This Company is Taking Down Hollywood
Description
In this episode, I interview Simon Kim, one of the founders of Camp Studios who's building a studio that's empowering creators to take over the big screen. And they're funding the movies themselves. Like Baron Ryan's Two Sleepy People film that was written, shot, produced, and in-theatres in less than 100 days. This is Camp Studios, and how they're taking down hollywood. Chapters: • What is Camp Studios • The Vision For A New Creative Era • Who Will Build The Next Disney • Creator business models • The difference between parasocial capital vs narrative capital • Creator Camp's content strategy • How to tell better stories 📱Follow Us On Social: -------------------- Instagram Alex https://www.instagram.com/alexgarcia_atx/ Brian: https://www.instagram.com/brian_blum/ Twitter www.twitter.com/@alexgarcia_atx www.twitter.com/@brian_blum1 -------------------- 🔥Want Free Game? Send us a picture of your Apple & Spotify reviews to podcast@marketingexamined.com and we'll make you a playbook in a future episode. -------------------- 🎥Checkout Brians Content Agency https://www.nibble.studio -------------------- 📈Growth Playbooks, Directly To Your Inbox For growth playbooks, deep dives, and marketing case studies, get subscribed at https://www.marketingexamined.com --------------------
Summary
Generated by gpt-5.6-terraAt-a-Glance
- Verdict: Watch fully
- Core thesis: Creator Camp argues that Hollywood is being unbundled into creator-led micro-studios, with narrative IP, community-led distribution, and theatrical-first launches offering a viable alternative to the brand-deal and studio-gatekeeper model.
- Why it matters: The interview provides a concrete operating model for turning creator audiences and brand communities into durable narrative IP, differentiated content moats, live demand signals, and potentially high-margin distribution businesses.
- Best use: Use this as a strategic reference for building a content studio that treats storytelling, physical environments, recurring characters, and audience participation as compounding IP rather than as isolated social campaigns.
Executive Summary
Simon Kim, founder of Creator Camp and Camp Studios, frames the decline of traditional Hollywood not as the end of filmmaking but as an opening for thousands of small, creator-led studios. His premise is that production, distribution, and marketing costs are falling while creators already possess the audience relationships, production speed, and native distribution channels needed to make films outside the major-studio system.
The practical proof point is Creator Camp's feature film, "Two Sleepy People," made with creator Baron Ryan in roughly 100 days on a $100,000 budget. Rather than relying on a conventional nationwide opening, the team used a roadshow, a location-pinning demand map, and staged theatrical expansion: initial runs in 30 theaters sold out, followed by another 30-theater run, with a stated ambition to expand much more widely. Their model is theatrical release first, then continued flexible runs and eventual streaming/distribution—a longer-tail indie approach rather than a single opening-weekend bet.
The deeper argument concerns creator economics. Kim contrasts parasocial capital—monetizing an audience through brand deals, courses, or products tied to the individual—with narrative capital: stories and IP that can live beyond the creator. He sees narrative work as more scalable and durable because audiences can become attached to a world, characters, and values rather than needing continuous access to the creator's personal life.
For brands, both speakers argue that AI and production tooling will make execution increasingly commoditized while storytelling becomes a primary moat. They cite Red Bull, Nike, BPN, and "The Last Dance" as examples of narrative content creating affinity that precedes and reduces the need for transactional conversion. The operational corollary is to invest in distinctive worlds, recurring settings and characters, and cinematic long-form work—not merely more informational talking-head content.
Key Takeaways
- Claim: The likely successor to centralized Hollywood is a fragmented ecosystem of creator-led micro-studios rather than another Disney-sized institution. | Evidence: Kim argues that decentralized technology has already disrupted other sectors and predicts that, over the next 50 years, one dominant Warner Bros.-style player will give way to thousands of small creative teams making feature films as production, marketing, and distribution costs fall. | Implication: A studio can compete by becoming an execution and distribution node for a focused creator community rather than trying to replicate the scale or economics of a major studio. | Caveat: This is a long-horizon thesis, not evidence that legacy studios or large franchises will disappear soon; theatrical access remains materially controlled by incumbents.
- Claim: Theatrical distribution is an access and proof-of-demand problem for independents, but staged releases and local demand data can create leverage. | Evidence: Kim says major studios can require theaters to hold screens for weeks and take roughly 70% of box office, leaving independents with limited availability. Creator Camp ran "Two Sleepy People" in 30 theaters on November 14, then another 30 on December 5, after a roadshow; it used a map showing 100-200 interested viewers in specific cities to persuade theaters. He says markets with many pins sold out. | Implication: For physical launches, replace top-line follower counts with city-level intent data, pre-sales, roadshows, and repeatable demand evidence that an offline venue or distributor can underwrite. | Caveat: Social views do not reliably translate to ticket buyers, which Kim identifies as difficult to attribute; the approach requires evidence of local conversion, not merely reach.
- Claim: Creators should build narrative capital—IP that outlives the individual—instead of relying exclusively on the parasocial monetization hamster wheel. | Evidence: Kim describes the instability of waiting for brand deals and the discomfort of monetizing one's personal life. He contrasts that with Harry Potter: a story that scales far beyond J.K. Rowling's personal brand. He recommends publishing narrative work online because platforms now function as a discovery layer for tested IP, citing Kane Pixels' "The Backrooms" being picked up by A24. | Implication: Separate the founder or creator from the asset: use audience distribution to test stories, but design characters, worlds, and premises that can continue without constant personal exposure. | Caveat: Narrative IP is not a shortcut to monetization; it demands strong writing and sustained story development, while personal audience monetization can still fund the transition.
- Claim: The core storytelling unit is not a chronological account of events but a human, meta-level conflict that makes viewers care about the people involved. | Evidence: For Creator Camp's "If Hollywood is dying, why are we building a film company?" video, the team moved beyond industry commentary to the more personal premise: a group of 20-year-olds in an old-school building trying to change Hollywood. Kim credits creator Baron with the principle that audiences first need to care about characters; then they will follow what those characters do. | Implication: When documenting a company or project, identify the tension outsiders would naturally question, then make the protagonists, stakes, uncertainty, and ambition visible rather than simply reporting progress by date. | Caveat: Kim does not offer a formal universal screenplay framework and describes much of his own process as intuitive and discovered in the edit.
- Claim: A distinctive physical environment is a content asset and defensibility investment, not merely overhead. | Evidence: Creator Camp's rented old-school building became a recognizable association in calls with people who remembered them as "the guys in that old school building." The host similarly argues that custom sets, a cyc wall, gym equipment, varied camera positions, and shot lists create friction for copycats; his cyc wall was reportedly used on 8 of its first 14 days, sometimes for multiple shoots in one day. | Implication: Evaluate studio-space spending against content throughput, client production capacity, and the branded-world advantage it creates—not only against rent or direct production cost. | Caveat: A space only earns its cost if it is operationalized into recurring production, recognizable formats, and a coherent world; aesthetics alone are not a moat.
- Claim: High-quality brand storytelling can create affinity that makes product conversion largely pre-sold, and this becomes more valuable as AI commoditizes execution. | Evidence: Kim calls storytelling one of the only future moats as AI tools evolve. The discussion cites BPN's documentary "Surrender" around its Last Man Standing race, Red Bull's self-conception as a media/marketing company, Nike's emotionally resonant advertising, and the increase in Jordan affinity following "The Last Dance." Kim says BPN's content makes choosing its supplements feel obvious during his training. | Implication: Treat long-form documentary and narrative projects as cumulative brand-asset creation, with success measured in preference, repeat engagement, cultural relevance, and willingness to choose before the landing page—not just immediate campaign ROAS. | Caveat: The interview makes a strategic argument about CAC and stickiness but provides no controlled attribution or financial evidence tying specific films to sales outcomes.
- Claim: Creator Camp's feature-film experiment illustrates a fast, constrained production model in which writing and community distribution compensate for lower conventional production polish. | Evidence: For its festival cohort, Creator Camp reportedly funded nine short films at roughly $10,000-$15,000 each and gave Baron Ryan $100,000 for a feature. The feature was written in 12 days by Baron and Caroline; composer Owen reportedly scored scenes while they improvised because post-production time was constrained. The team deliberately limited the shoot to about four locations and completed the project in roughly 100 days. Kim says the Austin premiere sold out about $150,000 in tickets. | Implication: For an experimental narrative bet, impose hard constraints on locations, budget, schedule, and distribution hypothesis, then put disproportionate effort into writing, audience community, and a launch mechanism. | Caveat: Kim openly notes technical imperfections, including unstable camera work and occasional focus issues, and says there was never one final formal script; this is not a blanket recommendation to eliminate planning.
Detailed Brief
Creator Camp's business model and 2026 operating stack
- Claims: Creator Camp is building three mutually reinforcing businesses: community events and a film festival, original IP/feature-film projects, and commercial services for brands.; The commercial arm is intended to create steadier revenue and a training ladder for creators who want to direct, write, and produce before they attempt feature films.; The company wants to position itself as the center of an "internet cinema" movement by showing creators that online-native work can reach theatrical screens.
- Evidence: Kim says Creator Camp began as break-even events for creatives, artists, and musicians who wanted to make meaningful work rather than optimize solely for algorithms.; He says the company has done commercial work with Spotify and Notion, including launch videos, campaigns, and organic social work.; He describes prior large activations, such as taking 100 creators to Switzerland, as creatively valuable but financially and operationally spiky; the agency business is designed to reduce dependence on all-or-nothing projects.; Kim cites "Hundreds of Beavers" as a key indie-film case study: he says it spent a little over $100,000 and generated roughly $1 million-$2 million at the box office through an extended, flexible release path.
- Caveats: The stated $5 million-$10 million revenue target for "Two Sleepy People" across theaters and streaming is an aspiration discussed by the speakers, not a realized or independently verified result.; Combining a community, studio, festival, and agency increases strategic optionality but risks operational distraction if the service business begins consuming the creative leadership needed for proprietary IP.
- Implications: A sustainable creator-IP studio may need a portfolio architecture: services for cash flow and talent development, events for community and deal flow, and owned IP for asymmetric upside.; Film economics can be managed as a continuing distribution process rather than a binary opening-weekend outcome, particularly when a community can reactivate demand city by city.
Production and content-design practices
- Claims: Kim believes long-form capability often precedes effective short-form because holding attention for 30 minutes builds a stronger storytelling muscle than optimizing only for 60 seconds.; His creative process is primarily edit-led: capture material, identify an emotional shift or tension, then construct the story backward from footage rather than over-planning the narrative.; The team intentionally shifted from visually polished but inaccessible content to more direct, scripted videos with an explicit audience question at the center.; Recurring settings, team characters, and internal jokes can turn a company feed into a recognizable ongoing show or world.
- Evidence: Kim describes his early YouTube work as filming life for three months and then revisiting footage once he recognized a change in himself, treating editing as a kind of cathartic journaling.; He says Creator Camp's short-form team is influenced by Chita Rajan's Virginia cabin documentation format: visually cinematic, dynamic, and rooted in an unfolding project.; The team uses informal experimentation with locations, camera motion, performance, music, pacing, color grading, and sound design rather than a rigid formula.; Kim describes a recurring Walter Isaacson biography gag within the team and points to Yes Theory's Yes House as evidence that audiences attach to a familiar physical world.
- Caveats: The speaker's intuition-heavy process may be difficult to transfer to teams without experienced editors, writers, and a shared taste level.; Fast visual variation should support a real story and environment; it is not presented as a substitute for substance.
- Implications: Build content formats around repeatable worlds and visible team dynamics so each episode compounds recognition rather than beginning from zero.; Use editing reviews to test a simple internal signal: whether the team feels genuine excitement and emotional momentum in the cut—while still pairing that instinct with retention and business measurement.
Notable Concepts & Terms
- Internet cinema: Creator Camp's label for a creator-native filmmaking ecosystem in which online storytellers develop work that can move from social platforms to theatrical and streaming distribution.
- Micro-studios: Small, creator-led teams that own or produce focused film IP rather than operating as centralized legacy entertainment companies.
- Parasocial capital: Economic value derived from an audience's relationship with an individual creator, typically monetized through brand deals, courses, or creator-linked products.
- Narrative capital: Durable value created by stories, characters, and worlds that audiences care about independently of the creator's personal life.
- Theatrical windowing: The release sequence of theaters first, followed by wider theatrical expansion and later streaming or other distribution; Kim views this as economically valuable for indie projects.
- Demand map: A location-pinning mechanism that converts dispersed online audience interest into city-level evidence for theaters and distribution partners.
- Meta narrative: The deeper, human story beneath the surface topic—for example, not just a film company discussing Hollywood, but young creators attempting to change a gatekept industry.
- Storytelling as moat: The belief that as AI makes production capabilities more accessible, a brand's ability to create meaningful and culturally resonant stories becomes a harder-to-copy advantage.
Operator Notes / Why Ken Should Care
- Design one flagship narrative series around a visible business tension, recurring protagonists, and a measurable objective; avoid publishing it as a chronological weekly recap.
- Create a city-level demand-capture workflow for any physical event, screening, pop-up, or launch: collect location, intent strength, contact permission, and conversion to ticket/preorder.
- Audit current content formats for assets that can survive without Ken's constant personal participation—recurring characters, a branded world, documentary premises, or transferable IP.
- Set aside a protected experimental-IP budget with explicit constraints on schedule, locations, and distribution hypothesis, rather than treating cinematic work as an unbounded brand expense.
- Model studio or set investments as production infrastructure: track utilization days, content output, client revenue enabled, recognizable-format lift, and replacement difficulty.
- Build a services-to-IP talent ladder: use commercial work to develop directors, editors, writers, and producers, then selectively deploy the strongest teams on owned narrative properties.
- Do not use social reach alone as proof of offline demand; validate audience-to-action conversion through pre-sales, local interest density, and small staged launches.
Source/Metadata
- Title: This Company is Taking Down Hollywood
- Transcript words: 18062
- Duration seconds: 3174
- Timestamp note: No timestamps or chapters were provided. The transcript includes substantial duplicated passages near the latter half.
Transcript
Today we have somebody that I admire, building something I admire, Simon Kim. We're not the first creators to get a movie in theaters, but to do it in the way we're doing it. Internet cinema is coming, and it's not waiting for anything. Hollywood had a hundred-year head start, but the internet is starting to catch up. So it's been a few years in the making of this film festival. All these different creatives popping up their own studios, working on their own film projects, and realizing I can just go out and make things with a few friends, and there can actually be a path to get that distributed. The best brands need to invest in telling their brand story at the highest level. Let's host this film festival. What does it look like for the internet to have its own Sundance? We realized we have a great opportunity to tell a narrative of, Hollywood's dying, that's what everyone's saying. So why are we building a film company? What's up, y'all? Welcome to another episode of Sweat Equity. Today we have somebody that I admire, building something I admire, Simon Kim. How's it going? We typically don't do large intros here, but give people context. Because one of the things, as well as, we always talk about brand social, and obviously we talk about the integration of creators. But I think what you are building, and then how you're building it, and how it's centered around content is super important. But you give an intro to yourself, what you're building, and then I'm guns blazing into that. Yeah, so my name is Simon. I run Creator Camp, also Camp Studios. And essentially we're on a mission to bring internet creators to the big screen. So build a bridge from just making videos in your bedroom to actually becoming a full-out filmmaker, putting things out there. Whether it's getting films into theaters, whether it's doing your own theatrical tour. That's the belief that we've championed. And we've built this community of artists, storytellers, creatives over the last four years of hosting events. And that's led us to this point. Very familiar with you, and I'd gone through the mission, and even the Notion page months ago. Oh, heck yeah. And so I'm reading it, and now I'm piecing parts of it together where I saw something recently where Sydney Sweeney's last four films have been, yeah. Like, haven't popped. I think it was her last three, four films. Yeah, boxing one, yeah. Right? And it was like, oh, it's one of the worst runs, et cetera. And it's not like it's a Sydney Sweeney era, it's a Hollywood era. Right? And it's because Hollywood has changed so much. And even you look at how a movie is promoted. Typically in the past, it'd be promoted very, very heavily. And now it's promoted, there's sometimes I see a movie two weeks before it goes out. Yeah. Yeah. And I see one trailer and you don't build up the hype and the FOMO to go and watch the thing. And it's just changed so much. And you guys are betting on the restructuring of Hollywood. What does the restructuring of Hollywood look like? I think over the past 10 years, you've seen the decentralization of basically every industry. Yeah. That's tech products coming along and disrupting. You see these core players getting broken up, whether it's JP Morgan. Now there's Mercury and there's carrot banking and there's all these different things. But I think Hollywood's the last one to go. And it's very resistant to that because it's just a highly gate-kept industry. But our hope is, or what I believe to be true over the next 50 years, is instead of one big Warner Brothers, there'll be thousands of these micro studios where it's just a group of creatives coming together, just making their own feature films, because obviously the cost of production is going down, the cost of distribution and marketing is going down. And so that was our bet, is how can we be the first people to crack that? Or, we're not the first creators to get a movie in theaters, but to do it in the way we're doing it and really champion that movement. But that's how we see this internet cinema movement, right? It's not just for us, but it's okay, we're already seeing it now with all these different creatives popping up their own studios, working on their own film projects, and realizing I can just go out and make things with a few friends, and that can actually be a path to get that distributed. And so that's how we see the future of Hollywood. It's more the individuals, the small groups of creatives all across the world. What if you were put in the inverse and you had one job of, I have to save Hollywood? How would you approach that? Would it be taking the same model that you're doing now? Yeah, I think also just giving, one of the fundamental issues that we found is you have to invest so much into these projects, you have to invest hundreds of millions. And I think giving more of that share of the pie to the creatives on set is a necessary thing, or giving more of those back-end points to the creatives, I think is super necessary because or else you're just incentivizing the budget to go up because everyone's getting paid out of the budget. And so that's an interesting take. I also think this, yeah, honestly, I have no clue, because I think there's so many issues. The more we go along the lines, I think there needs to be more competition in the theatrical market. Because right now, even for us to go out and say, hey, we want to get our movie into theaters, we have no idea how to do that. But a lot of these indie films might actually get people in seats. But the issue is the big studios are basically gridlocking those theaters. Like, hey, we have Wicked coming out. We're going to need three weeks of your screens or else we're going to pull that from you. We're going to take 70% of the box office. And so I think there's not enough competition in the theatrical market where, in maybe a town in Indiana, it's like, actually this indie film might bring more people than Wicked to that theater. Right. But there's no way for that indie film to even get to that theater. And so there's no competition in the market. And so I think that's something that has to be solved. Yeah, it's basically been monopolized by the bigger players. Because a Disney can go to the small art house theater and be like, yo, we're going to play Moana 3 or whatever, and here's our demand. You need to give us this many screens, give us this big cut, or else pull it from your theater. And that small theater needs Moana 3 to survive, to get people in seats. And so. My ass would be there. My daughter on a Moana. Exactly. I'm wearing a kick right now. There you go. Yeah. I can't listen to a damn song on the radio. Every time she gets in the car, it's Moana, Moana. No, you know, I fall. Or whatever. So they have so much control in that market. And so I think hopefully part of what this campaign with this last film does is start to at least encourage that conversation of we should be open to play more things, that sort of thing. So I didn't know that's how it was structured, though. I didn't know that's how it happened, where Warner Brothers comes to X chains and it's probably like we need X amount of time. And so then is your opportunity small windows where there are no movies? Yeah. So for example, and a lot of indie movies do this as well. I don't think we're doing something crazy fundamentally different than a lot of indie movies in the past, right? Yeah. But for example, Everything Everywhere All at Once, the film by A24, it took a whole year before it really went as wide as possible. Yeah. And so with this film, it was really hard to get into theaters because we had to prove to people, hey, all these social media views will end up converting into people actually showing up, which is one of the least, you can't attribute that. So we did it in 30 theaters November 14th. We did a whole roadshow before then to prove that there was demand and momentum. time. And so then, is your opportunity small windows where there's no movies? Yeah. So, for example, the first, and a lot of indie movies do this as well. I don't think we're doing something crazy, fundamentally different than a lot of indie movies in the past, right? Yeah. But, for example, Everything Everywhere All at Once, the film by 24, took a whole year before it really went as wide as possible. Yeah. And so with this film, it was really hard to get into theaters because we had to prove to people, hey, all these social media views will end up converting into people actually showing up, which is one of the least, you can't attribute that. So we did 30 theaters November 14th. We did a whole roadshow before then to prove that there was demand and momentum. We did 30 theaters December 5th, and now, late January, we're looking for 100, 200 plus because that's when there isn't a Moana three or something like that in theaters. That is wild. I really did not know that structure. Where do you think the next Disney comes from? The next Disney might not, I don't know if there'll be a next Disney, I guess is my take on it, right? It's like, will there be that big of a player that comes in the entertainment space that's so centralized in power? Right? That's the question. Going back to that original thing of all these studios popping up, we know that the next Steven Spielberg is probably going to come from a YouTube channel, right? Or just growing up making TikToks. But I don't know about the next Disney, because I'm not sure if something can get that big anymore, right? It might just have to be all these little studios. They're more like little Disneys. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you think that those mini Disneys will come from multiple creators, that they build their own IP. They're building out their, it started in their bedroom, it becomes a much bigger thing, but they're their own version of Disney. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's super interesting. And I think you're seeing it now among some creators, right? Who is the, I don't know if they just built a studio here. Is it Dude, what is it? Dude Perfect? Yeah. Don't they? Yeah. It was trying to, enormous studio where their whole premise too was like, we're going to build a Disney-like studio. Now, what I think is interesting is in the notion you talked about, the difference between parasocial capital and narrative capital. Yeah. Right. And the evolution that you see for creators and how creators can monetize in one way, they can monetize the, hey, I built my audience. I'm going to launch a product that's one-sided. I'm going to launch Feastables. I'm going to launch a course. I'm going to launch XYZ thing. And I build that bridge. I launch my product. It's successful. Awesome. But then there's the narrative capital where it's like some of the most successful things in the world, when we're talking about content creation, are these stories. Yeah. Right. I ironically was, we were getting a summer moon. Have you had summer moon by here? Yeah. Goated. We were getting summer moon yesterday, and me and this girl Tatum just happened to be talking about, I think I was talking about today's episode, actually. And I was talking about Harry Potter and the fact that it's driven billions and billions in revenue from one person's story, from the book and then to the film. And there's this infinity where the people that grew up with the film have this relationship with it that you can't break. My wife has, when we went to London, she got a little lightning bolt. I almost got something, but I was like, I don't know if I can explain this one. But then you go in London and you see how many people are lined up to, there's one of the stations, there's a little area where they have a Harry Potter cart going through the platform in 93 quarters, and then they have a bookstore. Bro, everything had lines out the door. It was just a regular Tuesday, Wednesday, you know what I mean? And that all stems from one story. So can you break down for me how then you're thinking about, okay, the next evolution that could be an even bigger stage for these creators is actually narrative capital versus a social relationship? Yeah. I think that's a good question because it comes back to my personal experience and my co-founder's personal experience. I had grown up making videos on TikTok, grew an audience there, and then moved to YouTube. And that was when I was a full-time creator for the first time, built an audience there. And a lot of it was off of trying to tell a narrative story and document my life and make a film out of it, right? And we began to realize that, okay, first, something fell off. You're monetizing your life in this weird Truman Joe-esque way. And then also realizing that there's less scale to it, right? For example, if you are to just lean on your parasocial relationship you have with your audience versus make a piece of IP, tell a story that can scale outside of yourself, that's a much more sustainable path, in our opinions and in my personal opinion, than to continue to be on this hamster wheel. And I think a lot of what we built at camp is because we felt like we were on this brand deal hamster wheel of, I don't know when the next brand deal is coming in. This is how I'm going to survive. This is what I've been taught is the way to be a full-time creator, but I want to tell really meaningful stories and I want to make films and that sort of thing. And so, what is the mechanism to make that a profitable thing, or make there be some structure for that to exist? And so a lot of it comes from my own experience in creating and being like, this feels weird, monetizing off the parasocial. But actually, again, to your point, realizing, wait a second, Harry Potter is just a story that someone came up with. That's not about JK Rowling. She never mentions herself, but she told a great story, and that can scale way beyond what her personal brand could end up being. What would you tell someone then if, because I'm in the same boat in a way outside, let's disconnect me from the agency studio that we have. I make money as well from brand deals, and then we have cut theory, which is a short form bootcamp, which is, in many ways, parasocial. We created our audience. We monetize it via that course. But if I want to be on the other side where I want to, because I'm honestly in the same boat, one of my larger goals is producing a movie. That's one of my bigger goals. I study it a lot, and I want to do something there, but that's not going to happen overnight by any means, right? If I want to make it to the other side where it's like, okay, you're building out this narrative relationship, where do I start? Where would you say, Alex, actually, I think you should do one to two things, these 10 things, et cetera? Yeah. I guess also peeling back, I think we saw the first evolution of the creator economy where it's like, okay, cool, you build this audience and then you need to monetize it by building a business. Yeah. But we realized, at least in the niche that we were in, a lot of these artists, they're not going to be the ones that launch this mobile network or this Feastables chocolate. It makes no sense. How can the art itself be sustainable? So I guess that's another point of what led us to this moment. And I guess, to your point, that's what we're trying to create, is more of that conversation or almost that path, right? And so a lot of that comes in educating the theaters, educating the studios, doing it yourself, creating a case study. That's sort of what we're up to now. But I think the biggest thing is just start putting out more narrative work. Just put it out there in the world, because we like to say that YouTube is the next film festival now. People like execs and people in studios who can potentially greenlight those projects, right, or give you funding, whether you do it yourself or whether you want to partner in that way, they're going to find this feastables chocolate. It makes no sense. How can the art itself be sustainable? So I guess that's another point of what led us to this moment. And I guess, to your point, that's what we're trying to create, is more of that conversation or that almost path. Right. And so a lot of that comes in educating the theaters, educating the studios, doing it yourself, creating a case study. That's what we're up to now. But I think the biggest thing is just start putting out more narrative work, just put it out there in the world. Because we like to say that YouTube is the next film festival now. People, execs, and people in studios who can potentially greenlight those projects, or give you funding, whether you do it yourself or whether you want to partner in that way, they're going to find these stories on YouTube and be like, okay, that's IP that's tested. It obviously has an audience attached to it. If it has a significant amount of reach, people are like, okay, this, it's like the Kane Pixels thing with The Backrooms and how A24 picked that up. So I would say just put more narrative work out there and start putting it online because, obviously, you never know who's watching. And so I think YouTube itself, or Instagram, all these social platforms, are the next film festival where you get discovered and that sort of thing. To do that, though, you have to tell good stories. You're around an amazing, amazing level of creators from all sizes. Can you break down some storytelling structure and spines and frameworks that you guys have for putting together? Because I've watched a significant amount of your videos, Barron's, et cetera. I've watched a lot of the videos, even down to your guys' short-form content. But most people that create short-form content aren't good at long-form or the narrative aspects, right? If I'm scripting something informational and it's about good content versus bad content, that is entirely different than something that's narrative-based where I'm like, yeah, yeah, fuck, I just turned 30 and you know what I'm saying? I'm going into this story. How and where would you advise I start with actually putting together a good narrative that is interesting? Yeah. I think first, it's interesting, your point about short-form to long-form. A lot of the folks that we've brought on that have done the best at short-form started on long-form because you build such a stronger muscle toward, if you can get a million people to pay attention to a 30-minute video about your life, then all of a sudden, obviously, 60 seconds becomes a lot easier. I think, so it was funny because with the camp videos, we were stuck at a certain scale because we were almost a little too pretentious with our brand. It was really pretty stuff. But we're like, wait a second, this is very inaccessible. Right. And so that's when we started scripting out more of our stuff. And I guess one of the frameworks we use is, first, just always looking at something and being like, why should I care? And Baron actually gave us great advice. He's like, people would care. You need to make people care about the characters because then whatever the characters do, they'll end up paying attention. And we're like, okay, one of the narratives is we're Camp Studios. We're trying to change the film industry, or we're trying to sell these tickets to this movie. But then the other narrative on top of that is we're a bunch of 20-year-olds in this old-school building trying to make something happen, trying to change Hollywood. Right. And that's such a more compelling narrative, which is more personal. And so I think always peeling back to the meta narrative, one layer deeper, of okay, but really what is happening here? What do most people resonate with? I think that was really helpful for a lot of stories. I think personally, all the early stuff I did on YouTube was really just put the camera up and then go about my life for three months. And then I would feel some change in me and be like, okay, hold on. Boom. I got something. Let me go back to that footage and tell the story backwards. It was like a form of journaling. It was very cathartic to go through that. Mm-hmm. So that's how I initially started, but— Was there any structure to that when you would reverse engineer? If it was, there is a lot of, I mean, there's even a wave on the brand side where the founder is documenting the entire, right? You saw Daniel Dall, and I think he launched this new phase of vlogging, more cinematic, more narrative, where you are filming an entire week and then putting it into a 10-, 15-minute video where it's obviously heavily inspired by Casey, but it is different. If somebody is doing that, how would you then look at it and say, hey, here's how you could structure it in a way where then it's not boring? Because I've done two, and two is not a lot. Two at-bats is not a lot, but I've done two and they both missed. Right. But the way they were pieced together was sequential versus maybe emotional or more narrative versus it just being like, hey, I did this on Monday. I did this on Tuesday. I didn't center it around maybe something that we were trying to accomplish and did we accomplish it or not. How would you then look at my video as an example, and/or anybody who's filmed a week, and then rip it apart to be like, hey, here's how you need to form it into something that somebody wants to pay attention to? Yeah. That's a really good question. I think a lot of it comes down to the craft of it. I struggle to sometimes see the bigger picture because I love editing and I love getting into it. Right. And so even with the content, I'm technically CMO, and there are people under me and they're working on the content, but I edit a lot of those short-form videos you see. I write a lot of them. Yeah, I'm very involved because the way my brain works is even when we work with these brands, I'm thinking about the actual content itself. So I'm very nutty in that way. I think a lot of it comes down to the editing, the pacing. What are you making people feel? Right? I think for me, it's more in that nitty-gritty of actually being in the timeline and making those changes than to be like, here's the structure, the narrative, and that sort of thing. I think it's more of a feeling thing there. At least for myself, I've never been able to plan out something beforehand. I usually get in the edit and I have all this footage, and I play a song that makes me feel a certain way, and I'm like, okay, here we go. Here it is. And so I'm sure there's something I can explain under that. I just haven't really examined it or gone deeper into, okay, what is a strategy here? It's more of like, how do I feel, and how fun is it? Because I feel like every creative has that moment where they're editing something. You probably have this a ton of times where you're at 2 AM and you're freaking out and you're like, I'm the best. I just made this thing. It's dope. And maybe tomorrow morning you're like, nah, screw the heck. But in the moment you have that. And I think we're all chasing that feeling. And I think what I've found is when I feel that way about something, it always performs better. Some people are like, okay, the stuff I love doesn't perform. But for some reason, when I feel that in the edit, it's like that thing will do better. And so that's always what I follow. I'm very granular, so not very much bigger-picture narrative, more in the actual edit. We'll go granular in a second. There, it was funny, is I remember a moment like that for me when I first did a hyperlapse and I did a tutorial. And then I remember being in, I got in Barcelona and I was walking, taking, having it But in the moment, you have that. And I think we're all chasing that feeling. And I think what I've found is, when I feel that way about something, it always performs better. Some people are like, okay, the stuff I love doesn't perform, but for some reason, when I feel that in the edit, that thing will do better. And so that's always what I follow. I'm very granular, so not very much bigger narrative picture, more in the actual edit. We'll go granular in a second. It was funny, I remember a moment like that for me when I first did a hyperlapse and I did a tutorial. And then I remember being in Barcelona, and I was walking, having it perfectly set up, take a picture, walk, walk, walk, walk. And I did this forever. And I remember putting it in Premiere. I'm like, okay, let's do this thing. Let's follow the tutorial. And then it hit, and I put warp on it, and it was so smooth. And I was like, oh my God, I'm the best. We're going to be Beautiful Destinations part two over here. Yeah, I just remember that moment. I didn't know that you scripted a lot of the actual videos that are on your guys's page. Can you walk me through, granularly, that process? Let's take an idea. Or if you want to take a video that you've already published in the past. Yeah, I think one of your Kyle's top ones is, if Hollywood is dying, why? So that's one I wrote and edited, set, and we had a moment there. Shout out Caleb Shaw, one of my friends. He was in the office and he actually helped me sound design it, but we were freaking out because that was the first time we did something where we were like, okay, we've been too pretentious with our brand. Let's go more direct, right? And so I think how we broke that down was first, what's the story here? What's really interesting? I think when we first moved into that office, we met this lady, Carrie. She's really nice. She actually, her and her husband founded Alamo Drafthouse. Wow. A theater chain. And the first thing she asked us was, oh, you're a film company. How do you have money? Basically, it's her building we're renting out. And so that got me thinking, everyone associates film to basically losing a bunch of money. And so there's an automatic tension there. And so we realized we have a great opportunity to tell the narrative of, Hollywood's dying. That's what everyone's saying, so why are we building a film company? That's a really obvious question that anyone would look at us and be like, what are you doing? Why aren't you building a tech product? Why aren't you doing whatever? And so I think it's playing the music, going through it, realizing, okay, that's the biggest thing. Realizing that, okay, first we need to talk about the industry to set up some of the problem. And then we always need to go into our personal, us, because obviously, at the end of the day, if people care about the people, then they'll watch anything. And so you set up this bigger picture. We talk about the issues with the industry, what we're seeing that there's a lot of resonance with, because I think in Hollywood and in the film industry, there's a lot of energy that's pent up, right? Whether it's animosity or just feeling like there's opportunity, whatever it is, there's a lot of people that have opinions. And so we'd address that. And then we go into, we're Camp Studios, we're a group of these 20-year-olds trying to do this. And so that last part's more like building our personal narrative, right? But a lot of it also is, okay, we'll draft out that first thing, feel it out, and then just rip it apart. Obviously, you probably do this as well, where it's just destroying the script. And then eventually we get to a place where it's like, okay, this makes sense. And then we were really hype about it. I remember jumping up and down with everyone being like, yo, this is it. And so— You were jumping up and down, looking at the script? Looking at the video when we first put it together. Oh, this is crazy. And so that was a great feeling. And then that video did well, probably because we felt that way towards it, right? And so, yeah, that's kind of breaking down some of the process there. And then what about pacing and delivery? Even in that video, I think there's a, what's her name? Christina. Christina. She has a really good pause that she does on the delivery of the first line. And I think there's a crash zoom as well. Yeah, right? How do you think about those details of, okay, we have this line. How do we make it more dramatic? How do we get someone's attention even more, right? Obviously, those first three seconds are so important. How do we create the most impact in those three seconds? How do you think about those little details? I think it's just very intuitive. We're probably thinking about that subconsciously, but it's very much like running around, like here, this line is, let's, what is a shot here? And it also helped that we were in that old-school building, so we knew that it would look like a set and it would be visually interesting wherever we went in that building. And so we just ran around with Christina and we're like, oh, this line feels weird. What do you think about this? Or she was helping write a lot of it too. And yeah, it was very much just run and gun, impromptu. Probably some element of my head is like, okay, if we zoom in, have some motion, we'll do better. But I'm not really thinking that. It's just more subconscious, I guess. One thing that drives me crazy a little bit about my content is that it's nine out of 10 times stationary, right? It's always just talking head. You guys have mastered the ability to take what talking head is, some kind of information that you're saying, but change where it's said, or even changing, if it first starts straight on and then all of a sudden the next line naturally goes like this and the next one goes this. It puts it in a way where it's so engaging. How do you think about that from a retention perspective and how important it is to content? And then how would you even, actually I'll make this a selfish question, how would you look at my content and be like, okay, cool. You have a good set. How can I structure it in a way where I can add more motion, I could add more engaging elements between my points, et cetera? Yeah. I think, so we're very inspired by Chita Rajan, the guy that's doing the Virginia cabin. I don't know if you've seen this, but he's the goat. He kind of invented that format, I would say, where he's documenting the story of him building a cabin in Virginia. Oh, you know that guy, wellness retreat. And so we're like, okay, how do we do this, but in our way, right? So that was our first level of inspiration. And it's obviously like, okay, we have a set of rules. We need to shoot on the Sony. We need to make it look good. We need color grade. There was a lot of internal conflict, honestly, at that time where it's like, ah, this feels like we're playing the game too much. And so this whole debate, but we eventually landed on something in the middle. Very inspired by his work and kind of what he had put forward, so it was very easy to take that as inspiration. I would say for this space, I think the main thing is instantly, the most fun thing, I think, is the fact that there's all those weights over there from your house. And I think even telling the story of that and realizing the scale of the place that I'm in and not feeling that in the video somehow, I think is something interesting, where it's like, you could be a crazy wide of you standing on the railing or something, you know, to make it look good. We need color grade. There was a lot of internal conflict, honestly, at that time where it's, ah, this feels like we're playing the game too much. And so this whole debate, but we eventually landed on something in the middle, but very inspired by his work and what he had put forward. So it was very easy to take that as inspiration. I would say for this space, I think the main thing is the instantly most fun thing, I think, is the fact that there's all those weights over there from your house. And I think even telling the story of that and realizing the scale of the place that I'm in and not feeling that in the video somehow, I think, is something interesting where it's, you could be a crazy wide of you standing on the railing or something, and showing more of this space. I think, again, I keep going back to the gym because I think it's just so interesting having all the gym equipment there and the story behind that. Right. So I think people, any creative, dreams about having a space like this. Right. And so I think capitalizing on that, sometimes it might be good to go as wide as you can. I'm sure you've done videos like this. I've gone through everything, but I think there'd be some benefit to that because I think the space is just so cool and how you have it laid out. Thank you. Yeah. I think part of it is we just got this cycle all built. And so naturally you're like, that's the flashy, right? Like the flashy thing that I want to make content in. But at the same time, because I swear to God, I watch your guys' videos all the time. There are references to be like, okay, they're really in three spots, but it feels like they're in 15 different spots because they're changing maybe the camera angle, et cetera. And I need to do that. Yeah. And then I look at what you said. I've thought about, okay, how can I do shots up there coming out of the bathroom? Right. There's so many ways I could add variables to the content that even because I see the sets, I'm attaching content formats and ideas to sets. Yeah. And so I want to be able to, okay, what are things I could do to add motion or that are engaging that then maybe bring me into the set? And then when I'm in the set, little other things that I can do to make it engaging. But I got to figure that stuff out. And I think part of that too is a lot of my content, because it's so information-based, I get so stuck on the actual information that I'm going to say that I don't think about the shot list or the storyboard, right? Of what if I added five things that made it a little bit more interesting and that's maybe 20 extra minutes can make a world of difference. That could be the difference between 20,000 views and 250,000 views. Yeah. I think to Max, my co-founder's, credit and Chris, we were somewhere in the summer. I think I was in Australia. We're taking a month off after the festival and our event series afterwards. And they had sent me a text, and we were looking for an office space. It's like, okay, cool. They're like, Max is the space guy. He's always on Zillow. They're just searching on the toilet. That's what he does. And he found our house that we lived in last year. So I'm like, I trust this curiosity. Yeah, I trust him. Yeah, exactly. And so then I come back and they're like, we got it. Hmm, what do you mean? And at first I was like, dude, we're not spending all this money on this frigging whatever. We don't need this. But then also being able to see it as an investment in the videos we make and telling that story, a lot of people would get on calls with us and be like, oh, you're the guys that are in that old school building. And it's like, maybe they saw a few things. Maybe they don't even remember what we said, but they at least remember that as a set. And so I'm like, okay, that investment isn't purely just a space investment. Now it's the content. I'm sure that's how you think about this place as well. Right. But that was cool too, because I don't know if I alone would have been able to have the balls to just pull the trigger on that, but that's what they're thinking through as well. And all of us are creators ourselves, so we're always thinking about that sort of thing. Dude. Yeah. I was nervous for the three weeks before I pulled the trigger on it. Yeah. It's scary. It's very scary. Yeah. Everything's a three-year lease. And I'm like, okay, that's a big commitment. And then things always work out in funny ways where I was listening to someone who was like, if something's making you very uncomfortable, but it feels right, it's probably right. Yeah. How do you feel about it now, being in the space, building it up? Very right. Yeah. You know what I mean? From two ends, on the business side, as in with the clients we work with, we've been able to, we've had this psych wall for probably two weeks, bro. We've probably shot in it like eight of those 14 days. That's sick. And built, and some days had multiple shoots. The team was here shooting in the morning. Then they shot something, I think, midday for a completely different brand, and then at night did a photo shoot in it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's like we're making, that already pays back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then on my end, I'm able to churn out more content and better content, content that I'm more proud of because of the set. Yeah. As much as I like the green screen videos, anybody can make them, right? I could make a video that goes viral today, and then the next person takes my information, does the same green screen video. They can't replicate the set. They can't replicate if I'm in here moving around, doing a storyboard and a shot list and working with McCoy or working with Charles and making the best video possible. They can't replicate that. Or it's going to take a lot for them to replicate it. And that friction is going to cause them not to replicate it. Yeah. And so that investment and that thought process to me was big as well, as, okay, I'm going to do things in here that people aren't willing to do. It's very easy to copy somebody. It's very easy to just rip information or rip a style that is not hard to do. But it takes a lot more effort to be like, yo, I'm about to drop $1,500 just to build out a set. Yeah. Yeah. And for an idea that might flop, you know what I mean? About this whole lab area for a specific set that we're doing, it might flop. But I'm excited about the idea, which I think is the fun part, you know what I mean? To be excited about the idea and to come in here and try to make an amazing piece of content. So to me, looking back at it, looking back at the last two months, the best thing. Yeah. And then once I have the gym in here too, fully set up and put it in a place where I lift and the team lifts, that's when it's going to be, yeah. That's like, this is a dream. This is what you dream, like having a space like this, right? You have the gym, you have everything, you have the cycle also. It's like, I love it. That's, I think, leaning into that as a narrative is so strong. Because it's like, everyone wants a space like this at the end of the day. The follow-along series I've been brainstorming on is like, watch us take our creative studio from seven figures to eight figures. And then it almost being like a reality show in here. Yeah. I like that. And I think it's really cool because it's like, put it in a place where I lift and the team lifts. That's when it's going to be. Yeah. That's a dream. This is what you drew, having a space like this, right? You have the gym, you have everything, you have this, the cycle also. I love it. I think leaning into that as a narrative is so strong. Because everyone wants a space like this at the end of the day. The follow-along series I've been brainstorming on is, watch us take our creative studio from seven figures to eight figures. And then it almost being like a reality show in here. Yeah. I like that, and I think it's really cool. At that point, you're following along. I would share the numbers. I'll share what we're doing, how we're scaling our growth, the things that we're up to, and how we're investing into the space and into the team and into the equipment, et cetera. I think that could be interesting. Definitely. We had this bit going because, oh, it's so funny. My co-founder Chris, he has the Steve Jobs book, the Walter Isaacson one. And we all have that book, right? And so he was reading it, and then he'd make this inside joke where he'd carry it everywhere he went. So he'd be in New York and he'd be like, take a look, and he'd whip out Steve Jobs' face. And then eventually, I don't know what happened to that book. I think we were on the tour and one of our friends, Cody, accidentally ripped it. And it was this whole traumatic experience, but it became an inside joke for the team. And then one of the things we did is we bought the Elon Musk book, the Walter Isaacson one. And we had that in the office, and it just became such an inside joke with one of our interns at the time, Sam. And so we almost made it a little bit in some of our videos, where we had it in the background and stuff like that. And when you have a space like that and you have recurring characters, it's almost a show, the funny inside jokes. And it was just funny for us. And I'm sure, I think that's the benefit of having a recurring space, is you can build that world around it where it feels kind of like, I'm not sure if you're a big fan of Yes Theory, but I was a huge fan. And the first time I went to the Yes House, I'm like, holy crap. I've seen this. And so there's something to that, where you can build this world in the space. Did you know BPN, Bear Performance? Yeah. Yeah. Nick Bare. I just went to their facility on Wednesday, and it was kind of that moment of like, okay, I've been following you guys forever. You guys have been putting out cinematic masterpieces from a brand. Dude, the half Ironman, or not the half. I'm running a half Ironman, so I've been watching the full Ironman training series from Nick Bare. It's crazy. And it's so beautifully done. Those are crazy. They're crazy. I don't know if you saw, and I'm going to actually dive into this a bit, but if you saw the one called Surrender, did you see that? Is that where he's just running one street? No, it's the people competing against each other. It was a race that they just had. You should watch that. That is like an hour and 30 minutes. They actually premiered it at a movie theater. Oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah. And it was a whole thing. They sold out all tickets for it. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, that's great. But it was a cinematic masterpiece. And actually, I'll segue now. I just did a podcast episode with, I don't know if you know what Tatum Brandt is, but with Tatum Brandt. And we talked about 2026 brand predictions, 2026 brand predictions to build a cult following. One of the ones I put on there is brands are going to start making movies. Because I wholeheartedly believe that. I think BPN is a great example of it. You should watch that film, then I'll send it to you, called Surrender, where they held this race called the Last Man Standing Race, where it was like a four-mile loop every hour until somebody gives up, until there's only one person standing. Oh, I've heard of this. I saw a bi-maximized reel on Instagram that was about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was a crazy event where basically everybody gave up. There were 50 runners, I think. Everybody gave up at max 120 miles. And then there were these two kids in their early twenties that kept going, bro. And they kept going until 240 miles. Wow. And then they got rained down. But the whole thing was two parts. They went live during the entire thing, so you got to actually see it unfold, right? Which was huge. And then the content team was also focused on, hey, we know we're going to make a doc on this. We're going to make a movie about this. And they did. And it was literally a cinematic masterpiece. I think from an affinity side, when you look at what you're referencing of these narrative relationships or this narrative capital, a brand like BPN has so much affinity because they literally have hundreds and hundreds of short films and movies around the brand that when you buy product, there's no convincing factor. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's such a different relationship where I don't look at price. I'm not trying to have the landing page convert me. I'm inverted. I was converted. You know what I'm saying? And that's like, it's like that for a few brands. It used to be like that for me with Nike because Nike would put out these amazing commercials and you'd feel such a type of way about the commercials where we're just going to buy the thing. And I think it even happened with The Last Dance, the Netflix documentary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, if you look at how Jordan shoes spiked after The Last Dance, it was crazy because it was like, bro, they just watched. I mean, that doc was like, I was so hyped up at that. Best doc. It's always my background doc. Yeah. It's so good. So good. But it was like 10 45-minute episodes of just beautiful cinematic masterpiece. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on, do you think more brands are going to be making films? Yeah, a hundred percent. They're already trying to do it with some of the micro-drama stuff on short form. I think that's sort of why now my role is CMO. So I was leading the marketing and all the content, and now I'm shifting more towards building out this backend agency around camp because, interestingly, a lot of brands have come to us for certain things, and we're like, well, we can go build a team and go do this thing for you and then come back to the main thing. But then we're realizing, and a lot of these startups and brands aren't recognizing this yet, which is kind of frustrating, but as these tools evolve, as AI evolves, the differentiating factor is going to be storytelling. So you need to invest in that. And yeah, you can explain it to these folks like, oh, good brand, lowest CAC over time, whatever, that sort of thing. But I think the stickiness of products in the future for consumers will depend on how good the storytelling team is, or how good, again, BPN is doing a great job at that. When I'm training for this thing now, I'm just going to use BPN supps. It's obvious now, right? And so I definitely think they are. I think they have to. The best brands need to invest in telling their brand story at the highest level because that's going to be one of the only as these tools evolve, as AI evolves, the differentiating factor is going to be storytelling. So you need to invest in that. And yeah, you can explain it to these folks, oh, good brand, lowest CAC over time, whatever, that sort of thing. But I think the stickiness of products in the future for consumers will depend on how good the storytelling team is or how good, again, BPN is doing a great job at that. When I'm training for this thing now, I'm just going to use BPN subs. It's obvious now. Right. And so I definitely think they are. I think they have to. The best brands, they need to invest in telling their brand story at the highest level because that's going to be one of the only moats in the future, I believe. I agree too. I was watching, or I was listening to something from a founder's podcast. I don't know if you've ever listened to it. Yeah. And he was talking about Red Bull, or the founder of Red Bull was talking about Red Bull as a company, that we're not an energy drink. We're a marketing conglomerate. Yeah. He's like, we are literally a production team. We are putting on movies for our customers around the idea of Red Bull, right? Red Bull gives you wings. Our movies are going to be the process and the showing of you getting those wings. And I just think there's such a relationship between long-form content and cinematic content to then a consumer being a diehard fan forever. Yeah. The same way with Harry Potter, people watch, and I know that's an extreme example, but you can do it for Marvel. You can do it for Star Wars. You can do it for Harry Potter. You could do it. Even for smaller movies that people rock, Rocky's huge, but there's still even smaller movies that, even if you're not building Star Wars, there's a small set of Star Wars or an idea that's a smaller version of Star Wars that's going to pop and have this diehard audience that you can make a lot of money from. Yeah. Or you're going to have a diehard audience from. And I think too, with where social and content is going and the way we consume, we are picking the brands that we identify with from a value perspective. Yeah. We're not just buying a shirt anymore because it's cool. It's like, no, I feel a specific kind of way about this in life around these kinds of values, is how I live my life, whatever. And so therefore I take these supplements, right? Or I buy this shirt or I buy this hat. And that, I don't think there's many things that could influence that more than long form. 100%. 100%. That's the coolest thing, though, too, to be able to, I've been thinking a lot of this because I just went home to Michigan, and it's a very different environment. It's very chill, Midwest. All my friends are kind of working their traditional jobs, that sort of thing. And people love Michigan football. I grew up a Michigan football fan, right? People are diehard Michigan football fans. And it made me realize there's not a lot of things you grow up and really care about outside your family, your friends, maybe you work the same job, whatnot, for a long period of time. But I think the coolest thing about telling stories is you can create things that people care about in that way. A lot of people go to Michigan football games and it gives their life so much meaning because it's something to look forward to, something to talk about, something to consume content about, be in this community. In the same way, Harry Potter and that sort of thing. And I think that's why I find it exciting, is when you tell stories, you can create things that people see themselves in and actually care about. Because if you think about the amount of things you're going to care about for the rest of your life, it might not be a lot of different things, which is kind of a sad thing to realize. And so I've been tinkering with that idea. It's not fully fleshed out, but I think there's something there where I'm like, I care about that story of Michael Jordan watching that doc. And it means something to me. And that's super special, you know? 100%. I think the stories extend the life cycle of the things you care about, drastically. I read a study, I think this was last year, where if I wanted to buy a piece of furniture, right? And I go to Ikea and I buy that thing and I buy a piece of furniture for my house, it's like, cool. I bought that piece of furniture. Nothing special about it. I don't care if it gets dinged up, or even if it costs a thousand dollars, right? $2,000. It's like, it happened. If I go to a garage sale and I start talking to someone and they're like, oh, it hurts me to sell this, but I need to sell it because it's passed down from my great-grandpa to the grandpa to my dad and now me. And I'm the one that now has it. You will cherish that and value that so much more than the thing that you got just because of the story that's attached to it. Yeah. And when you start thinking about it through that perspective, and then as a founder and you're launching a product or whatever, and you think about the idea of investing in brand, this is brand. It's like, there's a story attached to this product, right? There is something here that I associate with that is so powerful that I'm always going to choose this product. And that is a very, very impactful thing. Very, very impactful thing. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I've been thinking about the idea of artists, but then also thinking about, in that BPN example, for example, you're making the best films about these athletes and then you end up having these diehard fans that become beacons for other athletes. And then you just kind of compound on that. In the same way, I've been thinking a lot about a lot of these brands that want to appeal to creators and creatives and artists and that sort of thing, and just realizing you kind of have to be more gentle when it comes to the artists of the world, because they are the signal. When it comes to what is cool, how is culture, you can't really buy culture. Right. But these folks who are maybe harder to work with, that are more of these creatives that won't sell out or anything like that, to sort of cater to those folks in a way that isn't like, okay, we're going to pay you this much to do this. Like, hey, actually go out and do something crazy, super creative. Right. You can kind of make this ecosystem where it's like, you have these artists who review your brand and help build your brand up because they are the signal for culture of what is cool, you know? And so I'm thinking a lot about that as well. Tell me more about actual work that you guys have done and produced. So I know we were talking about this before, but you guys did something with Baron, American Baron, where you guys launched basically a film in less than a hundred days. I don't want to spoil the details. Walk me through that, because that seems, let me give context for anybody that's listening that doesn't produce a lot of content. Sometimes it takes us 45 days to put together a short-form series from casting, logistics, the settings, the scripting, the shot list. And even for a big campaign, that's going to be maybe 18 pieces of content, could take us a hundred days, you know what I'm saying? Like 120 days, something along those lines. You guys put something together, and a movie for that, in a hundred days. Walk me through that process. How much should it cost? How much do you think it's going to return for Baron? How is it beneficial to him as well? Walk me through that. Yeah. So Creator Camp started as a series of events. So it was sort of myself taking gap year from college and being like, shit, I'm super lonely. Where are the creatives that think in this vein of not optimizing for the algorithm, but making meaningful stuff? And so we went on this journey of bringing together these creatives, artists, musicians it could take us, that's going to be maybe 18 pieces of content, could take us a hundred days. What I'm saying? 120 days, something along those lines. You guys put something together and a movie for that in a hundred days. Walk me through that process. How much should it cost? How much do you think it's going to return for Baron? How's it beneficial to him as well? Walk me through that. Yeah. So Creator Camp started as a series of events. So it was myself taking gap year from college and being like, shit, I'm super lonely. Where are the creatives that think in this vein of not optimizing for the algorithm, but making meaningful stuff? And so we went on this journey of bringing together these creatives, artists, musicians through these series of events, building at break even, but realizing there's something here, there's something special. That's where we met Baron, through one of our events. And that's where Baron met Caroline, co-writer, co-lead, at one of the events. Wow. And we realized, okay, we're going to host this film festival. Because we realized where this is going, a lot of these creatives, okay, the events are cool, but what do we work on now? And we thought one of the cool things was these people are making stuff on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube that are really, really good. They could live on the big screen. And so that got us thinking, okay, let's host this film festival. What does it look like for the internet to have their own Sundance? And there's this, we felt this overlap, this niche of people that really cared about the Gawks or the Nailie Lins or these storytellers on YouTube. They wanted to be somewhere. And so we made a film festival for them. And part of it was, hey, we have a hundred days. We're going to pick a cohort of folks and we're going to give them funding. And Baron, we actually told him a month before, we might want to do a feature film with you at some point, because that's when the idea of being a film studio popped up. But he hadn't worked on it, and we're like, okay, screw it. You're going to be part of the cohort. All these nine people are going to make a short film, and then you're going to make a feature film. And so the nine short films, we gave them, I think it was 10 to 15,000 each. And they're just short film projects, 20 minutes long. And then Baron, we gave him a hundred thousand dollars budget to go out and make this thing. And yeah, it was a crazy process. They wrote it in 12 days, just him and Caroline riffing. And these are the most talented folks I've ever met, so I think I was just very trusting in that process. All of us were. But literally, they were riffing and coming up with a movie while the person, Owen, our friend who's scoring the movie, is scoring them riffing and doing these bits because he doesn't have enough time to score after he gets all of it, because we won't have enough time in post. So he's live scoring them, creating these lines. And it was just a very crazy process. I think it was move fast, break things, definitely. There's definitely a lot of things we could have done better, but it was done out of the spirit of, okay, you're an internet creator. You can move fast. That's the whole point. You can create these ideas really quickly. And so it was shot by our friend, Ethan, who's also a creator. JT was AC. He's also a creator. It was created purposely. I think there are only four different locations so that we could shoot it reliably within that timeframe on that budget. And so we just went for it. And it was a few days, there's no official script to this day. It's just scattered across different docs. But it came together, and I think it was a great point. I was talking with Baron, where it's not National Geographic quality. There are warbles and wobbles in the camera and that sort of thing. It's not locked off all the time. Sometimes it goes out of focus, but the writing being the backbone, they're such great writers. And the story has really impacted people in a positive way. And so, yeah, I think that's sort of how it came to life. It was very just thrown together. One crazy, I saw here, it sold out 150k world premiere. Yeah. That was in Austin for the film festival. So that was part of all those short films we had. Baron sold out 150k of tickets, people flying in from Austin, which was insane. Made your investment back. Yeah. Yeah. So it was great, just having that as the place to kick it off. Right. And now that I know the next layer of it is you guys are going to go U.S. You guys are going to go into U.S. theaters and do a whole tour. Yeah. Right. With the estimating, I think it says targeting five to 10 million in revenue across all theaters and streaming. Yeah. If that happens, which I believe in you guys that it will, that's a huge return. Definitely. Yeah. I think. So our first. Turn your 100k into five, 10 mils. Yeah. That's the beauty of narrative, right? And also understanding that the theatrical windowing system, it's very good. It's still good. The way Hollywood works of, you put it in theaters first and you build the groundswell of the buzz, you put it in more theaters, you get it out there, and then you have the window onto a streamer or that sort of thing. That business model is actually really good at making money. And you think about it from a perspective of why I want to go into theaters first, ticket sales versus CPMs online or advertising dollars, it's much different. But then also culturally, we only have so many marketing resources ourselves to push out, but the word of mouth actually, we're starting to feel a little bit, which has been great. So yeah, the biggest launch will be January 23rd, where we're targeting 500-plus theaters across the U.S., also Australia, I think, UK, Berlin, Paris. And so that's when we hit it as wide as possible. Yeah. So we created a map where we had people pin their location of where they are and where they want to watch the movie. That way we could go to the theaters and be like, hey, I know we're unconventional. I know we're not spending millions on marketing this, but we have a hundred, 200 people in your city that said they want to watch this. And so we have to build things like that. Yeah. That's working so far. Everywhere we've gone where that has a lot of pins, you'll sell out. So those first 30 theaters and the 30 theaters again have all sold out, which has been really awesome. Congrats. I appreciate it. Yeah. It's been really cool. That's amazing. Walk me through, because I already know 2026 is going to be huge. If you guys have done some of these things in this year, walk me through what does the vision for you guys look like 2026? I know you're probably in 2026 planning right now and in the fun of it too, right? It's so fun to look at. This is what we're going to achieve. Here's how we're going to achieve it. Walk me through that. Yeah. So 2026, I think for the most part, obviously the first thing is going to be the film tour, potentially getting distribution and streaming, that sort of thing. So figuring that out. The thing about indie films is there's a film called Hundreds of Beavers. That's a good case study that we based a lot of this off of. They spent a hundred-something K, and then I think they did one to 2 million in the box office, and they just kept going. And we realized a lot of these indie films, you can just be like, hey, we're in a hundred theaters this weekend, or you scale down and scale up. It's very different than your traditional, yo, we have this opening worldwide release, and then it's in theaters for a month, then it's going somewhere else. Indie films operate on a different timeline, which is great. So we'll probably do that widest release and then still do some stuff Obviously, the first thing is going to be the film tour, potentially getting distribution and streaming, that sort of thing. So, figuring that out. The thing about indie films is, there's a film called Hundreds of Beavers. That's a good case study that we based a lot of this off of. They spent a hundred-something K, and then I think they did one to 2 million in the box office, and they just kept going. And we realized a lot of these indie films, you can just be like, "Hey, we're in a hundred theaters this weekend," or you scale down and scale up. It's very different than your traditional, "Yo, we have this opening worldwide release," and then it's in theaters for a month. Then it's going somewhere else. Indie films operate on a different timeline, which is great. So we'll probably do that widest release and then still do some stuff with the film. And then I think for us, it's building out even more IP film projects, potentially doing another film festival. Because I think we just want to be the center of this movement of showing creators that, "Hey, you can get your work on a big screen." And I think that's really core to us. And then the other thing is obviously building out the backend, the agency, that sort of thing. And so we have events, film, and then commercial projects. And that's the ecosystem. What's the commercial project side of it? Oh, that's like, we do one-off launch videos, campaigns. We did stuff with Spotify, Notion, that sort of thing, run organic social for brands, that sort of thing. Because we realized we're really good at doing these really big things where it's like, we'll take a hundred creators to Switzerland and we'll work our asses off for a year, and then it's like this massive crash. And there's just a spike in revenue, spike in morale. But then we're like, okay, how do you build something more sustainable, right? Yeah. And so a lot of fun, a lot of, yeah, exactly. It's like a lot of this film, we put so much of everything we had into it. And we're like, okay, how nice would it be if it was just a side project? We're like, okay, we don't need to push that hard, that sort of thing. Or we don't need to risk everything on it. Right. And so want to build that out. And also a lot of creators in our community, they want to direct and write and stuff, but you don't go from that straight to feature film. You could go to directing commercial, that sort of thing, then scale up. But yeah, those are the three buckets that we're working on. Yeah. That's exciting, man. I appreciate you big time for coming on. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I could literally go on for another hour. The problem is I have meetings stacked to the fucking brim today. Yeah. If not, I'd cancel them. And if they weren't onboarding calls, I would cancel them and just stay here. I'd be shocked. But the fact that you're in Austin now, we will run this back often. And I think we could do, we'll bring Brian in. And if you want to bring our co-founders, we could do a big round. Yeah, that'd be cool, dude. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if this psych wall is big enough. Maybe we could, we'll figure it out. Yeah. But if you guys want to shoot in the school, let us know. We have full access at any point. It's really chill. So thank you. Thank you. Plug yourself, though. Everything that you're doing, plug your socials, plug Creator Camp, et cetera. Plug everything, please. Cool. Creator Camp, Simon Kim, @SimonKim on Instagram, YouTube, that sort of thing. And yeah, we're doing the thing. So check us out. Doing the thing. Follow them, support them if they hit a theater in Austin or wherever you are. Yeah. twosleepypeople.com. That's where you can check where the film's going next. So drop a pin. Oh yeah. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it, dude. Thank you. Heck yeah. like a lot of people would get on calls with us and be like, oh, you're the guys that are in that old school building. And it's like, that's, maybe they saw a few things. Maybe they don't even remember what we said, but they at least remember that as a set. And so I'm like, okay, like the, that investment isn't purely just a space investment. Now it's like the content. I'm sure that's how you think about this place as well. Right. But like, that was cool too. Cause like, I don't know if I alone would have been able to have the balls to just pull the trigger on that, but that's sort of what they're thinking through as well. And all of us are creators ourselves. So we're kind of always like, you know, thinking about that, that sort of thing. Dude. Yeah. I was nervous for like the three weeks before I pulled the trigger on. Yeah. It's scary. It's very scary. Yeah. Everything's, you know, three year lease. And I'm like, okay, like that's a big commitment. And then it's always, you know, things work out in funny ways where I was listening to someone was like, if you're, if something's making you very uncomfortable, but it feels right, it's probably right. Yeah. How do you feel about it now? Like being in the space, building it up. Very right. Yeah. You know what I mean? From two ends on the business side, as in like with the clients we work with, we've been able to, we've had this psych wall for probably two weeks, bro. We've probably shot in it like eight out of those 14 boys. That's sick. And like built and some days had like multiple shoots. Like the team was here shooting in the morning. Then they shot something, I think like midday for a completely different brand. And then at night did a photo shoot in it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's like, we're making that already pays back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then on my end, I'm able to churn out more content and better content, content that I'm more proud of because of the set. Yeah. I, as much as like, I like the green screen videos, anybody can make them right. Like I can, I could make a video that goes viral today. And then like the next person takes my information, does the same green screen video. They can't replicate the set. They can't replicate if I'm in here moving around, like doing a storyboard and a shot list and like, you know, working with McCoy or working with Charles and like making the best video possible. They can't replicate that. Or it's going to take a lot for them to replicate it. And that friction is going to cause them not to replicate it. Yeah. And so like that investment in that thought process to me was big as well as like, okay, I'm going to do things in here that people aren't willing to do. It's very easy to copy somebody. It's very easy to be like, to just rip information or rip a style that, you know, is, is not hard to do. Um, but it takes a lot more effort to be like, yo, I'm about to drop a $1,500 just to build out a set. Yeah. Yeah. And for an idea that might flop, you know what I mean? Like about like this whole lab area, uh, for like a specific set that we're, we're doing, it might flop, but I'm excited about the idea, which I think is like the, the fun part, you know what I mean? To be excited about the idea and to come in here and try to make an amazing piece of content. So to me, looking back at it, you know, looking back at two, the last two months, like the best thing. Yeah. Um, and then once I have the gym in here too, like fully set up and like put it in a place where I lift and the team lifts, like that's when it's going to be. Yeah. That's like, this is a dream. This is like what you drew, like having a space like this, right? You have the gym, you know, like you have everything, like you have this, the cycle also. It's like, I love it. You know, that's like, I think leaning into that as like a narrative is like so strong. Cause it's like, you know, everyone wants a space like this at the end of the day. The, uh, the follow along series I've been brainstorming on is like, watch us take our, our creative studio from seven figures to eight figures. And then like it almost being like a, a reality show in here. Yeah. I like that. Like, and I think it's really cool. Cause it's like, yeah. At that point you're following along. I would share the numbers. I'll share what we're doing, how we're scaling our growth, you know, the things that, that we're up to and like how we're investing into the space and into the team and into the equipment, et cetera. Like, I think that could be, um, I think it'd be interesting. Definitely. We had this like bit going cause like, oh, it's so funny. My co-founder Chris, he, he has the Steve jobs book, like the Walter Isaacson one. And we all like, we all have that book. Right. And so he was reading it and then he'd start, he'd make this inside joke where he'd like carry it everywhere he went. So like, he'd be in New York and he'd be like, take a look. And he'd like whip out Steve jobs face. And then eventually, like, I don't know what happened to that book. I think we were on the tour and like one of our, uh, friends, Cody, like he accidentally ripped it. And it was like this whole like traumatic experience, but it became like an inside joke for the team. And then one of the things we did is we bought the Elon Musk book and like the, yeah, the Walter Isaacson one. And we had that in the office and it just became such an inside joke with like one of our interns at the time, Sam. And so we almost made it like a little bit in some of our videos where we had in the background and stuff like that. And like, when you have a space like that and you have recurring characters, it's like almost a show, you know, like the funny inside jokes, like, and it was just funny for us. And like, I'm sure, like, I think that's the benefit of having like a recurring space is like, you can kind of build that world around it where it feels kind of like, I'm not sure if you're a big fan of yes theory, but like I was a huge fan. And like the first time I went to the yes house, I'm like, holy crap. Like I seen this and like, you know, and so there's something to that where you can build like this, this world in the space. Did you know BPN Bear performance? Yeah. Yeah. Nick Bear. I just went to their facility on Wednesday and it was kind of that moment of like, okay, I've been following you guys forever. You guys have been putting out like cinematic masterpieces from a brand. Dude, the half Ironman or the, not the half. I'm running a half Ironman. So I've been watching the full Ironman training series from Nick Bear. It's crazy. And like, it's so beautifully done. Like those are crazy. They're crazy. I don't know if you saw, and I'm going to actually dive into this a bit, but like, if you saw the one called Surrender, did you see that? Is that where he's just running like one street? No, it's like the people competing against each other. It was a race that they just had. You should watch that. That is like an hour and 30 minutes. They actually premiered it at a movie theater. Oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah. And it was a whole thing. They sold out all tickets for it. Like, wow, that's awesome. Yeah, that's great. But it was a cinematic masterpiece. And actually, I'll segue now. I think what I just did a podcast episode with, I don't know if you know what Tatum Brandt is, but with Tatum Brandt. And we talked about 2026 brand predictions, you know, to, it was 2026 brand predictions to build a cult following. One of the ones I put on there is brands are going to start making movies. Because I, I, and I wholeheartedly believe that. I think BPN is a great example of it. You should watch that film. Then I'll send it to you called Surrender where they held this race called the Last Man Standing Race, where it was like four mile loop every hour until somebody gives up. Until there's only one person like standing. Oh, I, I've heard of this. I saw a bi-maximized like reel on Instagram that was about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was a crazy event where basically everybody gave, there was 50 runners, I think. Everybody gave up at like max 120 miles. And then there, there were these two kids like in their early, early twenties that they kept going, bro. And they kept going until 240 miles. Wow. And then they got rained down. Like there was leather. But the whole thing was like two parts. They went live during the entire team, during the entire thing. So like you got to actually see it unfold. Right. Which was huge. And then the, the content team was also focused on, hey, we know we're going to make a doc on this. Like we're going to make a movie about this. And they did. And it was literally a cinematic masterpiece. I think from an infinity side, when you look at what you're, what you're referencing of like these narrative relationships or this narrative capital, a brand like BPN has so much affinity because they literally have like hundreds and hundreds of short films and like movies around the brand that when you buy product for like, there's no convincing factor. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like it's such a different relationship where I don't look at price. I'm not re I'm not trying to get, have the landing page convert me. I'm inverted. I was converted. You know what I'm saying? Like, and, and, and that's like, it's like that for a few brands. It used to be like that for me with Nike. Cause Nike would put out like these amazing commercials and you'd feel such, such a type of way about the commercials where like, and they weren't doing movies, but you'd feel such a type of way where we're just going to buy the thing. And I think like it even happened with the last dance, like the Netflix documentary. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, if you look at how Jordan shoes spiked after the last dance, it was crazy because it was like, bro, they just watched. I mean, that doc was like, I was so hyped up at that. Best doc. It's always like my background doc. Yeah. It's so good. So good. But it was like 10, 45 minute episodes of just like beautiful cinematic, like masterpiece. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on, do you think more brands are going to be making films? Yeah. A hundred percent. They're already trying to do it with some of the micro drama stuff, like on, on short form. I think like, and that's sort of like why, like now my role is like CMO. So I was leading the marketing and all the content. And now I'm shifting more towards like building out this backend agency around camp because like, Oh, interesting. A lot of brands have come to us for certain things and we're like, well, we, we can go build a team and go do this thing for you and then come back to like the main thing. But then we're realizing like, like, I don't know. And a lot of these startups and brands aren't recognizing this yet, which is kind of frustrating, but like as these tools evolve, as AI evolves, like the differentiating factor is going to be storytelling. So it's like, you need to invest in that. And like, yeah, you can explain it to these folks like, Oh, like good brand, like lowest CAC over time, whatever, like that sort of thing. But like, I think the stickiness of products in the future for consumers will depend on like how good the storytelling team is or how good, like the, again, BPN is doing a great job at that. Like when I'm training for this thing now, I'm just going to use like BPN subs, like it's obvious now. Right. And so I definitely think they are, I think they have to like the best brands they, they need to invest in telling their brand story at the highest level. Um, because that's going to be one of the only like moats in the future, I believe. I agree too. I, and I was watching, or I was listening to something from a founder's podcast. I don't know if you've ever listened to it. Yeah. And he was talking about like Red Bull was talking about, or the founder of Red Bull was talking about Red Bull as a company that like, we're not an energy drink. We're a marketing conglomerate. Yeah. He's like, we are literally a production team. Like we are putting on movies for our customers around like the idea of Red Bull, right? Red Bull gives you wings. Our movies are going to be like the process and the showing of you getting those wings. And I just think there's such a relationship between long form content and like cinematic content to then a consumer being like diehard fan, uh, forever. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like the same way with Harry Potter, it's like people watch, and I know that's an extreme example, but you can like, you do it for Marvel. You can do it for Star Wars. You can do it for Harry Potter. You could do it. I mean, even for smaller movies that people like rock, like Rocky's huge, but like, you know what I'm saying? Like there's still even smaller movies that, you know, even if you're not building like Star Wars, there's a small set of Star Wars or an idea that's like a smaller version of Star Wars that's going to pop and have like this diehard audience that you can make a lot of money from. Yeah. Or you're going to have a diehard audience from. And like, I think too, with where social and content is going and like the way we consume, we are picking the brands that we identify with from like a value perspective. Yeah. You know, like we're not just buying a shirt anymore because it's cool. It's like, no, I feel a specific kind of way about this in life around like these kinds of values is how I live my life, whatever. And so therefore I take these supplements, right. Or I buy this shirt or I buy this hat. And that, I don't think there's many things that could influence that more than long form. 100%. 100%. That's the coolest thing though, too, to be able to like, I've been thinking a lot of this because I just went home to Michigan and like, it's a very different environment. Like it's, it's very like chill, like Midwest, like all my friends are kind of working their traditional jobs, that sort of thing. And people love Michigan football. Like I grew up a Michigan football fan, right? Like people are diehard Michigan football fans. And it made me realize like there's, there's not a lot of things you grow up and like really care about, like outside like your family, your friends, maybe like you work the same job, whatnot for a long period of time. But like, I think the coolest thing about telling stories is like, you can create things that people care about in that way. Like, like a lot of people go to Michigan football games and it like gives their life so much meaning because it's like something to look forward to, something to talk about, something to, you know, consume content about, like kind of be in this community. In the same way, like Harry Potter and that sort of thing. And I think like, that's why I find exciting is like when you tell stories, you can create things that people see themselves in and actually care about. Because if you think about the amount of things you're going to care about for the rest of your life, it might not be a lot of different things, which is kind of like a sad thing to realize. And so I've been tinkering with that idea. It's not like fully fleshed out, but I think there's something there where I'm like, like I care about that story of Michael Jordan watching that doc. And like, it means something to me. And like, that's super special, you know? 100%. I think the stories extend the life cycle of the things you care about, you know, drastically. I read a study, I think this was last year, where if I wanted to buy a piece of furniture, right? And I go to Ikea and I buy that thing and I buy a piece of furniture for my house. It's like, cool. I bought that piece of furniture. Nothing special about it. I don't care if it gets dinged up or even if it costs a thousand dollars, right? $2,000. It's like, it happened. If I go to a garage sale and I start talking to someone and they're like, oh, it hurts me to like sell this, but I need to sell it because it's passed down from my great grandpa to the grandpa to my dad and now me. And like, I'm the one that now has it. You will cherish that and value that so much more than the thing that you got just because of the story that's attached to it. Yeah. And when you start thinking about it through that perspective, and then as like a founder and you're launching a product or whatever, and you think about like the idea of investing in brand, this is brand. It's like, there's a story attached to this product, right? Like there's a, there is something here that I associate with that is so powerful that like, I'm always going to choose this product. And that is a very, very impactful thing. Very, very impactful thing. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I've been thinking about the idea of like artists, but then also thinking about like in that BPN example, for example, like you're making the best films about these athletes and then you end up having these diehard fans that become beacons for other athletes. And then you just kind of like compound on that. In the same way, I've been thinking a lot about like a lot of these brands that want to appeal to like creators and creatives and artists and that sort of thing. And just realizing like, you kind of have to be more gentle when it comes to like the artists of the world, because they, they are the signal. Like when it comes to like, what is cool? What is, how is culture? You can't really buy culture. Right. But these folks who are like maybe harder to work with that are like more of these creatives that won't sell out or anything like that to, to, to sort of cater to those folks in a way that isn't like, okay, we're going to pay you this much to do this. Like, hey, actually go out and do something crazy, super creative. Right. Like you can kind of like make this ecosystem where it's like, you have these artists who like review your brand and help build your brand up because they are the signal for culture of like what is cool, you know? And so I'm thinking a lot about that as well. Tell me more about actually work that you guys have, have done and produced. So I know we were talking about this before, but you guys did something with Baron, American Baron, where you guys launched basically a film in less than a hundred days. I don't want to spoil the details. Walk me through that. Cause that seems, let me give context for anybody that's listening, doesn't produce a lot of content. Sometimes it takes us 45 days to put together a short form series from like casting logistics, the settings, the scripting, the shot list. And like, and even for like a big campaign, it could take us, that's going to be like maybe 18 pieces of content could take us a hundred days. You know what I'm saying? Like 120 days, something, something along those lines. You guys put something together and a movie for that, you know, in a hundred days. Walk me through that process. How much should it cost? How much do you think it's going to return for Baron? Like how, how's it beneficial to him as well? Like walk me through that. Yeah. So Creator Camp started as a series of events. So it was sort of myself, like taking Gap here from college and like being like, shit, like I'm super lonely where the creatives that like think in this vein of like not optimizing for the algorithm, but like making meaningful stuff. And so we went on this journey of like bringing together these creatives, artists, musicians through these series of events, basically building at break even, but realizing like there's something here, there's something special. That's where we met Baron was through one of our events. And that's where Baron met Caroline, co-writer, co-lead at one of the events. Wow. And we realized, okay, like we're going to host this film festival. Cause we realized like where this is going, a lot of these creatives, like the, okay, the events are cool, but like, what do we work on now? And we thought one of the cool things was like, these people are making stuff on like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube that are like really, really good. Like they could live on the big screen. And so that kind of got us thinking, okay, let's host this film festival. Like, what does it look like for the internet to have their own Sundance? And there's like this, we felt this like overlap, this niche of people that like really cared about like the Gawks or the Nailie Lins or these like storytellers on YouTube, like they wanted to be somewhere. And so we made a film festival for them. And part of it was like, Hey, we have a hundred days. We're going to pick a cohort of folks and we're going to give them funding. And Baron, we actually told him like a month before we're like, we might want to do a feature film with you at some point. Cause that's when the idea of like being a film studio popped up. But he hadn't worked on it and we're like, okay, screw it. You're going to be part of the cohort. All these nine people are going to make a short film and then you're going to make a feature film. And so the nine short films we gave them, I think it was like 10 to 15,000 each. And there's just like short film projects, like, you know, 20 minutes long. And then Baron, we gave him a hundred thousand dollars budget to go out and make this thing. Um, and yeah, it was a crazy process. Like, uh, they wrote it in 12 days, just him and Caroline just riffing. And these are like the most talented folks I've ever met. So I think I was just very trusting in that process. All of us were. Um, but like literally they're, they're, they were riffing and coming up with a movie while the person, Owen, uh, our friend who's scoring the movie is scoring them riffing and doing these bits because he doesn't have enough time to score after he gets all of it because we won't have enough time in post. So he's like live scoring them, like creating these lines. And it was just a very crazy process. I think like it was move fast, break things. Definitely. There's definitely a lot of things we could have done better, but it was done out of the spirit of like, okay, you're an internet creator. You can move fast. That's the whole point. Like you can create these ideas really quickly. And so it was shot by our friend, Ethan, who's also a creator. JT was AC. He's also a creator. Um, it was created purposely. I think there are only like four different locations so that we could like shoot it reliably within that timeframe on that budget. And so we just like went for it. And it was like, I know a few days, like there's no official script to this day. Like it's just a scattered across different docs. Um, but it came together and like, I think it was a great point. I was talking with Baron where it's like, it's not national geographic quality. They're like warbles and like wobbles in the camera and that sort of thing. It's not locked off all the time. Sometimes it goes out of focus, but they're writing the writing being the backbone. They're such great writers. And the story like has really impacted people in a, in a positive way. And so, yeah, I think it was, that's sort of how it came to life. It was very just thrown together. I mean, one crazy, I saw here, it sold out 150k world premiere. Yeah. That was in Austin for the film festival. So that was like part of like all those short films we had. Baron sold out like 150k of tickets, people falling in from Austin, which was insane. Made your investment back. Yeah. Yeah. So it was great. Just having that as like the place to kick it off. Right. And then now that I know the next layer of it is you guys are going to go U.S. Uh, you guys are going to go into U.S. theaters and do a whole tour. Yeah. Right. With the estimating, I think it says targeting five to 10 million in revenue across all theaters and streaming. Yeah. If that happens, which I believe in you guys that it will, that's a huge return. Definitely. Yeah. I think. So our first. Turn your 100k into five, 10 mils. Yeah. I mean, that's the beauty of like narrative, right? Like, and also understanding that like the theatrical windowing system, it's like very good at, it's still good. Like the way Hollywood works of like, you put it in theaters first and you build the groundswell of the buzz, you put it in more theaters, you get it out there and then you have the window onto like a streamer or that sort of thing. Um, that business model is actually like really good at making money. And you think about it when, from a perspective of like why I want to go into theaters as first, like, you know, ticket sales versus like CPMs online or advertising dollars, it's like much different. But then also like culturally, like we only have so many marketing resources ourselves to like push out, but the word of mouth actually, we're starting to feel a little bit, which has been great. So yeah, the biggest launch will be January 23rd, where we're targeting like 500 plus theaters across the U.S. Also like Australia, I think like UK, Berlin, Paris. And so that's when we hear it as wide as possible. Uh, yeah. So we created a map where we had people pin their location of like where they are and where they want to watch the movie. That way we could go to the theaters and be like, Hey, I know we're like unconventional. I know we're not spending millions on marketing this, but we have a hundred, 200 people in your city that said they want to watch this. And so we sort of have to build things like that. Yeah. That's working so far. Like everywhere we've gone where that has a lot of pins, like you'll sell out. So those first like 30 theaters and the 30 theaters again have all sold out, which has been really awesome. Congrats. I appreciate it. Yeah. It's been really cool. That's amazing. Walk me through. Cause I already know 2026 is going to be huge. If you guys have done some of these things in this year, walk me through what does the vision for you guys look like 2026? I know you're probably in 2026 planning right now and in the fun of it too, right? Like it's so fun to look at. This is what we're going to achieve. Here's how we're going to achieve it. Walk me through that. Yeah. So 2026, I think for the most part, like obviously the first thing is going to be like the film tour, potentially getting like distribution and streaming, that sort of thing. So figuring that out. The thing about indie films is like, there's a film called hundreds of beavers. That's a good case study that we based a lot of this off of it. They spent a hundred something K and then I think they did like one to 2 million in the box office and they just kept going. And we realized a lot of these indie films, like you can kind of just be like, Hey, we're in a hundred theaters this weekend, or you scale down and scale up. It's very different than your traditional, like, yo, we have this opening worldwide release and then it's in theaters for a month. Then it's going somewhere else. Indie films operate on a different timeline, which is great. So we'll probably do that widest release and then still like do some stuff with the film. And then I think for us is like building out more, even more like IP film projects, potentially doing another film festival. Because I think like, we just want to be the center of this movement of like showing creators that, Hey, you can get your work on a big screen. And I think that's like really core to us. And then the other thing is obviously like building out the backend, the agency, that sort of thing. And so we have like events, film, and then like commercial projects. And that's sort of like the ecosystem. What's the commercial project side of it? Oh, that's sort of like, we do like one-off launch videos, campaigns. We did stuff with Spotify, notion, that sort of thing, run organic social for brands, that sort of thing. And so, because we realized like, we're really good at doing these like really big things where it's like, we'll take a hundred creators to Switzerland and we'll work our asses off for like a year. And then it's like this massive crash. And there's just like spike in revenue, spike in like morale. But then we're like, okay, how do you build a more like sustainable, right? Yeah. And so a lot of fun, a lot of, yeah, exactly. It's like a lot of this film, we put so much of like everything we had into it. And we're like, okay, how nice would it be if like, it was just a side project. We're like, okay, like, you know, we, we, we don't need to push that hard, that sort of thing. Or we don't need to risk everything on. Right. And so want to build that out. And also a lot of like creators in our community, they want to direct and write and stuff, but they're, you don't go from that to straight to feature film. Like you could go to the directing commercial, that sort of thing, then scale up. But yeah, those are the three sort of buckets that we're working on. Yeah. That's exciting, man. I appreciate you big time for, for coming on. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I could literally go over for another hour. The problem is I have meetings stacked to the fucking brim today. Yeah. If not, I'd cancel them. And if they weren't onboarding calls, I would cancel them and just stay here. I'd be shocked. But the fact that you're in Austin now, we will run this back often. And I think we could do, we'll bring Brian in. And if you want to bring our co-founders, we could do like a big round. Yeah, that'd be cool, dude. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if this psych wall is big enough. Maybe we could, we'll figure it out. Yeah. But like, and if you guys want to shoot in the school, like let us know, like we have full access at any point. Like it's really chill. So thank you. Thank you. Plug yourself though. Everything that you're doing, plug your socials, plug, um, uh, creator camp, et cetera. Plug everything, please. Cool. Creator camp, um, Simon Kim at Simon Kim on Instagram, YouTube, that sort of thing. Uh, and yeah, we're, we're doing the thing. So check us out. Do the, doing the thing, follow them, support them if they hit a theater in Austin or wherever you are. Yeah. Two sleepy people.com. That's where you can check where the film's going next. So drop a pin. Oh yeah. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it, dude. Thank you. Heck yeah.