hueviews: Welcome to hue what where? The show where curiosity leads the way. I’m hueviews, and I’ve always been intrigued by people, their stories, their thoughts and the little things that make them who they are. Some questions may stay surface level, while others might dig a little deeper. Let’s see where we go with today’s guest – Eclectic Method is a one of a kind audio visual remix machine. Known for turning pop culture, film clips and internet fun into rhythmic video collages. Blending DJing and VJing. He’s matched up everything from retro cartoons to classic movies. Most recently, he and his amazingly talented wife have been diving into the world of AI, creating characters, music and videos that push all the boundaries. Whether cutting up movie trailers or creating something entirely new, Eclectic Method remixes the future in real time. Hi. I’ve been amazed by your brain for a very long time, so I’m super excited to just talk with you for a couple of moments.

Eclectic Method: Hey hue. How you doing? Thank you so much for having me.

hueviews: Of course, of course. Thank you for taking time out of all of your creating. My first question for you is what do you do when you are not connected to the electronics, because you stay connected a lot.

Eclectic Method: Yeah, I love computers. Mostly with like family. Walking the dogs, playing with my son, outdoors stuff a lot and, you know, love this trampoline club in town, like a jump club.

hueviews: Oh. Do all three of you go?

Eclectic Method: No, just me and my son mostly. But we all go to the same part of town and then have coffee. There’s a lot of nice places to hang out. So I like being outdoors. We’ve got a mountain walk near us and so we go to the mountain a lot. And then, yeah, we kind of go to other towns a bunch too. Been in North Wales a lot recently.

hueviews: Yeah. You guys have been traveling a lot. I always love when you post photos. It’s a piece of the world that I never get to see. It’s so cool to see all the greenery and all that. What’s your go to beverage?

Eclectic Method: Water. 

hueviews: Me too. 

Eclectic Method: Fizzy water with lemon juice. That’s my ideal thing. I’ve never been a big drinker and I stop drinking alcohol on New Year’s Eve. Just because I thought I’d see if I could do it and so I haven’t had a drink for like five months.

hueviews: Oh, wow this past New Year’s?

Eclectic Method: Yeah, yeah, I will drink again. Like, I don’t have a big drinking problem. I think it’s kind of fun to see what it’s like. And more than anything, I think alcohol is making me tired and yeah, that’s it. It was making me tired and I don’t like being tired.

hueviews: Yeah. No, that’s really good. We did that too, actually. We stopped for a while and every time we would go out and be like, it’s not because we have an issue, like, we just stopped drinking. I mean, we’ve started again, but it’s a nice little break for your body. Especially if it was making you tired. That’s the last thing you need.

Eclectic Method: My friends had a house party where they were all drinking and eating meat and it was a great afternoon. I didn’t drink and still had a lot of fun.

hueviews: See? Look at that. That’s awesome. But yeah, water. That’s also my, that’s what’s sitting beside me now. I know you said when you like to go out, you’re with your family, but you do that and then you’re also on the computer a lot. Where do you find the time to do it? Like you block out your days or do you just go for it?

Eclectic Method: Well, I’m really lucky. I’m really lucky in that I have a lot of time. I did my severe hours of work earlier in life, and now I’m doing, I’m actually working for ad agencies these days or making videos for live events. And, yeah, we live in Spain and UK and a few different places, but we don’t spend a lot of money. So, yeah, I’m lucky in that I don’t have to work a lot to cover my bills.

hueviews: That’s awesome.

Eclectic Method: And so I have a lot of time and I guess I just choose to spend that time making stuff.

hueviews: No. It’s great. I didn’t know you were still doing stuff for agencies. That’s really cool.

Eclectic Method: Oh yeah, definitely. I’m still working that kind of stuff. Yeah, not all the time, but all around the world, but all on the internet.

hueviews: Nice. That’s awesome. That’s cool that you guys get to pick up and go somewhere new, and then you can still do that from wherever you are.

Eclectic Method: Yeah. The internet’s changed everything. I really wanted to live in Spain, like in 2007, but it was, the internet wasn’t as important back then. It wasn’t possible to get as much work, so I moved to the States instead. But mainly because of work.

hueviews: Oh, really? When was that? You said 2007? 

Eclectic Method: 2007. Yeah. I moved to New York.

hueviews: How long were you over here?

Eclectic Method: Like till 2013 and went to Spain.

hueviews: Oh, wow. Wow. I didn’t realize you were over here for that long. Were you in New York the entire time, home base?

Eclectic Method: Yeah. Actually, no. Lived in New Orleans for a bit and was DJing, so was traveling a lot around the States. Everywhere Vegas, San Francisco, Texas, Saint Louis, everywhere.

hueviews: Wow. I didn’t realize you did that all over the States. That’s really cool. I know this is a total side note, but I had it as part of the, you know, you utilizing your time so efficiently. When we started Hang Gang, it was 100 percent your idea to bring the wives together. And then what? Within like, two weeks, we had a remix of a song of Right Yeah Papa. So that still is a shining highlight for me. So, I’m still like I can’t believe you did that out of nowhere and just pulled that together for us. And it’s still so fun to listen to that.

Eclectic Method: Oh, fantastic. Thank you.

hueviews: No, thank you for putting that idea into our heads. I mean, obviously Hang Gang has changed over the past two years, which I can’t believe it was two years ago. But, yeah, I just want to thank you for getting that together and putting that out there for us. When did you pick up your first instrument? And what was it?

Eclectic Method: Super young because everyone in my family was playing instruments. And not necessarily I was forced to do instruments but because I was interested in music, like at six years old or something. I was going to music theory classes. So doing, yeah, like sitting in front of a board and having to learn how to read music. So that aspect of it was boring, but yeah, I don’t know, six, seven years old.

hueviews: At six? Wow.

Eclectic Method: And then like, my dad had a guitar and that was really the thing I loved. He had the guitar and there was some drums lying around the house. And then, yeah that was it. About nine years old I started like really getting into like rock and roll on acoustic guitar.

hueviews: So your parents, were they both into music?

Eclectic Method: Yeah. They were both playing various instruments.

hueviews: Wow. Wow, that’s really cool. And then when did you get, do you remember like your first board?

Eclectic Method: Yeah. I got a guitar at like 11, 12.

hueviews: Oh, wow.

Eclectic Method: On my own guitar. And then sort of around the same time, like 13, 14, I started getting into electronic music at the same time. So then it was like playing guitars and some synthesizers and really basic samplers. And back then a sampler was thousands of pounds, really too expensive. And so I used an Amiga 500. My friend lent me his Amiga 500. And it had a program on it called OctaMed that was like a music program.

hueviews: That’s awesome. That’s so cool. You said you borrowed that from them?

Eclectic Method: Yeah. I never gave it back, but yeah.

hueviews: Borrowed permanently.

Eclectic Method: Danny. He remembers. Yeah, my mate, Danny, gave me an Amiga 500.

hueviews: That’s amazing. Does your son, is he interested in music at all?

Eclectic Method: Yeah, he loves music. I haven’t forced him to do anything, but we have electronic drum kits, guitars, everything around the house. He loves creating, painting and drawing, with a pen on the computer and all this stuff and making animations.

hueviews: Wow. So he’s definitely like watched you guys and consumed what you guys are doing because you guys are always, always creating something.

Eclectic Method: Yeah, we’re definitely all doing it together. He uses our Adobe package, Premiere and Photoshop.

hueviews: That’s amazing. And he’s young right?

Eclectic Method: Yeah, he’s nearly 11.

hueviews: Wow. That’s so good. He’s going to be well versed in all of this stuff. I mentioned your AI characters. There’s a quite a few that I’ve seen, but Trisha specifically, why do you think she’s taken off the way that she has? Because she’s a star.

Eclectic Method: So you were around at the start of all this and this started as a joke. So basically it was The Regulars NFT stuff. They were all perfect characters. There was a program on the iPhone, called Avatarify, and it was Damon, who does the Daarvid character. And he was doing all that Regulars like chatty head stuff. And it was just seeing that, I just thought it was really fun. So I went and bought the app and that was the only reason I was doing it. I had a Regular because HEEEEEEEEEEE, the collector with lots of Es, you know, he had given me a Regular and it was Trisha. He’d given me Trisha.

hueviews: Oh, she was a gift?

Eclectic Method: Yeah, yeah, totally. I had a Regular and so I just started doing Trisha for fun. And then I also had Richard somehow. I think I was given Richard at some point. Anyway, they’re different characters, but we all started as a joke, and it was just because the faces worked really well in the Avatarify app on iPhone. And so we were all doing that, like you were mentioning those songs where it’s like Right Yeah Papa and all those songs, that was just us messing around with those faces. And then I like doing Richard as well. My thing with Trisha is it started as a joke and then AI videos got better and better and better in the last two years, and so I’ve kept on doing Trisha just for fun. And then it’s just been like, AI has got better and it was just easy to do Trisha cause she works well as a rapper, singer and a storyteller. And she can be really silly. So it’s kind of easier to tell stories if you can be silly because you can go anywhere with it. And so yeah, that snowballed only because of those factors. But it all started out as us just joking on an iPhone app. And now it’s like the the AI video is starting to look like a movie.

hueviews: They are. Every time I see it, I was just watching one, no Trisha wasn’t in that one, but the monster’s having the barbecue. I’m like, this is insane. The way you’re, the outputs you’re getting is, yeah, it’s hard to believe that it’s actually just AI honestly, I’m like, how is this happening? Trisha, she’s just a fun character. Like you said, she can be silly, but you know, she’s got her serious moments where you’re like, okay, let me listen to Trisha for a moment. Because I remember when you started her like when she got her Twitter account, I was like, okay, she’s taking off. Like she’s doing her own thing. And so to watch that, to watch that grow and see the stuff that’s come out of that has been so fun. Speaking of all of these things that you do, how do you stay organized? How are your computer files organized?

Eclectic Method: Really badly. I back everything up now like I lost a hard drive five years ago or something. And it was like, you know, it didn’t knock me out, but I lost a lot of stuff that I’d worked on over the years, just because I was really bad at backing things up. So I’m not really that good at organizing, but you get into like file systems. So, you know, in AI, you have all the images you use that’s kind of like the storyboard that you make the video out of. Then the video clips, then you have the voice over, then you have the sound effects, then you have the music. And so every project uses those five things. So you end up kind of just having files, the same folder system in every project, so you can easily go back to it later and remember what you’re doing. But still loads of my names are messy, you know fish one, fish two, fish three.

hueviews: Revision five. 

Eclectic Method: Yeah totally. 

hueviews: When you guys do your voiceovers, do you sit in the same room and do them? Or are you, do you banter off of each other or do you record them separately?

Eclectic Method: Yeah, both. Sometimes we don’t write a script at all and we just sit down and we just say what comes to our head and then delete all the stuff that isn’t any good. Sometimes we write a script and it’s just us sitting down there brushing it out or like, yeah, just typing it out on the computer and saying, I don’t like that line, I do like that line. And yeah, that’s it. And then it’s all sorts of things. And now, like some of the AI voices, we can do them live or almost live. There’s like a third of a second delay, so that’s kind of fun. And so I’ve had fun doing like X spaces with Damon where it’s like being an AI character in real time.

hueviews: Yeah, that’s definitely, I remember there being more of a delay because I remember being like, people were asking who, you know, who’s Richard? And you’re like just let Richard be Richard. And then you would, Richard would pop it and it would be like the delay, but it seems like it’s gotten a lot better. I mean, obviously you’re using certain, what’s the word I’m looking for, programs for that?

Eclectic Method: Yeah. Yeah, I’m just using RVC, which is like the program everyone uses, and it’s really just about like the better graphics card you can afford the less time there is.

hueviews: Okay.

Eclectic Method: But it’s much better, but it’s still hard to argue with people. You can’t jump in quick enough.

hueviews: That does seem to be it would be a problem if it was Richard for sure. Oh my gosh. All of them. They all have their own personalities and it’s hard, I mean, just like when Damon was just Daarvid. How do you find the separation? But it’s the way you were, I don’t know if you were trying to keep it anonymous for a while, but it was just, it was so fun to watch people try to figure it out and asking all of the time. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have one final question for you. It might be a little bit of a thinker, but how has a piece of advice changed the way you think, and what advice would you pass on to someone? It doesn’t have to be related to art. It could just be life. Could be anything.

Eclectic Method: Yeah, someone asked me this earlier today, but it was all in like creative context. So yeah, it’s a difficult one. I feel like I want to pull up that answer.

hueviews: I mean, you can.

Eclectic Method: I wrote down a few of them. No, but, well, the advice, I think the quickest one is like, you can do a lot in little bits over huge amounts of time, if you know what I mean. So it may seem like it’s an insurmountable achievement, but it can be done when you break it down into tiny little bits and do it every day and, yeah, that’s it. And then like, the other thing is just from creating stuff. I guess the way I create stuff and I think it’s probably the way you guys create stuff too, is just from playing around loads and making the best bits.

hueviews: Yeah. And you’re doing something every day, right?

Eclectic Method: Yeah. I do a video every day.

hueviews: I don’t know how you do it.

Eclectic Method: AI has made it easier. The process is a lot quicker.

hueviews: Yeah, but that’s still a lot of work.

Eclectic Method: Yeah. Well, I stock them up sometimes. I have like ten in the bag to go. So if I get a job and I can’t make videos for a few days like I have videos to go out.

hueviews: Very smart. Smart man, smart man. What all does, can I call her Maria? I was like I don’t want to call her out by name, but yeah. Do you start it or does she start it? Where do the ideas come from?

Eclectic Method: Oh, both of us. So it’s always just one simple idea, like, we’re going to go to Japan or something. And then, either one of us expands on it. We can both end up writing each other’s lines or our own lines. We’re really just messing about. But how it starts is like we make a load of pictures, so we’ve got a story idea, and then we’re like, what is every scene going to be? And you make a picture of every scene and then you animate it and add the voices. It’s like way easy because you do the storyboarding as you make the story. You don’t do the storyboard, then you make the story. The storyboard is the story.

hueviews: Okay. So you actually have it, yeah. You’re like starting with the storyboard, but it is the story of it. That’s very interesting. I didn’t think about it like that.

Eclectic Method: You know what I mean?

hueviews: Yeah. 

Eclectic Method: Most people would draw a few pictures to guide what they’re going to film, whereas once you’ve made the picture with AI, that’s what you’re animating to be filmed.

hueviews: Do you have an average, sorry I have gone way over my questions. But do you have like an average of how many images you guys use?

Eclectic Method: Yeah. I don’t know. If it’s really talky, it can be slow. On a music video with loads of splices, like I did one the other day that was like, I don’t know, maybe like in 40 seconds, 30 clips.

hueviews: Wow. That’s quite a bit.

Eclectic Method: But that’s like really over the top fast, you know, frenetic music video.

hueviews: Okay. All right. Wow, I feel like I should have had more questions for you, but you also answered a lot for me, and I just want to say thank you for that, for taking the time to stop and talk with me. Yeah. It’s been, it’s always a treat to see your videos pop up, but getting to know you on a personal level is always a real treat. So I appreciate you stopping by as you.

Eclectic Method: Thanks. It’s been lovely getting to know you.

hueviews: Yeah. And please tell Maria hi. I miss her. I need to see more of her on the timeline. I need to message her actually. 

Eclectic Method: She comes in spaces sometimes, but as a character.

hueviews: Oh, does she really? Oh, I need to be popping in more then cause it’s usually like I’m going to bed and I’m like, I got to see what’s happening.

Eclectic Method: Yeah. We tend to do it around midnight your time, I think.

hueviews: Yeah. Well, I’ll be there at some point when I’m not about to pass out from being tired. No. But thank you for letting me pick your brain and constantly sharing your creativeness with everybody. You and your wife, you guys are both powerhouses and gems. And yeah, we, bananakin and I both have a lot of respect for you guys.

Eclectic Method: Oh, thank you. Likewise.

hueviews: Well, thanks, I appreciate it. And, yeah, thank you again.