Welcome to uploading the podcast where we take you behind the wheel with the world's best creators, marketers, and professionals who have cracked the code on how to profit through content. You'll learn the ins and outs of content strategy, creation, production, distribution, growth, platforms, tools, and more. If you haven't already, be sure to join Cas magic, the all in one content workspace for professionals. Be sending out tips from our shows in our weekly newsletter. And we've also got a slack community of over a thousand creators, so make sure to drop in and say hello. And now get ready for the show. What is up? Welcome to today's episode of uploading. And today we're talking with Kane Calloway, a content creator with over a billion views across all his social channels.

And the most incredible part of Kane's story is that before posting content online, he was a consultant for over seven years. And in just one year, after becoming a full time creator, he's already generated north of a billion views and earned more than $100,000 creating content. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about tactics on how Kane grew his following. We're also going to be talking about content workflows, specifically as they pertain to different content formats and how to create content while still having a full time job. So I guess with that, Cain, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background, your background in consulting, what you were doing and how you kind of made the jump into content and what that looked like.

Hell yeah. Thank you for so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Um, yeah, so basically, I, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur my whole life. I started a company kind of at the tail end of college. That was like my first stab at it. We raised a little bit of money. We had no idea what we were doing, and we can get into kind of like what the goal was with that.

It was actually, the idea wasn't bad at the time, but execution was terrible. Ended up doing that for a year and then went to do management consulting. And so, like, right away I had gotten that entrepreneurial itch, gotten to the consulting world, knew I didn't love it, and was kind of like lost trying to figure out what to do. My whole plan was, okay, consulting should be a good way to like, learn SWAT business skills quickly. While I'm there, let me just try to launch businesses on the side. Once I get something to hit, I'm out. And so, but at that time, I didn't really have a ton of hard skills, and so I was trying to, like, add those, compound those skills over time. So I had a media play, I had a podcast where I interviewed founders.

I tried to run like, the morning brew for wellness kind of playbook. And then Huberman dropped his first episode like a week after, a week before I was at the lodge. So that, that killed that one. And then tried to do, like, clothing brand, basically, like your traditional failed entrepreneur attempts. I was going up the ladder, and despite, like, pretty poor execution, even though I thought some of the ideas were good, I was launching all of them into a vacuum. So I had zero distribution, zero audience. I wasn't getting enough feedback to validate if these ideas were even worth pursuing. And so, like, 18 months ago or so, I stopped launching products, and I was like, let me just try to build the distribution first.

At least I'll learn how to use content to activate an audience. Even if I don't build a huge audience, at least I can learn that skilled and quickly. My own personal audience started growing super fast. I kind of found a fit with the combination of the skills I had developed, my storytelling ability, or whatever, and that content started working really well. So fast forward, uh, I quit my job like, nine months after starting. So I've, I've been full time for a year. I've got 500, 550,000 followers or so across all the platforms. Started mostly short form.

Now I've got long form YouTube, trying to tool up a podcast, having email newsletters. So kind of like cross functional content. And the whole goal is to figure out how to use that traffic, use that audience to build businesses. I'm right in the middle of trying to figure out what that looks like.

Awesome. And one question that I'd love to unpack is, what did you start with when you started creating content? You knew you wanted to start creating content. I know you said you even had a podcast where you interviewed founders and got 55 episodes through, but when you were ready to take this next jump and you said, I know I'm going to learn about something, I know I'm going to learn this skill for myself. What did the, what did the, what was the first content were you creating? What platforms were you creating on and what did you start putting out?

So I started with short form. I kind of looked at the, I did an analysis of, like, okay, an analysis, probably too strong for word, but like, basically there's short form video. There's, we'll call medium form video, which is like YouTube. Ten to 20 minutes long. There's long form podcast, which video, audio, you've got text, you can do short form text, Twitter, long form text, email. Like there's, there's a few different skews of, of content types. And I kind of just went, having done the podcast before and knowing that it was really hard to grow, I was like, all right, I don't really want to do something that doesn't have good algorithmic tailwinds that can't help me grow it. So I just started to like look against what are my skills today? How long would it take to actually post one piece and like, what's the time cycle to get feedback back to iterate and then what has the most help? I think, like in that analysis medium form, YouTube is probably the best if you're able to edit and like enjoy editing because the majority of putting together a ten minute video is editing.

I hated editing and I still do. It's like my least favorite thing. And so I was kind of like, all right, well, with short form I can sit down and in like a two to three hour session, I can go end to end on idea, post it, get feedback immediately, and then the next day I can take those learnings. So I started with short form because of that reason and the actual content type, we were actually, I was coming off the most previous venture to doing it was like a clothing brand in the web three crypto space. Which sounds absurd, it was absurd. But basically the two domain knowledges that I had at the time that I was studying was like apparel, streetwear, apparel and crypto. And so my first, like, if you go all the way back on my page, my first kind of 30 videos were like me breaking down kith or mad happy or like Starbucks launched this NFT program. Like, what does it mean? Right? So it was really in that intersection.

And the first video I had that really hit was when the FTX scam was happening, Sandbank been freed. I kind of covered it, but in less of like a pumpy crypto way, more of like a news recap and why it was interesting way. And that one got like 3 million views on TikTok. And so that started pushing me down this like tech meets business meets news kind of like, I call it business of culture, but like that kind of intersection. And since then I've still been dabbling with different things and I can talk about that too, but that's kind of the niche that I went down, but I kept with short form because of that iterative cycle.

That's awesome. So it seems like you basically took your skills, you decided on a content format, and you started to pursue it. And at the time, were you, you know, you said you, it blew up on TikTok. Were you out on reels at the time as well? Were you, like, just taking the same content and posting out on multiple, what was, like, the editing that you had done to that?

Uh, yeah, I was taking, I was, I was taking the same exact video, cross posting it on TikTok, Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. Those three platforms, um, YouTube shorts obviously capped 60 seconds. So the videos that I had, it became a little tough. Cause TikTok introduced a creator program where you get paid on every view over 60 seconds. And so I was, like, incentivized to make the video slightly longer than 60. But then on YouTube shorts, I could only go up to 60. So I was playing that little game. But yeah, it was mostly one video.

And then I would take a long version and post it on TikTok, Instagram. A short version on YouTube shorts. And, yeah, I mean, I only had a few that hit everywhere big. Like, a lot of the times, the videos, the ones that went big were like, they blew up really big on one platform, which shows how much kind of, like, luck and, you know, comment vortex. You need to get a video to go viral. So it's rare that I had one that blew up everywhere, but the ones that did went pretty wild.

Wow. And so I'd love to talk about now your content evolution. Right? You've got a couple that are starting to hit. Walk me through that first year of, like, how does your mindset about creating change? How does your workflow change? Like, just talk to me about that first year of growth once you realize you've got some videos hitting.

So my first nine months, when I was still at the, still at the corporate job, I was kind of like, only goal is to try to get four to five short forms out a week. So if I can sit down, make one in a day, ship it at 05:00 p.m. and then next day. And that was my only goal. And it was kind of like, take whats working, replicate that, do it again, do it again. If I find, like, a news angle works, try to take that format and use it again. On a different topic, I was still experimenting with, like, different things. If I would hit a lull period with a few weeks where I didnt have a video go crazy, I was like, all right, should I pivot? What should I do? So I had a couple brand deals.

The big one that, like, triggered me to quit was I had a. I got an Adobe inbound brand deal that was pretty big, or not big for me, like, relative. I had not made content nine months before that. So it was, like, relatively big. And that just gave me a signal of, like, okay, brands are willing to pay for me to put their stuff in front of other people. That means I must have some authority in the space. And so the combination with that and the momentum, that's when I quit nine months in. So the evolution was kind of like I knew in the back of my head my whole goal was to sell products against the audience.

I didn't just, I really don't want to be famous. Like, I'm okay with it as a byproduct just to try to build business, but I'm not going to be, like, a named person. I really want to just feed businesses with free CAC, essentially. And so that was actually, like, an interesting problem is, like, as I grew a short form, the fragility of the audience with short form cannot be overstated. It's like it takes hundreds if not thousands of reps of a short form video in front of somebody on Instagram or on TikTok for them to actually understand who you are and, like, buy into you. I had this framework called content minutes, which is like, let's assume for someone to go from a stranger to a Superfan level, it takes like 90 minutes of your content watched. Well, if you're making short form video and the average one is watched 20 seconds long, that's 270 videos they would have to watch to hit that bar and become a superfan versus a podcast. If they listen to the whole hour, it's like two podcasts.

So pretty quickly you can understand, like, depth is built in length in, like, the long form formats. And I realized that right away. I just didn't have the skillset to be able to, or the time, really to be able to do both YouTube and shorts. And so I. I was juggling with that for a while. Like, do I go all in shorts and just brute force this and just become like the shorts guy? But I test. I had some soft tests of like, oh, I'm going to try to get a signups on a waitlist for this. Or, like, I have this random brand.

And the conversion was not that good. So I was like, all right, I need to supplement. And so I think right when I went full time is when I started the newsletter. So that was a year ago. And then I really wanted to get to YouTube. And so my strategy and hopefully this is helpful, I'm going like pretty in depth, but like, my strategy was basically grow short forms as big as possible, use the tailwinds, get brand deals to take the. And it's worth it for the brands. When you have hundreds of thousands of followers, it's not like they're getting zero value.

But if it were my own products, trying to sell like 50,000 and a drop, it would be tough, which is short form. So it was like take the brand deals I am getting and fund a YouTube team so that I don't have to do the editing. And again, like these, these sound like basic block and tackling things, but it was really key to get, for me to get the YouTube editor and packaging team in place. So now fast forward, I'm to the point where I'm still doing shorts, but now I've got YouTube starting to grow on YouTube and I think that's adding like more dimension to, like, me as a brand. And hopefully after a couple more years it will, it'll be pretty big.

Yeah. And I'm really excited to get into the workflow stuff, the YouTube stuff, the editing setup that you've got. I want to get into all that, but before I do, I want to talk about something that you said around short form. And this is something that I see a lot of times that actually we did it ourselves. So obviously clipping up podcast clips, right? You take a really long thing, you clip it up and you post it. And I think that was like really hot, probably maybe 18 months ago or something like that.

Yeah.

But now, like the type, when you say short form, the type of short form, just so our audience understands that you're creating is like, it's a very intentional video. It's edited, it's produced. It's not something that's just randomly you happen to say in the middle of a podcast and then you post it and it goes super viral. Right, exactly. I'd love if you could talk about the difference maybe between those two of just like clipping out a random statement versus the type of short form that you create.

And I'll also say this too. I think it's really important for every brand to be everywhere because the goal is, I say you want to create an echo on the Internet. So the future of attribution in marketing used to be like you, measurable and not that many touch points. So like you could run a paid ad, get in front of someone for the first time, they sign up for your email list, you send them one organic email, they convert. It's like you can map that out. It's like three touch points. And you know exactly what the drop off was. Whatever.

I had this concept called the Future of attribution, where to go from a stranger to a fan to a buyer. It's going to be like dozens if not hundreds of touch points because of all the content. And so as a brand, the benefit of short form is not that it's going to be the last mile conversion, but it will create your presence everywhere. And so a fan will bounce around like, you want to grow these islands on Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube, and then convert them lower down the funnel to something longer form that, where they'll actually convert whether it's a podcast or an email newsletter or whatever. So that's like a broad structure just to like, add on to my previous thing. It's not that short form isn't good. It's that only short form isn't good for conversion if you have no way to nurture them down. And so to your point, I was kind of like, okay, if I'm going to make short form videos and I'm trying to build, like, fandom around myself, what's the closest I can get to, like, a YouTube style? Get to know me? And the best way is like these.

It doesn't matter if it's highly produced or not. Like, I tend to probably over edit mine, but it's me faced trying to tell a story through it versus like a podcast clip. So my take on this is like, each platform has a native consumption experience. And if you try to shortcut from one to the other, unless you're really good at editing or the delivery of what you said in the podcast is super tight. Imagine like, imagine someone scrolling on TikTok or scrolling on Instagram, and they're, they're watching like ten videos. Their brain is like swinging a baseball bat with a donut on it. It's like going at a certain speed, or I guess it'd be without the doughnut, but, like, it's going at a certain speed. When you then put your podcast clip in that's edited at a podcast conversation speed, it's a completely different.

It mismatches, let alone if you had good graphics. But most of these clips are like much slower, the rhythm is off and there's no visual stimulation at all. And so it's like, and then you try to slow it down, it's a complete mismatch. And so I think people try to do it because logistically, you can say, oh, I record a podcast, I'll get ten clips out of it. But the, but the clips are nothing like major league level attempts on those platforms. And so it's not that the, it's not that the actual base material in the podcast is bad, it's that it needs to be either re recorded natively for short or your hook, your 1st 5 seconds needs to be rerecorded natively for a short. And then you just append the podcast clip on and just assume that like, there's going to be the natural drop off. That's, that's my theory.

There's obviously outliers, though. Like there are podcasts that are so good at just taking a literal, like an actual clip from the podcast and making it work on, on shorts. But I think there's a lot more intention going into that behind the scenes than people realize.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think there's like you're saying sometimes the clips that you think are clips are actually like fully scripted and they're just like meant to be shot like that. And then, you know, like you're saying some of the other clips you that really blow up, maybe it says crazy statement that's being made. Maybe there's a really strong poker caption and maybe there's even visuals that are edited in or the title types or the captions that are being used. So, I mean, that's something that we saw when we started clipping. In the beginning, it was great, but I was like, sure, yeah, we could create ten clips every time we have a conversation. But like, I think part of the point of making content, like, yes, it's a volume game, but obviously you want to be creating, like you were saying, major league at bats. Like you want to be creating good stuff that you're putting out.

And when everyone is just posting clips and like you're saying the attention isn't quite there for it, it's just kind of like, you know, again, that's not to say don't do clips. It's just saying that there are nuances to short form.

Yeah, and also, like, I've wondered, is there a fatigue point with volume on every platform? Like, for example, if I posted two long form YouTube videos a day, people don't have time to watch. If each one's 15 minutes, they don't have time to watch 30 minutes of me every single day, unless I'm their number one person, which maybe there's a handful of people out there that I am, but most people I'm not. So there is a fatigue point where people like, they get tired, they don't like being behind on something. And so if you give them too much to consume and they can't catch up, they'll just abandon. Cause they're like, ah, it's just, it's just too hard for me to catch up now with shorts. The steel man of this is like, most of your things are not getting shown to all of your followers. And so if you make five pieces, it's not like everyone sees all five, they're only gonna see one of five. And so my thing is like, you want the highest possible volume at the quality that you feel comfortable supports your brand.

Most of these podcast clips are way below the quality that someone would be comfortable paying for, like a one off video. And that's where I think it gets to this, like this, like, volume, volume for volume sake, play. But I will say one other thing. Something I'm noticing is when you're watching on short form, and like, I get real in the weeds on this because I just, I'm like studying this, I'm trying to find like, edges. When you, when you watch short form, most of the videos are like this where like, I'm looking at the camera, you're looking at the camera. But some podcasts are shot off center. So it'd be like, I'm looking over here. There is something about the thing of being a fly on the wall watching versus being spoken to.

And I think the fly on the wall watching is actually a much better way to hold someone's attention. And so what you'll see, like, real savvy people do, is they make it look like they're recording a podcast, but they're not actually, like, it would just be me alone recording like this, looking over here. But when I post it, it looks like a clip from a podcast, but it's much faster. And so you're like, damn. Like, what show is that from? There's something to that. I'm gonna start experimenting with that because most people either actually had a podcast and like, we're just backdooring it or like, lucked into that. But I think there's something there.

No, absolutely. And that's like what you're saying. It's people, you know, when you see a video and it's someone's talking at you, and it's like, I've even book been playing around with a couple different content, content formats, everything from voiceover to like, green screen to like, talking into the camera, etcetera. And they all resonate differently. So, yeah, I think playing around with this is a great idea. Next, I want to get into workflow. Specifically, I want to talk to you about how you build your ideas for your videos. Right.

Is there a scripting process involved? How do you figure out like the topic, how do you generate the script? Like what are the parameters that you're kind of operating from in terms of just getting the video ready to go?

Yeah. And this is something where I would love to productize this. I'm trying my best to figure out a system. A lot of it is very manual, so, and it's way simpler than people realize. But I'll, I'll go through it essentially. There's a few pieces to like the end to end video workflow. There's finding something interesting, there's taking that interesting thing and extracting a seed out of it that's like the basis of what a piece of content could be. Theres turning that seed into a script or a story that is actually consumable and then theres I guess, recording that script in a way thats compelling and then visualizing that recording via the edit.

So I guess like five pieces, almost everything in that flow right now for me is manual, sadly. And basically we can go through each piece. So the first piece of finding whats interesting, I just am constantly scanning and I find for the videos I make, which is like business of culture, tech stuff, email newsletters are the best place for me to find topics because they're already a curated filter on everything. So if I didn't have email newsletters, I would have to go to like TechCrunch, the Verge, the business of fashion entrepreneur.com comma, whatever the sites are. I'd be scanning like 30 sites. And you can use something like feed lead to do this, but I've tried it and there's a lot of noise, there's not enough signal, it's like way too much noise. And so what I find is email newsletters, people who have actual businesses designed to filter the bad stuff out, curate just what's interesting. And so I subscribe to like ten or twelve newsletters that I love.

And every day I try to go through them and be like, okay, does anything catch my attention that would fit into my topic slice or the things that I'm interested in? So I'm just scanning and if I find anything in an apple note, I just add a bullet, write like a one line of what I thought about it and I start thinking in these hooks. So I kind of writing like a catchy like one liner and then I just put the link. And so I'm passively doing that throughout the day. Then when it comes time to make a video, I scan that list and I look for is, are any of these ideas time sensitive? Like, I have to get the video out in the next day or two or else it's going to atrophy or not. And if there are none, I'll just pick whatever one's most interesting to me that day. Pick it. Then I try to extract what I was saying is the seed. I call this, like, a story lens.

So it's like, you could angle these stories many ways in terms of what you tell them, how you storytell around them. Some of it can be very unique and interesting. Some of it can be high level. So, for example, one example I like to share is, like, when Taylor Swift was going to the Super bowl, that was, like, a huge thing, and I knew that was a story that was time sensitive, so I had to get it out. And I, like, wanted to talk about, because I had success with these Taylor Swift videos before. When I'm looking at that as, like, a base, the most common story frame would be like, what do you think she's going to wear? Or like, something like that, right? That's not applicable to my sector. But even if it was, anyone could make that video. It's not really unique to me.

So then going down the funnels, like, okay, what next could I say? Maybe I could talk about, like, the, the subtleties of, like, her messaging on con in content to, like, allude to certain things. I don't know, some conspiracy thing that's getting, like, slightly more narrow. But then I was like, that's also not my slice. So what could be in my slice business of culture? So I said, what if I made a video where I talked about, I used the hook of her going as the capture funnel, but I really talked about how the business impact on the NFL that she brought by attending all these games and, like, how much extra money it drove and ad revenue or whatever. Like, I knew as a story frame that was much more nuanced, no one was going to have that take, and it was going to be more angled than what I talk about. So that's how, like, that's a good example of, like, taking a raw idea and pulling out, like, a relevant seed. So I have that. Then we go to the scripting.

For me, the scripting is, I've done it. I have one Google Doc with 450 pages, every script I've ever written. And I kind of just, like, at this point, it's second nature with how I frame it. There's a bunch of different kind of structures, but everyone is a little different. And we can go through a popular one for that if you want. But basically, I'll go and I'll script that down. And I'm just trying to have it be punchy. I'm basically trying to re hook somebody through the whole video.

So it's like there's a hook, period. Most people think of videos as like a hook. The body and the conclusion. I think of it like a hook. There's a dance, and in that dance you have context and conflict, which is basically just set up rehook. Set up rehook, set up rehook. You're trying to re hook them. Then at the very end, I tried to hook them again with, like, the ending so that they share it.

And so that's like a rough sk, a rough skeleton, but it changes every time. So I'll do that scripting. Then I go to the record and I'm just like this. I record every line four or five times. But again, this is like me reading off a Google Doc. I don't use a teleprompter. I probably should, but I don't. And then the edit, which is a whole other beast, but I take that in and edit it down.

So, yeah, we can dive into any of those. But one of the things I. The last thing I'll say is when I found companies really need help with that, what's interesting idea extraction. Like the story lens piece, very few people talk about it in that frame. So I sometimes work with companies to, like, help them do that for their own stuff.

Yeah, I think that that'd be a great place to dig in. I think what you just said about finding your lens right. Is so interesting because I think what people can struggle with is like, you've got a story. You've got something you want to share. If you don't have a lens, it's like, well, I've even found myself making content like this. And I'm like, why do I want to even make that? Content like, that doesn't feel like something I want to make. But like you said, it's kind of like, yeah, if you're just talking about Taylor Swift, you're like, what am I doing talking about Taylor Swift? But when you're able to apply your lens to that and give that angle, that's what makes it authentic to you. So I think being able to do that is, is such good advice for creators.

Who might be looking for topics to talk about, but then are scared to share them because they don't have a lens, and they're just, you know, sharing something everyone else is saying. So I think really figuring out your lens, and it seems like you pretty early on identified your thing was, like, business of culture. Right. And I think the faster that, you know, creators or professional creators who are trying to figure out their content, voice, understand, like, okay, what is my thing? And start talking about things through one lens. And obviously, you can test and iterate, but I think that's really spot on for how to come up with an idea. The next thing that I want to talk about is what you mentioned about the hook and rehook. I'd love if we could almost, like, break down maybe one of your scripts and just talk about, like, what you mean by hook and rehook, because I think it's so. You're so on point.

Everyone is talking about a video in terms of, oh, let me. The only thing that matters is a really strong hook. But if you actually look at the retention curve of a video, it's like, okay, great, we hooked them, and then everyone drops off, and then no one's gonna share. No one's even gonna make it to the CTA at the end. So when you think about hook and rehook and this conflict and dance, like, how do you set that up? And what are these? Like, what does a hook look like in the middle of a video? We all know what a hook like looks like at the start of a video, where it's like, here's five things no one ever told you about XYZ, but, like, what about the middle of the video? How do you set that up?

Yeah, let me. I can actually pull up my. I'll pull up my script doc on my side and go through a video that I haven't. I haven't published yet, but it will be published early next week, so maybe. I don't know when this will come out, but the video will probably be live. Yeah. So then people can go back and, like. And see it.

But, yeah, so the. I mean, I'll talk about, like, a strategic level, then do an actual example. Strategically, the whole goal with video in general, or really any content, is you're trying to open a curiosity loop. So that's the most important thing. When somebody hears x amount of what you're saying, are they curious enough to go down the rabbit hole and lit and wait to hear what else you have to say? And so if you only open one it better be really good to hold them for 60 seconds. And most videos don't only have one. People will even simplify it, but, like, they accidentally will back into putting other ones because you just can't. People's attention span is so fleeting.

Most YouTube videos, like long form ten minute YouTube videos. There is a base curiosity loop at the beginning. And then throughout the entire video, the best people are constantly teasing and hinting at like, and then we're going to go through this and like, also, what about this? And, like, they're constantly doing that. And because people need to be reminded why they're listening with a short. I find it's so fast that you don't need to remind them in the sense of like, say, coming up next, you just like, embed it into what you're saying. And so I'll go into. So the video that I'm working on right now is about OpenAI released the teaser for search GPT, which is effectively they're going to take a swing at Google search. And so I find this really interesting.

And so my initial hook is, and I'm reading straight off the script, I think Google might be in trouble. This is search Cpt from OpenAI. So just that first line, I think Google might be in trouble. The curiosity loop is like, oh, shit, why are they in trouble? Maybe you would expect Google's unbeatable unless you're really into the AI space and understand that people are taking swings. That's the first loop just to put a little pin in your brain of, okay, something's happening with Google. So you're like, what is happening? You want to go down the list? Then I say, this is search GPT from OpenAI. It's only a prototype, but it shows the future of what search might look like. That's just a little context.

Then the next line is, and what's the biggest thing you notice? So that's another question of like, oh, you're like, oh, shit, should I be noticing something like, I'm kind of like opening another loop and you're trying to hang on to hear what I say. So then I say, no blue links. For the past 20 years, Google had a monopoly on search. They show you ten or they showed you ten blue links with a couple ads at the top. Last year, that ad business drove $238 billion. It's the best Internet business model ever built. But we might be entering a new era. So that's another.

As another little hook. So, like, but we might be entering a new era and you're kind of thinking like, okay, I get what he said, but what is this new era like anchoring to the top? Why is Google in trouble? He still hasn't really fully said it right. So I'm kind of like layering these questions. And the way you do it tactically is you kind of ask a head fake question throughout the script. The best way to do this is to use but, or therefore, or some, like some injection of doubt or some confusion, right. And so I guess the two that I've used so far as kind of like a butt question. But we might be entering a new era because open AI thinks search should work differently. Why should you have to hunt through multiple links and dodge around edits or dodge around ads when you could just, they could just give you the answer directly.

Look at the design, it's much cleaner. It gives you the answer, links to the source and also has richer visual results. Now, of course, Google still is in prime position. They have billions of users that can build their own version of AI search and have already been testing it. But it's quite the dilemma, isn't it? So that was like even longer of context. But now I'm like, but it's quite the dilemma. So now I'm kind of introducing another, like, so you can see and there's a few more lines at the end, but that was like three rehooks in and the main hook, and then at the very end I was kind of like, what's Google going to do? So that's a fifth kind of hook. So it's kind of, yeah, I mean, it's like a mystery novel, right? Like when you read a mystery novel, you're constantly like, on the edge of your seat, like, oh, like, what's this person going to do? Like, oh, whoa, they saw something in the shed.

Like, that's how great stories are told is. They kind of give you a little bit to hang onto and then tease you somewhere else. And so I think, I just think video should be, you know, people should approach video the same way.

Yeah. And I love that. And I love that we get to have this chat and, like, you kind of peel back the screen because if you're just watching that, you watch the piece of content, you're like, oh, that was a really good piece of content, but, like, you don't know why. And there's so many people who are trying to, like, replicate great content, they just can't do it. They could watch hundreds of these, put out hundreds of videos, waste so much time without ever, like, figuring out, like, oh, wait, there's this structure to it that really makes this perform. The last thing we're gonna talk about, uh, in regarding to these videos is the edit process. Right. You know, if I've seen some of your content on short form, you've got, you know, your studio set up, you've got captions going, you've got images kind of flying out.

What is your editing process look like? What tools you used to edit? Are you the one editing yourself or you have brought, have you brought on, uh, an editor to help out at this stage? Just talk to me what that editing flow looks like for these short form videos.

Yeah. And actually what to get your feedback. When you watch my videos, do you feel like the editing is, like, overwhelming or it's like, do you feel like it in your brain? Do you feel like it's too much, just enough or not enough? Like, what's your, what's your take on it?

I actually think it's just enough. Like, I was actually just thinking about it this morning where I like how you're, like, talking to the camera, your captions are, like, consolidated, so they're not, like, big and obnoxious and, like, blowing out the whole screen. So I think that's really good. And then I think it's the right mix between visuals because I think, like, basically what you're asking is there's content creators who are, like, doing super, super produced stuff. But I think sometimes the super produced stuff is a little bit of overkill where it's almost so animated you can't even follow what's going on with the video. So I'd say, like, I kind of like where you're at, where it's that mix where if it were just you talking into the mic, like, it might just get a little boring, but I think you do just enough, like, visual with, like, the easy to read captions where it keeps you hooked and is engaging.

Nice.

Yeah.

I mean, it took a long time to get to this, right? So the, the biggest hero for editing, which most people don't talk about, is rhythm and pacing. So the visuals, the visuals are nice. They can be the b. And I can talk about, like, how I think about the b roll because to your point, if, if all I had was my face on the screen, me talking, even that story I read with, like, all of the rehooks wouldn't hold. It wouldn't hold attention. It's just not visual enough. Also, on the flip side, if I just had split screen with the visual pumping the entire time, and I never switched the screen, it probably would bore them as well, unless the visuals were amazing. And you have to have amazing visuals on every video.

So this mix of the switching is helpful, but it's more the rhythm of my voice. And, like, when I'm speaking, am I, like, rushing through the sentence? Am I slow, meandering through the sentence? Am I mixing it up? The. The length of sentences? There's this, like, really popular post on Twitter from Gary, uh, Gary provost. I think this, like, famous copywriter where he's like, there's a paragraph where every sentence is about six words, and he's like, read this sentence. Read this sentence. This is getting monotonous, isn't? Isn't it? And, like, he goes through. You read it, and you're like, oh, damn, that was kind of boring. And he's like, now read this.

And it's like a short sentence, a long sentence, medium short, medium long. It's, like, varying it. And when you vary the rhythm of the sentence and the, like, your voice is like an instrument, and when you vary the instrumentation of the sentences, it's more soothing to listen to. And so a lot of the. What makes it watchable is actually the rhythm and pacing of the sentences. That's some. The problem is, that's something that just comes with time and, like, natural taste. I used to.

I used to play drums, and so, like, I have, like, a little bit of a rhythm embedded in me a little bit. So, to your point around editing, I've tried so hard to bring an editor on so I can get the editing off my plate, but I haven't found one with that same rhythm. And so even if they. Even if I handed them all the b roll and was like, this is exactly what I want you to do. When they get the raw video without it being cut to pace, it comes. You know, it doesn't hit the same way in my. When I watch it. So I'm trying to find a.

An editing partner. I mean, there's amazing. I'm terrible at editing. There's amazing editors out there that know what I'm talking about. I haven't found one yet, so, yeah, I'm trying to find one, but that's a key piece. The rhythm and then the other piece is the b roll. I really don't like to make videos unless I have a key visual. What I call is a key visual.

So, like, if Apple does a demo event, it's 90 minutes, and everyone watches it, and it's the cupertino thing with all the cool transitions, and I'm going to make a video about that or about something they talked about. I know that I can go on YouTube and get that 90 minutes thing and use that as b roll and it's super highly produced and I have so much to cut from. I'm much more excited to make a video when I have that key visual versus if I make up a concept and there is no key visual and I got to really find story blocks, footage and gifs on the Internet and really piece together. It's so much harder to do that. So that's another thing that I think with that is helpful if you have a key visual where.

So you're still managing the edits of these shorts?

Sadly, yes.

I totally get it. Like sometimes when you make a video and it's your voice and you're putting it together like you're talking about the rhythm, it's the rhythm of the script, it's the rhythm of like when the clips hit, it's the rhythm of when the visual shows up, like where the captions, it's like, it's a little bit of everything. So what tools do you use? Are you doing these in like Capcut or do you have like a different editing flow? What, what does it look like in actually assembling and packaging these videos?

Yeah, I do it all in premiere. I tried Capcode on the phone but I, my, my thumbs were like I couldn't get the precision. And then Capcut. Actually desktop is pretty good, but I just now know Premiere and premiere is pretty smooth. So yeah, I'll drop the footage in premiere. I record on the camera and then I record with this. These DJI wireless mics, they cut this. There's two in this pack.

This, this mic is insane. Like it has local storage to the mic. So you can just hold it and then plug this into the computer. And it has like 2gb or whatever it is of storage in there. So it's very easy to use. I'll drop that in premiere, sync it up. The plugins I use in premiere. And again, I don't really know how to edit that well, which may sound crazy, but I only know a few things.

Like I made a YouTube video showing everything I know and it's pretty limited. I do use this thing called Autopod, which I don't know if you ever heard of this, but it's like a jump cut editor. So when I'm doing the recording, I'll say the same line four or five times with different intonation. There's always space in between. So I run this jump cut thing, and it's like, it just cuts all the dead space out of it. So that saves me maybe 1520 minutes. What else do I use? The only other thing I use in premiere, other than the stock stuff that, you know, just like the motion slide zoom opacity is this thing called premier composer, which I think it's mrhorse.com, comma is the URL, which is just like a pack of, like, arrows and animated text or whatever. And the free plan is actually really, really generous.

Like, there's so many different things you can use, but sometimes I'll use that. But for the most part, it's just premiere. And then to make my text graphics that aren't captions, I just make those in Figma. Like, I just literally have a Figma workboard. Type the font I want. Sometimes I'll double it and add, like, a blurry layer below so it has, like, a little glow effect, but that's it. I don't like using the text tool in premiere because it's, like, too finicky. Other than that, it's pretty much base premiere.

And then once you've got your workflow right, it just becomes easier and easier because you do your script, you record your new video, and then you've already kind of got a template that you've obviously built where you can kind of ship them out, right?

Yeah. In my head now, I like, I, to get super tactical, I drag in the main footage. I duplicate it. One of them is full screen, one of them is split screen. I kind of just go through and I'm like, all right, at this time, I should go split. I think I have a good visual here. I should go full whatever. And then, yeah, in my head, I have, like ten or twelve different.

Like, we'll say, like, edit things that I do. So one could be like a slow push in, one could be like a fast move from the side. One could be like, like I say the same word in text and repeat it, like, like coming down. I just have a few of those in my head now, and I just. Yeah, I just alternate between them.

We'll love it. So anyway, Kane, I want to thank you for coming on uploading today. We covered a lot, got really deep into workflow. Love what you guys are doing. So for anyone who wants to see your content, why don't you shout out your socials where we can find you across all the different platforms for sure.

So if you want to watch my videos, check out the shorts. My handle is Heinkalloway, Kane and then Callaway is k a l l a w a y. That's my handle everywhere. Um, I do write a weekly newsletter that from the perspective of, like, here's what it's like being a creator entrepreneur. Full transparency. Share my metrics, my income. I'm, like, constantly running experiments. So I, like, write about that.

That's called blueprint. And that's at blueprint Dot game. The URL that's probably, like, my best stuff is there, and it's. And that's all free. So check that out. And, uh, yeah, feel free to hit me up. Actually, there. I do have one more thing if.

If people want it is I took all of the learnings, like, the, the tactical tutorials I've talked about today. I record YouTube videos, and then I put those in a free community for people that are, like, organized. So you can say, I want to make videos. Where do I start? There's all these modules of, like, how to come up with ideas, how to edit, whatever it's called. Wavy world if you go to school.com wavyworld schools sk o l.com wavy world w a v yde w r l d it's completely free. So there's, like, I'm looking at it right now. There's like 1200 people in there. And all the video, everything you need to get started with video is in there.

And you can just kind of watch the modules, and there's a community, too.

Awesome. I'm joining right now. I just pulled it up, so I'm excited to go deeper on this. And, kane, thanks for coming on uploading.

Thank you. Thank you so much. See you guys.