Mark DeCarlo: Jazz, Jokes, and New Orleans Entertainment

When Mark DeCarlo steps into the room, you know you're in for a treat, and this episode of NOLA Film Scene is no exception. Mark embodies the spirit of New Orleans like no one else, weaving tales of Jazz Fest shenanigans and culinary exploits that make your mouth water and your feet tap. Our trip down the cobblestone streets of NOLA history is peppered with laughter as Mark recounts his personal journey through the city's legendary food and music scene, all while sharing his coveted list of must-visit local haunts.
 
 Strap in for a wild ride through the worlds of comedy and improvisation where Mark draws a fascinating line connecting the dots between jazz improvisation, the spontaneity of live performance, and the lightning-fast reflexes required in sports. He regales us with stories from his comedic beginnings to the evolution of entertainment in the face of global challenges, including the creation of an animated game show that kept audiences glued to their screens during lockdown. This is a candid look at the courage it takes to stand up and make people laugh, and the innovation required to entertain in the midst of a pandemic.
 
 As we peer into the crystal ball of entertainment's future, Mark illuminates the revolutionary impact of real-time motion capture on the animation industry and comedy. Imagine animating characters in the blink of an eye, with no lag, and you're starting to see the world through Mark's eyes. We discuss the tech behind this magic and how it's shaping the creation of new, interactive content that has the potential to redefine our expectations of live entertainment. And if that leaves you wanting more, Mark's anticipation for the next Jazz Fest and his infectious craving for fried chicken will have you booking your next trip to New Orleans faster than you can say "laissez les bon temps rouler.”

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, I'm Mark DiCarlo. You might know me as the voice of Hugh Neutron on Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius, or from my travel channel show, taste of America, or, long ago, from my dating show called Studs, and I am, I guess, thrilled isn't right. It's a long story but there was a court decision and this is part of my community service to be here today, but I'm thrilled.

Speaker 2: 0:20

On NOLA film scene. On NOLA film scene. You want to do it again? If you want, we can just put that in there. I like it. I'm thrilled.

Speaker 1: 0:33

No, I'm thrilled. Thrilled to be here on NOLA Film Scene and this will count. Let me ask the officer to report. This will count as an hour of my community service. Got it Okay? Yay, I'm thrilled to be on NOLA Film Scene.

Speaker 2: 0:46

Love it, love it, all right.

Speaker 1: 0:50

We're done. Is that it Are?

Speaker 3: 0:52

we done. That's the show, thank you.

Speaker 1: 0:54

All right, that was great guys. I get to stay out of jail. Thanks, nola Film Scene.

Speaker 2: 1:10

Hello, welcome to NOLA. Film Scene with TJ and Plato. I'm TJ and, as always, I'm Plato. No one has gotten TJ like that since Stephanie Hodge, so this is going to be a fun episode. Folks, we're here with my buddy, mark DiCarlo, the stud Jimmy Neutron's dad and the voice of so many things. Welcome, mark, how are you, sir?

Speaker 1: 1:29

I am excellent. You know why? Because it's springtime and springtime means one thing to me for the last 25 years New Orleans Jazz Fest, Whoop, whoop. I know it's probably not a big deal to you guys, because you're there all year long and there's great music all the time, but my friends and I we come out every year and enjoy the food, enjoy the people, enjoy the music. I love it that opening day of baseball and Jazz Fest are the two kickoffs to the best part of the year. Nice.

Speaker 2: 1:54

Excellent, spring has sprung. When was your first time, your first encounter with New Orleans?

Speaker 1: 1:59

My first encounter with New Orleans was, I think, when I was in college. I was on a game show called Sail the Century on NBC. I ended up being the all-time winner of the show and one of the things I won was a weekend in New Orleans. So my girlfriend at the time and I went to New Orleans and we stayed didn't know this. We stayed at a hotel on Bourbon Street and you know I'm thinking, oh, bourbon Street, that's right where you want to be. This will be awesome. They had two sets of drapes on the windows. Sound baffling, but it was like trying to sleep in Grand Central Station. So it was fun the first night. Second night it was a little hard. Third night it was okay, but we had a great time, enjoyed all the music, all the food, all the weird people which I love when I was doing my Travel Channel show. I all the weird people which I love when I was doing my Travel Channel show. I've been to over 400 cities and there's no place else in America like New Orleans. I think it's the best food city in America, the best music city, for sure in America, and there's such a weird gumbo of people and personalities in the city that all seem to mesh relatively well. Now I realize I'm only there for you know, a week at a time, once or twice a year, and I know there's problems everywhere, but I always have a delightful time. So that was in the late 80s when I was in school and then I started.

Speaker 1: 3:16

My first Jazz Fest was literally the day of the LA riots. We took off early, like six o'clock in the morning. Everything was cool in LA. I land, I get to the Monteleone, I turn on the TV and LA was on fire. So now I'm thinking in my room oh my God, I'm going to the racetrack tomorrow. There's going to be black people and white people. It's going to be a race riot. It's going to be horrible.

Speaker 1: 3:38

People were hugging each other. No, I've never seen in this may be my 20th, 30th Jazz Fest never seen a fight, never seen people screaming. Rarely see people too messed up to actually enjoy the day. It's just the most harmonious, joyful, huge event I've ever been to, and because of the Travel Channel show I've been to literally every festival in America and no one produces a festival better than the Jazz and Heritage Foundation. Tons of bathrooms. You have a great lunch for under 20 bucks. The beers are what? $7 or $8? It's just everything about how the festival is staged, I think reflects the best of the spirit of the city. You know, people are proud of the music, people are proud of the food, people are proud of the camaraderie that exists amongst the people and you welcome the visitors. I tell everybody, I know it's the greatest party in America. Every year Period, full stop.

Speaker 2: 4:32

Yes, sir, does that answer your?

Speaker 3: 4:33

question. Yeah, I'd agree with that.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Now you make me want some crawfish bread, which is a famed dish there, crawfish monica, I mean just before I got on with you today I was making all my dinner reservations for the weekend that we're going to be there. We're going to Ye Olde College Inn Saturday night before we see Cowboy Mouth at the Rock and Bowl. I mean LA, where I live, is a good food city. There's lots of different cultures and ethnic restaurants, but just every place pales in comparison to your city. I've had Zagat-rated meals in gas stations in New Orleans. That doesn't happen here.

Speaker 2: 5:07

Right, I'm going to get gas, I'm going to get a little snack and oh, I'm going to get me a po' boy and it's the best in town. Right, yeah, exactly. So you were saying in the 80s you were just getting out of college and in the 80s you were on that show, studge, you were the host. Was that your first gig? That was the 90s.

Speaker 1: 5:22

Oh, it was the 90s. Yeah, I graduated from UCLA and then Second City opened a theater here in Los Angeles. I'm from Chicago originally, so I was one of the founding members of the Second City Theater here in LA, along with Andy Dick and Brad Sherwood and Megan Cavanaugh, who later would go on to play my wife on the Jimmy Neutron Show, rich Kind, andrea Martin, colin Mockery a lot of really funny people. So I did that and that was a pretty big deal. Here. I had had my own improv group called the Frayed Knots before the Second City did the Second City and then I auditioned for this dating show. I had been doing commercials mostly to make money, and then I got this gig. It was supposed to be a six week gig. We ended up doing 600 shows over the course of three or four years, so that was my first big TV job, for sure. Wow.

Speaker 2: 6:04

Cool. And before I forget, we have had your child, jimmy Neutron, on our show and Debbie raved about you. She loved that and she found out that we had done improv together. Oh, mark, must he brought? He's so funny, he must've brought everything to it.

Speaker 1: 6:17

We did have a good time. We had a just a great cast. Debbie played Jimmy, rob Paulson, who also plays Yakko and Pinky on. Pinky and the Brain plays Carl. Jeff Garcia is a Mexican stand-up here in LA and he plays Sheen. Megan Kavanaugh from League of their Own plays Judy. We've had Mel Brooks on the show. We've had all kinds of really funny people on the show Stephen Banks, our head writer, really just Steve O'Kirk, the guy who invented the show to begin with. It was really cool. Our head writer really just Steve O'Kirk, the guy who invented the show to begin with. It was really cool.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Nowadays, when you do a cartoon, typically you record by yourself, either from your home studio or I just did a Loud House a couple of weeks ago and I went into Nickelodeon hoping that there'd be people there and it was just me talking to a monitor. When we were doing Neutron, we were all in the studio at the same time every Friday from 10 to 2. And we all had our own little areas so that we could over-talk each other and it wouldn't screw up the recording and we would record every scene as written and then we would go back and do what we call a crazy pass, where you were not only allowed but encouraged to improvise and do weird funny stuff to make the cast members laugh or just to inject something into the show. And, to their credit, the producers and the writers ended up using a lot of the stuff that we just made up in the moment in the final cut. A lot of times you're working on a show and the writer is like read every comma, read every period, don't add anything, we don't need your input. But I think the cast of people that we had on Jimmy Neutron were all improvisers and just comedians that it would have been crazy not to take that input. You know, especially when you're just recording audio, let the people talk and if it stinks don't use it.

Speaker 1: 7:55

But by far more often than not the stuff that people would come up with in character and throw into the read was hilarious and they ended up putting it in the final cut of the show, and I think that's one of the reasons the show was so popular, because ostensibly it was a kid's show but there was a lot of comedy baked into it that appealed to grownups and I would get parents coming up to me all the time saying oh my God, we love your show because I can watch it with my kids and my brain doesn't turn to jello.

Speaker 1: 8:24

A lot of times kids' cartoons are so lame and stupid that it drives parents crazy to watch them. It's like Baby Shark on constant loop in your head, like the old Batman show from the 60s. When you're a little kid you're getting the jokes here, but when you're a grownup you get all the satire and there's a whole other level of comedy that is baked into the show. That was very much on purpose and more just to entertain ourselves, but in the long run I think it served the popularity and the longevity of the series as a whole yeah, and just the interaction, the energy you would get from people making you laugh, even if you were just laugh, laugh, laugh original line.

Speaker 2: 9:05

it brings it up so much more, so much more life.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Yeah, and you can have a conversation, right. I mean, someone would say something and then you bounce off of that and bounce off of that and you get a funny little riff that wasn't written. If you're just reading lines on a paper to a monitor, as an actor, there's nobody to bounce off of. So you basically just kind of read what's there and you don't know what the other person says. So even if you do improvise, the chances of them using it and having it match whatever comes next from another character is pretty slim, because you just don't know. It's easier to record people separately. It's easy to schedule people that way. It's more difficult to do everybody together in a group and to take the extra time to record the extra material. But if you really care about the final product, that's what you do.

Speaker 1: 9:51

I have a movie coming out later this year. It's kind of a reboot of Pinocchio. It's called Pinocchio and the Water of Life and that's how we recorded it. We got everybody together and we recorded the scenes together and we ended up using a lot of the improvisation Rob Paulson and Maurice Lamarche and we ended up using a lot of the improvisation Rob Paulson and Maurice LaMarche, pinky and the Brain they're in the movie and 30% of their scenes is stuff that they just made up while they were goofing around. That's hilarious. That wouldn't have happened if we had recorded them separately.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Fred Tatteshore plays the Hulk and Yosemite. Sam is the bad guy and there's conversations between the heroes and the bad guy. There's a whole scene. There's a whole two-minute scene that was completely improvised as we were going out of the door to go to lunch. That was hilarious and we put it in the movie. I think as a result of my background with Second City and improvisation and working in front of live audiences, it's something that I personally value. So whenever I'm writing something or producing something unless it's completely impossible that's the way I like to do it, because I think the final product is greatly enhanced when you do it that way.

Speaker 3: 10:50

So with the setup, are y'all all in the same room and you can see each other? Are you in separate, isolated booths? But you can hear each other.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Both we would set up in Nickelodeon. We would set up kind of in a semicircle with baffles between each person, and they always put me in a clear box because I talked a lot. And they'd put Paulson in a clear box because he's a comedy genius and everyone else had a physical baffle like a rollable wall, basically about that thick, so the sound wouldn't go. So I could be talking into my microphone and if you're next to me simultaneously you're talking in your microphone but my mic won't pick up what you're saying. So everyone's tracks were clean, but we could see each other. So we'd be reading and doing a scene and someone would raise their hand or point to the person and then you would and then you'd move on.

Speaker 1: 11:39

So it's like hockey or it's like jazz music. You get into a flow and, especially after you've been working with people for a long time, you know where they're going to go and what they're going to do and you can set them up and it's a great, fun thing to do. It's a great feeling and you just don't get that any other way. That's why I like to go see jazz music. It's never the same right, it's always different every particular performance and it's organic. It's never going to happen again that way, and the people that are doing it are feeding off each other. They're not reading music, they're listening and they're you know, they're vibing on each other To me. That's why I go see live entertainment. You can listen to records, you can listen to tracks, but it's different when it's a live performance, because it's different. It's more exciting to me to see what happens, and we really leaned into it.

Speaker 2: 12:25

Again. The energy is more alive.

Speaker 1: 12:27

Right? Well, it's more like real life, right? Yeah, we're talking to each other. We could see each other. We're interrupting each other. It's more real. We could have done this with an email interview and it'd be boring and no one would read it, right? Oh, if I wrote it, they'd read it, unless you just scrolled the text on your show, and that would be stupid. No one would do that?

Speaker 2: 12:46

Is that a challenge? Should we do that?

Speaker 1: 12:48

Also, it wouldn't count for my community service. The community service says it has to be video with audio.

Speaker 2: 12:55

Yeah, I don't know how you got away with that crime, but we're not going to go into that because you know the NDAs were signed.

Speaker 1: 13:01

You rob one bank. Suddenly you're a bank robber. Screw that.

Speaker 2: 13:05

How do you rob a sperm bank with a bag of cloth, Anyway?

Speaker 1: 13:09

let's stop. I was wearing gloves, that's all I'll say. Wearing gloves, what are the things we've? And I slipped on the way out the door, which is how they caught me. But again, I do not want, I'm not supposed to talk about it. Legally I can't talk about it.

Speaker 2: 13:22

It explains why you called yourself the spermicide bandit, but anyway yes, we love asking. Oh, my God, the smell in that place.

Speaker 1: 13:29

The AC was broken that day. You don't even. It was awful.

Speaker 2: 13:34

Oh, unseen. So we like finding how people got inspired, whether it was, you know, first time in class and in school you did a play For me it's later in life, you know stumbled in the background and then took off. Can you pinpoint where your storytelling, your entertainer life began? I?

Speaker 1: 13:54

don't know if I could pinpoint it. I mean, I hated grade school. I was always bored, I was always getting yelled at by the nuns because I would goof off in school. And then I went to a high school Bennett Academy in Lyle, illinois, which is a great high school. At our high school, the marching band and the drama troupe were both cool to be in, which I don't think is the case at a lot of high schools.

Speaker 1: 14:14

And my freshman year I met a guy named Chris Fay who became my best friend in high school, and his two older siblings were on stage at Second City downtown Megan and Jim Fay. So you had to be 21 or older to get into Second City because there was booze, but Chris and I could sneak in and watch the shows. So I was. I don't know how old are you when you're a freshman in high school 14, 13, 12, 15, I don't know. Whatever that age is, we would sneak in, the show would start, we'd sneak in afterwards and we'd sit in the back and I saw people that I knew his siblings doing funny scenes, making stuff up on stage, getting lots of laughs from a crowd. It looked like a really fun thing, and then when I realized that was their job, that that's all they did, is they did shows six days a week and got paid. I think I was like, well hell, why would I do anything else? So I did a lot of theater in high school, did a lot of theater at UCLA. In college I started doing standup at night here in Los Angeles. There was a comedy store in Westwood that I could ride my bike to at night and it's really my only marketable skill comedy. So I kind of leaned into it and it has served me well, lo, these many years.

Speaker 1: 15:23

It's not always pleasant or fun and it's never been easy, but it's fun. I mean, you know that's your job to make a room full of strangers laugh at stuff they've never heard before. It's great, especially if you do an improv. They say public speaking is the number one fear of humanity, and I'm just the opposite. I have no problem just walking on a stage with an empty head and taking a suggestion from the audience and then 45 minutes later we're done Right. It's like jazz it's addictive when you're doing it right and when it's fun and when you're working with a bunch of fun people. So, to answer your question, probably at the back of the theater at 1616 North Wells in Chicago, watching a group of really funny people do really funny stuff time after time after time and realizing they were getting a paycheck for it and I didn't have to get a job, job.

Speaker 2: 16:07

Didn't have to learn a line. I want to do that Right. We first met online during the pandemic. You had a show on called Baffle the Bear Show. Baffle the Bear and it was an augmented reality bear. It was very cool and you were interviewing Brad Sherwood. Maybe we'll drop that exchange in here. Oh, you have it. I have it. I got a copy from YouTube. So during the pandemic, we were all nervous as hell. Who had experienced that before? Yeah, my improv group. I had just started in January of 2020, and this was March of 2020. And our teacher. We went online and the most amazing thing is, every two weeks we would do this. A couple hours of just playing would get rid of the stress. It was like popping a balloon and it was just amazing. You had your show, you were doing your interview and it was a call-in segment. Well, I had nothing else to do. I was like I'm going to call and talk to these guys.

Speaker 1: 16:55

It's a bear, a cartoon bear, talking to Bradley yeah, who was also at my second city cast. That's how Bradley and I met.

Speaker 2: 17:01

Brad Sherwood. You may know him from Whose Line Is it Anyway, amongst other things? And he tours with Colin Mochrie.

Speaker 1: 17:06

Yeah, colin and Brad, they do a really great two-man theater improv show, really funny.

Speaker 3: 17:11

Yes sir, both very funny.

Speaker 2: 17:13

I called in and then asked what he thought about New Orleans and let myself kind of calm down and then invited y'all to join us online to teach us improv. And then the bear because it was the end of the show said OK, brian, do some improv with Brad Sherwood from who's Line. And since I was on the phone you couldn't see me, but I went, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to.

Speaker 1: 17:37

It was fun and I held my own pretty good, which we will show you now maybe. Yeah, show it, show it right now. I think now would be a great time to have you fly your improv wings. We tried to get jr to do a little comedy. Let's close off the show with comedy of some improvisational sort from you. Throw him something brad. What do you think?

Speaker 4: 17:52

let's do a scene in the style of Dr Seuss, but we need a topic from maybe someone in the audience or a large animated blue bear the scourge of toenail fungus. Upon my feet there is a scourge. With what antibiotic that I must purge this awful thing that grows among us? Some type of awful nail toe fungus?

Speaker 3: 18:20

Yeah, go ahead, follow that.

Speaker 2: 18:24

From my feet. There was this smell. What it was? I could not tell the pain it was. It did go bam. Oh, my God, it's ugly toe jam.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Perfect, very well done, right, yes, I mean, here's another beautiful thing about improv. It's like whoever you're playing with raises your game right and brad's one of the best. So that was really fun and that was what's. Such a crazy time, man. Oh, so glad it's over, yes, sir.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Well, the cool thing about the bopo show was I partnered with a guy named Julian Sarmiento who was the chief innovation officer at a company called Digital Domain for a decade and they pioneered visual effects for films and television. So, as kind of a garage project, he and I realized that there was a lot of this cool VFX coming online, but no one was pairing it with comedy. It was always serious stuff or boring stuff. So we created this character named Baffle the Bear and during COVID I would do an hour live every day on YouTube interviewing celebrities, taking phone calls. It had never been done before Cartoon in real time, hosting a talk show and it really took off. And we did like a year and a half. We did it Monday through Friday. It was probably the only thing that kept me sane during COVID and it was a rig that we put here in my office and fully animated face. You can go to bofflethebearcom and you can see some videos there. It was really fun and we're now using that same technology at an elevated level to do a bunch of new shows that'll be coming out later this year on YouTube.

Speaker 1: 19:57

The cool thing about animation is, whatever you think of you can do right. You can be a bear, you can be an alien, you can be a whatever, and as long as it looks good, I think people will watch it If it's funny. You see all these demos online of realistic looking animated humans which, a what's the point? You have humans and B they're always just acting or standing and moving their arms. No one thought to marry this cutting edge technology with comedy. I think it's a no brainer. I mean, I've been watching cartoons since the dawn of time and they're the most. I think Rick and Morty's the best show on television right now, the most well-written, funniest show on TV, by far.

Speaker 2: 20:36

It's tight. Yeah, you've been watching cartoons since they were on stone tablets.

Speaker 1: 20:39

Right, and you would just have to flip the stone tablets, which was very difficult with small little hands as a child.

Speaker 3: 20:45

And you had to do it really fast, so it would flow.

Speaker 1: 20:47

Right, exactly, exactly. But if you love the medium, that's what you do.

Speaker 3: 20:51

So can you say maybe I missed it the technology that did the live cartoon in real time? How did they make that work? I've looked at it a little bit. We had one episode of this podcast. The video was a little bit out of sync with the audio because of a connection issue and through some of the tools with Adobe you can generate a cartoon after the fact, turn the person where they look animated, but doing it in real time, that's just incredible.

Speaker 1: 21:18

Yeah, this guy, he owns the patents for the stuff that they do for Marvel and DC movies. He's the number one VFX guy in Hollywood and he just was a fan of mine and we hooked up at a Comic-Con and became friends and we were like you know what, as a side project, let's start doing this. The way we did it is it's called real-time motion capture. So I would wear a helmet with an iPhone facing my face that would capture the movements of my face, my mouth, my eyes, and his program would take that motion data, that motion capture data, feed it through a very, very, very high-end computer and drive the bear a very, very, very high-end computer and drive the bear so for every muscle point or joint on my human body. There's a corresponding point on the cartoon body and if you're capturing the motion in real time, a super fast computer and Julian's genius is able to translate all that motion and make the character move in sync with the human being. When you do a Marvel movie or a DC movie, they use the same system to capture the motion and then it takes them nine months to turn the motion into a fully realized lit 3D character.

Speaker 1: 22:28

We were doing it with zero delay. So the lips were in sync, the body was in sync and it was never possible before. And we're the only company that is currently doing it in real time. And we think real time is important because we can go live to the air and you can do daily comedy things with a cartoon, which, again, it's never been possible before. I would just wear a rig and if I was just sitting or standing or whatever, it would go into the iPhone and shoot out on the internet. When you're doing a full body, you need a more robust system. But just for what we were doing during COVID, it was just an iPhone capture and it worked great.

Speaker 3: 23:06

Oh, that's incredible.

Speaker 1: 23:07

And it's the future of animation. You know it used to take Rick and Morty, for example. You record an episode and 10 months later it comes out on TV because it takes that long to do the animation. Literally the same way and it's done with computers now, instead of people painting, but it's frame by frame, moving like that, frame by frame. It's a cumbersome process, it's an extremely expensive process. Our process is free.

Speaker 1: 23:31

Once you build the model, once you build the bear or the alien or the whatever the cartoon is, and you connect it, you rig it it's called when you connect it to the motions of a human being.

Speaker 1: 23:42

That's an expense, but once you do that, you just turn on your computer and it doesn't cost anything and it's instantaneous. You could do a nightly newscast with cartoons and you could go live to air with it, and that's never. No one else can do it. It's never been possible before at the level of visual quality that we have. You know you could do the little iPhone emoji faces and things like that, which are small, 2d, very narrow bandwidth streams of information. If you go to boffwiththebearcom you'll see it's a fully designed, fully lit, fully shaded 3D character that moves in a 3D space and it just opens up huge avenues for comedy that have been unavailable before now, and to me that's really exciting. It's going to replace traditional animation very rapidly because it's 80% less expensive to do this than it is to do the animation on rick and morty or archer or one of those shows right.

Speaker 3: 24:40

That's really, really interesting. How long so on the front end to build out the character and get everything ready to where you can use it instantaneously? You said for a movie it would take them nine months to develop the motion capture into movement. For this technology, what's the setup time to get it ready to be able to use? How long did that take?

Speaker 1: 25:05

Depending on the complexity of the character. Two or three weeks, wow, 120 hours. First you have to design, draw the character, then you got to build a 3D model, then you have to rig it. Think of it as like GPS dots, and as the human moves the elbow in a 3D space, its height, width and depth changes right, moves around. So there are two cameras that capture the movement simultaneously of all the joints and record them in a stream of data. Then you take that stream and you connect Mark's elbow to Bafo's elbow on the model and then, once that connection is made, then whatever Mark does, the model does in real time and you've got two streams, essentially the body stream and then the facial capture stream, which is a lot more articulate than the body Because you don't need sensors here. Once you've built the arm, wherever this goes, the risk can only go. You know it's limited into what it can do, but the face there's a lot more ability to move the face and act with it. You can actually act face-wise with this system. And it's like I said, once the character is built, it's instantaneous and you know you have a technician sitting behind a computer that starts it and stops it.

Speaker 1: 26:16

You walk out of the studio at the end of the day with a finished product, not just a data stream. When you walk out of the studio at the end of the day with a finished product, not just a data stream. When you walk out of a Marvel studio at the end of the day, you've got the video of the humans and you've got a data stream of the character that you then have to feed into a computer and it renders it frame by frame. Same process. It's just much, much slower and more cumbersome.

Speaker 1: 26:36

And it's been that way because the detail of the Marvel characters is very high and it's got to look beautiful because it's going to be on a giant screen. But somehow he's cracked the code and is able well, he wrote the code and then he cracked it he's able to design characters that look just as good and can be operated in real time. Just from the cost savings alone, once we reach the threshold where it's visual parody with the high-end movies, why would you spend nine months and you know that's how many guys a day working at their computers 40 hours a week, 60 hours a week, to generate two minutes of video, when you can do it and have it done at the end of the day?

Speaker 2: 27:14

Right.

Speaker 1: 27:14

It's a really disruptive technology that's going to change and, I think, democratize animation in general. Yeah, it's pretty exciting to be at the leading edge of that, really.

Speaker 3: 27:25

That's really incredible. I've got a computer background, I build really high-end gaming systems and I'm trying to wrap my head around it. The sheer computing power that it would take to do that is just massive.

Speaker 1: 27:35

Yeah, that's what we use. We use like a $10,000 game engine computer. Yeah, that has a really fat pipe, really fat pipeline, information broadband pipeline. So you've got all this data going back and forth with zero delay, which is the key. And I don't know how he does it, but he figured it out. And that's the expense having that computer and building the model and then rigging the model. And if you have a fully rigged model and you have the computer, you just need a guy like you to start it and stop it every morning and then, whenever you generate, sticks to the tape or goes onto the video file and you're able to manipulate that and either put that cartoon into a real environment next to a human or put the human into a virtual reality environment with the cartoon. But either way, the cartoon can grab a human shirt, can throw water on the human and since it's happening in real time and in real space, it sells the illusion.

Speaker 3: 28:34

Yeah, when we do release the video version of this, we'll drop a couple of pictures of Bofo the bear. I just pulled it up. It's so lifelike looking. Yeah, just looks incredible.

Speaker 2: 28:43

And just our interaction in that one video. And then Brad does his thing and then he goes okay, brian, your turn Like almost a fuck, you Do it better. It was fun. But also, yeah, that was mean. Not only was Bofo in the comedy, he was a game show host. That's right.

Speaker 1: 28:59

Again during COVID, just to keep ourselves sane. We came up with a game show that a cartoon hosted and we had people call in and we had them on Zoom and we gave away prizes and we did trivia.

Speaker 2: 29:11

Some of us lost on the game show. I know Got my butt kicked. Hey, we gave you every opportunity, brian. You did Every opportunity to get it right. We were pulling for you. At least. I beat your wife, I beat your wife, I beat Yanni. I mean we even cheated to help you and it didn't help. Oh, we can go back to the count. I think you cheated to help to get her up, but anyway, accidentally, I think the count messed up.

Speaker 2: 29:33

I've reviewed the tape, but I'm not bitter at all. Wow, it's like the Zapruder film in your house. Right, the game show button. Back and down to the left, back and down to the left.

Speaker 1: 29:42

There, I'm buzzing, I'm buzzing and you can see it.

Speaker 2: 29:45

It was a lot of fun. We are coming close to the time and we've talked a little bit about your future projects. We've talked about what inspired you. What would your dream be for the future? Either an actor, an actress to work with it. That's the goal, or a project that you haven't been a part of Like. For me, it's Star Wars. I'd love to be, you know, an action figure one day. So what would be something that you would dream of for your future?

Speaker 1: 30:05

I'm doing it. Actually, I think the future of comedy and the future of animation are converging with this technology that we're using, and I think it's a total game changer. So I'm excited to be doing new projects that I think if you're flipping through channels or you're going through videos on TikTok or YouTube and you see a cartoon wrestling with Tom Hanks, you're going to stop and watch it, right, yeah? And then once you stop and watch it, we have to do something that's funny and engaging enough to make you come back and watch the next one. And I have a lot of really funny friends, bradley, and a lot of voiceover actors, a lot of Second City comedians so there's no shortage of funny people in my phone that I can call and say hey, we got an idea for a sketch, come in and do it, and we're finishing up a studio here in town. Once we're up and running, that's my dream job is to do live, to air cartoon chunks every day and do a big fat weekly show every day and have it be funny and groundbreaking and visually interesting and generate a buzz that makes people want to watch it and interact with it. I think it jump starts a whole new genre of comedy and animation together, and that's what excites me.

Speaker 1: 31:14

I think pretty much everything else in show business is over. Ai is taking over everything. People are going to lose a lot of jobs and you know you've got to make your own material. You've got to make your own content. So that's what Julian and I are focused on doing, and it's fun. Being a bear is fun as long as you're not bare naked but but no pants. I never understood that. Julian thinks it's okay and you know you can't see his genitalia because his fur hangs down, but he assures me that it's there.

Speaker 2: 31:48

Not till the late night version. Well, you're carrying on the tradition of poo and Donald.

Speaker 4: 31:54

Right Bare naked. That's right.

Speaker 3: 31:57

Nice.

Speaker 2: 31:59

Mark, we've come to the end. Any social media you want to share, anything you want to tell people. We've talked about what to look out for in your studio. That's coming. What would you like them to keep an eye out for?

Speaker 1: 32:08

Well, the best way is follow. You can follow me on Twitter at Mark DiCarlo and on Instagram at Mark DiCarlo TV. Those are the main channels. I do a lot of Comic-Cons. Do you guys have a Comic-Con in NOLA?

Speaker 2: 32:19

We do Fan Expo New Orleans, but that's every January.

Speaker 1: 32:22

That's a good time to be down there. It is Do those and boffothebearcom, and we got other stuff coming on YouTube, but all that'll be announced on those two channels. On Instagram and Twitter. I also do a lot of travel stuff. I have a travel podcast called the Fork on the Road that I do with my wife, the Traveling Da, and we do travel tips and hacks and interview people about travel, which is also fun, and that's about it Just trying to stay in my lane. Stay in my lane and defeat the ever-present malaise of AI that's sweeping Hollywood.

Speaker 2: 32:53

That's right, we're with you on that, yep. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1: 32:56

Actually, the most exciting thing coming up for me is Jazz Fest first week of May.

Speaker 2: 32:59

Excellent, yeah, Jazz Fest coming up for me is Jazz Fest first week of May, Excellent. Yeah, Jazz Fest. Whether this gets released before or after Jazz Fest, it's still the next Jazz Fest is always exciting.

Speaker 1: 33:06

Oh, you guys are in a, you're not. Okay, I didn't know what your pre-roll was. Probably the best thing that's going on for me is Jazz Fest that I just went to a couple weeks ago. It was spectacular.

Speaker 2: 33:18

I'm going to keep both of them in there.

Speaker 1: 33:19

Yeah, anders Osborne was great. Earth, wind, fire were great. Bonnie Raitt was great. Everybody you know what? Every year at Jazz Fest we discover some band that you've never heard of. That's spectacular. Yeah, soul Project NOLA was a band I saw at Blue Nile. Saw them three nights in a row. They were great. Up on Frenchman Street, where there's a little less puke in the street compared to Bourbon street, a little bit less.

Speaker 2: 33:43

Frenchman is where the locals go instead of the quarter.

Speaker 3: 33:45

Yeah, yeah, you got to find those spots that the locals go to and not the tourist traps.

Speaker 1: 33:54

That's what we do. That's a we don't want to go to. The tourist traps would go. Can I say my favorite fried chicken in the country? Yep, Is it Coop's place?

Speaker 2: 33:58

on Decatur, we've talked about it before and I still haven't gone as a local.

Speaker 1: 34:02

Oh my God, I'm telling you. It's like it comes with fried chicken, rabbit jambalaya, literally. We get off the plane, we dump our bags and we go to Coop's and it's just a dark, shitty bar that you would never think has great food, right, and it's just fun. People there, we always have such a great time in your city. I love it. Keep up the great work down there and go to Coop's. Don't be an idiot. Go to Coop's.

Speaker 2: 34:27

I don't go out as much as I used to, but okay, it's fried chicken, it's fried chicken.

Speaker 1: 34:32

How can you?

Speaker 2: 34:32

not want fried chicken. I want fried chicken, I want everything. All right, we're going to Coop's and we'll have a review later in the year.

Speaker 1: 34:41

Okay, yeah, I'd be curious to see if you agree with me or not. Cool Because before Coop's my favorite was Gus's in Memphis and now they're franchising. They have a couple of Gus's fried chickens here in Los Angeles, not quite as good as the stores in Memphis.

Speaker 2: 34:55

Yeah, not quite. Say, lovey, we We'll see you at Jazz Fest, my friend.

Speaker 1: 35:01

I will be there, guys. Thanks for the chat, it was fun.

Speaker 3: 35:03

Yep. Thank you, mark, appreciate it.