Inside MrBeast's "Billion Dollar" Movie (featuring Sticks)

It's fun to like hijack a Mr. Beast video and turn it into a movie. This looks like if Mr. Beast and Severance had a baby. What's it like directing Jimmy? Directing Mr. Beast to be subtle. Like what? He's the most outlandish guy. Did you guys have any disagreements with Jimmy? He said. Hey, we're sticks. And we're breaking down our biggest video ever that we made with Mr. Beast. I'm going to show you all the little details the behind the scenes, the B effects shots. The mistakes. So this is one of our bigger B effects shots. We had to make him look like he was falling. So we put him up on this conveyor belt. If we just shoot them in front of this gray pillow, we can change everything else. What did you guys do to make this look so cinematic? There's a filmmaking technique that every YouTuber should know about. I like how you guys respect the rules of YouTube and then break them. This actually isn't Jimmy. That's a double. Get the camera shooted right now. Shot's fired. You're calling out Hershey's. Oh! This is the part that Mr. Beast was most afraid of us pulling off. Make sure you subscribe and ring the bell because we also have a two hour interview coming up with sticks. And I think it's one of our best interviews yet. We get into their crazy journey as YouTubers, how they ended up making videos with Mark Rober, Ryan Shreyhand, and now Mr. Beast and so much more. And if you're already subscribed, then go to ythackpack.com to get our free YouTube hack pack with all our best tips, tools and templates to grow on YouTube today. From our intro and thumbnail templates to our 100 viral ideas for any niche, we constantly update our hack pack as we interview more creators. So you have their latest and greatest for free. All right, now back to the video. - All right guys, I'm so excited. What are we about to break down? - So this is the movie we made for Mr. Beast brand new festival's chocolate milk. - Yeah, this is your biggest production yet. - Our biggest production yet? So it was Jumon as a BTS. You can ask us anything. - Amazing, let's go. - This is a $1 billion child of factory, the most expensive child of the factory in the world. And I was invited for an exclusive tour of the inside of it. So as a piece offering, I brought to unreleased Feastles product. Let's go check it out. Jimmy, how do we get in? - I thought you talked to a guy. - I did talk to a guy. - Door's not opening. - Let me in. - You bang on the bang on the door. - I did. - Okay, so this actually doesn't look like a movie just yet. We wanted to start this out looking identical to a Mr. Beast video. - And if we did our job right, then you would have been tricked by the Mr. Beast 2 channel. You clicked on for a $1 billion chocolate factory tour and it turned into this epic movie. - Yeah, I like how you guys respect the rules of YouTube but then break them, like you did with Ryan Trayhan's "Joy Ride" movie. - Yeah, I mean, like starting out in his room, but it's really a set. - Yeah, exactly. - It's fun to like hijack a Mr. - Hello? Is anyone here? The first thing to notice is this actually isn't Jimmy. - That's a double that we searched really hard. - We've got a pretty good at getting double gangers for creators. - Wow, yeah. - So we found this guy who's 65 and looks like Jimmy from behind. - We got it. - We actually got a haircut from Jimmy's barber to make sure he looks exactly like Jimmy. - Wow. - Jimmy's so spreaded in along like so many shoots. So we didn't have much of Jimmy's time to work with so we thought this would be a great way to maximize the shoot. - And it just so people known like now, we're like switching to look at a behind the scenes shot. You guys are sharing with us like not many people have seen. So this is not Jimmy here. What did you guys replace his tennis ball with again? - It helps create a 3D space so you can recreate the room and it looks like the dimensions are accurate. - It starts out here as a perspective trick. And then as we zoom out, you see that I was always just a scam and illusion. - Wow. - Now you're realizing real time with Jimmy. - This place is fake. (dramatic music) - What? (screaming) - What is going on here? - Okay, so we put the blue screen just so we see Jimmy alone. - Yeah. - But we had to make him look like he was falling. So we put him up on this conveyor belt and had him like flailing his hands. We also had someone in the background like flapping his shirt and his hair so it looks like the wind, we did a dolly pull out. So the camera's on a rails and we dollied out. So it looks like he's falling away from the camera. - Wow. - So hopefully with all these effects, it'll look like he's actually falling through a trap door. - Very cool. (dramatic music) - That's not Jimmy. - Yeah. - He's not crazy. - Yeah, and he delivered like kind of shows. - Yeah. - Yeah. - If you're gonna look anyway. - Look away. - Yeah. (dramatic music) - Okay, Jimmy's getting up. - Okay, now it's Jimmy. - That's the real Jimmy. (laughing) - Wait, so tell me about this set because this looks like if like Mr. (laughing) This would be this video. - Yeah. - Like what is going on here? - It looks very bland and small. - Yeah. - Tell me about how you designed this. - This was the perfect room. It was a tiny cube in one of Jimmy's studios. And so we painted the walls. It used to be green. We got new carpet. And we brought in these specific chairs to give you this very weird feeling. Like he's in some spooky waiting room and he has no clue where he is. So I think it gives you like that very off-kilter feel. - Yeah. (dramatic music) (upbeat music) - Now this looks like a crazy setup or a crazy room. But really this is like two flat walls with pipes built into them. And it's not actually a whole pipe room. So we just shot it from this profile angle. We built these pipe walls that could kind of shift into any configuration we wanted. So we can create any set that we need. - Oh, interesting. - So that helps like this scene for example, we can just put these pipe walls behind them and create like this whole way without having to. - Yeah, it made it very versatile. So like we could create different spaces within this one room. - Oh, these are just like sections that you can move around. - Yeah, no wheels. - On wheels, oh wow. So anytime you need to just show the warehouse. - Yeah. - You had a background. - Yeah, cool. - Scanning, access denied. (upbeat music) - Wait, you're calling out Hershey's. - Oh, I said, not them. - I was like, I was thinking that. - It's representative of big chocolate, the big chocolate industry. But yeah, so Jimmy sees this chocolate and what do you think Mr. Beast would do? Would he eat chocolate? - Oh, he's seen it. - Oh, he eats the feastables. - Feastables. - Exactly, every day of the week. That was a fun shot like tilting down to the dot go. - Beautiful, detected open mouth. - What? - Chocolate consume, access granted. (upbeat music) - I mean, this is just a crazy production. How much does it cost to me? - This is like a 200K production. - Wow. - So a lot of resources went to making this look so good on camera. - Yeah. - I wanted to make sure it felt like that as well. - Yeah, but everything was, I said you guys created from scratch. - Yeah, we actually got to work with the Beast team. - Yeah. - So Jimmy gave us his awesome builders and then we designed it all and it was like a fun collaboration with them building it all. - It's crazy how fast they work and how much they're able to help with like, these last minute builds. - And how long did it take? Like, I saw you guys put together storyboards for a lot of the scenes, like how long did it take to put together? - It was probably like a few weeks of planning and scripting and then within like two weeks, we went from like nothing to the whole set build. - Wow. - And then one set shoot. - So about a month total. - Yeah. - Uh. Hello. (laughing) - Can you spot the cameo from the sticks boys? - Oh. (laughing) - Is that you guys? - Yeah, we're like, we're thinking, this shell looks a bit empty. It needs something in the middle. - So we put on the costumes ourselves and got into place and like get our own cameo here. - That's perfect. - And it's actually interesting. How much stuff changes from your storyboards and your script to the actual production? Like little stuff like that? Is that out of the ordinary or are you guys are very by the book? - Well, pretty like locked in on what the vision is. So like we try and stick to the vision. - Yeah. - So like the storyboards and the script, but it's always fun like this. Like maybe like 20% of the time. We like, you know, gets spontaneous and puts something into the shot. - Come up with a brand new shot. - Yeah. We've found that when we don't come prepared with the shot list like from the beginning of the script to the end, it can get so messy on set. There's so many moving pieces and details we need to nail. - Yeah, and we'll show some of your storyboards. I was really impressed by seeing them before and now seeing the afterts. - Yeah, I mean Lucas draws all of them. It's pretty impressive. - That's incredible. I was told by some guy, I'd be getting a tour. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. - Hey, all right, excuse me, hey, I need my briefcase. Let go of me. Why would you even need that? Yeah. - Oh, got it. - Oh, no. - There's no other way in. Jimmy's toast. - Uh, should we go get help? - We're not doing anything until we get further instructions from Jimmy. - Oh, how loyal. I see what you're trying to do. - What? - You're hoping Jimmy's dead. - What a horrible thing to say. - Oh, he's definitely dead. - Why would I be hoping that? I mean, we're all thinking the same thing. The question is, how do we settle the slight responsible adults? - I don't know what. - Who gets Jimmy's channel? - Oh! - Oh! - Oh! - That's good. - I mean, you make it won't be long. for it. Just don't tell Carla Tarek. So this massive chocolate factory we actually shot in front of another building. Wait wait let's put that on screen. Yep. Okay so yeah so wow this looks very different. Yeah this is not a chocolate factory. Yeah but we thought if we just shoot them in front of this gray pillow we can change everything else pretty easy. Got it. Movie magic. Yeah. Yeah. And the boys, the boys did really good too. Yeah yeah. The acting was, they always bring good levity to it. Yeah. The CEO would like to have a ward. Okay chill chill chill. Okay. All right what's up. Hello Mr. Donaldson. We hope you enjoyed your complimented chocolate on arrival. Are you the guy that I spoke to? Yes I'm the guy. I think there's a misunderstanding. I was supposed to be you know getting a tour. There is no misunderstanding Jimmy. We are well aware of what you've been doing. You've become in recent years quite the chocolate here. But the truth is you have a lot to learn. Our company has been in the chocolate business for nearly 200 years. We have certain standards, certain. Wow shots fired. Like it wasn't clear who is like big chocolate and who's a big bad in this commercial is becoming obvious. Yeah that's right. Was this part of the set designed to make them feel archaic? Yes. Yeah. We wanted to have like a speaker that felt like it was stuck in the past that didn't have a real face to it. So we thought of this like gramophone type horn as the CEO. Yeah. Very severance inspired as well. Yeah. If you want to make chocolate Jimmy, I'd advise you get back in line and start messing with the way it's always been. I didn't mean to disrupt the work line. Oh Jimmy, I'm not talking about the work line. Have a lovely day. This is when we got shocked like oh my gosh he got he could actually do some acting. Yeah. I mean that was a really good take from Jimmy. I'm wondering like where these all the first takes you do you have to give him some coaching like like do you have like an earlier take. Yeah we can show you the first take. Oh really okay. I think there's been a misunderstanding. I was supposed to be getting a tour. So yeah, how did you get him from that to what we saw in the final? So the biggest difference especially coming from YouTube and being Jimmy is he needs to be loud and big and very expression it in film. It's actually more powerful if you like turn it down and settle more subtle and so then when he did it again it just looks so real like he was actually in the situation. I think what helped us we taught him like the lines are there as like a guide but if it feels more natural is like phrase something a different way to go for it and so we gave him that liberty to like speak how he would speak and that helped him get into the character a bit more. That's such a good note yeah I find there's like different performances one to YouTube two to film which was very subtle and then even like looking at Broadway or theater performers it's much even bigger than YouTube so but it's so funny like like directing Mr. Beast to be subtle like what like he's the most outlandish guy you know. Yeah but he did it really well. Yeah I mean to like give notes to the biggest creator in the world was that intimidating. A little in theory in theory was very intimidating thinking about directing him. Just like leading up to it like a couple of we're gonna direct Jimmy but then on set it was actually pretty good. This was actually the first scene we shot with Jimmy in chronological order so this once we got this in the can we were like oh we got this he's gonna he's gonna crush this. Oh interesting you you had guys had a shot list that was out of border. Yes. Wow. 100% yeah completely out of order. Yeah just to maximize your time there. Wow. So pressure was on so you got this and then you're like we're off to the races. Yeah. Or are there any moments of tension like did you guys have any disagreements with Jimmy on set? He's not used to like cinematic lighting so like he's looking at the shots with us and like kind of confused why we're lighting in a certain way. Yeah. It's like where's the key light? It's like we like we need to look cinematic Jimmy so like be back lit so that you know. One time he was like why is there so many different colors in my face we're like color contrast. It's it's important. Cinema. Yes. Cinema. Okay right back to the breakdown but first I've got to say a huge thank you to the entire festival's team for sending us some of their first bottles of their festival's chocolate milk and for sponsoring this video I've actually been drinking them while we've been editing this video and I love that it's great a whole milk real dairy pack with 13 grams of protein and good source of calcium potassium and vitamins A and D but here's the thing that I love most it's all made with fair trade cocoa and something that Jimmy has been talking about for a while so it's cool to see him and the team pull off a product that's ethically sourced that farmers get paid a living income reference price and it supports their mission to end child labor in the chocolate industry. So go out and support and grab festivals chocolate milk right now at Walmart 7/11 speedway locations nationwide just look for the single bottles or the six pack again huge thank you to Jimmy and the festival's team for supporting this video and now let's get back to the breakdown. It's so funny watching your stuff because here I'm seeing the product and I'm reminding it's a commercial but everything else about this feels like a movie like was there extra pressure on this shot to get it right? Well really yeah this is the first time anyone in the world is seeing this product. So it took a lot longer than it looks. We wanted to feel like the bottle was glowing. Yeah the lighting the positioning of the hand making sure you can see the bottle at a good angle. Yeah all super important. Wow John that's our favorite shot in the film. I love it. Yeah you guys I feel like that's kind of a signature the parallax that you guys do. I mean also it's evidence inspired yeah they stole it from Joe's. There's nothing new under the sun. Yeah but recreating it for YouTube is it's a super interesting. Yeah definitely. Who are you? I want to get you out of here. Why are you helping me? Oh my briefcase. These are more of the walls. Yes. How cool is the set? That's awesome. So we just wheeled those in position the pipes. How we liked it and some haze and it looks like a whole new. Like this is this is a bare place that he uses for a lot of his YouTube videos and you've turned into this is like cinematic like hallway. Wow yeah that's right. I tried your truck of milk. Yeah was it good? What's going on? I remember something. My dad was a truck driver in the summer. I ride along and his work route with him. This factory was one of his stops. He load all of the truck ingredients through the store right here and keys. He's left right here. And you only remember this now? I don't think I'm the only worker with memory problems. Let's get out of here. What about them? We can't leave them behind. Is there any way I can make a call? Surely there's a phone somewhere in here. We need a distraction. Everybody this is a mystery briefcase. That's not Jimmy. This is not. This is again in the back of the headshot. Yeah. Inside this briefcase could be a hundred thousand dollars. The keys to a Lamborghini or a beverage that gives you back all your childhood memories. And whoever takes their hand off of it last keeps what's inside. Look. These are interesting little nods to obviously who Jimmy is in his channel. Yeah. In fact, he seems most natural here. Yeah. This is where he just got up and he did his things. Definitely improv some lines here as well. But he just made sense to let Mr. Beast be Mr. Beast as a character as well and not try and make him someone else that he's not. What is all this commotion? Who is responsible for this? This looks like a nod to Beast Games. Yeah. And the red phones. That's one of the red phones from Beast Games. Imagine the red telephone was in a movie and you could call and ask for whatever you wanted. And like we're turning that into like a plot point here. It's called check off as gun. Yeah, so that's like in a movie. If you set something up, you need to pay it off. So for example, if you do a close-up of a gun on a wall early in the movie, then that would be the gun that kills the bad guy at the end. So in the CEO scene at the beginning, you can see the red telephone in the background. But you didn't realize it's going to be a key player at the end of the film. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So that was something we'll think about like every single part of the story should be there for a reason. And the more you lean into that, even as a YouTuber, I think the audience will really feel the intention behind every single frame. Yeah, and maybe get a double watch. Yeah, you know, go back. Yeah, it's true. When I keep his channel. Why does this look so much better than when you see it like film for YouTube? Like, like just there's something about I can't say like a haze in the sky. Like, what did you guys do to make this look so cinematic? The first thing is haze, because then that makes the light kind of travel, but it's also the direction we're shooting. We make sure it's like backlit. And then we have our own lights accentuating that so that it feels like quite cinematic when it's got backlit. And you can see what the haze is doing to the light here. It just kind of like fades the highlights into the rest of the scene a little bit more. And then on top of that, I guess the camera lenses we're using also give us that effect. What do you guys shoot with? Well, this we shot with an RE Mini. Oh, wow. And then we had anamorphic lenses. So that's really the thing that makes it look like a movie. I'm sure this camera's cost. They could be like around 40k or plus. Wow. lenses and everything to expensive kit. - Yeah. (laughs) - Hello? - Guys, I need you to do exactly what I say, okay. - Wait, who is it? - I'm friendly Jimmy, sir. - Can you prove that? - Is this Nolan? - Jimmy told me to say, "Hi to your mom." - Okay. (laughs) - What do you need us to do? - Who's gonna win? Up your out, don't you take care of that here. - Everybody please settle down and return to your state. (upbeat music) - This guy just discovered that Jimmy never had. - That's right. - The old chocolate, right? - Yes. - Yeah. - These are some interesting actors like you pick, what's the casting process like for a sticks commercial? - On this one, we had someone dedicated to casting. - Oh wow. - So they were finding a bunch of actors and extras and they would show us different options and we would pick based on like that show reel and then we'd awesome to do an audition. So it was quite a bit of a process 'cause we wanted to make sure we had like the perfect people for each role. - Yeah. (upbeat music) - Oh, you took your hand off your arm. (upbeat music) - Oh, it looks like somebody didn't finish their chocolate. Sound the alarm. (upbeat music) - Oh god, it's okay, it's okay. - I guess Jimmy's still alive. - Yeah, we'll just circle back on it and get some channel. - And then we have this private jet that we were able to swing for this shoot and just up the production value by so much. - This is an actual private jet. - So it looks like they're flying here but can I see a BTS of this shot? - Yeah, obviously we didn't rig a camera to a flying plane. - Yeah. - Maybe next time. - But they're on the ground and we have this blue screen behind them to make sure we can mask in the sky. - Oh yeah, look at that. - Yeah. - So we just needed to mask around the middle window and then the rest gets cut off by the VFX artists. - They had some clouds and some sound effects and they get out like, they remove the camera and the reflection and all of this is gone, obviously. - Yeah. (dramatic music) - Resistance is futile Jimmy. You might as well just stop fighting and we can all get back to work. - I'm not eating the chocolate. Look at that scene. - This is one of my favorite shots. - This is the nicest composition. - Yeah. - Also, this is one of those scenes where Jimmy just, we let him loose and he just improvised. - Yeah. - He, he, he, he spat on the, so let's just watch it. - No, get that away from me. - Eat it. - Like him spitting, him spitting on the hand just there. - He improvised. - Until he improvised, that was none of the script. But it was hilarious. - The fact that we put Jimmy in the situation raising force for this other chocolate was tied up. - I mean, it's just stunning. Like the people all around the angle of the camera, the light and then the rope here. I mean, I mean, awesome. - I don't want it. I'm not eating it. - No, no. (laughing) - Drop the loo. - I can't see the target. - Jailor, we're ready to get a shot. Drop the loo. - Hold, hold, hold, hold. - Eat the chocolate. Eat. Eat it, Mr. Donaldson. Eat the chocolate, Jimmy. - Now. (guns firing) (guns firing) - This was the part that Mr. He said, when we showed him the pitch deck, he was like, I don't know how you're gonna get a crate to fall through the roof, but I trust you guys. And so, we built this real crate here and loaded it with feastables chocolate milk. - That was like, there's like 500 bowls that they gave us. - Wow. - And this is the hero of the movie, really. And so. - So you built, wait, so we're looking, this is real. - This is real. That's not real. - Yeah. - This is real. That's a real wall behind. We've added a few more bottles, but most of those bottles falling are practical. - Wow. - And then we added some rubble around the sides to make it really, to sell that it fell through the roof, the lighting changed. - And the CEO's right there. - Squish. - Oh yeah, wow, look at that, yeah. But everything before was VFX. - Yes. - So it's falling from the plane through the building, both those shots with VFX. - How much does VFX shots cost? Like, are you working with Trisha Hollywood folks? Like, how are you making that happen? - We are working with artists that are similar to us. Like, we're doing really cool things. Like, film and YouTube and they're just really talented at VFX. - And it's crazy where you can pull off with like, not much resources on this kind of thing, like, in today's day and age. - If you had to give a pie chart, like, what percent of the budget goes to VFX? Rough. - Yeah, I would say like, 20%. - Yeah. - Wow. - And what about set design? - That's probably more like 40 to 50. - Wow, yeah. That's the most expensive. - Whatever, the other big costs. - The crew, like, just paying for all the crew would be there on four days. - How many people? - We had around 12 crew and then 30 extras. - Wow. - Huge production. - Yeah. (dramatic music) - Oh! - Yeah! - Yeah! - Oh my God! (dramatic music) - Is there ever tension between you and the brand about how much you show the product? - We, 'cause now it's getting pretty heavy product placement, which is obviously important to, you know, the brand, they're hiring you for a reason they wanna get this new product line out there. But as storyteller filmmakers, like, how do you walk that line? - Yeah. This was, the festivals didn't ask us to do any of it. So this was just purely us. We knew that we'd make a better commercial for them if we baked it into the story that the festival's bottle is the hero. - 'Cause then it's-- - And then we aren't trying to like, oh, I don't wanna, I don't wanna add it in artificially. - Yeah. - And then the tension gets less. Like, we actually wanted to see them drinking. - Like, you can't remove, you can't have this story without the festival's bottle. 'Cause it's so built into the story. - Yeah. - I think, like, product placement feels really cheap and cheesy when it's just so unneeded. And if you take it out, the story still makes sense. But when it's disbaked into the story, we're so excited to show the product, 'cause it's part of the story that we burnt. - Basically the opposite of that Pepsi and Kendall Jennerad. - Oh. (upbeat music) - All right, CO is smash. Did you only have one shot to smash? - Yes. - 'Cause, like, it'd be hard to find that. - Yeah, we did have the very end of the shoot. - Got it. - You're free, congrats. Now, obviously, even though this is a movie, also, this shot is a big VFX shot, too. - Yes. - So, before and after. - So. - They weren't actually on a rooftop. - Surprise, okay. This is like a little eight by eight platform that they were climbing through a hole. And then we've redone all of everything around it. - So that hole is actually just a semi-circle. We made a set extension to make it look like a big hole behind them. - Loaded with protein and vitamins. And honestly, it tastes better than any chocolate milk I had as a kid. But you might have noticed. - The workers in the movie lost all of their childhood memories. - Sadly, that's not just a movie plot. Today, 45% of children living into cow-growing households in West Africa are involved in illegal child labor. Meaning, they're not growing up with the childhood memories they deserve. - Yeah, I love how you bring it back to basically a cult action. - Yeah. - Right? And you did that with Ryan Trayhan and Joy Ride. Like, taking me through how you thought about wrapping this up. - Yeah. - Obviously, this is promoting a product. But when you say how much effort was put into the movie side of it, you're way more willing to sit through the cult action and go buy the product when you feel the effort that the creator went through to make it happen. - A couple of things we did to keep retention is the story isn't over yet until you get to the end of the cult action. So you want to see the workers escape. So Jimmy's helping them escape while he's giving the cult action. And then at the end, our second main character, Jeff, comes out and tries the drink and then we end. - It's like a dual story. - Yeah. - Yeah, that's right. - Any other Easter eggs or stories from shooting? - Like, I mean, in many ways, this is like a tryout for your Mr. Beast movie. Hopefully we'll be coming out soon. Like, any other stories from like, what seems like one of the most expensive productions that you guys have ever done. And it's one of the most expensive shoots for a commercial, for a YouTuber ever. - I think just the biggest thing for us was how busy Jimmy is at the scale he's working at. He was doing four of the videos the same week and we had him friendly like a couple hours a day. So there was one time on set where he had to leave in 15 minutes and we had like, like 20 more shots to do. So we were just scrambling. - Wow, but we got it all done and Jimmy was super helpful to make sure we got it all done as well. - Yeah, he always is, yeah. - But I think coming prepared is something that we're just like, we have to do that every time because if we're not prepared on set, especially with people like Jimmy, you're wasting their time. So like we had to come prepared with the short list, the storyboard, the whole schedule. - All the lights set up, the props set up. - And as creators, we really need to know our story back to front so that we're not wasting anyone's time. - Especially when you're shooting it out of order. - That's right. - You're trying to meet his schedule and not the storyline. - Yeah. - Until you get in that. - Exactly. - Yeah. - Cool. Well, thank you guys for breaking it down. - Of course. - And yeah, this is amazing to see. And I know it's just the beginning and there's bigger stuff coming out.