The Exchanges

Q What, what did you do? Did you move to Los Angeles or New York City, um, after you, because you went to Hofstra in New York when you studied film, and so you, you, presumably you graduated from college, kind of knowing the basics of how to maybe make a film. Where did you, where did you go work after?

A Yeah, my senior thesis film was like seven minutes long. It was shot on 16 millimeter. It was, you know, edited front to back. It was, so yeah, I had the, I had all the basic skills to create a short film. So I sold my car to my brother for 2000 dollars, and I used that to procure a, a room in a five bedroom, uh, legally probably a one bedroom, uh, in, in, uh, in Brooklyn, Atlantic, and, uh, And fifth, I think it was the corner where there was a restaurant called, um, Brooklyn Grange that's gone now. So being directly above a restaurant, it was a roach motel. You know, I'd put glue traps underneath my bed, and I'd pull them out in the morning, and they would be covered with roaches, like four or five or six. It was, it was disgusting. Uh, and the, I was working in a restaurant, and I was working at anthropology as the guy who goes through your purse when you set off the alarm.

AI assessment note: “I used that to procure a, a room... in Brooklyn... I was working in a restaurant”

Q it really did connect. I mean, you, that, that first video, you got a lot of great feedback. But really, it blows up like eight months later with a video you make about, uh, about a sandwich from friends called the Moist Maker Sandwich. What, what happened? How do you explain its, its virality? Is there any way to explain it? Is there anything you did to make that happen?

A I didn't do anything, but I can trace, I can tell you the sort of path that it took, which was, you know, I was repeatedly Submitting my videos to Reddit, but somebody posted this episode, the moist maker episode on the video subreddit and Reddit videos, at least at the time, and still to this day can be a sort of frontline for what's going to go viral on the internet. Uh, that's often where I see it first. And, uh, it climbed up to, I think like the fourth position, which at the time I had never gotten that high before and it received, you know, I think like a 100,000 views from that. And then, like I said, since it dictates when and where videos sometimes go viral, I think a lot of, um, news outlets and magazines and whatnot go to that subreddit to see what's hot right now. They saw this and it ended up being republished on, uh, food and wine and, and, uh, entertainment weekly and a bunch of, you know, traditional media outlets. And that helped bolster it even further. And I think it ended up trending, which was Again, unbelievable watershed moment for the channel. Uh, and I think in, in its first week, it pulled down about 600,000 views, if I remember correctly.

AI assessment note: “I didn't do anything, but I can trace, I can tell you the sort of path”

Q I mean, it sounds like, I mean, then this was freelance work, but it really sounds like this, this was kind of a shift, right? Because now doing post-production is important, but, but, but actually Making the documentaries a different skill set that you're developing at that point.

A It was something I tried to develop a long time ago. Me and, uh, Sawyer, who's my business partner, uh, today, and our friend Rashid from high school, we all tried to make a documentary our freshman year of college down in New Orleans, uh, after Hurricane Katrina. We went down there to gut houses, and we brought a camera with us and tried to whip together a, you know, post-Katrina documentary, and it didn't come out great, but, uh, it was an early indicator of our, uh, Our interest to tell compelling stories like that. So yeah, I thought that documentary was a means to get my foot in the door because it was low production cost. And it was mostly just like we said, attention, detail, and ability to tell a story. And it eventually culminated in doing what I so often do, which is bite off way more than I can chew. And I agreed to edit a feature documentary about the prison system, and I was going to do it in my off hours. So I did it after work. So at, uh, my work ended at seven PM and And me and the director would crank until one, two in the morning, sometimes all night. And so to answer your question, yeah, I was, I was really trying to get my foot in the door as a creator of any kind. This is before creator was a job title, uh, in, in this, in this industry and try to get noticed by telling a story.

AI assessment note: “It was something I tried to develop a long time ago.”

Q Well, yeah, I mean, I'm curious about that. I mean, you're, you're in this challenging place in your life, but you decide a form of therapy was going to be to make your own video, and it was going to be a cooking video. It would become Binging with Babish, but how would that even start?

A Well, um, I was messing around in my kitchen and I was like, you know, I love food. I love cooking. Maybe I should do some food photography or something like that. I was like, ah, I can put my, my interests together. That's a good idea. And so I was just trying to get a good angle on some food in my kitchen. It was a very prohibitive kitchen to shoot still or video. And so I was just trying to find like any viable angle where it didn't look unnatural, where it didn't look, you know, Weird or fake, and I tried to make the light look like natural, you know, daylight flowing through a window, and I, I just tried to get it right, and as I was fiddling with that, I was watching Parks and Rec for, you know, probably the fifth or sixth time, and watched a scene that I had seen a dozen times, because it's from a great episode where there was a, a burger cook-off, and they were discussing some pretty exotic ingredients that I was like, I wonder what that would actually taste like, papaya chutney, black truffle aioli, Taleggio cheese crisp. How would that work? Would that work together? And, uh, turns out it's, it's okay. Um, but, uh, that's really where the idea came from.

AI assessment note: “I was watching Parks and Rec... that's really where the idea came from.”

Q Yeah, when did that happen? I mean, by 2016, you get this video that just getting, is blowing up, the moist maker. At what point did you say to yourself, you know, I can make money off of this?

A Well, that's where Sawyer comes into the picture. My oldest and dearest friend, his name is Sawyer Jacobs. We met in ninth grade, uh, and he is currently my partner. Um, he, before anybody else saw the marketability and, and brand recognition potential in this product, uh, which, you know, he, he was characterizing what I was doing that way. And I was like, dude, I'm just messing around after work. You know, this is just, this is a YouTube show. Like, seriously? And he was like, because he worked at Condé Nast at the time, and he was seeing these legacy brands doing these ad deals, and he was getting a better and better understanding of how the advertising industry works, and how important it is to have name recognition in a brand, and how much that's worth. And he very early on wanted to work with me on it, and he was the first one to sort of come in with me as my attorney initially. So he, he was the first one to see that, and he was also the first one to be able to help me monetize it by helping me sign with a management company out in Nashville. Uh, so that was probably, I think that was about four months after the Moistmaker video is when we started monetizing.

AI assessment note: “I think that was about four months after the Moistmaker video is when we started monetizing.”

Q you, um, inspired by this scene from Parks and Rec, you decide to make a cooking video on how to make these two things, and you're not in it. I mean, you're in it, but just your arms and your torso, and you're wearing an apron, and it's basically, you're showing how you make this thing, and, um, first of all, why, why didn't you want your face in it?

A Um, I wasn't trying to remain anonymous. Uh, I think later in my career that anonymity, uh, helped me a little fun mystery for people to, to finally, uh, unveil my face at a million subscribers. Um, but, uh, I, I, what I wanted to do was put the, the focus first and foremost on the food. That's where I, why wear a black apron. It's so the food pops so you can see the steam coming off of it. And I shot things at a very, very shallow depth of field, not only cause it looks, you know, Pretty, and because I'm a complete sucker for any shallow depth of field, it also really narrows your focus in the frame on what you're looking at. So if the food is in focus and everything else is blurry, you got, not only is it front and center, it's, it's, uh, symmetrical, and any personality that I'm bringing to it is ancillary and, um, incidental. Uh, it's more about the food.

AI assessment note: “what I wanted to do was put the, the focus first and foremost on the food”

Q How long, just kind of break down actually how many hours, including the filming and post-production, from buying the ingredients to filming to post-production does it take to make what amounts to a, you know, I don't know, what, six, seven minute video?

A I mean, I'd say at the very least, an episode from front to back, if it's super simple and easy, will take about 20 hours. So you're looking at, like, uh, maybe four hours of production if it's, you know, some Kind of simple. Um, then you're looking at probably 10 hours of post-production. Uh, then you got color grading, some, some graphics, uh, sound mixing. The voiceover is far and away the hardest part, because I don't write it beforehand. I just sort of do it, and not, not in one shot. I, I, I mess up a billion times, uh, but I don't write it. I just kind of stream of consciousness it, and that becomes very creatively Draining. And if we're talking about something with exotic ingredients and or exotic preparation that takes days or huge amounts of effort, you know, we're talking about the better part of a weekend, uh, spent shooting, and then all my evenings after work spent editing, uh, to keep making it at this period.

AI assessment note: “an episode from front to back, if it's super simple and easy, will take about 20 hours.”

Q so I have to work really hard to make sure that, you know, people like me, because I want you to stay with the show, and I want, and you know, it's not an act, it's who I am, but you still have to kind of cultivate that, and you have this ability to connect with people, and so what do you, how did you think about being that person?

A I really appreciate that. First of all, that's an extraordinarily kind thing to say, and I think that my, my viewers share a genuine connection with me. When I meet them on the street, they always say, like, can we grab a beer? Like, yeah, I feel like we'd be friends or something. I, I hear that a lot, and I believe it, because the things that we do are kind. We want to make uplifting, encouraging content, so we make it encouraging by showing how much of a doofus I am, and how hard it is for me to, you know, cook, and, uh, We make sure not to, you know, do it at the expense of anybody else by criticizing anybody or, you know, trying to generate controversy with anybody, because those are, like you said, very, very common tactics with YouTubers.

AI assessment note: “we make it encouraging by showing how much of a doofus I am”