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- [00:00]
A
This episode gave me goosebumps. Roberto Nixon, he is probably the greatest short form creator that exists on the Internet. He's gotten millions of followers, hundreds of millions of views, and in today's episode he gives a behind the scenes of his entire process. The nitty gritty stuff of how he comes up with the most scroll stopping short form video on the Internet. He holds the keys to getting millions of views on his content and he shows you how to do it. He shows you exactly which tools he uses. He gives you a behind the scenes look at his insane studio that he spent over $100,000 building. And he teaches you how you can do it for less. This is the type of episode that people would spend thousands of dollars on. It is free on the Startup Ideas podcast. Not many episodes have given me goosebumps, but this one does. And it's for a reason. Enjoy the episode. Roberto Nixon, by the end of this episode, what are people going to get out of this?
- [01:20]
B
People are going to get out of this. First of all, I think short form video is the bread and butter of the Internet. It is the top of funnel for all attention. I'm such a big proponent of it. And what they're going to get out of this is how to. How they're going to. They're going to see the behind the scenes of my workflow, of how I go from idea to script to editing or to recording to editing to deployment. I think just as fast as anybody in the world because by this time it's muscle memory. And so they're going to get the behind the scenes of the tools that I use and how I streamline everything, how my gear is set up. And I think it'll be super value packed and hopefully helpful to a lot of people out there.
- [01:57]
A
And you're a humble guy, so I'll brag for you for a second. You get hundreds of millions of views on your content, you're hanging with the zucks of the world and you're kind of like the creator's creator. So in the sense that the top creators look up to you and I don't think you've ever shown your process end to end anywhere, is that right?
- [02:25]
B
Never, never. And I've been meaning to. So I appreciate the opportunity and the platform that you're giving me to do so. Because in perpetuity from now on I can send people to this video because this is the biggest question that I get is like, yo, what camera to use? What lights, what editing, what? How do you, you know. So I think this Will be super helpful.
- [02:41]
A
All right, let's get into it.
- [02:43]
B
All right, so first, what I. What I really want to do here is I got Elijah, my homie, the cameraman. I want to show people that I am in a garage. Like, this is not a professional studio. Elijah, go around, maybe, maybe go wide angle as wide as you can and give him the tour. Like, I didn't clean this, I didn't prepare this. I'm not trying to make this look good. This is my garage in my home. And it is very much a garage, A dusty garage, as you can see. Now I am upgrading to a 2500 square foot studio end of the year, which I'm really excited about. Greg, we're gonna have to do this again. When I get that place dialed, it's gonna be insane. But for now, this is. This is it. And so let me first show my equipment right before we get into the script writing and editing and recording and all that. So right here, look at. Look at this setup. This is my main editing station. I would say again, we'll go through all this. We'll go through all this gear and show you how to dial it. I have everything, but let's go through the recording. So this is where I record all of my visuals, all my videos. Narrative talking head. I also have, like, a cinematic storytelling, you know, format that's. That's like, on the field. And, you know, we bring a lot of lights and lenses and equipment. But my bread and butter is this cinematic sort of talking head, narrative style about things that happen in the emerging tech space, AI, robotics, et cetera. And I break it down sort of an educational way. So the way that I have it, I don't know how long that cord can stretch, but let's figure this out. If you have any questions, Greg, just interrupt. The way that I have it, I have a laptop here. I have a teleprompter with a Canon R5C over there. I have a spotlight here. Sometimes I have a gobo on it. And that's just for a stylistic choice. So I have that little streak going on in the background. You'll see how it looks on video. Looks kind of nice. I have a. What is this? An Amaron? I think it's a 150C. And I have a softbox with a honeycomb, a grid on it. That way I can control the light. We're recording in the day. Usually I record at night, so all the lights are dialed. If you look above me, there's an F22C Amarant, which is a top light. And everything is controlled through these little remotes. So I have it all dialed. I can turn it off, turn it on. All the lighting behind me, in front of me, above me, etc. Now, this is where I think I'm going to take my headphones off. Um, Greg, if you have a question, hopefully we'll be able to hear you, but I'm just going to go through recording a process. I have written a script for Agent Kit, which was just announced by OpenAI that I'm going to do a video on. Now, the real script is, like going to be two and a half minutes long. It's actually going to be a pretty substantial edit. So I have an abridged script for this example. But here's what I do, right? So, Elijah, if you want to come over here, we should, I guess, be able to screen share. But my hq, man, everybody's like, do you use. Like, what do you use? I live by Apple Notes. Like, this is my. So all these. Or let me go up. So I just wrote a script Agent Kit script, right? What I do is I. I copy the script and then I open up an app called Prompter Pro and I paste the script.
- [05:47]
A
I've never heard of Prompter Pro.
- [05:49]
B
Yeah, you know what? And there's. There's a lot of different ones. I don't know if Prompter Pro is the best. You know, like, it's just the one that I found first and it's the one that serves me well. So I haven't. I've never changed. But so I have my words up on a teleprompter over there. I don't know if y' all can see it. And I do this because of speed. Like, otherwise I might have to read a line at a time, look back on my phone, go back, or if I'm memorizing something, it just becomes like I want to respect the audience's time. Like, my videos are always dialed. Speed information, and I'm out of there. So that's why I use a teleprompter. And then what I have here is obs. And this is where I record audio to. The reason I don't do it straight to the camera is because I. Maybe I should screen record this real quick. I'm going to screen record this real quick to give you this footage, Greg. But the reason that I recorded the audio separately in case something gets corrupted. I have two different files. Good. You have the headphones. Let me know if Greg says anything. So this is what we're going to do. Right now we're going to go through a live reading of how I record my videos. So we're going to switch mics over here.
- [06:56]
A
Sam Altman, the co founder of OpenAI just said that it is the era of the idea guy and he is not wrong. I think that right now is an incredible time to be building a startup and if you listen to this podcast, chances are you think so too. Now I think that you can look at trends to basically figure out what are the startup ideas you should be building. So that's exactly why I built ideabowser.com every single day you're going to get a free startup idea in your inbox and it's all backed by high quality data. Trends. How we do it, people always ask, we use AI agents to go and search what are people looking for and what are they screaming for in terms of products that you should be building. And then we hand it on a silver platter for you to go check out. We do have a few paid plans that, you know, take it to the next level, give you more ideas, give you more AI agents and more. Almost like a chatgpt for ideas with it. But you can start for free ideabrouser.com and if you're listening to this, I highly recommend it.
- [08:03]
B
So again, it's on Agent Kit. I have the script written. We can go through my scripting real quick. It's just generally like for videos like this where it's informative. What I try not to do is an information dump because I think that's gonna be heavily commoditized by AI, there's gonna be no point in having a human do it. So what I try to do is like give my own opinion and angle. I try to explain to the audience why it's important. I try to bring in conflict early on in the script. So Instead of like OpenAI just launched Agent Kit and you can build agentic workflows and it works like N8N. Like the second line always has to bring in some sort of conflict. So for this one it's like OpenAI just launched Agent Kit. I think it's important to understand what it is that's not conflict in like the traditional storytelling term. But for this video it keeps people, it's. It's conflict enough where keeps people watching because they need to understand the resolution, why it's so important, why they need to understand what it is. So anyways, this is the next step of the video. So let me stop that. So I walk over here. If anybody I Feel like I should have this dial too. Like I should. Let me bring the ISO down. So I walk over here. Doesn't have your audio. Huh? Doesn't have your audio. Oh, that's because I'm over there. My bad. Sorry. So I walk over there and I hit record on the canon R5C and then this is what I do. Let's go. So I'm going to use this mic because my main mic is being used for the podcast right now. And let's go through just a live recording and I'll show people how I kind of go. And like, sometimes I make mistakes and I usually read every line two or three times to pick, like the very best take. Hopefully it's not too boring so far.
- [09:49]
A
Greg, this is honestly the coolest. This is the coolest episode of the podcast.
- [09:55]
B
OpenAI just launched Agent Kit and I think it's important to understand what it is because it lets anybody build agentic workflows without code for free. So that's like the first line again. Sometimes I'll do it twice. So we'll go one more time. OpenAI making sure I'm recording in OBS. Okay, cool. OpenAI just launched Agent Kit and I think it's important to understand what it is because it lets anybody build agentic workflows without writing code for free. Boom. So we'll go to the next line. It works just like N8N, but it's much easier to use. You start with a template or create a workflow from scratch. Go to the next line where you can connect different AI models and tools using a node based interface. Go. Next line. And it has an MCP node that lets you connect your own apps like Gmail or Dropbox. Once you're done, you can test and preview your workflow and if you're happy with it, you can publish it. Boom. So that was it. I did the recording. So the audio recording goes to my desktop, which is automatically transferred to my Mac studio editing workspace over there. I'm going to go grab the. The memory card from the R5C. All right. And then this, I think will be really interesting to people how I. Here, let me just. Sometimes this takes five minutes. Let me just airdrop it so it's quick. So I'm just going to airdrop this to my Mac studio, which is the audio file. So I have a video file and I have an audio file and I'll show you how I sync it. So it should be in my Mac studio. Could be my phone. Let's see what is the like what's.
- [11:46]
A
The total cost of a studio like this, dude?
- [11:48]
B
So here, here, like I'll. I'll tell everybody the total cost, but it's also like I've. You don't need anything because when I go to hotel rooms and I just do it on my iPhone, it looks the same, it performs the same. It does not matter. I do this because it's like authentic to me. I love cameras, I love production, I love lenses. So that's what I do it. So before I tell you the total cost, I've done it many times on literally just an iPhone, no other equipment. It looks very good, especially with Apple Log. It sounds great. Especially with like you can just use your AirPod threes now. And the microphone quality is incredible. But the.
- [12:23]
A
Wait, don't even tell us by the end of the episode. Just tell us at the end of the episode.
- [12:28]
B
Okay, cool. And I have to. That gives me time to like tabulate it.
- [12:32]
A
Yeah.
- [12:33]
B
And the total cost of my next studio is going to be absurd. And it's just because it's all overkill. But I like it. So yeah, that's. You know what I mean? I'm going to have like literally like I'm going to have like jibs and robotic arms and it's going to be really cool. Anyways, so let me share my screen and then trying to figure out a way that I can put this microphone and have access to my keyboard. This cable is all over the place. So now let me show my screen again. Apple Notes, my hq. This is where all my scripting happens. But let me. Let's go through how I generally do this. So usually I'll create a new folder. Well, let me first show you the. This, this is my. This is my everything, right? Every year I have a 4 terabyte like Samsung T9 that I work out of. Some years I go through two or three. This is where I have like all my client work. This is where I have all my reels, carousels. Like this is basically like my creative HQ. So I go to 20, 25 reels again. I have it. I have it set up client work. I have AI content, culture, short films, tech, whatever it is that I'm working on. So we're going to go to the AI folder because this is an AI video. So I make a new folder and my naming convention is generally today's October 7th. And I'll do OpenAI agent kit. That way I have like all the. And then I color code it and that way I have just have all this stuff, like, super organized because I go back and reuse a lot of assets and templates and whatnot from other projects. So what I'll do here is first let me open my. So this is the audio file right here. So first I'm gonna drag the audio file into this folder. Then I'm gonna grab the main video file, let's call it the A roll, and I bring it in from the canon R5C.
- [14:25]
A
By the way, most beautiful. I've never seen a file directory so beautiful. Like all the colors.
- [14:31]
B
Oh, thank you. I need, like, organization, otherwise I go crazy. But generally this is how I will label the files. And then usually we'll see how deep we get into here. I'll have a media kit or a media folder. I'll have an SFX folder. I'll have music. For this kind of thing. I probably don't need anything too crazy, but like, if I'm doing. And I'll pull one up. But if I'm doing like a short film, like right now, I'm doing this thing on like Iron Mic. I'll have everything. I'll have audio clips, AI videos. But for this one, I think it'll be pretty simple. So we just need a Media, Music, SFX folder. Okay, so now that we got that in there, I can. I can eject that. Where are we at? And by the way, Elijah, if you want to show, like real quick what I have here, I just have two Apple Studio displays powered by MaxView. Still the M1. I need to upgrade desperately to the M3 because you're gonna see, like a little bit of lag now. And I also just like having the newest shit. Other than that, I'm going into an Apollo solo for audio video, and there's nothing really else to it. So. All right, let's go back to the edit. So I use Premiere. A lot of people have switched to Resolve. It's something that I definitely want to explore. I know Elijah over here uses Resolve, and all my editing friends use Resolve. But muscle memory is important to me, so I use Premiere. So open up a new project. We're going to drop this project into the folder that we just created called Agent Kit. We're going to call it Agent Kit. And here we have a new project. I've never, like, showed this, so I like. I might not be the best teacher, but let's walk through it. So then I drag my A roll and my audio into the project. I do new sequence from clip from my A roll. This is going to be a 1080 by 90. Since it's going to be an Instagram reel slash TikTok. This canon, for some reason, has like three audio tracks. I got to fix that. And then what I do is I drag my audio track in and then I synchronize it so the audio track is synced with the video track, if that makes sense. So now I'm unlinking everything. I'm gonna delete the video from the audio track and the audio from the video track. So it all depends, right? So on these, I just have it, like, dialed, the audio treatment. And usually I just copy and paste from another template, but I want to go through it manually to show the audience. I add a multiband compressor and I go to broadcast. I bring the output gain a little bit lower, and then I add a parametric equalizer. And then the sort of template preset that I really like is Vocal Enhancer. I bring the highs down a little bit and then move my lows a little bit to the left. And again, this is like trial and error, but for me, this sounds really, really good and crispy on the audio. OpenAI just launched. Sometimes they'll add like a noise denoiser. And again, if I'm doing like a. If I'm doing like a film, the audio treatment is going to be differently, right? But for these, this is how I do the audio treatment. Because I usually go split screen. I bring this down to about 46%, like the scale. And then again, this goes at the bottom tab there. If you're familiar with my videos, you know, this is like the way that I just organize them. I cut the top off a little bit, like 5% off the top, so it fits nicely into frame. And then that's how I kind of do that. And then the visual treatment that I use, and again, there's no right way to do it. I have something called Magic Bullet. You can just use like a regular lut, whatever you want. But generally I drag in this film preset of Magic Bullet. I bring that down to about, like, 40. That's looking good to me there. I bring in this little mojo thing. And sometimes I color manually, but generally this is like my default. And then I go into the coloring module, let's call it, or workspace of Premiere. And then I can further edit from here sometimes just to keep the color consistent with the brand, so to speak, I'll come through. This LUT that I created, actually, that emulated. I created it to emulate a Pulp Fiction look. I did it for this app that I have called Cinefacta, which makes like two grand a year. It's like peanuts and that looks pretty good to me. Elijah, you're a colorist. What do you think? That looks good. That looks good. Maybe a little bit on the cooler side. So whatever. I can go in there for these kind of videos. I don't spend any time on this for like my more creative videos that are like really storytelling and full of depth. I'm gonna spend a ton of time on coloring, sound, et cetera. So I go back to the short form window space that I create and from here is going to be a little bit boring, but I'll go through it really quickly. What I'm going to do is choose the best lines, cut each line up, and then I'm going to stitch it from there and I'm going to show you how I do it. That's kind of signature to me to keep the pace high. So let me go through and pick the very best takes. All right. OpenAI just launched Agent Kit and I think it's important to understand what it is because it lets any anybody build agentic workflows without code. So for purposes of time, we'll just keep that one. We'll go to the next one. OpenAI just launched 8. It works just like na authentic workflows without writing code. Go to the next line. It works just like N8N, but it's much easier to use. You start with a template or create a workflow from scratch. Go to the next where you can connect different AI models and tools using a node based interface. And it has an MCP node that lets you connect your own apps like Gmail or Dropbox. Once you're done, you can test and preview with it. You can publish it. So that's how I did it. So like I just took the best takes. Usually I do like three or four takes for each line just so I have more to work with. Then I'm coming up here to sequence and I'm closing all of these gaps. So now this is sort of the, the body of our video. OpenAI just launched Agent Kit and I think it's important to understand so the next step that I generally do just because I love my pacing and to be dialed, I'll come in here. You see there's like a little bit of like a millennial pause there. Like I don't like that pause. So what I do is I cut some of the video track. I cut into the next track a little bit, even into the audio. I, I drop the audio down to another line and then I overlay it a little bit so now you'll see how much punchier and quicker it is for free. It works just. And that's the style that I like for these kind of videos. Again, I respect the hell out of the audience. I don't want to waste their time. I want to get it through as quick as possible from scratch. So that one even quicker. And I'll from scratch. That's fine for me. Even I like it quicker. Again, purposes of time we're going to. We're going to go through this quick. I'm liking all this. This is all sounding good. And you can see how I sort of doctor a piece of together. Once you're done you can test and preview your workflow and if you're happy with it, boom. So we end it there. So that's the video. So this would be like a 28 second video. Then I generally bring the video up a track because all the media and B roll and everything will probably go underneath in a video like this. What I would generally do next is I probably doctored a little further where. Where just to. Just for pattern interrupt I'll go full screen on some of the stuff that I say in between lines. So without code. So this one I might actually bring it back up. And then what I have and what I recommend to anybody creating videos or if you have editors and editors on your team, they should know this but make sure that they have everything preset, templatized, et cetera to waste no time. So I have and I'll shout it out. I don't know the guy. Peter. Peter Taka something Togzinski. He's got these essential motion presets for Premiere Resolve all the editing platforms that I really like. And these are the ones that I just use instead of keyframing them individually for speed. Again on the projects that I really care about that are like the storytelling Meteor videos, I will go through keyframe things manually if it requires. But just generally I'll grab one of these like clip, zoom in and I'll add a. Another zoom in. And so when I go full screen workflows without code so I get a little bit of that movement. And again it's important just to keep people's attention. A workflow from scratch where you can connect A workflow from scratch where you can connect different AI node based interface and it has an mcp. So maybe for this little. And I'll do the same thing. I'll remove AT REM attributes and then I'll paste the attributes from the previous one that I just copied. And it has an MCP node that lets you connect your own apps like Gmail. Okay, so now in a video like this, where I'm not generally creating assets, we will create an asset to show you how I build like AI generated visuals using like freepik as an example. Sora 2 just came out publicly, so I'll probably switch from Nano Banana Cling workflow to Sora too. But we can go through that. So in order to get some videos for this again, these are videos that are going to be on the Internet already. So. So let's pull in my browser and we'll go to OpenAI's channel. So they have like an intro to Deb Builder. Now something that I really recommend to anybody who values speed is this app called Downy. And you can just literally paste in a video and it'll download it for you. So you paste in a video and it'll download this for you automatically.
- [24:02]
A
Dude, I need, you know what I usually do for that? I Google like, or YouTube 10 before. Yeah, exactly.
- [24:11]
B
That's what I used to do too. So this app is huge, bro, because if I'm getting your videos from YouTube or Twitter, I'm using Downy. So Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, anywhere on the Internet, like you can download videos using this tool. And it manages, saves so much time, which is what I'm all about. So now I go back to my Media tab and from my downloads I am going to drag this intro to Agent Builder into the Media tab. So, so now I have that for this example, I'm just gonna use this video. Usually I go in and get like four or five different ones. So I have more choices to be able to present visuals that are in context to what I'm saying. Now if I can't find anything, that's when I'll go generate something. I never use like stock footage anymore. Everything's generated for like perfect to be in perfect context of what I'm saying and just to be a little bit more visual compelling. So let me minimize the browser. And now I'm back to the project. I'm gonna drag this into the project again. I'm gonna unlink their sound. Cause I don't need it, I just need their visuals. And then this is where I'm like piecing things through OpenAI. So I'll go through and look for like, you know, for the purposes of this. Because it does take some time to like find the right visuals, you know, match them up, make sure that they're aesthetically like they contrast well. I even go through and make sure things contrast well. Another thing that I do, guys, in the recording process is sometimes the back, my monitors in the background and the lights all, and like the way that I'm dressed all are color coded to the brand that sometimes I'm working for. So I just did a video for Perplexity and like I made sure that the aesthetics all matched like their world that they've built, right, like their whole brand and like signature brand and visuals and sound and like sort of like this classy, sophisticated ambiance that they're trying to build for their brand. So that's another thing that I do and why I have like all these lights away that I do and everything dialed so I can switch the colors, et cetera, et cetera. So again I'll go through and I'll make my own. You know, again I'll. This one's not gonna be perfect. Cause usually I download three to four videos. But for the sake of this video, let's just say I've built my clips. However, I'm missing some. Okay, so let's say. Well, I need to go through actually and I need to screen record something. So I'm going to go to the agent builder here, OpenAI and in order to screen record my process, this is another app that I recommend for everybody and anybody. I love this app. You can use Loom as well or Obs. I like Screen Studio and I'll show you the reason why. So now I need to record me building an agent using Agent Kit. Agent builder from OpenAI. I say something about MCP server. So let's go show how that works. I can record my whole display window or an area. So I'm just gonna drag an area from my screen to show my process. I'm gonna hit start recording and I say something about you can start with a template or you can create from scratch. So I'm gonna go hit create from scratch. All right, here's my new agent flow. I said that you can add an MCP node and from here I can add different tools. I think I mentioned Gmail and Dropbox. So I'll, you know, I'll. I'll hover over them again for that. For that context. Boom. Okay, so let me hit stop there. So the reason that I like Screen Studio over some of these other tools is because it has. Let me bring it over so I can mess around with the padding, the rounded corners, etc. But it has like these nice little animations. So when I'm dragging in an MCP folder, boom. I like how that looks right. So what I'm going to do, so I'm going to export MP4.4K studio, max file size, least compression. Where are we? I'm going to go again to the corresponding folder, add it to media and I'm just going to type SS for screen record and I'll let that export. So if you're somebody who's presenting like different workflows and tools, people use loom, people use obs. This is another tool that I suggest, Screen Studio that I love. I don't know the developers I got, you know, I don't get anything for saying that. But so this is just the tool that I use. So now I go back to my edit, I'll let that export and generally what I'm doing is now I'm adding the media underneath. Kind of like that. Again in context to what I'm saying. OpenAI just launched Agent Kit. So just to, just to mention it again, like for the, for the purposes of speed, we're just going to go through. None of these visuals are really in context of what I'm saying. So generally I take my time to, you know, find something that's a lot more appealing. And then let's bring in screen recording, take the sound file out and let's say when I say the MCP part I want, I want that part when I add an MCP node. All right, so there I'm grabbing the MCP node. I think somewhere in here I say it, but it's much easier to use. You can connect different AI models and tools using a node based interface. And it has an MCP node that lets you. And it has an MCP node, an MCP node that lets you connect your own apps like and then I'll cut it there. And then the part where I'm looking at Gmail and Dropbox again, you see that nice little motion that Screen Studio does for you? That's another reason I like it. So I don't have to sit there and keyframe node that lets you. So I'll put that underneath. Sometimes like say, say this doesn't fit that well. Cause I want the sidebar. So no problem. What I would do is just make sure it does fit well and then I'll bring in my video from down below and then modify it so it fits the screen nice and tidy. That lets you connect your own apps like Gmail. And then maybe I want this one full screen. You know just to break it up again. Pattern interrupt. Super important for what I do, just keep the audience guessing. Gmail or Dropbox. Once you're done you can keynote. That lets you connect your own apps like Gmail or Dropbox. So that looks pretty good to me. Um, let's just again bring some arbitrary visuals underneath just for the purposes of completing this video generally captions. Actually let's show something else real quick for people. Even though I know your audience is super dialed and they already know how to use it. But let's say. And these are like all my previous visuals for. Let me, let me show this too. Actually while we're here I run like a bunch of pages and again I still run them just because I'm so freaking quick with it. Let me see. Okay, so let me open figma. So I've like all these pages, RPM Tech, a Luna metaverse and this is kind of like the HQ for that. And it's, it's, it's you know like my last post was about Sora to breaking the brains out everybody. But I think the previous post was about Elon Musk hitting like a 400 or $500 billion net worth. Whatever it was. I didn't want to use like just like another stock image Getty image of Elon Musk. So I went in here to free pick and, and I created an image anyway. So this is like my whole hq, like newsletter, rpn carousels, everything. It's all here templatized in figma which also allows me to go quick. But for example, say I wanted to make, I don't know like Sam Altman building an agent on a MacBook Pro. I'm going to use Nano Banana still I don't think anything beats that. So we're going to go Google Nano Banana say I want it a one to one square aspect ratio. Let's see. I don't think they have any restrictions so they should let me generate Sam.
- [31:35]
A
Altman no reference image.
- [31:38]
B
Oh yeah. So I can also show that because I use that all the time. And I also use like this is why I have Mid Journey up here. I'm making like this Mike Tyson video like this Micro Doc and I needed some visuals that I couldn't find on the Internet. So I'm doing the same thing but, but I'm always going here and using reference image. Omni reference from OpenAI. Sorry, omni reference from Mid Journey. But now more and more I'm actually using Nanobanana so I will need a reference image because it's not recognizing Sam Altman. Maybe they're, you know, it's Google. Maybe they're salty. So let me try to find one of just his face. All right, There he goes, Mr. Sam. So I'll save that image. I'll come back to Freepik, hit him with a reference image. And now I can. And now I can reference the actual image itself. So image one building an agent on a MacBook Pro. Let's see how that goes. I'm surprised I don't recognize Sam Altman. That's a weird one. I guess it's like a legal thing.
- [32:38]
A
It's a sensitive subject.
- [32:41]
B
Yeah, exactly. And so this is why I love Nano Banana. Man, it's so quick. Like I used to use chat for image generation. It's just so absurdly slow. So this looks great, right? So if I needed an image that I couldn't find on the Internet of Sam Altman on his laptop, I can go here. And I don't like static images. I'll use them if I have to. But generally I will turn this into a video. Now that Sora 2 is out, I'm probably going to use Sora 2. I don't think Sora 2 from the API which this is running on, I don't think it'll allow me to use people. So my guess is let's just generate that. But my guess is that's not going to work. So the next best thing to me I use, I mean 1.2.5 Hialuo Chinese models are great. Generally I'm using cling, another Chinese model and you know, we'll just. Instead of a close up shot, let's say I don't know, the camera orbits around the focus individual on a laptop that are da da da. So I would just generate that video for like a couple seconds of B roll that's queued. I'll let that do its thing for now. Let's go back to premiere. So now I can create my captions. I'll just. This is what I do. I create my captions, captions from scratch. I generally bring maximum length in characters and maximum duration in seconds down. And I go single line because I like my captions like appearing on screen almost like one word at a time. I just think it's like, it's like a slot machine. It just sort of psyche hacks the brain. Kind of like how it works. My fonts are generally aonic, semi bold. I think I paid like 600 bucks for this font and it's probably not worth it. But that's that's what it is. I usually bring it to around a 60 size. OpenAI just. And then you have to go through and modify the captions. If. If accuracy is important to you, some people don't care. Open AI I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but this is what I would do is just modify the captions so they're accurate. AGENT KIT and I think it's important now at the beginning there's probably a better way to do this and I'm just so fast at doing it this way that this is the way that I do it. I usually, I usually give it like a little bit better treatment with the captions at the beginning. So let me like, let me open up Photoshop again. You can do this all in Premiere. You can open up After Effects, which works nicely with Premiere and do this. But I generally like building out my own. So I'll be like, I don't know, go through and design like a quick typography thing. Open AI and usually I'll see like, all right, where does this fit nicely? Let's actually. So the other font that I use generally, I usually kind of try to stick to two fonts and then I have some other ones just to try to keep that brand consistency. But I'll use another font called Romy. Again, an expensive font. I paid for it. But, you know, I gotta, I gotta support the fellow designers and creatives. So OpenAI just launched, man. I, you know, again, I'd usually take my time on this to make it all beautiful and symmetrical and. But now let's just go. Agent KIT all right, so let's just say actually this doesn't look good. What can we do here? You know, I just try to like add some emphasis to typography. Look, this doesn't look all that good, but we're just going to go again. Sake of time. We're going to go like that. All right.
- [36:10]
A
I mean, you doesn't look all that.
- [36:11]
B
Good, but okay, all right, fine, fine. I appreciate it.
- [36:14]
A
I'm like, this is a Picasso right here, you know.
- [36:19]
B
All right, dope. I appreciate that. So then we're going to export that again. We're going to bring it to. We're just working on Salesforce video. How exciting. I'm going to bring it back to that same folder. I have everything like dialed, which makes it easy. Now, look, I know editor is going to laugh at me, but I just, I don't think there's a faster way to do this. So this is what I do. OpenAI just launched Agent Kit. So I'm gonna cut at every word. Just launch. Just launched. And then what I'm gonna do is just actually have these words appear on screen, right? And so it's as easy as just masking out. And again, there's. There's better ways to do this, I'm sure, but I don't think anybody can match my speed doing it this way. OpenAI and then I go through and I'll. Usually I zoom in to make it perfect, but let's just go through and I'm masking everything out like this so the words appear one at a time. And then I'll show you why I do it this way. Agent Kit. And I think. OpenAI just. And again. So for pattern. Pattern interrupt, I'm probably going to go through here and do the full screen again. OpenAI just launched Agent Kit. So boom. I'm, like, happy with this video right now. Generally, what I'm gonna do is I have a ton of sound effects. I have, like, different folders that I love. My buddy Jeff Nang hooked me up with his that are killer. So I might do some sort of riser. I'm not. I'm not even going to audition them. I'm just going to throw them in. OpenAI just launched. Agent. Kind of a long rap riser at my door. OpenAI just launched. I wanted to cut before. AI just launched. Agent. Whatever, right? I'm going to add a. What's that called, Elijah? The. What's this called? A fade. I'm out of fade. I'm going to go to audio controls, and I'm going to bring this all the way down. Open AI just launched. I would normally take a little bit more time with these sounds, of course, and then I might download like, some clicks, some mouse clicks, some whatever for when each word hits again. This stuff, people underrate it, but it keeps the audience, like, hooked. I don't know, maybe I'll go use. I'm doing this Tyson video. So I got this guy's sound hit with all these, like, punches and explain to people why.
- [38:41]
A
Why it matters that. Why it matters to keep people hooked. Like, explain to them, man.
- [38:47]
B
Yeah. And so for short form, it's really just in its essence, it's really basic. It is capture attention, maintain attention, reward attention. The first part is probably most important, obviously the hook, the vision. Now, it's like. It used to just be like a verbal hook, but now it's like a verbal hook, visual hook. It's like a whole game now. It's not Just sometimes good enough to have just like that strong verbal hook. So obviously capturing that attention is the most important because if people don't, you know, if you don't capture their attention in the first two seconds, they're not going to stick around. I always say, like, Christopher Nolan could upload the Dark Knight, but. But if it didn't have a good hook, nobody's sticking around. It's like a little bit of a tragedy. But that's the game we play in short form, whereas long form, the game that you play, Greg, is more about the packaging, the combination, title, thumbnail, et cetera. So most important, capture that attention. Then you have to obviously reward that attention. The way that we do that is generally, and I always quote Callaway, our buddy, I love his quote here. It's generally a dance between the conflict and the context. And so these are just like basic storytelling, you know, like devices where it's like, okay, how do we do that? You add in conflict, resolve that conflict, go to the next conflict, resolve that conflict, et cetera. That's how you maintain attention. But I would argue that rewarding attention is, is like increasingly becoming more and more important because that's what's going to give you all of the signals from the audience that makes an algorithm happy. So if somebody sticks around for 60 seconds watching my agent kid video, if, if they're not educated or inspired, they're not going to hit me with a, like a comment, a share, a save, a screenshot, a follow, et cetera. But if they do feel like, damn, I got a lot from this guy, I really appreciated that, then they're going to hit me with all the signals and make the algorithm happy. And so, like, my whole thing when I do these captioning and animations and sounds, it just helps that much more to keep people hooked, engaged. That's why I do the pattern interrupts. And it has to feel like there's just like a whole art to it. Now for some videos, it's like, for me, it's. I just sit down and I talk and it's more mellow. It really depends on the context. But for these kind of videos, the reason that they work really, really well for me and brands desire them so much is because of the way that I kind of piece them together. So this is like kind of a behind the scenes of that. And I might even, like, I don't know, I might. This one I might reverse and make it a little bit slower just to give like a different sonic feel. And I would go through and I have all my go to sounds but I wanted to do this manually to show you how it goes. OpenAI just launched Agent and then maybe here I'd have like a Ding Agent kit and I think it's important to understand what it is. And then for music now this is the thing. When I'm just doing an organic video, you can use whatever you want, which is great, you know, or sometimes I keep it barren like this. OpenAI just launched and then when I'm uploading to Instagram or TikTok et cetera, I will add a soundtrack. But generally I like a version with the soundtrack already there so I can upload it to threads x and LinkedIn, sometimes Reddit, Snapchat, et cetera, which don't have like the audio, the built in audio tools of like a TikTok Instagram. So usually I'll try to go find a sound again because this is not a commercial project. I don't have like when I do work with a brand I'm going to go to like Epidemic Sounds usually, sometimes art list. I know, what do you use? Epidemic uses Epidemic as well. And then I'll go search for, you know, for music, sound effects, et cetera here. By the way, our Sam Altman video is done. Look at that. That's a nice video.
- [42:08]
A
Thank you.
- [42:08]
B
Nana Banana Cling Boom. And Sora did mark it as inappropriate. So right now using the Sora API, which is amazing, it's like 10 cents a generation. I mean like man, you know Greg, like there's going to be millionaires, many, many millionaires, minted multi millionaires over the next few weeks with messing around with Sora too. But the API doesn't allow. It's very, very restrictive. That's the only problem. So I don't use it because of it. So there we go, we got Sam Altman orbiting. So I can bring that into my media folder and I don't know, let's say it code for that's where I want it and I want it. I want it full screen and bang. Now I have something in context of what I'm saying instead of some boring stock footage. Okay, so for music I have like a folder of like my go to music that I use for reels. And again this stuff is not, you know, it's not, it's like commercial free because I'm not making money out of it. But if this was like a brand deal I wouldn't be able to use them. So I like this like little Steve Jobs from the Steve Jobs ost. I Like this little sound for tech videos. And then this is kind of the final product. OpenAI just launched Agent Kit. And I think it's important to understand what it is because it lets anybody build agentic workflows without code for free. And I think that's pretty interesting. I think, I think I'll probably again redo this with a big and better script and, and more compelling, but I think this would keep people's attention. OpenAI just launched. There's a big launch that just happened and I think it's important to understand what it is. People really need to understand what this is because things are about to change. And I want you to be educated because this represents the future. That's boom. Okay? That's a video. People are gonna stick around now and then I'm gonna resolve it because I'm gonna show them exactly what it can be used for. Some use cases, some examples how they could use it in their business as an entrepreneur, as a creator. Da da da da da da. They're gonna really like that because they've learned something. They feel like now they're, you know, they're like in the game and they're updated and they're gonna like it, they're gonna share with a friend, they're gonna save it and it's gonna do 500,000 views and everybody's happy. And that's basically the process and how I think about like putting these videos together and how I can, I can really. They usually take 45 minutes maximum and trying to think if there's anything else. But that's, that's basically the gist. So hopefully that was helpful.
- [44:34]
A
Dude, I actually have goosebumps watching you do this.
- [44:39]
B
It's muscle memory at this point, man.
- [44:42]
A
Well, I have so much respect. Like I, I just see the final product, right? And I never, I never really noticed the fades. I really, I never really noticed the text on screen. I never really noticed how nuanced what was on, you know, what was on screen. But when you put it all together, it just feels like a stairway to heaven, you know, it feels like the acoustic guitar with the drums and then the, you know, the solo. It just puts, putting it all together, like seeing you do this just is, it's watching someone who world class do what they do. And to you, you're like, this is so simple, dude.
- [45:24]
B
To you, you're like, yeah, you know why that's interesting. And you've probably. First of all, I really appreciate that, but you've probably felt this phenomenon sometimes in anything that I Do right? And like, we're going to be building that community like I was telling you about. And like, I'm like, but this stuff is. It's just logical. It's like. But then I realized it's like, no, no, no. This is like 10 years of muscle memory just being in the game and picking up like little tricks and all these little nuances. But you're probably the same way. Like, you just have like all these talents from all of your experiences building startups, building different companies, doing 20 million different things with incredible people. And it's. For you, it probably feels natural, but for somebody else it's like, oh, my God, Greg, you just blew my mind. And so sometimes, like when you've been doing something for so long and it feels like second nature, you forget how useful it can be for other people to see.
- [46:11]
A
It's the classic Picasso. I don't know if you heard the story where someone goes up to Picasso and says, hey, I'd like a painting. And he goes, sure. So he does the painting. It takes him like five seconds. And he's like, okay, it's gonna be $500. And then the customer goes, $500? That took you five seconds? You know, that doesn't make any sense. And he was like, yeah, but it took me my entire life to get to the point. Yeah, exactly. It took him 50 years.
- [46:40]
B
Yeah, man. I mean, the thing would. You know, it's funny that you mentioned, like, these things. You didn't notice. And that's actually what it is in content. It's. It's such a subconscious experiment experience. Sometimes the thing that I relate it most to is a slot machine. And I know it's kind of like messed up because slot machines are just psyche hacking. They're hacking your brain. It's like, you know, preying on that dopamine release. It's kind of the same in, in content where like sometimes you sit in a slot machine for like an hour and you don't realize what just happened because you're like, addicted to the visuals and the sounds. And it's all just very. There's a real psychology behind it to the point where like a lot of these casinos or like a lot of these micro games, like the Clash Royale games of the world, people don't realize they actually have more like data engineers and like psychologists on staff sometimes and like engineers and designers, because that is the whole game that they're playing. It's not really like, there's no, you know, the design and engineering is okay, but it's like the psychology back component to it that is like the true magic of these games. I kind of think it's similar with content where it's like there's a real art to it, there's a real science to it. It changes, it's like ever changing because it's always evolving and it, it changes also from context to context where like, depending on the video that I'm making, depending on the product, like what it, whatever it is that I'm saying, I'm going to approach it differently. And so I love that about it, man. That's why, like, I'm hiring editors now. But it's been historically difficult because I'll hire an editor. They're like, okay, I'll have this done in the next 48 hours. I'm like, man, I could just do this in the next 30 minutes and it's going to be better. It's hard for me to like reconcile that, but need to scale next year. And I'm just so busy now that finally I feel like I'm gonna be giving up the reins. And so I'm glad that I have this video because now all the prospective editors out there, I actually think, Greg, like this video. I don't know how it'll do at the beginning, but I think over time it'll be like a sleeper that's just super evergreen because I've also, every time I talk to an editor, they're like, oh man. All my clients give you as a reference of what they want their stuff to look like. So now like all the editors in the world can go in and see how I do it. So.
- [48:44]
A
So go work for Roberto.
- [48:45]
B
Join.
- [48:46]
A
Join the empire.
- [48:47]
B
If you're a world class editor, I will hire you tomorrow. I am in desperate need. I've been auditioning like 20 different editors. I can't find somebody who is dialed who has the quality that I'm looking for and most importantly, the speed. Because a lot of my stuff is time sensitive and if I were to upload an OpenAI agent kit video in three days, nobody cares. It's got to go out ASAP. So thank you for that PSA. Greg.
- [49:12]
A
In this episode, I am going to include basically as many products that you've mentioned here in the show notes so people can actually go and try it. But you still owe me an answer to a question which is how much money does it, you know, approximately how much money to create a Roberto Nixon like studio?
- [49:34]
B
Okay. Um, my. What would you say, Elijah, in this studio there's pro. I don't know, maybe like a hundred grand worth of gear north. Maybe a little north in my next studio, there's probably going to be 300 grand worth. I mean, like, but if you wanted to build this setup without all the gear, you know, you could go with a used M1Mac studio. I don't know, for like a thousand bucks. You can use whatever monitor you want. All of these lights are very cheap versions of. Because I think you can build a studio just like this for the same visuals as me. For under 5k probably. I mean, you know, but again, you can just do it with your iPhone. But I like overkill. That's my game.
- [50:18]
A
Well, you're a nerd like me too, right? Like you nerd out.
- [50:21]
B
I love this stuff. I have every camera, every lens. I just, something comes out, I buy it. I don't, you know, but believe it or not, I actually use, I would say everything I have at least like once a year for a project, so. So it comes in handy.
- [50:36]
A
Also, quick psa. If anyone's in the South Florida, Miami area, I need help with my studio. So I'm looking to hire someone just to come for like a few days to set up my studio.
- [50:49]
B
Well, here's the thing about what I would say for your content, Greg. The fact that your studio is like in between lo fi and super high end actually kind of works because I feel like if it was too lo fi, people might not take you seriously because. But if it was like too highly stylized, you lose some of that because like the Greg Eisenberg brand is like that nitty gritty startup hustle. You know, it's like, it's scrappiness. So I could get like, I already have 10 things that I can say to make your studio look. Look like 10 times higher production value just with the equipment that you have. But I wonder if that fits the brand. Like the Startup Hustle camera. Greg Eisenberg camera's not good.
- [51:28]
A
The camera is not good. I need, don't I need multiple, like, you know, multiple cameras and better lighting.
- [51:35]
B
What camera do you have?
- [51:37]
A
Right now? I'm literally using an Apple studio display camera.
- [51:40]
B
Oh, love it, love it, love it. Look, if, if I would just say like get a camera, like a full frame or whatever that, that where you could put like a nice little 35 millimeter, 50 millimeter shallow depth of field lens that already will look twice as good then if you angle your light. So like right now you're very evenly lit.
- [52:00]
A
Yeah.
- [52:00]
B
If you, if like you want the light coming more harshly from one Side to give you that shadow, side to give you that depth. And then what I would do is I would put a honeycomb on all the lights. They don't bleed into your background, it just lit onto you because you have the nice recessed lighting in the background, which looks good. I would actually probably open your windows and put an ND filter on so we can see what's out, what's in the background. And then, you know, bring your key lights really bright so we can see you as well. That alone, like with whatever you got going on, that alone would make it look like spectacular. But I'll come down to Miami and I'll, and I'll help you with anything you need, man, because again, I love this stuff.
- [52:36]
A
You're the best, Roberto. Before we, before we, I guess part ways, which makes me sad because I just love talking to you. Anything, anything you want to leave the audience with.
- [52:50]
B
Yeah. You know, if there's any way that I can help, just, just hit me up rpn like these days, honestly, like it's a good problem to have, but I've just been so blessed with so much abundance. I actually don't have time for anything. But I will try my best to get to your message if there's anything that I can help you with. And I'd also say this is the greatest time in the world. Like Greg parrots this all the time. This is the greatest time in the world to be a builder. I truly believe that if you're listening today, you can productize yourself, just literally take your expertise, your knowledge, your interests, your passions, what you're good at, what you love, and you can package that up into a really, really lucrative seven figure Internet business. And I don't think it takes longer than like 24 months. Now if you're really passionate about this, it is just like the most amazing time to be a builder, to make content, to create startups. And AI gets a lot of hate. I love it because I truly, truly think it, it just democratizes building and creativity and like, man, I just get goosebumps. Like we live in the greatest time in history. There will never be another wealth creation event like AI. I think maybe personal humanoid robotics, but what an amazing, amazing time to be alive. I can't be more excited for like the next 24 months. Subscribe to this podcast because if you're just here for this episode, trust me, like the value that Greg has, just, just go to his videos and binge. You spend 24 hours doing that, you're going to be three times smarter, more fulfilled and more motivated overnight. So I appreciate you, Greg, and thank you for the time and it was just an honor to, you know that you gave me this platform to be able to do this.
- [54:23]
A
I appreciate you, Roberto. I'll include Roberto's X Instagram and Beehive where you can go and subscribe and follow along. It's a no brainer. And I'll see you next time.
- [54:35]
B
All right, man. Appreciate it, Greg.
- [54:36]
A
Later.