Testing, one, two, three, testing. This is like my camera voice, I guess you could say.
Mark, how's it going? I'm good, I'm good.
Did you run out of people or something? Whoa, what do you mean?
Like, who else are you gonna, there should be some other staff you can interview.
I mean, there's a lot of people in this company now. Yeah. There's a lot of people we gotta interview,
but I feel like this one's a long time coming. Yeah, I guess so.
So tell me a little bit about what you do here. I am an editor at Linus Media Group.
Well, I'd hope it's here. Yeah, well, yeah.
How long have you been here and how'd you get the role? I've been here for almost five years now
and I applied and got the role around the same time as Andy.
Actually, the exact same time, we were hired on the same day. What got you interested in the role?
Oh, so I've been a video editor for a number of years,
actually, since 2009 professionally.
And I was working freelance for a long time
and realized it really wasn't for me anymore.
It's just such a high pace and I wanted something a little bit more consistent.
Normal hours, I didn't want to work 24-7.
So yeah, I applied for the job here. Initially, I applied in 2018 when David got hired.
He got that role. Which is more shooter focused anyway, so it worked out.
I applied a year later and yeah, I'm here. How was freelancing for you?
Sucked. I mean, it was great.
It was good money, got to meet a lot of people,
got a lot of really odd jobs. You're completely in control of your schedule
but then you have about 18 hours worth of work to do a day
and I didn't know how to regulate myself,
especially because there's always that fear that you're never gonna get your next job.
So I would always push myself a little bit too much.
Were you taking on multiple jobs at once? Oh yeah, yeah.
I mean, I would limit myself in that sense
but yeah, I would be working mainly editing
because you can shoot on separate days.
Can't shoot multiple jobs on one day unless you hire other people or subcontract.
But I would go shoot two weddings, for example,
in one weekend and then I would have to edit it
throughout the rest of the month simultaneously
to make deadlines, yeah. Wow, while still doing other shoots.
While doing other shoots. Summer was very busy because I did weddings but then fall and spring would be more
just random jobs here and there, yeah. What's the craziest job you've ever done?
I did a pregnancy shoot. Oh, interesting.
It was the C-section. Oh, yeah.
Oh wow, okay, so I thought it was like taking pictures
of maybe the mother with the big bump or anything.
Oh no, pregnancy, like birth, birth. A birth, sorry, birth video, yeah.
Okay, that's very different. That was a weird one.
How do you even do that, don't you? You have so many hoops you have to jump through
at the hospital to even come into the room and you're basically locked down on a tripod.
But it was a sentimental moment for the parents
because they really tried for a child and really needed the cash.
Speaking of weird jobs, I mean, you work here. How has that been so far for you?
As good as it can be. There's been moments for the most part, things are good.
What's the weirdest job you've done here? You're gonna have to make me think.
That's what these are all about. I don't know, anytime I'm shooting Linus,
it gets a little weird. Like when I'm shooting and you know, on location,
hey Mark, you and Luke, get in the car. I'm gonna use the go-kart to get to where I'm going.
There was one time Linus was testing the parental controls on a phone
and he went to pu-hub, didn't work.
Sorry. Is that one of the Noctua chocolates? Yeah, those are delicious.
They're really good. I love Christmas here. Especially all the German brands,
they send us like the best chocolate, Noctua.
Noctua is not German. Or they're Austrian, sorry. Close.
Culturally German. Germanic, all right, I don't wanna offend anyone.
But my last name is Rathgeber, so I think I have a little bit of...
What's the hardest part about your job? Editing.
No, I mean, the hardest part of the job really is figuring out what the writer wants sometimes.
Everybody's a little different. I'd say that's the hardest part.
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, how much input do you have with the writers?
Do editors work directly with the writers often?
Yeah, I mean, we review with the writers and we regularly converse back and forth.
There's dialogue between us. It's a very collaborative process,
or at least it should be. And the longer you work here,
the more comfortable you become with that, really, that back and forth and saying,
hey, maybe we should do this shot differently.
Maybe this would be easier to do as B-roll
instead of animating. You also mentioned that you've done shooting
in the past as well. How does that kind of work with your role?
Are you primarily an editor and from time to time you'll go and shoot?
When do they call you to film a video? Used to be more regular.
We hired a lot more people. Pretty much everybody here is editor hybrid,
to a degree. So as shooters become less available,
maybe there's something going on, multiple videos being shot at once,
I can be called in to set up or do a shoot.
I'm relatively familiar with everything, so that does come up from time to time.
But mainly when people are sick. I've shot Mac Address. Yeah, I remember seeing you with Jonathan
cooking something up a bunch of times. Yeah, he shot me for Mac Address ones.
Digitizing Linus' family videos is kind of weird.
Yeah, how was that? How much footage did you end up going through?
There was a full tape. There was two tapes. One was just recordings of The Simpsons and Friends.
And then the other one was his childhood. And I got to see Linus speaking French
for a couple hours. For that video where you were digitizing VHSs,
how was that processed? Because you don't usually have a role
in the actual content of the videos, is that correct? Yes and no.
I shouldn't, but I often do.
Linus kind of had a vision of how he thought it should play out.
And then I was just explaining how the whole process works
to him. And yeah, it was scripted. And of course, I'm not on camera very often.
So when I helped out with that, having that kind of writer
review with Linus is great. Would you like to be on camera more often?
I wouldn't mind. Not too often, though.
It's a lot of pressure. I guess getting into your freelance work
and the stuff you did before, how did you get into that? And how did you learn how to operate cameras and edit videos?
Oh, yeah. So out of high school, I went to Capilano College.
Now it's a university. In their film program, graduated film school.
It was 2008. And there was the recession.
There was the 2007 writer strike. And there was absolutely no work in film.
So I made work for myself by becoming a freelancer
and connected with different people.
Eventually got into weddings as a niche. For anybody who's trying to explore freelancing or anything,
do you have any tips on how you got connected or how you found that niche?
Meet like-minded people. Meet like-minded people and also just have to meet people.
That's really it. Sending an email online probably isn't the best tactic.
But yeah, just reaching out to different people. Practice and create.
You're probably going to have to develop your own style.
And that takes time. How do you develop your style? Because feeling that's something that I'm even
trying to do myself? Definitely repetition.
That's just practicing any craft. You do it over and over and over again.
And you watch media. Media that is relevant to what you do,
as well as media that's completely irrelevant to what you do.
You went to film school. You've always been into film? Yeah. What?
Is your favorite era of film?
That changes, man. That constantly changes.
70s special effects were just on another level.
You had a whole bunch of filmmakers in the 70s who were just really proving themselves.
The era that Steven Spielberg, Lucas, and all these people
who grew up watching a lot of foreign films and bringing those styles into Hollywood.
So yeah, I guess that era. I also do a lot of 80s and 90s Japanese movies.
There's a lot. There's a lot to unpack. I don't know if you're going to put that in the video.
Do you have a favorite movie from that era? Yeah, OK.
That's what I was worried about. Come with a hard question.
Yeah, man, Ron was really good.
Kurosawa, you know? From the 70s, you had movies like Close Encounters,
even Star Wars, very popular fantasy sci-fi movies.
But just set the stage a bit. How about some of your other hobbies?
Every so often, I'll see a post in off-top vacay and bring a cup of coffee.
How do you brew the perfect cup of coffee in Mark's world?
Well, I prefer pour over. It's a very obvious answer.
But coffee's not the only thing that you're into. I know speaking to you over the years.
I know you're into a couple of other things. Food, restaurants, that's a big thing for you, right?
Oh, yeah. I mean, aren't we all into eating? Some people, like I'm speaking mostly over on the other side.
Yeah, I like food. I like cooking.
Part of it, I used to be a butcher. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.
I just cut four kilograms of chicken thighs last night.
Why four kilograms? You go Costco? Meal prep, yeah. You've been meal prepping recently?
Oh, yeah. I know you've lost a little bit of weight recently.
A little bit. I mean, then I got married and it came back.
Because who cares anymore? But you've been running and stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah, I do running pretty regular.
Used to be more. The winter has slowed me down a bit, just too busy.
But yeah, I like running. Hoping to do a marathon next year, maybe.
Oh, wow. Yeah, we'll see. Which marathon are you aiming for?
Maybe either the Sun Run or BMO. I mean, something local. I've never done a marathon before.
So this is all new to me. Right, like a marathon marathon. Because BMO is a marathon, Sun Run and One, I think is a tenkei.
Yeah, so that's the thing is I'm kind of nervous about doing
I might have to do a half marathon. Because it's a lot.
And the most I've been able to run consecutively
has been 8.3K. But that's an under an hour.
Yeah, that's really good. So yeah, I've been told. But then the thing is, is after that I
need to recover for like three days straight. I need to train my body more, I've realized.
It's fair. Yeah. So you do mostly kind of just like light runs and stuff
like that then? Yeah, treadmill. OK. I go to the gym, treadmill.
Yeah. You're a big history buff too, is that correct?
I guess a little bit, yeah. What got you into that? I think that was just when I was working freelance.
There was nothing else to watch. So I kind of got into it. And I've always kind of been curious about like certain points
in the history of mankind.
What is the most interesting era of mankind? 16th century, 17th century.
It was like basically firearms were coming to Europe,
smaller firearms. And in Europe, they're trying to figure out
how to incorporate firearms into these old formations,
like medieval formations that are no longer relevant.
Yeah. It's really cool. Even the clothing they wear.
You'd have plate armor and helmets. And then they're just holding a really giant, large musket.
And you'd have pikemen too. And it was just, it was wild.
Am I missing anything else? I don't know, I'm a pretty big Apple fanboy.
What do you think of the state of Apple right now? Oh man, it's all over the place.
I guess the book marked this all off. Do you have any last words for the Floatplane peeps?
Floatplane pilots? I forget what we call you guys. I think Sammy's been changing it every single video.
Oh really? Yeah. I just call them Floatplane subscribers.
We're going to call you float planeers. How about that? Float planeers, the passengers.
The Floatplane passengers? No, just passengers. We're on a Floatplane.
I like that. They're the passengers. We're the pilots. Are we in economy, first class, business?
I mean, big plane, you know. Any last words, sir?
You know, good luck. Good luck with what?
Everything. Keep doing what you're doing.
Stay healthy. Eat lots of legumes.
And you know, make sure you have all your micronutrients.
You can continue subscribing to Floatplane.
Subscribing to Floatplane. Exactly.
That's why you need one of the prerequisites
for subscribing to Floatplane. We're filming this around Christmas,
but you guys are probably going to see this late January. Have a great February.
We could be in February, too. Great rest of your February.
If this comes out in March, already.
We have a lot of float planes, all right? All right, thanks, guys.