get the struggle and I get the fear and I get the pushback. Like, no one is no. I think no one who uses A.I. to create anything is like against artists or like saying, you know, we're better than you, or we're trying to take something away from you.

If anything, I'm trying to say, let it help you. Let let me try to show you how it can actually help your career and help you stay ahead of everyone else. I think that's one of my biggest arguments is like, no one's trying to take anything away from you. I'm trying to show you things are going to change and you have to change also.

You have to go with the change. You can't stop process. None of us created A.I., none of us are machines. We're not robots, you know, but we are going with the change because that is our career. We're innovators, we're storytellers. We want to tell the best stories in a way that reaches everybody. In any way. I say tell your stories by any means necessary.

That's a tweet I put out because I believe it. I don't care how you tell your story. If you want to use charcoal, if you want to use pencils, if you want to use AI, then you do it right. You don't let anyone tell you how to get out your story. I think that's the most important thing. And every artist should know that.

That's what we're taught in art school by any means necessary. Get your art out there. Right. That's number one. Number one principle. You know, I remember drawing people for four, 8 hours a day, nude people. Like that's what you did, right? For like, years. You just straight up drew naked people for 8 hours every single day. It was I remember the first day I sat down and, you know, someone got a man got undressed in front of me and it was awkward.

Right. And I attribute that to how I felt. I it was awkward. I didn't understand it. But then as you sat there and you drew for hours and hours of the day, you start appreciating the beauty of the human form, whether it's male or female, you start appreciating it as art, right? You start learning the intricate lines and the curves and you start getting better with it.

I think that air to me is in the same vein, like when I first saw it. I and I attribute a lot to my buddy Chris White. He's, you know, he's a producer. He did a lot of like horror films. And I did he did like VHS Part two, like if you remember, those are the anthology series with the handheld stuff that was pretty innovative when it came out.

And he's doing a new film with James Wan and A24 based off the back rooms stuff that went viral on YouTube. So he's doing some great things, but I attribute, yeah, achieving a lot of my success to him because he was one of the first and this might have been, you know, over a year and a half ago him on like the mid journeys and doing doing the B ones and you know and when I first saw it of course I was like no, don't look very good.

And then he was like, he's like, he's like de wait to the video stuff comes out. Just wait. And then the video stuff came out and I was like, It's, it's cool, okay. It's all right, you know? And then I think when it was like the next iteration of, like Pika, like the next one you like did some kind of update.

I was okay. Holy hell. Like, I really can put in anything I want into Mid Journey or Dalet and bring it into this thing and I can animated. I can make those guys hair move. I can make the water ripple you know like that was you know, and it's so funny because it's like this is coming from somebody who's shot on 35, shot on 16 millimeter film and captured beautiful imagery, like amazing imagery.

And I'm not here to say that the air stuff is going to look better than what you can capture on a 35 millimeter camera. I think anyone trying to prove that as a point, what I'm saying is you look at something like the Dismal Swamp, and that is a script that I wrote and or painfully for years, one of my best screenplays I've ever written.

I can never visualize it. Like I tried to rip imagery from, you know, movies like everyone does every every film director. If they want admitted or not, they do a what they call a sizzle reel. They do you know, they do kind of like a rough cut of what the film or a teaser, what the film can feel like.

And they're using other artists work, right? They're using other people's clips. They're using images. When you when you're in advertising and you're trying to pitch an idea to a client, what are you using? You're ripping off other people's commercials, ripping off images that you found on magazines. And, you know, so it's always an interesting thing to me when you think about what I just rips off people's works.

And none of no one knows how it really works, right? You can talk about diffusion and kind of get down to the technical semantics of it all, but at the end of the day, I look at it no differently than someone trying to sell an idea with another way of taking work or stock imagery or images from magazines to sell an idea and like I say, by any means necessary to get your story told.

So I take something like The Dismal Swamp, something I've written Rodan years ago on that I could not visualize, no matter how hard I tried. And then Eureka, with the power of mid journey and runway, it took me all that of two or 3 hours, something that pained over four years to visualize, and that went viral like that.

Got onto Forbes. Like that just goes to show you. It's like it's not the people. It's like it's the stories that are being held back and aren't able to be told. So there's there's Christopher Nolan's out there. There's amazing writers out there that have these brilliant ideas. No ones that now people can see, but before people couldn't see.

So that that to me is amazing. That's the most amazing thing about A.I. is opportunity. There are so many rabbit holes I want to go down from stuff that you just said. We'll try to pick this apart one one thing at a time. So let's circle back to what you talked about related to artists having the ability to to visualize their films for the first time.

And really, like you said, you had a feature length script that was written. You didn't know how to put visuals to it. It in. And I would love to think about that in the context of SAG. And the reason why I bring that up is because I know that you have kind of some personal experience with chatting to SAG about using AI in storytelling.

And so I'm really curious kind of if we kind of shrink down to the micro level to like one on one individual people. What does a I mean, for the average writer? And then what was your experience like chatting with that organization? If you want to share a little context, I would love to hear more about that story and and what that was like for you.

Yeah, I think for like the the the actor or you know, some writers are also WGA and SAG. I think for them it's it's you know you have opportunity to pitch your ideas right because everyone has ideas, everyone has stories. They want it to a lot of actors or writers, but a lot of writers are directors. Obviously, I'm a writer director.

Not all of them have access to an Ari Alexa. Not all of them are the greatest technicians and becomes a camera. And while yes, I always support live crew, go film something, pick up a camera whenever you can, when you can't dream it up a different way. Right. And that's kind of like my my advice to them. Or else what?

Nothing. I or do nothing. I don't want to do nothing. I want to do something at the end of the day. So I think you've got to look at it that way. You could you could just sit back and say, no, I just do nothing about this brilliant idea that I think I have, or you do something about it and you try to craft a narrative using AI because you never could before.

Now you can't. So why wouldn't you? Right. And for even for, you know, my buddies who are big time directors in Hollywood, you know, they they now and I know they use these tools like you admit it or not, they love it and they're you're using it to pitch their amazing ideas that they have and scripts that they wrote.

Everyone's using that journey for that. When it comes to debt creation, demonstration and alcohol is cool when it's just that, right? But it's like when it's no different using that versus motion AI and animating A.I.. So I look at it kind of like in a holistic view, like you use it, you can use that. That's the greatest thing.

You can use A.I. to tell you your story at different levels of the game. You can use it for the pitch process When you're storyboarding or putting a mood board together. Then you can also use it from a visual motion standpoint. I can actually put together a trailer that can sell you to film. It's got to, I think within a year it's going to be mandated by studios.

And this is from conversations I've already had that you're going to have to show them a visual trailer of your film using A.I.. That's some guts. Give me a mandate. No one's going to write you a $5 million check anymore for just your little PowerPoint with a couple of images on it. That's done. So you have to use it.

You're going to have to use it because everyone else who does use it is going to be using it in the same way. And you're going to want to keep this. As far as SAG. I think that was a very positive conversation. I mean, a lot of great friends on the board of directors for for sure. Francis Fisher, who is who's on the board, amazing actress.

If you remember, she played Kate Winslet's Winslet's mom in Titanic. So she's amazing actress, an amazing woman, and she is all about sag and protecting actors likeness. And she you know, probably one point is and maybe even still a little today, still a little A.I. when it comes to, you know, digital replications or digital doubles. And and again, I understand it.

And what I told SAG when I spoke to you, I spoke to like I think on the day it was 800 and then, you know, like 10,000 people ended up watching a webinar. And I knew I knew we did something good. When Fran Drescher, who's the president of SAG-AFTRA, she shared it and she was like, watch this. If you want to know what's really going on with AI in film.

And that's how I knew we did something good, because I did it with my buddy Rodney Hirsch, who's a VFX supervisor. We collaborated on a lot of stuff. He also was an A.I. enthusiast. He loves using A.I.. He's trying to find innovative ways to use A.I. And in the VFX pipeline, he did movies like John Wick three, Conjuring the Devil made Me Do it.

And like he just had Spy Kids with Robert Rodriguez. Like he was the guy who worked. He was Robert Rees's right hand man because that's a lot of visual effects. So he knows what he's talking about. So he invited me to talk to SAG, and my basic message to them is, at the end of the day, I'm still a filmmaker first.

Yes, I still love live actors who wouldn't want to work with Leonardo DiCaprio. My dream would be to work with Denzel Washington. I think any people, any filmmaker would still love to work with real actors when it comes to how we're using it now. A lot of the times are just using it to to get ideas out there.

We're not saying, Hey, this is going to replace an actor. I'm sure it's not using it that way. I'm using it as, Hey, Denzel, check out this trailer for Dismal Swamp. Let's make this movie like, you know. So I think there's a there's a difference in approach and how we're using it. And sure, there are artists out there who want to just use general AI and again, all power to them.

And I think that's also so a great way to create content. And if you want to make a movie with it, I'm ready to see that movie. Let's see what it looks like. But yeah, I think, but yeah, to me, I still want to work with actors and I think my, my conversation to them was the way I use A.I., especially in the earlier like the now is going to be a lot more the visual effects kind of world of how to use really cool, like groundbreaking AI tools to like stable diffusion or diffusion models to create groundbreaking worlds and things you never seen before.

Or like, do you know what would be like a 60 to $80 Million movie for like 5 to $10 million like that? To me is what every filmmaker should be hoping we can figure out, because there is going to be no more gatekeepers. I'll tell you, you can't make a certain movie at a budget level anymore because you're going to be able to do that at a lower price point, which I think is exciting.

Yeah, I think it's really exciting. And I read a report that said in 2024, they're already projecting for the film industry to make $1,000,000,000 less than they made in 23, which was already a pretty challenging year. And so I think a lot of these budgetary problems have to be figured out in order for the art form to continue in a healthy and sustainable way.

And it feels like in many ways I might be hopeful in that process, which I think is really cool. That's a great that's a great point. And also you reminded me of one of the things I also said was because I think somebody asked me was like, you know, what would it have taken if you had a did a dismal swamp with like a real crew and like, paid people this and hired real actors.

And I was like, first of all, I would have never done that for something like Dismal Swamp Trailer because it would have just been another sizzle reel that I would have cut together and use. Again, other clips from other movies. I rather have, you know, generated my own imagery based on my script. I actually fed a lot of my script in to the props when I did a lot of those images, which I thought was really cool and then cut that together and then use that to sell my story because I thought that's that to me feels more authentic.

Like, if you asked me if I wanted to pitch my idea, I'd rather pitch it that way using A.I. than using other artists movie clips. Are you telling me what feels more authentic when you're selling your vision? That to me, I think those was great. And then the way we went around that was I said, So think about something like a dismal swamp.

Like, what if this turns into a real movie and all of a sudden that's a 100 person crew? Potentially that's, you know, 100 actors with work, crew members with work that came off of an idea that I was able to sell because of the power of a I otherwise on a never be able to sell that movie. And I think there's going to be hundreds of movies like that that are now going to be able to be sold because they were able to visualize it to the degree that they needed to.

And then that's going to become a real job for for a union crew, for a union actor, and that's the benefit of it. Have you seen any interest in the films you've released, like anyone wanting to turn those into feature films? yes, for sure. I think another one that went viral on Christmas Day out of all days, I still find that so funny that something like a horror Short could go viral on Christmas.

Like what were people doing watching like Friday the 13th? Why they're over in their presence now. So another was was was a great proof of concept because it showed I think for the first time. I think what people are saying is like the first time I ever seen live action, Mitch, with like an A.I. generated like runway or any kind of fusion visual, like kind of, like seamlessly edited together.

I think that was like a, you know, that got shared everywhere that was on every front page on Christmas. I think it was so funny because it's the best gift ever. Yeah, on Christmas, a lot of people, a lot of the blogs resharing it like this is 100% I, I was like, no, I, I had to put on notice.

David No, it's live action with they, I tried to clarify, but, you know, once it gets out there, there's nothing you can do. So all I can do is tell the truth on my own page. But, but that got a lot of excitement from some studios and producers and and my new manager that I know have, which is pretty cool.

My new manager. Yeah, that's a guy who was doing a movie with Denzel Washington. So that's pretty cool stuff. You go, there you go. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon, right? Yeah, I guess it's six degrees of Denzel. Get out there. I'm so curious. With you having projects go viral, is that a new experience for you or have you experienced reality previously?

You know, I have, but it was was like, you know, advertising work. It wasn't it was like a personal thing that I did by myself in my bedroom on my MacBook Pro, which that's another funny story until recently, because I just, you know, I go and I just did my first DGA commercial, so I bought a new got that M2.

Okay. But before that I was on a busted up MacBook Pro and creating all that stuff and he was like, You made all that on your MacBook Pro. Another benefit of A.I.. We're using GPUs. They're in iCloud. We're not using our own GPUs. You know, we're using I mean, now that I have this, obviously I'm going crazy with Topaz and stabilizing it and stuff we'll talk about later on.

But but yeah, it's interesting that from a MacBook Pro and not even a decked out one, you can you can really just go nuts and create stuff that looks like it took so much horsepower to to create really took nothing but just a web browser which I still think is is phenomenal. That was keyboards with the Star Wars, the first Wes Anderson Star Wars project.

Yeah, the whole objective, which I love. I'm going to be on the patio creating this on my laptop just to test the look at the tools. You know that that's going to go that's going to be in the air coffee book that's going to come out next year, that this is Star Wars. Wes Anderson like that. I feel like that's to me and again, like I look at everything and I'm sure you guys are too like that to me was a pivotal moment, I think when I, I honestly think when I because that came out well, like April or May.

When did I come? The late April. Early May. Yeah. I think that was honestly the thing I saw that said, holy shit. Okay, cheers. Let me just let me jump in on this thing. I honestly think that was a moment because I think my first like video that I generated was probably around June, like my first kind of test.

So it had to been because I was using mid-year and obviously for like a year or so, but never like the video stuff was so new. What did you guys do? Did you guys do that on because you just used what the did or like what did you use for that? I was actually curious. Yeah, that one we use mid journey obviously for the images and then did you for the face animations and things like that which we use every now and then.

But it's not our go to now that we have image to video. That was it. You just used the idea imagery, some aftereffect. There were some hand animation too but it's from a Yeah. Standpoint that's Yeah, it's mind blowing because that's that to me is one of the most that's going to be one of the historical pieces. I think, like I say, an AI filmmaking coffee book that's going to be on all of the pages.

We should make that. Let's make that. Shelby We should. I should. That's actually really cool copy. But there you go. It's going to put out pages that so curious refuge you just like, how about book? I love that. Yes. Let's do this because because you know, runway, they have their AI magazine and it looks beautiful. It's like highly curated but like a curious refuge pop up irony that Pillsbury us I love.

Yeah it's interesting because we were kind of like playing with these tools. I mean, a year like a year and a half ago maybe. And I remember we were on vacation with some friends and we were turning our Chihuahua into like a Renaissance painting, and we were like, look what you can do. But it was like, you know, that's the extent of really what we were using the tools for and that it was Harry Potter, the Harry Potter Balenciaga video.

Yeah, You see this one? yeah. resistance. wait. Like this was made in A.I. and it's a video and it's capturing our attention. Like, there's a lot of potential here. Yeah, Yeah, that was. That was pretty insane. Yeah, it was like. It was like a little stretch that happened, but I think that was like the stretch that I was, like, following along and I was like, Wait a minute, wait a minute.

This stuff is blowing up. Like people are loving this stuff. And go back to your question about viral. Yeah. So this is like, you know, the last three or four months, it really and it really started on Reddit, I think, because I actually, you know, I was also doing like I did the I think the one that blew up on Reddit was my friend's other friends, according to I.

And that like when that got like a couple of million views on Reddit and then that started becoming a thing. And I was like, so I'll just do this according to a I think that at the office they had it saved by the bell. I kind of went down that rabbit hole. I think just, just having fun.

And then when I started, like looking at like all the stuff I was generating in mid Journey, when it came to like my personal project, I was like, Why don't I just animate some of these things? I was like, Why not? And then that's I like, I was like, I want something that I like from my own IP to like, go viral.

And I was like, my goal, like, I want to get people to see this and see if that can work and using A.I. tools. And, and it did. Adding from there I was, okay, cool. Now I see like, the good stuff can work. It's not a waste of time. Let me really start paying attention and getting up to stuff with the tools and and really, really diving in.

I think to to I try to fit in and I'm really curious because I think for so many people listening to this podcast right now, having that success because we were me and you were chatting personally the other day and you're like, My inbox is super full. So many people want to hire me. Like there's it would be impossible, right, for you to be able to do all the work that's now coming your way.

Same thing with us. And, and so I think a lot of people are like, okay, they see the success that you've had with sharing your your work online and getting it picked up. And, you know, what can other people do to see that level of success? Because I think people want to go viral on Reddit or YouTube. They want to be written about in news publications like how much strategy was there versus just creating something really good and just sharing it.

I'm really you know, it's it's interesting because when I look at like, let's take the Adidas spot, for example, like when I look at something like that and I wrote like my headline was, you know, created Adidas, created Adidas spec commercial, my coffee break, I wasn't thinking like, that's what's going to make it go viral. You're like, How the hell did you make this in a coffee break?

You know, my coffee break was like an hour and a half. It wasn't like 15 minutes, but people were like, coffee break. You did this, and 10 minutes was like, that is like, I would say, it's almost like you got to be a marketer, right? You got to think about how to catch someone's attention in the right space.

And I'm not going to lie and say I did that on purpose because I didn't. I was like, I was like, that works. Wow. Okay, cool. Let me see if I can. And then I ended up making fun of myself. The next one was like, maybe there's over several coffee breaks that you can kind of, but not poke fun at it because people were like, You didn't do this on your coffee break.

I'm like, Well, you know, coffee break was a little longer than normal probably to you. It actually did end up within a couple of hours. But that was it was interesting how like just the way you, like, set up something was even the work itself. But how do you obviously have to have a powerful visual to catch your eye?

But what's going to cause someone to want to click and to go further on this one piece? So I think you got to get clever with your wordplay because right now, I mean, this is months ago. It's even more crowded now. You really got to try to figure out how to stand out. Made this while watering my plants.

You just like. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dog walked across my keyboard and now I have the short film. I hope you like it. Yeah. You know, you go the troll, The trolls will love that one. Well, I love that you're talking about that Adidas spot. And if you haven't seen the Adidas spot, you're listening to this podcast.

Pause the podcast, go watch it. It really is incredible. I think that's the perfect transition to talking about A.I. for commercial production, because I think that as we think about 2024 and then how, you know, things are going to progress, I really feel like there's kind of different thresholds that we're going to reach, right? There's the online content threshold in terms of quality, which I think we're past, and I think like A.I. is totally capable of creating online, shareable social media and YouTube content that's really interesting.

And then there's commercial production and then there's silver screen. And I think that these are like different bars and barriers that we're trying to get to. So for A.I. advertising, it feels like 2024 is going to be a huge breakout year for that space. And I know that there are already has been a lot of I work in the advertising space even last year.

Can you talk a little bit about just kind of how you see advertising progressing and kind of what we can expect in the coming months and next couple of years now? Yeah, for sure. I think I think that Adidas thing was a great kind of pivotal moment because I know like it it went kind of crazy viral and LinkedIn also.

And I think that's where LinkedIn and Twitter and I think that's where a lot of like the industry saw it and they're like, wait a minute, like this was done. When this is done with I like it wasn't even about like coffee break. I was like, this is a I like we can start creating this level already. Like, I think people were just kind of blown away that you can take something from a journey animated and actually create a compelling piece, you know, with obviously the help of Kendrick Lamar and Radiohead, like, know it was a dope track that was already going viral.

But you got to think about those, right? All those pieces. And when you're creating spec, you know, you know, you can do anything you want as a spec. That's why you say spec in front of it. And that's the beauty of ice. We can create kind of anything, but you want to make sure that it's still, you know, tell us some kind of a visual or cohesive story.

Doesn't have to be Huckleberry Finn or some like narrative story, but it needs to tell something. And then that was my my prompting and ideas for that was like, you know, did his campaign in the year 2045 or 2065 in a cyberpunk city, you know, it was kind of like I was kind of like because I was also separately working on a film that I that I actually did a film for, for Ninja Punk was one of my first A.I. films that.

I did that I released on YouTube and then in Reddit as well. And I was in this cyberpunk world and I was like, What would an advertisement look like in my Ninja punk movie? And that's kind of where the Adidas ad came from because I was putting together like a pitch deck using A.I. imagery. And I was thinking about that scene in Blade Runner.

When you see like the holograms and you see like they're really cool cityscape. And I was like, I want to make an ad for that world. And that's kind of where that came from. But I think it just yeah, there was a great, I think, pivotal moment for sure in the advertising world that said, Hey, no, we're not ready a year from now.

We're actually ready today, especially for online content, you know, obviously broadcast and you about silver screen. That's whole different levels of fidelity that you know we're not 100% there yet, but I think there are still Band-Aids to get us there currently. I think I was telling you earlier and I just shot one of my first commercials of DGA director for client that we actually use A.I. in a broadcast spot.

So I think that goes to show you that we're already using it at, you know, a broadcast quality level to some degree. So that's that's exciting for me. And it's exciting, I think, for who either in advertising or in A.I.. And a lot of my colleagues, obviously, because I was in the industry for so long, you know, they're coming to me and saying, you know, what do I got to do?

You know, how do I get ahead of the curve? Like, how do I do what you're doing? Basically, I'm like, What to do what I'm doing? You just do it. It was like anyone could go on my journey like you got. You're an art director, you're a creative director. Just. Yeah, pull up, pull up, man. Pull up and bring out your ideas.

And like, the same way you would go on Pinterest and try to find and cobble together a bunch of okay images. You can create spectacular images on anything you want to create, any kind of idea you want to pitch with like a mid-January dolly. And that's kind of my advice to them is like, there is no secret man.

Like, I'm literally I tell you the tools I use. That's all I really do. Like, of course, you have to have some merit and some creative idea and, you know, somewhere to, you know, to draw from. You can't just go in and type, you know, orange cat and get some spectacular actually probably could get a spectacular orange cat image just by typing that in.

But you still got to focus again to the story you're trying to sell or the idea you're trying to sell. But it is that simple. It's use these tools, but you got to use these tools, right? Right. And I think that's what you guys do best. And here's Refuge team is tell people how to use these tools. Right, Because you can use them wrong.

Well, I think that's a good transition then to kind of a big announcement that we have a curious refuge. And depending on when you're listening to this podcast, you may have already seen this, but we have been having conversations with Dave, especially because clearly he's just so gifted as a commercial director and storyteller, and we were curious if Dave would be interested in actually teaching advertising at through his refuge, and he thankfully said yes.

So thank you so much for that. Dave Yeah, and so we have some big plans. We are releasing the beta version of our I advertise in course with Dave very soon, and so we wanted to spend some time talking about that because like you just said, Dave, like it's not all about just typing in random prompts and getting them, especially when you get into advertising where it's so important to really art direct and fine tuned not only your commercial work, but also graphic design and, you know, pitch decks and everything else.

You know, you want to have a lot of control and the ability to inject your creative vision into the project and not just randomly have I give you, you know, something. So I was wondering if you could talk about a little bit of like what your vision is for the course and kind of, you know, what are you hoping to teach the students now?

Absolutely. I think I think you brought up a great point. You know, I was thinking about filmmaking. You know, you're kind of just dreaming up your ideas, your story that you want to tell when it comes to advertising. A lot of times you have a brief from a client. A lot of times you have kind of parameters you need to play in or you might be doing or wanting to create an ad for your own brand or your own startup or something like that.

And when you do that, you still want to keep some kind of parameters around what you want to tell. You want to create some kind of a mini brief, because at the end of the day, if you're not cohesive in your storytelling, even in A.I., it's going to fall apart and it's not going to be successful. So I think one of my biggest keys is to make sure you know who your audience is right, Make sure you know the style you want to kind of go for the art direction and make sure you know what story you're trying to tell this AUDIENCE Right.

So Air allows us to tell these stories in so many different ways and we have so many amazing tools that we're going to dive into. But those are like the first thing you really understand because, you know, like I said, I come from the school of advertising, the toughest clients in the world that hate everything you do like or change the brief mid-price that happens or, you know, the quote unquote vicious client feedback we all know and we've been through.

So that's what I'm going to try to help, is how do you kind of navigate around those hurdles? And I think for the first time ever in history, we have a chance to show the right type of options that those client feedback notes and those hurdles aren't going to be so big anymore because you're able to tailor the creative and the vision in so many different ways.

But then also, like the right way and then the most interesting way. And I think, you know, a lot of times when we used to pitch ideas, you kind of always went into a room with your favorite idea and then your second idea that you were kind of like, Yeah, I'm just doing this in there for an option.

That option would still be spectacular with a I think. So that that not only makes you look, you know, like a better salesman, a better advertiser, but also a better creative and storyteller. And so those are kind of some of the tricks I want to bring to the table and kind of let people in on some of my secrets of how we, you know, how I go about it from a strategic standpoint, from a storytelling standpoint, and then, you know, get into how, you know, brass tacks, how we get down to the editing, get down to the sound design, the motion design.

I think one of my favorite things of creating these ideas is when I'm doing sound design or laying down a track or, you know, the editing that that the flow, the edit, the cadence, you know, there's all very important storytelling and filmmaking tips you can bring into your content creation, your advertisements. So yeah, that's, that's some of the things that we're going to talk about.

I love that. And it really reminds me with our I filmmaking course, you know, I think a lot of people join because they want the tack. Like the idea is like, tell me the tools, show me how to use it. Let me get the thing. But what they realize and what I where I really feel like the big value is, is is actually like talking about core concepts.

So like you were saying, like, you know, visual storytelling one on one, how to deal with clients. What do you do when a revision rolls around? Like these are all things that people don't think about needing but are actually incredibly important for the process of, of practically doing a paid project that can help you make a career. Yeah, and I'm personally excited to learn art direction from you.

I think that is such a amazing skill that's needed on every project and you crush it. So I'm curious, where would people start versus where will they be once completing your course? Well, I guess I'll start. How are they come in? Right. So some people will have you know, some people might have already taken your course. So they're coming in a little bit more seasoned and you'll definitely have some industry vets who come from the advertising world who's never used air before.

They're going to, you know, take something from it slightly differently. But I think we're all going to kind of steer the train the same way, going to start kind of in that 1 to 1 of just I in advertising in general, which is just about what does it come down to? It comes down to the product that comes down to the story you're trying to tell and it comes down to the visual art direction that you're trying to sell or try to come up with.

So I think the most important ingredients comes down to not just the tools we're going to use, but how to use those tools in this industry, right? Because the way you use these tools for filmmaking is different than how you want to use them in advertising, right? It's going to be again, you're dealing with clients, you're dealing with, you know, world recognized brands, right?

When you think about like doing like big brands, like a Nike or Adidas or McDonalds or whatever you might want to do. And a lot of these big brands are already looking at high creators and looking at the industry and trying to see, you know, can these can these things, you know, perform at the at the level that we think they can.

I know for a fact, you know, Adidas liked my post. I went viral when I did their spectra, so they saw it. You know, a couple of people on LinkedIn connected with me that work at Global Adidas. So it definitely got to the right people. I think I want to basically take you through like almost like how I it's almost they were going to truncate my advertising career from when I started out as an art director.

Always me being a creative director and filmmaker, I think that's kind of like the flow of the way the course is going to go. Like when you're an art director, you're really trying to focus on the visuals, you really trying to focus on that. When you're more director, you're focusing on the more strategy of the story that you're trying to tell.

Like, right. And then and then also from a marketing standpoint, because you're kind of wearing several hats. When you get to a creative director level, you're kind of working alongside like the account directors and the CMO show and CEOs of the these big major advertising companies. And then also from a filmmaker standpoint, how to take that idea into the post-production process, how to edit properly, how to know your audience, because, you know, some advertisements work better as five to 10 to 15 second spots.

Some were good as 32nd spots and we're going to talk about the differences and why those durations work for different type of advertisements. And then everything from, I said, motion motion design, motion graphics, visual effects, sound design, all important pieces of the creative process. Like I said, like if you know, like if you see my Tesla example that I did, you know, sound design was very important there.

When you're talking about a car hovering over water, you know, what does that sound like? You know, what does a Tesla sound like hovering over water, which I think I heard they aren't waterproof yet. Hopefully they will be soon. And then and then like the Nike spot that I did, like the way the water kind of the way the water swirls around the people on the video.

And I think that's going to be like that's I think that's what's going to be intriguing to people was like those little nuance moments inside the 32nd spot that people talk about. Like I know the Nike wants specifically everyone talks about when I get down to the audio of Billie Eilish and we go underwater with the music and like there's little small things that will help make it stand out because again, it's going to be a competitive industry and people are going to want to learn these tools.

But what better place to learn it than Curious Refuge where, you know, they have historically taught some of the people that are already in this industry. I think that's what's exciting is we're coming to the place where people go to to learn these type of tools. Yeah, And honestly, we're we're really just humbled and grateful that you're willing to share your expertise on our platform.

And I think that whether people are trying to come in and learn filmmaking, which, you know, all of us have a lot to say about that or commercial advertising, like hopefully, you know, any creative with any dream of where they want to be, will be served through this education content, which is really exciting. Before we get into rapid fire questions, I wanted to pick your brain.

Dave Yeah, Are there any really either nerdy or I'm going to use the word hacky, but I don't know if that's the best word. Are there any like secrets that you've learned in your day to day workflows? Because I know you were mentioning Topaz earlier for like Uprising and things like like, are there any things that you've learned, let's say, in the last couple of months that have been particularly really helpful for extracting more quality or just better, you know, visual storytelling from your AI projects?

Well, I will I will say, because I actually know how the over it magnifique. I know. And he gave me access to the 16 times of scale here and holy crap, man. Night and day like images that I generated like months ago that look more like a muddled mess. I brought in there opposite times, like eight or times 16.

And the quality that you can extract from that is, is, is, is incredible. And I think one of my secrets that I've been using and people are wanting like how how is your stuff so detailed, like the specks of dirt or like water droplets like I lose that whenever I breathe. That's runway is like you got to start as high rez as you can, especially for those not every image, the images that you have a lot of intricate detail in like dirt, like I think like those I shot from lost transmissions.

I think you called out Caleb with a dirt kind of falling on the dude as, like, stuff like that. Like if you start at a high enough rez, the image, you can keep some of those details. And I think that's important, especially for advertising. Like, I was thinking like if someone wanted you like a Coke commercial and like the Coke is like flying through the air, like you want to oppress.

Is that right? You want to before you bring that into like a picture or runway, you want to make sure that's the highest Christmas quality you could be. So something like a magnifique has been my secret weapon when it comes to those super detailed VFX type shots, slow motion like. And then and then I bring that into like a topaz and then I up resin again to like 4K 120 frames per second.

And like, and if people always say, you know, this stuff's always slow MO well, I want to go more slo mo, I make it even. I got 124 frames and really stressed that thing out because I love it. I love all of it. So basically you're saying that you take the base image, throw it through magnifique, and then you use like a video, like an image to video tool, like peak hour or runway, or are you actually creating an image sequence from peak hour runway and then running it through magnifique?

So I've done both. So I've got it. So I've done I've done a few things right. So I've actually taken like an eight second clip chopping down to pages, brought those each frame into Magnifique and then reanimated that on a on a timeline takes longer. But like I think for for like your money shot in your spot like we're talking about advertising is worth it.

It's going to look like it was created with some next level CGI tool and everyone's like, how did how did you do that? Every time I've done it, like some of the water stuff in the Nike spot is like how my stuff doesn't look like that. And in a way I was like, Well, you guys go one step further.

And I think that's what's going to be exciting about the course, is we're going to go one step further. We're going to kind of like take it to that next level when you want it to be super polished and quote unquote broadcast ready. That's kind of like the level you got to play at that 4K level. Like, what does this look like when we start getting into to that kind of quality?

That's awesome. That is such a good tip and I'm going to like immediately leave this conversation and then start testing that out. And I'm curious to Dave, this is like a question that I just have for me. But as an operations person, you have a lot going on. How do you stay organized? Is there a tool you use to like organize your projects?

Yeah, yeah, I'm actually I'm so embarrassed of this question because, you know, I'm not the most organized person like my notes on my laptop and phone connect. So everything I do goes on. It's a new note. It's, you know, luckily for my commercial work because I'm repped as senior level. And Jason Zeta, he's also a feature filmmaker and big time director.

If you remember, he if you remember Elf yourself, he created Elf yourself. So that's that was his claim to fame. Then he went on to become this inner. And I think you met him Caleb at the, at the, at the range media day, I think. Yeah. So yeah, because he told me he met you guys. So, so luckily we, we have this executive producer Monica, who like controls my calendar when it comes to like the actual paid work.

So I'm on par when it comes to that. But yeah, like you said, I got an amazing wife that helps with the kids and the dog, and then I'm able to just really like if I'm not writing or doing some of my filmmaking stuff, like I'm really full on. And today I stuff I'm either, like I said, testing, doing new tests or coming up with new tools.

I'm working on a film right now. I'm hesitant to know if I'm going to entered into the The Runway festival. I actually got to talk to the CEO of Runway Super cool guy. Chris. He is super supportive of everything I was doing in the fact that he, you know, we're talking on GM and he's he said, yeah, let me put a calendar invite on your calendar.

I was like, What? Like where's your assistant manager, the CEO? This is incredible. So we had we had a great 30 minute conversation. But I think that's that's a level like some of my work has reached. It got to like the CEOs of some of the companies that we love and use every day. They want to talk and see what's going on.

Like I said, Harvey over at Magnifique, he did Me personally, it was like, I love what you're doing. Like, let's talk like, you know, So I get to be in a lot of this beat as the VIP of Magnifique, if you will, But the opportunities are great. I want to be in the beta. Magnifique. Are you good? You should be.

You. We get to reach out. This being DM Harvey, You know this guy. He knows who you are. But I'm trying to find there's this event. There's cause there's another festival you should submit to, but they're due like March 3rd or something. It's in Barcelona. They're doing a big premiere with an artist. Specifically. I want to go to Barcelona.

I know. Yeah, sure. But I'll send you a link to that and I'll post it in the like description as well. Because yeah, it's like specifically I filmmakers like submitting their films and then to do like a big festival premiere. So yeah, but they're accepting films up through like mid-March and like that. Very cool. Like Caleb says, it gives you a reason to finish something.

That's the only reason why I'm not trying to win all these things. I just like to have a deadline, like force me to finish it. Well, for not you did, but you. You want the Pico? I didn't. I didn't want the bigger one. Yeah. And for not having the what? Your notes. Just having your notes. You're doing an amazing job.

So keep it up. It works just because this is. Yeah. Anything I read on my phone, I know it's on my desktop, so I never have to think about another app. That's pretty cool. Before we get into the rapid fire question, sorry for pushing this off, but a lot of the projects like, you know, there are some of the projects that we worked on that takes like one or two weeks to put together and it's a lot of work and you put it out there and like, no one really cares.

Like you love it, but like, no one really cares, right? But then there will be these other projects that like literally coffee break, like you just kind of throw together, put it online, and then it's just poppin. And sometimes it's like you just don't really know why. Like, it's just like, you know, like it's cool, I guess, but like, it is that much cooler than this other project that took weeks to put together.I don't think so, but the internet seems to think so. And so I think like if anyone listening to this is looking for like a takeaway here, like, like just put together the projects, like, like the only success metric should be like, am I putting together a project that I'm happy with, you know, and, and just like, do that on a regular basis?

Because like, I know, like me and Dave have been texting a bit and almost every time I'm texting him, he's like, Yeah, I stayed up late working on a project and I feel like that is like so cool because I think it shows that like there's some passion behind what you're doing and you know, it's you're doing it for fun.

And I think like if you're doing something for fun that other people are doing because they have to, because the industry is changing and they have no option, like you're going to win every time. And so I just think like, have fun, like make these projects and like, just get them out there and like, don't, don't overthink it for sure is what they tell you in filmmaking school, right?

It's like as I get your. Yeah, tell your story. Don't worry about what What like what's store or like try to be Tarantino Like, I remember when I was in when I was art school, like the new Tarantino movie just came out and Kill Bill just had just came out and it was like everyone had to make one to make a movie like Kill Bill or like Guy Ritchie, like Snatch had just came out.

Every student film looked like Snatch. It was like the one thing I took away was like, Just make what you want. Like, people might not like it right away, but maybe ten years from now become it'll become a masterpiece. And I think that's that's the right idea to have just make shit right. Just make stuff, put it out.

Like make, make, make a bunch of stuff. Don't be. Don't be so precious, right. With your art and with your work. Like, put it out there. It's going to find an audience. If it's because he comes from a good place and a creative space, there's going to be someone else out there who wants to tell those similar stories is going to really jive with it.

And that's one of things I would tell myself, especially when I got deep and I like. I was hesitant at first, and then I went on a tear is I don't care. And that's why I made Afraid to Sleep. I made a separate account for my Instagram because I was like, so precious, what I'm going to put on my personal IG.

All my friends, you're in the filmmaking space, you're going to hate me. And like, I was so worried about what they thought and I was like, Let me just make another account. So I just don't care. And then that's where Afraid to Sleep kind of came from and afraid to sleep again. Comes from. It's a Wes Craven reference.

I Never Sleep Again was like the documentary was like the making of Nightmare on Elm Street. So I was the idea of being afraid to sleep because you know of that movie obviously, Freddy Krueger, but afraid to sleep because I move so fast and you don't want to miss the next tool and the next update. So there was literally a three month period where I really didn't sleep, and that's why we were talking about Caleb.

I was like, I got to see what's next. I got to finish this project. Yeah, I got to, you know, became obsessive and I kind of this will kind of funnel into rapid fire. But I think, like you were saying, in college, when these students were making films that were like Kill Bill or like, you're inspired by Wes Craven.

Like, it's it's good to start there, though. I think when you find inspiration, you're going to start to find your voice by being inspired by these different directors. And so would you say one of my first question is who is your favorite film director? Is it Wes Craven? You've brought him a few times. It depends, right, because I have like a subset of favorite directors when it comes to horror.

Yeah, it's like, it's like the Wes Craven's for sure. The John Carpenter's I love the classic directors when it comes to like, you know, obviously the sci fi, more dramatic space, like the Kubrick's right. I love James Cameron and I love Guy Ritchie. I guess I'd pretty much named the directors that I do love. But yeah, and then obviously Jordan Peele from a more contemporary standpoint, I love his films, but yeah, it was probably some of the that's optioned, obviously, because I'm an art school nerd.

I love Tarkovsky, I love Lars von Trier. Again, it's someone like they're really like artsy fartsy directors that I love. Yeah, I listen, those guys too, that I studied. I love that, though. I've recently learned that. I'm pretty sure Paul King is my favorite director. He did. Walker I'm obsessed with Paddington, adding, You want to like, okay. I was like, okay, I think I have a style that I like.

And it's it's no stakes. So it is not. Wes Craven No, I know it's not. Wes Craven. Shelby I remember when you were directing Fuzzy Sweater in the Yellow. No, but I was telling Caleb about this film I want to make about a caterpillar. And it's so Gibbs popping, and I'm like, Okay, I think they need to work on that, but I love it and I will say it.

And to go back to what you said earlier, yes, I definitely made a film like Guy Ritchie. I'm not going to say that I didn't. Absolutely every filmmaker does that right. I think actually, no, I made a I did want like Guy Ritchie, but I think I was more obsessed with with Darren Aronofsky because Pi had just came out and everyone was trying to make like a black and white, like I did a black and white film where I was like in a library or like studying a bunch of books and like trying to like, decode time travel.

But it was, it literally was a pirate ball. So, yeah, there's no not to doing that. I think that's how you learn. You kind of deconstruct. And, and I do that with when I'm writing scripts. Do I get a PDF of a script of like, like, like I did recently, I just did it with, with that movie Drive with Ryan Gosling.

I got page, I read the script positive, read it, watched it, and I was just tracking how he visually told that story. Incredible exercise. So absolutely. Like, that's that's how you learn, right? You learn from the best. So yeah, but I think when it comes down to when you're trying to sell your own film or your own story, then yeah, you just can't care about what people think about your story, even if it's about a rubber duck on a on an epic adventure.

That actually sounds like a cool lyrical one. That's something of cool, curious refuge movie right there. Yeah, Let's make I had to make that now. I love the animation. You know, Sarah and Duck, you have kids, so maybe you. Yeah, of course, Sarah. And it's so corny. Every time we would be around, kids would put on Sarah and duck and they would all chill out.

You're like, This is incredible. It's it's so like, yeah, it's like a low stem. Say melatonin, natural melatonin. It's great. Yeah. But it's funny that you mentioned about shooting in a library. I'm like, does every filmmaker shoot like, have a film where they're in a library because Caleb has a horror film in college and I got to see this Caleb coming library.

And I remember after shooting that film, like I could not go and shown that library because I was always so freaked out. That sounds awesome. We'll have to we'll share a link in the notes of this podcast, but I'm not putting it. I know I have films I won't do, so I get it. Okay. Question Do you this is like into the Rapid Fire.

Can you have New Year, New Year's resolutions? And is there one you can share with us for 24? And sad, but I didn't make it yours. You're like, I'm just going on it. Yeah, I feel that I didn't even notice New Year's. It was I mean, obviously I noticed because my, you know, I bought like the, the, the blow pop things for my kids and like the little firecracker things.

But that's interesting. I feel like this is the first new year that even we have not really set resolutions. I'm seeing that as being kind of a trend in a way because it's like I think everyone's just like busy. It's like, yeah, it's the new year. It's like already a week into it. It's like we're just rolling with what was going on last year, you know, honestly, because like we all know and like in air time, like a month is a year.

So it feels like New Year's was just another day. And like we've already it's been 2020 for over ten years now. Yeah. It's not exactly okay. Being in L.A., do you choose Disneyland or Universal if you have a free Saturday? Got to say Disneyland. We've had season passes for years now and we just my kids just went there yesterday.

So, okay, we had season passes and they, they have this like limited release for passes now. So they go on sale tomorrow and we have all of our alarms set. So we are trying. So we're just like for tomorrow 9 a.m. that we get Disney. You got to get it. And ever since they incorporated Star Wars and Marvel is like, is Disneyland all the way, like Spider-Man and freaking flies around there?

No, I was like, that's pretty cool. Okay, someone gives you a StubHub gift card. What are you buying tickets to go see? I already saw Depeche Mode. My wife took me there a couple of weeks ago, so let me see who I was. Third eye, blind. Third. I hate Depeche Mode. I grew up mostly a lot of my work.

A lot of my work features Depeche Mode songs. Okay, I'm just obsessed and nice. Okay. In the eighties did enough. Yeah. Okay. I see it. Can't get enough. Love that. How fun. I'm cool. Who's your favorite music artist currently? Music artist. Currently. This is going to sound really odd, but this is this is a young white dude rapper named Little Boo Little Tough.

I know. Yeah, he. I like it. It's not even his music is like my liking, but it's cool that he like, stayed in college like he so goes is college and he like blew up huge and like he got real people are trying to get this on record deals and he's like nah almost in college cause my dad never got to go.

And it's like, That's amazing. I really like showing my kids that you can be a dope rapper with millions and millions of views and making a lot of money and still go to college. I'll take that. I'll take it from 18 year old kid. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. What it like? I think good head on that kid's shoulders love that I think I don't think younger maybe that the same thing I think he blew up in college and then dropped out but he loves young gravy.

The amount of energy gravy gives him. Okay so that's all. But where can people find more of your work? Yes. So I'm pretty active on Instagram at either at the Asian at THC Black. As I spell that right, we'll end it so or click at the Blaze and then afraid to sleep on on Instagram and then at Twitter.

I mean, I had Twitter on Twitter or X, I'm just at Diesel, which as it is actually not diesel is actually dye shit out of luck. But people keep saying diesel like I misspelled it with a no. That's so. But yeah, that's awesome. Well Dave, thank you so much. Hopping on the podcast again. If anybody is interested in learning more about Dave's upcoming a I advertising course, you can check it by visiting the course page over at Curious Refuge that will be going on sale for the beta very soon.

And of course we'll link to all of Dave's accounts below this video. So thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Curious Refuge Podcast. We'll see in the next. Thanks, Dave. Thank you, Mike.