Hey Indie Filmmakers Griffin Hammond & Nick Bodmer

Griffin keeps a full gear list at griffinhammond.com/gear – but 2022 brought some workflow changes, so it’s time to review and update his inventory. Plus, Nick decides to buy a new electric vehicle, and picks it up the very same day!

Griffin didn’t buy the Insta360 Link 4K Webcam because it has a gimbal. But it turns out, auto-tracking movement is its most useful feature. Even better, the image quality outperforms the similarly priced 4K Opal C1 ($300), which is marketed as “The first professional webcam.”

Plus, Nick lets Lensa AI reference his selfies to generate “Magic Avatars.”

Nick has been writing prompts for AI images on Midjourney v4. Griffin’s been playing with DiffusionBee on Mac. Our faces may render horrifically in AI, but for many other use cases, the results are uncanny, with plenty of rapidly arriving ethical and copyright implications for artists.

Griffin shares his crazy experience filming Election Night in America—how much travel, expense and work hours go into building maybe 5 minutes of a television show. He earned a “Director of Photography” credit on Showtime, and safely navigated around a known COVID-positive team member on set.

The U.S. State Department has invited Griffin to teach DIY documentary filmmaking in Zimbabwe—should he do it? Nick says yes.

We apologize for the delayed uploads. It’s been a rough month—Griffin’s mom Carol died mid-October, and he wrote this tribute to the positive impact she’s had: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj5WoXqOG2m/

Griffin asks for your input: Should he activate YouTube memberships, the paid tiers that allow creators to offer additional value alongside their existing, free channel? Nick offers his opinions, as they review the various monetization options available across platforms. Griffin shares revenue numbers from the monetization methods he already uses, including AdSense, and the videos he sells directly, like his 1-hour doc filmmaking crash course, his 5-hour CreativeLive class, Shooting Documentary Short Films, and his film Sriracha. They also explain YouTube Handles, and discuss how they saved their friend’s “Hocus Pocus” projection show (Welter Family Holiday House).