Episode Highlights

• Michael’s journey to becoming a tech guru
• How to enable creativity through technical knowledge
• The frustration of losing enthusiasm for your work
• Michael’s history with ADD and Depression
• Dealing with the pros and cons of medication
• Using activity as a healthy outlet for frustration
• Feeling satisfied with your work by giving 100%
• How Michael reset his life over the course of two weeks and changed his health and outlook for the better
• The importance of sharing our stories to give the tools of health and wellness to allow creativity to flourish
• Being effective rather than just being efficient
• Cherishing your ability to do the work that you love

Useful Links

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• FiP Amazon Link
• Michael Kammes
• 5 Things Series

About Guest

Michael Kammes is the Director of Technology at Key Code Media, and host of the tech series “5 THINGS“. He works on the technical and consulting side of post production, and has been a keynote speaker at conventions, technology retreats, symposiums, and colleges.

His post audio experience encompasses serving as a film and television Dialogue Editor, SFX Editor, ADR Recordist & Editor, Re-Recording Mixer and Supervising Sound Editor.

Plus, he just really, really, digs Post.

Transcript

Zack Arnold: I’m here today with Michael Kammes. And if you’re not familiar with who Michael Thomas is, he’s basically that guy that I call whenever I have no idea how really technical, important and complicated stuff works. So you are kind of a technical workflow genius. You’re also the director of technology, key code, media, and just an all around tech badass. So I’m really honored to have you on the show with me today.

Michael Kammes: Wow. Thanks a lot. Zack, I appreciate that. And in fact, you said you know that I’m the person you call and for everyone listening, yes, you do call me. In fact, I remember distinctly. It was about five or six years ago. I had back surgery three days prior. I’m back at home on the couch, laid up full of drugs, and you called me and we talked about IO and storage. Well, I’m half out of it.

Zack Arnold: Yes, I would not have ever finished my documentary. Go far without you. The movie would not have gone far. It wouldn’t have gone anywhere, farther than my hard drives because the workflow that I was looking at was such a mess. And you’re like, No, you just do this, this and this. I’m like, Oh, you just saved me about two years worth of work. That’s awesome. You probably don’t even remember half of it because you were drugged up. But yes, there’s no question that whenever I have a head scratcher and I’m like, Ah, I have no idea how to do this, but I know the guy that will I just call you so,

Michael Kammes: Oh, you’re, you’re such a flatterer. Zack, you really are.

Zack Arnold: Well, the reason we were really on this call today is going to go much deeper than the tech. And I do want to geek out in the tech a little bit, because I know that my audience appreciates that, but you also have much more of a deeper, more personal story that has to do with your health. And that’s really what I like to talk about are the health related consequences of our industry, the personal struggles that people go through, and then, more importantly, the triumphs and the things that they overcome, despite this industry trying to beat everyone to a pulp. So that’s kind of where I want to start. But before we do that, maybe just give me and my audience a little bit deeper understanding of what you do, what key code does, and kind of what your journey was to get to where you are now, and why, like, why it’s so interesting and important to you?

Michael Kammes: Sure? Well, I guess I’ll work backwards. As you mentioned, I’m the director of technology for key code media, and key code media consults, sells and supports a majority of the technology you’re going to find in our industry. So whether it’s, you know, gear for on set, on location, cameras, you know, lights, etc, whether it’s post production, editorial, storage and coding, asset management, whether it’s distribution, transcoding, etc, my job at key code is to know how all of those things work and how they work together, and how they’re applicable for the people who use it and to get their jobs done. So I’m the one who goes into these weird workflow discussions, who tackles the new oddball technology and kind of finds a way for it to work before the rest of our team deploys it and supports it. In addition to that, I also evangelize technology, both for key code and on my own, I feel that education is something everyone needs. You can’t just rest in your laurels. So I go out into the industry on the behest of key code and also on my own and do education, whether it’s sitting in on, you know, avid classes, or Premier classes, or my web series, which talks about different parts of the industry that I think a lot of folks that you and I work with don’t know. They’re immersed in the creative portion, and they may not be able to get around the marketing slick bullshit of products that they use on a daily basis. They just read the, you know, what’s on the website that tells them, hey, this is a great product. And then before that, which was about eight years ago, I was in Chicago. I lived there for 30 years, and got my degree in sound, and I was a sound editor for independent films and television, more editing than mixing. But of course, we all work on smaller projects where we have to do everything, so I do have some mixing experience.

Zack Arnold: Well, the most important question, really, before moving forwards, is thin, crossed or deepish?

Michael Kammes: Actually, I’m more of a pan fan?

Zack Arnold: That was a trick question I wanted you to say, yeah, nice.

Michael Kammes: All that being said. If I had to pick one of the big ones in Chicago is Giordano’s. I’m a Giordano’s fan. Much more about the cheese than I am about the tomato sauce, which is what a lot of the other deep dishes are about in Chicago.

Zack Arnold: Oh, see when I’m in Chicago. It’s all about Geno’s East like that. That’s just a staple on the any trip that I make back to the Midwest.

Michael Kammes: Well, maybe we can agree on Portillo’s. Do you like?

Zack Arnold: Sure, yeah, absolutely

Michael Kammes: Okay. We can find common ground there. Then

Zack Arnold: Absolutely All right. Well, then I can continue the conversation. I was a little bit worried for a second that I was gonna have to cancel the rest of the show, but if we can’t continue forward, so that’s really good news. And for anybody listening that is not in the technology world, they’re like, I didn’t know any of those words the last five minutes. It’s okay. We’re not gonna we’re not gonna go too deep into that stuff. So don’t worry about it. But I know that anybody that is in the tech industry, in the post production industry, this is our world, and I’m one of those people that you. Just described where I am not in the tech side that much like, Yes, I’m in front of a computer for 16 hours a day, and I’ve taken it upon myself to give people the tools to survive living in front of a computer for 16 hours a day. But when it comes to my job as an editor, I’m still on apples that are towers, and I’m still on, like, avid version seven, and I’m on, like, os I don’t know OSX caveman, like, I don’t even know what version it is, but it’s old. So when all these new streaming technologies come up and all these file deliveries and all this, there’s just so much of it, and it’s so overwhelming when you’re on the creative side. So that’s why it’s so helpful to have people like you that can, like shepherd the creatives through this process.

Michael Kammes: Well, I realized a while ago that while I did have some creative ability, my proclivity was much more towards technology. And then I, you know, would see shows on television and feature films, and just realize, you know, I’m not going to be at that level. I don’t have the desire to be at that level anymore. So why not enable the folks who do have that inherent talent, or who do have those 10,000 hours of experience, and now they’re experts. Let them do that, and if I can enable the logic behind their creativity, if I can take care of all that zeros and ones behind the scenes so you can just create. Well, hell, man, that’s an awesome team. So I decided to focus on that and let folks such as yourself focus on creating.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and it’s so, so important, because there’s nothing worse when you’re trying to do creative work and you get stuck on something stupid, you’re like, Okay, I just want to edit this one scene, or I just want to take this sound clip and do this, or I just want to export it, but I can’t, and I know that at the end of the day, it’s probably just like one check box, but you have to spend seven hours looking for that check box. You’re the guy that knows the check boxes.

Michael Kammes: Well. I would hope my business card would have more than that, but, but yes, I am a fan of the check box and the radio box.

Zack Arnold: Yeah. So that’s I just wanted to give, give people a sense of just how absolutely vital this type of position and viewpoint is in the industry. Because I feel like this gets lost a lot where, especially if you’re obviously, I spend most of my time around editors and assistants, and I’m on the creative side. And so it’s like, Oh yeah, well, they’re just the tech guys. Like, if we need something fixed, they’ll come over and fix it. But you don’t realize how important, and actually it’s funny, because I’m saying that I’m doing the creative work, but I feel like there’s so much creative work being done on your side, because you have to be creative about how you connect all these pieces and build these workflows. So it’s much bigger than just, oh yeah, ones and zeros. You still have to be creative. It’s just in a different way,

Michael Kammes: I’d agree, but that’s usually not an argument you can have. The argument is, usually, I’m here to enable your creativity, and when you start getting into the esoteric, yes, I’m a creative technologist, which is actually the title I prefer, you know, you then get into, you know, a pissing match. So

Zack Arnold: It’s not gonna happen on this show. There’s no pissing match here, because I I basically feel like, you know, I’m here to serve the the end that you need as well. So it’s very mutually beneficial.

Michael Kammes: Thank you.

Zack Arnold: Well, that having been said, I wanted to make sure people had a very rudimentary background of the work that you do, what you immerse yourself in, because I wanted to get deeper into the personal side of things, and it’s so apropos. And I had had no idea this was going to happen, but right now, on my monitor, I have two images of you. On the email side, I have the little email image of you, which is current, but in Skype, it is a picture of you which I’m guessing is probably a couple years old. You look very different in these two pictures. You’re a very, very different person. So I want to talk about that, because I kind of on the sidelines, without really stepping in, have watched you via social media go through a pretty large transformation over the last couple of years. So let’s talk about that.

Michael Kammes: Well, there’s a couple things. I mean, you’re probably, I totally forgot about that picture on Skype. Yeah, I had longer hair, so that’s probably what’s what’s throwing you, and I just decided to cut it last year, a little over a year ago, actually, so that’s probably what you’re seeing. I also did a pretty drastic weight loss at the same time. I actually took two weeks off of work, had kind of a staycation, and just put a stop sign on everything I was doing and quit everything I was doing cold turkey, whether it was, you know, alcohol or working long hours, and just took two weeks off and reinvented my diet, reinvented my workout schedule, ended up getting my hair cut as part of that to kind of start setting good examples for myself to try and get in good habits, so I’d continue on a healthier lifestyle.

Zack Arnold: Well, let’s call that the end of the story right now. What I’m more interested in is the journey of whether it’s weeks, months or years that got you to that two week point where you hit the reset button and you said, I’m doing all of these things that. Now. So for now, let’s call that the end of the story. Take me to the beginning of the story.

Michael Kammes: Well, God, if you really want to go back, and this is not me trying to tell my life story, but if we go back to middle school and to high school, you know, back in the early 90s, there was this thing called ADD and ADHD, which no one had really heard of. And I remember my guidance counselor called my mom in and talked to her about that, and they said, We think Michael may have this, this thing called Add, and it was something that no one had ever it was new, I guess is what I’m trying to say. And so I went through a battery of testing. In fact, at that point, they took me to a clinic, and I had like, four hours of testing. It was, it was a really odd, laborious thing, and it turns out that I had ADD borderline ADHD, and they said, Well, it’s a chemical imbalance, and it happens, and, you know, it’s new. Take this, and I ended up taking Ritalin at that point, and it changed my life. It turned my life around. I went from having C’s and D’s and getting detentions to A’s and B’s and, you know, getting less detentions. But it completely changed my life, and it really gave me a sense, even at that young age, that your body isn’t always, I don’t want to say perfect, but Right? You know, sometimes you just have a chemical imbalance. It’s not something you can fix just by willing it. I know there are some, you know, religions that believe that, and some belief systems that are like that. And there’s some folks who say, you know, it’s not Better Living Through Chemistry. I you know, I can, I can kick this on my own, and I can make myself better. And I never saw an issue with Better Living Through Chemistry, you know, as long as it wasn’t hurting anyone and as long as I saw positive effects of it without, you know, hurting anyone else, why not? And so that kept me going for the next couple of years, until I hit high school. And, you know, you get into that, you know, dating and friends and drama and, you know, that kind of thing. And the Ritalin just didn’t take care of that. So I went to a therapist, and they said, Well, you know, we think you may be depressed. Okay, something else wrong with me. All right, cool. What do we do about that? Well, here’s some pro Zack. And when I’m pro Zack, and you know, it was that for the next 1520, years. And I guess the reason of bringing this up is I don’t think enough people talk about this sort of thing. I don’t think enough people talk about that we’re not all born perfect. We all have chemical shortcomings. We all could use a hand, and if that hand is a tried and true, proven chemical substance, why not? And before anyone starts going off the deep end and think that I’m suggesting, you know, doing illicit drugs, I’m not. I’m not. This is all you know, above bar kind of stuff. But I don’t think enough people in our profession talk about this

Zack Arnold: Well, and that’s why this show is here. This is something that I talk about extensively. I’m not going to go into my story again, because anybody listening is like, Oh my God, dude. We know you’ve told it like 1000 times, but I am no stranger to add ADHD, massive depression, suicidal depression. I’ve been down all those roads, and I will put links in the show notes to all of the past archival episodes where I do deep dives into the neuroscience of depression, and ADD and ADHD, and whether it’s using natural supplements, whether it’s using medication, like I’ve gone down this road extensively. So if anybody listening, this is the first time you’ve heard any of this, and you’re like, Ooh, I want to go much deeper. I’ve got a treasure trove of stuff. But yes, there’s no question that people don’t talk about these topics enough, which is why it’s actually where this podcast started. At first it was, Oh, I’m gonna bring a bunch of people in my office together to do hiking, and we’re gonna do 90x together and compete. Oh, that’s fun. And then it started going down this much deeper rabbit hole within weeks of doing the podcast where we were talking about all these different things, and that’s when people started coming out of the woodwork in this industry, saying, Oh, my God, it’s not just me. I’m not the only one. And that’s when I realized, whoa, like, there’s really something going on here. And my feeling has always been that there’s really two main factors to why I hear the story over and over about people in our industry, and why I’m one of those people number one, because there’s plenty of scientific research that proves and connects anybody that has a much higher proclivity for creative thinking, you automatically get the double whammy of mental health issues. It’s just par for the course. It just comes with a package. If you’re creative, you’re probably dealing with some form of depression in your life and some form of attention issues in your life as well. And number two, it’s the conditions of this industry. It’s being sedentary. It’s being in dark rooms. It’s, you know, super long hours under high amounts of stress. Those are just gasoline that you’re already adding onto this lit fire. So it sounds like you’re just kind of another one of those stories. I keep hearing about people in this industry,

Michael Kammes: I would agree. I mean, I went to college for sound and I was not doing it, you know, 50, 6070, hours a week. But for a good part of the the aughts, I was a sound editor, and I was working in dark rooms. These rooms typically had padding in them, and although the padding was for sound absorption, you can certainly go crazy in those rooms. What I never realized at that point in time, and I didn’t realize until within last six months, so 39 years took me to realize this is that when you’re on antidepressants, it’s not a switch, and they don’t, I hate to use the word correct, but they don’t correct everything. So when I was on antidepressants, you wouldn’t be as down, you wouldn’t be as up either, but as a user of those, you would sense that, okay, things are better. I’m not as down, great. But that was only part of the equation. It wasn’t until recently that I decided to scrap what I was taking and work with a new doctor and try new things and new dosages, that I found that the procrastination gene, which runs in our family, believe it or not, it’s a thing. The procrastination part of me, which has just been the death of me throughout my entire life, is lifting and that that kind of seesaw of, am I going to do something? Yes, I am going to do something that kind of went back and forth, that primarily was on, well, I’ll do it later. That’s kind of moved now, that scale has kind of moved, and now, yeah, I should do that, and I get up and do it instead of, I’ll wait till after this commercial, or it’s too nice outside, I should go, do, you know, go, go do something recreational before I go and do something, or I have time I can do this tomorrow. So it’s weird, just with this little change of drugs, after 25 years, I’m now finally hitting my stride to do these things that I’ve put off just because of a simple drug change that I had no idea was still wrong.

Zack Arnold: Well, and I know for a fact this is working, because you and I are actually recording our podcast together. It took a while to get you on the microphone, and now I know why. But all kidding aside, yes, it’s funny, because I’ve also been through this journey many times, and I don’t know if I’ve talked about this part of it, I’ve talked about kind of my origin story, and the suicidal depression and the working the long hours, but I’ve never gone into the nuance of the differences of being on antidepressants versus not being on antidepressants versus, like I was never on Ritalin, but I was on Adderall, so I was diagnosed with adult onset add so I’ve always had this crazy laser sharp focus, like I can focus like a laser beam on a project. Been able to do that my whole life. Was valedictorian in high school, because I could just get things done, and then all of a sudden, right sometime in college, and then, especially when I moved out to LA, I was a scatterbrained mess, and I could not figure out what’s wrong with me. I had adult onset add and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. So I’ve been up and down this roller coaster, and I have talked about in past episodes the idea of medication, and how I say to people, listen, I don’t believe that the pill should be your magic cure. I think that you have to not just get rid of the illness, so to speak. And I don’t say illness in a bad way. I say it no different than, well, I have a thyroid condition or whatever, like, you know, having a defective thyroid, that’s an illness, and you correct it with medication. I feel the same way about poor neurochemistry. However, for a lot of people like you said, it’s like, oh, I just take the Prozac and I’m better. But there’s such a wide spectrum of, number one, the things you can do to feel better and alleviate those symptoms. But also, there’s a wide spectrum of how you feel, and I like that you brought that up, and I can just speak to a tiny bit of that with where, like, I’ve been off of medication completely for the most part, for the last several years. But if I go through intense periods of work, or I experience burnout, which I wrote about extensively, happened to me a couple years ago, just I’d like, I have to go back on something, just to kind of climb out of the hole so I can see the forest through the trees and do something about it. And the key here that you hit on, that I’ve never talked about before, is you said the lows weren’t as low, but the highs weren’t as high, and that, to me, is one of the the toughest parts about dealing with any, any of these types of medications, is that you don’t get in the dumps. You’re not dragging, you’re not thinking, Oh, my God, the world is awful, but you don’t get to experience everything at the level that you would if you were not on the medication. It sounds like you’ve experienced that too.

Michael Kammes: Oh, you you get milk toast over things, you know, and things which you see your friends who are just really enjoying or your loved one or your family, and you just, you’re like, Okay, well, that’s good, but it’s not great. And actually, I found that to be something that was difficult to talk to a psychologist about, because I say, Well, you know, Doctor, I’m not experiencing those highs. And they look at me like, I’m, you know, it’s. Seeking drugs. They said, Well, what do you expect to get out of this? And I said, Well, everyone else seems to be having a real good time, you know, we go out to dinner, and they have a great dinner, and the food just tastes great. And I’m like, It’s okay, you know, it’s a sunny day, and I’m with my wife and my dog and and things are just, should be just great, and I should be just thrilled. And instead, it’s just kind of want to sit on the couch and, you know, I should be taking joy in those things. And that’s, I think, why a lot of people end up going off it. I think because they want to experience that, and they think they can handle the down sort side of that. But the problem is, I think, is you get so accustomed to not being sad or not being down and not being motivated that you think, Well, I’m okay now, so I can go off it, and you slip back into that and don’t realize that, no, that’s what was keeping you from not getting to that place,

Zack Arnold: Yeah. And I had made that mistake as well years ago where I figured, oh, well, yeah. I mean, the the Adderall works great, I don’t need it anymore. And then I went off it, and I was just everywhere. I was a freaking Tasmanian devil, totally manic, and all of a sudden that comes crashing down. And I’m not bipolar, but there i There are certainly tendencies where I can just tend to go crazy with a project. And I had that kind of same experience where it’s like, whoa. I forgot how intense the lows can get, and that was really the birth of everything that I have been teaching now is the strategies that you need while you’re working these long hours in front of a desk to make sure you don’t hit those lows, because you can hit them really, really quickly in an industry like this if you don’t have the proper systems in place.

Michael Kammes: So I guess, in terms of systems and things I do, obviously it’s, it’s, you know, making sure that I’m taking my medication every day, that, you know, if I feel I’m not eating three meals a day, or I’ll make sure you eat, you know, if I’m, if I’m drinking too much, and drinking has always been my Achilles heel, not to the point of, you know, I’m going to black out every night, but there’s always been the come home, yeah, pour myself a glass of scotch or have a beer, and, you know, then that turns into two beers, and then that turns into fattening, horrible craft beers, which tastes like heaven, but don’t exactly bode well for the body. So there are some checks and balances I have to try and stay within at least a finite space of being healthy. By no stretch. Am I running Spartan Races? By no stretch. Am I doing that kind of thing? But I do try to eat decent I try and keep my calorie count under a certain amount. And I also participate in a lot of different sports, or, let me rephrase that, I participate in many different leagues of the same sport to try and keep my exercise up.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and all those things are super, super important, not just, you know, like, it’s not about calories in, calories out. That’s something that I talk about extensively, where, like, the ship has sailed on calorie counting and the whether or not that has any benefit whatsoever. But the important thing is that you are aware of what you’re eating, and more importantly, you’re staying active. You’re moving like you’re you’re keeping your body moving, which I’m sure you’ve noticed, is also helping to keep your brain moving.

Michael Kammes: It is, and it’s also an outlet. You know, I play softball, and I know people will scoff at that. I tend to play in some competitive leagues. And you know, I may be 39 but I but I play like I’m dying, so I’m sliding hard. I’m hitting hard. I’m I won’t say, I won’t say, I’m going in spikes up, but I’m sliding hard. I’m a pitcher, so I’m in every play. I’m playing in two or three different leagues. I’m also out practicing. So I take it rather seriously. But what I enjoy about that is, when you have a day at work, you know, when things aren’t going your way, maybe a deal didn’t come through, etc, I can go and just, you know, be laser focused on working on my pitching, working on a curve ball, working on fielding my position, working on the right angle of the bat head coming down to Meet a higher pitch. So I can really focus on that, and then blow off a lot of steam in competitive situations where I don’t have to focus on work.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and I’m assuming that you’ll find the next day or the day after or the week after, when you’re at work in front of your desk, you’re seeing the cognitive benefits of all that.

Michael Kammes: I definitely see it as a escape, meaning, oh man, today is really, really crappy, but you know what, at six o’clock I get to leave and leave it all in the field. So it’s more of a there’s an escape coming, a healthy escape, I should say. But there’s a way out at the end of the day, instead of knowing that I’m going to be working late and I’m going to go home and be upset and mull about it and be pissed, and then not sleep, and then wake up in the morning, still pissed and go through it again. So there is that, knowing that there is an outlet for that later in the day,

Zack Arnold: Got it okay? Well, I can understand that very much. Just having that escape valve, that release valve, is super, super important as well, just to get rid of all that steam and blow it off. And then start the day the next day fresh. So that’s important.

Michael Kammes: There’s a certain calm, at least for me, when I know that there’s nothing more I could have done. So when I’m playing softball and, you know, we lose or whatever, I know that there wasn’t a moment of that game I didn’t hustle. Whenever I’ve worked on a project, and I’m sure we’ve all, you know as I still cut sound on the side. So, you know, they’re still dealing with producers and directors. And when you’ve done everything you’ve could for that cut or for that mix, and something is just out of your hands, whether it’s the politics, whether it’s, you know, a director going elsewhere, the project going sideways, funding falling out, if you’ve done everything you possibly can, the fact that you don’t have that level of regret is just the best feeling in the world to me, because, you know, if there’s nothing more you could have done and you don’t have that regret,

Zack Arnold: Yep, and that’s, that’s the way that I always look at it’s like, Can I sleep well tonight knowing that I left everything on the field, and for me, the field is in front of my workstation cutting something for 16 hours. But it’s the same idea so that’s also the madness behind doing the Spartan Races. Is that, like you, your Spartan Race is softball. You’re giving it the amount of energy and intensity that I’m giving a Spartan Race. You just do it a lot more often, because I run like three, four races a year, and I’m guessing you probably do this for like 10 months a year, if not more.

Michael Kammes: We’re so in California, so, you know, we can play all year long. So traditionally, it’s two or three leagues, as that means two or two or three games a week, and then I’ll go and practice either with a team or on my own once or twice a week. So it’s

Zack Arnold: And do you do all this in Burbank,

Michael Kammes: Burbank and Glendale, and occasionally, because seasons are pretty short, it’s only about two and a half months. Sometimes I’ll play in tournaments or, you know, further out in the valley, but it’s usually Glendale and Burbank.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, it’s just out of my reach. That was something that I did a lot in college. I loved playing organized softball in college, and then I came out to LA like, oh, we should start a softball team for our trailer house. And they’re like, looking at me, like, I’m an alien. They’re like, when in the world do you think we’re gonna have time to organize a softball league?

Michael Kammes: You know, what’s really funny about that is, because we play in Burbank and because we play in Glendale, we’re always playing production and post production companies. So whenever we play them, I’m always looking for folks that I may have dealt with. But you know what I find, almost no one is in post. All the production people are playing all the 20 something pas are playing, all the producers are playing. But I don’t think I’ve come across one editor in my last couple years of playing, and I find that really interesting.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that, I trust me, and I know why. It’s because there’s no way we can get to a softball game at 630 on a weekday. I’m not gonna if the games were lit and it were at 10 o’clock at night. Oh, we’d have our leagues, trust me.

Michael Kammes: Yeah, it’s a good point. That’s a really good point,

Zack Arnold: All right, so I realized that I haven’t done a very good job as an interviewer, because I’ve skipped over what, to me, is still the most important part of this entire conversation, where we’re now really seeing the results of all the work that you’ve done, where you’re doing the better diet. You’re staying active, you’ve cut down on your alcohol. We’ve gone way back into middle school. We haven’t gone into the really deep, dark stuff, but we talked about, you know, some of the medication and dealing with ADD and depression. But we still haven’t gotten to the turning point. And to me, the turning point is always the most important part of the story. So take me to what led you up to that two week period where you hit the reset button?

Michael Kammes: Well, you know, work at key code, like any other job, is going to have its stressors. And you know, whether the stress is the work or, you know, in this economy, whether it’s lack of work or it’s people you work with, it just hit a wall. And I was, you know, around the office, they call me Dr No, because I’m really good at saying no. But it got to the point where I was more grumpy than usual. I was coming in grumpy. I wasn’t sleeping well, I was drinking more. I was just angry. And although I, you know, didn’t do anything, you know, I didn’t crash a car, I didn’t come to work drunk, I didn’t be my wife, you know, I didn’t do anything like that, but I just hit a limit where I knew what I did for a living I loved and I wasn’t finding any joy in it anymore, and knowing in my heart that it wasn’t the job I disliked, I knew there had to be something else. And I went to the company and I said, Look, I need two weeks. I’m burnt. And I explained that. Look, I like working here. I like, I like, you know, for the most part, everyone here, but I, I’m not doing anyone any good. I’m not inspired anymore. I’m, I can’t be an evangelist for the company. I can’t, I can’t, you know, be a forward thinking technologist when all I want to do is is just sit and look at Facebook all day. I just, I just can’t do it. So they were kind enough to give me two weeks. I had earned it. I had vacation time, so I took it and I planned it out in advance, so I had about a week head start before I took the two weeks. And you know, I don’t have a lot of stress at home. I have a very. Accommodating and just awesome wife and a dog that loves me. So, you know, things are good here. So I was able to tell them that, look, I’m taking two weeks. I’m going to get up in the morning and I’m going to go to the gym. First thing, I’m going to be changing my diet and be cutting down in fat, and I’m going to be working with a personal trainer. I’ve had back problems for many years, so I’ve had to have a kind of a custom routine. I’m going to hit the diamond every day, and I’m going to work on pitching, I’m going to work on hitting, and I’m going to journal. I know that sounds may sound kind of weird, but I decided to journal on what my goals were, because I had been focused for the past eight years on, coming out to California, and, you know, doing this one thing, and I hadn’t stopped and re examined to make sure that my goals were still in alignment. And then I wanted to brainstorm on how I could make, what steps I could take to make those goals come true. You know that old line. You know, the difference between dreams and goals is you actually work towards one, right? So during those two weeks, cut my diet, Hit the Diamond, went to the gym, worked on my goals and how I was going to get there, and that got me through the work stress. And then, you know, I dropped a good amount of weight, and things started falling in line about mid last year, and I decided to meet with a therapist to work on the medical situation, and we tried, I think, three different antidepressants. And if you’ve ever tried antidepressants, yeah, like, there’s an illicit, you know, drug ring trying antidepressants, yeah, but when you try them, it takes weeks to get in your system, and then there’s after it’s in your system, does it work? So you kind of have to have something going on in your life to see if it’s working or not, and then you have to go and get either more or less of it, and then you have to wean yourself off of it, and then try another one, and then try that dosage. So it can be many, many months, and it can be very frustrating, because you feel like nothing’s going to work. You feel like I don’t know if stuff isn’t working or I’m just depressed now. It really messes with your head. And it just so happened. The last one that we tried, I felt a little bit better, just a little just just a hint of it. And I came back and said, this might be working. And so we upped my dosage, we doubled it. And over the past, I don’t know, three months now, have been the most productive personally, in the past, I don’t know, five or six years. And at work, I’m going in and I’m motivated, I’m energetic, I’m not as easily distracted. So I’m really at a good point right now where the diet and the exercise and that kind of melded with the medicine, that things are just really good right now?

Zack Arnold: Well, I first of all, before we go any further, have to applaud you for just your level of honesty, first of all, for really going into detail about the journey and the struggle that you’ve been through the last couple of years, and especially just through the last few months, because there are very few people that I think would be willing to be that honest. So first of all, like massive applause just for being willing to do that. That’s that I know it may not seem like much because you’re kind of matter of factly describing it, but there are a lot of people that now email me their life stories. And if anybody’s listening and you want to email me your life story, I will story. I will read it. I don’t guarantee I’m going to respond, because I get a lot, but I get these long emails from people describing what you just said, but they don’t want to tell anybody. They don’t want their boss to know, like it’s it. That’s why this stuff needs to be talked about.

Michael Kammes: This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to be at the editors retreat, which FMC puts on, and it’s a collection of 60 plus editors. And although I’m not an editor by trade, I’m a technologist who works with editors all day. I’m a former sound engineer, so there’s a lot of bleed over. The reason I bring it up is I got to be with some of the, you know, most experienced editors and most creative editors in the country for a better part of a week, and I got to hear people talk about their creative process. I got to see people talk about creative concepts that never would have entered my mind in a million years. And what kind of a blow to this industry would it be if a handful of those people who are just blowing me away creatively couldn’t get up in the morning because they were depressed, or didn’t pick up a paintbrush to paint, or didn’t launch avid because, you know what, I’m just not good enough to create. What kind of blow would that be to our creative industry, you know? And so I feel, if I can share this with someone, and it gets them to take a look at their experiences and say, well, maybe I should look into something. Hey, that’s just, you know, more art in the world. And I can’t think of anything better in return for sharing my story than having someone do that.

Zack Arnold: Man, I just seriously, I’m gonna steal all of that and turn it into, like, website copy, because you just nailed it. I mean, that’s exactly the heart of everything that I believe in. That I’ve been doing for years is that if you don’t have the tools and the understanding for how to manage these things, you can’t get yourself out there, you can’t produce the things that you’re capable of. And my God, you just nailed it. That’s perfect. I love that one thing, one thing I want to go back to that I also think is incredibly important. And this is kind of one of those massive aha moments and realizations that I’ve had probably in the last three to six months. Is when you said I didn’t hate my job. I didn’t want to change jobs, but I didn’t want to go anymore because I didn’t have passion for it. I knew I was supposed to, I knew I’m supposed to enjoy this, but I just don’t. And that is a huge moment for people. I’ve been through that moment several times, and I’m going to go off on a bit of a tangent. When I first started all of this was what I guess it was about three years ago. Now I can’t really keep track. And then when I started building the online learning courses, like when I started building the move yourself program, I was thinking like every other exercise program, I can’t wait until I have people with before and after pictures where they’ve lost 30 pounds, or, you know, they’ve got three belt loops that they lost because of the program. And I wasn’t getting any of those. I was like, Man, that’s really disappointing. I would love to have one of those before and after pictures, but then I started getting emails from people, and they were saying I hated going to my job. I couldn’t stand it. All I wanted to do was go home, and after just a month or so of incorporating these techniques, I had my sense of humor back. I had my passion for my work back. I had passion for my family. When I got home after a long day, and that’s when I said, Yes, that’s the before and after pictures that I want. And you’re the perfect example of somebody that went through that transformation.

Michael Kammes: Oh, thank you, I guess, yes

Zack Arnold: And but you also went through that journey of self discovery that so many people are so afraid of. Because everybody, not everybody, I don’t want to classify it as 100% of the people, but so many people, and I know this now because people email me this where they’re too afraid to step out of that comfort zone, or they’re afraid that if they step out of that comfort zone, then somebody in their office is going to think, Well, why aren’t they working like what they must be so lazy they’re out taking a walking break, or they’re doing whatever, like they should just be in front of their computer for 14 hours a day, banging away like a monkey at a keyboard. And I just, I don’t believe in that stuff. And I mean, I it certainly sounds like, as far as you’re concerned, you’ve become infinitely more productive by kind of stepping away from the desk when you need to,

Michael Kammes: Yes, and I’ve also, there have been a couple of workplace realizations, which, you know, I think most people probably learned this in their 20s, and I it took me 25 years to realize this, and I’ll just repeat them, and maybe someone else will relate. One of the most important ones I’ve heard over the past several years, and this was said directly to me, is that, because I’m an engineer by trait, and I’m very methodical and logical, is that it’s always a straight line from point A to point B, you want to be efficient, the most efficient you can be because if you’re more efficient, you can accomplish more, and your work is measured by throughput. I know that’s not correct, but in my engineering mind, that’s what makes sense. And the president of our company told me that, Michael, with people, you have to be effective, not efficient. And that was something that was just Whoa. That’s an aha moment. It’s okay not to be an engineer. It’s okay not to be efficient if you’re effective. What I also learned is that while I think anyone who listens to the podcast knows how passionate you are, and I think most people who are in creative jobs are passionate, there is a good cross section of the industry that people just they work to live right? They go to a job, they do their job, they probably do a decent job, but then they leave at nine to six, and they don’t have that passion, that passion to create, that passion to do more, that passion to go beyond. And when you start working at larger companies, you’re going to have people who fit those roles. And that used to anger me, and that used to make me mad at my work, because, you know, every work has those people who aren’t living up to what you think that level should be, whether it be creative or going beyond. And it took me many, many years, but I’m still dealing with it, to realize that that’s okay, that’s their path, that’s their choice. They find their passion outside the four walls of where they’re working, just because we find what we do for living as creatives to be what drives us, in addition to our family or dogs or whatever, some people don’t find that in their work, and that’s not bad. That’s not just who they are. And I can’t be upset, I can’t be mad at them. I just have to know that I have to speak to them in a different way, because, in the same vein that I can’t understand how they do the very basics at work, they can’t understand why I’m doing so much more than that.

Zack Arnold: My God, the gems that I’m getting right now. Oh, this. I mean, fantastic insights. No. I mean, what’s the first thing I told you offline before recorded? I said, Michael, I’ve done. Preparation whatsoever. I have no questions for you. It’s just two guys with craft beers chatting it up seriously, like, just absolutely fantastic insights, and that’s not even something that I have thought about that much. Yes, I deal with people all the time where they don’t have the level of passion or intensity that I do, but frankly, I’m on, like, the extremist side of the Passion spectrum, where most people that are passionate are around me, and I exhaust them. So there’s no question that. And I’ve been told that my whole life, like, I couldn’t get a date for 25 years because everybody was like, You seem really nice, but you’re a little intense from it. Like, what do you mean? I’m intense, so, you know, I definitely understand that. And it’s like, what? Dude, it’s like, six o’clock. Why are you going home right now? There’s so much more cool stuff we could do, but you’re right, like, everybody is on their own journey, and you just have to kind of find your own journey. And this whole idea, I mean, I could you, and I could do a whole podcast about the one sentence of it’s about being effective, not efficient. That was my giant aha moment, but I probably had it, I don’t know, maybe three, four years ago where it’s like, oh, it isn’t about the amount of hours. It’s about what I create in those hours. That’s much more important.

Michael Kammes: Completely agreed.

Zack Arnold: So I want to do a little bit of a segue here. Go to a little bit different direction, because you’ve given me so many amazing gems tonight that I’m going to be writing website copy for months based off of this podcast alone. But I want to make sure that you’re able to talk about your most recent adventure that you’re very passionate about. So let’s talk a little bit about your web series. Five things.

Michael Kammes: Well, five things stemmed from a couple different places. First and foremost, you know, I evangelize technology for key code, and there’s a lot of concepts and things that I talk about on a daily, weekly basis that I don’t think a lot of folks outside the industry know. I think there’s also a lot of folks that may be blinded by a lot of the marketing that a lot of companies do, you know working in the industry. I know the players at these companies, and I know that there’s engineers who do the engineering thing, and there’s the marketing people who do the marketing thing, and there’s not a lot of bleed over, right? So a lot of the marketing isn’t always as correct or as exact as I would like. And I think there’s confusion in the industry. I think there’s also a level of marketing going on that assumes editors all have a baseline of technology, that they understand a certain baseline, and they don’t, you know, that’s not a bad thing. They’re just focusing on being creative. So what I decided to do was come up with something digestible that would explain the foundational technology of the stuff post production folks use on a daily basis, and also give a kind of report on what’s real and what’s bull, because so you don’t have to worry about this product. Slick says this, this product. Slick says that, but none of it’s right. So by doing the series, I can share this information on the technologies, on the foundational technologies, and what’s real as opposed to what’s fake.

Zack Arnold: So for all the gear heads that are listening right now. Give me an example, like, do a super simple breakdown on the spot, if you can think of one,

Michael Kammes: Sure. Well, the one I go about, I talk about quite a bit, are Codex, right? And there’s only about a handful of people in this world that get up in the morning and they’re like, Yeah, Codex are awesome. But if you talk to almost any editor or any producer, any director, and Zack, I know you could vouch for this. How many say, give me a quick time?

Zack Arnold: Oh, of course,

Michael Kammes: Give me an MOV. And that’s that’s nothing, that that means nothing, because what you’re not describing is the fact that codec is the essence, which is the Pro Res, the DNX, the H dot, 264, and then the wrapper, which would be the MOV, or the MX, F. And if you can’t make a delivery to a network. You can’t make a delivery to YouTube without knowing what the essence is and what the wrapper is. And if you have those two things, you now can determine what media player you’re going to use. You now can determine what NLE you can use, and it can help you make decisions on what codec is good and what codec is not. So just by knowing that foundational format of what a codec is can set you on a completely different path on how to understand how media is used.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, I’ve always had a dream if I ever have free time in my life, which probably will never happen, but my dream has always been that I want to create a short that’s basically the modern day version of who’s on first, but instead it’s with Codex, so you have a studio executive or a producer that’s like, oh yeah, send me a quick time. You’re like, okay, great. What kind of quick time? Well, the digital file type of Quick Time, terrific. Okay, I’ll send you the digital file quick time. But what kind of quick time? Well, the movie kind Oh, for the love.

Michael Kammes: Well, what I’ve been doing now is if I talk to someone about Codex, and I’m trying to get information out of them. If I can tell in the first couple questions that there’s they’re not on it. I end up backing up and saying, What are you shooting on? And then I find out what camera, then I reverse engineer that. Okay, they’re shooting, they’re getting dng files. Okay, great. What are you editing in? Well, we’re editing an avid Okay, and where are you delivering to Hulu? Okay? Okay? Now I know what you have to do to get that camera into your editing system. I know how you have to edit and what you have to transcode to. Now I know what you have to export to to deliver to Hulu. So I’ve been, you know, kind of back up and talk about it in a roundabout way, as opposed to trying to educate every client. But you know, that’s why I do the five things series. So if someone out there proactively realizes I don’t know X, Y and Z, they can learn about it. There

Zack Arnold: Awesome. Well, on that note, I want to make sure that people can find you and find the web series. So anybody that’s listening that says, I need this guy to solve all the technical problems in my life, and I need his web series give me all the places they can find you

Michael Kammes: The best place is five things series.com. And that’s either the word or the number five things series. I’m also a social media whore, as I’m sure Zack can probably attest to. So you can find me on Facebook under five things series. You can also find me on Twitter at Michael Thomas. If you Google my name, I’m sure you’ll find some rant I’ve been on before, so it should be pretty easy to track me down.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, you and I are no strangers to both social media and rants. There’s no question about that. I’m not afraid of either. Well, on on that note, I cannot thank you enough for being on the show. I was thinking, man, like this guy’s super into the the tech, and I don’t want this to be too techie, and I’m, I’m hoping we can have a couple of good takeaways. And you blew my mind tonight, some really amazing stuff. So I cannot thank you enough for for taking an hour out of your life to step in front of the microphone with me.

Michael Kammes: You’re very welcome. And I’m, you know, if anyone else wants to reach out and talk about some of the things that I discussed, and, you know, maybe get some pointers, or just grab a drink and talk about how we share some things in common. Let me know. I’m glad to share my story with anyone who wants to listen.

Zack Arnold: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your story. You’re

Michael Kammes: Welcome. Take care and thank you. Zack.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Episode Credits

This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, the show notes were prepared by Jakin Rintelman, and this show is executive produced by Kanen Flowers. We are a member of the THAT STUDIO podcast network.

The music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Dorian Cheah from his brilliant album ARA.