Using Automation Tools to Simplify Video Production

In this episode of "This Is", we're going to explore how automation tools are simplifying our video production workflow. One of the ways we're using these tools is by creating automated cards for our pre-production board. For example, when we take one of these video card ideas from our pre-production board and move it over to my personal board, it automatically creates a new card on the other side. This means that I can simply use those automation tools to simplify the process of creating multiple cards.

This has been especially helpful for me because we've started making more physical props for certain types of videos. For instance, for a project like this one, there's a lot of little bits and pieces that go into it, and I need to make sure everything is accounted for. By using automation tools, I can create smaller card tasks for myself, such as making items in the workflow, and then attaching those cards to the video card on my personal board. This way, I can keep track of what's been done and how close we are to being ready for production.

For example, when Matt comes to me and says "Hey, we're going to shoot some stuff on Thursday, what things are do we have ready?" I can tell him exactly what we've got ready, based on the cards on my board. This means that we can work from there and plan our shoot accordingly. It's not just about having a list of ready-to-go items; it's also about being able to argue and discuss the content in a more productive way.

One thing that might surprise viewers is how much preparation goes into creating each episode of "This Is". For example, I write my own jokes for some segments, while Kinsey writes jokes for us. Matt and I also like to have slides ready for ourselves before filming starts. Sometimes we'll even rehearse certain lines or jokes beforehand, just to make sure they land well.

When it comes time to shoot the video, we do need to get into a headspace where we're all fired up and arguing about something interesting. This can be challenging at times, but Kinsey has done so much pre-production work that it should be pretty easy for us to get into the right mindset. We have all the props ready and set, which can help us lean into certain ideas.

Once filming is complete, it's time to send the video down to Aron, our editor, to start working on it. Aron takes the footage and adds his own touch, making sure everything runs smoothly. He uses LUTs (look up tables) and sound profiles to get the audio just right, and then starts watching through the timeline, cutting out any unnecessary parts.

One of the quirks of editing with Matt is that he tends to say some things that aren't exactly funny. As a result, I like to put noise effects or other sounds in those sections to make them more palatable. Aron has told me that probably 90% of the time, he's just deleting lines from us because they weren't funny. Nevertheless, Aron is a skilled editor who can take all the parts and create something cohesive.

The team would like to thank their viewers for watching this episode of "This Is". Without your support, we wouldn't have been able to grow our office space and build such a talented team. So thank you again for watching, liking, subscribing, and sharing this video with others. We can't wait to see what's in store for next time!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Welcome to our $5 million studio.Today I'm gonna give you afull tour of our office spaceas well as walk youthrough how we make videos.And it's all thanks toour friends and sponsors,over at monday.com.(funky, lofi music)Hello my friends andwelcome to our office.So last time we did a tour,everything was entirely under constructionand while construction is still going on,it is a lot better than it was last time.We're doing a bunch of stuff today.Very kindly monday.comhave sponsored this video.We're gonna talk a lot moreabout them a little bit,but first why don't I give youa little tour of the studio.So we started the processof looking for this building in 2021.It took us pretty much a full yearto actually find the rightbuilding, get the keys to it,go through that whole process.Like that was an entire year of my life.And then the year afterwas getting it built,and so we've pretty muchbeen nonstop working on itand there's actually like, literally,like new rooms over here since we started.So, actually, let metake a look around here.Once we got the process started,once we started really lookingfor a much bigger spot,like we what we end upfinding, it was worth it.It just was not an easy processgoing from a couple of smaller loft unitsto an entire ass building.So if you come to here,this is all new compared to last time.So this area used to just be storage,now it's the edit den,where all the editors workand as you can seethere's a lot ofconstruction equipment aroundbecause we're currently inthe middle of putting ACin half the building.So if you ask me what it feels liketo spend a Lamborghinion air conditioning,I can tell you, not good.Woo, its kinda hot in here.What a great time to tellyou about the sponsorof today's video, monday.com.So while we were putting together thisbehind the scenes video.It felt like the perfect opportunityto trial using monday.combecause, let's be real, we canuse help with not only the ACbut also with our workflow.Being a creator isheavily dependent on data,whether it's all the projectsand the various pre-production stepsto get to making a videoor the analytics after the factwhen a video goes live to understand it.And the nice thing about monday.comis that it puts everythingtogether in neat little graphsand even I can understand.It also boosts collaboration.I can't tell you how oftenI'm walking around the officeto see if a project has been done or not.Whereas with monday.com,it makes it incrediblysimple to track tasksfrom start to completion.But more about monday.com, a little later.This, my friends, is the conference room.So a little bit messy rightnow actually, but that's fine.So this is where we do some meetings.Sometimes we have like sponsorsand people come in hereand we'll have chats.This is where we usually dolike catch ups on Mondays.We also use this as a screening room.Look, I didn't want to cleananything up for this video,this is the authentic cable managementthat we live with every day.This is also when we played beer pong.(ping pong ball knocks)So when we first got this office,it was built in thelate 80s, early 90sand it was all original.It was so just grungy and carpet.It just had never been taken care of.And for me it was like,oh you know it's a standalone buildingwe don't have to worryabout, like, the soundand all this kindastuff and it's very big.It's way bigger thanwhat we need right now,but it's big enough for us to grow into,'cause that was the number one thing.I did not want to take a leap forwardand then feel like we'recrammed in a couple years later.All right, let's go sayhello to the edit team.A few months ago wefinished building this out,putting the AC in and now it's super nice.Hello gang.- Hello.- Hello.- So this is where the editors work.As you can see it's a lotbigger than we need right now.So there's a couch and aTV and a bunch of stuff.It's definitely like,this is like the mostcozy vibe in the office.(upbeat music)And then, I dunno if Ken's around,I'm just gonna just takeyou into Ken's office'cause that's fine.Can you tell that this is Ken's office?- He'll be super happy with youthat you didn't let him clean up.- Yeah, here's the thing.He knew that I was doing the studio tour'cause I told him like 20 minutes ago.So this is all on him.Look, he has like clothesin here, he has bags,he has stuff that hehasn't put back since,you know, months ago.- Yeah, he doeshave plenty of bags.- More bags than I thinkthat are necessary, but-I'm showing you the real Overclock.I'm not showing you theclean perfect angle.I'm gonna show you allthe nonsense that's here.So this is our break room,if you've noticed itdoesn't look quite right.Look up in the ceiling, lookat all the stuff up here.These are all the AC unitsthat are not working right now,but I think we'll be upand running next week.AC is great.I love the fact that it got hotand all of our AC units stopped workingand we had to do all new AC,literally, in the entire building.(funky music)All right, what can Iroast in Matt's office?So here's the thing,Matt actually designs his office nicely.Look, he's got like his little Lego mug,he's got his R2-D2.- I vaguely remember himnot wanting us to go in his officebecause he wanted to clean it up.- Oh really?He didn't want us to come in his office.- No.- Oh that's unfortunate.So this is Matt's office.He doesn't want me to show it to you.There's also a lot of plushes in here.So this little spot iswhere we do also meetings.So this is usually whenwe're like pitching stuff.So everyone will kindalike jump on the couchand we'll just kick around ideasfor like 'oh I sawsomething weird on Temu'or whatever the case is.Now, my office has evolved a lotand is still not done.But let me show yousome of the cool stuff.My neat chair.So when I really needto get something done,I sit in this chair, it's not comfortable,but I'll put my headphonesin, lock in like some emailsor writing some ideas up or whatever.Like, this is my'Austin needs to make thishappen right now' chair.Coming over here,this is about as cleanas my office ever is.So this is my desk.My desk setup is actuallypretty straightforward.I run everything on my MacBookso I plug it in via this Thunderbolt dockto my, at this point, 8year old LG UltraFine,which is almost dead,but I'm still using it'cause I'm stubborn.I also have my little camera set up here.So I have my Neumann mic, goinginto a Focusrite Scarlett.I also have an A7III and a 20mm lens,so I can record like TikToksand whatnot with thisas well as I can actuallyrecord like proper videosif I just wanna like hop in and record.So if you're not familiar, Ihave a lot of Pokemon cards.So I have tons and tonsof graded slabs at home,but they just sit in boxes all the time.So like usually like once a monthI will take all thesecards and swap 'em outand I will just bring new ones in.So this is my, my WOTC era.This is an actual SoCfrom the Xbox Series X.So when we went up in early2020 and we did the video,as a little souvenir, theygave us an actual chipfrom the Xbox Series Xlike six months beforethe console came out.This has definitelybeen like the best spotthat I've ever had to work.For now let's take a look upstairsto see the real fun part,the studio.So this is gear cage.This is where we keep a lotof our various bits and bobsof GoPros, lenses.It's not a lot 'cause, honestly,we don't have an enormousamount of actual stuffthat lives out here.Most of our actual cameras and lenses,and that kind of stuff,most of those things areactually permanently livingin studios.Various bits and bobs for riggingthat I don't know how to use,but Joanna makes it seem very easy.This is our dumping station.So we have a iMac Pro herewhich has 10 gig ethernet.So whenever we finish a shootwe have all our card readersand stuff so we can plugin and dump the footage.Wait, did you hear that?Is Ken shooting right now?Are you guys filming?So this is where the Denkicrew shoot all our videos.Ken, you wanna come and say hi?- Yes.Hey.This is the Denki set.It's actually probably the simplest setin this whole entire building,but we're proud of it here.We had to pausebecause we can hear you fromthe other side of this wall,but that's okay.- Are you saying I interrupted your shoot?- Yes, you're very loud, as the audience-- What me?- Yeah- I've neverheard of that before.All right, make your video.I'll be loud elsewhere.- Bye Austin.- Bye.- This, my friends, is storageand we got a lot of cool stuff over here.Joanna does a great jobof keeping a lot of this stuff organized.But basically if you look through herethere's a mixture of,this is the Xbox Shelfand you can see we have a lot of Xboxes.Now this might seem impressive,but keep in mind,half these came fromGameStop and DKO ldies.So don't put too much stockin how many of these things actually work.The thing is, this stuff is really usefulfor us when we're doing videosbecause if we're doing acomparison, if we're, you know,we need an Xbox game, we've got, you know,absolute bins full ofgames, we've got 360s,we've got One S's, One X's, thisis the PlayStation shelf.So we've got the generations of PS5.So when the next versionof PS5 comes outand I say that it's worse,I can at least compareit with the older onesthat were better.Here is from when webuilt the ultimate PSP.So we've got all kinds ofjust random docks and stuff.It's funny, I feel like a hugechunk of what we do in videosis just trying to trackdown weird cool tech,stuff that's, you knowboxed original from like10, 20, 30 years ago.So we have a lot of accessoriesand we really hold onto thembecause we're constantly using themfor building the ultimatesor Wish videos or whatever the case is.Something slightly cooleris we've got the PS TV,which we pull out mostlywhen we're doing, like,period correct videos likethe PS3 and whatnot.But this is the PS3 TV.I mean technically it's just HDMI,but it actually supports3D, which is really neat.We've got bins of devices.So we've got an entire two bins of phonesand these bins are heavy,so I'm not gonna bringit all the way down.But as you can see we'vegot them expertly organizedwe've got ourselves, LG, Huawei, Moto,all kinds of stuff in here.Then here are bins of laptops and the,so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 bins of laptops.So this might seem like a lot of stuff,but we actually end up donating a lot.So what you won't seehere are a lot of, like,mystery tech items andsome more generic things.Like these are the thingsthat are actually, like,properly useful on like a regular basis.A lot of the other stuffwe just simply donate.In fact, actually if we come over here.- None of this is released.This whole shelf.- Oh, I can't show any of this stuff.- Yeah.- Oh sorry,just blur this whole shelf, anyway.Am I being too loud still?- Yes.- Okay fine.Show me your shelf then.What do you got over here?- Nothing.- Nothing?Really, just, just-- You're gonna hold it like that?- Just chilling on the shelf?- Because the room's under construction.- No, there's a reason why peoplehave unsubscribed from Denki.- People are subscribingto Denki every single day.We're positive.- So basically most of thePCs we build get torn down.So out of all the PCsthat we actually do build,we usually only keep a few ofthem here on this bottom shelfthat are still, you know, put together.And even these usually onlystick around for a few months,you know, when we know thatwe're gonna need it for a video.- You can tell he is never handledany of these products in his life.- Here's the thing, myrole here is ceremonial.I'm just here as afigurehead to lead the groupand I pretend I knowwhat I'm talking about,anyway, lots of PC components here.We've got ourselves tons of RAM,we've got ourselves stacks of CPUs.So again, when we're done with the build,pretty much all systems get torn downand put into inventory here.It looks so empty,everyone just keepsrotating around the back,look if I go fast enough.- It's your video.- If I go fast enough, you can't hide.(upbeat music)Welcome to the 'This Is' studio.So this is the first properactual like fully builtsetup that stays permanent.- So this whole setup ismeant to be swing around.So we can either shoot this wayor up against this walland it only takes about two, three minutesto actually set it up.- So all thecameras are FX3swith the exception of we have one,the only FS7 in the entire company,we still use, which is this guy.- Well not any more 'causeI just ordered a FX30.For this.- You ordered an FX30?- Yeah, so we can stop using this.See this is how you getAustin to buy stuff,is you just do itand then you blindside him with itand then he'll talk himselfinto having purchased it.- Let's move on to the other studio.Alright, next up we have studio Bwhich is where the main channel shoots.This probably looks a lot more familiar.So this is the studiothat I spend the majority of my time in.Also, if you hear stuffthere are electricians on theroof installing AC units, so.Basically the setup in hereis relatively straightforward.So we do a mix.So for Mystery Tech we typicallyuse the three camera setup.For other types of videos,we typically use this setup,which is just the handheld A7.So this is what it looks likewhen I'm talking to A cameraand this is what looks likewhen I'm talking to B cam.And then also this is what it looks likewhen I'm talking to C cam.There you go, see thisis the classic shot,but I'll tell you a little secretthis studio is actuallyonly set up for me.So if I come over hereand you look at likesomething like A cam, right?So if you look at that feed right here.So hello, it's A cam.You see how the headroom is made for me?If, I don't know, I wasa little bit taller,like say Marques height,then you'd have to pan up the camera,but we literally cannotmove the camera one inch up.Otherwise you see all of this,like it is precisely configured for me,which means that no onetaller than like six twois allowed on the set andif they are, it looks bad.So short kings only, it'sa good setup in here.But let me continue on throughsome of the less nice partsof the office because from this point onwe're entering Jank Town.(lofi music)So this over here isour little prop closet.This is usually where we just keep sort ofstuff that we need likesomewhat regular access tobut nothing that's that important.- Christmas.- The Christmas stuff also lives in here.And then if we come over herethis, my friends, is, by far,the biggest studio in the office.Welcome to Studio A.We haven't built studio Ayet, so this is just storage.Yeah, this is a lot of stuffthat is really just meantfor like building setsand just random furniture and whatnot.For a 2025 studio tour,hopefully this won't be a big empty room.So if you come over to Studio E,this is also not being used right now.This will either be a studiofor like a smaller channel,so something that doesn'tneed maybe quite as much spaceas some of the others orif we want to use this for,you know, grabbing B rollor top downs and whatnot.So thanks to our friendsover at monday.com,we're gonna give you a little sneak peekat how we create a 'This Is' video.So there's a lot of moving pieces.So not only do we have the crew,which consists of Kinsey,who's the producer,we've got Aron who's the editor,and of course Matt and I host.But there's a lot more that goes into itthan just Austin and Mattyelling at each otheron a mic for 30 minutes.Although that does happen sometimes,but most videos are alittle bit more complicated.So what we're excited about for monday.comin this sort of trial run for usis how we can actually optimize thingsbecause there's a lot ofthings I have to do every dayand I have a giant list of to do'sthat I rarely get to the bottom of.And with monday.com I have a single toolto manage nearly allaspects of my work life.Hello my friends.- Where are we at with-- On a day-to-day basis,it is pretty tough becausewe are, at any given time,working at about 10 to 15 videossomewhere in a pipeline thatis either in production,it's in post-production,it's in pre-production with researchand there's just so much thatwe need to keep track of.We need to keep track of dateson when videos are gonna go live.We need to keep trackof when we're actually gonnabe shooting these videos.When embargoes are for products,there's a ton of dates to keep track of.So trying to keep like, ohwhat are we shooting todaythat's gonna fit into our scheduleis probably the biggest challenge.- For us to beable to, easily at a glance,see exactly where each projectis, where each video is,how much this video needs to do.If we need to, oh thisis missing some B roll,oh this edit's half done,we need to watch itbefore we give notes backor whatever the case is.Having that all in one spaceis tremendously helpful.Where this is especially importantis with Kinsey, who has a lot of workto take all of pre-productionideas and conceptsand put that into a formthat we can actually shoot a video on.- Hi, I am Kinsey.I am the producer for This is.- Well, hello.- Hi.- Alright, how are we looking?- So I just printed out,for the This is workflow,there's a main boardthat's actually like thepipeline of the whole thing.So we have like, we mostlylook at it in Kanban formwhere we have like, here's video ideas,pre-production, production,post-production, live.So that way we can keeptrack of, you know,what videos are beingworked on on my side,on when are we shooting,what videos are in Aron'swheelhouse to edit.So for This is, we have a lot of videoswhere I make slideshows forMatt and Austin to look atwhile we film.And so I made it such thatif I take one of these videos cardsfrom ideas into pre-production,it will then automatically make a cardin my own personalboard for pre-productionand then I can just move that overwhen I'm ready to work on it.- So you basically canuse those automation toolsto simplify you havingto create multiple cards.Set yourself a reminderthat I need to do this step or-That's really cool.- Yeah.We ended up actually makinga lot of physical propsand for something like thatthere's a lot of like little bitsand pieces that go into that.And so what I can do is makelittle card tasks for myself,make some items in the workflow,and then I can say theseare all attached to them,to this video card on the other board.And that way I can then look at themand I can say like, okayhere's where we're at,here's how many of those parts are done,here's how close we areto being able to move that into productionso that when Matt comes to me and says'Hey we're gonna shootsome stuff on Thursday.What things are do we have ready?'And I can tell him we have thisready and we have this readyand then we can kind of work from there.- What you might not realizewhen you watch a This Is videois how much, like Matt and I roll upand Kinsey's got everything prepped.Usually you've got like slides for us.Sometimes she like writes jokes for us.So like anytime you look, spoil it,Matt's not gonna be happy.Anytime you see us lookingdown below the camera,we've got a monitor thereand a lot of times we're reading the jokesthat Kinsey wrote for us so.- I write my own jokes.- Yeah but Kinsey writes funny ones.We will see you tomorrowwhen it is time for the actual shootand we'll see all the wondrousThis Is action in action.Yeah we can go with that.All right, perfect.This is take one of theweird consoles tier list.When we are just talking about somethingif we're not like firedup and like arguingor if there's not likesome interesting contentwe can do the whole thingin like five minutes, right?So we need to kind of get in, sort of,the right head space and kindof get all amped up about it.That being said, Kinsey'sdone so much pre-pro on thisthat it should be pretty easyfor us to argue these things.We have all the props thatwe can kind of lean into.So now that we have finished shooting,it is time to send this down to Aronto start editing and seehow that workflow goes.- Yeah, hi, I'm Aron.I'm the editor for This Is.- Hello my friend.- Hello.- Are you ready to chopa disaster of a video?- Oh, I always am.Most of them are.- From here, do you wannarun everybody through,kind of like, a quick hit on the workflow?- Yeah, I pull it into thetimeline, get our LUTs on it,get our sound profile on itso that the audio's good,and then I just startwatching through and yeah,cutting everything.- Just delete allthe stuff that Matt said.Yeah 'cause it was mostly wrong.There we go, perfect, that looks great.I think that's way this should be.- And then I can just, youknow, a lot of sound effects,a lot of noises, a lot offart jokes, a lot of, wow.I'll have to send Rio the noiseso she can put that inover me saying that.Whenever you guys say something stupidI just put a some sort of noise in there.I would say probably 90% of it is that.Usually once I'm donegetting rid of all the timesyou guys weren't funny.Anyway.- Alright, cool.Well have fun editing the video.- Yeah, great.- If you're ready togive monday.com a try,what are you waiting for?Right now you can get a 30 day free trialby visiting the link in the description.And above all,I really wanna thank youfor watching this video.We would not have thisvery cool office spaceand have been able to growthe team as much as we havewithout you watching, liking, subscribing,and ringling that dinglingbutton, it does truly mean a lot.Until next time, my friends,I hope that nothing elsebreaks, but I'm sure it will.