Dave Lee Down Under On YouTube, Disney & Blu-ray

Dave: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 635.

Tommy: Dave Lee's in the building.

Josh: Dave Lee Down Under. Hi boys, how you going?

Tommy: Mate, welcome.

Dave: Thanks for having me on.

Tommy: So you and Josh went to VCA?

Josh: Yeah, we did a VCA course together.

Dave: Like a summer thing, wasn't it? It was like a teen flicks, something like that.

Tommy: This was not where the guy who, the murderer—

Dave: No, that was another one.

Josh: No, I went to, when I went to VCA, I did the foundations course and then a guy turned out to be a murderer. Oh really?

Tommy: Yeah, yeah. I was hoping you'd play it with no context. No, but I was— yeah, I thought you might have experienced this guy.

Dave: No, unfortunately not.

Tommy: You got out, mate. I love your hoodie.

Dave: Thanks so much. It's a Bugs Bunny all over.

Tommy: Yeah, mate, we look like shit. I want to start wearing this shit. Where'd you get it from?

Dave: HMV. Not HMV, bloody— I always say it— H&M. I always say HMV. I've got my head in the DVDs all the time.

Tommy: H&M in Melbourne or overseas? Overseas.

Dave: I just spent a bit of time in England and picked it up over there.

Tommy: Yeah, well, Josh has showed me your YouTube channel and it's, it's fucking bespoke, isn't it?

Mason: It's real. I love it.

Dave: Thank you very much.

Tommy: I mean, now I've met somebody who actually has, still has DVDs.

Dave: Yes. And many of them.

Tommy: And you actually make money from it now?

Dave: Well, yeah, pretty much.

Tommy: So it's the best possible way. Tell us about your channel.

Dave: Well, my channel is, uh, it's called Dave Lee Down Under, YouTube obviously. Um, and I like to say I talk about movies, pop culture, animation is kind of my, uh, my niche I suppose. And I cover everything from, as you said, Blu-ray hauls, talking about Blu-rays, DVDs and stuff like that, um, right up to documentaries, editorial videos covering the latest movies, and also, um covering films of the past and animated classics is kind of my little niche, I suppose. So as, as the channel started to grow, I've started to realise it's, it's all about celebrating the past of cinema, celebrating the future of cinema, and also trying to, you know, keep people interested in collecting the physical stuff. Because I think there's a very, um, still a very important market to have everything, you know, physically and in hand, as well as embracing the new.

Tommy: I feel like, uh, there's a bunch of people that haven't been able to ride out that period of time where DVDs were just a nuisance, probably like a doorstop, to the point where it's far enough on that they're collectibles.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Whereas you and your old man Rick, who's here too, Rick, you've, you've, you've rode that wave, but you've also invested in that wave.

Dave: Yeah.

Tommy: How many DVDs do you have?

Dave: I've got a collection which is just past something like 5,300 or something.

Tommy: Geez.

Dave: Which is movies, TV shows, the whole shebang.

Josh: I mean, do you ever need to— because I know you've moved on to Blu-ray and I think, yeah, every time you mention DVDs, Is that an insult?

Dave: If I say it was a little—

Tommy: because I never bought a Blu-ray player. Like, I was—

Josh: you have a PlayStation? Because PlayStation was Blu-ray.

Tommy: Was it?

Dave: Yeah.

Josh: Did you ever do HD DVDs?

Dave: Never did that. We kind of— I think when it made that transition to the HD, we just waited it out because it was this whole like format war. Hey, is it going to be HD DVD going to prevail or Blu-ray? So we waited, you know, we just, we just waited out, see which one. Because I know so many people now who invest in HD DVD and it's just dead format, nothing plays it. So we waited luckily and went with Blu-ray when that kind of took off.

Tommy: Do you reckon there's a VCD guy?

Josh: VCDs didn't serve.

Dave: That was like the illegal part, wasn't it? That was a very fine line. Yeah. Bootlegs. Yeah.

Josh: You had a rebrand. Yes.

Tommy: Josh loves a good rebrand.

Josh: I love a good rebrand.

Tommy: Did Bugs Bunny, is that part of the rebrand?

Dave: Well, sort of.

Josh: And so you went for— so you used to be Disney?

Dave: Disney Dave Down Under for about a year and a half.

Josh: And so did— what was the decision to rebrand?

Dave: Well, I had started a lawsuit. Well, that was actually part of the thought because actually Disney do— were starting to clamp down on websites using their name. So I know there were a lot of channels around the time starting to rebrand, getting the— like all these Disney fan channels. That wasn't the main reason, but that was kind of at the back of my head thinking, well, I should try and jump out before they, you know, jump on me. But the main thing was really I tried to find success, I suppose, in the YouTube space or even just in the film space for a few years prior to starting my channel. I did have a previous channel to this one where I was doing movie reviews, not very well. I had maybe 30 subscribers or something over a couple of years. And the initial impetus behind this channel was I'm going to start fresh, and I'm a huge Disney fan, as you know if you've seen any of my videos, and I've got a huge collection of Disney stuff, whether that's Blu-rays and books and collectibles and all that. I thought, well, I've got all this shit here, I may as well make a channel that's focused around all this Disney stuff because I'll be able to pump out, you know, constant content based on it and use that as a jumping point to try and get where I want to get, which is talking about movies in general. So, um, I guess, yeah, I sort of was a bit sneaky about it and tried to build my base around the Disney stuff. And then when I felt it was time to grow and people were actually saying, I'd like to hear you talk about non-Disney stuff, or talk about, you know, I'd like to hear you review a non-Disney movie, because people were starting to say, oh, we like the way you review films or the way you talk about films, like to hear your thoughts on other stuff. And I thought, it's bloody time to drop Disney Dave Down Under and change to Dave Lee Down Under.

Josh: And it seems like it's quite bulletproof until you moved to the UK. Well, and then you're Dave Lee Down Under.

Dave: Well, I had that. I had a lot of people saying, you're going to change your name to Dave Lee Up Over, or, you know, something like that. And I, I, I did— oh, I didn't really consider it seriously, but it was a thought where I was like, what can I do with it? How can I do it? I ended up staying over there for so long that I'm just happy I didn't because while I was over there, my channel grew something like, was it 400% growth I had last year?

Tommy: That's great.

Dave: On my channel. So if I changed to Dave Lee Up Over, I would have been right there still.

Tommy: Yeah. I mean, look at like Thunder Down Under, they're a male, male troupe, male dance group that present in Vegas. Yeah. But I think Heaps of people take the branding of Australia overseas. Yeah. Keep it in the name.

Josh: I like Bondi Sands.

Dave: Yeah, exactly.

Josh: Over in the US. And getting to that many subscribers. How many subscribers have you got right now?

Dave: Just past 53 and a half yesterday.

Josh: That's amazing.

Dave: Thousand.

Josh: And so what's—

Dave: 53 and a half.

Josh: From 30 to 50.

Dave: Your worst guess.

Tommy: That would be the best guess.

Dave: Bottom of the barrel.

Josh: No, we support everybody. And so how do you, how do you get to that sort of growth? Are there any secrets that you've identified?

Dave: It's about being persistent and being— persistence, regularity, um, staying topical. Essentially, they've been the 3 key things for me along the way, is just making sure you are pumping out stuff on a constant basis, whether that's every day or every week or every month, you know, get something up there and start, you know, you have to have this regular sort of routine where people are coming back and they know to expect that you've actually got this, you know, routine. Otherwise that turns people off. They say, this guy's uploaded one video in the last two months, so people don't follow that. And then, uh, just being topical and producing content on stuff that people are searching for as opposed to content people might just stumble across. Sure. So if a new movie comes out, I've been very lucky to get on a lot of media lists to be able to attend a lot of preview screenings, like early preview screenings for the new release films. Um, so I might get to see them sometimes the night before, sometimes a few days before, and it's about just getting a video up as soon as possible. And so for example, uh, Avengers: Infinity War, I got to see that essentially 2 days before it opened in the US. Um, so there was no embargo, so I was allowed to publish essentially whatever I wanted to as soon as I got home. And got home at probably 10 PM after the film and just punched out a bunch of content. And it was like, I did the film review and then I did like an editorial video which was explaining the post-credits scene, because a lot of people like to come on and some of the people who, you know, aren't diehards, diehard fans of the films or the comics or whatever, want to know what was that little teaser at the end. And they go to YouTube and someone's explaining it, so I thought I'll do one of them That was my first video that took off a million subscribers, a million views on the post, on that post-credits scene explained video.

Tommy: Do you get that, Josh?

Dave: Infinity War.

Tommy: Yeah, so that's like, only because if you don't go to the cinemas, you would know.

Josh: I went to drive-in, I went to Dramana.

Tommy: But no, I think even if you go and you don't know what happens, you wouldn't hang around. Like, the credits roll and then 5 minutes later, no, I'm good. Like, you've seen— comes—

Josh: well, because I feel like doing film and TV stuff, you sort of enjoy the credit, like the credits are you want to give the crew a bit of time and to read it. So I have seen it. What was the specific one on?

Dave: What did they do for that? It was a teaser for Captain Marvel. So it was Nick Fury and Maria Hill get out of the car after the whole snap happened and everyone's turned to dust. They get out of the car and his pager starts flashing and the Captain Marvel logo flashes up on his pager. And it's essentially like a 6-minute video of me explaining this is Captain Marvel's logo on the screen, this is who Captain Marvel is, this is how it ties into the next film. And that was a million hits because I was the first one to get that video up because I saw it 2 days early in the US and I was up till 5 AM doing the video. So it's about just being persistent and just trying to just cut, cut in ahead of everyone else.

Tommy: And do you monetize a video like that or are you using copyright content?

Dave: Well, the The good thing is in, in this space, um, there are these laws called fair use laws, which means you can literally— I can literally use any visual I want as well, as long as I'm using it for educational purposes, commentary, or criticism. So I can use any clip from any TV show or any movie or whatever and basically get away with it. Of course, the studios do try to demonetize your videos or try to copyright claim your videos and stuff, but I've been very lucky to be able to just ride on these fair use laws., and they usually, once you, um, contest it, they usually drop it. There's a, there's a few studios who are very heavy-handed with it and won't drop it, but most of them have been really good. And I've, yeah, can just monetize that.

Josh: What's been your most controversial piece of content that you've, you've ever done?

Dave: I don't know. Don't know.

Josh: Anything that's like, uh, you've had an opinion about a film or something?

Mason: Star Wars stuff.

Dave: Star Wars stuff. And it's got to the point where I've just stopped talking about Star Wars.

Tommy: Hang on, we had Jon Safran on this show, right? And he was saying how he went down a rabbit hole of people that were like channels dedicated to talking about what was going to be coming out. This was before it was released and how bad it's going to be. This is why— and he said the full break— wasn't your channel, was it?

Dave: No, no, no.

Tommy: Okay, good.

Dave: I'm very pro Star Wars. I've loved Star Wars my whole life. Star Wars is like one of the very first movies I saw that Yeah, it got me very invested in wanting to make films and, you know, talk about films and stuff. So I've been very like pro-Star Wars this whole time, and I've had this, you know, I've, I've supported the films and I've had some issues with some of the newer films, but overall I've loved them all. Um, and having an opinion that you like a movie on the internet is, uh, very controversial to some people, especially that film, because everyone— oh yeah, The Last Jedi in particular. I got trolled for months and months. I still get, I still get comments on old videos, like 2-year-old videos of people 'Call me a dickhead,' and, 'Oh, you fucking suck, you idiot,' you know, whatever.

Josh: Death threats?

Dave: Any death threats? Yes, a lot of death threats.

Tommy: And it's like, 'May the Force be with you.' Like, is it legit, or how do you decipher?

Dave: Well, you just don't know. There's a lot of trolls out there, a lot of very mean-spirited people who take their movies so passionately that it just becomes like something else. And I get in a lot of trouble because I can't hold myself back from trolling these people back, and I just, I can't bite my tongue. And I've, it's got to the point where I've said, you know, I gotta step back from reading the comments and stuff because they suck me in every time. I have fun with it though. Yeah, I play around with them. I probably shouldn't because then I'll get myself in trouble. But yeah, the Star Wars stuff, man, this, some of the stuff I've had on those videos is nuts. And I've just stopped talking about Star Wars. It's not fun. I mean, I'm pretty, I'm pretty thick-skinned, so I can, I can deal with it. And if I, if I couldn't, I wouldn't be doing it. But it's got a point where I'm just like, oh, it's just so draining. I just don't want to talk about Star Wars anymore.

Tommy: Well, I think you're deep within a subculture.

Dave: Oh yeah.

Tommy: That is— what is the thing that people outside of the subculture, what would they be most surprised at? It could be— I mean, Star Wars is its own subculture. It's its own bloody ecosystem.

Dave: I think it's just how passionate the fans are and how heated the fans can get. And whether it's from the pro side or the against side, there are some very, very passionate passionate people and they, again, they take it to extremes from both sides.

Tommy: What about like outside of Star Wars into, I don't know, some Disney stuff? Is there any sort of weird stuff that's going on that we don't know of?

Josh: Like within the Blu-ray, like owning physical copies, like is that a scene?

Dave: Well, I think there's a very small niche of people on YouTube that do it, that do Blu-ray hauls and stuff to various levels of success, I suppose.

Tommy: Hauls. So this is a YouTube terminology because I've watched hauls of a bunch of other stuff. What it— How do you best explain?

Dave: Essentially just buying a bunch of shit and showing it off and go, look what I pulled up.

Josh: It's the anti-minimalism.

Tommy: Yeah.

Mason: Yeah.

Tommy: Do you know what you're getting or is it a haul that you're buying like a whole stack that you like?

Dave: Um, it's usually like I'll go to say JB Hi-Fi has a sale, like they do a 20 or 30% off sale and occasionally they'll have like, well, most of the time they have like a multi-buy thing where you buy 2 Blu-rays for $20 and then they'll have a 20% off sale. So you get the 20% off. The 2 for $20. So essentially getting discs for like $5 or $6.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dave: And you just go when they have a big sale and just haul up, buy a bunch of stuff.

Tommy: And then I asked— Josh's dad is a hot rod head or a car motorhead. I asked him how much he'd spent over his lifetime on cars and he— what, nearly a million?

Josh: Yeah, I think over the years. Yeah.

Tommy: Cars are more expensive. What about you? What's the price tag you've got?

Dave: I have— I don't know.

Tommy: That's what Josh's dad said. Throw a number at it is what I said.

Dave: It's like But there have been a few times where we've gone, oh geez, how much have we spent on this? And it's like, it's not worth thinking about it. Just don't think about it. Just don't think about it.

Tommy: Well, if we go, Seb, what's $5,000 times by say 5, if you're doing $5 a DVD.

Josh: So a quarter of a million, is that what that is? Average that, maybe that's $25,000.

Tommy: $25 grand.

Dave: But I mean, I think it'd be more. Let's say average, maybe we're saying $15, $20. Yeah, maybe $10. Go in the mid.

Josh: But then also if you're doing collective, like collector's items and stuff.

Tommy: Like, um, you're paying more for one.

Josh: Yeah. I mean, how often are you actually only spending $5 on a Blu-ray?

Dave: Um, not too often. I mean, it's usually, it's usually around maybe like $8 is probably like, it's like a good price for something. If you get something for $5, it's like, well, that's pretty bloody good.

Tommy: Okay, so what, so average, would you work out, Mase? I mean, if it's about $50 grand, $10 is $50 grand on DVD, on Blu-ray or DVDs.

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: Which I mean, for your passion.

Tommy: Yeah. And you— but what came first? Was it the— I mean, you've had your YouTube channel for a while. You've had two. What came first? Passion for the thing, like actually getting this stuff and being really into it?

Dave: Yeah, it's— well, my whole life I've been interested in films and for as long as I can remember. I mean, my, my grandmother, my dad's mother, had a huge collection of VHS when I was a kid. It was always going there. Yeah, I think so. I think it is just being a hoarder.

Josh: 23andMe, come up in the DNA.

Dave: And she would, she would literally go and buy VHS and not watch them, and she would just buy them for the family. So it was like a little lending library. People would go over, borrow a VHS and watch it, return it.

Josh: Like Blockbuster.

Dave: She had like, well, yeah, pretty much. She had like a little book where she'd mark off all the stuff that she'd had and who borrowed it and whatever. And I probably just spitballed from there, I suppose. And then when DVDs came out is when we started really heavily collecting movies and stuff. It's just Spitballed over the years.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Did you ever, um, like, it was shops closing down, so like a Blockbuster or things like that. Have you ever taken advantage of it over these weird sort of situations?

Dave: No, not really. Well, we tend to buy brand new. It's very rare that I'll buy something that's like secondhand. The only thing I think— can think of is maybe like EasyDVD when they closed down years ago. They were like the first big store to sell Blu-rays before JB kind of cottoned on to that market and I guess drove them out of business. I think they're, they're an online store now, but they used to have a lot of stores physically. And when they closed, they got rid of a bunch of stuff really cheap and a bunch of merchandise and like all these little exclusive things that they were giving away with DVDs and posters and stuff. And we'd go in there and just have like a little bucket of stuff you go and grab for free. It's like, yeah, grab all this stuff, all these posters, like hundreds of posters, I reckon. And they're just sitting up in my cupboard doing nothing.

Tommy: Yeah, I remember, like, um, did you go to movie shops like Blockbuster and Video Ezy?

Dave: Yeah, yeah, when I was a kid, we'd go to Blockbuster and, uh, hire the 5, 5 that you got for a week, like the old, older films that you get for a week. That's really where my, um, I guess my, uh, my knowledge of cinema came from, just borrowing older stuff from the video store. And then you get the 2 Overnighters.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dave: So you watch the two new releases and then return the next day. So we did that all the time for many years when I was a kid until we actually started, you know, buying the stuff.

Tommy: What about like, remember the movie, like cutouts that you could— Yeah. You'd see names on them like they've reserved them.

Dave: Oh, you remember that?

Tommy: Like there was posters and you could reserve a poster and there was like a— you buy them. What a weird time. Yeah.

Josh: What's your preferred thing to eat while you're watching a movie?

Dave: Oh, just anything. Anything. I like food, chips. We got a popcorn machine at home. So yeah, we drove down to Dandenong. There's a place, it's actually the place that supplies the theaters, really, popcorn machines.

Josh: And what's the cost of a popcorn? I'd love a popcorn machine here.

Dave: How much was a popcorn machine?

Mason: Oh, they're not that expensive, probably, I don't know, $400 or something.

Josh: Oh, that's pretty good.

Mason: It wasn't, well, it wasn't expensive at all.

Josh: Yeah. And so I guess you have to add the butter.

Dave: You get that, you get everything from there, fully supplied. You get the kernels, you get the butter, you get the salt. You get all different flavours of salt. You get like cheese, some stuff as weird as cheese.

Mason: It's called Super Pop. Super Pop. I think that's what it's called.

Dave: I think so.

Mason: In Dandenong South, I think.

Josh: How good would it be like if you came into the studio and there was like popcorn?

Dave: Yeah.

Tommy: I mean, the annoying thing about it is the audio capture. If you could hear people.

Josh: You'd pre-pop.

Tommy: No, you'd pre-pop it, but then people even eating it.

Josh: Yeah, sure.

Dave: It's a bit of a pain in the ass to clean.

Josh: But say if we had like more seats for people to watch the show.

Tommy: That'd be great if you're having popcorn.

Josh: What do you do?

Dave: We'd blow out though.

Josh: Yeah, I'd probably eat too much.

Tommy: Popcorn, I don't like it. I think it's overrated.

Josh: I would definitely eat it.

Tommy: It's one of the things I eat. It's actually genius. I was at the movies and I was like eating popcorn. I say I don't like it, but I still fucking eat it.

Josh: I'm just like, why am I eating this?

Tommy: I'm just going to continue eating this. It's the most genius thing because you can eat it for 2 hours straight and you don't get full. It's such as like constantly eating. So it's a genius thing for film.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And being at the film.

Josh: What's the different models?

Tommy: Who came up with popcorn at films?

Dave: Like, no idea.

Tommy: And who came up with it? Yeah.

Josh: Who worked out like, yeah, like even popped corn.

Dave: It's just like an old carnival thing, isn't it? I suppose it probably goes back to then. It's like that old like carnival film. You go see an old film and they sell popcorn at the concession stand.

Tommy: Oh, it's so expensive.

Dave: Probably.

Tommy: No, it's cinnamon. It's really expensive.

Josh: But I guess the thing is, Tommy's got a spa. Have you fixed it, by the way?

Tommy: Drained half of it, filled it back up. How did you drain it? No, I just used a bucket.

Mason: Oh, that's not—

Tommy: took me 5 minutes to get half of the water out with a bucket.

Josh: Okay.

Dave: You don't want to try the siphon?

Tommy: I didn't have a pipe.

Mason: Okay.

Tommy: Like a tube.

Josh: And so the thing is, with these things like spas, It's one thing to, um, to own a spa. It's another thing to use it. Yeah. Are you using your popcorn machine?

Dave: I can't remember the last time we fired it up. I reckon the first maybe 6 months we had it was like, oh, it's that popcorn. We watch the movie, people come over, oh, make popcorn and stuff. It's a pain in the ass to clean the thing.

Tommy: This is exactly this, but just take out always the cleaning.

Josh: It's always the cleaning, isn't it? Yeah, it is. So we've got a fondue set at home.

Tommy: Oh, how many, how many other people? Yeah, like 90% of landfill is made up of fondue machines.

Josh: Yeah, it's outrageous.

Tommy: What about your, your, your collection? Like, I'd love to see some kind of stat page. It's almost like the weekly stat, Dave's Stats.

Dave: Yeah.

Tommy: How many movies you've watched this week, how many vids you pumped out, how many, how many hours of video movies are you watching a week, do you reckon?

Dave: At the moment, I'm getting up quite early in the morning and I'm watching a movie every morning because I've, I, because like I said, I've realised how many movies, uh, before, sorry, before we started the camera, the show, we were talking about how many movies I've just, I've not watched that are in the collection, which is almost a couple of hundred, if not almost a thousand. And it's at the point where it's like, I just got to start actually finding time to watch these. And I find it a good way to get the creative brainwaves flowing too in the morning, try and watch something and just start thinking creatively as soon as you get up. So in the morning I watch a movie.

Tommy: In bed?

Dave: No, I get up, I force myself to get up.

Josh: Well, you've got like a cinema room.

Dave: Yeah, we've got a cinema room.

Josh: So you can either watch it in bed or you could watch it in the cinema room.

Dave: So I get up and watch a movie in the cinema. And so yeah.

Tommy: And then what is this before— do you work during the day?

Dave: Yeah, I work on the channel. I'm basically—

Tommy: So it's full-time, you're a full-time YouTuber?

Dave: Pretty much.

Tommy: Fuck yeah, how good's that? And so this is just— I mean, that's just awesome that you get to watch a movie every day. Yeah, I mean, it's a bit different if you're doing it before going off to your day job. Yeah, it seems more indulgent, I think. Well, this is work for you.

Dave: Yeah, yeah. Well, I try and— I try and force myself up about 6 o'clock, 6:30, and get up, watch a movie, and be working by 9. Yeah, so I'm trying to just at least get into that, that kind of routine where I am working like normal person hours and just you know, keeping myself going really instead of just watching movies all day.

Mason: Yeah, yeah.

Josh: What's the hardest part about what you do?

Dave: Just the, um, well, the videos that I'm really, I guess, more well known for now, which is the stuff that's really helped the channel take off, is these documentary videos I've been making about, uh, cartoon characters. I've got my Cartoon Evolution series. I might focus on, say, Bugs Bunny And I— it's about a 20 to 30 minute video talking about the history of the character and, um, where— how they've, you know, gone over the years, how they've evolved over the years, over 70, 80 years, nearly 100 years, some of these characters. Uh, these take me probably 2 weeks to make full time, and the hardest bit is just doing the research and just writing it and just getting the motivation to edit the thing because it's like just full-on, just really stresses me out a lot of the time. Like, I've got a pretty good knowledge of the animation, um, you know, classic animation and the classic studios and characters of the '40s through to the '60s, what we call the Golden Age of animation. And most of my knowledge is, is Disney. So from the Disney studio is where most my passion has been. It's only recently that I've really started diving into like the Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry from MGM and all these other kind of studios. And it's almost like every time I jump into a new character that's from a different studio that I'm not as familiar with, it can be a bit more stressful to just do the research. It's almost like starting over again. But the good thing is Walt Disney was such a pioneer of the art form that everyone just followed him. So if you're reading about Bugs Bunny and there's something happening at Warner Brothers in like 1942, and you go, hang on, the Disney studio did that a year before. You start piecing the, you know, the puzzle pieces together and realising that everything that I know about Disney studio really forms this backbone of everything that I'm doing for all the other characters in studio. So it makes it a little easier. But yeah, it's just that whole process of researching, writing, and it's very time-consuming and very stressful sometimes.

Tommy: Is that Walt Disney frozen? Did he freeze himself?

Dave: That is the rumor.

Josh: I thought you, I thought you meant the— No, no, no, no.

Tommy: Walt Disney froze himself in the future if there's some way of bringing you back to life.

Josh: Yeah. What's it?

Dave: He was cremated. So he's cremated and he's in a—

Josh: And then frozen? That seems backwards.

Dave: He was very—

Josh: He would say—

Dave: His head frozen maybe? No, there's a rumour that he froze himself because he was an innovator first and foremost. You know, and he not only innovated films, but he wanted to innovate technology and just was looking into all this future technology around the time that he sort of passed away in the 1960s. In the '50s, he was very interested in like modernism, and he essentially wanted to build a city. So, what we know as Walt Disney World, which is the theme park in Florida, essentially started as a prototype community of tomorrow, he was calling it. And he, after the success of Disneyland, he wanted to build a community. And he wanted to actually build a city where he could experiment with future technologies away from film stuff. He was just completely, you know, interested in all this future technology. And there are correspondence between him and a cryogenics lab that date back from around the time around, around near when he passed away. And he was showing interest in cryogenics and freezing after death and all this kind of stuff. But he never went through with it. That's the official story, that he never went through with it. But, but yeah, apparently he was cremated and he's in a, in a wall in a cemetery.

Josh: How cool would it be though, if that was really the case?

Dave: Oh yeah.

Tommy: It's like, I called it.

Dave: Well, some people think he's buried under Disneyland, frozen and under Disneyland, under the castle. That's the rumour.

Tommy: It'd just be too much logistics. You know, he's going to stay frozen and you'd need to make sure.

Dave: That's the exciting story. So I burst the bubble. Yeah.

Tommy: I mean, there's enough money in the—

Dave: Oh yeah.

Tommy: In Disney. Who owns Disney now? Is it still the original people?

Dave: No, it's privately owned now. Oh, sorry. It's not privately owned anymore. It's like a— What do you call it? It's not in the hands of the Disney company anymore.

Tommy: Who bought Def Jam Records recently? So it's— Can you look it up, Sev? Someone— Nickelodeon?

Dave: No.

Tommy: Anyway, I own a—

Mason: Universal.

Tommy: Universal. Music group bought Def Jam, parent organization. Yeah, now there's a— there's another Furby, the people that make Furby. I don't know, look up— there's more so many connections, right? Well, it was a random business buying into like something called GE or whatever, like all the shit that they— GE money.

Josh: Yeah, like that. Oh no, GE, like the big General Electric or whatever. They were into like NBC, like media stuff, and there was a whole thing around in like the late shows where they'd be like, I'll put a tote— like, people who were used to selling toasters were all of a sudden in charge of content.

Tommy: Yeah, look it up. Furby. Who owns Furby?

Dave: Uh, Death Row Records.

Tommy: Death Row, sorry.

Dave: By Hasbro, which is the toy.

Tommy: That's a weird purchase. They're buying like, um, you know, Tupac, I think, was with Death Row. Maybe. Um, I own a, uh, it's like an animation slide of Disney of Bugs Bunny. And so it's like drawn, signed by Hanna-Barbera. My dad's best friend has a shop, a gallery called Silver K Gallery, right in Armadale. You know, you've been there. And so like, he's— I mean, he's run that thing for years. I remember going there as a kid.

Josh: He had his own TV commercials. Yeah, we're going to have him on the show.

Tommy: We got to. He's a character. He's a legend. But I remember he'd bring out all these people that, you know, that— I think there's a photo of me with Hanna-Barbera years when I was a little baby, like a little, a little, like a toddler. Um, do you own any paintings?

Dave: Any—

Tommy: are you collecting any of that stuff? Because that's its own world that he has, which is art collection of animation.

Dave: No, I don't really have any cells or anything. I'd love to, but that's just another—

Tommy: oh, you want to buy mine? That's what I was getting at.

Josh: Uh, you, uh, met The voice of Bart Simpson?

Dave: Oh yeah, when I was very young.

Josh: Was that one of the first sort of celebs?

Dave: I think it was. I think it was one of the— well, it was probably the first like big like international celebrity that I'd met was the voice of Bart Simpson. She came out, Nancy Cartwright.

Tommy: That's right, a woman. Yeah, yeah, because Bart's a little boy.

Dave: She came out and did like a— it's like a one-woman sort of show thing where she just talked about The Simpsons, did the voice and stuff, and did a signing at the end of it. So that was— and there's a photo of me where I'm wearing my bloody Bart Simpson Hawaiian shirt, probably, uh, I don't know how old I would have been, maybe 12 years old at the time.

Tommy: Yeah, it's so cool. Like, I've got a 3-year-old and he's into— if I showed him right now a picture of Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Wonder—

Mason: like, he—

Tommy: not Wonder Woman, what's the, um, Captain Marvel? He knows all of them by name. That's that. Like, it's—

Josh: I don't even know. Know them.

Tommy: And he hasn't seen no Spider-Man. Like, I haven't even shown him the movie. It's like all in the book.

Dave: Yeah.

Tommy: And he's already on to it. Like, that— what they've— it's, it's so addictive what they've created.

Mason: Oh yeah.

Dave: Well, there's— you find these picture books for children for like an M-rated film. Like some of these Marvel films, you see like the junior novelization of Captain America: Civil War. You think, yeah, that's what we got.

Tommy: He's like, oh, there's Thanos.

Dave: He knows all the names.

Josh: Yeah, it feels like, um, fast food places don't do as many sort of franchise stuff like they used to.

Tommy: The connections between—

Josh: Oh, it's like Batman. I feel like, yeah, you'd always get like the plastic cup, things like that.

Dave: I think there was a— I think it was to try and stop the kids from wanting the junk food. I'm pretty sure that was behind it. I know in the '90s Disney had like a huge, um, like sponsorship deal with McDonald's, which is why it was constantly like Disney Figurines and stuff. But I think the reason why McDonald's even— I think, I think why they've got rid of like Ronald McDonald and all the like, uh, Grimace and the bird and all that was because it was just too enticing for children. That's why I understand anyway.

Josh: Well, it's like I remember like the Pez dispenser, like with, um, like I feel like Bugs Bunny was, was on one.

Tommy: That's ridiculous. I mean, this is just advertising now. Like you take the kid to the supermarket where the, um, where the yoghurts are, and the ones that they point to—

Dave: Oh yeah.

Tommy: —are the branded ones that are the worst for you.

Dave: Well, you've got oranges, like bags of— There was a thing like a few years ago where there's just a bag of oranges with a Frozen sticker on it. It was like Olaf, the little snowman from Frozen, just stuck on the packet. That's a good one. Wasn't even like a printed packet or anything, just a little Olaf sticker. That's some cheeky bastards.

Josh: What's your favourite Blu-ray that you own? It doesn't have to be your favourite movie, but like it could have sentimental value or it's a great story. What's the most?

Dave: Yeah, I don't know. I've got a lot of like Warner Brothers did these when I guess when Blu-ray was at its peak, they did these huge what they called ultimate collector's editions or these big box sets and they came with like memorabilia and like a book. Some of them had like a full screenplay, like the printed script and just all this random stuff that like 5 or 6 discs, and I just, I cherish those things. They're just incredible, and a lot of them are out of print now and worth a lot of money.

Tommy: And so how much, I mean, is there certain ones out there that are worth more than others, like an individual Blu-ray?

Dave: Well, people pay crazy money for movies that are out of print. Okay, so essentially that means like if the studio just stops or the distributor just stops releasing that film.

Tommy: Oh, what was one recently that it was pretty well known that they'd stopped— stopping printing any of them. Well, it was recently, within the last year. Well, they've— Disney was it?

Josh: Well, Disney used to have all the—

Dave: they used to have like the, the rule around DVDs, the vault that Disney had, the what was called the vault system, which was that went back to when they were releasing the films theatrically. They would re-release the movies every 7 years to theatres to get more money on a film that was like 20, 30, 40 years old. And once they went into the home media market, that system just continued where each movie would be released every 7 years. They do a very limited batch run of the film. You might be able to get it for a couple of months sometimes. In later years, it was like you get it for a year or two and then went out of print. And then essentially when it goes out of print, you can't get your hands on the movie for 5 or 6 years. So that once that movie's back out again, people who've been trying to get this movie for 5 years just go and buy it, like pay full price for it. Just like, I've been trying to get my hand on that 5 years.

Josh: Like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, we got that like as a kid. I remember it being like a big deal of like, oh, this is, this is an investment, you know. So where is it now?

Dave: So now they've done this whole Disney+ thing. The vault thing's just like gone. Like you just get on there and play whatever you want, whatever you want.

Tommy: I'm surprised Walt hasn't woken up. Fucking pissed.

Dave: Just thawed himself out. But they did because they purchased 20th Century Fox, not like a couple of years ago. And I— there was a storey where they have stopped releasing a lot of the Fox films on Blu-ray. So a lot of the other— a lot of the Fox films that are on physical media, they're just stopping the print runs of them and essentially vaulting them.

Tommy: And so you have insurance on your DVD, on your Blu-ray collection? Yeah. And can you insure the ones that were technically worth more money on eBay or something?

Josh: Collector, right?

Dave: Yeah. Can you— probably. Well, yeah, we'll probably class that as a collectible, but not really. I mean, try and prove to someone that you've got a Blu-ray that's probably worth, you know, someone might pay $200 on eBay. Who insures this kind of stuff?

Tommy: House and contents?

Mason: Just house and contents, basically. And you insure it, you insure just a monetary value. Okay. So you put a monetary value on it, and that's part of the reason you'll have a, you'll have a, if you really need to catalogue everything. So if you catalogue everything and for argument's sake, your house burns down or somebody comes through and, you know, takes everything out of your property, you've at least got a catalogue of everything you had and you can say to them, well, this is what we had and this is the monetary value we put on it. They will essentially just pay you out that monetary value. It's any insurance company. So whoever you insure with, RACV or CGU or AAMI or whoever it is, will insure it all. Insurance, with insurance, it's things like jewelry. That if you need to, you can't really sort of put a monetary value on it unless you have it valued and you've got certificate to prove it. But with things like DVDs, you just do— you just insure a monetary value. Yeah, so you'll do an average, you know, if you've got $5,000, you put an average of $10, well, there's $50,000 worth, and that's the value you put on it. Yeah, sure. So you might insure your contents of your house for $400,000, $50,000 of that will be— yeah, that makes sense— will be DVD.

Tommy: And then they just look at Dave's channel and say, yeah, no, he's legit.

Josh: Well, you could just catalog, like, just cheque out the haul. Yeah, you see them all there.

Tommy: Um, in terms of making money on YouTube, what was the first moment that you made cash out of YouTube?

Dave: Probably only in the last year or so. I mean, I was probably only making $700 a month up until maybe 12, you know, 18 months ago.

Tommy: More on the dole. You get more doing the dole.

Dave: And it's really this again, this Cartoon Evolution series I've been doing about these cartoon characters people love. I mean, most of them have minimum 100,000 views on them, which is— and it's the first like consistently successful series that I've actually done. So a lot of the times in the past you do a video and it does really well and you're like, oh, I'll follow that up with another one. It just tanks. But this is the first series that's like consistently, consistently getting the same views per video. Um, the video I did on Bugs Bunny is the one that's made me the most money. It's just, that's, that's 850,000 views or something now, so that'll probably top, top a million views over the next, I think, month or so. Because that's still, that video's nearly a year old now and it's still getting 60,000 views a month.

Josh: Which just boggles me. What about affiliate stuff? Like, obviously if you're encouraging people to buy stuff, does Australia have a market for that? Can you— does JB and those types of stores?

Dave: I get, I get a lot of affiliate stuff through Amazon. My, my, uh, subscriber base is something like 60% American viewers. Um, and every time I do a Blu-ray, I do a series of videos which is like Blu-ray like announced and detailed video, I call it. So say Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is coming out on Blu-ray, I'll do a video which essentially shows you all the versions you can get, breaks down all the special features and stuff on it, the packaging, all the special edition versions that are coming out, retail exclusives, whatever. And I'll post a link to the Amazon, uh, page, and people will click through that and buy the movie. And it's really small like less than 5%, you know, commission that you get off that. But it does build up and you get a lot of people buy. I'm— there was a Batman Animated Series box set and I sold like 50 units of it. Yeah, great. And you get like the, the commission off the back of that. So I do get a lot of commission as well. I've done a few little sponsorships in the past too, which gets you a little bit of money here and there as well. So there's all these little avenues where you can, you know, monetize and What's it? It's an interesting—

Tommy: I mean, it's such a hard one because your goal is to create relevant content that people even watch. It's hard to go the other way of like, oh, I'm going to make content to make money. Yeah. So you'd like—

Dave: Oh yeah.

Tommy: Well, you have to get step one nailed before you can even think about step two.

Dave: Well, money just never really came into it until again, like a year ago. It was always just something that I just had fun doing and it was maybe a way to get my foot in the door. To get recognised maybe somehow. And then once it started taking off a little bit more, it became a little bit more serious for me. And I started looking into all these ways where, well, you can actually monetize it and actually make, you know, a decent living off it in, in the long run.

Tommy: How much thought has to then go— say you, someone's making $0, they're doing it because they love it, and then they work out, I can make a little bit more now, it's starting to work. How much of your time then gets spent thinking about how to make money out of the channel, how to be smarter about it?

Dave: Um, I think now that I'm taking it more seriously, I do have to dive into like the analytics and all the charts and all. But YouTube's very good now, is, uh, we get what's called a Creator Studio, which is really in-depth breakdowns of how many people are watching it, how much money you're making on each video, how much money you're making each week, how much you're making each month. How well video is performing, how long people are watching them for, how many people, uh, the videos are being advertised to, and how many of those people are clicking onto the video. It says like really, really in-depth stuff. So it's now for me really about going into that, analysing it in depth, figuring out what works and what doesn't, and trying to get rid of all the stuff that doesn't work and focus on the stuff that does work, because that's the stuff that equals growth. And then eventually hopefully equals, you know, monetary growth as well as, you know, subscribers.

Mason: Yeah, sorry guys, the important thing is that when you go into these things, you don't go into it to make money. You— if you go into it thinking, I'm going to make a lot of money out of this, it'll never work. Yeah, for two reasons. One, you won't have the passion to do it, and you'll burn yourself out really quickly. Uh, now Dave will work 12, 14, 16 hours a day nearly every day, and I'm talking weekends as well. So if you don't have the passion for it to do it, you can't do it. It's only when you get a bit of a subscriber base that you can actually start thinking, okay, well, if I do it this way, maybe I can sort of start making money out of it and make a living out of it. And that's pretty much what you've got to do. You don't ever go into it thinking you're going to make money out of it because it just won't happen.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, yeah, we can definitely test that. Yeah, exactly, exactly right.

Dave: Exactly. Well, I've always been curious about podcasting. How does that work? Monetization and everything with podcasts?

Josh: Well, for us, like, yeah, exactly what you said, Rick. It's like we've started off, like, we use the video production business as a way of funding it. We know that after, if you create great content, uh, over time, then you'll build something that's worth something. But I think that, yeah, there's, there is that sort of, um, thought that you need to be making, or you should be making money from day one. No, I think that's really hard.

Dave: I've been doing it 4 years now, my channel's been going, I think, really like full-time-ish 3 years. Um, and as I said, it's only now that I'm really— I'm, I'm not making a huge wage, like, it's not like a perfect wage, it's like a huge way to go, but it's comfortable at the moment for what I need and just, yeah, just to be comfortable. So it's, it's not that that's like the— that's not the number one thing. You do have to grow that, that base and think long run, hopefully, how can this become something a bit more, something that's a profession? And not a lot of people are able to reach that, you know, that end goal.

Josh: Uh, we're talking about Amazon before. Is it true that you contacted Amazon and said, I want one DVD or Blu-ray in a whole collection? And did they separate out something so you could get one of them? That didn't happen? No. I feel like I heard a storey around getting one specific, like out of a series. You're like, I've got this whole series. He's nodding his head.

Mason: Yeah, it was one of those ABC cartoons you used to watch. Remember that you that they— you couldn't get the last season of it. Oh yeah, that's right.

Dave: It was the distributor who did Rocko's Modern Life.

Tommy: Oh yeah, classic, the classic Nickelodeon series.

Dave: And, um, they did— they released each season separately and except for the last season. And I was like buying these things from day one that they were releasing them individually. I was like, I'll buy that, buy the Rugrats, I'll buy Real Monsters and like all the Nickelodeon series I was buying. And then for some reason, the only way you could get, um, Rocko's Modern Life season 4, the final season, was in this box set. So I was, I was hounding the distributor for months like, are you going to release this last season? What's going on? I want to buy the season. Oh, sorry, you have to buy the box set. I'm like, I don't want to buy the box set because I've already bought all the other ones.

Josh: Like, why do they do that? I—

Dave: probably how well did the discs sell? It might be that they've looked at the figures and gone, these seasons haven't sold well, just bundle them up in a box set. And make that the only way you can get season 4. And I think that's, that's smart from a business point of view. But then the people who have been collecting that series for maybe a year get shafted. So I, I just kept hammering them. I'd like just— I was like, just sell me season 4, please. And after a while they're like, all right, we'll say the last season, like, give us— send $20 and we'll send it out. And they finally did. That's right. Hammering them for months. That's a win.

Tommy: Lucky you, Rixie, because you just got that.

Dave: I just went blank.

Josh: And so You just gave, like, you just transferred cash to them.

Dave: I think it was like, it was either like a PayPal thing or they gave me like the, you know, bank details or whatever. I just gave them $20. I was like, here you go, I don't care what I pay on it. I'm not buying the whole box set all over again though.

Josh: And Mr. 97 is part of what he calls the Lifehack Club, which he's the president of. And he likes to get deals. He goes on OzBargain a bit, things like that. You seem to be like a bit of a deals guy. Oh yeah. Do you have any good deals? Davey's other channel. Yeah. Can you give us a deal? So there's the JB Hi-Fi one. Yeah. When, when do the JB Hi-Fi deals happen? When do, like, are there certain times that we should be keeping an eye out?

Dave: It's so often now. It's so often, like every few weeks I'll do a 20% off. Well, they're doing 30% off now. It used to be 20% off. It's now 30%. Will you not buy on 20%?

Josh: Like, is 20% trash now compared to 30%?

Dave: Well, if they do a 20%, that's something I want for the sake of you know, spend an extra 50 cents, I'll go 20%. But, um, they do what's, uh, buy one get one free every May, I think. Every May they do buy. So literally every Blu-ray in the store, you buy one, you get one free. And, um, they jack the prices up, everything goes back up to regular retail price. But if you're smart about it, you can get some good deals. So essentially what you do, if you buy just a whole bunch of stuff and you take it up to the counter, they'll scan it all in, and what happens is you get the cheaper stuff free. So what I try to do is I go, here's a $20 one, here's a $20 one, match them together. Here's a $40 one, here's a $40 one, match them together. $5 one, $5 one, match them together. Go up to the counter and you go, I want to put this through like 3, 4, 5 different transactions. Yeah, great. So that you maximise how much you're saving. Otherwise you're only going to save like $20. Do you like—

Josh: do people know you from JB now? He's a fucking—

Dave: he's the guy Sweater again, YouTuber. I think maybe once one of the guys there was like, oh yeah, you're in here a lot. One of the store managers was getting a bit annoyed that I was filming stuff in there. Oh really? Yeah, it was weird.

Josh: Like, they—

Dave: I think it's just more about like people in the store and not getting in the way of people. And like, he was cool in the end. We just explained 3-point lighting and 4 cameras. I had to get permission actually from PR to actually go into stores and film and stuff, and PR were cool with it.. But then it comes down to the store manager sometimes might not be on board with that. That's completely fine. Like, fine. Like, I get that. And he was cool in the end. But yeah, you do run into little problems. I don't do so many of the going into stores and filming anymore because there's a bit of a, a bit of a hassle to try and do.

Josh: My favourite's the when you go to the locker to collect stuff, you don't know which, which locker is going to open. Have you used this before?

Dave: What's that? The parcel lockers? I was supposed Parcel Lockers.

Tommy: Oh yeah, I've seen those at like 7-Eleven.

Josh: So you dial it in and then it will go, yeah, depending if it's a big or small, it will just go into the random locker.

Dave: Yeah, that's cool. It's essentially you just, if you buy something online, you got, you, you set up a Parcel Locker address with AusPost, and if you buy something online, you just give them the Parcel Locker address and they just send all your stuff to the Parcel Locker. In fact, I've got to go there after this and pick something up. And yeah, so you just go there you get the AusPost app, it gives you a barcode, you go up to the machine, you scan it, and one of the things just opens up, get your stuff.

Tommy: Yeah, what a weird, weird world. Rick, what did you do?

Mason: What do you do for a job? I'm a commercial photographer, so I, um, essentially advertising photographer. So you, you get the sort of world.

Tommy: Oh, exactly right.

Mason: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, and that's, that's, that's part of the reason he's able to do it is because I have an understanding of of how hard it can be to actually do what you want to do. Although I was really lucky, I, I caught a couple of breaks really early in my early 20s, and, and I never really looked for work. I've never looked for work in my life. That's great. Um, so I have an understanding with a lot of the freelancers that I, that I've worked with over the years that the struggle and the support they need around them to be able to do what they do So my view is that what Dave, what Dave is doing is essentially building a business. And as you guys know, trying to build a business takes years. So you've got to have a bit of support around you to help you do that. And, um, you know, I've just been lucky that I've never really had to look for work. Um, and now I've, I've, I've sort of stepped back from it a bit now, and, and I'm sort of semi-retired and just do a little bit here and there and What do you think about, you know, I've got a 3-year-old son, loves TV, loves watching movies.

Tommy: You know, it's a weird one because you're like trying to restrict their view time, you know, because you want them to do something outdoors and be a bit social. Whereas the opposite is it's now your job. It's, it's worth doing every day. It's worth putting into the routine a movie every day. Yeah. Whereas if my son said that to me, I'd tell him to get fucked. He wants to move.

Mason: There's always a balance. Yeah, there's always a balance. You, you can't, you can't sit in front of a TV all day. I mean, God, I'm, you know, how old I am, I could sit there and do it all day, but it's not healthy for you, and it's not healthy for anybody. And, and you find kids, kids will, will only take in as much as they, as much as they can and as much as they need. And usually that'll only be a couple of hours. Most kids don't have a a huge attention span. So my, my view has always been to, um, allow Dave to do what he needs to do, and we've never really put restrictions on, on, on what he does. He's the one that's got to live the life, he's got to make the decisions. Um, but with young, young children, you guide them and help them, but essentially they're going to grow up and be the person they're going to be. And there was that old— that old— I think it was an old BBC show, um, 7 Up. Oh yeah, which, which was, you know, they, they filmed a bunch of kids at the age of 7, and then every 7 years they went back and filmed them right up till about the age of 42 or something, I think it was, or maybe even older. Um, and what they found is that the child at 7— you should— the catchcry was, you show me a child at 7 and I'll show you the adult. So essentially your whole persona is ingrained in you by the time you're 7 years old and you don't change. Now I remember I sort of fell into photography, but I'd finished high school and was a bit lost and didn't know what I want to do. And one of my mates was going to photography college and I hadn't seen him for a couple of months and I asked him what he was doing. He told me, he said, you should come and do it. So, um, I thought, oh yeah, geez, I remember wanting to do that all my life. And then I remembered that when I was 7 or 8 years old, all I wanted to do was take photos. So from that age, I always wanted to be a photographer, although as I got older, I wanted to get into video and, and all that sort of stuff, but fell into photography. And just happened that I had a, you know, I had a, had a, I suppose, an aptitude for it, and I was able to adapt my— well, my way of thinking was suited to photography perfectly. And you'll find that every child will be like that. They'll get to about the age of 7 or 8, and that child will be what the adult will be. So you'll find that Dave— Dave, the first— I think the first movie that Dave ever made, home movie he ever made, was— he would only have been about 5, 6, 7 years old, around about that age. And he's wanted to do it his whole life.

Josh: Do you think that there's a pressure, like Dave picking this sort of career when you're finishing school, is there a pressure to, I've got to go to uni, I've got to do this, I've got to do that? Or even like, I guess when you love films, there can be that sense of like, I need to make films rather than being like, oh, my real passion is talking about all that stuff.

Dave: Well, my passion's always been wanting to make films, and that was— I studied, I went to film school for 3 years, came out the back of that and found that the landscape of the film industry in Australia had changed rapidly from what it was when I first started university. When we went into university, they told us, you know, 90% of the people who do this course come out with a job.. And at the end of that, half of those jobs didn't exist anymore. So I had to then just kind of adapt. I took a gap year actually after I finished university. Which uni did you go to? Deakin, Deakin Uni in Burwood.

Tommy: So they got a big studio there.

Dave: Yeah, they had a big TV studio. We produced a series for Channel 31 there actually. So we spent 2 years doing that independently. It was like a late night talk show thing. Wasn't very good. Uh, but we did that for 2 seasons. That was with your mate?

Josh: With my mate, yeah, Josh. Yeah, that's right. What was it called?

Dave: The Silicon Leisure Show. Yeah, it was a lot of fun and it taught me a lot of stuff. So I found that doing university was, was very helpful in, um, I mean, at the end of the day, a degree in, in a creative field isn't always going to get you into a creative job or career. That's people who are hiring for creative jobs are looking at your portfolio and looking how the kind of work that you can actually do. And they tend to gravitate towards people who know how to do it themselves as opposed to people who've had it drilled into them through an institution because everyone comes out thinking the same. That's really true with everything.

Mason: I know with photography, you can have all the qualifications in the world. It doesn't mean to say you can do the job. Yeah, yeah. You can show me the best folio in the world. But doesn't mean to say you can come in and do what we do. Because, because, you know, what you guys do and what Dave does and what I, what I do, it can be really high pressure. So you find that there's a lot of people that just cannot do it. And, and I remember employing, employing, uh, one, one particular guy who'd been doing it for 30 years, and I thought, well, okay, we'll bring him in. He lasted a week. He couldn't keep up the pace. Yeah.

Josh: And it's so like skill specific as well too. Like you did a lot of like catalogue stuff. Yeah, catalogue and magazines.

Mason: And yeah, and you had—

Josh: and so you had to know like doing— being able to shoot a product well is completely different than doing some like artsy type of stuff. Exactly right.

Mason: Yeah, exactly. Like I was, I was a— well, I'm a— well, I think I'm a pretty good technical photographer, not so much a visual photographer. Yeah. Because I'll work from a layout. So, you know, I'll get the creative and all that sort of stuff, and, um, uh, from there, technically, I'll take over. Um, whereas, you know, there's guys that will be visual photographers, but they're not very good technically. Yeah. And that's true in all walks of life. You'll find, you'll find, um, people out there that are lawyers that, that weren't particularly good students in, in law But they're great lawyers. But you'll find the best students as lawyers aren't great lawyers. Yeah.

Josh: And that's what I guess university is hard too, because it's like trying to fit people into these boxes. I guess it's a good discovery mechanism.

Dave: Well, for me, it was really about just a learning experience. And whether that be like everything that I've— Everything I do, editing and writing and all that, I've taught myself from a very young age, just as you did. Um, but going to university I think really helped me hone into a few areas that maybe I'd not experienced with. I am— the thing I think I learned the most at university was writing, stuff about writing. And like, I could be writing a script now and still think back to some of these things that this, you know, the lecturer told me and like really hammered in. Um, so that was a real learning experience for me. But coming out the back of that and not really being able to get work in the film industry, it's then about, well, I still really want to do this, still have a real passion for this. It's about adapting and finding new ways to do what you want to do. And at the end of the day, for me, it comes down to storytelling. And I'm, um, I think all I want to do really is tell storeys in a visual medium. And whether that's whether I'm working on big films or on television or sitting at home and putting together a 20-minute documentary on Bugs Bunny Um, it's just telling stories. I want to tell storeys to people, storeys that entertain people and that people can learn a little bit from. And, you know, just finding a way to adapt to do what you want to do.

Josh: And it also feels like you can actually, with the way that you do it, you can have impact so quickly. So you work on a film and it's like you're writing a script and you have to wait, you know, X amount of years before it to go out. Like, there is something cool as well about every single week.

Dave: Yeah, you can be having impact and learning, and it's instant. Like, you put a video up and you get comments instantly, and sometimes it's like 5 minutes after you've put a video up, you made a mistake here, and you, you know, I just spent 2 weeks doing this and someone's already picked up on this, like, minuscule mistake. But a lot— but, you know, 90% of the comments are like, oh, you know, really, really good, uh, positive comments. And it is good, that instant gratification of it. And I keeps the drive. I mean, if I was spending 2 years on a Bugs Bunny documentary, I think I'd like go crazy at the end of it. If, you know, you put 2 years into it and you made a mistake here and whatever. Um, but yeah, that instant gratification does keep you going and go, all right, I've just done this video, it's taken me 2 weeks' time, I'm going to take a couple of days off, I'm going to dive into the next character and do the next video.

Tommy: That's a niche, uh, video that I've gone down a rabbit hole on is Mistakes in movies. Yeah. Do you do those videos?

Dave: Um, I think I've played around, not so much mistakes in movies, but I have done like little analytical things like diving into the movies and looking at like little weird things and stuff. Some of them do well, some of them don't do well. And it's, yeah, it's just about kind of finding where your niche is and where your audience is going to gravitate towards. But there's so many like different kind of like Easter egg videos, people talking about like the little, like little hidden things in movies and references and stuff like that. And then just like analysing trailers and talking about like, say, the Avengers trailer comes out and you put together a video going, oh, this, this could happen. And this like, like making up theories and all that kind of stuff. So there's all just very, very, very niche parts in this, I guess, YouTube movie space. And some people really excel at it and some people try and do it and not so great. A lot like a lot of the stuff I've done is just flatlined. Like, like reactions is a— used to be a thing, like people watching a movie trailer and filming themselves, watch the movie trailer and react to it. And they used to be huge. People love them. I had one which went like 30,000, 40,000 views, which is one of my first like big videos that took off. But now I struggle to get 1,000 views.

Josh: Well, I remember watching you do them. Do you feel like you have— I feel like it would be so much pressure to perform and react. Oh, wow.

Dave: It's like, it's permanent. Oh my God. Yes.

Tommy: Yes.

Dave: Yes, but in reality, if I'm sitting there watching it, I'm like, it's good. Yeah, yeah. So there is like a lot of it's hamming it up, and even a lot of just even the way I present my videos and stuff is kind of, I guess, not so much putting on a persona because I'm, you know, myself, you know, 100% of the time. I want to be real and honest, but there is this other level where you do have to ham it up just a little bit and just kind of make it just a little bit more exciting, a little bit more enticing. I think a lot of people like that who are in front of cameras, I'm sure you guys probably, you know, do it from time to time. It's just, you gotta just bring in energy, little ways to bring out the energy and get the audience invested.

Josh: What's the, um, the most anticipated film for 2020, do you think?

Dave: I think this year is such a lacklustre year for films. I just, there's not one movie that I'm like really hyped about. I mean, we've had Avengers: Endgame last year, which was like the huge Marvel film, which I've been hyped for for like 10 years.

Tommy: When's Captain America coming out?

Dave: Um, well, we've got— there are new ones this year. We've got Black Widow, which is at the end of next month, and that's really the big Marvel movie for the year. And then you've got the— actually, there's the Captain— uh, sorry, the Falcon and the Winter Soldier Captain America miniseries for Disney+ at the end of the year. So that's— I'm looking forward to that.

Tommy: Uh, The Matrix is— when's that? In a couple of years. A couple of years.

Dave: Yeah, they're doing another one of them, which will be interesting.

Tommy: Are you into all that stuff?

Dave: Um, I've never been huge on The Matrix.

Josh: But how many times do you reckon you've watched it? The Matrix, maybe twice.

Dave: Okay, maybe 2 or 3 times. Not for many years. Yeah, not a huge fan, but I've never seen it.

Josh: No, I need to.

Tommy: It's embarrassing. Yeah, it's good.

Josh: Where do you go to watch your movies? What's your cinema of choice if you actually go out?

Dave: Usually I like village cinemas, like a big screen and— yeah, just a shopping center. I love, I love the Astor Theatre in Melbourne. Oh yes, I haven't been there for a long time. Ever since they got bought out by Palace Cinemas, I think. But they were run independently for a very long time and a huge movie palace, like one of the last movie palaces left in Australia, especially in Melbourne. And they would screen— the guy who owned it had or has a huge collection of movies on film prints, like these old original film prints. And he would play it in this movie. Incredible. Like seeing like Apocalypse Now in the original 70mm Technicolor print. Incredible. So I used to go there all the time, but they got bought out and a lot of the, a lot of his prints got taken off him by the distributor, by the studio. Oh really? At one point. Rats. So a lot of it's like digital now and I've just haven't been drawn back.

Tommy: There's something about film. I was reading this morning Barney's Beanery in LA. Have you been to LA? Yeah, I've been to LA. It's just on Santa Monica Boulevard. I think it's an old sort of pub, dive bar, looks sick, sports bar. It's amazing memorabilia on the wall. You can only have something like that if you have been open for 100 years or whatever, because it takes that much time. But I was reading about Quentin Tarantino sat up the back and wrote Pulp Fiction. But there's something about that that I was like, oh fuck, I want to go back there and look at that corner. Yeah, it's weird. Like, I mean, what— because then I have all the feelings of what Pulp Fiction did. Yeah. For me when I watched it, it's like, this is the most amazing. Yeah. And then it's, it's— there's something so amazing about film Yeah, it's, you know, that just—

Dave: well, for me it's been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. And the same when I've been to LA a couple of times, been over to the US, and finding the places where your movies were filmed, or, uh, you know, like you said, someone sat in the back and ride, or somewhere Walt Disney went and ate a chilli once or something, is like, just— I just want to go there and get a picture. Um, when I was over in the UK, uh, we found a little street in Edinburgh in Scotland where they filmed parts of Avengers: Infinity War, which the movie, it's like 2 or 3 years old. And even just being there is like so cool. And it just feels like, you know, you've got this picture in the place where the movie's been and just such a big part of, especially for me, big part of my life. And just, you know, indulge myself in movies every day and finding, you know, places even like as far as going to the cemetery where Marilyn Monroe was, you know, buried or interred in the wall. And just doing all these little things. I think it brings you closer to the experience. Yeah, I love it.

Tommy: Yeah, it's awesome.

Josh: It is cool. Like, there is something like calming about nostalgia as well.

Dave: Oh yeah.

Josh: Just like, I like that idea of just going like, especially like this. I like the 6 AM thing. I tried to when I got Disney Plus, I was like, oh, I've got all the like The Simpsons. Yeah. And I created a notebook and then every single morning I was going to watch one episode. And write a review. I got 3 pages in. It's like quite the commit. Like it is a big commitment.

Dave: So many episodes now, like 30 seasons or something. Yeah.

Tommy: And no YouTube channel. Yeah.

Josh: Yeah. I've got no reason to jump on. I was going to do a bit on the show about it, but yeah, I'm sure people would love it. Yeah.

Dave: Maybe a little 30-second Simpsons review every day.

Josh: Did you see about The Simpsons, Disney+ getting criticised because of the 4:3?

Dave: They cropped the aspect. Yeah. Have they fixed that? I don't, I don't think they have yet, but they said they were going to.

Tommy: Well, they made it wide.

Josh: No, so stuff that was meant to be— sorry, the stuff that was meant to be 4:3 was like scanned in at 16:9.

Dave: And so you're missing jokes, visual gags. So like the first 20 seasons were 4:3. It was only after season 20 they went to widescreen. Yeah. And they cut a lot of the visual gags off. Like there's this one gag that was used. I saw it on Facebook. The example someone made was Homer goes to the Duff Brewery to see how the Duff beer is made, and he comes up to like 3 or 4 large vats of Duff beer, Duff Light, Duff Regular, Duff Strong, whatever. And then along the roof is all these pipes, and it's the same pipe that leads into every single vat. So it's like every single one's the same. Yeah. On the Disney+ version, it crops off that pipe from the top, so you just lose the visual gag. Yeah. And it's the same thing with like Channel 10. Channel 10 used to play The Simpsons and would cut to an ad break before the punchline of the joke, or they would fade out. Yeah, all the time. And it would be like they would fade out on the punchline. I used to hate that.

Josh: So annoying. Yeah. I mean, if you've got a— there's probably little reason for you to watch free-to-air with what you have access to. Yeah, very little free-to-air.

Dave: Do you ever like—

Josh: is there something nostalgic about just being like, I feel like watching the ads? Or do you just always like— you would have every Simpsons episode.

Dave: Yeah, I've got all the Simpsons DVD. Yeah. So would you ever—

Josh: have you ever caught yourself watching free-to-air?

Dave: Sometimes if I'm not doing anything, or if I— or if I am like working or something and I just want something on in the background, I'm like, oh, Simpsons are on, I'll just put on this. But it's so rare that you find like a classic episode on. It's all like season 25 onwards, which is just stuff I'm not interested in. Yeah. But, um, but yeah, well, I'll catch myself just going, oh, this movie's on, and I'll watch it even if it's got ad breaks or whatever, just in the background.

Josh: And a final question. Cleaning Blu-rays and DVDs. Do you have a strict sort of schedule around cleaning them?

Dave: Not really. We've got them in big cabinets. Cabinets have got doors on them. I'm very lucky that it doesn't get too dusty in there. The only things I really need to clean and I don't do it as often as I should is like my collectible, like action figure things.

Josh: I thought you were going to say the barbecue. I need to always clean the barbecue. Yeah, it's a nightmare. But yeah, that's about it.

Dave: DVDs, not so much.

Josh: And you keep your, um, the Pop things out of it?

Dave: What do I take them out of the box? Yeah, what's it called again?

Josh: What are they called?

Dave: Pop vinyls? Pop— yeah, pop vinyl, like Funko.

Josh: And so you're not too extreme in regards to like keeping—

Dave: no, there's some stuff I'll keep in box, like stuff that I know is going to be worth something, or something that's like, um, I think looks cool in the box. But most, most like my pop vinyls and stuff, I take them out because otherwise you've got a whole shelf and it looks like you've walked into like an eBay store with just all these pop vinyls. But, and I've seen pictures of people who do it, it's like And then put them on the shelves, the red sale signs, and you've got yourself an EB game, you know.

Josh: Yeah. Thanks for coming on the show. I feel like we should, um, I think that we could do specific episodes where you get, get you on about, uh, like anniversaries. Like we need to dial in when things are happening.

Dave: For sure, I'd love to.

Josh: Or like, um, yeah, what have we got coming up? Are there any anniversaries coming up with like, like Disney?

Tommy: When was the last time? When? How old's Disney?

Dave: Disney, oh, 100, nearly 100 years.

Tommy: Yeah, that'd be a big one.

Dave: Or even like just any—

Josh: like, I know nothing about pop culture, movies, all that sort of thing. I feel like there's so much, yeah, that we could, could talk about. Yeah, dial it in. I'll do it. Thank you. Love it. It's The Daily Talk Show. Remember, uh, you can still become a VIP Gronk.

Dave: Is that right, Seb? Sure can. You've got till Friday.

Josh: Go to thedailytalkshow.com/gronks and fill in the form and you'll be a VIP and you get free stickers if you sign up by the 13th of March. Then the stickers are $100 each. Yeah, collectible inflation. Yeah. I mean, that's— you got to get in early.

Dave: He's never sold them, but if you want to buy them, you can get them.

Josh: Happy. It's The Daily Talk Show.

Dave: Thanks, Dave. Thanks for having me on. See you tomorrow.