PBC Podcast | A Moment With Jesse - Mr. Worldwide, First Wedding Experience, and Scary TV!

Join us as we sit down for a chat with one of the newest members of our team, Jesse Mar-Ramirez!

Alex

I heard about the leak and I was like, “there's no way they’re getting Garfield,” but it's legit.

Jesse

Side smash is going to be him pulling out a box of lasagna.

Alex

All right, what's up, guys? Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Alex. I'm joined by Norbert, longtime member of PBC, and we're also joined by our newest member of PBC, Jessie. I actually brought him on to the team.

Jesse

I feel like I’ve been here for a while now. We’ve had newer members.

Alex

What, was like six months ago. Maybe?

Jesse

I think so. I've been working with the guys for a while now. I'm mostly video editor, but also shooter. I do mostly video for you guys. I’ve been getting into photography; really like photography. I recently bought a Sony (sponsor us Sony)…

Norbert

Which one?

Jesse

A7III. I'm not trying to ball out so so much.

Alex

Oh you’re so quirky you have an A7III!

Jesse

I saw the A7IV come out and I saw that it was like a 2500 dollar type deal and honestly, with the deal that I actually got on the A7iii, I got $1200 dollars off, basically.

Norbert

Oh, snap, so you got the A7iii for 1.6k then?

Speaker 4

No, I got it for 1300.

Norbert

13?! Oh my God, that is a good deal. What lenses did you get with it?

Jesse

No lens is just the body, I got two SD cards, you can film whatever you want on them, like SLOG3 100 MBPS, and just one battery, and A1 strap which is cool! So I went ahead and I put a little sticker above the A7iii logo on the camera, so people just think I own an A1!

Norbert

People are going to think you’re a baller, but then you actually go and shoot and the high speed shutter is slow.

Jesse

I’ll go and edit the photos and people are also going to be like “where are the other 20 megapixels?”

Alex

Yeah, I actually try to buy the A7iv, but I forgot I have 1800 dollar spending limit on my credit card. So it declined and I thought I don't need this right now.

Jesse

I think we talked about this, what bank are you with?

Alex

Bank of America.

Jesse

Why do you only have an 1800 dollar credit limit?

Alex

I tried to expand it, but like I don't have like a on paper salary, you know, because I don’t have a W2.

Jesse

You don’t need that!

Alex

They asked for that.

Jesse

That's so…move banks!

Norbert

Did you call them? And they said they couldn’t do it?

Alex

I did.

Jesse

That's so bad.

Alex

Anyways, this is so out of topic.

Norbert

By the way, Alice's bank number is… and social security number is...

Alex

OK, so let’s bring this back to Jesse, what do you do outside of work?

Norbert

Yeah, what do you do for fun man?

Jesse

Not so much now, but I’ve been meaning to get back into it, I bike a lot. I would bike from my house to Huntington Beach, which is a really nice, like hour and a half two hour trip.

Jesse

I think it's similar to a Norbert’s trip here in Irvine, where you just go down to Newport right?

Norbert

Yes, I bike down to Newport, but my trip is only about one hour typically.

Jesse

But you also bike a lot faster than me, I mean you have gears in yours and I just have a single speed.

Norbert

Oh man. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Jesse

But I enjoy having a very simple single speed bike because I'm not trying to mess with like…like I need to replace my chain. I don’t want to mess around with gearings and mess that up. So, yeah, I bought my bike from Germany! I went to Germany last year…

Alex

Oh boy, he’s talking about Germany again! (sarcastically)

Norbert

Did you import the bikes from Germany or did you…

Jesse

I brought with me.

Norbert

Like on the plane?

Jesse

On the plane. So I went to Germany study abroad for six months. I bought a bike there, and I didn't want to leave the bike over there because it was one, pretty expensive and I'm not just going to waste this money from wanting to have a bike over here for a few months and just dip, so I bought a ticket for it. You can buy tickets for a bike. It's like €60, it’s pretty great.

Norbert

Oh, that's really cheap! To America?

Jesse

To America! Wherever you're going.

Norbert

For 60 bucks.

Jesse

For 60 bucks. I got a bike box from a local shop and it was so stupid just biking down Hamburg with a big box on my back, like one hand on the bike. I looked really dumb. But I got it to my dorm fitted it in there and it was my first time taking apart a bike. So I kind of felt like a mechanic, which is really cool.

Norbert

Nice.

Alex

And then after you came back from Germany, you were like a biking maniac.

Jesse

I was biking maniac, yeah!

Alex

You asked me to bike and I was like I’m tired!

Jesse

Dude, we bike only once and I had to stop for you, what, six times on the way?

Alex

Yeah, because that's my first time biking that much.

Jesse

So I live relatively close, Alex, by car. By bike it's like a 30 minute trip. I biked over to his place, took him on my route which is pretty different from wherever you go.

Alex

It goes up and down, it’s hella steep!

Jesse

My route goes up and down and it’s just a straight line, but Alex always like just goes downhill. So he has no condition to go uphill.

Alex

You calling me fat?

Jesse

I'm not… you do kickboxing. I haven’t done exercise in like a year, brother!

Alex

Yeah, you're fat.

Jesse

I am a little fat … I’m not really fat I’ve got a little bit of a dad bod right now, but I'm hoping that I can work on that.

Jesse

More biking. My girlfriend recently stayed, so I wasn't able to bike as much just because I was trying to maximize my time with her.

Norbert

That was great, which is great. Where did where did your girlfriend go?

Jesse

My girlfriend went back home to France because I actually met her on the study abroad trip.

Norbert

Oh, in Hamburg?

Jesse

In Hamburg. We were studying in the same not same university, but we were both staying in the same dorm.

Norbert

Was she also doing like a study abroad thing, or was that more domestic for her?

Jesse

A little more domestic. Because there is this deal that France has with Germany for her law program, you guys may not know it because I didn't know it, but France and Germany had a lot of beef going back from the wars and stuff.

Norbert

Might have something to do with because Germany maybe invaded France or something like that? (sarcastically)

Jesse

Maybe, I don't know. I never paid attention in high school.

Alex

Speaking of high school, Me and Jesse have known each other since sophomore year of high school. And you can talk about how we met.

Jesse

Yeah, briefly, briefly; a little tangent. I’ve known Alex since freshman year high school when we had a smash tournament.

00;06;31;23 - 00;06;33;25

Alex

It was freshman year and then sophomore year, we became actual friends.

Jesse

Yeah, freshman year I was introduced to you as just like the guy to try to beat in this Smash tournament and I lost too many times, so I was very ashamed; but the next year we just hung on the same friend group type deal and got closer because of video games. A lot of shit has changed since tenth grade, but yeah it's great.

Jesse

Going back to the whole France and Germany thing. She was there on a special stay where she's able to study between France and Germany consistently. Right now, she's back in France on an internship and while we were there, we just met after a little party, we walked in a park and I don't know, it's all like that. Those little high school butterflies, it would be like having a crush in high school.

Alex

Gross!

Jesse

Gross! I haven’t felt like that in a while, so I'm very glad that I felt that with her! Shoutout to Ori!

Norbert

How nice!

Well, I'm curious about is where did you get the tools to dismantle your bike? When you said you did it yourself in your dorm.

Jesse

It's crazy, biking is really huge in cities, especially like Hamburg, especially just all of Europe in general. So I went out of my dorm, and they have a little bike rack with tools attached to it, and you just throw your bike on and start dismantling everything. That's what I did. It was really nice that they just provided that for us. I didn't know how to change how to change out a tube for a long time until I actually came here so I would just go to the shop and they would just gyp me out of 20 euros to change a tube.

Norbert

$20 to change a tube?!

Jesse

That's like $25 here.

Norbert

Oh my god, yeah you got a little scammed there!

Jesse

I hated it so much!

Norbert

Dude, that's crazy. Speaking of inner tubes. There is this guy I once met when I was selling the bike back in college who told me that in his country - I don't know if this is true – but I feel like he was lying to me because I tried to look it up, couldn't find it. He told me that the inner tube in his country is called a camera.

Jesse

Yeah! That's what it's called in Spanish! “La Camera”

Norbert

That’s real?! Oh shit, that's real? I thought he was lying to me this whole time!

Jesse

That's what is the inner tube of a bike is called!

Norbert

Oh, okay, wow, we learned something interesting.

Jesse

So when I was younger, I had a little like a kid’s bike and stuff and the inner tube broke and my dad was like “(speaking Spanish, presumably something about fixing a ‘camera’”) What do you mean? I have to fix a camera? What? What camera? You're not recording me right now. I was just a dumb kid. I didn't understand that the camera was the inner tube. I also just didn't understand how bikes worked.

Norbert

Wow that's interesting. I did not know that that's interesting.

Alex

So anyways, Jesse was in the same boat as me, and we're both film students in our last year. And so being a film student, how does being into, you know, the wedding and photo industry, how does that change things for you?

Jesse

Honestly studying as a film student gets me very worried about just financial security especially withal the recent IATSE things that have been happening and…

Norbert

Recent what things?

Jesse

IATSE

Norbert

What are the IATSE things?

Jesse

I forgot the specifics. It's just that the unions in the film industry had had enough of, just like the unfair treatment of the crew.

Alex

The 14 hour bs work days.

Jesse

Yeah, so work days typically in the film world are twelve hours, but those twelve hours don't really account for, like, tear down and driving back home. So realistically 14 hours sometimes.

Alex

And it's not 14 hours like for one day, it’s like sometimes you're working for like a week or four. Four weeks sometimes for features.

Speaker 4

Yeah, like months on end. Yeah. You'll be working those long hours and you're expected to drive home and show up the next day on time. You don't have much time to spend with your family, and so that kind of goes into what I’ve found to be a pretty good middle ground for me because I enjoy wedding photography. I enjoy wedding video editing for Paper Birch is great. And the biggest thing is that it's more of a stable thing. I don't want to be worrying about my next gig because that's just something that I don't think I can raise a family on. I very much want to have my family in good standing with my career.

Alex

So Jesse’s basically using us as like financial stability (sarcasm). I would choose like being on film sets over this like on my own projects. But working with you guys makes everything really worth it. You know?

Norbert

It's the people, really.

Alex

Yeah, it really is. Literally, if you're working with like asshats, why are you working in the industry, you know?

Jesse

Yeah, I've worked on film sets where there's just people I don't know, and knowing people on a set really makes it work and same weddings. I'm sure you guys have talked about it before where it's like, Oh, I love working with Paper Birch, not just because it's a good place to make good money, it's more about the people.

Alex

It’s because we're fruity!

Jesse

We smack each other’s butt cheeks.

Speaker 4

Playing grab-ass with G?

Alex

Definitely!

Jesse

Actually.

Norbert

And it definitely is much nicer. I actually had shot with a couple other groups way back in the day. We have kind of an interesting dynamic because we don't have a high turnover rate. If anything, I think our turnover is decently low, like the only people that turnedover are people that went on to do bigger and better things, but they still stay around and still work with us every once in a while. But these other companies that have really high turnover rates, I mean, they're not like bad people, it's just, I don't know, it's a different kind of feeling.

Jesse

Is it a lot more business oriented for them?

Norbert

Yeah.

Jesse

And, you know, no hard feelings, right? If you want to if you want to move on and do bigger, better things in the wedding business, go ahead, no one’s going to stop you. But I don’t know how you’re going to keep consistent, good friendships with that, with people who are in that same business. And I think we just have something special.

Alex

Yeah, we're starting a wedding frat. It’s like the start of one, basically. But yeah, that's a good thing work. What was your first like experience working with PBC and how was that?

Jesse

I actually kind of forgot my first experience.

Norbert

You started as an editor, right?

Speaker 4

I did started as an editor, but I remember for a long time I was just trying to get into contact with Alvis. I was telling you (Alex) to tell him that I'm available for jobs. I was like, hey, Alex, I know you're doing a lot of stuff with Alvis right now. If he ever needs another shooter, drop my name or something!

Norbert

Did you know Alvis before Alex?

Jesse

No, no. I know Alvis hit you up on Twitter and stuff and just like kind of inducted you into the group and you started working for him. And when I saw it like, I kind of wanted a piece of the pie, so I asked you if I could like, come get involved and then eventually you just told me that Alvis was looking for an editor and I’m like, I can edit. I mean, I can do something wedding stuff! So I met up with Alvis in one of the Vietnamese plazas out in Westminster, and honestly, I was kind of socially anxious, it's kind of a miracle that I'm speaking so well right now, and he turned up at a little Vietnamese coffee shop and I sat down with him and my leg was shaking like crazy. I was like this guy is holding the keys to my happiness.

Alex

Funding my girlfriend’s food?

Jesse

Funding my girlfriend’s food and our trips to San Juan Capistrano. But it was pretty good, he was chill. He gave me a hard drive to work with and we got on Discord and just started talking. I think I met G that day on discord too, and I felt a lot more relaxed once we started talking about (ooo what were they talking about???) and the fact that Alvis is (hmmm what is Alvis doing??) half the time he’s alive. The second Alvis pulled out his highly modified (probably a camera) in front of the camera I was like “Oh OK, at least I can feel safe around him.” So it was really like it was…

G (in the back)

It was me who made you feel comfortable!

Jesse

You honestly made me feel pretty comfortable in the group. First wedding I met up with G, I met up with you (Alex *editor’s note it was not Alex but actually Norbert) as well, and Alvis. I think it was us four at a Dana Point wedding, no? I think so.

Norbert

Your first wedding was a Dana Point wedding?

Alex

Was it not the Occasions?

Norbert

I thought it was the Occasions.

Jesse

No, it was the Occasions you're right, yeah, my first wedding was at the Occasions and I didn’t know what to expect. I was just very nervous. I felt very green. Alvis handed me a camera and he’s like, OK, when they're going to do the ceremony, I want you to run over to that stand and throw the camera onto the 70-200. OK, cool. I went to go grab b-roll, and he’s like “it's happening right now!” So I run over, I’m trying to dismantle a Sony, which I don't use. And he's like, He takes it, takes apart, snaps it on there, and I'm like, OK I got this and I'm pointing and I'm pointing, and I didn't press record and I just keep going!

Alex

Oh, I don't know that!

Jesse

I missed, like the first minute and a half of people walking.

Alex

Ok, but we have 2 other cameras right?

Jesse

We did, we saved it. It was fine, but I felt really stupid. I was like freaking I’m gonna get fired today!

Alex

It reminds me of my first day, being at a wedding with Alvis. I didn’t mess up, thank god. But like, I feel the same way! I felt the same kind of pressure and franticness as you because like, I'm trying to learn the flow of a wedding, because like, I don't know what a reception is, really.

Jesse

Yeah, I had no idea what the wedding lingo was about.

Alex

I didn’t know what vows were or whatever or first looks!

Jesse

You’ve never been married before?

Norbert

Have you guys not been to a wedding personally before work?

Alex

I was four years old. I was like, the ring bearer, and I dropped the ring!

Jesse

You dropped the ring? Is there footage of that?

Alex

I dropped the ring in the aisle because I trying to walk fancy as a four year old, I guess.

Norbert

Like strutting?

Alex

Yeah, I was strutting, I remember. So I dropped that. Anyways, now I work weddings!

Jesse

Oh, it's embarrassing. You still strut down the aisle with your gimble, ass out.

Alex

I wouldn't call it that, but…

Alex

You stare at me when I use a gimble?

G (off camera)

We all have to stare at you!

Jesse

I’m up on a perch with the 70-200 I kind of have to see you!

Alex

Oh my god!

Jesse

Top angles are really nice!

Alex

We met through a video game and that's Smash Bros. So what's your relationship with Smash Bros, me, and what does that mean to you?

Jesse

Nowadays, I'm not as passionate about Smash, whether it's just because I haven't played it as much.

Alex

But we do like some drunk Smash.

Jesse

We do a lot of drunk Smash for friendsgiving!

Alex

That was fun!

Jesse

My relationship to Smash Brothers is… it goes way back, I never played Smash Brothers until Brawl and I only started…

Alex

Brawl?

Jesse

Yeah! I only started when…I was a fifth grader! I was a fifth grader and I was in an after school program called Summer Pride, where it's just a bunch of like middle schoolers getting together with, like some adults taking care of us, one field trip every day, and when we were not on field trips, we were just in a room kicking it. They had a WII, they had game controllers, they had Wiimotes , they had everything you could think of. And we just played Smash Brothers all the time. We also play Guitar Hero. I play Guitar Hero on expert and my brother kicked my ass and I'm very disappointed. But I started with Smash Brothers as just like a really fun game that you can only play with four people. I did not know there was a competitive scene, and when one of my friends is like, “oh yeah, I play Melee and I play fox he’s really fast!” I was just like “Cool, can we run this four setup though?” I'm trying to party. It's fin, but I only really got into the competitive aspects when Smash 4 came out in high school and I had it on my 3DS. I kicked some kid named Andrew's ass in the boy’s locker room. Dude he was such a cocky Ness player.

Norbert

Do you guys are stereotype mains? Like “he’s such a Ness player”

Jesse

He’s such as Ness player!

Norbert

Those freakin’ Samus players!

Jesse

Ok, I main Samus!

Alex

Essentially our best memories of Smash is, forming the first Smash club at our high school.

Jesse

Yeah, we formed the Smash club at our high school.

Alex

And that grew into the e-sports club as well, so we founded the e-sports scene at our high school.

Jesse

It's kind of crazy that we did! Honestly, I didn't think we could ever pull something off because we had to spin it like “how are we going justify this as educational for the kids?” So we told our high school board, like, Hey, we're going to make this a charity driven association, which it was, and this also connects to our educational goals by tapping into psychological … what do we say… like it helps strategizing?

Alex

No, it was like building a safe community within school for the nerds.

Jesse

I remember our teacher coordinator for the club was like, “We need to spin this so that it's educational somehow” And we were like, OK, cool, let's just say that we're trying to strategize and have people think ahead and that's it! It worked! I don't know how we made it work.

Alex

Mean, it is forward thinking because e-sports is now a legit thing.

Jesse

If you can't read, you're not in e-sports, you know? Reading is predicting your opponent's moves.

Alex

Oh yeah, reading.

Alex

And the second best thing with Smash was honestly Evo. Like going to Evo with you. Evo is one of the biggest Smash tournament and we went in 2017.

Jesse

No, sorry, 2018. It was after I had a drink for the first time, so it was 2018.

Alex

OK, so yeah we went to Evo for 2018. We went with my family and that was like me and Jesse competing together and that was so fun!

Speaker 4

Yeah, your brother made it pretty, Andy. He made it into like his third set of pools? No, second set of pools. I died and my first set.

Alex

I died at the very end of my set in the first pool by some Japanese players.

Jesse

Do you remember the streamer that I went up against? Who I know he crushed his spirit? This guy, I totally forgot his name, but he was a streamer who dropped everything and decided to dedicate everything to smash and become a pro smash player. And I was like researching him and stuff on YouTube.

Alex

They had what, ten followers, maybe?

Jesse

No, no he had like what, 70?

Norbert

Was he just starting out?

Jesse

I guess, yeah, he was just starting and I was looking his game play and I thought “I could kick this guy’s ass!”

Alex

Before the tournament you know who you’re fighting for the day.

Jesse

Yeah, you're told who you're fighting. So I'll looked this guy up, I'm like, OK, he's not that big of a deal. I went on up onto the match and I realized it was a little too easy. So I lowkey went onto my secondary, which at the time was Lucina and stunted on him three times. He kind of lifted his head down. I felt really bad about it!

Norbert

You ended the man’s whole career!

Alex

He was probably thinking he wasted $40!

Jesse

If you're out there, I'm so sorry, I apologize! But after that, I went up against an actual player who was on a team, a Little Mac player, and I mean, it’s Little Mac, I'm like, I’m just going to zone him out three times with Lucina…got my ass whooped three times bro!

Alex

Dude, same!

Jesse

I was so sad that he just broke my brain in half and threw me off the stage and it was insane! I didn't feel so defeated as much as I just felt embarrassed that I was so cocky in my head, but it was, regardless, a really fun experience because afterwards we went to finals! You have to buy separate tickets for finals guys, and we saw one of the most hyped plays of Smash Ultimate History!

Alex

The grand final set!

Jesse

In the Grand Final, it was between MKleo and Tweek, who at the time were the two top players

Alex

MKleo is still the best, Tweek was like number 3, still, current day.

Speaker 4

But at the time they dominated, it was just a rivalry between them two.

Norbert

And these are both American players?

Jesse

These are both American players. No, no. MKleo’s from Mexico.

Norbert

So they're international best?

Jesse

Yeah, International.

Alex

International, best.

Jesse

Yeah, exactly, and MKleo got into losers’ bracket pretty early on, which means in order for him to win finals, he had to win, I think, six games in a row against Tweek since it was best three out of five. MKleo lost the first two games and everyone thought “ok Tweek has it in the bag, he only needs to win three times to win the whole tournament. But MKleo went…there was something that we called it…it was like Ultimate Leo or something?

Alex

Did he actually reverse 6-0?

Jesse

He reversed 6-0!

Alex

It was a crazy come back!

Jesse

A crazy 6-0 comeback where he was down and out! Everyone thought ok, cool, Tweek still has this in the bag. Tweek fumbled all those five games afterwards and it was just screaming! The crowd was like, “MKleo really just did that! MKleo just reversed Tweek!” Honestly, I got my money's worth. It wasn't some B.S. like the last Smash 4 tournament where it's just than Bayonetta’s.

Alex

Smash is obviously amazing as a party game. I'm sure pretty much everyone watching probably plays Smash casually, but as a competitive sport, it's so much fun, it's like there's so much depth to it and there's like all these storylines that…

Jesse

Smash is a party game, it is not a fighting game get your head out of your ass!

Alex

Yeah, but it's crazy. But being in tournament is such a crazy experience because you play so much worse and you get nervous! If you're like me and Jesse, you play so much worse. We're pretty good, but we're not competitive.

Jesse

I don't lab anything, I know…

Norbert

What does Lab mean?

Jesse

Lab just means going into the practice mode and doing the same combo for 40 minutes straight.

Norbert

Grinding.

Jesse

Yeah, grinding it out, just trying to get that muscle memory in. I wasn't much of a fan of that. I was more like on the fly, Oh crap, I can do this. Oh crap, I can do that. I just did it, I just ran with it, which I found is really fun! I know that you (Alex) and your brother lab a lot. Your brother labs way more than you.

Alex

I don’t lab!

Jesse

You don’t lab?

Norbert

Alex is out here flexing, he’s like “I'm just that good!”

Jesse

“I just play funny frog!”

Norbert

And that’s the reason why I can't play games like Pokemon because just so much grinding! And it just is just so much downtime.

Alex

So you're saying you won't get into competitive gaming, ever?

Norbert

No, I don't think I ever will. Well I almost exclusively play single player games for the story.

Jesse

So you play Persona? Do you grind in Persona?

Norbert

There’s only two games that I can play, two turn based games I can play and that’s Persona and some Pokémon games.

Jesse

Some Pokemon games.

Norbert

OK, yeah, but I barely can stand Persona.

Jesse

I enjoyed Persona and I enjoyed grinding in Persona!

Norbert

Really?

Jesse

Yeah, because what I would do…in the game Persona, it's a day based game where there's a time limit on how long you have until you can beat a dungeon, and I would just beat the dungeon all at once.

Norbert

Yeah that’s what I would do too!

Jesse

In a single day! You’re supposed to space it out because you run out of energy, or whatever, and I’m like, “no I’m not about to waste these days and not go on dates with cute girls!”

Norbert

Yes, exactly! That’s the thing, so you actually just play the main quest for one day, and then the remaining two weeks or three weeks…

Jesse

You're just going on dates with girls! That’s really it! It's for people who don't know how to talk to girls in real life!

Norbert

It’s fun though, Persona’s really fun!

Jesse

It is, it really is!

Alex

Please play Persona 5 Royal!

Jesse

Alex only played Royal, he never played the original.

Norbert

Oh, I think royal is a lot better.

Jesse

Yeah, I should have have played Royal, but I just finished five and I did not want to get into that again.

Norbert

Same, I just bought Royal for 20 bucks and I’m giving it some cool down time.

Jesse

It’s $20 already?!

Norbert

Yeah, well on sale it is. I bought it last Black Friday for $20 bucks, so not just bought it.

Jesse

So it’s there?

Norbert

It's just sitting there and I just haven't had time to play it. Although I played Persona 5 Strikers!

Jesse

It’s really fun!

Norbert

The gameplay is what I think Persona should be.

Alex

No, the turn based system in the original Personas were really fun!

Jesse

That's what Pokemon should be.

Norbert

Right? Yeah, I agree with that.

Jesse

I been talking to Alex on this for a while and Sword and Shield came out, Alex went full soy boy mode was like “I’m gonna buy this game day one, I don’t care about the bad press!” And he slobbed all over Nintendo’s knob…

Alex

I don’t think I did though! Because I enjoyed the previous game a lot. So that gave me hope for the next game, naturally.

Jesse

You saw how it looked, sir!

Alex

It could still play well… but it was just actually disappointing. As a single player experience, Sword and Shield was like the worst game, actually, sadly.

Norbert

But Persona 1 and 2 were ok, I thought, but the…

Alex

I’m surprised you played 1 and 2, that’s like a rarity!

Norbert

Yeah, they were just ok…

Alex

Didn’t 2 have Hitler as an enemy?

Norbert

I think both of them have Hitler. Spoiler alert, but I think in 1, the main villain is Hitler, and then 2, he just makes appearances or something like that. I can't remember.

Jesse

That’s pretty hard.

Alex

It goes hard.

Jesse

That's pretty hard. Having Hitler as your villain.

Norbert

Yeah, Persona’s go the horror vibe, but it’s not really a horror. It's like finding your place with your friends.

Jesse

It's a game by game basis. Every game has its own set of vibes. I'm sure of Persona 3 was a lot more depressing than 4. Persona 4 is a lot like the happiest in the series, and Persona 5 was a good in-between.

Norbert

Yeah, Persona 5 was a good in-between, but I don't know if Persona 3 is still the best!

Alex

Speaking of horror, Jesse, you mentioned that you like analog horror videos, right?

Jesse

Analog horror videos, yes. It’s something that is a little more popular now, but I got into it in high school with Local 58 emergency broadcast system. To put it into simple terms, do you remember when you were a kid and the TV would come on with the Emergency Broadcast System with a whole blaring, that really scary stuff?

Norbert

Wait, that happened to you guys? When? For what? In reality?

Jesse

Yeah! In reality, where you're just sitting down and the emergency broadcast system comes on, it’s like...

Norbert

Like when there's like a nuclear strike coming?

Jesse

No, no, no. You don't say something like child was recently abducted, terrible stuff…

Norbert

Oh you’re talking about Amber alerts? Amber Alerts freak me out.

Jesse

It would have the same Amber Alert tone and stuff. So basically the emergency broadcast thing that I would watch from Local 58, was this whole overarching story of like something's going on with the moon and it is messing with people to the point where, like, they're killing each other or there's some kind of creature…it would show off an emergency broadcast, it would say there is a meteorological event going on, don’t go outside, don't look at the moon and it would cut out. And then all of a sudden it'd be like someone else is typing stuff out like the moon is safe to look at, go outside. Then it would cut back out and say “do not look at the moon, close all doors, close all windows. Don't answer the door, no matter how human it may appear.” And it's like, Oh god, it freaks me out so much, and it’s just, I love horror, I love the concept of analog horror being…

Alex

It’s sick because, it's meant to feel like things that could happen or that could realistically be presented to you in real life, even though it's like, hella surreal, but the fact that it feels real, is how it scares you.

Jesse

It feels rooted in reality, and it's in the sense that we have this emergency broadcast system. The one that really messed me up was the Local 58 Contingency order which was supposed to mimic a the end of a local channel’s broadcast day and they somehow mess up and air a contingency message from the 70’s or 80’s… I think it was Reagan was the president at the time…

Norbert

Oh, you mean the one they filmed in case of the end of the world?

Jesse

In case the Cold war suddenly fell into Russia's favor or something, and it was a message where it’s like a handwritten letter and “dear Americans, we are truly sorry, our glory filled country has fallen to our enemy. Take pride in being American,” and then it tells you to off yourself. It shows images of like, getting into the position and it’s like a guy going up just telling you to kill yourself! And the most eerie part about the program was that it talks about children, telling you to tend to your children first! Dude it freaked me out so bad!

After the message airs, they air an apology of “Oh sorry, this wasn't supposed to happen, and we apologize for anybody who may have…”

Norbert

Killed your children?! But this was all part of like the whole show right?

Jesse

Yeah, this extended alternate reality that I find very interesting.

Alex

Yeah, and it feels like it is kind of a trend on Twitter sometimes where you see, like real life footage and people edit like a huge leviathan in the clouds or whatever.

Jesse

Dude! Yeah, the Blair Witch Project, type deal, Marble Hornets are some things that I am super super into, because I love horror! I was scared shitless when I was a kid, but nowadays horror is my thing. I want to eventually make a horror movie, but you know, smart horror movie. I like gore, I don’t like very visceral gore. Very obvious gore because there are some very bad gore films that are just gore and I hate them.

Norbert

They’re just not scary at all.

Jesse

They’re not scary at all, they’re just a bloody mess! Saw as an exception because I like the way that saw does stuff.

Norbert

Saw is more psychological!

Jesse

It's more psychological. The second movie messed me up pretty bad!

Alex

I can't do horror!

Norbert

Is it the blood, or is it the scare?

Alex

It's the scare.

Norbert

I agree with you on that. I'm not a huge fan scare.

Alex

I’m ok with gore, but like, just like anticipation, I can’t do it. I love thrillers, though, because like I can stick with them. Just like any thriller, any thriller I’ll enjoy, for sure. But if there's a horror element, you know, if there's a nun or a ghost or like a freaking demon.

Norbert

A lot of demons hanging from the ceiling, all that stuff?

Alex

I can't do that!

Even though like some of the movies have such an interesting plot, and I think horror is super interesting because the fact that horror filmmakers, their goal is just like to scare the shit of you and they just as themselves, how do we do that?

Norbert

I don't know about that.

Jesse

I don't think that's their main goal.

Alex

No, no, no, but it's like not exactly scare the shit out of you, but like, create a reaction, you know. They're forcing the audience into a reaction.

Jesse

If I’m ever going to make a horror film, I want to get into the mind of the viewer more than anything else I want them to feel like, holy crap, that this creature's right behind me. For me, what’s terrifying is a presence that you cannot stop, and it comes after you relentlessly and it gets in your head. Paranoia is such a good thing to play with in horror. The movie, It Follows, do you know what it follows?

Norbert

I don't know what it follows.

Jesse

It Follows is a horror film about an invisible creature who will maim and a person who is cursed with this, like an STD. I imagine it’s supposed to be some kind of metaphor about dangerous STD’s or whatever, but the only way you can pass this curse down is by having sex with somebody else. So prime for horny teenagers, that trope was like super “The thing about the movie” and that's what I kind of hated. But the terror of it is that this creature is only seen by the person as a curse; to everybody else, it's invisible. And the way this creature blends in is it will look like your average person that's just walking towards you.

Alex

So they slowly walk towards you?

Jesse

They slowly walk towards you!

Alex

That’s terrifying, it’s more scary than them.

Jesse

Yeah, the scariest scene is when there’s this girl in a room, paranoid the creatures right outside her door and her friends break in and are like “there's nobody here, there's nobody here.” And then the creature is in the hall and he’s just this really tall dude who grabs the top frame of the door, comes in and just walks through!

Norbert

Like a slender man type figure?

Jesse

Very slender, not abnormally long but he just like grabs the top. He walks through and he freaks me out so bad that he just it’s so casual!

Alex

Goes to that feeling of like dread. Yeah, feeling like relentlessly being followed.

Jesse

You are helpless because you are in a room, it is crowded, you have to jump out a window at that point.

Alex

How’d she get out of that again?

Speaker 5

I forgot! I haven’t watched that movie in years!

Norbert

The thing that I think that's so smart about good horror movies is that the story and the whole immersion thing, right? That you get so immersed in the story that it transcends television. I think that's what's unique about horror is that no other genre can copy, besides, maybe like some thrillers or like, you know, bad rom coms that people don't understand what real life is.

Alex

Once they make a threat feel real, then the horror movie just has you.

Norbert

Yeah, it stays in your mind. Yeah, it transcends everything.

Jesse

And that's what I like about horror is that it sticks with you more than other genres of film work, media in general. That’s why I really like analog horror because I feel like what if there is a presence in my room?

Some lovecraftian shit, from the inside, right?

Norbert

So when you say analog horror, do you mean… what exactly do you mean by analog, is it animatronics or…?

Jesse

I recently heard the definition of analog horror is more so media that is constrained of VHS or older TV, or just media, in general. So a lot of times you'll get VHS videos, you'll get found footage, imagery, photos like old police training tapes, that’s what you're constrained to for the most part. People have done a lot with just that medium. The guy who’s making the analog horror piece that I’m really into right now is actually trying to move away from just analog, just flesh out a little more. Honestly, I think this guy is actually to push the medium a lot more, which I'm really excited for. I forgot his name, so his name's also Alex. He did insert name of what I'm talking about right here (Alex Kister).

And it's great, it has to do with a creature that will come into your home, kill a guest and then mimic their voice to try to get someone to come into contact with them. And it is terrifying because they had a bit where some guy calls his friend. He's like my mom just screamed, I’m going to take her to the hospital or something, can you come home and like, turn on the cameras or whatever?

So he drives up to the house, turns on the cameras and heads home.

Norbert

Why is he turning on the cameras?

Jesse

Because he fears that there may be some creature there. This is the creature is called an alternate and it’s a creature that mimics people.

Norbert

So there's suspicion already?

Jesse

Yes, there’s suspicion already. He turns on these cameras and as he heads home, and it's revealed that this creature followed him home. And it's just like this handheld VHS video of him recording his door where all you hear is knocking and the voice of his friend going “Mark, I brought you a present Mark” you can hear his voice repeating over and over again, and it’s a creature who can’t mimic it perfectly. He's missing his voice up. It's like, “I won't hurt you Mark.” It’s horrifying to think about, because what they’ll do too is they'll mimic the voice of people that have died. So in an earlier version of it, there was a guy who was in his house and he heard his mom's voice like “Honey, I fell. I need help. Please help me come inside. Come inside now” And it's like... that's horrifying. Because it's like... Lord, don't ever let her pass… but if my mom passes away in the future and I hear her voice coming from a room, I psychologically will want to go see if that's her or something, you know?

Norbert

Isn’t that the whole plotline of Shang-Chi?

Jesse

Is it? Shang-Chi and the seven…

Norbert

Ten Rings.

Alex

Basically yeah! With how the ugly vampire dragon is speaking as the mother? What a weird plot!

Jesse

Shang-Chi was pretty good. I watched it in Mexico with Spanish subtitles.

Alex

We watched it too late. I think we didn’t really enjoy it as much as we should have.

Norbert

So when we digitized analog, like a VHS, would it still then be considered analog horror? Or am I getting the definition wrong? Is it like a like the movie Super 8?

Jesse

I think it’s really is just more of the look than anything else, because we would need to digitize it anyway if we’re going to view it.

Alex

So it's like how movies are still called films.

Jesse

Exactly.

Speaker 4

Yeah, it's all digital media now, but we still call it film.

Norbert

So it’s like film photos, but we view it on a computer, but still called a film photo and it’s still called analog photography.

Jesse

I find that also very interesting because I recently got a little card from my desktop that allows me to import Mini DV video onto my computer. And I took that camera when I went back to Germany to go visit Oriane, and I recorded a bunch of stuff with it. I bought a secondary VHS camera, too. It's pretty great.

And just the whole aesthetic of this older media, the way the audio comes out and how it's all crunchy…

Alex

You can’t replicate it.

Jesse

You can replicate it pretty well digitally but not one to one. And I really enjoy just that format. I remember Alex and I actually filmed this music video for someone on Twitter where we had both those cameras. He was filming on the A7iii and I was filming on my dad's old camcorder that does MiniDV. And I really like how it came out. There was a little scene where we had the artist and his love interest at a pier and I was like, focus on the mountains, I pulled out. And, you know how when you zoom out, it is a very like boom, you're zooming out now. It’s just that look of zoom out, see them in full and they’re just embracing the stuff. It’s just a really good look that I love!

Norbert

Is it like that home video VHS feeling?

Jesse

Oh, it's exactly that home VHS feeling is what it is.

Norbert

It's been so long, since I touched a VHS camera. I think last time I was using it, I had to transfer the files I had to transfer my files via FireWire.

Jesse

That’s exactly what it is, it’s the FireWire! We don’t have FireWire anymore. It was like a port Mac pros used to have back in the day.

Norbert

Takes me back!

Jesse

I don’t have a bigger computer anymore, I can't put any more expansion cards. I put that into my brother's computer because he has my old computer now and I gave him Premiere. So now that he's editing stuff on his own, which I'm pretty happy about he’s doing simple little videos now just like me. Shout out to Juan.

Alex

All right, guys. So we're starving, so that's the end of the podcast. Thanks so much for your time. And thank you, Jesse, for your time.

Jesse

Oh, thank you, guys. Honestly, this is the first time I've done a full podcasts, one that looks and sounds so professional.

Norbert

I hope so!

Jesse

I enjoy talking with you guys. I feel very, very open!