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Creativity isn’t tidy—it’s risky, chaotic, and full of surprises. It’s full of breakthroughs and breakdowns, moments of flow and moments of doubt. Join Mishu Hilmy for unfiltered conversations with artists, filmmakers, musicians, and fearless makers who thrive in the unknown, embrace imperfection, and create at the edge of possibility.
This is your front row seat to the self-doubt, unexpected wins, and messy emotional work of making something real. But craft isn’t just about feeling—it’s about problem-solving, process, and the devotion behind mastery.
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00:03)
Welcome to Mischief in Mastery where we embrace the ups, downs, and all around uncertainty of a creative life and that steady and sometimes not so steady journey toward expertise. Each episode we talk candidly with people I know, people I don't know, folks who produce, direct, write, act, do comedy, make art, make messes, and make meaning out of their lives. You will hear guests lay out how they work, what they're thinking about, where they get stuck, and why they snap out of their comfort zones and into big bold
risky moves. So if you're hungry for honest insights, deep dives into process philosophies and practical tips, plus maybe a little mischief along the way, you're in the right place. For more, visit mischiefpod.com. Hey everyone, it's Misha and welcome back. Today we're talking with Remzi Atassi, a Chicago-based Syrian-American filmmaker and director of photography who tells stories focused on outsiders, misfits, and artists.
Ramsey's 2022 feature film Bad Animal premiered at the Tucson Film and Music Festival going on to win multiple awards, including Best Actress and Best Original Music, and is now available to stream or rent on Amazon Prime. His upcoming feature documentary, The Legend of Kingdom Come, is about comic book art legend Alex Ross, and it recently raised nearly half a million dollars via crowdfunding and pre-sales and will premiere on Saturday, May 10th at the Music Box Theater.
We talk a lot about the world premiere launch of his Alex Ross documentary, Legend of Kingdom Come, and why he's skipping the festival circuit and carving out his own self-distribution path. And what does today's niche audience economics really mean for indie creators? So hope you're into that. Love talking about distribution. I even referenced Hollywood Economics once again, Arthur Devaney's book. So...
Here we go. If you do want to learn more about Remzi, you can check Remzi Atassi at remzi underscore atassi on Instagram, as well as remziatassi.com. And his documentary will be premiering May 10th at the Music Box Theater. I'll add all of that in the show notes. And here you go. Hope you enjoy.
(02:11)
I've done a lot of films before where we've done festivals. Like we applied to a few. There were a few that we got into, but we were kind of like, you know, with lot of those things, it's difficult to time it out because, you know, you want to have the right premiere for the film, but you kind of have to, you know, take a wide berth and then kind of try and make your decisions. And so we felt that when we got to that point, we like, we submitted some festivals and we got in, but we were kind of like, I think we would actually rather.
do it ourselves because that's kind more of our nature. We're kind of more of an independent crew. the movie, think, has, you know, there's an audience for it for sure. So that was kind of the angle. That was kind of an angle with how we want to, you know, sort of premiere it. Right. Like how much sort of, you know, hand-wringing or calculating that you and your sort of team go through of like, yeah, let's skip the festival and we'll just commit to self-distribution or what was that like?
Well, I have a lot to say about film distribution. I want to hear it. And because I think I had some experience with it, I have another narrative film that I made with Emulsion Lab, which was kind of a company of mine. We sort of distributed a number of projects, kind of winding down a little bit now, but it was a partnership with me and another filmmaker who I still, we still work a lot together. Part of it is like the lessons that we learned from doing that, working on our own film, which is, I mean, the question I hear from people all the time,
is how do you get distribution or what's distribution or you know what I mean if you're a filmmaker, indie filmmaker, whatever. And I think the reality is you have to be responsible for distributing your own films. That's like, you have to find a way, I think right now, to do that. At least that's the track that I'm on where it's like build your niche audience and kind of make stuff for them and find ways to make your films at least sensible from that perspective and build an audience.
(04:08)
And I think that, distribute the film yourself. It's not hard to distribute a film. You can be on every major platform, almost for free, but also if you pay, I mean, I don't know how much experience you have with the aggregators and stuff like I'm familiar with them, but I'm pretty leery. Like you can become your own aggregator in essence, if you like, you know, put in the effort. You can do that too. I mean, I've had really good experiences with Film Hub, which is an aggregator and they take a percentage, but you know, I think it kind of like, it depends on what kind of film you have and also it depends on what.
where you're at in the cycle because I think finding ways to, you know, if you're making, I mean, the challenge of all filmmaking is financing, you know? It's making the film is the easy part, marketing it is hard, getting the financing is like really hard, you know? And so that seems to how it has always been on projects with me and it's kind of like, even when you have one that's
commercially viable the reason is because you think of it and though you kind of frame it a little bit in those terms and What that means now is different than what it was Even ten years ago, I think right. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think it's it's the producers dilemma Right distribution is the producers dilemma around like we made this thing which arguably is a degree of project management and getting talented artists streamers and craftspeople to like show up to a place and make it getting the money to make it's difficult but then creating a system where it's like
we're going to try to get a return on the money is very, very hard and very uncertain. So it's like, yeah, why rely on kind of like the slot machine element of like, hopefully a distributor will like this thing when you can also bake it in and go, we're going to save X amount of money for marketing and then a distribution strategy, YouTube ads, like you're putting money on it versus relying on someone to do it for you.
Especially if you are doing it, I think, in the right way where you're building an audience. Because I think that's totally right. think like you can, advertising is so powerful, but it's like you really got to use it in strategic ways. So I think part of it is like the responsibility of the filmmaker or the producer. I mean, I consider myself more of a filmmaker than a producer, but you just kind of have to learn some of this stuff as you go. But I think that like those platforms are all, advertising can be really useful if you're using it to like grow an audience. And then it's like,
(06:27)
you that audience wants to support you. And so you kind of give them more opportunities to do that and you deliver on what you say you're going to do. And I think you kind of have to more than ever, you got to kind of find a niche to some degree that you can speak to authentically, you know? Right. Yeah, I think I mean, I've talked to a bunch of folks on the podcast about this already, but I've just been obsessed with it. I read this 2003 book called Hollywood Economics by Arthur Devaney, and it's really, you know, it's sort of the
Key takeaway is nobody knows anything in Hollywood, sort of parrot William Goldman. Like it's so hard to model or forecast anything for any project because demand is not known until the final thing exists and is in front of strangers. And then across the country in the world, decentered systems of decision-making are going to go, yes, I'm going to spend 10 bucks with movie theaters on this or spend 2.99 on TVOD for this, but that you cannot figure that out.
until you've created something and put it out there. So it makes it like virtually impossible to forecast any kind of. I think it's true. I think that I think to some degree you got to find ways to do that because that's so much of the way of getting the financing for any project together is to be able to.
You can't promise anybody anything but to be able to prove some financial viability about what you're doing. I did a project that was, I mean I've done a lot, but my other feature film where we crowdfunded a little bit, but I also self-funded a lot of that. You get to skip a few of those pieces, but then the downside is if you don't look at it that way, you can't go do that as often as you want. You're gonna be making very few films if you're trying to just rely. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with financing your own projects. I think you have to. You're crazy not to.
But I just think that there's also, there are natural limits that you hit. And so when you kind of reach those, the question becomes, how are we gonna get our money back? And it's not because like, those people still, they wanna support you, but it's just like, you start talking about an amount of money that people, they can take a risk with it, but they're not willing to be risky with it. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. And I think even though like,
(08:32)
From the position of this book, Hollywood economics genre, star names, star directors, budget, marketing budget, you know, the rating has a negligible amount of impact to any success of any given project. However, just because it has a negligible impact on actual box office returns, it doesn't mean psychologically financiers or teams don't want to see sort of a trusted.
team bill. So it's like you can create a sense of probability mass by saying, I got this season producer, season director, season actor to be on this project. And then it might tickle the ears of some, you know, financiers to go, wow, you have this kind of B-lister, A-lister attached. Sure, we'll give you $100,000 or scrape up half a million or whatever.
And you want to have a structure, I think, that you know how to do something with that, where, you know what I mean? So I think that's where the other part of the film financing and the business side of it is like, you want to be able to have that framework. Like, okay, someone wants to invest money in a project. What does that even really mean? So I think that's part of it. But more than anything, I think it's just like understanding the business model a little bit, which is different now.
back let's say 10 years ago but certainly 20 years ago, if you were an independent producer, you would go and do exactly this. You would rally the money, you'd get a project together and then you would sell it or you'd sell it for a piece but there would be residuals and stuff like later on obviously the way it's sort of structured and it was this kind of hit driven business model. I don't know if you've read anything about, you there's some people who, some people I read who talked about that where it's like the hit driven business model where the producer
gets one out of 10 projects succeeds and that sort of pays for all of them, It's called kurtosis or kurtocracy where your economic model is based off of extreme events. So like you're protected by having nine duds but one billion dollar project. Like that's the model. Right. And but also I think part of that is like someone is just coming and paying you some large amount of money for that thing to acquire it. I don't think that happens anymore. Like almost at all.
(10:35)
I think that it's either projects, I mean this is just my experience and I'm not like making huge Hollywood movies, but definitely if you just look at how those movies are being financed, you can kind of read between the lines a little bit, which is that like most of these things are being, they're IP that's owned by the studios where they're producing stuff in that vein and like the independent types of things, like they don't really acquire as much, they more like maybe cultivate or foster something, but like they're not gonna just go.
So that's why in that world of like a couple million dollars for films, those films only work if they have like some kind of business revenue model that is directly tied to the film. It's not theatrical because there's no theatrical. It's not about being on streaming because streaming doesn't pay at all. It's like there is some audience, there's some tier of the rights that they can cut out where they have some like guarantee, you know?
TV doesn't even exist anymore, really. So that's like, that's a whole slice of those rights, which are not as valuable as they used to be. The theatrical is, you most movies don't even go to theaters. So it's actually, you think of it that way, it's like, paid video is really where it's at. And so like renting or buying your movie on one of these things.
If you're a producer, you gotta think how can you generate on that. Or, well, I mean, we have a lot of woes right now just because of the difficulty to get stuff produced. Like I was mentioning, physical merchandise and stuff like that. And it is difficult, but that's actually, people want that stuff because they want to support people and people like having the physical thing. And you might not think people watch Blu-rays, but give people a way to support you and your projects. And give them a lot of different opportunities and ways that they can watch it.
filmmakers will really get rewarded for that, you know? Right. Right. I mean, it's sort of like that DIY almost kind of more of a punk ethos to go, how can I serve a community, whether it is with like physical goods, merchandise. But yeah, it's like the model's really different. I remember talking to a distributor in the fall around like, oh yeah, we'll make do like a two or a four week release. Theatrical is really just a marketing ploy where it's like, great, we got our Rotten Tomatoes.
(12:42)
People might have seen it in their local listings and they remember it so that like four months later when they're surfing iTunes or Amazon they'll drop three bucks to rent it because they remember seeing a review during the very brief theatrical run So it's like even the theatrical run is like a lost leader for some of the distributors to go We just use this to help with marketing so people remember to rent it later, especially if you support it with advertising Yeah, but I think when you're talking about
a that maybe you can make a movie for half a million dollars or a million dollars. Right. That's like you're in the territory of you get 10 or 15,000 people to really show up for your project and you can make an economically viable. So that's, don't, I'm not saying any, that's easy to do. That's really hard to do, but you can see it's in the realm of like, you can understand how somebody, if they were dedicated to that, they could make real progress at it. think, you know,
Yeah. Yeah. I think just talking to distributors, one thing is like the amount of time it takes to nurture and cultivate and find the right communities that will help be either early adopters or early promoters for certain projects. think it's like, they don't like, they're not complaining about money. They're like, I just wish my teams had more time to, you know, get these pipelines like new projects, but later we got to drop something another 12 weeks or another 16 weeks. got to validate the audience. and, and, and once you have it validated, it's like, just.
make more and more and more. And that's the content model. And that's what's successful right now. And that's like, sometimes as a filmmaker, it can feel like, well, I look at it as,
I make films because I like to do it and it's a privilege to be able to do it. And I don't expect that anybody else is just gonna let you do that just because you have to give them a compelling reason to do it. And so all of the other stuff, I see the value in it, like content. that's kind of my, I guess that's my, I mean it's been in my day job, which is I kind of run a video agency where we do a lot of stuff like that. And part of that is we work to promote our own films and we use those same kind of tools.
(14:40)
and promoting the films and it's kind of like a form of guerrilla marketing, but it's like, you have to be doing something like that, you know? Yeah, yeah. I I think about the various streams of sort of expression in media, whether it's work or content. like, if you like telling stories, maybe you feel comfortable exploring different ways to tell stories. If it's like a vertical, I like doing the self-address kind of stuff on Instagram or TikTok of like just dropping some nuggets of wisdom to serve a community.
I'm a big fan of Gary Vee's sort of perspective. Like, yeah, care. Care about the thing you do and care about the people who do it. Gary Vee, yeah. No, I mean, I'm with you. I just, it's like a requirement. That's the thing is like, and if you want to be able to put yourself out there and be able to, know, it's people, and I work with a lot of artists and a lot of the film projects that I've done have been with other, you know, or about other artists. And this documentary I'm working on is with a comic book artist, but it's like,
Yeah, you gotta just keep doing it. That's really the only way to move it forward. Were you drawn toward this, I think, either comic book podcast as well as this comic book doc? It's a doc, right? Yeah. Were you drawn toward it because of your mindfulness of the potential niche audience it already has potentially baked in, or are you just genuinely?
You know, passion. No, no. mean, originally, so I did not grow up as like a comic guy. I had my own subculture. I was really in like I was into like, you know, gaming and stuff like that. That was more like my generation. But I definitely get it. And but I met Alex. So Alex is for those because I know this is probably more of a film audience than we've been doing the rounds where it's like a comic audience. And if you're in the comic world, everybody knows who Alex Ross is because he's like a giant.
And he's a painter and he does like painted comics. And so our documentary is about a book that he did in the nineties. That's one of his more famous books, but it's also kind of about him as an artist and also about it is about comics a little bit for the uninitiated, which is what I tried to do because that was how I was when I first met Alex. But that was like about 10 years ago. And so they had hired me to just direct some content for some, they were doing some gallery installations and some like sort of like.
(16:52)
excerpts and EPKs and sort of basically features about Alex, which I do a lot of that kind of work commercially. And we just hit it off with the team, his producer or his business manager who's the producer on this film, Sal Ebonanti, is an amazing artist himself and he became the driving force behind the project. I, after working with these guys for a couple of years and just working with Alex, I was like, this guy would be an amazing subject for a documentary because he's
For one, mean, his work is really amazing and I think it doesn't even matter if you're into comics, to be honest. Like it's kind of stunning and when you see it in real life, it's amazing. And then I would see him making this stuff and how he would be doing it in like a day. And it's pretty stunning and an inspiration, honestly. And his work ethic too, because this guy, I mean, he puts out so many images every year still. And so I was like, it'd be a great subject for documentary. He was a little more resistant, I think, to that.
because he's a really private guy. But when we started talking about Kingdom Come, which was his book, and I checked it out, I was like, okay, it's a Justice League book, but it has these kind of depictions of like, you know, the main heroes for Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and stuff, and this kind of, well, he just has like a very, he's like the Norman Rockwell of comics is what they call him. So it's like almost like you're looking, it's like in through a window sort of photo realism. So it's really cool, and I was really into it. And then,
People just, want to hear the story, honestly. People like love this story, they love this book. so yeah, so I didn't come from comics, but no, I was definitely like, I mean, I drove this project. We've been working on it for a few years. Sal was kind of like, he's been, you know, he's been sort of the person linking up all the pieces, which you need somebody like that, because there's so much of it. But creatively, in terms of the storytelling and stuff, I was able to do a lot, I think.
for a more general audience. that's like, you never know who's gonna be, like, it's for the fans. so the fans are, I think some, I mean, know, people like it, people don't like it. I've heard from both, but it's like, some people are like, oh, this is not just only about this book, and it's not like about like all the, you know, the Easter eggs and the stuff, you know, which there's a lot, there is a lot of that there. But it's also kind of about comics and about Alex and sort of about.
(19:10)
this book which came out in the 90s, was a really interesting time in comics because there was all this like speculative buying and there's all this great archival footage and so we did a really cool kind of documentary treatment that I think like I've talked to people on both sides, a lot of people who are like don't know a lot about comics still find it pretty interesting I think. Yeah that's great I mean it's hard to sort of you know please everyone especially if a certain degree of knowledge or fandom wants like very
in depth, you know, groundbreaking stuff. So that's difficult. Like for your process, at least initiating, like, did you have an outline and like what kind of, you know, bureaus or talking heads or sort of productive or production elements for you? Like for the past next two to four years, we're gonna try to meet monthly. Like what was your early outlining phases to the actual, you know, production phases of, you know, being around this person? You know, it's sort of sat for a while, I think, because we had other stuff that was like a bigger priority.
And then COVID hit and we came out on the other side of COVID. It was sort of, you know, COVID. I mean, but by 23, like, so there was like a pause. But I think also we were like, by the end of 22, early 23, we were like, okay, like, let's really do this. Because we had a lot of material that we had been recording for a long time. We had like been with Alex in New York and we would travel. We go to Comic-Con every year in San Diego. So we just were getting this big library of stuff, but we were like,
we need the of like the guts. And so we sat down with Alex then and we did like a really like a couple days, like a really long kind of interview. And we also did some stuff with him painting. And then that kind of got us set where my process with that is usually like with doc stuff, we try to kind of like break it into pieces. And then it's like, as you add more pieces, it's sort of like, okay, it starts to come together a little bit. And then you kind of build it up and you break it down, you build it up and you break it down. And that's just like the process. Even with narrative stuff, I just think like with editing any
big project or like if you've written something, it's like the editorial process is just like, you know, you got to just kind of, it just takes time and you're kind of just going over and over and over it. But then from there, like we went and did, there's like 30 interviews in this thing. like we were, we got a lot because it was a long period of time. We talked to people in Chicago. We talked to people in Los Angeles. We went to Arizona. We talked to people. We talked to Todd McFarland who's out there and, and Brian Polito, another great like independent.
(21:29)
creator guys who are really cool. We would go to Comic Con, we talked to some creators there, we talked to fans there, did some kind of man on the street stuff. So we were getting it all over. But I say it's mostly kind of talking head and then we worked with this 2D and 3D teams to like kind of take some of the art, sort of bring it to life a little bit, kind of more realize it a little bit more. That's great. I imagine like, yeah, you get those initial core, that initial core interview and like more questions come up, like, you you build up and then you got to break it down and.
you know, follow a thread. So did you sense like you had a point of view you want to express or explore within the original treatment that had to evolve based on like new information or were you able to stay pretty faithful to the original like driving thrust? I think we say pretty true to the treatment in terms of like the sort of the overall story, but the details definitely changed in the order of some things, you know, kind of naturally changes too. But it's like, I would say the doc, it doesn't
really have as much of like a true perspective as much as it is kind of like it's really Alex's perspective I think more than anything else that we really tried to capture and sort of like why I think it's and it's so specific and so niche but it's like he has these people who really just like they love him because of the way he like creates these characters but it's not just the way he draws them it's like
He embodies them, I think, with the stuff that they really means a lot. And for a lot of these people, it's stuff either from their formative years. So it's like, the biggest comic fans are these people who were into it in the 60s and 70s, who have now had all this validation because what was their subculture is now this dominant form of pop culture. And I just think that's just cool. I think that's a cool subject, you know what I mean? Right, yeah. That's pretty sweet. And I wonder if, know,
Will it be video? Like I think video games are kind of making their way to becoming a similar, similar. think they're honestly already there. I think comics movies, they're not going to be going away. And obviously like there's these big franchises and stuff. So it's not like they're going away. And the new Superman movie, I think actually looks really cool. But, but yeah, it's definitely like some of these gaming things. And that's what I grew up more with. So I'm like, okay, I kind of get it because it's like, yeah, these IP that you kind of.
(23:40)
grew up with, you know? Are you into any of that stuff? I mean, I played, you know, The Last of Us. Yeah, are you watching The Last of Us? Yeah, yeah, I've been watching that. I'm excited to see it until dawn, I think maybe this weekend. dawn, I played that one. I played the game actually. The game is basically like a movie, that one. You just kind of like, no, that's it's a fun game. But also Rami Malek is in the game. yeah, yeah, I a brother named Rami and I have a brother named Malek actually, which is always really funny.
But yeah, he's in that game, but that's good, because he's not in the movie. I don't think so. Yeah, no, it's like a whole different story. He aged In the show or whatever, he aged out. But Last of Us, oh man, I love the first season of Last of Us, but I gotta say, I'm not all in on season two. Oh yeah, I just... Do you like it? I haven't seen the second episode. like I'm curious. Have you played the Last Yeah, I've played both of them. I mean, I really liked the video game.
moved to tears when I finished the I love the games. I love the games. The second game I thought was maybe it was polarizing for you, but I thought it was amazing. The first one I enjoyed, but I was like, whatever to be honest. the second one I just, okay, and so here's, I'm just gonna say, here's my issue with the show, which is, I mean, it's not a spoiler to you, because you already know, and the rest of the world has seen it, so doesn't matter. you know, Abby's character in the game is like,
It's like, that's like one of the major kind of reveal sort of like plot points of the game is that the whole perspective shifts and it's like in the show from the outset, they've already completely eliminated that. And I think that's so questionable. And I love the writer too. Like he has a great podcast. You ever listened to that? No, no, I haven't. haven't. Yeah. that the script notes is one of the most long running podcasts ever. It's with him. it's Craig Mason and, man, I can't remember.
His name is escaping me, the main guy. I'm look it up. No, it's, no, no, no. Man, why can't he? He's incredible. Hold on a second. I'm just gonna look this up because these guys like actually pioneered podcasts. John August, John August did like Big Fish and stuff. Great podcast. I thousands of episodes all about writing. Amazing, amazing. The best screenwriting podcast, honestly. Worth checking out and for your listeners or whatever, if you want to learn. I mean, they go into everything. And one of them, he...
(25:55)
is Craig Mazin and he loves Last of Us. He used to talk about it on the show and he also he wrote Chernobyl, you know, which was a really good show on HBO. So then this he did after that. And so he's a true fan. like I give him the benefit of the doubt. But yeah. But man, I was I mean, I was thinking about the game, especially the second one, like I don't know what narrative tools they would have to use because the game essentially indicts you into two points of view.
and you have to like navigate your own discomfort with like vengeance. I was like, how can you do that, you know, over a series without tipping the hand? Yeah. Because I just think, I'm just like, you know, TV tropes and TV writing and for the formulaic TV stuff, I'm just like, forget that, you know, it's like, this is like, the reason that this was so good was because it was, it's the narrative. It's like the narrative thing. And so it's like,
But they're just like, you I'm sure they're just like, we're just going to lose people, which like you definitely, I mean, I could see how you would to a degree, but I people, get people invest. That's the whole thing with the game. People are, you're so invested in the story by the time that happens. And it's kind of such a shock. I don't know if that's maybe that's just insane, but I'm like, that would be so cool. I think my issue with the first season was around pacing. Whereas like, I would have preferred a little bit of less fidelity.
give me two to four more episodes to really, you know, breathe it out and expand out. And I wonder if it's going to be a similar issue of like the pacing and also maybe being a little bit too direct on a singular point of view rather than, you know, the like, what's going on? Like, why am I falling? Why am I happy? Why am I this person? Why am I playing this character so long? And then you're like, shit, this is, I don't know how I feel about this. It's like heartbreaking. The game is so heartbreaking. it slips. just keeps, that's where it's just like, and that's where I feel like when it gets further in, which this is spoilers of years.
into the show, but you haven't played the game. you know, it's like the way the story progresses and it kind of goes back and forth in the way that their kind of stories become intertwined with each other. And it's this whole sort of, which the show, can see that they're trying to do the same thing where it's this kind of cycle of violence. That's why the game is so compelling, I think. And that's why the second game is better than the first one because it's like, you kind of need that whole, it's like the setup, the preamble, but it's like everything that happens really is in the second game, you know?
(28:06)
The first game is sort of like hitting those classic survival horror plot points of like, you know, trying to, you know, you're more grieved, you're grieving your traumatic past and, know, you get some of the same kind of set points of someone you like, then they get sick and all this. the second one's yeah, probably the freshest survival horror I've seen. Yeah, man. That's such a good game. So I'm going to of course watch the show. Yeah.
but still have feelings. And then like for you, do you find that like you're more drawn, drawn toward doc work or do you have a fair balance of like yearning or spending time with fiction, narrative fiction? You know, what's sort of your balance that or what? do. I mean, I, I narrative films, what I love to do. And that was all I did when I got started. The documentaries, you know, I, I think when I completed bad animal, which was my first.
film, like an indie feature, ultra low budget, micro budget movie, but it's kind of set in the Chicago music scene and we had a lot of great kind of DIY artists and we were working with a lot of artists back then doing music videos and stuff. Mike Aldeville is one of the leads and Rivka Reyes is in it, who's really great as well. And is now like actually had a really awesome career. Rivka is like crushing it right now. Had a movie in Sundance like last year and it's just awesome stuff. So when we did that, it was like people saw it, you know, even though like in its limited
way as it is, because it's like an indie movie like that. And so we did some screenings and stuff. then it's, know, people just kind of come out of the work. It's like people who have the ambition and the desire to try and like, a project that they really want to work on. And they see like, here's someone who could help me realize it. And they have some way to bring the financing together. And so it's like, they might find that's kind of been my situation where it's like people sort of, only work deep. Like I'm not going to go deep on something that I don't find interesting, but it's been more like, they're like, okay, here's someone.
who is gonna be able to, mean, someone who I can trust as a filmmaker to go make a film, you know, about something. And so that has kind of been the story. They all kind of dovetailed at the same time, but then post COVID, it's been more documentary, just honestly, because there's more of them going on right now. Like there's, we have one that we've been working on for a few years with not a comic artist, but actually an artist. It's a really cool story. It's probably got another year before it's done, but we've got.
Speaker 1 (30:22.504)
so much great stuff and it's a really awesome story. And then we have another comic book project that we're now kind of in production. We've done a good amount this year. We're working on, really trying to get it in the can like this year by like the fall would be amazing. So these things are going on. I have other projects. I mean, I have a number of narrative projects, but it's like,
The truth is, just like without any hint of financing at this point. And so it's actually made me rethink the way, cause I have some stuff that I'm working on now that's a little bit more further along or more real than stuff has been narrative project. That's a little bit further along than, than I've been able to get other stuff at this point. And it's because I thought about it a bit more like, okay, like with even this audience, like how do you, what's something that you can kind of create that sort of sits in that.
But you can kind of do your thing there. So I've been thinking of that and stuff in the public domain. Because it's like everybody wants IP. And it's like everybody that's like, we need IP. And that sounds like a cliche. you're like, everyone just said, but no, it's like, no, really. If people think that there's some IP. And I'm not just talking about like, I don't think anybody's going to ever buy your movie and distribute it. So I'm not talking about distributors. But I'm like literally even an audience. Like the audience is like, this is something that I've heard of before. That's interesting.
You know what I mean? Like what's the take on it? So there's a project that's so pretty low budget. It's also like once you know, you think about the number it costs to make something, like, that's the number we need to hit. It's like, okay, how much, what do we really need to do for that? How many people need to watch the movie? What do we need to sell to do that? You know, can we really realistically do that? Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty like the, like the humility of numbers versus sort of like the, the, fantasy of a slot machine, even though I think given how sort of
Kurtocratic the industry is it is sort of like slot machine. yeah, like thinking objectively of like if we do it for this, how many streams would we need to get? How many DVDs would we need to sell? How many shirts? How much, you know, a crowdfunding to at least recoup or make a modest profit is like such a important question to ask because it begs the question of like responsibility where it's like, all right, if we don't think there's an audience for this.
Speaker 1 (32:35.18)
and maybe instead of it being $100,000, we can make it for 10,000 and get everyone on the same page of the level of expectation. Or maybe you just need to think about something that there's an audience for. Right. And that's like, think all, well, there's actually two ways to do it. I think the other way is, and this is how tons of amazing movies all throughout history have been done, which is if you can secure some kind of grant funding or state funding or whatever, that's how, you know, that's why, I mean, all the foreign movies, like I'm like, actually, my favorite stuff is like, like,
Art House, mostly foreign world cinema, that's like really my favorite, favorite like personal stuff that I just love. And almost all that stuff was state funded. But now it's grant funded and so it's like, okay, you either have to have a non, because to get those grants, you have to be a nonprofit or you have to partner with one. And so that's the other thing. And in Chicago, I think there's actually kind of a cool model of some organizations that have figured out how to do that effectively and bring the pieces together that are doing some cool stuff. So that's one, that's another way of going about it.
But I think there's that or there is independent audience build your own, you know, the, the, what is that thing? Like the, you're the Calvary, you know, Duplass. mean, that's, said that like, was like 10 or 15 years ago. But like literally a hundred percent the truth because you talk to distributors. I mean, I don't know how many of those conversations you've had, but like even on this project where it's like, we have an audience, like there's a built in audience.
the film's done, whatever, we know what we need to do, it's reasonable. They're all just like, I mean, no one is gonna give you like literally a minimum guarantee. No minimum guarantee, zero. So they want the rights to your movie for like five years, and they're like, we're gonna do this, this, and this, and we're gonna spend, you know, 20, 30, 40, $50,000 of marketing, which is just their fees, which is fine, everybody's gotta make money, but they're gonna do that, and they're,
They're not gonna recoup that. And that's the point is like if they could recoup that and then get you like a couple hundred thousand dollars, you're like, totally, I'll pay you whatever you want. But it's like these guys are not gonna do that. What they want is more films in their portfolio. And what are they gonna do? Literally, they're gonna take it to an aggregator. going to, they're gonna shop it up that way. Or maybe they have some relationships where they can get you placement on a few things. The royalties are gonna be, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:55.565)
Well, it's like turn and burn for some of those companies where it's like they just they're better off with the portfolio of releasing 52 to 80 movies a year. And that's how they win versus as an individual filmmaker. You're not going to succeed because it's like, yeah, you're just another you're just another thing that they're hoping strikes a chord and gets, you know, 10,000 rentals or downloads or whatever or 100,000 rentals. But you're one of 50 to them. know, they're not going to put real resources into you. You what it is is
you have to be willing and ready to put the resources into yourself. And you have to take on that burden. the truth is nobody wants to do that because it's not, know, if you're a creative person, it's totally like the least sexy work there is. You're like spreadsheets and forecasting. You know, but it's, but, it's also like, if you want to be an artist, you've got to, you know, you got to do what it takes to get it done. mean, everyone has their own way. That's this is.
This is how I look at it after just with my experiences and what I have found has been able to keep me in the game at least to fight another day. You know what I mean? To me, I think it's the integrity of knowing like expression for expression sake is valid and fine. But if your expression isn't accessible and people want to part ways with money for it, then I think it's the responsibility to know like maybe a five million dollar movie about incest.
Is it the best? Maybe it'll work. Maybe it would work. You know, ask David Russell and see how that worked out. Movies. But yeah, I think it's the responsibility to know like, OK, maybe if it's too weird, still create the expression, but be mindful of budget. Yeah, I definitely think I mean, look at like Roger Corman. mean, this is people have actually been doing this forever, where it's like if you can run the chop shop. Also, that means like for me, that means like, well, you learn how to do everything. I have a small team, you know, but but we get a lot done and
You know, we kind of, now we do this. I mean, we do, like I said, we do an agency, we do commercials work and stuff like that. And we do a lot of that and there's a team that supports it, but we also, do a lot of storytelling. A lot of it, a lot of it ends up being post-production, you know, because it's like that's, you're going to make these things, but it's like these projects sit in the editing room for six months a year. so.
Speaker 1 (37:13.464)
being able to just, you that's like, got to create opportunities for people to do that work and you have to pay people to do that. So you've got to find money one way or another. Right. And do you find for you that sort of straddling between the commercial world and maybe the non or the artistic world, like not that they're mutually exclusive, but I'm curious, like what's your relationship with the straddle of like, yes, I'm on set or I'm producing to folks on set to make these commercials. You know, where's your joy? How do you, how do you relate to that? Yeah.
I, you know, it's, I mean, it's a hard thing to balance for sure because, you know, things come and go, but I really think like, if you can, if you can work with a good team, that's like to be able to keep yourself free to do the stuff that's like important. And that's like, I think the challenge is like, that's why you have to grow in a smart way where it's like, you can keep that for yourself because like, if you're busier, busier and busier.
and all your brain is going to a million different things and you don't have time for the real stuff that's important. You're not only doing yourself a disservice, but it's like that's, you need that space to grow. And if you can't grow, then, you that's like, I mean, you have to, you have to always be kind of evolving. I think that's just how I do it. And so, but the creative is really important. And I think that what it comes down to is like, everything is, comes from a consideration of, this going to support?
like the creative goals for the projects that we want to be able to develop. Not necessarily like, is this the exact thing that I want to be doing right now? But it's more like, are we working towards the goals? But with films or any big project that takes like years, you have to always be willing to say yes to that because 90 % of the things you do, even on a really fundamentally creative project, is just work. I mean, it's like the logistics. I mean, it's work. Yeah, it's project management. It's, know, are you showing up to the thing? I think it's more of the sort of the sexiness or the
I know, I don't want say integrity, there's a certain like, you know, I'm doing this to fill my coffer and it's just kind of a mercenary job versus I care about this at a sort of spiritual or intellectual level that I don't say care about for like a downy commercial, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's I think true. A lot of the stuff that we do is storytelling. I mean, that's what we try to focus on and we try to find people who partner words like we add that value. So I feel like it's not as much about like even the commercial as much as it is like kind of finding a cool way to reach
Speaker 1 (39:27.714)
people's audiences or grow their audiences or create stuff that can engage them. That I actually find a fun challenge and I think is useful because I'm just like, that's to be creative, to be a filmmaker. mean, I just, my opinion is movies are never gonna be a big business again. you know, and I love, I love filmmaking, but it's like in order to be able to do that, I think you gotta be just, you gotta be really focused on it.
You know, you gotta be kind of dedicated to it. And that's a lot to ask. Yeah. I think that ship sailed with the Paramount decision in 1948. know, like this industry has gone through more booms and busts before I even existed as a person. So I think that's something I try to humble myself and acknowledge is like, this was a very, you know, developed industry that had an extreme change in 1948 that sort of dismantled the trajectory of its sort of volume and potential. And now it's like, yeah, this is an
It might be like an opera or it's going to see jazz where there people who love it and love the experience of sitting in a dark room and I think there will always be an audience but it's not that audience. That's me. I'm in the jazz club. I'm at the Ingmar Bergman film. That's actually me who's there. But then I when I stop and think about it I'm like OK that's me. I love that stuff and I surround myself with people you for a time or whatever you you're around people who are like that. Not everybody but you know she's a common interest. But it's like.
It's always a small crowd. I think it's always been a small crowd. Then I think about how was this stuff funded? Well, it state funded and it went on television. know, like this was like, like, like, well, Bergman, like he was literally, that was it. He was making films that were going on, you know, Swedish television, basically cable dramas, but he just had total freedom to do it every one. I still remember reading like either his first two or three films or such financial failures. He was like, I'm never going to work again. And then he worked again, you know, dude. I mean, these guys, I love Tarkovsky. I love Tarkovsky.
You know, he literally was a filmmaker in Soviet Russia. He was somehow able to get state funding just because he was so, he was such a prodigy and he was so successful on the world stage that they were like, well, we gotta give this guy resources because he's one of the best of us. They're like, we gotta be successful. We gotta be succeed. We're the Soviets, you know, against America. But then he was also like an artist. So everything he was doing was like pretty subtly, at least counter-cultural. And then they're like, what the hell is this guy doing? And then they basically ended up in the end of his life,
Speaker 1 (41:48.79)
He was in exile. Like he spent like decades and I think I think over a decade in exile. He made a movie where the negative he like thought that it was messed up and he went and reshot the whole movie. You know, and and you read his book. He's got a book and you read his book is called Sculpting in Time. Have you read that?
Speaker 1 (42:13.378)
Well, in his book, he's just like, if you want to make films, you have to completely dedicate your life to it. And it's like, it's going to give you nothing back. And you just have to do that. he ended up dying because he got cancer because they all made it that movie. And he watched that movie. it's like, look like they're in radioactive sludge. It's horrible. Everyone who worked on that movie died within 10 years.
So that's his dedication. Yeah, think, gosh, I don't know if it was, maybe it was Joseph Campbell talking about sort of two types of artists, like a social artist and a romantic artist. I don't remember the exact words, but like there's those who like suffer for their creating. And then there's others who are like, no, I like the social part of making stuff. But like, what do you think about like Herzog? Someone's like, yeah, I want to get this boat over a mountain or I'm going to die. Like that's, know, some people just like, like this. Have you seen that burden of dreams? Have you seen that one? Yes, it's so good. It's so
Great, way better than Fitzgerald a movie. I enjoy it. I saw, actually, know, well, the Music Box, I saw Gary the Wrath of God at the Music Box, the sold out theater. That's my favorite of his. That and Nosferatu, he's got great stuff. Nosferatu, yeah. Yeah. What's his earliest one with the little people? Even Dwarves started small? Yeah, that's like a short film, right? It's like 60, 70 minutes, yeah. But even that's just like the chaos of that sort of image making is like dreamlike.
So anyways, that was the stuff that I like. I'm not that I would say I grew up with it, but when I was like a teenager, that was the stuff I got really into. So yeah, I love the narrative stuff. It's amazing. Great. And then I guess when it comes to like this, your comic book pros podcast, is this like a natural evolution of your production company or? Well, so we did the podcast. We actually produced it.
our team produced it last year. so it's, we did like a season, a run of it, cause there's just a lot of great creators. Like we kind of create content that's with comic book pros. That's kind of for that kind of niche comic audience. And it's a lot of different stuff. It's at times it's kind of like a meme page really, but, but it's also, you know, we kind of work together to produce these films. And so the podcast was like, we did it last year and we had a different host. And then we were just like, so I work on this project with my brother, Rami and
Speaker 1 (44:33.036)
the producer, Sal, and we kind of run it together, partially because it's easier to have more people on a podcast because then like for interviews and stuff, you can have somebody just go tackle that. So that helps. And then also just like, we were already so in conversation about this stuff that it just seemed like kind of logical and you got to find more ways to get your work out there. being able to just have the opportunity to promote what we're doing in addition to, we talked to like amazing comps.
artists. The cool thing is we work with a bunch of projects. In Como, there's a comic festival. kind of support us who have great access to artists and we kind of partner with all of them and they help bring people on to have interviews on the show. We talked to the next episode, I think it's coming next week, with John J. Muth. He did that show Still Water on Apple TV. I don't if you've ever seen that.
If you had kids, you probably would have seen it. Do you have kids? No, I don't have kids. No, yeah, if you had kids, you probably would because it's like a kids show with a big panda. But yeah, it's cool. we're doing another season of that. At least, there usually at least eight episodes. So we're, you know, we have a few in the can. We've got some more to do. But it's kind of like a fun, it's a fun project and it kind of dovetails with this film that we're doing to be able to kind of help get the word out there. Right? Yeah.
Like I think there's like a, it's like all sort of, you know, a degree of either caring for community, exploring sort of story and expression and also like learning about interesting people. Did you find that you had like a strategic vision of like, or what's the strategic goal of say a podcast? Like for example, for me, I'm like, oh, I should probably think about what's the end game. Cause I'm just like right now, I like talking to people, but like for you, what's, what's, is there a strategic vision of like, we do, you know, do we do five seasons? Do we do this until we're kind of tired of it or?
Do we want to get a million sort of subscribers? What's the strategic? Yeah, mean the first season went well. I there were a lot of people who were down, I don't remember exactly, but yeah, all the videos were getting a couple thousand views and we got like a thousand subscribers. We run, like I kind of, work on some other, with some of our clients and stuff where we've kind of helped build some YouTube pages up to a couple hundred thousand subscribers. it takes a long time to do that. I mean those things take like years.
Speaker 1 (46:45.612)
But more than that, I think it was just like, okay, well we put so much, we put this effort in. It's a big, I mean it takes a lot of work to produce it, as I'm sure you know. And we do a video podcast as well. But the benefit is like the, well, on the infrastructure side, I have a studio, so it's like that's, and an editor on staff and stuff, so part of our team, we're able to support that stuff and we can deliver on it. Because post-production is obviously a ton of work. So we do that, but also like,
I think it's just a matter of like the video clips are like seems like that's all that it is right now. It's like you have stuff like that. Like that's what's succeeding. Like you were saying like doing stuff on camera and like it or not is just is what's kind of effective right now at getting into the algorithm and being able to get wider distribution. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I last year I was really heavily just sort of researching and playing around with Tik Tok. And I think
Reels might slowly be maturing to the level of TikTok, but I still think Facebook's algorithm is really heavy handed versus like TikTok has a little bit more spontaneity and like discovery. But yeah, it's just like the similar thing of like demand is not known until the thing exists. So it's like algorithmically, it's similar to a hit movie. Sometimes you're just going to have a reel, whether it was the lighting or the thing you said or the day of the week you said it. All of a that one has a hundred thousand or a million views versus one day later is like,
1200 and like it's it's just you really don't know what a decent you got to stay the course But you got to post relentlessly I mean that's now with AI more than ever and that's like even yeah like platforms like Riverside and I actually I just made a we just did a blog post today that was about some of the tools that we use that are AI tools and Riverside is one of them because like the Riverside like clips like the magic clips the AI clips are amazing and we use some other clips because we work with folks where it's like we come in or we've been
a huge library of content that we've produced or they produced or whatever. And now you can repurpose all that using a lot of AI and it's pretty good. And to be honest, I mean, people obviously have their feelings about AI, but like this is not work that is enjoyable for anyone. To go through archives, footage and transcripts to be like, what's a sticky 30 seconds that I could click All we're really trying to do is fill the calendar.
Speaker 1 (48:57.186)
But the nice thing is, you discover something like this and how you can repurpose it and all of a sudden filling the calendar isn't such a problem anymore. And now you can actually be more focused on being intentional on, what's the sort of centerpiece stuff that we're gonna do, the bigger projects that we're gonna do, or even the paid ad campaigns that we're gonna do. Can we focus on the creative? Yeah, I remember, think Gary Vee just came out with a book a few months ago called Day Trading Attention. one of his positions is like,
you shouldn't be making an ad creative based off of a hunch versus like we have all these tools. If you have a sort of quote unquote content piece that just killed it, that like, all right, it's got 2 million views. How can we abstract that and turn it into like a $100,000 paid campaign rather than, you know, some companies like, don't know, let's have cars driving in the wilderness. Reuse it. Yeah. We use it. If it works, reuse it. Reuse it. Reuse the structure in a higher budget capacity. Who knows? Think about unlike there's this guy on Instagram.
I can't even remember his name, but he's got like, it's a meme page, which honestly on Instagram, that's all that I follow anymore is just all meme pages, which I don't like. I'm not a big, huge Instagram like power user, but we do use it obviously for marketing and it's like part of one of the channels we run content through it. But I'm like, I think sometimes it's good to like have people help work with you on that stuff and then kind of distance yourself a little bit from it personally because
You don't want to be opening it up and checking it all the time. It's more like you just need to constantly be putting stuff on there. And TikTok is the same way. But there's this guy on Reels and his video that I watch every time I watch it. It's so funny. It makes me laugh every time. he's in slow motion. And he's talking about old stuff from the 90s, a old millennial dad. And he's talking about, he's like, Halo 2 and all this shit.
And it kills me every time. And it's like, you can even see, see that he goes and he tries to the formula and it's like, when you redo it, doesn't work the same. But that video has like 20 million views or something. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's also like the spirit of how you use platforms and tools. Like when I think about it, it's like, I'm in a different head space when I just want silly little guys, right? Like there's one thing if I'm going to sit down and watch like a two and a half, three hour long Russian film with subtitles, like that's a head space versus like the work also sometimes works for the algorithm or what I imagine is like.
Speaker 1 (51:17.87)
This is just something that's really personally pleasing and delightful as I'm trying to like, you know, brain rot for the next 30 minutes. It's better than some of the alternatives. mean, that's, that is like these days it's easy to get on some real side quests. And you know, if you can, if you can sometimes just like give your brain a break from, you know, the doom scrolling, it's not always a bad thing. Right. I think I just have a couple more questions. Like given how uncertain the industry is, like what, keeps you like.
motivated to stick it out or what keeps you involved given like that it's so Decentered so uncertain like and expensive and hard like what yeah motivated right now I mean filmmaking is like that honestly advertising is like that too right now It's it's a tough spot. I think I get motivated about I get excited about you know building audiences and being able to
innovate on what we're doing and I enjoy the entrepreneurial aspect of it. Of course, I love the creative component too, but right now that's like, really am enjoying that part of the world, partly because we just finished this film. So it's like now we're kind of promoting a project. So you're in a different space than when you're like in the throes of trying to complete it. Like if you asked me this time last year, I probably would have been in a totally different place because we were so deep in it on post-production. I'm still like, I'm excited about that. And the thing about the film industry, when I was saying that, I don't mean to sound
Negative. think it's I do feel like it's realistic But I kind of think you got to know you got to at least acknowledge the truth for yourself not to not do something but just like you got to be honest about what it is because I do sometimes I think it's easy to get sucked into a fantasy of like even thinking about Like when I when you're trying to do this stuff for your younger like for me when I was even you know a teenager because I've been doing this long time interested in this focus on this and You know the people who you like aspired
to, or people who you might try and learn. You know, it was different before the internet was like, you could just go find, or even people's movies, you know, you couldn't just go find anything. And so you'd have to work harder to find it. And then you do all this and it's, but it's, you think like the stuff that was successful for those people is not going to work for you. Because it was a different time. And so it's like, if you want to be whatever version of successful is for you, which for me is honestly just being able to make, keep making projects and working on stuff that's interesting and being able to kind of, you know, be in the community and,
Speaker 1 (53:37.75)
live life, that's a great life for me. So it's like, how do you do that? Versus like being like, I'm gonna just like, selling you a dream. I mean, it's a fantasy, I think. And I don't think a lot of people who like even hit the jackpot are all that happy. So it's not a path to happiness. Even hearing about the Brutalists director, like I haven't made a cent off of this. It's like, just to remind you, this is like an Oscar award. And that was so pouty too. I mean, it's just a terrible attitude. I mean, God bless him. I love that movie. That movie is like my favorite movie I feel like I've seen.
in five years. went in theaters, which is hard for me to do because I a toddler. I made the time and I was just like, that's the kind of stuff I love. And I thought it was so well done. I thought the acting was amazing. But I got to say the PR tour on that was like, I get why people say it because it's because it's actually to make a film like that is a huge privilege. Right. And it sucks that you can't make money doing it. But it's like the movies don't make money. So how can you expect people to just like pay you for stuff and it doesn't make money? It's just not how it works. know, right. Yeah.
Thanks for sharing that. then lastly, like how conscious are you of like risk taking as a part of your sort of perspective or point of view, like taking risks, taking big swings? Like how do you measure that? Like, is that an active thing of like choosing projects or committing to projects that you feel either cautious or afraid of and go like, I want to risk on this. So what's your relationship with like injecting risk into the things you make or the reasons you make them? Yeah, that's a good question. There's, mean, tremendous uncertainty.
around any project or anything. And it's not pleasant to feel uncomfortable or anxious about stuff. And it's like, got to really put yourself at risk to get anything done. And it's unpleasant. It's an unpleasant anxiety. And I have a great deal of it, you know? And that's just like anybody, everybody does, you know? And so all you can do is just like, I think try to be your authentic kind of self and put yourself out there. And you you can't listen to
the haters or the doubters or the negative energy because, you know, everybody says that they have a screenplay, everybody has a thing that they want to do, everybody has a documentary, everybody has a book they're going to write. The difference between the people who not just do it, but actually do it and get it out there and try to promote themselves and what it takes to be the critic. Nothing wrong with critics and everyone's opinion is valid, but it's like, you know, have respect for yourself as the creator, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:01.014)
They think it's like, to acknowledge like, yeah, there is just unsettling amounts of anxiety that are pervasive. However, to like choose action rather than justification, like, I'm not going to do this because the time is not right. Or get it. Like self-care is also important, but there's a difference between talking about doing it and consistently doing it. To me, success is like modestly, consistently, responsibly creating things that are done out of like risk, excitement, joy, and curiosity rather than like,
Well, I better make something the market wants in 2025. The biggest, the biggest risk that you take and give you the most opportunity. And so like that's, think stuff that has worked or been successful for me has almost always come from that. That's how I look at it. And also like some of the stuff that I find really my greatest disappointments also come from that. You know what I mean? And so it's like, sometimes you can just feel really disappointed about something and that doesn't mean that you can't continue to do it. You kind of got to get back up, you know?
Yeah, it's a practice of finding what one could define as a failure, and to me it's like reframing and redefining it. Yes, the feeling of disappointment and pain, it sucks. It sucks, dude, it sucks. It's really easy to be like, you're gonna fail, it's gonna be so good, you're gonna learn so much from it. It sucks to fail. You work on something for years that you really care about, and you put everything online, you invest everything, and it fails. That's not, you don't feel proud of yourself. You feel like a failure, you know what I mean?
And then from those ashes comes a phoenix rising of curiosity. But Renzi is absolutely delighted. My pleasure, man. Thanks for having me.
you
Speaker 1 (57:44.878)
Before sending you off with a little creative prompt, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to Mischief and Mastery. If you enjoyed the show, please rate it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your support does mean a lot. Until next time, keep taking care of yourself, your lightness, curiosity, and sense of play. And now for a little Mischief. Here's a little prompt I guess inspired about
distribution and crowdfunding. So mix match, feel free to take any of these ones. So here's one about distillation. If you want to write a brief one or two sentence, preferably one sentence long description of who would be willing to pay to watch your film, your project, your work, and what would be the best and first way to hear about it. So that's one little concrete action. You can get to think about audience. One sentence, who would pay?
for your art, your work, your project, and what would be the best or first way they can hear about it. Another one is just sketching or voice noting one physical or one digital product your viewers could buy to support your project, your art, your film, and set a five-minute timer and stop when it buzzes when it comes to just brainstorming physical and digital products. And one last one, if you need a little guidance.
This one is writing down a list of 20 people who would be interested in what you're making, what you're creating, whether it be a Blu-ray or a poster or a ticket to a show or a painting. then yeah, list those 20 people and circle three names. So you could send a DM, an email, a letter, a postcard or a message asking them if they're interested in it. So there you go. Three options to choose from. Flex the muscle of doing one tiny little action to grow and get yourself out of your comfort zone.
Alright, I'll see you next time.