#001: Creative Journeys with Cordell Briggs

Show Notes

Welcome to the ‘We Learned Something’ podcast! In this episode, hosts Carly and Alvin join Andrew in an engaging conversation with special guest Cordell Briggs. Cordell, a First Nations Canadian compositor from Vancouver, shares his journey from music to visual effects and now to co-founding a video game company. They delve into the significance of Cordell’s naming ceremony within the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation, his songwriting process, and his strategies for tackling new creative challenges. Cordell also talks about his upcoming move to Switzerland, where he plans to immerse himself in the local culture and continue his creative endeavours. Join us for an insightful and inspiring episode filled with laughter, learning, and creativity.

00:09 Intro
02:04 Cordell’s Birthday & Naming Ceremony
05:00 How Cordell Learned Music
06:45 How Alvin Learned Music
07:46 Songwriting
10:07 The Podcast Music Theme
11:56 Writing Lyrics
15:01 Cordell’s Number 1 Hobby
16:56 Making Bands & Knives
19:03 3 Word Song Exercise
19:28 Potato, Salsa, & Berries
20:48 Bugs
21:45 Visual Effects
23:32 Plate Joke
24:11 From Compositing Student to Pro
26:10 Learn from Everyone
27:22 The People in VFX
28:10 What Sets Your Soul on Fire
29:59 Unreal Engine & Giant Sandbox
31:16 A Shift in his Life
33:25 Making Fire
35:42 Courage and Tap Water
38:10 The Next Mountain to Climb
40:24 Travel Plans
41:33 Building a Home Lab Server
44:09 Wrap Up

This episode was recorded on June 4th, 2024.

Listen to Cordell’s Music on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/cordell-briggs

Episode Transcript

[00:00:09] Intro
Andrew: Welcome to the “We Learned Something” podcast. I’m joined by my friends: Carly and Alvin.
Alvin: Hey, everybody.
Carly: Hello? Hello
Andrew: and jumping ahead to the end of the episode… We are gonna learn something, or at least we are planning to. And to do that, we are joined by a very special guest. His name is Cordell Briggs. 
Cordell: Hello 
Andrew: Hi Cordell. Thank you for joining us.
Cordell: Thank you for having me.
Andrew: So I’m gonna try my best to do a quick intro of Cordell and then we can dive into talking about things that are related to learning because what this podcast is all about.
We are interested in learning from other people, and we feel like everyone has something to teach and different ways of learning. We want to make it entertaining and educational for you. We’re all passionate about creating things, learning things, and that is the goal of this podcast. Lemme talk about Cordell.
Cordell founded a company called Amazon. Oh no, sorry. That’s Jeff Bezos. Cordell is a First Nations Canadian compositor, currently residing in Vancouver, BC. A love for storytelling has brought him to the visual effects industry and its ability to enable the visuals of otherwise impossible films.
That’s from his LinkedIn directly. But I’m gonna throw in there that he also has many hobbies and he’s a musician, singer, songwriter. And we’re gonna find out a lot more things through this podcast. But I think you’re a great person to have on because there’s quite a bit of shared interests among the group here, and I’m very eager to dive in and talk about that. And also happy
Alvin: Oh, happy birthday.
Cordell: Oh, thank you. Yeah. Happened a days ago yeah. Thank you very much. 
Carly: 21. Is it?
 21st birthday? Is it?
Cordell: Oh yeah. Always. Yeah
Carly: Every year.
Andrew: We were gonna try to meet sooner, but then your birthday was happening. So we had to postpone a little bit, but I think that’s a very good reason did you do anything special for your birthday?
[00:02:04] Cordell’s Birthday & Naming Ceremony
Cordell: I did. So I’m a member of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation which is a First Nations tribe an amalgamation here on the Coast Salish territory of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. And on my birthday we performed my naming ceremony. So I got my it’s called a Na’namín so yeah, that was really exciting.
Andrew: Does that happen at a specific age?
Cordell: No. Yeah, it just so happened to fall on my birthday. It was a large piece of work for our family like the larger unit. And about seven or eight of us got our names that day, which is pretty incredible. It was a awesome experience. It, yeah, three people got Kweshamín and the rest of us got Na’namín And so Kweshamín is the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh word for ancestral name and  Na’namín is like a nickname. 
Andrew: So is it, for the one that’s the nickname, is it something that will replace what people normally call you or…
 
Cordell: Ideally, yeah. So in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh community like my name, my Na’namín is Neḵílusachtn.
It means “wise one”.
Andrew: Oh, cool. And you have no say over it, right? It’s just, it’s given to you.
Cordell: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I’d also like to touch on, it’s not my name. Essentially, I’ve become a steward of the name, so I hold it. That was a profound experience.
It’s not like a name like “Jenny” or “Mark” or like those names you share with people. But like your Na’namín is something that you hold and eventually will pass down. So it’s important not to as a lot of the elders, were giving advice to me during the ceremony to remember not to drag that name through the mud.
And you have to uphold yourself with a certain sense of dignity and pride because it’s a serious thing, and they’re not given they’re earned. So it was very important day in my life, which was exciting and terrifying at the same time.
Carly: Congratulations. That’s a very beautiful name. just hearing the name, I can feel like how important it means to you.
Andrew: I also love that phrasing of , you’re a steward of the name and I think that’s a really interesting concept. And like you said, you probably feel some pressure, especially with a name like “Wise One”.
Cordell: Totally. Yeah. I have a bit of imposter syndrome with it, but I accepted it. It’s an honor. 
It felt great.
Andrew: I guess part of wisdom is gaining knowledge and you are someone who’s gained quite a bit of knowledge and as we’ve mentioned before, in a variety of areas. And I’m curious, going back to your childhood maybe, what were some of the first things that 
you started learning actively on your own, not through school, but were just curious to dive into on your own.
[00:05:00] How Cordell Learned Music
Cordell: I think music has always played a huge part in my life. So growing up, my dad was a musician. Father was kind of a rolling stone. 
Andrew: A member of the Rolling Stones?!
Cordell: No, no, no. Just bounced between places and was a musician, just a traveling musician. And lived that sort of lifestyle. 
Alvin: So you just absorb that all from a young age. 
Cordell: yeah, I tried to pick up the guitar pretty early on. My dad bought me an electric guitar as my first guitar. It was, I think, too complex for me at that age. I think I was maybe eight or nine. But I had always had a special relationship, trying to figure out how I could learn it essentially.
And I think this actually had a profound effect on how I attempt to learn things now. So my parents would put me in music lessons and classes and the ideology there is rote memory. Practice your scales, learn the chord, shapes do that. But that never really worked for me growing up in any of my hobbies, in any of my pursuits in life.
 It’s always never been the driving force for me. I need to have a goal. And I think that a goal is , at least for me, like my learning style is the only reason that I am able to continue down the path of learning that like said hobby. So seeing somebody do something or I. in terms of music, like hearing an amazing piece of music hearing an awesome song and be like, man, that was such a really cool chord change that he did, and maybe I’m gonna make a goal for myself.
I’m gonna write a song with a key shift and try to get that elevation of energy in my next piece of music. 
[00:06:45] How Alvin Learned Music
Alvin: It’s funny you say that. I have a similar story. Growing up. My dad is a multi instrumentalist, piano, guitar, everything like that. And I just absorbed it just by being around him. And my parents tried to put me into piano lessons when I was pretty young and I hated it.
The memorization, the scales, making sure your fingering is correct. You just got really bored with that. And in my mind I’m just like, I heard something cool and I wanna try to replicate that. On my own. And that’s how I’ve just done it ever since, which is rough because I unfortunately did not put the effort into learn how to read music.
 I understand what sheet music means, but, I’m not gonna, I can’t take piece of music and be able to recreate it like I should at this age. But it’s more of a situation of you hear something cool and you set a goal for yourself, and usually that’s, I want to be able to play that thing. And then that ends up teaching you how to do it. So That’s pretty neat. Sounds like you also can listen and learn by ear, self-taught or do you have any kind of more traditional or classically trained stuff with your instruments?
[00:07:46] Songwriting 
Cordell: Not with my instruments as songwriting as a whole. Last year I decided to take a more serious approach to my music, so I signed up for some Berkeley courses online. And I went through their songwriting or one of their songwriting courses which was great. I learned a lot.
 There’s so many ways to skin a cat, but, learning a system that was effective at generating content and ideas and song seeds was awesome. I had always had my feelers out for different song seeds when somebody would say something or somebody would like you just say something in a conversation or just talking.
And usually somebody will just have one or two words, like in a sentence and you’ll be like, oh, like that was really good. I’m gonna write that down. 
Carly: I like how you describe it as a song seed, I can see it as like a sprouting of an idea, an inspiration to start a song.
Andrew: Your friend was like, Hey, you know what, just wake me up when September ends. And you were like, say that again. 
Cordell: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. 
Andrew: I like how alvin connected with you on this. I think both of you learned through osmosis and then by ear and imitation. But I’m curious about the songwriting part, especially because both of you have written original songs and that’s not really done through ear or imitation, right?
Like you’re creating something from nothing essentially. And I’m curious what you’re, for both of you, what is that process like?
Cordell: Yes and no. I would say to that, and I think Alvin would agree with me , in that like when you have an idea for a song, there are only so many chords to play. So it’s impossible to write like a new chord. Change doesn’t, it just doesn’t exist. It’s, everything’s been done before.
The part that is unique to you as an artist is your ability to take the things that you’ve heard, pluck them out from your mental library or the things that get your blood pumping and combine them in unique and new ways. Because that’s ultimately what gives you your sound as an artist or unique sound as an artist.
It’s your ability to take influence from other artists and that I think, crosses all genres of art.
[00:10:07] The Podcast Music Theme
Alvin: On that note a huge challenge that I had and am still having actually and I’m gonna probably find out the longer this goes, is for this podcast, I put together a theme song for it, and it’s still in the works. It’s almost done. I have to do a bunch of mastering because I’m not happy with how everything is glued together.
But essentially going with the common trope of you take, however many syllables there are in the name of whatever you’re writing a theme around. And just turning that into a melody. So it’s four note melody for we learned something and a four note melody in a major key that’s like, how do you do something that doesn’t already exist?
And one of the first drafts that I did trying to come up with one of those, I was like, oh, this is really cool. I was playing on the piano and I was, okay, I’m gonna get, try to lay down some tracks, get a guitar and everything. And then I realized that I basically just recreated a song by the Killers.
 I forget which one it was. It might have been bones. But it was it was like a, and then all these like guitars and drums kick in and I was like, oh, shoot, there goes my entire idea. I just wrote a Killers song. So I modified it, tweaked it a bit, and I think it’s in a good spot, but it’s the same situation where I’m like, there are probably 15 or 20 songs that have this melodic line in there.
And so you just have to think about how do you differentiate that? How do make it your own? So you pull in instrumentation, you pull in different ways of mixing it, and you pull in different harmonies, whatever you can do to make it your own thing. But just that part about there’s only so many notes.
You’ve got 12 notes at the scale, typically eight or eight notes in your scale. And then what if you’re pentatonic that’s five melodic notes that you’re gonna play around with. It’s really hard to think of something novel. To your point, really just taking everything that’s you listen to that’s influenced you and synthesizing that and turning it into something new.
[00:11:56] Writing Lyrics
Alvin: It’s a fun exercise, but yeah, it’s definitely challenging. I do want to ask you Cordell about I was listening to some other tracks you have up on SoundCloud. How do you go about writing your lyrics? I am a horrible lyricist. They’re bad man. They’re really bad.
Andrew: That’s not true. 
Alvin: I was really interested bands of the Icelandic post rock bands Sigur Rós a lot of their lyrics, I guess if you even call it that, I think they have an entire album where they’re completely meaningless. And the the lead singer songwriter he basically said his words were just put together based off of how they sound, so that it acts more like an instrument and fits the composition better.
When I was writing lyrics, I did the same thing, just choosing words and phrases that rolled off the tongue really well. But if you actually read them out on paper, they’re meaningless. I’m always curious about other songwriters, about how they go about lyrics.
Sometimes I know songs start with the lyrics or they start with some kind of a seed for a lyric, how do you typically go about that process?
Cordell: Yeah. Tackling lyrics can be a very daunting process for sure, especially if you have an arrangement beforehand, trying to fit lyrics to an arrangement for me is really difficult. What I usually like to do is start with the lyrics. I’ll generally have a song seed, a phrase or like a feeling.
If I’m feeling something specifically like that week or that day what I’ll end up doing is meditating on that. And then I’ll do it’s called destination writing. I’ll write my song seed at the top of a page. And for me it helps for it to be pen and paper.
 If I use a computer, I find that the magic isn’t in the ink it becomes more permanent when you write it down on a page than if you’re to write it down on a computer in my mind. And I think that , once you start writing with ink on a page and the words are there, your brain is okay, here’s my anchor point.
Where can I go from there? Most of the time I take storied approach to my songs. I’ve got a, backlog of music that I have on SoundCloud that is Privated that should honestly just make public ’cause I’m not gonna improve them. I just keep generating new ideas.
Andrew: So listeners, don’t forget to comment. Release those tracks.
Cordell: yeah.
Carly: I was on your SoundCloud, Cordell, and I was having a listen. It’s interesting to hear your thought process now, knowing what your music sounds like, which is very beautiful, by the way. I think there’s a lot of story and emotion lyrics and I’ve never heard a songwriter describe their process. 
Cordell: Before I started really getting into songwriting, there is always a sense of mysticism, or oh, I’m like a vessel the song is just gonna inhabit me. The idea wants to get out is how I’ve thought about it.
I still do to a sense, because like sometimes I write something and I’m like how did I do that? Or like how did that fit together? It’s hard to encapsulate especially like what you said, Andrew, like creating something from nothing. But again, you’re pulling pieces from your soul, 
Andrew: Yeah, 
it is something from something
[00:15:01] Cordell’s Number 1 Hobby
Cordell: it is something from something. Yeah, definitely. So it’s a really unique process and I don’t think that there’s anything like it. We talked about, I’ve had a lot of hobbies. As a kid, I played a lot of video games. I got into skateboarding, photography, filmmaking.
I tried knife making for a little while. Bouldering. I competed in a Brazilian jujitsu competition learned programming and Python, and I always come back to music. It’s something that is profoundly ingrained in who I am, I think that it’s ability to express a feeling even if you don’t understand the language that the singer is singing. You can listen to a song for 10, 15 seconds and know their pain or know their joy. Which I think is unlike anything else. I think music is the closest thing to actual magic we have in the world which is a beautiful thing to, to think about.
Andrew: Alvin and I have a bit of a background making films, and I don’t know how you feel about this, Alvin, but I’m curious, whenever we got to that last stage in editing and we added the music, it always felt like that sent it over the top in a good way. That’s where the feelings and the magic and the emotion really hit where it’s oh, now it really, it’s reached that point, right?
Alvin: Yeah. And I think when you think about the whole process, even from the very beginning, like when you’re writing a script or coming up with ideas oftentimes you will have music playing in the background just for inspiration or to set the mood. There’s something in your head that’s musical that underlies a lot of the process.
And then when you actually are able to apply that to video everything comes alive in a different way.
Andrew: It sounds like a lot of your hobbies, you mentioned Cordell are creative. Like you’re making something. I noticed a lot of them are also fairly solo activities as opposed to group stuff. I don’t know, did you ever play in a band or
[00:16:56] Making Bands & Knives
Cordell: I tried to get a band together when I was a bit younger. I made a Craigslist post actually, and it was pretty funny. I tried to be humorous and it never got off the ground. And I always just found that if I wanted to do something like really bad, I’m not gonna wait for anybody else to jump on the bandwagon.
If they’re interested, they’ll come, usually when I start a hobby, I have a fire under my booty and I’m just like, it’s go time. And I’ll go. Generally the hobbies that I end up choosing are things that I create and I don’t know, there’s just something so interesting and just magical about creating something with your own hands. And having the product in front of you and being like, I made this, this is a part of me in a way. And I made it not for anybody else, I made it for me because I was feeling a certain way or I wanted to do it.
I wanted to see if I could like, make a knife and because I just thought it was rad. And so I got steel from Rona and I bought a belt sander. And I used a stock removal method researched how to do on YouTube and ground, the steel down until I had my knife blank, and then made my own little quenching thing and my own little kiln with a blow torch.
And did the whole process kind of DIY growing up I never really had a lot of money I had to get creative with how to achieve the same effect or similar effect, on a budget. So that was, I think also really attractive to me was trying to do these things that were like a lot and doing them in my own way.
Andrew: We’ve talked to other people who have said things like limitations actually help creativity. And I think what you’re describing is an example right? If you had, all the money in the world and you could do anything, would it actually be harder to know what to Make right? or to make a choice or go in a direction? At least it encourages you think outside the box to get what you want. 
[00:19:03] 3 Word Song Exercise
Cordell: I actually, took that approach early on when I started writing music, there’s something called a three word song exercise you ask a friend or family member or someone random Hey can you just gimme three words? And 
Andrew: Potato salsa and Carly, one more. 
Carly: Fairies, 
Alvin: berries. 
Cordell: Potato, salsa and berries. 
Carly: that’s almost impossible. 
[00:19:28] Potato, Salsa, & Berries
Cordell: So after that, those become your anchor points in your song. And you go, okay, I’m gonna start to imagine a story that involves a potato, some salsa and berries. And then I start to imagine, okay, maybe the potato sitting on the table and the salsa got spilt on the floor because we were having a fight. And after the fight, I remember that blackberries are your favorite berry. And so I picked you blackberries to say, I’m 
sorry.
Carly: Oh, wow. 
Andrew: maybe if potato came home on time, like potato promise, we wouldn’t have to have these 
fights. 
Cordell: Yeah. But you can see how having the limitation of the three words, you can start to spin around them and see the kind of narratives that you can generate with those three words. Generally they’re not all three food words they can involve a lot of other things, but just having those limitations, you can do a lot. I actually find that having a limitation is better than not. 
Carly: Did they get back together? Is the fight over? 
Cordell: I don’t know. You’ll have to wait to hear the song.
Andrew: It is actually impressive that we gave you three food words and you made a real 
story. 
Carly: Oh, I was just gonna mention I liked your song “Bugs”.
[00:20:48] Bugs
Alvin: Yeah, that was a fun one. I enjoyed that. 
Cordell: Bugs. has a special place in my heart. My girlfriend, she is studying to be an entomologist, which is studying bugs. When we were early our dating life, I was just like, man, she’s so into bugs. And, it just fell out. Really. That song just came together in one evening, which was awesome. 
Carly: That’s the first song I listened to on your SoundCloud. So if everyone wants to give it a listen, please do.
Andrew: We will have a link in the show notes. It’s nice because I know Alvin and Cordell, you are my friends, but sometimes I’ll be thinking I wanna hear a song. I’m in a Cordell mood today, or I’m in an Alvin mood today. I’ll just put on one of your songs and I have an extra layer of enjoyment because I like this song, it makes me feel good. But I also know the person who made it. And you think of that person and it’s like I’m connecting with you. Think that’s something that’s nice about knowing people who make music and being able to receive that gift and share it with others. 
[00:21:45] Visual Effects
Andrew: So we probably have some listeners who are a bit frustrated now because they’re like I saw that Cordell is a professional visual effects compositor, but we haven’t talked at all about that. How did this guy who makes knives plays music end up creating visuals in films? 
Cordell: My journey to visual effects was pretty unique. Maybe not. I think a lot had the same journey as me, actually. I started off In photography, worked in advertising, did some videography work, and then, I was actually working for the City of Kelowna in BC and they wanted to buy a video library. But there was some issues with one of the shots, there’s a power station in the back. so I had to cancel plans with a friend of mine who was a digital compositor on the show. Supernatural. I didn’t really understand what he did at the time. We were talking and I was like, Hey man, I gotta cancel, our plans this weekend.
I gotta drive back up to Kelowna. And he’s ah, that sucks. why do you have to drive back up? Oh, there’s a power station in the back of the shot, this drone shot. Caveat or point in the story: it was a video drone library. I used to fly drones, for my advertising which was a whole thing in itself. 
Alvin: Like FPV drones? 
Cordell: DGI inspire ones like , larger drones still quadcopters. at the time they were pretty big. I had to apply for a special flight operator’s permit to fly in Canadian air space ’cause they’re pretty large. It was a big undertaking to drive back up and reapply for the special flight operators permit.
So it was a bit of a headache and my buddy’s oh, send me the, plate. At the, time I didn’t realize plates if you’re not familiar in visual effects. A plate is a series of image sequences your video files. 
It’s 
Andrew: like what you eat your potato, salsa, and berries off of.
[00:23:32] Plate Joke
 
Cordell: It’s essentially the footage. And I was like what do you mean? Because it’s not like a still image. It’s like a video. You can’t just Photoshop me. He is Like dude, just send it over. And I fired off to him and in two hours he had created a patch, tracked it in, the power station was gone.
And I was like, what is this black magic that you have performed? You techno wizard? You have to teach me now. And After that I was just it enwrapped by everything, visual effects. I learned After Effects and he was like, if you really want to get into it, learn a program called Nuke.
[00:24:11] From Compositing Student to Pro
Cordell: And I ended up devouring tutorial I could find on YouTube. And when that wasn’t enough, I found a School and I went to a school called Lost Boys School of Visual Effects for their compositing degree. And eight months later I was in a Studio Method Studios and I was working on… 
I had Christmas Chronicles and Fantastic Beasts two , which was insane to me to have blinked and then suddenly been thrown into large Hollywood movies.
I was like, wow. That was such a huge change for me, but exciting. 
Andrew: You must have had some pretty good teachers, I imagine. 
Cordell: I did, Thank you for all your help and long nights,
Andrew: And it sounds like they’re pretty humble too. They don’t need their ego stroked constantly, but please continue. 
Cordell: I wouldn’t be where I am without you for sure. yeah. how long has it been though? Since 2018?
Andrew: It became a running joke though, where I ended up going back into the industry and I would just follow you wherever you were at different studios so that was nice. 
Cordell: Totally. i’ve bounced around a lot of different studios at this point. But enjoyed 
every single one. I think that at every single studio that I’ve been at, different. Tips and tricks and little hacks and things like that from senior artists, I I think my curiosity and just being unashamed to not know, and being okay with that, really helped me because everybody was so eager to teach me how they did this or how they achieved that and what sequence of nodes they used to achieve this or do that.
And I was like, oh wow, that’s so cool. How did you do that? And 15 minutes later I’d have a notebook filled with how they achieve that effect. And I’m like, okay, cool. I’m gonna put that in my tool belt now so I can use it for later. so it was really cool. 
I think the visual effects industry has a lot of really amazing people in it and extremely talented. 
Andrew: He is talking about you, Carly.
Carly: He’s talking about you, Andrew. 
Cordell: Yeah, definitely.
[00:26:10] Learn from Everyone
Cordell: Most people are pretty eager to impart the knowledge that they’ve gained. And if you are smart enough to listen, you can learn a lot. I think that ego gets in the way a lot of personal progress. So I try to check it at the door as much as I can. I think I take that approach to every aspect of my life.
What can I learn from you? Your experiences have shaped you in some way. So how can I benefit from your experiences? I’d rather stand on the shoulders of the people that came before me or stand on the shoulders of giants than have to crawl my way up from the ground. 
Andrew: I think one of the most underrated aspects of the visual effects industry too is that everyone has such different backgrounds and reasons for coming in and, we’ve talked about for you, we wouldn’t expect someone who’s so interested in music to go into visual effects, right?
Or even a drone operator and a lot of what you can learn from people in this industry is actually completely outside the realm of VFX or even just somewhat related. I found I made a lot of interesting connections just through that aspect because, you might meet someone who’s amazing at baking cookies, like Carly. Or someone who has written a book or someone who is a professional beatboxer or something like that. It’s all kinds of people. And that’s a really fun side of it.
[00:27:22] The People in VFX
Cordell: No, absolutely. I think visual effects attracts a certain type of person. I don’t even like to call myself a visual effects artist. I usually introduce myself as a creative, because, i’m so much more than my job. And I think that everybody else is also so much more than their job.
I wanna know what do you do? What sets your soul on fire? What do you do when you get home? Or what do you do when you walk away from your desk? Do you to do little train models or things like that? Tell me about the intricacies of painting those models and how did you learn about the airbrush techniques and things like that, and you’re like, oh my God.
Cool. I think I just get really fired up learning about what makes people tick. I’ve always been really curious like that. I think the visual effects industry is filled with just amazing people that are extremely talented in so many different fields. It’s really cool.
[00:28:10] What Sets Your Soul on Fire
Carly: I love that phrase “what sets your soul on fire”. I love that. ‘Cause it’s usually not your nine to five, when you meet someone. Like often, for myself, I agree with you, Cordell, there’s so much more to someone other than their job. And I feel like the last thing you talk about is their job. If you really wanna get to know someone and then. Everything else is just fascinating. People are humble and so complicated and whatever they pick on their daily job is just a fraction of their life.
Like yourself, this is the first time I’m properly talking to you and I didn’t know that you did a thousand things, including knife making and I’m not gonna be surprised if you start glass blowing next year. It’s exciting to see what you do. 
Cordell: it’s funny you say that. 
Carly: Oh my God, you’re doing it.
Alvin: He is already started.
Carly: No
Cordell: Not right now. But there’s a glass blowing thing that I signed up for: a little class. 
Carly: Okay I can tick that off then.
Andrew: I actually like connecting this to our first conversation about your new name and identity. I think it’s a good exercise, try to define yourself or a friend without using what they do, like their job or what they study, go beyond that.
Potentially even beyond their nationality or beyond their family members. And you start to get into the core, I think, of really who that person is. 
It’s one of the advantages of having friends and being able to spend a lot of time with them because you start to scratch past that surface and realize how complex people are and who they really are because we’re learning lots of things about you, Cordell.
But I still would say you are a wise man, you are a good friend. Those things I think are the core of who you are.
We were talking about compositing and you’re creating these photorealistic visuals. But have you ever made anything that is unreal? 
Carly: Oh my gosh. Wow.
[00:29:59] Unreal Engine & Giant Sandbox
Cordell: That’s a good segue. So currently, the situation with visual effects right now in Hollywood as a whole has left me the opportunity to pursue a lot of different activities in my day to day, which has been nice in some aspects and not in others, but I’ve got a lot of time to to do the things that I love right now.
It’s a great opportunity for me to try new things really just dive in. And one of those things is Unreal Engine, specifically for video games. Just diving into the blueprint, visual scripting language, that actually led me to connect with some really awesome people. I’m now a co-founder of a company for video game production, which is Giant Sandbox, which is super exciting. It’s a really experienced team. It includes a former BioWare developer. We’re in early development right now of a project. It’s gonna be a indie psychological horror adventure game, with a strong emphasis on the psychological element, specifically mental wellness. So we’re trying to approach it with a very intentional and informed way. We’re consulting with professional mental health workers and trying to delve deeper into having informed insights, as well as incorporating personal experiences from our team, which is really exciting.
[00:31:16] A Shift in his Life
Cordell: That was like a huge, again, another lateral shift in my life. I find that when I follow the thing that sets me on fire at that moment in time, I really can’t go wrong. And
so I have to follow that. And right now it’s leading me to the video game industry, which is really interesting.
Andrew: Yeah, I think you need a combination, right? Of the passion And then great resources, or something or someone to learn from. And when those two meet, there’s no limit to how far you can go. 
It’s exciting cause it’s your own thing now too, right? It’s your own giant sandbox.
Cordell: Yes. I’m still in shock about it, it’s really new. I told the guys that I would be a co-founding member, yesterday. So it’s very fresh and, they’re drafting up the contract and the agreements right now, which is super, super exciting. 
Andrew: And they said, as long as you don’t mention us in any public sphere like a podcast, you’re good to go. 
Cordell: No, I cleared what I was allowed to say with them beforehand. Yeah. But Unreal Engine has been something that has such a road to follow in terms of learning different endless things to learn on it, and I think that’s what really attracts me to certain things as well, is seeing how far I can get down that road to mastery in a short amount of time.
Taking my past experiences and leveraging those as a catapult for me in a different area. With learning Unreal Engine, I’ve been trying to focus on creating flexible reusable systems. If you work in visual effects as a compositor, it’s integral to create flexible and procedural and reusable systems because sometimes you’ll be working on four or five shots that are pretty similar camera angle. So you’re trying to problem solve in a batch scenario. Like how can I solve all of these issues, with some caveats in the most efficient way possible that problem solving aspect of my career and visual effects with my learning in Unreal Engine.
[00:33:25] Making Fire
Cordell: So that’s transferred over to be like, okay, I really wanna make a user interface that integrates with inventory systems. How do I do this in a piecemeal way and break it down into chunks. I need to generate a data structure and I need to populate that data structure with items.
And then I need to create array with the data structure. And then I need a way for the player to interact with the array. So I need widget blueprints. From there do I want to spend time learning how to draw by hand these widget blueprints or do I wanna spend time on the coding aspect of things. I gotta tell you, when you have a goal and you break it down into the smaller steps and you follow through with those, and then at the very end, wow, it’s such a satisfying feeling to to run around as a character in your game. Hit tab and then your inventory screen pops up and you’re like, I made that.
I made that. It reminds me of the scene from the Tom Hanks movie where he where he, what is it? Where he’s the FedEx driver, huh? No. He’s the FedEx driver and he crashes the plane. He’s on, yeah. Castaway.
It reminds me of the scene from Castaway where he’s like, I made fire. every time I’m I made fire right now. And it’s it’s just ooh, it, like I, you could see, I’m excited right now just thinking about it. So yeah, it’s, just it’s wild. It’s a wild experience and I think that every person on the planet has this need an innate need to create.
And I think that the world is so much better when people do create.
Especially now it seems like a lot of stuff in the world that it’s very divisive and it seems like everyone wants to focus on tearing each other down and breaking things down.
Whereas the alternative is so much more beautiful. If we were encouraging people to create and share.
It’s a neat experience and I wish everybody on the planet gets to experience that I made fire moment. 
Carly: I wanna beat my chest like that scream out: I made fire. That would be amazing. I wanna feel that.
Andrew: And everyone runs out of your apartment building. 
Carly: Just with cookies. This is a different scenario. 
[00:35:42] Courage and Tap Water
Andrew: It shows also you have courage though, right? Because it, it takes a lot of bravery to put yourself out there. And you even mentioned at the beginning, some songs you haven’t shared. I think that’s probably what holds a lot of people back, especially in divisive times or the appearance of something like that where it’s like, oh, I could get torn down for this.
I don’t necessarily wanna share it, but it’s interesting, right? Because everything people talk about is something that was created or made. So you still have to do it to get it out there. The more we see people doing it and people enjoying it, the easier it becomes perhaps to make stuff. Because I do think making stuff is actually a lot harder than tearing stuff down.
Cordell: I think touching on what you just said. Approaching something new, I have the mentality that I’m going to fail and that’s okay. Stuff is not gonna work the first time around. You’re not gonna write a symphony on your first song, or you’re not gonna write Coldplay’s clocks on your first song. It’s not gonna be a huge hit. But the repetition, let the muddy tap run until it becomes clear.
You go and keep working at it. What didn’t work this time? This part. Okay. But what worked this time? This part. I’m gonna take that and I’m going to maybe reuse that in a different song, or I’m gonna try and reuse this part in my game.
Or what part of my code isn’t working? Oh, this part is causing some problems. So do I actually need that system? And is it causing more scope creep? Being okay with failing and being okay not knowing is, I guess you could call it courage, but I don’t see it that way.
When I choose to attack a new problem, there are a lot of problems in my life or like, oh, that would be nice to do one day. But when I have my eyes on it, like a goal, and I’m like, you’re going down, I’m gonna do it.
Carly: I am terrified. 
Andrew: One of the goals just ran away. 
Cordell: Yeah, yeah. Like, I don’t care how many times I fail, because I really wanna do that, so if I fail a hundred times or if I fail a thousand times, i’m gonna keep going until I do it. And then generally when I do it, I drop the hobby and go on to the next thing, but that’s another story. 
 
Andrew: I know we’re getting close to time, but I do have two questions I wanted to ask. One is 
just directly related to that, which is you have a goal, you climb that mountain, you get to the top, it feels awesome. You’re Tom hanks, you made fire. But then that feeling like all feelings changes and then you have to pick the next thing. How do you pick the next mountain to climb or the next goal you wanna achieve?
[00:38:10] The Next Mountain to Climb
Cordell: So for criteria, if I were to bullet point it out, I would say that it has to have a long road to mastery. I’m not interested in learning how to do something that anybody can do in a short amount of time. It’s a challenge to myself. Okay, you’re gonna learn how to, efficiently, put someone in a triangle choke from closed guard in Brazilian jiujitsu, and you need to learn how to do it, from a standing position. And so when you start, in Brazilian jiujitsu, it’s called rolling. You’ll tap hands and you’ll fist bump, And, then you start sparring, which is called a roll. While you’re rolling, usually somebody will pull guard and then it’s like a game of chess, but with the human body. okay, I’m gonna put my hand here on his shoulder and he’s gonna grab it here. And then when he grabs it here, I can manipulate the joint here and push it up.
And then from there I can move my knee and try and shuffle my way up the body. So having a long road of mastery ’cause there’s a million different ways that bodies can move. And then same thing with music, there’s a million different ways like a pop ballad I wanna have a crescendo moment after the hook or right after the bridge and I want you to feel it. Or with a video game, like there’s just so many different ways to skin the cat. If there’s a lot of different ways to do something I’m in.
On top of the long road to mastery, if it doesn’t require a lot of investment like monetary investment, I’m usually in as well. If I just have to show up to a place, a class and learn how to do a trapeze, then it’s like a physical skill I can do. But if I have to buy a $10,000 projector, a $5,000 piece of software to learn projection mapping so that I can do a nighttime projection map on a physical house, it would be cool to learn how to do that, but it’s not really feasible fiscally. I’m more interested in things that I can just start right away. So, easily accessible, long road to mastery and generally if something is really impressive at the end, like if I can be, 
like, I made this 
Carly: I made fire. 
Cordell: I like that a bit. 
Andrew: That’s fair. Cool. I guess the last question would be, many have said that travel is one of the great ways to learn about the world, and I’m just curious if you have upcoming travel plans.
[00:40:24] Travel Plans
Cordell: I do, I do. I have a flight booked, in, two weeks on June 15th, and I will be moving to Switzerland. I’m joining my girlfriend who , is currently there working. she’s saving the world one bug at a time, I like to say. And she’s working at a research facility, and their main goal is to combat invasive species. So that’s really exciting. I took it as an opportunity to, have a catalyst, of time to remake myself, in different areas especially because there’s very little work in Hollywood right now. I might as well be over there with her having like a once in a lifetime opportunity to really explore and live an authentic lifestyle in Switzerland with her. That, that has led me to start learning, or brushing up on my French and learn a little bit of German. She has warned me that there are not a lot of people that speak English there. So… 
Carly: Whereabouts in Switzerland?
Cordell: So it’s about an hour away from Zurich. There’s a small town called Del, and they primarily speak French there, but everywhere else in Switzerland 
is primarily German, 
Carly: I see. 
Andrew: Exciting. 
[00:41:33] Building a Home Lab Server
Cordell: Yeah, very exciting. Another hobby that I recently did was to build a home lab server, which is like if you host your own Audible or Netflix, but it’s all your own content.
So I built an audiobook server that hooks in with an app, on my iPhone, or that you can visit online and it has all of my audio books and it’s just sitting right here beside me, which is really cool. 
Andrew: Can we say hi to it? 
Cordell: I mean, I could pick it up, but I don’t want to drop it. 
Andrew: Don’t bother. It’s probably relaxing now.
Cordell: Yeah.
So that came with its own challenges. Building the server, hardware selection picking what softwares to run. there’s a program called Docker, which you essentially make containers, which are like their own little miniature operating systems that only run one dedicated application. And then getting those to play nice with each other so that all the files can be fed through each operating system, was a little bit of a headache. But I had all the parts lying around. I just had an old computer and I was like, I like, audio books I have a lot of them and sometimes I, don’t have access to the internet. so I would like to have them all accessible on my own devices. And so I built the thing and followed a million different tutorials and, my girlfriend Vika was laughing at me because I was just beefing with my server. are you beefing with your server again? I’m like, yeah, it won’t work. I don’t know why. but I eventually got up and running and now I’ve got a bunch of french audio books on there and German audio books on there. And pop in my AirPods and walk around the house go out in the car and listen to pimsler level one French and be like, 
like, I don’t understand French.
Carly: Wow. I love audio books. That’s a cool device. 
Alvin: Yeah. Yeah. 
I’ve thought about turning an old laptop into a network 
attach storage as well, but I gave up ’cause 
it’s not easy to get all the pieces right. 
But 
I really do appreciate those who are able to get that all set up, ’cause then you no longer have to rely on the Googles, the drop boxes, the audibles, all the big companies, You kinda have your own server that you can access anywhere. 
Cordell: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Alvin: Pimsler is great too. I did their Japanese lesson when I went to go visit there one time. And I think in the, one of the first or second lessons the phrase that they would teach you was, can I buy you a drink? And then it escalated to 
Will you come home to America with me? I was shocked at how quickly that lesson progressed and I learned how to say it. I never used it once. 
[00:44:09] Wrap Up
Andrew: Well, hopefully we have some, Swiss listeners who can send us some tips for Cordell of where to find the best cheese, chocolate, hiking trips, all the best spots in Switzerland. 
Cordell: Yeah, definitely. 
Andrew: Maybe we can check in with you when you’re there later, Cordell, ’cause by then you’ll probably have completely different hobbies,
Cordell: Yeah,
Who knows what’s in store for me in Switzerland.
Carly: It sounds very exciting. 
Cordell: yeah, I’m super pumped actually. It’s a really cool opportunity and I miss my girlfriend a lot right now. 
Andrew: Well, you can write a song about this feeling now and then write a song about the joy of being re reunited and then you’ve got a full album. 
Cordell: Yeah. I’ll use potatoes, salsa, and berries. 
Carly: In 
French. 
please In French, 
Cordell: Yeah. I’ll sing it in French 
Andrew: Yeah. 
 I think we all gotta run, but thanks so much Cordell. This was really fun and we’ll talk again soon. 
Cordell: Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. It’s been really, really awesome. 
Alvin: Yeah, this was great. Thank 
you. Cordell.
Carly: It’s been a pleasure. 
Andrew: Thanks, all the listeners, we appreciate your time.
Cordell: That was cool. That was awesome. 
Carly: And then the music comes on and stuff.