We interviewed MrBeast’s newest employee: Dan Mace

33:57So when I go back and I watch that and I hear some of the wording that I use, it's really embarrassing. But the intent was there. The concept is, like, I've seen it. It was your My Road Reel, right? Oh, that's the first awarded one. Yeah. With that film specifically, like, that's hard to make. You know, like, what you made is not easy to make. Yeah, it's tough. That means that you really did care about the craft. And I know that sounds absurd for me to say to a filmmaker or in a creative, but we're in a world today where I think that the majority of creators are trained to care more about the outcome than the craft.

34:38Yeah, you gotta watch that. How do you say that shit? Yeah, yeah, but right? But that's like, and I'm saying me as a part of this group too, it's natural. We are now in an outcome-based creative environment. Sure. And that is like really hard to do. But I'm curious about those outcomes in the business of advertising. Like, were you making good money as an advertising director? When you get one of those bids, like, how much money are we talking about to make advertisements? Yeah, it gets big. So back to gift. So I made this firm. And at the time, it cost 7 ,000 rand. Okay. What is that in dollars?

35:17$300. $300. Okay. Yeah. and uh my friend who's a very very successful dp now who shot it fabian um he's a very hectic guy he uh he like put down i think most of the manis and but we we could win i think it was like forty thousand dollars worth of gear a road gear that's like money i'd never heard of i thought wow you You know, we didn't even know how to work that back into rounds. We just knew it was like a shitload of money. And we ended up winning. And then that film went to Cannes to the Young Directors Awards. And it won that. And then also another film, a production house that entered another film of mine into Cannes that year as well.

36:08And it won there as well. The other film about rats, bum sniffing rats. It was an interesting concert. I'm hooked. Yeah, bro. You should go watch it. Yeah. It's about these, they sniff out the rat, the bums. That's wild. Yeah, they make them. So this isn't fiction. This is real. This is real shit. It's funny. If you type in my name on Google and you see like the films I've made, it says like bums sniffing rats. Yeah. It's the weirdest thing. But it's like, cool, clickbait, I reckon. But yeah, it's anyway. So I made that film and that one alongside Gift. um and then from there everything changed like my entire career i i was just i used to sell jams like that was my job like what do you like peanut butter and jelly jams yeah like jam like strawberry jams oh really yeah apricot jam dude out the boot of my car what do you call a boot here trunk the trunk yeah yeah out of my trunk where were you getting the jams from this guy called Odette's Kitchen.

37:12Okay. Yeah. I found it in the newspaper. Yeah. So I would do anything for money back then. Oh, I mean, geez. Okay. Not anything. I would do anything. But anything jam related. You know, you haven't come that far. If we're just being honest. You're still speaking. You're selling bars out of the... We're not supposed to do it. Sorry, sorry. We're going to get to that later. This is the evolution of jam. Back then I was, I mean, I was a jam salesman. I mean, I was so into selling jam that I would sometimes leave the jam in the back of my car because in case you get like a spontaneous buy. Yeah, of course.

37:56You never know when that's going to happen. You never know when someone's like, I'm out of jam. I got you. What flavor you got? So, but what would happen if the jam got too hot in the trunk, it would fucking explode. you know what it's like driving down and next minute gunshots start firing off in your trunk and you look back and it's just red up there and you think fuck so i just got shot in the trunk of my car you know that's the life of a jam that was life before the young directors award yeah life of a jam salesman dude life of a jam salesman is deep luckily before i like went completely broke and i was i mean i had no idea i was just trying to make forms like that's that's it like i know this sounds like funny back then it was it was gnarly um and i'd made gift i'd pour everything into these forms back then not that i don't know but like i mean then i had nothing you know so i'd put every cent that i had um and to get the call from from one from my road wheel to say that we had won that was insane and then a month later to get the call to say they're flying me to can i was like what um and then i came back home and and at these young directors awards is all these uh producers from production companies global production companies that want to sign young directors.

39:30And in like 2014, 15, I was very trendy to use young film directors for big brands because the big brands wanted to try and this whole like Gen Z kind of thing and started coming out. People were looking into the future, like what the next generation of advertising was going to look like. So I went from jam salesman to winning single bids. And a single bid is when you bypass the whole bidding process. You just get the job. So the production company that represented me, they were really wise and really good. And they were like, we got Dan. He doesn't fucking bid. Like, give us a job. He doesn't want it.

40:10I'll be like, geez, I'll bid. I don't want to go back to something fucking jam. If I can drive down the highway, shit exploding. Like, no, I'll bid. So I did like six months of single bids. my very first job I did was for a a beer called Tusker um which is probably like the most renowned kind of ad that I've done some more one of the more famous ones because that also then went into winning a bunch of awards and I remember the executive creative director then looking at me and saying this is the biggest blessing and curse you'll ever have as a director because this is the, it's your first job where you've got unlimited creative license.

40:58The agency does not know what you're talking about here. Cause I was, the, the brief was there's massive segregation in Kenya. It's 42 different tribes. We are the number ones selling beer. We don't have any competition. So our whole idea or identity is pretty much trying to bring people together. So how do we bring 42 different people together without it being like, you know, he has a beer and it's all come together and party. So use the same concept as gift, uh, where we went around, where we went around Kenya and, uh, collected diegetic sounds. Diegetic sounds are like sounds that happen in front of camera, much like this bar.

41:44If you had to chew into it now and you'd hear that delicious crunch, that would be a diegetic sound. And non-diegetic is something outside of what we see of the game film school. Yeah, I went to UCC. Yeah, CCC. Dijectics, non-diegetic, I mean, inductive, deductive. Sure, misunson, whatever. So yeah, I then, I said to them, look, the way we're going to do this is we'll go and record all these sounds and I will make an anthem for Kenya for 2016 or whatever it was, the new anthem. And the brand was like, geez, fuck. Okay, I mean, if you can pull it off. And the budget just kept on increasing. And they were cool with it because they could see that the thing was starting to transform.

42:29And we're flying around this little plane throughout Kenya, these little tribes capturing all this beautiful music. And we made the most incredible short film and TV ad. and for that job i think that was probably around uh three million dollars oh wow us dollars yeah oh wow the budget yeah the budget where a director should make 10 of that oh that's really significant yeah but i didn't get that i didn't know that shit back then oh you got fucked okay No, I still got paid from jam to there. Dude, I got paid in my mind.

43:16And from there, the rest was history. I went from that, it took me to the next success, the next one, and I got very complacent very quickly. And then I started to become a complete imposter. like I think about a year in, that's when I took to drinking and dragging. I really, I just didn't believe in myself. I was dealing with subject matter that I didn't know anything about. Like you make a spot about a father and a son from the father's perspective. And I don't know if it's just that or it's also the pressure and people were expecting so much of me. And also there were certain people in certain fields that knew what was going down and they were okay with it happening regarding me drinking and using drugs and that sort of thing, as long as I got things over the line.

44:18And that's when Casey came into the picture. he had come down to Cape Town to visit his wife's parents that have a house in Camp Spain near the beach. And Ben Brown, an old, not old, but like an old. Veteran of that generation. An OG YouTuber. So I would watch him and I was off on my own thing. and with the film directing, I completely lost touch with YouTube, but I would still hang with Ben and then Ben wasn't here and he was like, my friend Casey's coming down. Do you want to go up the mountain with him for a run, whatever? And I was so unhealthy and unfit and I was like, sure. And I knew who Casey was, but back then, I think Casey was still doing Snapchat videos and maybe he had like a couple hundred thousand followers on YouTube.

45:16And to be honest, It wasn't something, there was no like stardom or anything. I was like, cool, it would be, you know, I'm just going to meet some guy. And he was awesome. We got on really well. He was like very intense from the beginning. He made me like walk much faster than I could up the mountain. And I was thinking to myself like, fuck. And a year went by and we kept in touch. And he then saw the Tusker ad that I'd done. And we had been speaking a lot and I opened up to him and I told him I'd just come out of rehab.

46:02And I said to him, like, you know, this is, I wanna do something else with my filmmaking career. Like, I feel like I'm trapped in this place and it's it's dark um and he just like offered me a job straight away he was like well why don't you move to new york and work with me and i was like yeah that sounds cool you know and then i like dropped him off at his house and he was like yo text you later about everything and i was like that's never gonna happen but it was like cool it's cool to romanticize about something like that and then he texted me I think he flew back to New York and he texted me he's like he's still keen to to come to New York and I was like fuck yeah I'm keen he's like okay cool I'll see what I can make happen and then I had to continue in the um film industry in the traditional world and then I was doing my biggest commercial yet I was doing the IPL ad um that budget must have been like four and a half mil or something and it was like 500 people on set and it was just everything that i hated about where i wanted to go i was this glorified director i had my own trailer that they would drive me around that had a bed in it do you know what i mean yeah i'm like what am i doing this is those feel very funny to experience some of that yeah i was just like this is such a waste of money but like also at the same time i just come out of rehab um and i was really trying to practice like a lot of humility and try and find some form of serenity and like that just wasn't helping.

47:47That was just amplifying. Yeah, that was just being, just making everything seem so intense. It was a lot of cravings and things involved in that. And I phoned Casey then. I was like, is this thing going to happen? He was like, we'll fly. That must've been at the end of March. And he was like, fly to New York on the 1st of April. and from there the rest was history and uh i i didn't know what to expect but i i the one thing that i just thought would be the case is that i wouldn't be the guy running down the road with a camera being shouted at yeah um going from like here where people would would call me sir or boss Like a big thing on set is to be called boss.

48:36It's just like a thing. What do you want boss? Casey would never call you boss. And this was a joke, you know? Yeah, right. But like, he'd be like, take this, throw the camera. Why is it out of focus? Why is this da, da, da, da, da? And I remember just feeling, going from feeling like I was up here to feeling like I'm way down here. Like my imposter syndrome makes sense now. You know, it suddenly put me down. which is the greatest thing that could have ever happened to me. There was a lot of times that I wanted to give up when I was with Casey. There was a lot of times where I looked at all the stuff that he had in his studio and like all the successes and all the trophies and all this, this, like this iconography that you would attach to somebody that just is so important.

49:30and I would think to myself there's absolutely no way I'm ever going to get to where this person is and I would constantly compare age Casey's 10 years my senior so I'd be like I got 10 years to become as successful as Casey became like very fixated on that um and the more and more the days went on the less and less I could keep up with his schedule with his uh i was like he he also has a family and he has time for his kids he's all the stuff um and he's still able to work and he's putting out a daily vlog and i'm here to help him and i can't even help myself you know um and i really really struggled uh and then we we were doing a a shoot with Shawn Mendes.

50:23We were in London at the time. And I remember that's when I had like my first proper kind of breakdown. I've never spoken about this before actually. I'm gonna have to send this to Casey first and see what he's doing. No, but I had my first breakdown and I said to Casey, I need to go back to New York. Like I can't work like this. like i don't know like i'm freaking out and um he was like just book yourself a ticket back and we will discuss it when we get back to new york and when i got back then i decided to make my first like kind of youtube videos since uh i made a video called like getting to 368 or something and i made this like video just like me doing some poem and i was like where i like fell off building in the beginning and it's like very sad the whole poem is about like having like depression and stuff um and that that that was when i was like in my peak of going through having like the real feelings of mental health and and that because i couldn't uh hide behind drugs and alcohol and stuff i had to feel like the rawness of it and i was in this unfamiliar territory and I wasn't feeling good at what I was doing.

51:41It was like all of the stuff. And that's not what you see in front of camera at all. You know, behind the camera, I was suffering. And it wasn't Casey's fault at all. That was my like unresolved shit with myself. And the main part was the fact that I thought that I'd made the wrong decision. And I was like, I would phone Gabby, who's now my wife um she was my girlfriend back then and i kept on saying to her i've made the wrong choice um you know i should have stayed at home even like phone my um old production company just told me to fuck off because i'd left them high and dry pretty much um and i just decided to continue there was this like weird thing and it's almost this is like a platitude but I was like a fucking cliff that's shaped like that and I'm like here and I'm like trying to get up it and then there's like a cloud and then I knew that there was going to be like this peak I just didn't know where in the cloud I was you know yeah I was definitely in that in that cloud and I reached this point where I was like if I'm burning if I'm like I'm working so hard that it's i'm actually like in pain i must be progressing forwards now this is terrible for those that's that hustle anti-hustle culture shit which we can get into because i i don't like those people okay you got to work hard which we'll speak about just now that's why you got to eat a brew yeah yeah but um it's plug number four yeah yeah but uh yeah i i tell i i nearly gave up a bunch of times um and i pushed through till the point where casey and i uh said look you know i'm gonna i'm myself i'm gonna go and start my own youtube channel i'm gonna go back to south africa and propose to gabbs yeah um he was like that's awesome and he he was also gonna slow down on in the three, six, eight vlogs.

53:49And because of that, and I stuck it through, I think that's why Casey has respect for me now. I stuck it through with him and he well knows how much had to go into every day to get that shit done. And I didn't give up. And I think he saw there was a lot of times where I wanted to give up, where I was on the edge of like, just going like i can't do this anymore um i also don't want to paint casey out to be like a really terrible person to work with because he's not he's just a he's just exceptionally hard working he's a one of one yeah he's someone and like i was saying i i it was a comparison that was killing me i i was going like i need to be as successful as casey because i've given up this other thing.

54:40There's a couple of comparisons happening, which is like comparison to Casey, but it's also comparison to the unbelievable elevated status you had as a director. Yeah. Right? Like sitting on that set for the IPL, like you are almost like a godlike figure on that set. It's like, this is the young, again, like you were positioned as this young Wunderkin director. Whereas the dynamic when you're in London on the shoot with Shawn Mendes is that I imagine you're like sort of bottom billing. Oh, way at the bottom. Yeah, yeah, like the guy's carrying the camera. Yeah, yeah. Is that what, in that moment, is that like part of what's eating at you?

55:18Definitely, like that's not the, and maybe I haven't even thought that through, and thanks, now I can cancel my session with my psychiatrist because you've broken through. I think like there is that, that maybe it's that the weight of it being like, there's a jealousy element in that too where it's like um i should be the person that's here like directing this thing yeah i should at least have a bigger role or doing this and now i'm this guy carrying a camera bag and that's like fatiguing in itself um and maybe that's what fucked me up a lot uh yeah of course because you had experience being on a dan mace production and now you're on a Casey Neistat production.

56:02And those productions look very different. Yeah, and those are also different. Casey with Shawn Mendes and you in London looks very different. But Casey probably had a trailer with a bed in it, right? On that shoot? He had a nice room. He had a good room. The way that he does things is just drastically different than the advertising business with a$4 million budget. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. and that that's why his films are so great because they that that film itself um it had you know he filmed sean in like areas like in the dressing room like trying to prepare his voice and it was very intimate and he's good at like uh building these friendships and then because he's such a likable guy and then he just whips out a small camera nothing intimidating where other film directors may have gone a different route and said too much shit up and it would have made them feel a bit hesitant to say what they're really feeling.

57:03The comparison thing is interesting because even for us, at the time that you're working with Casey, we're really struggling to figure out what we're doing on YouTube. And we're watching you and we're watching Casey. And even you getting to work with him, getting the shout out on his channel, was this incredibly aspirational thing. We looked at it from a perspective of that's success and that's potentially what we, that's the validation we need so that everyone will go, oh yeah, those guys, those are the guys. We were looking at that scenario being like, how do we get the Dan Mace job with someone?

57:43How do we do that with a creator? I'm curious, what was the impact of the Casey Neistat stamp of approval and the influx of people that now followed you? I mean, every single person would be like, I know you from Casey Neistat. They're like, I've been following you the whole way back since Casey. I guess you were on like a hit show. Yeah, yeah. It was like a daily show that had the viewership of a hit TV show every single day and you were on that show. Yeah, so the shout out itself, that in as much as grateful as I am for that shout out and and I think it grew me by 300 ,000 subscribers something ridiculous like that huge amount um like it was also it had the downside because those followers trickled off so as soon as I started to create my own content and gain momentum I was losing the followers that I'd gained from Casey but gaining my own ones So I plateaued at around like 500 ,000 subs, I think 550.

58:54I was constantly uploading, but you would see I'll be dropping off 50 ,000, but gaining 50 ,000, dropping off 50 ,000, gaining 50 ,000 for a long time. And that was really, really tough. Yeah, mentally that's confusing to even try and comprehend what it means that 50 ,000 people have decided they're not interested in you anymore. Yeah, they think I suck. They're like, where's the cool guy with the glasses, with the paint on it? This guy's not meeting my expectations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How was your mental health though at this point? Because you essentially go from, you know, supporting Casey on his videos to making your own YouTube videos, but you're also going through this time.

59:35Like, are you still regretting the decision? Are you still confused about the decision? That's good, yeah, because we never really bridged that cap. Yeah, so when Casey and I came to the decision, I'm going to go back home, I'm going to get married or I'm going to propose to Gabs and he's going to slow down on the vlog.

1:00:01Mentally, I wanted to then take on YouTube and not go back into, I wanted to see where this thing went because I've got the shout out now as well. So I had all these people. I got a phone call from, can I say brand names? Yeah, yeah. I got a phone call from SeatGeek and they offered me, from Ian. Yeah. And they offered me$15 ,000 to do a brand deal. I was like, what? $15 ,000? Wow, no way. Because I would see Casey doing brand deals, but I would never get to hear them. Sure, yeah. I was like, fuck, that's a good amount of money. Because I mean, from an ad, a TV ad, I would, you know, you'll do one every month or two.

1:00:44I get like 20 grand 30 sometimes 40 grand yeah but that's like a lot more work right a lot more that goes into it there's a lot more people actually come to think about it it's not as much that's fucking strange to think about there's more people which makes it seem like more sure but it's much of a matchless I'm like you're gonna pay me $15 ,000 and you don't even know what I'm gonna do in this video like you're gonna just pay me the money and I'm gonna do so I made a video Okay. I was surprising my ex boss that fired me. um i remember that video yeah and i spent the fifteen thousand dollars that i got paid for by seed geek to make the video i got like a helicopter and the whole the works you know stupid um but i made a cool video and uh then from there i just started getting brand deals i got a manager who phoned me he was like i can get this person and that but i can't remember was like honey and all the norms.

1:01:52Must have been a VPN. VPNs back then, just back-to-back VPNing. Maybe a music library. You know what I mean? Just the go-tos, dude. Just endless. You can just stack them up. You go through a portfolio and be like, which one do you want? And I couldn't believe it. I was like, fuck, this is actually like you're speaking about money. And I immediately changed to this thing of going like, what is the point of making a video for YouTube if I'm not going to put a brand deal in it? Because then I'm going to be putting all this time and effort into it. And I'm not going to be speaking of if you... Well, that's a good one for your guys.

1:02:35No, like I started to think along that mentality because I was like, this can turn into an actual business. um but my mental health is still uh then it was there there was a lot more weight on course me now having to perform underneath my own name and um the dip of of followers every time i'd upload because these people couldn't remember why they subscribed but some guy told them to subscribe you know like casey like now this guy's playing flute with a brick yeah you know what the fuck is this and uh there was so much doubt i would think to myself maybe it's because i'm south african maybe it's i've got a weird accent maybe um you know maybe they don't like the way that i look right you know there's so much so much that you can attach to that how many people were watching the videos at this time though because it's not It's like 100 plus thousand, right?

1:03:38Then I was doing at least like 800 ,000 views. Isn't it strange that we live in a world where you're like, nobody likes me, but 800 ,000 people are watching you? Yeah. There would be like three comments saying like bad shit about me. Three you can times by a thousand because that's what it feels like. Right. Like one bad comment is like a thousand. There's this time with a lot of creators where all of a sudden your understanding of what nobody is, meaning like nobody is watching, is really skewed, right? You go like 50 ,000 people watched this video. Nobody watched it, right? Or 100 ,000 people watched this video.

1:04:17That means nobody watched it. Well, now with take Beast Philanthropy Matrix, if a Beast Philanthropy video performed one of my highest performing videos, I'd be like, oh, this is the biggest tank in history. If a million people watched a Beast Philanthropy video, you'd be like, zero. That actually means zero people watched it. Massive failure. Isn't that strange? Whatever the highest viewership is becomes the expectation. So if you hit it again, it's not, this is amazing. Oh yeah, well, that's what's supposed to happen. Yeah, let's try something else to make it higher this time. Yeah, yeah. But that's fascinating, you know, of like, yeah, the followers were fluctuating, but the real metric is like how many people are watching your work.

1:04:56And again, the joy of a creative when you showed someone your work as a young kid was like, if one person liked it, you were like stoked. That all went away. That from making GIF, the film going way back to the beginning and the intention behind that was to utilize filmmaking to escape the burdens of my conscious mind, I guess, somewhat transcend through this feeling of depression, which fluctuates. I don't know for other people that deal with depression and anxiety, but you understand that it comes and it goes and um when it's when it's bad um generally i create my best work and that's i found an outlet for that and that that is filmmaking and i i lost touch with that um when i got into the commercial space especially with with drinking and dragging and yeah um then uh when i came out of that and then the followers thing and chasing the, the trying to, to better each video, not regarding the creative elements of each video, but bettering the viewership, bettering the comments, bettering what people would say about me.

1:06:17I wanted to be known as this like super creative guy. Like that, that was my thing. Okay. You know, um, and that should fuck me up like really bad. Uh,

1:06:32and then after that, I had to keep going because that's your job. Yeah, it's paying the bills now. It became a thing where it was like, fuck, I have to keep going, but I'm not gonna lie. In 2019, it was just before the pandemic had hit. I just wanted to give up, but I had no other option. I knew that if I had to go to, um, back into the traditional world, I would need like three or four months money to float me, um, to build my portfolio again, you know, and, um, I just, I couldn't, I had to, I had to continue with YouTube. So that's what I did. That's probably the hardest creative energy though dude to turn the camera on when you're speaking to it yeah and you feel like shit and you don't believe it start repeating lines you know so today we're i feel so true dude oh man i can only just love because yeah you'd click yeah and he's just said you turn it back on and you're like do you need protection from unsafe wi-fi yeah dude oh because i've got a vpn for you bro there's been such like there's been times where i've and then it's like okay i have this breakthrough idea i'm gonna make a fucking song from a brick yeah you know i really like that video yeah i also liked it but back then when coming up with that shit, like I had no belief.

1:08:14I would have these crazy ideas and then I would start filming it and I'd get halfway through. And those fucking videos take like a month to make. You know how long they take to edit. And at the same time, making other videos so that I can sit and edit that for a bit. And it's like each and every single plinky plunk. And then I'd look at that and look at the timeline and go like, I'm going to give up anyway. what the fuck is the point yeah and then i put that video out and then it that video got like one and a half million views or yeah did well i don't know um and then i was back on top you know yeah and then your emotions are swaying i don't have depression anymore dude i'm i've beat that shit and uh it's my life has been as a creator has been really crazy like that just before I've wanted to give up, something's happened.

1:09:08And in 2019, a guy called Tom Lofthouse from Discovery, the Discovery Channel phoned. And he had watched a YouTube, I'll call it show that I had done that year called the Not Normal Show. I made the seed map. I asked people to plant seeds, which were unfinished ideas all around the world. and he phoned and that was that was like three days before I was about and literally just go like I give up like really like literally I'd made the film I think I actually put the video out to say like I'm quitting YouTube and the yeah he phoned he was like I I love what you're doing I wanna I don't know what it is but there's something here like I wanna do a show with you so you pitch me ideas and we'll come up with something and we spent uh that thing gave me the you know I guess confidence to be like what I'm doing is okay so I'm gonna keep doing YouTube for now well until I go over and move on to TV I guess so that took about like a year to develop the brew show um i had like i had more than 12 ideas i had like maybe 15 or 16 incomplete ideas i think discovery could only afford to pay for 12 episodes but uh we were like we're going to finish every single idea in this book and then that's going to be the end of my chapter on youtube that was the plan um because in in and amongst all of that was the development of these two feature films I had going.

1:10:55And Discovery was going to be the develop, they were going to develop one and then Warner was going to develop one. And it was like the perfect kind of ending to YouTube because they were going to let me upload those to YouTube as well. It had to go on Discovery like two weeks before, three weeks before. That's a pretty good deal. That's a lot of belief in you after what seems like a tough year on YouTube where you feel like no one's watching. You're struggling. And then all of a sudden, tell me about it. Tell me about it. It's like, hey, how about two feature films on a 12 episode TV show? I thought someone, my mom had come into money and she was paying this money.

1:11:32You know what I mean? To keep me going. No, I couldn't believe that he had reached out and said that he believed in me. It's always been like a person that's believed in me. Weird, eh? It's always been like Casey. It's been Tom. It's been this guy, Tim, that gave me the chance on the Tusker ad. Then, yeah, I did the Discovery show. And that was awesome because they just gave me the free reigns. I worked with this guy, Tom. And technically, his job is to, like, sign off on everything and make sure, and usually, I guess, the client in that regard would be the red tape and someone to be like, no, I hate that, hate that.

1:12:14He was just such a big fan of what we were doing. He was like, he would literally watch reviews and go, I love it. That's it. Yeah. Did you have to do like a bunch of, like the thing that freaks me out, this is really interesting concept that we were talking about before you came in. Like if we got an email from Netflix saying, let's take this talk show and let's put it on Netflix. Let's make something like David Letterman's My Next Gaspa for Creators. There's no possible way I would say no. Like I would be like, that sounds amazing. Let's do it. But I also know in my head, that working with a streamer is really challenging.

1:12:52And it's like nothing like what we do here. Is that accurate in your experience with Discovery? Like when I hear about that, I'm like, okay, there's going to be a ton of legal review. We're going to have to blur out a ton of logos. We're going to have to get location releases everywhere. Definitely. Like for me, my mind gets overwhelmed by that concept and the notes from the stream. And that's also been our experience when we have made things for TV. Sure. before is that it's it's becomes quickly a nightmare scenario where you've lost complete control yeah definitely over everything you see you know what's interesting is i came from there um so i built my company joe based off of that so we we do a lot of service work service work meaning um uh production companies that want to come and work in cape town and we'll service the the job for them.

1:13:41So we organize all the bits and bobs. And so I've got really smart producers and people that do all that stuff. They, you know, content buyers and whatever, and people, product placement and continuity. And so we did like, when we started with the discovery stuff, we had to do a bunch of training on like what to, and what not to say with regards to just how, how to conduct ourselves on set and then also what to say with inside of the films and i pushed back on most of it because i'd been developing this thing alongside with tom so like a lot of the things in the beginning they didn't want me to say fuck you know and i was like but i always say that you know but it's my favorite work yeah people are gonna be like that that's not it doesn't sound right and they're like okay we'll beep it out and then i i think i got to keep it on my youtube channel the stuff i uploaded but they had to beep it out on discovery on discovery i think something like that then there's certain things like my cuts are too fast so they could give somebody um an epileptic fit whoa but i was like why the fuck does youtube not have that thing yeah interesting you know what i mean that sounds like a problem yeah because you had run stuff through um uh it's called like tech something it's like a tech check you run it through there and then it gets a sign off it's just a like a computer that looks at it wow so the pace of the cuts was too fast yeah on all of my videos yeah always yeah comes back and it's like epilepsy warning i'm like geez and then we have to go back and really slow the cuts down so that's something they won't put it out on tv if that's the case like they can't just like so so there's that there's like red tape i would say if you didn't have a relationship with somebody like i really developed a strong relationship with tom and before going ahead uh if it was like you're working with a bunch of execs then you would lose complete control of your show yeah and you would just become something purely for views for that stream yeah and you just a pawn you don't even know how it performs and they selling your content are they because they content buyers and then they own your stuff in perpetuity and they're selling it off in different territories right you don't even know what's going on yeah so that show was pretty youtube focused like i remember logan paul was in an episode oh yeah there was an episode with logan there's episode with casey yeah um yeah casey's in one logan yeah uh what was some of i'm just curious like during this time of like ups and downs on youtube and then going to discovery.

1:16:29What was Casey's advice to you? Did you turn to him for advice? I always do. Yeah. Cause I know you wrote, you wrote a blog post about 10 things you learned from Casey, which I have those 10 things written out here, but I'm curious about like. What did I write there again? I'll read it to you. I think it's really funny. But first I'm curious, like during this time, did you turn to him for advice on how to grow your YouTube channel? Cause your guys' styles are very different. You know what he said? he was like, you should create a product out of macadamia nuts that has caffeine in them, tastes really good and will fuel you.

1:17:06So is this the point of the show where we're going to find out about the brew bars? No, no, it's still going to be in there. Okay. That's a separate thing. I mean, because I actually do want to, like, I would love to eat one. Yeah, but AVD, right? Yeah, you're right. You want everyone to stop listening. You want everyone to just stop listening? ASMR, we're going to have to take these things off and really get into it. Make a song out of it. Yeah. All right, dude. don't get me started okay all right we'll be here for three weeks Dan just lives here making a song he arrived tomorrow morning I have my shirt off I'm like hitting the wall we just like can't get him to leave yeah no you won't we record the next interview with the next guest and he's like still here dude I will be he's getting diegetic sound from the other guest

1:17:49we're just like sorry he won't we can't get him to leave he's been here since we recorded the answer to the question where is dan mace you know he's on our couch he's on our couch we have still making the like never ending still capturing diagenics now fuck dude fucking hell bro so casey's advice to you at that time before going over to discovery yeah just like during that ups and downs of youtube like obviously with the seasoned youtube vet or someone who had like really found success on youtube i'm sure given your relationship he was like hey dan try this or if you asked him what should i do the weirdest thing that ever happened with casey was um i this was in 2019 i came to la to come visit him and um the k the only casey that i knew was the guy that would be like if he came to pick me up there'll be like a camera in the front there'll be a camera on the seat and we'll be going somewhere i have no idea but i'll just have to get ready to shoot and he comes and picks me up i'm like ready bro i'm like i'll do anything i got my helmet on like the whole thing get in the car and i'm like what are we doing he's like we're going surfing i'm like okay cool bro like where what we what is it about he's like no we're going surfing i'm like what he's like yeah bro it's thursday that's what i do yeah I'm like, you're being serious?

1:19:17What happened to my old friend? Yeah. And so I think at that time, Casey had just completely stopped uploading. He moved here. He's, he's whole, like he's changed since then as well. So he, before he was like super nonstop and then LA changed. He was like very chill, just like surf a lot. now he's back New York grind hustle back to the other Casey version that um his advice I I remember um speaking to him about the the thing about I was like there's this thing that's going to happen with discovery and he was like hesitant about it he was like are you sure that it's going happen though kind of thing he was like if it does fuck that sounds amazing you should definitely do it Casey's always um supported me much more as a filmmaker than a YouTuber um he would just be like dude your videos are fucking great you know just keep making them like you just got to keep making them like fuck the views and then I would want to be like fuck you like you you doing you making making great videos and you're getting views yeah like how did you figure that one out you know um so a lot of yeah his comments always like just keep on making great videos and stop worrying about the views then i was always like yeah but you're still getting views so what are you like yeah yeah if if you weren't getting views and you're in my boat what's your you know so if you're if you're sort of struggling to be creatively validated by youtube you move to discovery do you finally at the end of that get a sense of creative validation or or an alignment of purpose no no it never does that go i i wrote it in in my blog recently it's i think i described it as like like the mirage of a finish line, just like keeps on going further and further away.

1:21:37The anticipation of something happening is what makes it exciting. That's why it's so hard to finish a film. I find it so difficult to finish a film because one, I'm scared shitless to put it live. and two it's also very difficult to say goodbye to something that you've been doing so like i find the last five percent of the film taking the longest to do so with your editor you need to be like remember what dan said just fucking get through that shit that last five percent it's probably what's what's bottlenecking you guys right now but yeah i i um it's it's um i think I try and hold onto that anticipation a lot more.

1:22:23And then when it finally gets there and it gets to the point and the film's finally done, it's never good enough. And then you release it and people could celebrate that one, but I'm already worried about the next one. I read something the other day. It was like, my film would never be complete if I didn't have a deadline. Like as a filmmaker, that is inevitable. If the client didn't say it had to be done on this day, like it would just forever be in this constant loop of trying to better. For sure. So yeah, with Discovery, I got through the show and I knew that I was going to move to LA and make this feature film called The Afronauts about these four guys from Uganda.

1:23:21It was based off of a Times Magazine article about the worst hundred ideas of the century. And one of them was about the Ugandan space program, which was very funny. And in the 80s, or the late 70s, early 80s, Idi Amin, who was a terrible dictator, decided he wanted to join the space race. So he created this space academy where people would wear like tinfoil hats and shit. It was insane. He would roll them down the heels in barrels and everything. And I thought that was a really interesting story. And anyways, we slowly got this thing developed. And one of the Brew Show episodes was a development piece for Warner Brothers Discovery.

1:24:04We went out to go find out the realities of the situation in Uganda. And they bought it and they were like, cool, this is a done deal that's happening. So off I go, I say, fuck you, YouTube. I'm going to Hollywood. I'm going to be a director now, and I'm going to make this feature. Were you prepared to make a feature film? I don't even know how that works to make a long film feature. You felt very prepared to do that. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, back from where I'd come from, that was always the goal. Got it. And also here in Hollywood, as a first time director, you usually get paired with a production company that would guide you really well through the process.

1:24:54They can't hedge a bet. So yeah, and the fact that we had gotten it over the line, which is the hardest part, especially here in LA, there's a lot of yeses and all of them mean no. like for 10 yeses you hear like you know maybe one is a real yes so what happened is when I came to Los Angeles and I said screw you YouTube which now I feel like really weird about thanks guys welcome back thanks for always having my back always accepting me every time I come back good to have you in your bars here so yeah The merger happened at the worst time possible between Warner Brothers and Discovery. And we had just read an article about Batgirl getting shit canned.

1:25:48So what was happening is David Zasloff was just shit canning a whole bunch of things for tax write-offs. And we were so scared our film was going to get made and never see the light of day. um so we bought it back from from discovery and now we like shopping around uh hollywood to try and get this thing bought and there was a lot of different buyers that were keen like i said everyone's saying yes yes yes we'll get back to you in a week we'll get back to you now and this is in like august last year 2022 and then i was like now i'm fucked like i've i'm starting to dig into my savings i haven't uploaded a youtube video i've said fuck you youtube you know what am i going to do now vpns yeah talking about yeah vpn numbers have gone down everyone's already got one dude you know the emails that you usually just immediately delete and click archive I'm going through those hi influencer hi Dan Mace channel yeah and like oh dude that's a dark place if you're reading those emails oh dude dark and then if you respond he may just be getting scammed at that point I'm not going back to the jams dude so yeah I um I came to New York and my intent was I was gonna start YouTubing again for like the fifth time and I spoke to Casey um and he was like dude what are you doing you know like you're just bouncing back and forth and i was in a room that was way too expensive in downtown new york um and i i was just extending my time waiting for something to happen because i was like life is what were you waiting to happen in new york i don't know you don't know just this this thing and what is your wife saying to you at this time she's like come back to south africa And I'm like, no, I'm going to make it.

1:28:04I'm waiting. No, I was waiting for a phone call to come through from a buyer for the film. And I needed to be in the States. So I could fly to LA, but I couldn't make content in LA. I could only make it in New York because it's difficult for me to make the kinds of films that I make in Los Angeles. So yeah, and I also felt that I just needed to be around a mentor. and Casey was very open to helping me figure things out. And Jimmy phones out of the blue. At like, I don't even know, one o 'clock in the morning, two o 'clock in the morning, I see on my phone, it just says Jimmy Beast because I saved his number like that.

1:28:55And he's like, yo, I want to speak to you about an opportunity. and I was like okay and then I remember thinking like fuck maybe I should film this this would be cool for a video but I think it's like illegal to do that I don't know but I still film it but you did it I still film it but I don't have that footage anymore I don't think it's in a YouTube video yeah yeah fuck guilty should we sign off on it okay I'm pretty sure no no Yeah, I still have that footage. Nothing bad was said, I don't think. Yeah, so I got a camera, I was like, oh my gosh, Jimmy phoned me. At least if nothing comes out of this, I can say Jimmy phoned me and put it in a video and maybe get 10 ,000 views.

1:29:45I don't know what the thought back then was. But yeah, he phoned me and he said, do you, like the Beast Philanthropy channel is lacking a little bit and um we want to try you out on a video what do you think about that and i thought fuck i went i went over and looked at the current state of the beast philanthropy videos and um they were just really bad the way that they had been done um and then again now back at that thing where like the phone could ring at any point right i could sell my feature or Jimmy's like, give me an answer. So we spoke for a while and he was like, look, you know, I want to try out on this thing.

1:30:34And it wasn't a done deal.

1:30:39And he said, you know, let me know like tomorrow or the next day or whatever. And I was like, fuck. Then Renee Zellweger and myself were going to make a film. And that was going to be a short film. Different film? this is a different film okay um which had just then gone over the line so like in one day i have these two opportunities the renee zolwig it was just it was a short film but it would have led to a huge thing in my career um and it was a short film called umbrella um and we just didn't have a shoot date yet because she was being blocked off for another the film that she's currently working on now, but we knew that it had to happen in the first block of 2023.

1:31:30So at the beginning of this year, kind of the first quarter, like it would have to happen in maybe Jan, February. So that was happening. The feature film we had bought back from Discovery and now I've got like three, four months and I don't really know what's happening yet. We're trying to sell the other feature. The film with Renee, we're getting funding for, but I'm not really going to make too much money out of it. So I decided to move to New York. And at that time, I didn't know for how long. I just wanted to make a couple of videos and then see, you know, circle through the old brand deal things.

1:32:15Phone up the, you know, hey, Brady, you have a deal for me? Hey, SeatGeek, remember nine years ago? I'm back. Yeah, I'm back. And it's time for good. And yeah, so I made a couple of videos. I was making enough money. I mean, you know, the normal rate you'd get for a brand deal. And I made, I was doing like a couple hundred thousand views a video then still. So that was fine. and then I realized like it was getting toward the end I just didn't know what to do I was going to fly back to South Africa Gabs my wife was like I'm out of here and she left she was with you in New York yeah she had she flew to New York okay because I was at that point again i'd hit like a another down yeah my feature wasn't happening this thing with renee which sounded really exciting again like i said there's a lot of yeses yeah so it's kind of like is it going to happen isn't it going to happen um but then then i get told on this day that the Renee film is happening.

1:33:42And it's happening on the end of November. It's like the 25th of November. There's a time where we needed to be in Canada. There was a road that we needed to shoot on. She's free and that's when we're going to shoot it. And that day and dead ass, this is probably 2 a.m. that morning. jimmy phones and offers me this opportunity to shoot a beast philanthropy video and um i'm like when is the video he's like well it happens from middle of november to like the fifth or sixth of december so i'm like yeah you know uh this old situation again and um And then, and I also hadn't, I didn't know if the feature was gonna sell yet.

1:34:42And there had been a lot of people, like the feature was sitting with everyone. The other feature, my feature, the Afronauts. And Jimmy was like, we need, the philanthropy videos are lacking. And I went to go look at the videos. I don't know if you saw the old beast philanthropy videos. I don't want to throw shade on anyone, but they were just really bad. They were done in, it was distasteful for the subject matter. Yeah. What it was and it needs craft and beauty and art. It needs to transform the audience and have the correct emotion. So I looked at it and I was like, oh, and I spoke to Casey, obviously, as well about that.

1:35:26and it all came down to like if how much of my own style i'd be able to put into those videos because if i was just going to be making those same kinds of videos it would have been i probably wouldn't have gone ahead and done it and jimmy was like you gotta let me know tomorrow and um i was like and in all honesty i wasn't gonna do it you weren't gonna do beast flow and no you were going to do the renee's yeah yeah because i was like this is it's the only thing that makes sense it's because if i had to think about it also they it wasn't like going to be a long-term thing they're going to try me out on one job right and i was also like my thought at the time was this is really bad but i'll be honest with you um i i was like i'm just going to try and charge them a fuckload and they can always say no and if they say yes well then at least i've i've got enough money to like get through the next thing and i'll explain it to renee or whatever i don't know like try and get through so i came in like so high for this video and jimmy phoned me back and he was like dude you know maybe like let's pull it back for this one bring it back a bit there and um because as you know obviously for the philanthropy videos there's no revenue yeah everything that's generated goes into back into it back into the project so what what i get paid to make the films comes out of jimmy's pocket comes out of their main channel whatever it is which i didn't know at the time you know um i i didn't know much about beast philanthropy at all um i'm also safe to assume you didn't really sleep much that night no no No, not at all.

1:37:18I put myself in your shoes. I was going back and forth and I was thinking like, shit, you know, like my one chance also with someone like Renee and the other people that were involved and the execs and all these people I'd been speaking to. And what if I do a good job? Do I continue with them? Do I screw everything up? It's fascinating that you've been faced with this multiple times in your career and that it's emblematic of the moment in time for, you know, filmmakers of like, do I go this way and go to Hollywood or do I go this way and go to YouTube in the future? Dude, I've had one foot on each side of the fence for so long.

1:37:59It's fascinating that you represent that and your story has so many of these forks. Yeah. And then Darren phoned me. And if Darren hadn't phoned me, there was like a, Darren phoned me like much later. And Darren's the one who sold me on it. Wow. Hearing Darren's just passion sounds like a terrible word. His devotion to wanting to utilize YouTube as a platform to generate one awareness to a younger generation and just like our generation that to showcase that you don't have to start off a charity, you can just become a part of one or donate to one or to create videos to raise money to help more people.

1:38:58And he explained this to me like Darren does in a very long winded way. It was like a two hour long phone call, but he got really emotional on the phone. And I was like, geez, this person really fucking cares. And something in me was like, fuck, this just feels right. What if I can make a film that's good as a film? I'd look at it and I'd be like, this is the same as like gift. Like it's a film that really makes me feel good. But at the same time, it's also doing good um and i'm getting paid to do it like i'm getting the the same amount of money that i would be doing if i was off doing a feature kind of thing that was the hope you know that was the goal after my conversation with darren that's kind of what i thought if i said yes so i hedged my bet and i i said i'll do it and then it was remember only for that one film then i i phoned the executive producer that was going to do the film with Rene and they were like, no, it's not happening.

1:40:05Like you're not going to shoot that. Yeah. Like you're shooting. You have chosen something else. Yeah. Like your chances, it's finished, you know, like that's it. And I think that was just because of the fact that it was that time span. They weren't salty about the fact that. Yeah. It's just you get like one shot with these kinds of people. Yeah. Someone of such high stature. I've got major respect for Rene for even just spending some time with me. Yeah. You know? So yeah, I'd given up on that. And then - Did you feel okay about that? No. Not at all. I was like, fuck. Yeah, because it sounds kind of similar to when you, you know - Yeah, so that comes up.

1:40:52It's interesting because I would have thought in that moment you go shoot the thing with renee and then you hop on the next beast philanthropy video because it's still a test they needed the they needed this the film so what happens with beast philanthropy is a project happens on a certain date and because like we can't fake it or it's not like a film shoot um if we're doing something like for this one it was building an orphanage the construction and stuff everything takes so long to set up to the point so they break ground and date x and then remember we we're dealing with real people and real things so we can't have um a bunch of um kids that don't have homes and then be like oh just wait another two days because we need to film something else and then come in so like we the difficulties with it is ensuring that we make a really fantastic film, but also that we don't hinder any of the process as it would happen if there wasn't cameras there.

1:41:57So with the orphanage, it was, these were the set dates that we would have had to make that film. And they were going to roll into the new year with this new decision of if, you know, things are going to change. Got it. And then once I was making the film, it was kind of like another film was coming up where they were giving away a bunch of shoes, like 20 ,000 shoes. And they had another crew shooting that. And then Darren was like, maybe you would want to jump on the edit of this. So then I started to think like, oh, maybe there is something that's going to happen here. And then Jimmy was like, do you want to come to Antarctica?

1:42:40I was like fuck yeah dude like all of this is like now I'm going to Antarctica and there's like this whole like beast thing that's happening I don't even know what's going on now so I did the orphanage job um and I went all out like I was like I'm if I'm gonna do this I'm gonna redesign the whole thing so I looked at the way that the animations had been done I even I went as far as just redesigning their logo for them as well. I just went full tilt. I was like, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to try my hardest.

1:43:19And I remember finishing the film and actually for the first time in maybe three or four years, looking at a piece of my work and going like, this is fantastic.

1:43:33Actually, fuck, I didn't say fantastic. That makes me sound like such a dick. I was like, to me, this is nice. You liked it. That's all that matters. It was good. You were proud of yourself. It could be fantastic. I didn't say fantastic from someone else's eyes. Did you say exquisite, maybe? Yeah. Divine? What is the name? Where's ChatGPT at? Yeah. Yeah, no, I said that I really felt like that moved me. We score all our own music as well. Fully original music in all of those? Every single film. yeah so yeah wasn't the antarctica video though this is now on the main channel yeah han zimmer yeah that's handsome that's crazy yeah like when i remember when i saw it at the end it's like so casual it's like music by han zimmer you're like yeah wait what that's sean hendrix yeah he hooks all that up yeah it's crazy like that yeah so everything that we do on peace philanthropy is is scored and we it's an amazing way to make films the kind of system we've set up but so we tried it with that one.

1:44:40And I went to Greenville and showed Jimmy the film. And Darren was like, don't worry, you know, like with Jimmy's super busy always. And like he watches the film and there's nothing worse than when you play someone a film and they press pause, like, well, you're busy playing the film. And if you've ever had that before. I mean, I'm guilty of doing that. So yeah, because you like analyzing, and you're helping someone else, you know, or you're giving feedback to your editors, right? But if you dare do that to Casey, you'll cut your finger off, I reckon. Like he's playing you one of these videos and you speak or you like press pause like that.

1:45:18And you go, see right there, that cut. No, no, no. You can't do that. You watch the thing through first without anything being said. Got it. Which is very, it's the way that it used to be. Just out of just appreciation of like someone spending so much time. Yeah. But I remember getting like five seconds into the video and Jimmy like presses pause. I'm like, fuck. And he goes, and he goes back. And he presses pause. He's like, he goes again. I'm thinking, Jesus Christ, can he say something? And then he stopped pressing pause. And like maybe two minutes in, he shed a tear watching this video. and uh he was like i can't even remember what he said i was just so stoked then um he was like it's really beautiful or whatever um and he was like let's turn this into a long-term thing like right then and there um and then he said how much do you want right there right there at the table man yeah and i'm and daren's looking at me and i don't know if you know steel yeah steel's looking at me and we in his house dude yeah yeah and i'm like my head's going crazy bro i'm like fuck what i do and uh i come up with a figure like very quickly like by doing all kind of math and i push it a little bit higher than i would and i drop the figure and he's like cool then and i'm like fuck dude i should have hold the figure yeah exactly like it could it just could have been done like but anyways i'm stoked for like for the fact that i'm able to be paid to be able to make these kinds of films is insane it's it's also a testament to uh jimmy's authentic care for these types of films right and obviously like we all know jimmy personally but the world looks at Jimmy and some of the charitable work that he does as purely for viewership.

1:47:29Right? Like you've, I'm sure you've read the headlines and the pushback, even like the most recent video, which was a great video, the Wells video. That was a great video. He even tweeted preemptively. He was like, I just, I know, I know what you guys are going to say. I know what's going to be said. And then it did get said. Yeah. And then it did get said. What's your POV on that of like, because again, you're intimately involved in the process of making content that's philanthropic or around the philanthropy that you guys are doing, where, you know, the world looks at it as, oh, you know, this guy's just doing this for attention and for views.

1:48:06Yeah. I mean, ultimately, if you look at it, we need to generate views in order to generate revenue in order to do more right so there there is the discussion of going well um is this a once-off is it something that's like also done as um a a seeking attention and and it's going to uh like we're going and building a hundred walls that are just going to fall to pieces and there was no real effort put into the development behind and right you know the longevity like darren started building the first wells two years ago or so two and a half years ago but not to to beat on the on the well side of things i think that people misunderstand and that's why we keep on on at the end of the beast philanthropy videos just saying um remember that uh if you can't donate if you can't um purchase maybe a piece of merchandise um just share or like because each and every dollar that we earn from this video goes back into the charity um so i mean at the end of the day like fuck those people like you know no matter in which way you want to and how you want to help, we will always get some sort of negative kickback.

1:49:36And Darren gets bleak about it every time. I love Darren to bits. He obviously gets bummed about it. And I just kind of take it with a pinch of salt. I mean, when you're reaching that many people, you know. Yeah. You're also funding the philanthropy in a way that the majority, if not all the people in the industry really don't understand. Like it is a first of its kind sort of way to fund philanthropy on a really large scale. I totally get where some people are coming from. That's why at the end of the videos, we keep on saying what we say, but a lot of those kinds of people, they don't get there to the end to hear that.

1:50:16But eventually it will become more known and people... We've got such a strong audience of people that stand behind what we're doing, that they sort of answered that for us. If you go and look at like people that try and slam us for helping people drink water, okay? Like there's an army of people that understand what we're doing and why we're doing it. And then, you know, they stand up for us and have to, yeah, we don't have to go through. and Darren doesn't have to read the comments and get oblique. So in that moment when Jimmy says, cool, done, and you get the job, what's the emotion there? Are you like, this is my thing now?

1:51:05Like, this is my ticket? Or are you kind of like, are you like, well, I was going to go to Hollywood. Like, are you mixed? Is your emotion mixed? Or is it like, no, this is great. I'm happy. the way that he said done to my me like asking for this amount of money um i was a little bit bleak that i didn't ask for more but then i remember because darren and i had driven there together and we got back in the car afterwards and we were both very silent because i'd mentioned to darren on the way there like i wonder how this is gonna go and darren's like i'm very nervous because like darren's like i really want this to work yeah but at the end of the day it's jimmy's decision if you know we're gonna move you forwards and you're gonna become chief creative officer and take over at beast philanthropy but he's like it might take some time you know um and i'm thinking fuck or you know time that's not good and um i was hella nervous yeah before showing jimmy that like when i say when he was watching and pressing pause and stuff And then when I saw him like smiling and there was like a little tear and stuff watching it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is insane.

1:52:19And when he said done to the deal and I'd gotten over the fact that I could have gotten more and we walked back to the car. It was silent. We get in the car and like Darren gave out like a little squeak. I'm not even lying. He was like, yes. And I was like, yes. And we're like in the car going like, yeah, yeah. And I just thought, can you imagine like Jimmy's like standing there? Guys, you left your car or something, like you left your phone. But yeah, we celebrated in the car. Darren and I have this camaraderie that's like really special. And yeah, we were both just so happy. I knew that that's what I wanted to do.

1:53:07and then around March hit the first low again of when I got approached with the fact that the feature could have gone forwards the you got Afronauts and that's when we had made about three Beast Philanthropy films and And I was kind of on a film by film basis at that point. I hadn't signed a lengthy sort of contract. So I could have just walked away really if I wanted to. I think in America, you can just, I don't know how it works here. In South Africa, staff is different. But I think here you can just get like fired. They can point at you and be like, leave. You can't do that in South Africa.

1:54:01um but yeah i i could have walked away um and gone and done the feature and that was when and darren and i had like we had we were three months into our working relationship so it was like trying to figure it out trying to figure out this beast philanthropy thing and and going like we were getting more views than we thought we were and how long are we going to make the videos and there was like a little bit of conflict here and there and there was a moment we had our first ever fight outside the studio c can i say studio c i don't know if people know what that is yeah i think that's fine yeah um we were parked outside studio c in the same car that we had celebrated and he's got this red tesla and uh three months later we're in there arguing okay and again it was my own internal debate of like fuck i could go off and do this feature film or if i say no now this is the last time i probably could ever say no or this opportunity will come around and i just opened up to darren and said that um and he said, well, I'm not gonna hold you back.

1:55:20i was like fuck i thought he was gonna offer me more money he's like yeah go yeah he's like yeah he was like look i'll you know this is a an amazing thing that's happening here and i can see what will happen down the line and um i love working with you but i can't hold you back which is such wise and like i hate him for it because it's just like the best thing to say you know i really wish that he would have gotten angry or something yeah i didn't know easier it gives you it gives you permission to then go oh okay well yeah yeah go make a hollywood movie uh so he made that decision so much harder i was like fuck this guy's so nice and then yeah once again peep peep Casey I need your help again he's always I mean yeah he's advised I don't think I have I've never not taken Casey's advice I've taken every blindly followed everything that Casey has advised me on actually.

1:56:33And it's always irritates me to say it's turned out the right thing, you know? Cause he's just always so God I'm right, eh? Fuck. So what did he say in this? How he does it. What did he say in this context? He told me to stick with it. Yeah. He said, this is a sure thing. And just, you've never done something for a long period of time before. And stick to it and see what happens. But like, you got to stop bouncing all over the place. And he was like, this is, he's like, I'll maybe send you the actual text. But his words were something like, you got a really, really good thing going here. It's safe.

1:57:25it's secure um you've got a son on the way because i knew that you know um so it was it was also job security yeah um he's like you helping people and you you have a lot of creative freedom to make these films in the way in which you want to make them and they're really fucking good films um Um, so that, that made it pretty easy for me to go. Yeah. Yeah. That's very, uh, it's great to have that sounding board that comes from a really human rational point of view, because as the creative, it's easy to be irrational with the things you want to make and the things you think should be made and exist in the world.

1:58:12But when you have a kid on the way and you're, it's just nice to have someone who knows you that well. It was like, Hey, you've been moving around a lot. Yeah. And that's not helping you. I also think as creatives, at least I experienced this a lot and still at times do where you look at opportunities as like your ticket to make it. And you can never understand, like you said, the finish line is always getting pushed. So you can never understand if you've made it. Like, is this where you're supposed to arrive as a creative? Fucking interesting. Right. And you look at opportunity as like, oh, there's my ticket to go and make it.

1:58:47You know, like making the Hollywood movie, that's making it. Then what? Then what, right? And so when you get tickets, you need that sounding board of the person who has gotten a lot of tickets. You know, like Casey's gotten a lot of opportunities, that sounding board to go, what does this even mean? You know, like, what does it even mean to get this ticket? Is this a ticket I should take or not? And you have to like settle as a creative to recognize that you yourself are the ticket yeah it's not the external factors right i think yeah great great advice i once got from casey too easy was like look you the kind of person who can get dropped off with nothing in the middle of a city with a camera and a computer to edit with and you'll find a way of making it and like thinking about it like that then i you know and and hearing that from a a filmmaker that's so well renowned you know as a filmmaker and that that was a lot of validation for me and affirmation to realize like okay the there's a skill set and a talent here that i can invent something yeah with a camera and a computer to edit with and i'll always be okay like no matter how badly i if i do make the wrong choice and i fuck something up i can always reinvent myself yeah however like let's not waste that time yeah you know and try and make those wise decisions um you also never know who's watching if you think back to when tim was his name from discovery tom tom sorry sorry tom Jesus man now we're definitely not getting a Warner deal oh god so you think back to when Tom reached out you had no idea I'm sorry Tom I'm joking you just never know who's watching you may think there's a right decision a wrong decision but if you put yourself in a place where you're making work that you're proud of you don't even know at the tail end of this beast philanthropy.

2:01:03One, if there will be a tail end, maybe you'll do this for years and years to come. But two, you don't know who's watching and who will reach out and see the next chapter of your story. I promise you that's the, like where it's come from is like views are one thing. But if you're making work with substance and meaning, like the stuff that you guys are doing. And I hear like every time you bring on a creator, massive creators, they all say, I watch your guys show. You guys aren't sitting with 25 million subscribers, but yet your network is of 500 million subscribers because the people that you know and the dots that you can connect, because you ask, you're sitting with intelligent people, you're asking wise questions and you're teaching those other people that don't know about those different avenues um and with say philanthropy um the upside is that the views are so high which is great but even if they weren't um the kinds of people that are watching those films are are really people that matter in the sense of uh they they value um doing better shit for the earth um you know and those are the people that you want in your corner especially the ones that that want to sponsor videos like that right you know even if for instance like which i don't see it happening and i hope it didn't was uh you know the relationship split between beast philanthropy and myself um still the the right people would have seen the films that i made for Beast Philanthropy.

2:02:46And it's been a really great positioning point. And then I would probably go off into documentaries that are about betterment of the earth and that sort of thing. Yeah. Philanthropic-based stuff, for sure. I'm also curious just like functionally how it works, because you're the chief creative officer of Beast Philanthropy, but you're also running a production company called joe films sure so is that like is joe films the production company behind beast philanthropy or is that separate it's separate so i hire joe to help with the to hire oh interesting interesting yeah how much of joe's and maybe you can tell me this maybe you can't but how much of joe films business is beast philanthropy 100 100 got it yeah interesting in In the beginning, we were trying to figure it out because we didn't have, and like the great thing with Jimmy and Darren is like, we can be 100 % transparent and open with the books.

2:03:53I can be like, look, we need X amount to cover overhead for Joe, but we don't need, you know, I'm not in a position where I'm money hungry or whatever. So we need X amount of profit. And if you want Joe's full attention for these firms, we're going to need to be paid X. So my salary is here. Joe's service charge will be this. And that's the amount we'll get per firm. So they've got the entirety of Joe, which is great because I also get to build the culture of Joe. Right. You have a list of things you learned from Casey, which we'll talk about as we have brew bars. later if you were to make a list of things that you've learned from jimmy uh whether that's in watching edits or storytelling or uh the way he operates and operates at such scale what have you learned now from working with with mr beast dude you didn't read blog post number two i don't have that printed out it's on the blog dude um i didn't print it out so i didn't know I'll try to remember.

2:05:07No, no, no. Wow. Jimmy is complex, as you know.

2:05:19Jimmy, I mean, it depends in which way you want to look at it. Like if you're looking at from just a YouTube growth standpoint or as a business scalability standpoint or as a human being standpoint, you know, there's like three different things. I think in the KC10 parts, it's like all three of those together. Jimmy's still, I think, at what? He's 25 now. Yeah. So he is the, without a doubt, genius of YouTube content creation. So he has so much. There's countless to talk about and what to learn from that aspect. I don't know from Jimmy on a mentorship angle advice that one would possibly ask that's like life advice sure you know yeah I don't know him in in that way we spend a lot of time together but I've never actually and it's interesting to think that I've never just gone down that route with him at all it's we always only purely speak business what about though like notes on videos like have you learned anything in his the way he story tells and the way he sure so it's what's crazy is with philanthropy is there's it's an overlap of what he's input and my input and we've kind of created a hybrid obviously he say goes yeah always um and i i would never challenge what what he has to say like i mean it's just pointless it's like you know what he says is gonna work um but sometimes there's there's a couple of things where it'll be like it'll be like can't kind of make this change it'll be like but it'll take two days you know yeah and then it's just not worth it maybe either but um what i've learned is when things are just like you get something called a noe video it's like where you already know what's going to happen in the video how do you get through that and for example okay let's take a video called uh we gave away 20 000 shoes in africa so now you already know like before you've ever clicked on the video now how did to open up that so i wrote this line at the beginning of that film which was the only thing standing in the way between education and a hundred thousand or 300 ,000 kids in Africa is a simple pair of shoes.

2:08:11Now you go, okay, I'm now invested into finding out why they gave away these pairs of shoes. And it's not so much about the shoes, but it's more about the why so that's prior that i i would never have known how to get over that gap you know because the previous beast philanthropy videos would just start out from from the get-go um you know it's the same thing as you saw in the wells video um once you saw one well they need they needed to be a whole bunch of other elements that happened in for you to be more and more excited to see more and more wells being built. But what I've learned from Jimmy, I think number one is collaborate versus compete.

2:09:01We speak about the idea of rather competing with other creators. He tends to collaborate with anyone that he can. And maybe that is because he is just so big. But I think even prior to that, he was always just collaborating with people. Whether it's he helps out when he can, he's always down to get onto a phone call with somebody. He's always on the phone. Yeah, he's always on the phone. I was in that lineup. I've gone in and out of that phone lineup based on how much I pick up. But he'll go on a walk and just go through a rotation of calling people. Yeah. So he's always either if it's helping someone out by putting them in a short or vertical or platforming somebody on his main channel.

2:09:56He does more so that than try and compete with anybody else. I think identifiable characters is a very big one for his main channel videos. that that helps you to be able to create more than just a singular character so now you've got like in friends or david dobrik did it really well um you mean identifiable characters like repeat characters that have distinct personalities yeah carl nolan describe yeah to reek you can so to reek you define as this camera operator who also then integrates himself as a friend and you know he's there calls you can identify with chris same thing um chandler nolan um and no i've watched nolan's development right from the start when he came in has been very interesting to see so he's created these identifiable characters that stick to these certain archetypes yeah and and they people get to either like them or not and now now you're starting to develop a much, an appeal to a much wider audience because - Interesting, yeah.

2:11:09You've got a bunch of people, someone be like, I'm a Nolan fan, you know, like screw Cole or whatever. Someone's like, no, screw you. I love Cole. And you actually want that. Like you want people to take sides, of course. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting that you were kind of in that position with Casey. Yeah. You know, as being like somewhat of a character in certain space. I was the one being like, who is this Dan guy? Yeah, get him out of there. Fuck, yeah. More Marlin, less Dan. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. so identifiable characters is key and significant moments i think that there's constant explosions throughout jimmy like literal explosions right and also just as film school of you would understand and beat explosions a lot of diegetic sound yeah yeah but if you go back prior to big explosions like everything's leading up to some significant moment in a jimmy video And he's reminding you that there is about to be a significant moment or that you're waiting for a significant moment.

2:12:08Like in this, like we're all waiting to try a rhubarb. A beep. Yeah.

2:12:16There's a quote that you have that I pulled. I don't know exactly where it's from. Oh, God. It just says, the only person that can edit a film the way that I want it to be edited is myself. Did I say that? And did Casey say that? I mean, here's the thing. where did i say that unclear where you said it i think in an interview with the heavy chef oh wow yeah bro you guys do your research yes yes yes i'm gonna start again well no i mean that's fine um the only person that can edit a film the way i want it to be edited is myself um you know i experienced that a lot uh with colin um i should edit to every time i add something he's like move yeah just get out no no i mean quite the inverse like for me the way i want something to be edited colin was the only one who could edit that i couldn't even edit it myself the way i wanted it to be edited but then when we started to grow i would you know start to bring in editors and basically we would make something with the editor and then colin would just take the timeline undo what they did or just start fresh and just do it the way he wanted to do it.

2:13:27Just trying to maximize efficiency. Yeah. But I think that is, I imagine that's what Casey's like. I imagine that's what you're like, right? So are you editing all the Beast Philanthropy stuff or have you learned how to expand your storytelling DNA? Yeah. So I'll teach you something here. This is a first draft should be used as an example of what it should not look like. And as soon as you start to look at a first draft like that, you'll actually be excited to look at first drafts. First drafts are the worst things to ever look at because they're never the way that you want them to be. You look at it and you go, oh my fuck.

2:14:11I thought this film was going to be great. Right. Now I'm looking at this, this is shit. Right. Because these films we go in, like it's very interesting way of making a movie because you you as a writer you want to use like all 40 rhetorical devices in order to amplify absolutely everything you know um but you can't we're dealing with real human life we're dealing with real circumstances we're dealing with real people's problems and you know you gotta you can be this like renegade director and in the fiction realm and be like yes you know like more pain more sorrow and like bigger release at the end right you can't do that yeah um so we have the romanticized version of the film How do we get from explaining the problem?

2:15:14So impact, communication, and persuasion. So how do we create this impactful scenario up front and showcase what the issue is? And then how do we communicate that in a way that's not boring, but rather a way that's going to release a lot of oxytocin when we get to that point? and that's transformative when that happens um so we go in with this kind of like road map of of what we're looking for we we know who the characters are we know the story but we never pigeonhole ourselves to a script of being like this is exactly how we're going to tell the story so we go in with this kind of like a bird's eye view and then we come back with a bank of footage and then it's like oh it's probably so much footage yeah and you yeah there's so many directions that's what i was saying in this first draft that you look at there's so much that you can just toss out because you're like that's useless yeah even though when while we were there everybody looked at each other we're like wow that's a magic moment that's a great thing in the grand scheme of things nobody's gonna care it's not doesn't make any sense it's it's not like what we're going to speak about um it's uh yeah so so when we get back my my office alone is covered in whiteboard and both post offices are covered in whiteboard and we just write scripts that's all we do for most of the for like if i say it's 15 days worth of post three or four full days is just writing so it's writing a line and we've got ai tools that we use that replicates voices and we then run those voices back then we can time them then we sort of know okay for vo it's going to be like this and we'll take that and we start to score music to it so we can get a feeling and we go and the whole film is is done without any b-roll nothing and it was the first time I ever started making films that way it was this year was telling the entirety of the story with VO and then taking segments out of the boxes and which is just throw away lines to camera for people who don't understand and then there's actual sit-down interviews and a lot of the time what we would have to do which is quite complicated would be to get somebody to say something that they're trying to say in a short space of time.

2:17:53Yeah. As you guys would know, you said, so then you're like, we got it already. But yeah, usually people take a minute to get the point across. So we have to like really condense that. So sometimes we have to add in words like, and, why, how. So we have to go through their whole interview and find those words. Find the words. And stitch it together. Yeah. Yeah. So once we've done all of that, the rest of it is easy. Once you've got the music and the narrative and you can envision what you've been there, we've shot it beautifully already. There's these explosive moments. I mean, then it's like, that's the most beautiful part of editing.

2:18:36Then that last like 20 % of that, 30 % is so beautiful. I get the best part of the job. Doing the last like four to five days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm just like adding in things that along with the music, along with the sound. It's cool. You know, you watch it back. It's like ecstasy every single time. I think I'm the opposite. I think that first part is what I consider to be the best part of the job. Oh, really? The like writing and the story edit. Putting it out. Putting those puzzle pieces together. That's where I feel really comfortable and what I enjoy, like figuring out that puzzle. And then once that happens, I'm like, all right, let's give it to someone who knows visuals and like can do something, can make it look nice.

2:19:15Yeah. It's hard for me to think about which part I enjoy the most. Feels like I've been doing this for so long. Yeah. You know? At some point, it's just what you do. Yeah. You know, it's like what you do is you wake up, you think about storytelling, you sit in an office, and whatever story it is, like whether right now it's beast philanthropy, that could be the next 20 years of your life. It could be the next 10. And, you know, in 10 years after that, it could be something totally different. And the commonality will be that you wake up in the morning and you think about story structure, think about how to communicate and articulate this emotional concept through the footage and storytelling tools you have.

2:19:57And I think when you sink into that and recognize like, I've just committed my life to this, then no matter what the canvas is or the project is in the moment, the commonality is just like, this is what I do. i'm a storyteller do you ever think that maybe naturally you're just really fucking good at something and you spend 10 years of your life trying to learn how to be better at it to just realize that you were already just as good as you could possibly be at doing that thing yeah but i think there's always something to experience and learn and whether it's improving or not you're just learning new things about it you know and you're naturally just getting better at it should we should we eat a brew bar are we gonna do that let's do it let's do it this is the moment wow this is it yeah okay so so tell us about yeah what is what's going on here dan because this all your entire career has been leading up to since the era of the jam salesman it's been leading up to this yes no so okay yeah so from jams i was like how do you create a product that's just so sweet that's not going to explode in the back of your car and look like murder yeah okay yeah and i met this guy who owns this company called House of Macadamias, incredible guy.

2:21:12And there's 97 farms in South Africa with macadamia nuts. So there's a surplus of macadamia nuts, but macadamias are the most expensive nuts in the world, except in South Africa, you can just pick up a bag on the side of the road for free, because it's too many. So he was like, there's a clear supply demand issue here. but like the wrong way around yeah so um how do we fix this um so he created a brand where he makes products out of macadamia nuts and then sells those products and in order to market macadamias macadamia is only one percent of the nut market now where it will grow into something much more yes i'm also part of house macadamias yeah not just bruba yeah got it understood um so yeah i'm And also, I hope House of Macadamia is with the creative as well.

2:22:05Cool. Yeah, I mean, come on. Share it. Yeah. Are we not going to eat it? You're kind of like warning it over there. You've got so many. We just want to eat one. No, no. These are all for you guys. Oh, great. I even learned how to like put the thing. We're only a couple feet away here. Yeah. There you go. Oh. There you go. Okay. While we bite into this though, I did want to read the 10 things you learned from Casey. Okay. Because I have some questions about them. I don't understand all of them. Oh, no. There's one that I really, I like all of them, but there's one that I really, really resonate with on there.

2:22:36Okay. I'll read all 10 and then we'll go back. I made this one up. Casey didn't say any of that shit. Okay. Casey didn't say it. So precursor, this is just, yeah. All right. Oh yeah, I wrote into chat GPT shit Casey probably would say. I think Casey Neistat probably would say. A fool. You gotta react, dude. Number one, a fool sleeps when he's tired. A wise man sleeps every moment. Wait. I just give a thumbs up. of approval. I think this is delicious. It tastes kind of jammy. Like the consistency. You know what I love is the back half has this incredible coffee taste, but the front half is kind of crunchy, soft at the same time.

2:23:16And the back half, you get hit with this really nice... It's almost like a flavored coffee, like a frappuccino or something. It's caramel maca. Is there like coconut in this? there's no coconut no you're not picking up on i'm not you're not putting up on it you clearly like if you guys have a split you should go the food right right yeah i'm not a guy for this yeah okay he's the food guy number one a fool sleeps when he's tired a wise man sleeps every moment does it say that that should be when he can okay maybe i maybe i got me like you did you like write it down when you're really tight a wise man sleeps when he can okay a fool sleeps when he's tired a wise man sleeps when he can yeah free is the most expensive yes that's a great one that's a great one family first yes unless in meeting why does family first come third because the other two are more important no because i thought about it and i was like for uh avd that's a bit boring you know putting family and friends like that yeah yeah yeah unless a meeting involves food don't attend here we are i think that's actually really funny yeah yeah because it's uh that's really good you can never have enough gaff tape that's so good yeah that's true shut up and make something views are not a metric for success run exclamation point never advance at the expense of someone else and share your fails those are great those are 10 great rules yeah no for sure those are that's kind of what i what i took out of the time that i spent working with casey and then being his friend for years after i kind of took took all of that and then wrote out those 10 things i would like to do a similar thing with with jimmy yeah um in a more why did i want to use the word like human but in in like more because right right now i think jimmy's very hyper work focused like that's that is gym like that that's the archetype that he is in right now and i think that for his age as well at 25 casey's what 42 now um and i started working with casey when he was 35 maybe 36 37 so yeah he had a lot more life experience so that's where all of those came from.

2:26:04Which ones were you? Free is the most expensive for me. It was one of my favorites. I find that to be... Yeah, because people try to give you shit all the time, eh? Yeah, sometimes it's better to have like a transactional relationship. Yeah, it's like, look at us. Like we ask, you know, Dan's on the show and it comes at a heavy price for us. You know, we got brew bars all over the table right now. Yeah. Yeah, I think that one for me, it's like clean lines of transaction are so important. Much better. So important. And like, some people are like, I don't want this to be transactional. You're like, but it is, but it is a transaction.

2:26:37Let's just make it, let's just draw clean lines and boundaries. Yeah. I also like shut up and make something. I think I've connected with that throughout my career of like, anytime I felt down or like I'm not progressing, it's just like, don't, let's not think so much, just make something. Because everything we've made similar to your career, you know like our career was saved uh by paul lays at 368 what paul connected us with samsung and samsung gave us a deal that saved us and so like was this back in that in nine 2019 2019 yeah so like every every moment in our career has come from us just like putting our head down making something and then like colin said you never know who's watching you never know and so I didn't know that Casey Neistat knew who we were when we had 3 ,000 subscribers.

2:27:29That's a fuck up here. That's crazy. That's wild, right? So it's like, if there's 1 ,000 views on a video, one of them could be - That's a lot of people, dude. It's a lot of people. We don't let ourselves believe that. We don't let ourselves believe that. I think that's what's incredibly important is about that line of shut up and make something. It's like, if you want to tick it out, make something. Shut up and make something. I think that's what YouTube gives us the ability to do. Yeah. Right now, we could go live. We have been live. We've been live this whole time, Dave. Oh, fuck. Shit. Dude, I could sit here and talk to you all day.

2:28:06I really could. It's been amazing. Yeah, it's been really, really fun. Thank you for sharing and being open. I'm excited to see, I love watching your work with Beast Philanthropy. I love watching your work on your own channel. I love every time a little piece of paper comes out of the screen on either channel. It's just like, there's Dan Mace's signature on this video, you know? And I think you've been a creative that has progressed the scene forward. Thanks. Like the YouTube scene. You've put a care and attention into video that I think is what's making us all remember that this is an art form and a craft.

2:28:44Wow. Sure. It means a lot. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm excited to see whatever you do next, whatever videos you make next and whatever the next chapter of Dan Mase is. Yeah, should have a YouTube video coming out on my channel like in the next four years. Okay. Between now and then. The next two are I quit and I'm back. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, exactly. Oh my.