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Episode 298: Manu Smith, Mystery Pinball Theater 3000

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·36m 41s·analyzed·Feb 28, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Manu Smith on building Mystery Pinball Theater 3000 and streaming pinball as passion project.

Summary

Pinball Profile interviews Manu Smith (Mystery Pinball Theater 3000), a Twitch streamer and videographer based in San Francisco who streams pinball gameplay with elaborate production elements. Smith discusses how he built his streaming setup inspired by Free Gold Watch and the pinball community there, his philosophy on streaming personality over technical specs, and how his video production background shapes his approach to pinball content creation.

Key Claims

  • Free Gold Watch was the reason Manu started streaming at all; Matt Henry and the San Francisco Pinball League inspired him to build a streaming rig

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'Freegal Watch was the whole reason why I stream at all' and description of collaboration with Matt Henry to build the rig

  • Manu built a virtual pinball cabinet called Mystery Pinball Theater 3000 approximately 11 years ago (around 2009-2010) as the foundation for his streaming setup

    high confidence · Manu explains: 'about 10, 11, 12 years ago, I built a virtual pinball cabinet' and 'the brand and the name actually came up before just around the time where my first son was born, like 11'

  • Personality is more important than technical equipment for successful streaming; upgrading cameras or lighting alone won't increase viewers

    high confidence · Manu: 'I am fully aware, and I tell this to everyone, that 99% of the stuff I do on my stream is absolutely ridiculous and not necessary' and 'It's the person they want to hang out with'

  • Most pinball streamers with serious equipment investments earn back far less than they spend; it is a passion-driven hobby, not a financially viable endeavor

    high confidence · Manu: 'You invest a lot of money when you're a streamer, and it's not like the little bits and follows and subscribes. No, they don't even come close to paying for the amount of money you put into it'

  • Free Gold Watch has 50+ pinball machines and is a major competitive hub with top players including André Massé-Koch, Brian O'Neill, Zach Wollens, Eric and Louise Wagonsoner

    high confidence · Manu describes the venue and lists competitive players who play there regularly

  • Manu streams only three days per week (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday) from a mix of home and Free Gold Watch

    high confidence · Manu: 'I'm only doing three days a week jeff i'm only doing three days a week okay tuesday thursday friday two of those days are from my house and one day is a free gold watch'

  • Manu's YouTube channel 'Pull My Focus' focuses on digital filmmaking education and has about 150 videos; it serves as both a marketing tool for his post-production company (Pixel Valley Studio) and content that helps pinball streamers

Notable Quotes

  • “Freegal Watch was the whole reason why I stream at all.”

    Manu Smith @ early in interview — Establishes the origin story and primary inspiration for Mystery Pinball Theater 3000; highlights the importance of community venues in enabling content creation

  • “I am fully aware, and I tell this to everyone, that 99% of the stuff I do on my stream is absolutely ridiculous and not necessary...It's a manifestation of my personality.”

    Manu Smith @ mid-interview — Core philosophy on streaming success: personality and authenticity matter more than gimmicks or production value alone

  • “It's the person they want to hang out with. It is the reason I watch different streamers, listen to different podcasters. The content, it's all the same, right?”

    Manu Smith @ mid-interview — Explains why audience retention is driven by personality rather than content alone; applicable to all media

  • “I don't show up to Jack to see pinball. I show up to see what is he going to say next.”

    Manu Smith (discussing Jack Danger/Deadflip) @ later in interview — Illustrates how personality drives viewership even in niche content like pinball streaming

  • “You invest a lot of money when you're a streamer, and it's not like the little bits and follows and subscribes. No, they don't even come close to paying for the amount of money you put into it.”

    Manu Smith @ later in interview — Realistic assessment of streaming economics; important context for aspiring streamers

  • “I hate everything jeff i hate everything up to the point where i hit stream i am not kidding you”

    Manu Smith @ later in interview — Humorous but honest admission about the grind of content creation and streaming setup; contrasts the pain of production with the enjoyment of going live

  • “It's when we're done. It's doing the editing. It's like, oh, my God.”

    Manu Smith @ later in interview — Post-production work is often harder and more time-consuming than the live broadcast itself

Entities

Manu SmithpersonFree Gold WatchorganizationMatt HenrypersonJeff TeolispersonMicah SmithpersonPaul MarinopersonCourtney SchafferpersonGeorge (Don't Panic Flip)person

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: YouTube 'Pull My Focus' channel serves dual purpose: marketing for Pixel Valley Studio post-production business AND educational content for pinball streaming community; business pivoting toward streaming/remote video production services

    high · Manu: 'For me and my business partner, the YouTube channel really served as a marketing tool for our company...we're going to pivot a little bit in my company where we're going to talk more about streaming'

  • ?

    community_signal: Manu emphasizes chat engagement as equally important as gameplay; learned this from observing Deadflip (Jack Danger) who religiously acknowledges and reads chat, creating community feeling

    high · Manu: 'And if you're listening to this podcast and you are a streamer, it is important...George does it. You do it. Rebecca and Jordan do it on Fliptronic...these things are just as important to me as the actual gameplay'

  • ?

    event_signal: Jeff Teolis's Pinball Profile World Tour (September 2019) was a significant community event that brought together players at Free Gold Watch and helped establish connections

    high · Jeff describes the inaugural Pinball Profile World Tour event at Free Gold Watch on a Monday night; mentions 20+ players including Jessica Jordan Thompson

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong appreciation and respect for Free Gold Watch and Matt Henry within the San Francisco pinball community; venue is positioned as a major hub and inspiration for streaming infrastructure

    high · Manu repeatedly emphasizes: 'Matt Henry, who runs Freegal Watch, he's the coolest freaking guy on the planet' and credits him as primary reason for starting streaming

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.110

0:00
it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teal so you can find everything on pinballprofile.com all your subscriptions past episodes and more you can find us on facebook and we're also on instagram and twitter at pinball profile we're going out to san francisco the first time i met this man it was september 2019 it was at free gold watch so there was so many great things to see, but so many good people too. Manu Smith was one of those. How you doing? Hey, Jeff. How's it going? Good to talk to you, man. I have been watching you a lot lately, which sounds kind of creepish, but no, no, no. We're talking about Twitch and Mystery Pinball Theater 3000, which we're going to get into. But first of all, to see you at Free Gold Watch, it was the inaugural Pinball Profile World Tour event on a Monday night, and there were a bunch of us playing there, and you were there, and I got to meet a lot of wonderful people that I guess you would know very, very well because that place is just such a staple in the community. Yeah, that's my, fortunately, that's for me, that's my home away from home. My whole family moved to this. We've been in San Francisco for since 2003. We've been all different places. We've been Soma. We've been in the marina, but we moved about five minute walk away from Free Gold Watch. We've bought a house over here and I was so happy. because pinball has always been a part of my life. But seeing, like, I knew who you were, okay? I knew who you were at Free Go Watch, and I was just, like, talking to Matt Henry, and he's like, hey, Jeff Chels is coming to do a tournament. I was like, oh, okay, cool, cool. I'll just stay out of his way. I'll stay out of his way. And you were super nice. You were like, hey, you, dude, what's going on? And you introduced me to my pinball crush in Modo. Oh, wait, don't tell her that. Oh, jeez. I'll try to remember to cut that out, but Modo is wonderful. and uh yeah it was it was it was great i just uh yeah it was it was fun i don't remember the date so you're much better than me it was september it was a monday night which was kind of weird so when i put together the whole pinball profile world tour thing it was 10 different places i wanted and it just so happened to be in four different countries canada the u.s was the easy part i was going to denmark because of the european pinball championships and for my 50th birthday, I was going to Australia. So that was the four countries. But I had to kind of figure out, okay, there were a bunch of places that I could drive to. I think there were two or three. East Rochester, I could drive to. Of course, Toronto, Michigan, those are the three I could drive to. There were other ones like Chicago. I was going there anyway, or other different things. So San Fran, how that one worked was, I was actually there for my wife's big birthday. And we had a kind of a two-week trip. We started off in LA, then went to San Fran, and then went to Hawaii for a week. So I said, out of this trip, which is really her birthday trip, can I just do one day of pinball? And, of course, she would have said yes if I said several. But it was free gold watch I had circled, and I thought, I've got to make it happen. Even though it's a Monday night, it's not a work night for me. I'm on holidays. That was special to go there and see why something like City Champ is so huge there and sells out instantly. Yeah, and I don't want to ruin any of your future questions, but I'm just going to tell you Freegal Watch was the whole reason why I stream at all. Really? Yeah. Matt Henry, who once again, I said, who runs Freegal Watch, he's the coolest freaking guy on the planet. Absolutely. If he hears this, I'm happy to say it to everyone. He and the San Francisco Pinball League had some gear to stream, some gear. Derek Lipkin, who was also one of the part of the San Francisco Pinball League, he started it a little bit. They did a little streaming. But for me, I was watching Deadflip and I was watching a bunch of people on Twitch. And I go to Matt and I say, why don't we stream out of here more? He goes, well, there's no one really to run the equipment. And I says, let's do it. I says, let's build a rig. So Matt and I came up with an altered version of Carl D'Angelo's rig, which is much cheaper. And fast forward to today, we're streaming out of there. So that was the reason why we were able to stream, I think, that night for that tournament. It is pretty incredible, all the people in 2020, and of course you started back in 2019, but really over the last year and certainly during the pandemic, how many people have picked up streaming and the different variety of streams that are out there. And yours, Mystery Pinball Theater 3000, is unique like no other. Yeah, you have to be though, right? You're not coming to me to watch classic awesome pinball. You're not. I'm watching your son. Kick my butt. Micah. He is great. He's downstairs right now playing on the Wonka, practicing. But for me, it was, first of all, it was first and foremost, how do we get Free Go Watch on the map as a location that is awesome, streams pinball? I just wanted that. I wanted, and you know, there's 50 something pinball machines there. How do we do it so that I can move the rig from machine to machine and stream anything we wanted to? So I did the research. We bought the HDMI transmitters. If you go to Freegal Watch, you won't even see them. They're like hidden up on the wall. So we built this whole system. But for me to build it, I needed a footprint of what a pinball machine, you know, I needed a cabinet to build it. Because I didn't want to build it at Freegal Watch. I wanted to build it at home. And well, lo and behold, 10, 11, 12 years ago, I built a virtual pinball cabinet. Really? Yeah. And it's in my office right now. It's right behind me. And it's called the Mystery Pinball Theater 3000. Isn't that funny? So the brand and the name actually came up before just around the time where my first son was born, like 11. So it's 11 years ago. And I bought this clothes rack and I says, OK, I'm going to figure this out. And one person who's really super important to my development as a streamer is is a don't panic flip. because I discovered Don't Panic Flip and I looked at his stream and I went, how does it look so good? How does it sound so good? And he's really good on camera. I started stalking him, so I guess sort of the way that you were stalking me on my channel. I started stalking him and I became a regular and eventually he came over to my channel and he looked and I fooled him for a minute because I was streaming the shadow, but it was a virtual version of the shadow. And he looked, he goes, wait, is that? And then he saw how the ball moved. He goes, wait, what is this? So my goal was to just figure out how to stream pinball. It wasn't to stream virtual pinball. It was to figure out the footprint, right? What I built, the cabinet I built was a super pin. And also real pinheads know what a super pin is. A Williams super pin is this form factor of a Star Trek Next Generation or a Hobbit, right? Those are super pins. Those are considered super pins. But long story short, I was able to get the cameras. I was able to talk to George a little bit and figure out. I asked him questions. So how did he do it? What was he shooting with? What cameras? And I built it in my house over my V pin. And I said, OK, I need to try it. So I threw up, you know, I'm on Twitch. I go, what name do I use? So I used to go by MVP. I was like, MVP is boring.

high confidence · Manu describes the channel and its dual purpose for his business and community

  • A video about 'How to use OBS over Zoom' got 21,000 views while a video about video lighting got only 282 views, suggesting demand shifted during 2020 pandemic

    high confidence · Manu provides specific view counts: 'Tips and tricks, how to light things. It got 282 views, right? The next video I did was how to use OBS over Zoom and it's at 21,000 views'

  • “Look, don't think we're telling you not to do this, but be clear on why you're doing it.”

    Manu Smith (describing his YouTube series with George/Deadflip) @ later in interview — Core advice for aspiring pinball streamers: motivation must be passion, not profit

    • Deadflip
    person
    Carl D'Angeloperson
    Pixel Valley Studioorganization
    Greg Creechperson
    Mystery Pinball Theater 3000product
    Pull My Focusproduct
    Willy Wonkagame
    Victoria Shenperson
    Wolfmanperson
    San Francisco Pinball Leagueorganization
    Derek Lipkinperson
    André Massé-Kochperson

    market_signal: 2020 pandemic shifted video production demand: tutorial on 'OBS over Zoom' received 21,000 views vs. 282 for video lighting tips, indicating market pivot toward remote streaming/videoconferencing solutions

    high · Manu: 'Tips and tricks, how to light things. It got 282 views...The next video I did was how to use OBS over Zoom and it's at 21,000 views'

  • ?

    community_signal: Paul Marino (Emmy-winning graphics artist) created all branding for Mystery Pinball Theater 3000, suggesting professional-grade design approach; streamers have access to high-level creative talent in their networks

    high · Manu: 'Paul Marino, who's one of my best friends in the world, he designed the logo...Emmy Award winning...Computer graphic artist'

  • ?

    community_signal: Manu's streaming setup required learning from multiple mentors: Don't Panic Flip (George) for engagement style, Carl D'Angelo for rig design, video production partner for technical cinematography

    high · Manu: 'I started stalking him [Don't Panic Flip]...I asked him questions. So how did he do it? What was he shooting with? What cameras?'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stream redemption features (glass shattering, laser effects, Pong, voice commands) are becoming standard for pinball Twitch streamers; Manu's innovations are being replicated across platforms

    high · Manu describes inspiring Game Time Television's banana drop, Fliptronic's wacky inflatable tube person, and notes: 'So my stream is kind of a library of ideas that I hope spark other people to do stuff'

    • 7:10
    Manu Pinball something. And I just looked over at my cab and I went, well, hell, this is a good brand. Mystery Pinball Theater 3000. Let's just go with MPT3K. And that was it. And what was nice is not only did the name come across, but the logo, all the branding that a buddy of mine, Paul Marino, who's one of my best friends in the world, he designed the logo. He designed everything. All the graphics you see on Mystery Pinball Theater 3000 was designed by an Emmy Award winning because he has an Emmy in his house. Wow. Yeah. Computer graphic artist named Paul Marino. And he did all of it. So it was almost handed to me, Jeff. Everything was just handed to me like on a silver platter. The thing that wasn't handed to me was the tech and the production. That's the part that makes Mystery Pinball Theater 3000 so awesome to watch. And by the way, Paul might have an Emmy, but has he ever hosted the red carpet of the reach-arounds? No, he hasn't. And I made that very clear to him a few days ago. Exactly. Great job, by the way, you and Rebecca. That was so much fun. the production is something that makes mystery pinball theater 3000 so unique because i'm watching this and we've all seen different streams and i think i subscribe or follow i would guess 30 maybe 40 across the world yeah on twitch and we all do right because we want to see what pinball is going on especially during the pandemic and there are a lot of good ones but why mystery pinball theater 3000 stands out is because all of a sudden i'm hearing this kind of a murder voice or people are playing pong or Galaga or the Polaroid pitcher dance. What's going on? And it's all the production. That is what makes it so special. So part of it is discovering who you are, I'm going to say. I am fully aware, and I tell this to everyone, that 99% of the stuff I do on my stream is absolutely ridiculous and not necessary. I think that. I mean, I think it's fun, but I don't think at the end of the day does it separate me from anybody else except for it a manifestation of my personality Right And I saying this because I don want to discourage other Twitch pinball streamers I don't want people to come to my channel and say, oh, my God, he just broke the glass on his pinball machine, but it came back together and it's fine. And I can't do that kind of stuff. How am I going to compete with this guy? I don't want that because it's not about that. It's about who you are on camera. Right. It's about who you are on stream. A lot of Twitch. I would get off my soapbox for a second. But a lot of Twitch streamers tend to think that if they get a new camera, then their stream will get more viewers. Or if I get new lighting, my stream will get more viewers. Not really. That technical stuff goes away. It's the person they want to hang out with. It is the reason I watch different streamers, listen to different podcasters. The content, it's all the same, right? Yep. I think Roger Sharp on the reach rounds was talking about, you know, people kind of spew their own different angle of the same kind of thing. But what makes media content unique is the different takes on it. And yeah, I can watch anybody play a Willy Wonka game or any other pinball machine, but it's what they do with it. And that's why I enjoy what you do, because you can see, by the way, I'm not a streamer. But one thing I appreciate from streamers is the attention to the chat line. And I think that is just as equally important as the actual gameplay itself, because it is part of that community. and you certainly acknowledge the chat. You'll cradle up even to make sure you didn't miss anything. It makes the people like me on the other end feel a part of it when we're chatting to you and we get that response back or even amongst other people in the chat line. So I would have done that already, right? Because the medium is live TV almost. It's not YouTube. I do have a YouTube channel and it's pretty successful, but it's a different animal. Twitch is live interaction with people, period. I would have gotten there at some point where I was acknowledging the chat more often. But if I hadn't watched George over at Don't Panic Flip, I wouldn't have gotten there as fast because that was one thing that separated George from a lot of Twitch streamers is the fact that he will not let chat go by without acknowledging it in some way. And he'll actually stop and scroll backwards in the chat and catch up because I need to catch up with chat. And you feel so freaking welcome because like Jimmy George and our friends now. Right. Like I can call him on Discord and just chat with him. But when I'm in his chat still, I'm still that dude that's like, oh, my God, he's going to read my chat. Right. I'm still that guy, which is crazy because I could talk to him anytime I want. But if he says the stupid thing that I typed in chat. So I learned that from him, and I just kind of spun off of it because it does matter. It matters. It does, and I'm seeing more people do that. And if you're listening to this podcast and you are a streamer, it is important. It's obviously difficult the more people that are online at one time because the chat can go and go and go. But George does it. You do it. Rebecca and Jordan do it on Fliptronic. You and I both love Laser Loss. He's actually going to be coming up on Pinball Profile very, very soon. Nice. Carlos.
    12:18
    He is very good at that, too. And these things are just as important to me as the actual gameplay. So thanks for doing that. But I mentioned some of those kind of quirky things that you do. Yeah. Pinbot, the voice commands.
    12:32
    I actually have a voice actress that does that. A good friend of mine who's an actor, Courtney Schaffer, she was totally game. She lives in L.A. and I was like, hey, I need a voice for The Bride of Pinbot. And those are all voice commands. So getting back to it, the thing that I just, I couldn't help it, Jeff. I was streaming pinball and it was cool, but I was bringing in people who were ringers, right? On Free Gold Watch, I can get, I can, you can't throw a dead cat without getting a person who could blow the machine completely up, right? Getting your initials on a machine, this is before the pandemic, getting your initials on a machine at Free Gold Watch was freaking huge. Yep. Okay, because the lowest initials, like on Black Knight, Black Knight Sword of Rage, I put up 210, which was great to me. Sure. The lowest score, score four, was 560 million. The lowest score. You've got, obviously, Andre Masson-Koch. You've got Brian O'Neill used to play there all the time. Zach Wollens. Yep. Eric and Louise. Per Morgison. Yeah, Louise Wagonsoner and Eric Wagonsoner. Leslie and Ryan. I mean, those two are great players. that's one thing I remember the most about that Pinball Profile World Tour event there was I think we had 20 some odd people and every match I had was like a real grind it was a struggle I remember playing and she was a somewhat new player at the time Jessica Jordan Thompson and I think I won a game she won a game and she was just so excited to be there and oh it was so much fun but you're right I mean I looked at some of those high scores forget about it so streaming from there was always good because I could just look to the left and go hey, you come blow this up, which for me was the good point, you know, was was an attractive point to watching my stream. But then when the pandemic hit, it got quiet at Free Go Watch and I still stream from Free Go Watch. But it's it's going to be me or maybe maybe be a Victoria Shen, who's also a Twitch streamer and Matt Henry, maybe. So I had to look somewhere else to I had to say, well, what else could I do to make at least to keep myself interested? I wasn't like, what can I do to make people love me? It was, what can I do to make myself interested in my own stream? Because I don't, I've got bored of watching my own stream, right? And so some brilliant person created a thing called Leon Board. And then there's stream elements. And then there's all these other kind of technologies that I just dove into head first. And one of my Twitch viewers, his name is Wolfman. If you're a part of Twitch community, you know Wolfman. He always says, he always says, he would always come in the thing and I would get mad. He'd say, smash the glass. Smash, just smash the glass. And I'd be like, wow, you're pretty aggressive. Smash the glass. And then I made up a thing where you could actually redeem the glass shattering. And it looks cool. And then you can even clean off the glass, too. And you can clean the glass, too, right? You have the yin and the yang, okay? You can be nice to the glass, or you can just destroy it. And that was the first redemption thing I made, and then it just snowballed from there. And now it's... There's some people that come on there, and they just go through the whole... They spam. I'm not sure I haven't even seen them all, but it's great to see all the different things. You can laser the logo. You can play Pong. And it's just so good. The different voices, too. The chipmunk voice.
    15:45
    So my stream is kind of a library of ideas that I hope spark other people to do stuff. Because since then, like, if you watch Game Time Television, you'll see you can banana, like, either El Rocco or Game Time Television. You can drop bananas on them. Yes. And that's part of the thing that I didn't show them directly. But, you know, Ryan is a smart guy and I told him which technologies to use and he's there now. And so I want to use my channel as kind of an example of, hey, here's something. If you go to Fliptronic's channel, you'll see they have the wacky inflatable tube person. Yep. They do that with stuff that I didn't directly show Jordan. But he I said, here are the tools. Try it out. They're kind of big in the video game world, aren't they? So that's the thing, right? So pinballers are impressed. people who watch pinball streams are like hey how did i just change the layout of your screen because i have a redemption where you can actually swap the play field or you can move me to the bottom and move the dmd to the top i saw that yeah so video game people that's par for the course for them i mean they they're very most of them most of the really fancy like sushi dragon and stuff like that most of the really fancy twitch streamers that's nothing we're catching up in pinball we're working on it. Yeah, it's interesting, Jeff, because I think it still all goes back to personality. You could watch 100 retro streamers and then you can you can watch Mr. Scoot, who is hilarious. And I mean, I always watch Mr. Scoot if I want to watch retro because I mean, you probably don't know him, but he is he's he was a professional comedian at one time. And now he's a Twitch streamer. And I always go just I want to hang out with him. You know, you feel like, hey, I get to hang out with this person. I go to Fliptronic to hang out with Jordan and Becca. And it's, oh, and you're actually playing X-Files? Okay, cool. I'll watch you play X-Files too. We notice a lot. I think you've mentioned that your favorite game is Willy Wonka, which by the way, watching you play on your Twitch channel makes me really, really want that game. I've never really had a lot of time on it. Well, fortunately for me, and this is weird, people always ask me, are you ever going to buy a game? I don't know if I will, Jeff. I don't know if I will. I have access to, well, my operator right now is Greg Creech, who is one of the greatest guys in the world. Greg Creech, Greg Creech, Greg Creech. I won't say him enough. Greg Creech, Greg Creech. So if you're in the Bay Area, you want to rent a machine, Greg Creech, Greg Creech, Greg Creech. Anyway he has a lot of games He rented a lot of games to me I had Star Trek I had Ghostbusters I had Batman Batman is one of my favorites though So let not say I think Batman is terrific Batman 66 For sure. But for some crazy reason, Wonka just speaks to me. Now, number one, I like the license. I watched the movie like a hundred times. Gene Wilder is brilliant in this movie. The Wonkatania mania. The whole like, there's no way of knowing. And you're like, what the hell part? What is this, a kid's movie? and he's like it's definitely scary oh yeah that tunnel scene forget about it it's funny some of the greatest kids movies ever were scared the hell out of me as a kid including wizard of oz the flying monkeys the wizard of oz forget it yeah i had to watch exorcist just to you know okay calm down all right cleanse your palate just pea soup okay head spinning around i'm good i'm good oh my god but since i brought wanka into the thing and i i don't know it's just i don't know it it it's it's a brutal game it could be really mean it's super hard to get to a wizard mode i saw your son do it you were he was playing and this is micah and he's 11 and i think i can't remember if it was gobstopper multi-ball but you said you need to get six jackpots and you were counting them at one two three four five six and he did it and then shoot the hole and he did it and i was just like wow that right there was what made me go i really need to get on that game okay Jeff, is this an interview for me or do you want me to bring Micah in? Because the little brat's going to beat me eventually. Let's not talk about that right now. You know, it would be nice if he could, but I know you told him to get away because this is daddy's time. That's fine. Daddy's unborrowed time. Micah is the one who's going to be. Yeah, he's a great player. He's going to be good. But you did mention that you have a YouTube channel. And here you are doing Twitch, which is a lot of fun on Mystery Pinball Theater 3000. But this is more of a hobby and kind of fun things compared to maybe your YouTube, which is certainly a lot more serious and has a lot more followers. Yeah. So it's part of my company, really. My company is called Pixel Valley Studio, and I'm a post-production videographer and stuff like that. I'm an editor, so we use the Adobe suite of stuff. My partner, who is also one of my best friends forever, he went to film school. He's a shooter. He's a videographer. He shot videos with Mariah Carey and Madonna and Wu-Tang and a lot of stuff that I can't even. We're both from New York, so he's a big part of the film community. We decided to do a YouTube channel where we teach how to. Welcome to Pull My Focus, adventures in the world of digital filmmaking, where we bring you the inside tips on making great digital video. Like, that's our thing. We've got about 150 videos up there, and a lot of them apply to Twitch streamers because a lot of it has to do with lighting and cameras and f-stops and apertures and ISO and things that pinball streamers don't realize they are more a part of than video game streamers. Video game streamers, they can get one light on them, they have the little picture on the bottom corner, and then they're capturing their screen, and that's about it. That's it. Pinball streamers, we are doing a three-camera shoot. We are doing talent camera, playfield camera, DMD camera, sometimes DMD capture, Okay, you can get rid of one of those cameras. You have to light the table. You have to have the sound proper. You have to do more things in the real live streaming world than a video game person would. So pull my focus. I try not to be that guy that's like, hey, go look at my YouTube channel. But sometimes when I see a Twitch stream and they really want help, I go, then you need to go look at some of our videos. Because that's the only reason I know how to do what I do so well is because I practiced for the last six years at shooting video. Okay. I have to ask you though, because again, I'm not a streamer and I know I do this podcast. I do final round with Martin Robbins. I have fun. We do it because we like it. I do pinball profile because I like talking to different people, but also maybe giving the audience a chance to meet people for the first time. Right. So I know why I do what I do with streamers, especially pinball streamers. It has to be the passion of enjoying the hobby, but it's not like it's the most, just like podcasting, beneficial financially. I mean, you put more into it than you get back if you're looking for that kind of things. I don't think you are. I know I'm not. You invest a lot of money when you're a streamer, and it's not like the little bits and follows and subscribes. No, they don't even come close to paying for the amount of money you put into it. For me and my business partner, the YouTube channel really served as a marketing tool for our company. And it did give us some gigs. Okay. And it gets us some, right? So it does kind of monetarily work. It works a lot better. Has 2020 in that sense been great for you? Because there has to be a lot of, well, we've seen the Zoom calls and other things. I mean, not so much Discord, but just Google Meet, all these type of things that we need to do. And maybe just that straight Zoom call is a little boring after a while. Maybe you've got to do some big presentations. My wife, her company, she just had a huge global forum in which there were people all over the world tuning into this Zoom channel, if you will, but they had guest speakers and stuff. Keith Urban's playing guitar and saying hi to 5,000 people watching or whatever, and it was kind of weird. But you need a little bit of video production with something like that after a while, I would assume. Yeah. Well, 2020 kind of sucked no matter what. Yeah, it did.
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    Right? And in our industry, it's a lot of feast or famine. The end of the year is always good for us because we sell more to B2B. We do less client work for individuals. We do more work for businesses, which have a little bit more money. But our stuff never gets seen, but we're doing B2B stuff. But getting to the question of should it be even better? Yeah, there is. Actually, we're going to pivot a little bit in my company where we're going to talk more about streaming and that kind of stuff. We did a video one week about video lighting, right? Tips and tricks, how to light things. It got 282 views, right? The next video I did was how to use OBS over Zoom and it's at 21,000 views. So I think that shows you clearly like where everyone's looking. So you're right. Yeah, you're right. It's going to be a little different. But stepping back to why do we do it, right? So there's a justification money-wise and marketing-wise why we do Pull My Focus on YouTube. Why do Twitch if you're sitting there? And I typically will have 25 to 30 people in my chat, right? Why do I do it? And for me, it definitely is. It's a question you're always going to have to ask yourself if you want to be a Twitch streamer. Why am I doing this? Do not look at other people and go, well, look at them. You could easily go to Deadflip and go, well, he's got 150, 200 people in the chat. How does he do it? Well, first of all, he's been doing it for seven years. Second of all, he's got a personality. I don't want to be the mean guy in the room to say you need a personality, but he's got a personality. You could either love him or hate him, but I don't show up to Jack to see pinball. I show up to see what is he going to say next. So there's all that. But if you start Twitch streaming, don't expect to make any money. Expect to put out a lot of effort and time and blood, sweat, and tears. your basis of all that has to be because your heart's in it and you love it so why do i do it why does mana do it because i hate everything jeff i hate everything up to the point where i hit stream i am not kidding you i am like oh here we go especially when i'm carrying my laptop my desktop computer my mini at over the free gold watch i'm walking it over there yep the setup It takes me to set up. I got a bag on my back full of gear and I got a freaking mini ATX box. And I walk over there and Matt sees me. He goes, hey, what's up? What are you streaming today? And I go, I don't know. I get it. And you know what? It's funny whether it's streaming for you and that kind of setup for me talking to you right now. This is a piece of cake. It's when we're done. It's doing the editing. It's like, oh, my God. I did an interview with Nate Shivers recently. That interview was recorded late November. It took me almost two months to edit it because I had other things to do, Christmas holidays, all that kind of stuff. And I knew, especially with Pinball Profile, they're not really time sensitive. So when I get to it, I get to it. They're kind of evergreen. That's nice. Sure. Yeah, yeah. It's so funny. We do this because we love it. But if you want the follows, if you want the subs, if you want the viewers, we're doing the wrong thing. We need to be on Twitch and we need to be pretending to be a live DJ or doing ASMR or all kinds, you know, posing for the camera, writing names of people subscribing on your arms and crap like that. Yeah. What's interesting you say that is that George and I, Don't Panic Flip and I, we do a series. We haven't done one in a long time called Second String Silver Ball. And it's on my YouTube channel which is Mystery Pinball Theater 3000 And we did a whole like hour long session about if you streaming pinball on twitch to make money you need to stream something else You need to go away and not do that Just play some video games Yes exactly We show and George backs it up with data actual data that pulled from actual data sites and saying, and the bottom line was, look, don't think we're telling you not to do this, but be clear on why you're doing it. And we're at what point, if you're coming into this because of any other reason but you're having fun and you and you enjoy this then it may be time to try something else you know so for me you know i'm i'm dreading i'm not dreading let's not say that i don't want to make it sound so fatalistic but it's kind of a grind i'm doing i'm only doing three days a week jeff i'm only doing three days a week okay tuesday thursday friday two of those days are from my house and one day is a free gold watch well the friday one you have to explain what goes on there because I just, I didn't know there was a difference between the days, between the Tuesday, the Thursday and the Friday. I just happened to come on Friday and you said, okay, get your ticket. Of course, I quickly got my ticket and then asked, what did I get a ticket for? What did I get a ticket for? So this is, and I'll keep it short as possible, but this is Fridays on Mystery Pinball Theater 3000 at 9 Pacific. Sometimes I'll start at 8 if Michael wants to play pinball with me. But in 9 Pacific, we go into what's called the Riff Theater, the Mystery Pinball Riff Theater. Now, this is, I'll explain what it is and I'll explain how it came about. It's basically, it's competitive movie riffing. If you've ever seen Mystery Science Theater 3000, you know that Joel or Mike and the robots sit there and they riff to movies, meaning they make fun of the movie as they watch it. I think Elvira used to do a little bit on the tail ends of the movies. And Master Pancake Theater also does it on Twitch. And Riff Tracks also does it. So I hope I gave you enough ideas about what it is. I thought it would be fun to make it a competition, like pinball. So when you get a ticket, quote unquote, you're typing a command to grab one of the five tickets that are available. Once you get a ticket, that means you're in a seat in the theater. Whatever you type in chat while we're watching the movie, a little talk balloon pops up on the screen so everyone can see right over the screen what you said what fun you just made of the movie and it was and then everyone who's watching can vote on whether they thought what you said was worth getting a random amount of points for and so what's fun is you watch it and it's make Jeff it's so much fun for me on Friday nights because I get to watch terrible movies that were pretty much suggested by Jordan and Becca from Fliptronic because they are insane bad movie knowledgeable people. They give you the movies. I put them in the theater and I watch these movies. Hold on a second here. Now it's starting to come together because when I was in this on Friday, I came in second place and I lost to, rightfully so, Rebecca from Fliptronic. She was hilarious and now I'm hearing she picked the movie so she already had her bits ready to go i'm seeing it and having to fly off the cuff here okay what are some funny things she's got it already oh but wait a minute so you see how good you are though right but i'm second place and as we know to someone who already seen the movie though rebecca now jeff i make it fair the first movie is usually a public service announcement that i just pulled from the internet so it'll be how to date or you know what to do in a nuclear crisis. You know, it'll want to be though. So those are more fair. Okay. There is no collusion though. Don't worry about it. Like, I'm just kidding. It was fun. And I recommend that on the Friday nights and of course the Tuesday and Thursday nights. Now we've talked about you coming from New York to San Francisco, but when you were in New York, I happen to know that you were a big part of a dance scene, if you will. And I want to bring this up because you and I have a little bit of a connection, and it's extremely small. But when I moved to Burlington, Ontario with my wife, we both didn't know anybody in this city. So we're in this house that we love, but we don't really know anybody in the community. We thought, as married couples do, what can we do that would be fun and something new? Well, we joined a thing called basically not a dance troupe, but dance lessons. It wasn't ballroom, but it was like Latin. It was salsa. and we had a lot of fun. It is a great date night, by the way. If you're with a significant other and you want to try something fun, that was a real hoot because we really enjoyed that. And you get to try it out maybe at a wedding or something like that. And you get to be the coolest person in the room. It was just kind of fun. And when you love your partner, as I do with my wife, it was just a real hoot. And one thing, I guess after the lessons, the eight lessons or so, you do your little showcase or whatever you want to call it. They showed us a few things and said, now, do you want to try this? It's called the Lindy Hop. And I was really obsessed. I was like, that's amazing. I can't do it. I love watching it. And then I find out Manu Smith is an expert when it comes to the Lindy Hop. And not only that, but the legend, the late Frankie Manning, who is really the father of the Lindy Hop, you had a great connection with him. Yeah. Yeah, Frankie and I were, Frankie knew me.
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    I don't want to say Frankie and I were friends, but Frankie knew me. I used to be in his private, he had a private class in New York where he only picked like his friends and stuff. So I was lucky enough. And he used to drive me home.
    33:17
    He lived in Queens. We both lived in Queens and he drove me home. But Frankie is, Frankie Madden is a legend. That's a whole different kind of story. But he is a guy who invented the air step, basically. He used to dance in the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. And he and his partner wanted to win a contest. And he said, what if I just throw you over my back? And she said, you ain't throwing me anyway. No, no, no, no. It's going to be cool. I'm going to throw you over my back. We're going to do it in beat and music. And they did it, you know, and thus Airsteps or Aerials, as they call them, were invented. But Frankie was, yeah, getting like a little choked up just thinking about him. But he was definitely amazing. So for me, Lindy Hop, yeah, in New York, because I'm from New York. So I started dancing Lindy Hop in about 1997 at the rise of the swing era. There was a huge swing era hit. I know what happened over here on the West Coast, and it also happened on the East Coast. And I was part of that. So I started dancing, and then I started teaching in the ballroom that I learned because they were like, wow, you're good. Can you teach some classes? And I said, yeah. And then eventually I got picked up. My first tour was in Singapore. I went to Singapore, then Perth in Australia, and then Japan, and then back home. That was my first Lindy Hop tour. But you also did Sweden as well and other places. Yeah, so I've been to more places than I can remember because it was a lot of gigging. Between 2000 and 2006, I was gigging a lot. So I was basically getting on an airplane and flying who knows where. I was in Sweden nine times. I taught at the Swedish dance camp nine times. I was lucky enough to go to Australia a ton of times, so I know how to properly say Canberra and Melbourne and Perth and Brisbane. And I don't say it. I show off that I've been schooled in how to say those words. And Germany and, God, I can't remember, Jeff, so many places. But, again, the Lindy Hop. Go on YouTube and do yourself a treat. Don't look me up. No, don't look me up. Hold on. All right, you can see Manu, but you can see Frankie Manning. I would suggest going to see this legend. He was almost 95 when he passed away, but was still so active. And tributes around the world for this legend. And here I am in Burlington, Ontario, and this small little dance-scape theater company wanted to teach us the Lindy Hop. And I was fascinated and wanted to know a little bit more about this. And here we are talking on Pinball Profile. Again, that common bond of pinball, but other things, too, that we learn about each other, too. And I hope people have learned a lot about you. And Mystery Pinball Theater 3000. Please check out Manu. And thanks very much for coming on the program today. Yeah, I really appreciate the talk, Jeff. Thank you. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile. Join our Facebook group as well. I'm Jeff Teels.