Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Mike Rembis | The Christian Reeve Podcast #370

Transcript

Mike Rembis | The Christian Reeve Podcast #370 · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:46
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian Reef
• 0:49
  Podcast. Today's guest is a writer, a
• 0:51
  Blogger by his own emission, A quasi actor, director, producer
• 0:55
  all the way from Tampa Bay, Florida.
• 0:57
  His name is Mike Rembis. Welcome to the show.
• 0:59
  How you doing? Icky, Sir, I'm doing fantastic.
• 1:02
  How are you? Glad to finally have you on the
• 1:05
  show, finally. I know it's been crazy trying to
• 1:10
  get these wires to work but I think I got it.
• 1:13
  I have a blinking red light, but if you can hear me and it's
• 1:17
  recording, that's what counts. It's perfect for those.
• 1:20
  Well, you won't know we, we had the first time ever.
• 1:24
  I, I spent a considerable amount of time with Mike trying to fix
• 1:27
  his technical setup. It's not the first time.
• 1:31
  Over the years I've had people that have had technical issues
• 1:34
  with their podcast set up. It happens.
• 1:36
  It's part of the game. So sometimes there's, there's
• 1:39
  just stuff you can't. There's no reason for it not to
• 1:43
  work. Like I remember one time I did a
• 1:44
  show with a guy and it went smoothly, but then afterwards
• 1:49
  the video was just lost. Oh, and I never, you know, I
• 1:53
  never recovered that. I don't know why it's more
• 1:55
  important that the voice is covered because it's a podcast,
• 1:58
  But still, it was a bit like. You know, other things get lost
• 2:03
  too. I, I, I was in a short film
• 2:07
  based on the Telltale Heart. It was, and that's a Edgar Allan
• 2:12
  Poe story, which is basically 3 pages long.
• 2:16
  But so it's about this guy who kills somebody, buries him in
• 2:19
  his floorboard, and he can't stop hearing the Telltale Heart
• 2:23
  beating in his floorboard. And he rips up the floorboards
• 2:25
  and he's, he just drives himself mad because he killed somebody.
• 2:29
  And so this, this guy, he, it was in Austin.
• 2:34
  He gets me and a crew and A and other actors together to act it
• 2:39
  out. We did shout it out in one day.
• 2:42
  We looked at the dailies and all that stuff and it, oh man, it
• 2:45
  looked nice. It was really nice.
• 2:47
  And then I'm waiting and waiting and I was like, OK, I know this
• 2:52
  is going to be a 5 or 10 minute film.
• 2:54
  When are we going to actually see it, You know?
• 2:57
  And he goes, I lost it. And I said, what do you mean you
• 3:00
  lost it? And he goes, it got like buried
• 3:05
  or burned or recorded over and it's gone.
• 3:09
  I was like, gone. It's like, yeah, it's totally
• 3:12
  gone. So it happens.
• 3:16
  I don't know what's less that or no, because I've had to say, OK,
• 3:22
  I've done a lot of film work and voice acting work over the
• 3:25
  years, right? And my assumption whenever I do
• 3:28
  a project is that it will never see the light of day.
• 3:31
  And so I list everything on my website.
• 3:33
  I'm like, this is what I've done.
• 3:35
  Whether or not you can see it, that's that's dependent on the
• 3:37
  directors. That's, that's nothing to do
• 3:39
  with me. But I've literally had
• 3:40
  conversations with people. Like, for example, I have a
• 3:42
  short film that was directed by these two dudes and it was
• 3:46
  fantastic. We went to a beautiful part of
• 3:49
  just near Manchester called the Peak District.
• 3:51
  We filmed it like on this beautiful fucking landscape.
• 3:55
  The visuals were incredible. Like everything about it was
• 3:58
  just chef's kiss. And I'm waiting and waiting and
• 4:01
  waiting, waiting. And I spoke to the videographer
• 4:05
  and he was like, it's not my film.
• 4:08
  I'd be happy for you to share it, but it's not mine.
• 4:10
  You have to talk to the director.
• 4:11
  And I'm like, all right, fair enough.
• 4:12
  So I talked to him about it and he's like, well, Christian,
• 4:17
  sometimes things just, you know, they don't see the light of day.
• 4:22
  And I'm like, yeah, I was like, can I release it?
• 4:25
  And he's like, no, no, no, no. I was like, can I use it as
• 4:27
  footage in my show reel? He's like, yeah.
• 4:30
  So I've been like, slowly showing bits and pieces of it
• 4:33
  throughout the years. But I'm like, how stupid.
• 4:38
  It's art. I know.
• 4:40
  You're not blown. Right.
• 4:41
  For in a few film festivals, but there's a bit there's, but I
• 4:44
  remember one time there was a film I did in Europe and it was
• 4:48
  in film festivals and everything and the, the director was a
• 4:51
  piece of shit. He was really, I'm sorry, I know
• 4:54
  it's not very professional, but he like, I saw him being
• 4:57
  extremely rude to the producer and the actor on set.
• 5:01
  And I had to have words with him and the producer and the actor
• 5:05
  thanked me both. And I was like, well, someone
• 5:07
  had to say something because this guy's ego is just out of
• 5:09
  control. I've seen that, yeah.
• 5:12
  You mean I had nothing to lose though?
• 5:14
  If he fires me, so be it. Like your film is shit.
• 5:18
  It wasn't. Everyone worked really hard on
• 5:21
  that film, but his attitude was just through the roof.
• 5:23
  And I remember years after the facts, I asked him because I
• 5:29
  promoted because it was being used in film festivals.
• 5:32
  So I promoted it. And, you know, sometimes when
• 5:35
  you, like, promote something, stuff gets cut off on social
• 5:37
  media. You don't mean to do it.
• 5:39
  It's just like, there's not so much of an issue now.
• 5:42
  But like, I remember back in the day when you used to like, share
• 5:44
  stuff on Instagram, it would cut off bits of it.
• 5:47
  So basically it cut off like some names, right?
• 5:50
  And he was lecturing me like, oh, you know, a film production
• 5:54
  is this is this big production of lots of people.
• 5:56
  And, you know, we need to show credit to all those people.
• 6:01
  And I was like, I'm aware. I have worked on films for many
• 6:04
  years. And I was basically trying to
• 6:07
  say, like, how dare you? You know what I mean?
• 6:09
  Like, how you acted on set? Like, you will lecture me about
• 6:13
  your professionalism. And then he was just trying to
• 6:17
  be condescending and be like, oh, well, we can't release it.
• 6:19
  And you can't have a copy of it until it's been through the Film
• 6:22
  Festival circuit. And I'm like, all right, I never
• 6:24
  saw that film. It never got released.
• 6:26
  Yeah. You know, all I've seen is a is
• 6:29
  a is a still from it. That was pretty cool to see.
• 6:33
  And I was gutted because I I worked really hard on that film.
• 6:35
  I spent the whole shooting prosthetics, makeup, like blind.
• 6:40
  I had to be guided around, like even when I was going to the
• 6:42
  bathroom. Yeah, I really what fucking.
• 6:44
  Makeup was it? It was I, it was like some
• 6:48
  makeup over my eyes because like he, I don't know, had a dodgy
• 6:53
  eye or something like that. I, I can't really remember, but
• 6:57
  but it was to do with the eyes. And they obviously asked if is
• 7:00
  this OK? And I was like, yeah, you know,
• 7:01
  like if I can, I want to give it my all when I'm doing film work.
• 7:06
  And that's, that's all the more reason to like feel frustrated
• 7:10
  when they don't release the film.
• 7:11
  It's like, what's the point? Why did it?
• 7:13
  Because often, let's face it, when you're doing independent
• 7:15
  films, chances are you're either getting paid very little or
• 7:19
  nothing, right? So you're doing it for the end
• 7:20
  of the game, right? Right, just to get your name out
• 7:24
  there, you know? Sure.
• 7:25
  Get Here's my real here's what I did.
• 7:28
  You know, that kind of thing. I just, I don't understand that.
• 7:31
  I don't understand why you'd well you'd work on something and
• 7:35
  then not release it that. That's why I try and put
• 7:39
  everything I have out there and if you've seen my updated
• 7:43
  website, you'll see everything about me and anybody can call me
• 7:49
  if they want. My phone number is on there.
• 7:51
  They don't, no. Isn't that dangerous?
• 7:55
  I'm gutsy as hell man. Do you can block them if I
• 7:58
  don't? If I get some like I'll just
• 7:59
  block it. What do I care?
• 8:03
  No, I had no, I had some kids call me a couple years ago and
• 8:07
  said they said we just want to talk to you.
• 8:10
  And I said, OK, I'm going to record it.
• 8:13
  No, we just want to talk to you, want to talk to you about some
• 8:15
  of your jobs. Oh yeah.
• 8:18
  And, and it was fun, you know, I was like, OK, I'll spend 20
• 8:22
  minutes with you talking and chatting, you know, You know,
• 8:27
  they just had a couple of questions like what was the
• 8:29
  hardest job and what was the was, what was the stupidest job
• 8:33
  and stuff like that. And these two guys, they
• 8:35
  laughing it up and they're like, thank you so much for talking to
• 8:38
  us. They're like, great, OK, cool,
• 8:40
  that's fine. I like that.
• 8:42
  You know, I got nobody else to talk to.
• 8:44
  That's why I go on these podcasts.
• 8:47
  So behind the scenes for everybody listening, but I was
• 8:53
  doing the research for this episode.
• 8:56
  I inevitably came across this website and I got to that page,
• 9:00
  the many jobs of Mike Rembus, and I was just looking endlessly
• 9:06
  and going, I could just do the whole show on this.
• 9:10
  It's just this alone. And that's what you'll get in
• 9:13
  the next episode. So stay tuned folks.
• 9:16
  And I wanted to tell you there was another movie I was in.
• 9:20
  I was an extra so I would. I didn't have lines or anything.
• 9:23
  That means you're extra important.
• 9:25
  Yeah, I'm extra important, but it was, you know, it was a
• 9:28
  feature that was it was a larger budget as well done.
• 9:33
  They had some up and coming actors from Florida in it and it
• 9:39
  was called the Essence of Irwin. It's on my IMDb page.
• 9:43
  It exists as an IMDb page, but it was never released.
• 9:48
  I've never seen it, and I loved what I saw filmed and the plot
• 9:54
  that I read about because it was about this little town.
• 10:00
  Irwin, Texas. OK, fictional course.
• 10:03
  And the essence of Irwin is their water.
• 10:06
  Their water is so delicious, OK? This is what they tell the rest
• 10:10
  of the world, that they're packaging it up into little
• 10:13
  plastic ice cube trays and selling it for like 100 bucks a
• 10:17
  pop for little prepackaged ice cube trays.
• 10:23
  And that's the essence of Irwin. And of course, it's a big scam,
• 10:27
  but people are falling for it. So everybody in Irwin's getting
• 10:30
  rich. And I wanted to see that movie
• 10:33
  because it sounded so fun and what I saw of the acting and
• 10:37
  everything, but I've never been able to get in touch with the
• 10:41
  guys who produced it. They're like off the map, it's
• 10:45
  over. If you go on my website, you'll
• 10:48
  see that there's one feature that I did, one annoyingly
• 10:54
  feature I've ever done where I had a speaking role and I
• 10:56
  dressed up like a prat. I look like the devil.
• 10:58
  It was a terrible costume, great day of filming.
• 11:01
  I had fun. But it's the only feature I ever
• 11:05
  did where I had a speaking role and that never saw the light of
• 11:09
  day. And I'm like.
• 11:11
  Is that crazy? You got it.
• 11:12
  It's like, you know, you go on there, there's like a million
• 11:15
  voice acting roles, but just, you know, the I've been trying
• 11:18
  to steadily build the the on screen footage over the years
• 11:22
  and it's hard. It's hard getting people to give
• 11:24
  you a chance. It really is in life.
• 11:27
  You do get cut from things onto the onto the the cutting room
• 11:33
  floor, so to speak. I mean, I know I was there.
• 11:37
  I've heard of a few examples of that.
• 11:40
  For example. Oh, who was it?
• 11:44
  Was it Peter Serafinowitz played Darth Maul?
• 11:48
  I think they. Were not so he played Darth.
• 11:51
  Maul and. Darth Maul, all the guy who can,
• 11:54
  who's the karate or whatever. That that's, that's the guy
• 11:58
  playing his, his body. But the guy that provides the
• 12:02
  voice is Peter Serafinowitz. He's a British comedian.
• 12:08
  You know, he's like more. Yeah.
• 12:10
  The voice is like, he's only got like one major line.
• 12:13
  And it's it's something like, how does it go?
• 12:17
  It's like, at last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi.
• 12:20
  At last we will have revenge, Something like that.
• 12:23
  Are you did a bunch of, like, promos for it, like some
• 12:26
  pretentious art crap where it's like fear.
• 12:29
  Fear is my ally because George Lucas has had a real thing for
• 12:33
  that. I don't know.
• 12:35
  To be fair, all the adverts for that were sick.
• 12:37
  It's just the movie that sucked. But the adverts made it look
• 12:40
  really good. So what happened to him?
• 12:42
  He got on a cutting room floor something.
• 12:44
  Not fed that performance, but I think later on there was
• 12:47
  something to do with. So they did.
• 12:51
  They did like a series of films around 2016.
• 12:56
  They did like Vogue one, which was great, and then they did.
• 13:02
  Rogue One. Bug one.
• 13:03
  Oh yeah, they did Solo. And in Solo you see Darth Maul
• 13:09
  like right at the end spoilers. And I think, I don't know, but
• 13:15
  there's a story something about like he recorded for that.
• 13:17
  He went to the cinema and then he was cut from it or some shit
• 13:20
  like that, which I always think is crazy.
• 13:23
  Like, at least tell people you know that they've been.
• 13:27
  Yeah. Well, maybe the Terry Crews was
• 13:30
  in a film where he played like a soldier and he had like a whole
• 13:32
  bit of diet, a massive dialogue. Who was that?
• 13:35
  Terry Crews did the Old Spice adverts.
• 13:38
  Comedian. But yeah.
• 13:39
  I know, I think. He did Old Spice.
• 13:42
  He had in the beginning of his career, he had like a big sort
• 13:44
  of speech as like some soldier and they cut his speech and just
• 13:48
  had a picture of him like laying dead.
• 13:52
  It's like took his own family to see and everything.
• 13:55
  It's feel bad. Good guy.
• 13:58
  I could go on and on about the ones I've been cut from, so
• 14:02
  let's let's just what's the worst talk about everything I've
• 14:06
  wasted time on? Before, before we, I want to
• 14:10
  delve into that a little bit before we do positive again.
• 14:13
  What the best film you've ever done?
• 14:15
  Worst experience? Worst.
• 14:19
  The worst film experience was the early part of this one set
• 14:25
  that I was on and I, I write about it in another screenplay.
• 14:31
  It was actually the first feature I was on.
• 14:33
  These guys, they were just so messed up trying to film things
• 14:36
  at night and it was like, OK, you could have filmed this
• 14:40
  anywhere. We didn't have to go out to the
• 14:41
  boondocks to film in the dark. If you're not going to see
• 14:44
  anything on the screen, you know they just totally didn't bring.
• 14:48
  Light in or anything? They they lit it, but you
• 14:52
  couldn't see anything with the finished product.
• 14:54
  I was like, Oh my God, you guys really you could have been
• 14:57
  running through my backyard instead of this farm because you
• 15:00
  can't see anything anyway, you know, they just but I did get a
• 15:06
  speaking role in that film and that that actually that part
• 15:10
  came out good is a daytime scene, but I was there for that
• 15:17
  beginning part and they they just didn't know what they were
• 15:22
  doing. And I don't know why.
• 15:23
  The only reason I agreed to go back was because now I had a
• 15:25
  speaking role. So and I didn't even need to be
• 15:28
  there for that first part. I wasn't in it.
• 15:31
  I was like, well, why am I here? You know, and I've seen that so
• 15:35
  many times on other sets where people will schedule you for
• 15:38
  nothing. And it's like, well, just in
• 15:41
  case for what, you know, that just complete knocking on what
• 15:46
  they're doing. Very novice.
• 15:49
  Late to that, but it was a Hollywood production, so I was
• 15:53
  an extra on this Christopher Nolan movie called Tenet.
• 15:59
  He had like, I don't think I've seen this many extras in a film
• 16:04
  ever. The way it was divided up is yet
• 16:06
  the general public who were in it's right at the beginning.
• 16:10
  There's like an auditorium scene and there's maybe 2-3 hundred
• 16:15
  people just general public. None of them were actors,
• 16:17
  really. A few I knew, but most of them
• 16:20
  were just random people. They got off the street, got to
• 16:22
  sit there. Yeah, many of them.
• 16:24
  Like, if you watch closely enough in the film, you see
• 16:25
  people with their eyes open and shit, and they're supposed to be
• 16:28
  like, passed out from gas or like, anyway.
• 16:32
  So a few people get shouted out actually.
• 16:34
  What is that movie? It's called Tenet bet.
• 16:38
  Yeah, tenet, tenet. Something like.
• 16:40
  That I don't know. That one I watched.
• 16:42
  I actually watched Christopher Nolan's it Inception yesterday.
• 16:50
  I wanted to see it again. It is a good one.
• 16:53
  Well, Tenet is, but no. Yeah, it's it's.
• 16:58
  I think they're still trying to explain it to people to this
• 17:00
  day. It's one of those films as well
• 17:03
  because he never does sequels unless it's Batman and it was
• 17:06
  one of those films that you really needed a sequel to.
• 17:10
  But hey, it is what it is. Anyway, we're doing the extra
• 17:13
  stuff and we're divided into groups.
• 17:15
  There was like 3 main extras groups.
• 17:18
  So you had like the terrorists and then you had the SWAT team
• 17:24
  and then you had like the workers, like people that are
• 17:27
  like serving in the auditorium and then the general public.
• 17:30
  So a lot of people on set, probably in the region, I'd say
• 17:34
  about 500 people on set and it's boiling hot summer.
• 17:38
  We're all dressed in suits that suit wear like a, you look at an
• 17:43
  event steward, you'd see like at the opera or something like
• 17:45
  music musical or something like that.
• 17:47
  And so we have to be in perfect makeup and pristine suits and
• 17:51
  everything. But we just sat around every day
• 17:55
  for like 17 hours. We have nothing to sit on.
• 18:00
  We just because there was this joke at the time that like,
• 18:04
  Nolan doesn't have chairs on his sets.
• 18:06
  And people asked me that, though, oh, were there any
• 18:07
  chairs? And we were like, now we just
• 18:08
  sat on the floor. There's fun.
• 18:10
  Lots of sets of like. Who's just sitting there playing
• 18:13
  Cleo? But I do remember thinking,
• 18:15
  like, what's the point? And it was explained to me that,
• 18:18
  well, the point is that at any point the director so Nolan
• 18:22
  might decide, oh, actually, I want to start filming with these
• 18:24
  guys. I want them in the set.
• 18:26
  So he's like, you're there in case they need you on demand.
• 18:30
  Exactly. But like.
• 18:33
  It's worth the pay to do that to them.
• 18:36
  Yeah, but if you think about it right, it's one thing.
• 18:39
  It's stupid if you've got people standing waiting for like an
• 18:42
  hour ready to be on set, that's one thing.
• 18:45
  When you've got people waiting all fucking day every day for
• 18:49
  like 3 weeks right Long 17 hour days.
• 18:53
  OK, it's a crazy waste. Yeah.
• 18:55
  Well, it yeah, I mean, realistically, are your people
• 18:58
  going to be standing to attention ready for scenes or
• 19:01
  are they going to be sat around on the floor, which.
• 19:03
  We are you should just tell everybody show up at 5:00 PM and
• 19:07
  we'll see what we get done, you know by the end of our 17 hour
• 19:10
  day which they shouldn't do 17 hour days to be thing I don't
• 19:15
  like about the business so. It depends.
• 19:19
  It depends. It depends who's running it.
• 19:21
  Do you know what I? Mean.
• 19:21
  Absolutely. Sets were never 17 hour days, 12
• 19:26
  tops. I'm used to waiting around on
• 19:29
  sets. That's fine.
• 19:30
  I just think that where you have your crew situated and what you
• 19:35
  have people doing isn't like if you've got people waiting
• 19:37
  around, provide places to sit, you know, I don't know, drinks
• 19:45
  and food and just have people have a base for people to be in.
• 19:48
  Much more alcohol. Yes, I know.
• 19:53
  Loosen them up, make them happy to be there.
• 19:56
  Dart boards, you know. Yeah, just make a pub.
• 19:59
  Why not? Screw it, best film you ever
• 20:02
  did? Best film.
• 20:04
  Best film. Made a show called Best.
• 20:06
  It wasn't the best best film I that I was ever in.
• 20:10
  You mean that the worst? Anything that comes to mind
• 20:13
  that, if any, worked on anything you've been an actor in just.
• 20:16
  Best films? OK, let me just tell you the
• 20:18
  best sets I've ever been on was Friday Night Lights, Friday
• 20:23
  Night Lights, the TV show. When I worked on those, I was in
• 20:27
  4 episodes as an extra, always background.
• 20:31
  But they treated us like gods, man.
• 20:33
  They, these people knew what they were doing.
• 20:36
  They didn't have too many extras.
• 20:38
  They, they put you to work, you know, in your scene when they
• 20:43
  needed you. They didn't keep you on set for
• 20:46
  hours on end. And the craft services was to
• 20:50
  kill for. I mean, it was good and I didn't
• 20:54
  know the story when I went into it and I didn't, I didn't become
• 20:59
  a fan because I'm not a fan of football.
• 21:01
  You know, it's teenage football, football, teenage trauma
• 21:07
  football. I was teenage.
• 21:08
  Drama Football. Yeah, Do do you know, did you
• 21:11
  know what Friday Night Lights was?
• 21:13
  OK, Well, it's about it's TV series.
• 21:16
  I think it's based on a movie. It might be a Matthew
• 21:19
  McConaughey movie, I'm not sure. But anyway, it was on for 4-5
• 21:25
  years, maybe 6. And it, it was about these high
• 21:32
  school kids and their Friday Night Football games and all the
• 21:36
  drama that was around that with their parents and this ETA, who
• 21:41
  knows what. And they really knew what they
• 21:47
  were doing as far as shooting and taking care of their people
• 21:52
  and keeping everything organized.
• 21:56
  So you felt like you were you were there with purpose, you
• 22:00
  know, and you weren't there for 17 hours for any reason.
• 22:04
  And God, I wish I could remember names off the top of my head.
• 22:11
  I'm so bad at that. Who was the star?
• 22:15
  Connie Britton was a star. OK, thing was, I didn't know who
• 22:19
  Connie Britton was, and I didn't know she was the star.
• 22:23
  And I was in, I was in this scene where I was background.
• 22:28
  I was a guy with a clipboard standing in the background.
• 22:32
  And they weren't ready for us. And they were like, and this
• 22:34
  isn't, this is at night inside of a gymnasium.
• 22:37
  And they say, OK, well, have something to eat.
• 22:40
  Oh my God, one of the best dinners I ever had.
• 22:42
  It was like lamb chops and all kinds of lovely, lovely things.
• 22:48
  And then, you know, I so I sit down at the table with these six
• 22:54
  or seven other ladies with picnic table and all the girls,
• 22:59
  all the women are talking about lady stuff.
• 23:02
  So, you know, I'm the only guy there.
• 23:04
  I just sat and ate and listened and nod my head and OK,
• 23:07
  whatever. You know, they're talking about
• 23:09
  kids, they're talking about shoes.
• 23:12
  I don't know whatever women we're talking about.
• 23:14
  And I didn't care. And then when we get done, we
• 23:19
  all take our places to and I'm background and I'm 50 feet away.
• 23:24
  I mean, anybody could have done this.
• 23:26
  And I'm there with a clipboard and I didn't realize I'm sitting
• 23:29
  right across from Connie Britton.
• 23:30
  She was the star. I didn't even know I'm having
• 23:32
  dinner with the star. That's how ignorant I was.
• 23:36
  I feel so bad about that. Why didn't I get her autograph?
• 23:39
  But any I thought we were all extras anyway.
• 23:42
  She was very nice. I was.
• 23:43
  Going to say if anything she probably felt more comfortable
• 23:46
  because you weren't like weirdo, I know you're just normal.
• 23:49
  Oh cool, this guy's chill. Finally, normal passes.
• 23:53
  Exactly, and all the girls were too.
• 23:55
  And they were all extras except for I think another one was like
• 23:59
  a lesser actor in the scene, but still.
• 24:02
  You know, I mean, that isn't a good point there, doesn't it?
• 24:06
  That like, because I say it the same way, like whether you're
• 24:08
  the star of the show or like a really small component in the in
• 24:13
  the cog in the wheel, so to speak, just just be normal.
• 24:17
  Just be chill. Don't have a big ego.
• 24:19
  Don't act like a big deal. Just just be yourself, be
• 24:22
  normal, you know? I've seen the ones with the big
• 24:25
  egos. Don't give me some big egos,
• 24:26
  some fun stories. This we're on on a river runs
• 24:30
  through it. There was a guy who just bragged
• 24:34
  about every little extra scene he was ever in forever and ever
• 24:40
  and ever and ever. And it was like people walking
• 24:43
  away. And it's like we're all sitting
• 24:45
  around in the extras area waiting for the scene to start
• 24:49
  for us to get into the church and do the stuff.
• 24:53
  And it was like, he won't shut up.
• 24:57
  We can't. Nope.
• 24:58
  Nobody can interject anything. Hey.
• 25:00
  Yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 25:01
  That's interesting. You know, the the Baltimore
• 25:05
  Ravens are the new football team in Baltimore.
• 25:07
  OK, let me tell you about the time I was in Baltimore.
• 25:09
  Oh my God, this guy would. Hate me.
• 25:13
  Shut up. Oh my God.
• 25:15
  I just got one up everything. You're like you did.
• 25:18
  You're fun at parties. Fucking hell.
• 25:20
  I, I never, I never forgot him. I could base the character on
• 25:24
  him because. He that's a good idea.
• 25:26
  I'm staying on that. I mean, jeez.
• 25:32
  And you know, I really, when I write, I, I base my characters
• 25:37
  on real people I've met. I don't imagine just about
• 25:42
  anyway, I imagine the real person who I would put there, I
• 25:45
  might change their name. I might change some of the I
• 25:51
  might combine two people into one person, but I have the
• 25:56
  essence of who I want on the page from reality, you know, And
• 26:03
  I think that's, that's probably the best place to draw from.
• 26:07
  I started writing on a project recently and it's, it's probably
• 26:10
  going to be quite long term, but yeah, same.
• 26:12
  I all my ideas are from my own life, things I've experienced,
• 26:15
  people I've met, and there's one well, I've, I've wrote like a
• 26:19
  recurring thing, and it's based on this couple that I met that
• 26:24
  were crazy, right? They were like a landlords that
• 26:27
  had years ago and I just remember like the way they spoke
• 26:32
  and I've never forgotten that. I was like, the minute I can use
• 26:34
  that I'm using it and now I'm fucking using it.
• 26:37
  Was it was it an accent or was it just?
• 26:42
  The way they acted, the crazy shit they did.
• 26:44
  Take your pick. It's just magic waiting to
• 26:47
  happen. OK, well I thank them for it.
• 26:53
  Icon. They must never know.
• 26:57
  In my stories, I use people's real names.
• 26:59
  You can't do that. They sue you, especially in the
• 27:01
  States. Are you crazy?
• 27:02
  Not not when they die, they can't, you know.
• 27:05
  Well, the estate will see you. Come on, dude.
• 27:07
  You. Know people don't have estates.
• 27:09
  Not the poor people I know. I don't know.
• 27:12
  That's risky man. People will sue each other for
• 27:16
  fucking breathing in America. I just, I just don't read about
• 27:21
  it. I mean, some people have some
• 27:24
  very rich names that you just can't get away from, you know?
• 27:30
  I don't know if I could do that. I can't go back to the extra
• 27:34
  stuff. It's interesting you you brought
• 27:36
  that out because here in the UK it's a running joke among people
• 27:41
  I know. Well, I see, I see.
• 27:44
  Look, I, I don't, as somebody who's worked in the industry for
• 27:48
  a while now, I look at it for what it is.
• 27:51
  You are paid to be in the background.
• 27:55
  You're paid to just shut up and just do as you're told.
• 27:59
  Listen, you're getting paid and you're not having to go to the
• 28:01
  office or something. Fucking great.
• 28:03
  You know, you, you, sometimes you get a short day, sometimes
• 28:06
  you get a longer day. It's easy work.
• 28:10
  I try to see the positives. But he could only make it steady
• 28:14
  work, you know, instead of these long dry spells between things.
• 28:21
  And like, that's the tough part. That's the thing, I've been out
• 28:23
  of like regular work when acting for some time.
• 28:29
  Like it's mostly this year it's been voice acting.
• 28:34
  Once in a blue moon, I might get something on screen.
• 28:36
  But yeah, I've got myself available for extras work and
• 28:40
  I'm open to it. Like I, I don't see anything
• 28:42
  against it. But go back to what you were
• 28:45
  saying before about the attitudes people have.
• 28:47
  I've spoken with people on the show about this before, like
• 28:50
  film makers and actors and stuff.
• 28:52
  We've spoken about it in person. Like it's kind of embarrassing
• 28:56
  when people talk about like, oh, I've been on this, this, this,
• 29:00
  this, this, this, this. I did this, this, this, this,
• 29:03
  and it's like, OK, it's very easy to be an extra.
• 29:08
  You, you don't need any experience.
• 29:11
  You just don't, you don't, you don't need to have gone to
• 29:13
  theatre school. You don't need to have been an
• 29:16
  actor. You just have to like fill out a
• 29:19
  form. They decide if they want you and
• 29:22
  you show up that's. It right and it's based on your
• 29:25
  looks it's not based on anything else Ted, it's.
• 29:28
  Well, you could make an argument for like regular acting that
• 29:31
  that's the case. I mean, come on, it's all about
• 29:35
  the looks, baby. No, you're 100% right.
• 29:39
  I'm in diversity. Yeah, I.
• 29:43
  But anyway, like the ego thing doesn't make sense where that's
• 29:47
  concerned because, you know, it's easy to get those roles and
• 29:52
  they're not really. I don't know that they, they,
• 29:57
  it's work. I don't see anything against it,
• 30:00
  but but it's not respected. That's what I'm trying to drive
• 30:02
  out. Like in the industry in the UK,
• 30:06
  it's not revered. I don't know.
• 30:08
  I wonder is it the same in the States?
• 30:10
  Do people look at it same way? I'm not sure what anybody
• 30:13
  thinks. I really don't.
• 30:15
  I mean, I know it means more to me than it does to anyone else.
• 30:18
  You know, that's, that's the main thing.
• 30:21
  And that's why I kept a record of everything I ever did and
• 30:25
  when I did it, so that I have an alibi at all times.
• 30:29
  And. Anyway, you never know, man.
• 30:34
  I kind of been rubbing. I was, I was filming this film.
• 30:38
  That's right. I didn't do that, you know.
• 30:42
  No, But if I did it, I'd take the blame, you know, if I I was
• 30:46
  there. But can you prove I was there?
• 30:50
  That's an, I don't know. When I look at it on my website,
• 30:53
  like my extra stuff is at the bottom and I forget what I've
• 30:56
  done because it's, it's not, you're not acting.
• 31:00
  You're not really getting to act.
• 31:01
  Like the closest time I ever got to really act as an extra was
• 31:05
  when I did a bit of TV work and I showed I'd been doing it for a
• 31:09
  for a while at that point. So I just assumed, oh, probably
• 31:12
  a big crowd scene, I'll be in the background somewhere for
• 31:16
  about 5 seconds. And it turned out there was like
• 31:19
  4 or five of us, yeah, with the main actors.
• 31:23
  And we're all on screen at all times.
• 31:26
  So I've got, I've got fucking pay attention and act, actually
• 31:30
  act. Yeah, let's pretend I've got
• 31:33
  actually act because we're on screen at all times.
• 31:36
  And I'm like, on one hand I'm like, this is great.
• 31:39
  On the other hand, I'm like, what the fuck?
• 31:42
  Like this? This is, I mean, this is pretty
• 31:45
  full on, you know? And then in the end, I did the
• 31:48
  work. I forgot about it.
• 31:49
  And then it was a friend of mine messaged me like 6 months later,
• 31:52
  like you're on, you're on TV. And I was like, what do you
• 31:56
  mean? She's like, I swear this is you.
• 31:58
  And I'm like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:01
  I surprised Bill on screen because I, that's the thing was
• 32:04
  what I didn't expect that they would use any of it.
• 32:06
  I just thought like, it'd be like flat flashes to me.
• 32:10
  Because the whole point again is you're in the background.
• 32:14
  You're not supposed to stick out.
• 32:15
  You're not supposed to be seen. Right.
• 32:17
  You're just that you're part of the collage, you know?
• 32:20
  Yeah. It's supposed to level it out.
• 32:22
  It's like, OK, we need a guy in a blue shirt there and a lady in
• 32:26
  a red dress over there. And you know it was.
• 32:29
  It mixes it up. I stuck.
• 32:31
  I stood out like a sore thumb because back then I had long
• 32:33
  hair. So it's like, yeah, it'd just be
• 32:35
  like, normal dude, normal dude. Dude was super ridiculously long
• 32:39
  hair. Normal dude, normal dude.
• 32:41
  I was just like, yeah, I was like, huh, should I have not
• 32:45
  like tied my hair up or more hat or I don't know, I just as I
• 32:50
  asked. The only the only major film you
• 32:55
  can actually see me in is Ocean's 11 in the dog track
• 33:00
  scene. And I'm in the same scene within
• 33:04
  I think about 30 seconds of each other where but the first part
• 33:09
  is where I walk in front of Reiner, Carl Reiner me and I've
• 33:16
  got my arm around this girl and she blocks my face.
• 33:20
  So can't you don't know that's me, but I know that's my
• 33:22
  shoulder going in front of Carl Reiner.
• 33:24
  And then 30 seconds later I am seen up in the grandstand, you
• 33:32
  know, and you can tell and you can see it's me if it, but you
• 33:35
  got to see it on the wide screen because I'm all the way over at
• 33:38
  the edge on the right edge of the, the frame.
• 33:43
  So I so I could see in the theatre.
• 33:45
  And if you put it on TV, you got to, you got to use the, the what
• 33:50
  do you call that letterbox setting?
• 33:52
  You got to use the letterbox setting in order to see me.
• 33:55
  But I'm right there. I'm in the corner.
• 33:57
  You could see me, my sunglasses, my big smile.
• 34:01
  And so that feels good there. All the other stuff that I was,
• 34:05
  I did as an extra, you can't see me.
• 34:06
  I'm not there. I'm I was there, but you can't
• 34:10
  lost, totally lost, can't find me.
• 34:13
  It's this is how it is like I didn't see myself on on Tenet,
• 34:17
  but I could tell you exactly where I was at the time and
• 34:19
  stuff. And I remember removed in the
• 34:21
  film, there was 1 scene where it was all outdoors of me, closed
• 34:25
  down a bunch of streets and I was paired with this
• 34:27
  insufferable woman who demanded to be on the roadside facing,
• 34:37
  facing where the camera would be so she could like.
• 34:40
  She was another extra yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:42
  And and she, she made demands. Yeah, not to anyone to she just
• 34:47
  to me. She was like, oh, I need to, I
• 34:49
  need to be here so that I can be seen on screen and I'm like, I
• 34:52
  didn't say anything. I do better in my head.
• 34:54
  I was thinking you're an idiot. Really doesn't know how this
• 34:57
  works. No because in the scene I
• 34:59
  remember when when it was in in the cinema it's a driving scene
• 35:05
  inside the car. They must have filmed that for
• 35:08
  like 3-4 hours a day every day. And in the film 5 seconds if
• 35:14
  that. You can't see shit out of the
• 35:16
  window. Right, right.
• 35:17
  And I was looking, I was like trying to spot if I could make
• 35:20
  out any buildings. Couldn't even make really
• 35:22
  buildings out to be honest, let alone people.
• 35:26
  It's like if, if, if the Birds from Alfred Hitchcock's The
• 35:31
  Birds Could Talk. And one of them said, you know,
• 35:34
  I was in that scene. You know, come on, we were all
• 35:39
  in that scene. I know people that are like that
• 35:42
  where they, they'll no, no, I'm serious.
• 35:44
  There's people I follow, I've met in your life where they'll
• 35:48
  post stuff on social media and it'll be like a 32nd freeze
• 35:53
  frame of ATV show. And they're like, that's me
• 35:56
  walking back in the background there.
• 35:58
  There's me for like 2 seconds. I'm like come on man, I'd always
• 36:03
  be proud but like fuck sake. You know, you know how the, the
• 36:07
  end, the end credits of Star Wars is like 9 miles long and
• 36:12
  everybody's name is tiny, minuscule.
• 36:15
  I've, I don't know where I got this ID, but I always thought
• 36:18
  it'd be funny. I, I just picture the scene in
• 36:21
  my head to be sitting there in it at the end of the credits,
• 36:25
  all the music's playing and there's other people in the
• 36:28
  theater and you wait until it's just this big mix of names and
• 36:32
  you yell, there's me, that's me, somebody.
• 36:38
  And of course, some guy says good job.
• 36:44
  I just think that'd be fun. See, I'm writing all the time.
• 36:48
  I'm writing. That's a good idea for a sketch.
• 36:51
  I like that. Well, I think it'd be fun just
• 36:55
  to do in person. Just wait till the end of a
• 36:57
  movie. Oh dear.
• 36:58
  Well, how did you become a writer?
• 36:59
  Where'd that journey begin? Oh, when I was a little kid, I
• 37:04
  wrote my first book, which is right over there in the closet
• 37:09
  when I was 1415. And I never did anything with
• 37:14
  it, you know, but it, it was a the start of a journey.
• 37:18
  It it taught me how to I wrote a little short story also in the
• 37:22
  closet when I was little about there was a short Horror Story
• 37:29
  about a doll, a doll that comes to life and how how I had to
• 37:35
  drown it to kill it. This it was so scary and I read
• 37:40
  it recently. It's fucking scary.
• 37:43
  It's actually scary. Maybe maybe why not?
• 37:49
  I'm going to show it to my. Editor Yeah, man, fuck it.
• 37:52
  I mean, we were talking earlier about not releasing stuff.
• 37:54
  What if you release it? Ends up getting somewhere, you
• 37:57
  know? Yeah, well.
• 37:59
  I mean dude, that fucking Stephen King wrote a book about
• 38:02
  a guy who brought his family to life by burying them in the
• 38:09
  fucking pet cemetery. Where?
• 38:10
  Where the fucking? Yeah, that cemetery.
• 38:11
  Oh, that's scary. Did you read?
• 38:13
  That I watched the film. I was freaked out.
• 38:16
  Oh, no, you got to you got to read that book.
• 38:18
  That man down near the I don't know, I want to say the 75% part
• 38:26
  where you're almost done with the book.
• 38:27
  Those there's three chapters in there where he's going back to
• 38:30
  bury the kids body. That is so scary because what
• 38:36
  they have in the book they don't have in the movie is the
• 38:39
  Wendigo. Wendigo is is this Native
• 38:45
  American? It's like a Benedict.
• 38:48
  Spirit that's 20 feet tall and eats people and it walks right
• 38:54
  by him. And it's it's still.
• 38:56
  Oh my God, is it well written. Oh, man, Yeah.
• 39:00
  Now that's that's the best part of the book right there.
• 39:04
  I was just thinking about this. Tailor alert.
• 39:05
  Like fucked up shit does Stephen King write.
• 39:07
  So I'm like. I don't know how he can write it
• 39:10
  all. I couldn't read it all.
• 39:12
  I've read, I've read a lot of and I've gone to audio books for
• 39:17
  a lot of stuff. When I was commuting to work
• 39:20
  couple years ago, I the audio books really worked out and I
• 39:25
  listened to Holly. It's just one of his more recent
• 39:29
  ones. And I did not know that the
• 39:31
  characters in Holly were based on the stuff that he did with
• 39:35
  Mr. Mercedes. So now I got to go check that
• 39:38
  out. Holly was really good.
• 39:41
  He's, I mean, you know how prolific he is.
• 39:44
  He's he's a fantastic writer. Yeah, it's just interesting how
• 39:49
  he comes up with these ideas. It's just, I don't know.
• 39:53
  It's interesting to me because there's a lot and I don't know,
• 40:00
  he suggests. A very disturbed mind.
• 40:03
  No, I don't think so. I don't think so.
• 40:05
  And you know, he to hear him tell it, he he wasn't going to
• 40:11
  he didn't go set out to be a horror novelist, just a
• 40:15
  storyteller. He's like, oh, they got scary.
• 40:17
  What can I say, you know, and I like to rely on and I I look at
• 40:23
  it once in a while, his educational novelette.
• 40:28
  I don't know if it's a novel. I don't know what you call it.
• 40:30
  It's a handbook called on writing.
• 40:35
  And I think it's about 100 pages of the little bit about himself
• 40:41
  and his own writing journey and how he was able to say, OK, this
• 40:48
  made this was made sense for a story and I needed something to
• 40:55
  slap it together. And it's like, what if, what if
• 40:59
  this high school chick who was picked on suddenly had magical
• 41:04
  evil powers? Bam, I got Carrie.
• 41:07
  And that's, that's what came together for him.
• 41:11
  And he explains it better than I do because he's, he's the
• 41:15
  storyteller. He's the master storyteller.
• 41:18
  I'm a, I'm just a guy trying to paraphrase him.
• 41:25
  Not great at paraphrasing. If you give me a script, though,
• 41:28
  if you give me a script and yeah, all the words or they're
• 41:31
  my own, hey, I can work with that, you know.
• 41:34
  What would you say makes a good script?
• 41:38
  I've heard that other people say it's the white space, it's what
• 41:43
  you leave out. And I agree with that to some
• 41:47
  degree. And I've read a lot of scripts
• 41:51
  that are, you know, not mine, obviously.
• 41:56
  And I think what does make a good script is not too much
• 42:02
  exposition, just like, just like they say, you know, it's not
• 42:07
  necessarily white space, but just enough exposition for the
• 42:14
  director to do what he wants, for the reader to build it in
• 42:17
  their minds. And of course, great dialogue.
• 42:23
  I, I love good dialogue. If the dialogue is unreasonable,
• 42:31
  if I unbelievable and I, and that's I think the biggest
• 42:35
  downfall in the script from what I've read is like I read it,
• 42:41
  nobody talks like that. People don't talk that way, and
• 42:46
  I've always gotten really high marks in the critiques I've
• 42:50
  gotten on my stuff, on my dialogue.
• 42:53
  No matter what I write. It's it's like, man, your
• 42:55
  dialogue is really good and I was like, great, want to produce
• 42:59
  it? No, no you can't.
• 43:00
  I'm not interested in that. Good luck, though.
• 43:03
  Good luck. What?
• 43:04
  Do you think is holding you back?
• 43:07
  Knowing people who will get me, take me seriously, I don't I I'm
• 43:18
  not sure. I feel you by the.
• 43:21
  I don't network enough and you know, now I'm getting old.
• 43:25
  I'm not. So I'm not that.
• 43:27
  I'm still trying, though. I'm still trying.
• 43:30
  And Florida is not necessarily the scene for the serious actor.
• 43:39
  There's a lot of nice people here who want to act.
• 43:45
  You could do something, but I think everybody's hindered by
• 43:51
  the the, the lack of funds, that's for sure.
• 43:57
  See the lack of funds. This is the thing that
• 43:59
  frustrates me. Like, I know so many people have
• 44:02
  so many ideas and I reach out to people and they're like, Nah,
• 44:06
  sorry, oh, I'm too busy or yeah, I don't know.
• 44:10
  And I'm like, I, I don't get that, you know, like, obviously,
• 44:15
  obviously it's just one of those things where it's like someone
• 44:19
  that's just not interested in what you're doing and they're
• 44:22
  not interested in. Yeah, it happens sometimes.
• 44:28
  Yeah, you froze for a second and I missed what you said.
• 44:30
  Yeah, I was just talking basically about how when you're
• 44:36
  pitching to people and. They say they're too busy and
• 44:39
  stuff then. Or, you know, they're just not
• 44:42
  interested and it's like, or, or you hear them complaining, like,
• 44:45
  oh, can't get anything off the ground.
• 44:47
  And it's like, we could literally just keep pushing
• 44:49
  until something we do get somewhere And then like you get
• 44:53
  the money later, you know, like I know, for instance, of this
• 44:57
  podcast, like I've been doing this a long time.
• 44:59
  This is not how I want the setup to be, but I know that the
• 45:03
  show's good. I know it's, it's like it's got
• 45:06
  something, but it's, you know, perception is reality.
• 45:10
  Like people look at things and they expect the best from the
• 45:14
  beginning. And you need money to do that.
• 45:17
  And but the money can come through working like you're,
• 45:22
  you're more likely to get the things you want by working
• 45:24
  together versus doing it on your own.
• 45:26
  You know, like everything I, I do is on my own.
• 45:29
  And it's not for want of trying to work with people, but people
• 45:33
  are just unreliable or they're clicky and they have their own
• 45:36
  little groups that they only work with.
• 45:38
  And I'm like, you're never going to grow unless you work with
• 45:40
  different types of people. That's.
• 45:41
  Fact. Yeah, years ago, I'm talking
• 45:45
  about 20 years ago I and it dwindled from then till now.
• 45:50
  I had something of a crew set up.
• 45:54
  I had people I worked with on stuff like my TV show best where
• 46:00
  we filmed that pilot. I, I, I had connections, but
• 46:07
  nobody, nobody would invest in anything.
• 46:10
  Even though I, I can put out a finished product and say I got
• 46:13
  ideas. I can pitch this.
• 46:17
  It's, it's like, but I need to work my 40 hour a week job and I
• 46:25
  can't pay for everything myself. It just, it just dwindles from
• 46:31
  there. It's it's like I can't keep
• 46:35
  putting all of me into it if I can't get somebody else to kick
• 46:38
  in. You say I did I have this same
• 46:41
  as that problem. And that's, and that's that
• 46:43
  problem. That's what it is.
• 46:45
  Yeah. I, I mean, you try and talk to
• 46:48
  other people, even relatives, they don't get, no, no, you
• 46:52
  can't, you can't. It's, it's like, and then they
• 46:58
  want to look at as an investment.
• 47:00
  Look, it's art. There's no investment.
• 47:03
  You're, you're not going to get money back.
• 47:05
  I'm just going to be upfront about that.
• 47:07
  You probably won't. It's going to take a long time
• 47:10
  for this to be profitable from the starting point we're at now.
• 47:16
  You know, if you can help me get to the next level, then we can
• 47:21
  look at some profitability. But it's going to take a while
• 47:23
  and nobody wants to hear the truth about that.
• 47:26
  So even if you find somebody with deep pockets, they want to
• 47:29
  see that, that business plan. And I've written business plans,
• 47:35
  but apparently not well enough for anybody with the deep
• 47:39
  pockets to say, you know what, that's a good plan.
• 47:42
  I was real close with this last TV show I wrote.
• 47:46
  I have 11 episodes written of a show called Low Budget.
• 47:53
  And Low Budget is about these kids, not children, young adults
• 48:02
  who are on a film. They are on a film set and they
• 48:06
  accidentally kill their director.
• 48:09
  But then instead of coming clean and saying that, they end up
• 48:19
  deciding we're going to have to get some help hiding the body.
• 48:22
  So they do that. And then they're that guy's
• 48:26
  employer who is say, a dark web kind of guy who finds out that
• 48:35
  they killed him says, OK, well, now you're going to do his job.
• 48:38
  Well, what's his job? Well, his job is editing snuff
• 48:41
  films. So that's your new job.
• 48:44
  So now there's now they're stuck with that.
• 48:52
  That's pretty well. So, and it's hilarious, I know
• 48:55
  it is, but you know, I, I, I was working with somebody who liked
• 49:02
  the concept and they said, OK, we'll run it through a couple of
• 49:05
  these places online that do script analysis and they were
• 49:11
  scoring it in the low 70s, like 7275.
• 49:16
  And it's like, no, you got to get over 80.
• 49:18
  OK, so I spent $1000 to get to do it again.
• 49:26
  I, I rewrote it. It's like, OK, so the next, the
• 49:30
  next iteration of the project, the number goes up to like 77 or
• 49:36
  something. And it's like, now you got to
• 49:39
  get it over 80. Keep, keep plugging away at it.
• 49:42
  Like, my God, it's not a numbers game.
• 49:45
  But to them it is. And it's like this is somebody
• 49:48
  who could write a check like that and lose the money, not
• 49:53
  even worry about it, but won't do it because they got to see
• 49:57
  that return on investment, which, you know, I, I see their
• 50:01
  point. It's not a charity, but but you
• 50:05
  know, I sell the art. I know also can't sell the art.
• 50:10
  And it's like, it's like, man, I'd like to, I'd like to show
• 50:14
  you the finished product, but I can't do that.
• 50:16
  If you don't pony up. If you don't pony up, this is
• 50:20
  what I got and I know it. All I need to do is put it out
• 50:25
  there and you're judging it on a piece of paper.
• 50:28
  That's all you're judging it on. You know, it's, it's not all
• 50:32
  that. You're not hearing the music
• 50:34
  that I hear. You're not seeing the scene the
• 50:36
  way I'm filming it. You're not seeing the actors act
• 50:40
  the way I'm directing them, you know, and I see all that in my
• 50:43
  head. I've got all that, but I, I
• 50:48
  can't make it happen at all without any money.
• 50:52
  So that's what's, that's what's rough.
• 50:55
  Is there anything you can do? You said to change it up because
• 50:58
  obviously we're in the same position right now.
• 51:00
  We're both struggling to get like.
• 51:02
  I'll be honest with me, lately I've just been focusing on my
• 51:05
  voice acting and I've been writing for the first time in my
• 51:08
  life. I don't know if it's going to go
• 51:10
  anywhere, but I'm just going to keep writing anyway.
• 51:13
  Fuck it. So I'll have stuff.
• 51:17
  Yeah, you got to let your creativity flow, get out there,
• 51:21
  You know, whatever feels right to put on paper or screen or
• 51:26
  recorded, you got to keep. You got to keep working on your
• 51:33
  stuff more than anybody else's. Absolutely.
• 51:37
  But how about yourself? Is there anything you're going
• 51:39
  to do differently? Anything you're trying, at
• 51:41
  least. As far as the creativity goes,
• 51:42
  I'm still I'm. I'm editing the book that we
• 51:47
  plan to publish in 2027. I have the.
• 51:50
  I have the publication agreement done.
• 51:53
  It's called Eternity's grasp. Is that right?
• 51:57
  That's right, Eternity's Grasp is a novel.
• 51:59
  It's about a serial killer whose girlfriend is murdered by
• 52:03
  somebody else. And we are.
• 52:10
  It's 22 chapters now. My editor would like to see me
• 52:15
  increase word count by approximately 20 to 50,000 words
• 52:24
  to expand on some scenes. And so, and I've got some stuff
• 52:31
  in mind. We're talking about the way it
• 52:36
  reads now versus where we want it to be.
• 52:39
  And we're looking at that coming out in 2027.
• 52:42
  So that's where all my focus is right now is working on that to
• 52:48
  bring it to completion because any, anything else I do right
• 52:53
  now is just takes time away from it.
• 52:58
  And of course, this is part of that process in promotion, you
• 53:02
  know, trying to promote it too, is we want eternity's grasp to
• 53:06
  succeed. And this is my end of it, you
• 53:09
  know, as far as that success goes.
• 53:13
  You got you got, you got. Come on massive podcasts like
• 53:15
  mine with millions of followers. That's.
• 53:18
  The way I need. That's that's that's what I
• 53:20
  need, yeah. I mean, you never know when one
• 53:23
  of us is going to blow up. I mean, I hope that doesn't
• 53:26
  happen. I'd like to keep on living if I
• 53:28
  can. I don't know.
• 53:32
  I mean, I, I think with, with stuff like that, years ago, I, I
• 53:36
  used to like think about that like, oh, you know, all it takes
• 53:39
  is 1 podcast, one clip, one song, 1/3 it's.
• 53:43
  True, though, it's true. All you need is 1 little tiny
• 53:47
  thing to go viral and then all of a sudden you're everywhere
• 53:50
  for 15 minutes and that's your proverbial 15 minutes of fame.
• 53:54
  Yeah, I just, I don't know, like I, I think those days are kind
• 53:58
  of gone. You know, I don't mean some
• 54:02
  pessimistic, yeah, I don't mean some pessimistic, but like
• 54:04
  everything is luck at the draw. And it's also about how you,
• 54:08
  what your goals are because OK, yeah, I've looked at virality
• 54:13
  and for some people it's worked out where they've turned it into
• 54:17
  something for other people. It literally was 15 minutes or
• 54:21
  15 seconds of fame. You don't want to be like a 1
• 54:26
  trick pony. But also, I guess it really
• 54:31
  depends who becomes interested in you because I've had virality
• 54:37
  myself and I can tell you it LED nowhere because it was just,
• 54:41
  yeah, it was random. It didn't lead to anything.
• 54:43
  It got a bunch of followers and then nothing.
• 54:46
  I've never had followers. I can, I can tell you because it
• 54:50
  doesn't really mean all that much because like people focus
• 54:53
  on this like, oh, I've got 10K, I've got 100K.
• 54:55
  And it's like, but what does that really mean when you
• 54:57
  quantify it? Like, OK, let's say you do a
• 55:01
  book signing, right? I've, I've like, OK, right now I
• 55:05
  think I've got like under 2K followers on Instagram.
• 55:09
  If I was to announce a book signing tomorrow, right?
• 55:13
  I guarantee no one would show up.
• 55:15
  I can put money on that money on that.
• 55:19
  Maybe 1 friend might show up. That's what the polymark is for.
• 55:23
  Bet against yourself. It's not bad idea.
• 55:27
  I bet if I could get like 100 to one odds that more than one
• 55:32
  person would show up, that'd be decent odds because then if he
• 55:35
  got because then you could just text a few friends and be like,
• 55:38
  please show up. I've got money on this.
• 55:42
  No, but like it's you know, my point is that like numbers don't
• 55:45
  mean shit. What matters is having fans
• 55:51
  being admitted. No, you froze, followers having
• 55:55
  fear. If you can get committed
• 55:58
  followers. If you can get.
• 56:00
  People, you're really froze here, Christian.
• 56:03
  OK, I don't know. It's not frozen on my end.
• 56:06
  I don't know. It won't be in the end.
• 56:11
  OK, OK. Well, what I was saying is that
• 56:14
  basically like, if you can get committed fans, followers,
• 56:19
  that's, that's what you need. And even if you've got like a
• 56:23
  few people, like I've been trying to make get fans for
• 56:25
  years and I've been unsuccessful in that.
• 56:28
  And I don't know, I, I don't really think about it anymore.
• 56:31
  I just put my stuff out there, hope for the best and carry on
• 56:35
  living my life, the life of creative, you know, just do what
• 56:38
  you can. If the world doesn't want you
• 56:40
  want yourself, you know. Well, yeah, absolutely.
• 56:44
  It's, and this is because this is my clearest path to success
• 56:49
  now is Eternity's Grasp. I have to take it all the way,
• 56:54
  finish that, and then once that's basically the out there
• 57:01
  and there's nothing left to do but promote it, well, then I can
• 57:05
  work on whatever else I can think of.
• 57:08
  You know, like trying to promote one of the TV shows that I wrote
• 57:13
  or creating a some other recorded thing.
• 57:21
  I've got an idea for my own little podcast that doesn't
• 57:24
  involve other people, just me talking to the microphone.
• 57:28
  It's actually a story. So I'm not going to reveal
• 57:33
  anything about that today. Sorry.
• 57:35
  It's. What's the point?
• 57:38
  Why'd you even come on? Wasting my time, ah.
• 57:41
  OK, well I if I tell you and somebody will steal my idea.
• 57:47
  Yeah, I will. I'll make millions.
• 57:48
  Yeah, I know. No.
• 57:50
  I can pity up the ideas, man. No, I'm not going to do that.
• 57:53
  I'm not going to do that. I've got, I've had I've been
• 57:57
  kicking around an idea for a while of me talking into the mic
• 58:02
  as another character and telling a story, and I'm I wrote a short
• 58:10
  outline for it, whether or not I get it done.
• 58:14
  My advice, just just do it like. Right, right.
• 58:17
  Like but. OK, what what I mean is, is, is
• 58:20
  like go for the idea and then think about it later, you know,
• 58:25
  just release it. You have a point.
• 58:27
  Yeah, you definitely have a point.
• 58:29
  I want it to be quality. So I'm going to, I'm going to
• 58:33
  work on it slowly here and there, try and get it right.
• 58:38
  I was trying to think of what else I want to accomplish.
• 58:43
  I do want to accomplish a lot of things.
• 58:45
  I'd like my TV shows to happen and I and I really think I need
• 58:51
  the the book release to be successful for people to see
• 58:59
  what my talent is and use that as a catapult to get them
• 59:05
  interested in other things. Hey, you know, to understand,
• 59:08
  Hey, he's doesn't just write horror novels.
• 59:12
  He writes other stuff and and I have the capability to direct,
• 59:19
  just not produce because I'm broke.
• 59:23
  I can't. I mean if you ever thought about
• 59:26
  like Gofunding GoFundMe. Yeah, I have thought of it, but
• 59:31
  I don't have the base to reach and say, hey now GoFundMe, but I
• 59:38
  think I might be able to get that with a successful book
• 59:42
  launch. You know, like for instance, you
• 59:44
  said you have 2000 followers, nobody D show up.
• 59:48
  I I know even I think it's like 1700, but it right, it doesn't
• 59:52
  mean anything. It's just people that follow
• 59:54
  you. It doesn't.
• 59:55
  Right equate to anything. And if you were going to launch
• 1:00:00
  a GoFundMe right now, I guarantee.
• 1:00:04
  You'll be lucky if you get 17 of those 1700. 100%, yeah.
• 1:00:10
  Yeah, 1% at the very best, you know, so that's why you've got
• 1:00:15
  to have a lot more of a following to get that kind of
• 1:00:21
  success or you have to have something really.
• 1:00:23
  It's about how you connect with the followers.
• 1:00:25
  It's about having people that are true fans.
• 1:00:29
  Let's all right, let's look at your book.
• 1:00:31
  So let's say you released a book.
• 1:00:34
  The the book gets a bit of a success, right?
• 1:00:36
  You've got fans of the book, right?
• 1:00:40
  You do a book signing, some people show up, they want to get
• 1:00:44
  their book signed and they want to talk to you.
• 1:00:46
  That's the beginning of something.
• 1:00:49
  Now, as far as that building it would be, especially with books,
• 1:00:53
  it's word of mouth. It buzz gets created from, I
• 1:00:56
  don't know, this particular person discovered it, they
• 1:00:59
  shared it, you know, or recommended it, you know, stuff
• 1:01:05
  like that. My editor has a unique slant on
• 1:01:14
  how he's going to market it. OK.
• 1:01:16
  And one of those ways is through book clubs.
• 1:01:21
  He's got, he's got a list of book clubs, he's going to reach
• 1:01:24
  out to them personally and say, hey, this is the book you need
• 1:01:28
  to be reading. You're going to love it.
• 1:01:31
  It's made for you. And here's why, you know, and
• 1:01:36
  just put it out there. And I said, how many book clubs
• 1:01:39
  you talking about? And he goes around 10,010
• 1:01:45
  thousand book clubs. Oh, that's a different story.
• 1:01:49
  Yeah, there's a lot of book clubs out there.
• 1:01:51
  About how? How is he going to cost?
• 1:01:54
  E-mail. 10,000. Emails.
• 1:01:57
  Sure, you know you could. You could send 10,000.
• 1:02:00
  Emails, yeah, you can automate it, but I just, I don't know if
• 1:02:03
  you're sending that many emails, it'll hit spam straight away.
• 1:02:08
  He says he knows what to do, so that's his job if he wants to be
• 1:02:13
  successful. Well, well, well, just think of
• 1:02:18
  it. If if you could really get 10,
• 1:02:22
  you know a good percentage. When I've done e-mail campaigns
• 1:02:25
  in the past, typically you're looking at like 1020% which is
• 1:02:30
  great still. So, so right there, if you got
• 1:02:32
  10% and you're talking about 1000 book clubs and each of
• 1:02:37
  those book clubs has 10 people, whether you got 10,000 readers
• 1:02:41
  and if you potentially have 10,000 readers who give you some
• 1:02:50
  kind of review online, it may grow from there.
• 1:02:54
  So fingers crossed. Let's hope it all works out.
• 1:02:58
  Absolutely, man. I I wish you the best of luck
• 1:03:00
  with it. I think what I was trying to say
• 1:03:01
  before is it's all about hitting the right audience.
• 1:03:04
  Like I've never, I've never hit the right audience myself.
• 1:03:07
  I wouldn't know how to go about doing that.
• 1:03:09
  I think with a book you've at least got something that's like,
• 1:03:15
  there's a lot of ways you could just because I are you going to
• 1:03:18
  do it like par back as well? A back like a paperback.
• 1:03:23
  Oh yeah. Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  Physical copy, yeah. It's going to do hardcover and
• 1:03:26
  paperback and maybe an audio book.
• 1:03:31
  So there's different that myself or not but.
• 1:03:33
  There's lots of distribution options there though.
• 1:03:35
  It's like the different ways people can turn within.
• 1:03:38
  And digital, yeah, digital too. So he's he's got his marketing
• 1:03:45
  plan. OK.
• 1:03:45
  And that's that's part of it. And you know, I think it makes a
• 1:03:50
  lot of sense. I'm the very first book he's
• 1:03:53
  going to publish. Wow.
• 1:03:56
  I'm so I'm the spearhead of the entire operation.
• 1:04:04
  And that's, it's an honor to me to be somebody's first writer,
• 1:04:09
  somebody, you know, the guy is, he's taking a gamble on me, on
• 1:04:15
  my stuff. And that that says a lot.
• 1:04:18
  That's not that's not to be taken lightly.
• 1:04:21
  When somebody says I'm going to invest in you 100%, I'm like,
• 1:04:27
  you know, how am I going to say no?
• 1:04:30
  And here's the plan. It's it's a good plan, so.
• 1:04:33
  You have a lot of good ideas, I must say.
• 1:04:35
  Like there's something there. It's, it's just about the right
• 1:04:38
  person giving you a shot. In many ways I feel, I feel with
• 1:04:43
  kindred spirits because I can relate a lot.
• 1:04:45
  Like I, I said this to my girlfriend every day.
• 1:04:47
  I was like, all I need is one person to give me a chance.
• 1:04:50
  And in this entire world, one person.
• 1:04:54
  What? With, with the right attitude
• 1:04:58
  money, I'm not sure what to say. The right connections, the
• 1:05:05
  right, the right stuff, you know, the, with the one person
• 1:05:09
  with the right stuff who can do more for you and will do more
• 1:05:15
  for you than a whole bunch of people on a GoFundMe, on a
• 1:05:19
  GoFundMe. All they're doing is handing you
• 1:05:21
  money, you know, and then you still got to do the work.
• 1:05:24
  But if you got the right person, who's going to be in your
• 1:05:27
  corner, who's going to promote you, who's going to, who has
• 1:05:31
  skin in the game, who wants to, who needs you to be successful
• 1:05:35
  so that they are successful, that makes a world of
• 1:05:39
  difference. And that's why I went with this
• 1:05:42
  publisher, once he showed me, you know, that we could work
• 1:05:47
  together. I did this with no agent.
• 1:05:49
  I submitted to him directly, and I submitted to about 140
• 1:05:54
  different publishers and or agents in two years before this
• 1:06:03
  took shape. So it took a while.
• 1:06:06
  And I started writing the book in 1991.
• 1:06:09
  I wrote it in 91 or I started writing in 91 and it took about
• 1:06:16
  10 years to get it where I wanted it.
• 1:06:18
  I don't do anything quick. This is also a downfall.
• 1:06:22
  In the 2000s, I found a couple of Alpha readers, actors that I
• 1:06:28
  worked with and my wife. I, I said give me your notes and
• 1:06:35
  they told me, you know, the UPS and the downs sides of it.
• 1:06:40
  And I rewrote it and I, I took a real good care of it for a
• 1:06:47
  couple of years and editing the way I thought it should be.
• 1:06:52
  And then I got so into screenplays, the time I set it
• 1:06:56
  aside and I didn't touch it from probably 2005 to 2000, 20
• 1:07:06
  somewhere near Oh, that I left it alone for a long time.
• 1:07:13
  And then I've, when I've got, when I finally had enough
• 1:07:16
  screenplays done and trying to do all kinds of other things
• 1:07:20
  like running the Film Festival that I had for a few years.
• 1:07:24
  I, I just said, you know, I got to make money with me.
• 1:07:28
  I got to do something with what I already have.
• 1:07:31
  And I said, what's the most finished complete product that I
• 1:07:34
  don't have, that I don't have to pitch to somebody who's going to
• 1:07:38
  have to hand over 10s of thousands of dollars to produce
• 1:07:43
  that I might even be able to produce on my own.
• 1:07:45
  And that was Eternity's Grasp. So I, I went back to it.
• 1:07:49
  I looked at it again, I read through it, I polished it, got
• 1:07:54
  all the typos out and all of the other little stuff.
• 1:08:02
  I, I, I cinched it up, you know, and then I got it out to beta
• 1:08:08
  readers, which was a lot easier, you know, five years ago than it
• 1:08:13
  was 25 years ago because we did not have the Internet then as we
• 1:08:18
  do now. You know, you couldn't just look
• 1:08:21
  up and say, oh, there's a beta reader group I'm going to join.
• 1:08:24
  I'm going to get my book on there and people are going to
• 1:08:27
  read it. I can do that right now, you
• 1:08:29
  know, but 25 years ago, No, it, it just that stuff was few and
• 1:08:35
  far between, didn't know how to use the Internet, couldn't
• 1:08:40
  figure it out. And, and plus everybody was
• 1:08:43
  still, if you were submitting to a publisher back then, they
• 1:08:48
  still wanted paper. They didn't want a digital file.
• 1:08:53
  Now it's completely reversed. They're like, we don't take any
• 1:08:56
  paper. Don't you mail us a damn thing.
• 1:08:58
  You know it will be thrown in the trash and not looked at.
• 1:09:02
  That's a fact. They don't even send it back.
• 1:09:06
  So so now it's all digital, which is a godsend for anybody
• 1:09:11
  who needs, you know, their stuff submitted somewhere.
• 1:09:15
  So now with the different, with the, the way the game changed, I
• 1:09:22
  was able to get my book in front of, I think I had around 25 or
• 1:09:28
  so beta readers. Some drop out, they don't finish
• 1:09:32
  the book. Some say right off the bat, this
• 1:09:34
  is not for me for various reasons.
• 1:09:37
  And some people fall in love with it.
• 1:09:39
  You know, I've got like my top 3 beta readers who I, I even give
• 1:09:43
  screenplays to who liked. They're like, I love this.
• 1:09:46
  It's so much fun and and I can't invest in it, but I love your
• 1:09:50
  writing. So I have a couple of fans, you
• 1:09:53
  know, and surprisingly in England.
• 1:09:57
  But anyway, the, The thing is, once I, once I got through the
• 1:10:04
  beta reading process and I got it and they made their
• 1:10:07
  suggestions on what I needed to change and how I needed to, to
• 1:10:13
  strengthen the, the story. I did that.
• 1:10:16
  And then I was confident enough to send it out to publishers and
• 1:10:23
  agents. And at the time that Dark Harbor
• 1:10:28
  signed me, I had 4-5 other agents or publishers looking at
• 1:10:38
  the book. So I followed up with each of
• 1:10:40
  them, said, hey, look, I got an offer on Eternity's Grasp.
• 1:10:45
  Are you still interested? Do you want to counter offer?
• 1:10:49
  Out of those five, it was 5. Three of them did not return the
• 1:10:53
  call. One of them said, that Lady
• 1:10:58
  doesn't work here anymore and we no longer do fiction.
• 1:11:01
  I'm like, don't do fiction. What's wrong with you?
• 1:11:04
  So, So they're not interested. And then the last one was a
• 1:11:08
  publisher who said, oh, man, we never had time to read it.
• 1:11:13
  So good luck. You had this book for six months
• 1:11:16
  and you never had time to read it.
• 1:11:18
  But that wasn't the the final straw that made me go with
• 1:11:21
  Jimmy. My publisher is it was just
• 1:11:23
  getting to know him and talk to him a little bit about, you
• 1:11:27
  know, his plan and how we work well together, you know, at a
• 1:11:30
  distance like you and I are right now at a distance because
• 1:11:35
  I've never met him. So we had to do all of the, all
• 1:11:38
  of the deals through the Internet and in virtual
• 1:11:42
  documents and so on, you know, talking on the phone.
• 1:11:47
  Yeah, I, I'm all for that. You know, I'm, I understand that
• 1:11:52
  the, the world is not all, you know, right down the street.
• 1:11:57
  We don't all have to get on a plane to sign a document.
• 1:12:01
  So it's, it's going to work out, no doubt.
• 1:12:06
  This is this is what's going to get me somewhere else that I
• 1:12:10
  want to be. What makes you so sure?
• 1:12:14
  What's different? I think it's Jimmy, my
• 1:12:17
  publisher. He's he's just got that
• 1:12:19
  confidence. It's, it's like, I don't want to
• 1:12:22
  say he owns me, but he owns his concept and he, he sees how I
• 1:12:29
  fit into that plan. He's he, he sees how eternities
• 1:12:34
  grasp should work and he has given me a couple of tools.
• 1:12:40
  We discussed reading before. Before I went into the rewriting
• 1:12:47
  of it. He told me two books he wanted
• 1:12:50
  me to read. 1 was Gone Girl. I forgot the author's name, but
• 1:12:57
  anyway, it has it. My writing reminded him of Gone
• 1:13:02
  Girl. That was a movie with Ben
• 1:13:03
  Affleck and and I'd seen the movie, but I hadn't read the
• 1:13:07
  book. And he goes, you've got some
• 1:13:09
  parallels there in the way you story tell and the way she story
• 1:13:12
  tells. But I want you to see how she
• 1:13:16
  tells the story in that first person, the way she tells first
• 1:13:21
  person versus the way you tell first person and see what you
• 1:13:25
  glean out of that. The other one is word painting,
• 1:13:28
  which I'm reading right now and I'm almost done with that.
• 1:13:32
  And that's that's an educational book that was printed in 99.
• 1:13:38
  I saw I was curious about that today.
• 1:13:41
  When was this, you know, published?
• 1:13:43
  So 99 author teacher. She wrote the book about how to
• 1:13:48
  be more descriptive. The even though my stuff is
• 1:13:52
  descriptive now, if he thinks there's there's promise in
• 1:14:00
  beefing it up myself, you know, not saying here, fix this for
• 1:14:05
  me, you know, it's it's not that's what a good editor should
• 1:14:08
  do is is say, here's the tools, use them.
• 1:14:13
  Let's get there together. You know, not here.
• 1:14:17
  I'm going to rewrite your book so.
• 1:14:21
  It kind of reminds me of like I grew up a wrestling fan and I
• 1:14:26
  remember one thing I found I always found interesting was the
• 1:14:30
  writing process for how they approach things.
• 1:14:33
  Whenever they used to talk about Vince McMahon, they would say, I
• 1:14:37
  mean, so much has been said about that man.
• 1:14:40
  It kind of sounded like it was like a writing committee style
• 1:14:44
  situation. Bunch of writers underneath him,
• 1:14:47
  and then he would kind of come in and be like, right, let's
• 1:14:52
  tweak this, this and this. And it would transform the idea
• 1:14:56
  from something that was like OK to like next level.
• 1:15:00
  Because he's not the writer, but he's got the ideas and or like
• 1:15:04
  he was. So he had ideas and he wrote as
• 1:15:06
  well, but like he was good at like presentation and let's
• 1:15:11
  tweak these little things to make it more entertaining and so
• 1:15:14
  on. And to be it kind of sounds like
• 1:15:16
  a similar situation. Maybe this guy is what he he
• 1:15:20
  definitely is. He's proving that like he's he's
• 1:15:22
  read your style and he thinks. If you would.
• 1:15:24
  Tweak it and try these styles a little bit.
• 1:15:27
  It will essentially maximize what you're doing.
• 1:15:30
  Or or flesh it out? Kind of, yeah.
• 1:15:33
  Yeah, just not put a completely new coat of paint.
• 1:15:41
  I don't know. But but to enhance the dark
• 1:15:46
  edges, that's that's the best way I could say this.
• 1:15:52
  And and he knows that there's there's more to it than I've
• 1:15:57
  already written. So he wants to see it.
• 1:15:59
  He wants everybody else to see it too.
• 1:16:01
  And he goes, you, you didn't. Yeah, you know, you it's like
• 1:16:05
  talking to a a singer who needs to hit that high note.
• 1:16:09
  And he say, you know, you, you're almost there.
• 1:16:12
  All you going to do is just take a little deeper breath, you push
• 1:16:15
  a little more and you're going to get it, you know?
• 1:16:18
  And the same thing when you're directing an actor.
• 1:16:21
  You know what? I know it's in you.
• 1:16:23
  I know you've got that. And here's what I want you to
• 1:16:27
  do. I want you to think about that
• 1:16:29
  time you stepped on a marble and hurt your foot and you're like,
• 1:16:34
  Oh my God, how did you even know about that?
• 1:16:37
  And it's like, we've all stepped out of marbles and hurt our
• 1:16:39
  feet. That's why.
• 1:16:41
  And now everybody's going to be able to relate to that if you
• 1:16:46
  can convey it through your acting and that, and this is,
• 1:16:49
  and that's what writing is in essence is a form of acting.
• 1:16:53
  I'm every character. I'm I'm bringing forth
• 1:16:57
  everything in my head to the printed page for you to read and
• 1:17:04
  see and act out in your own mind.
• 1:17:07
  And that's the, the idea here behind the editing process is to
• 1:17:17
  give people a better vision of what I see to, to, to brighten
• 1:17:23
  the to brighten or darken the room to hear something more
• 1:17:32
  clearly or even more muddled, you know, to, to make the reader
• 1:17:40
  think more and to help them visualize it even better.
• 1:17:44
  And I, I, I've always believed in editing.
• 1:17:48
  It was. And I know there's others and I
• 1:17:52
  know you've met them people in at the acting community who like
• 1:17:56
  could self direct and like, I don't need any help.
• 1:18:00
  I know what I'm doing. Director.
• 1:18:02
  He's out of his mind. He didn't like my performance.
• 1:18:05
  That guy. Oh my God, he wants to eat.
• 1:18:08
  He he's blind, he's deaf, you know those.
• 1:18:13
  But The thing is, if you read acknowledgements in books like
• 1:18:17
  Stephen King writes it, a lot of the other writers over the years
• 1:18:22
  that I've read there, they want to thank their editors.
• 1:18:25
  They always think they're editors And, and there's a
• 1:18:29
  reason for that is because they, and most of the time they will
• 1:18:33
  say this couldn't have happened without the editor.
• 1:18:38
  It's just this is not the same. It's without saying it in those
• 1:18:42
  exact words. It's not the same book I wrote.
• 1:18:47
  It's even better than the book I wrote.
• 1:18:50
  They brought it, they helped me bring it to life.
• 1:18:52
  Apparently Jimmy's, he's got a, he's got a master's degree in,
• 1:18:58
  in writing and a couple other accolades.
• 1:19:02
  He, he knows what he's doing. I trust him, so I'm very happy
• 1:19:09
  to be in his corner and having him as my coach to to guide me
• 1:19:17
  through the process and bring this book to life.
• 1:19:22
  So even though I know it's good now, I know it it'll be better
• 1:19:27
  in a few months. What has writing taught you
• 1:19:29
  about life There's. Always something hidden.
• 1:19:33
  You don't know everything. There is always more to the
• 1:19:37
  story deep down. I mean, no matter what story you
• 1:19:44
  hear, if it's on the news or if you see somebody in a parking
• 1:19:49
  lot, you might say I got that guy figured out.
• 1:19:53
  Oh, you don't have that guy figured out at all.
• 1:19:56
  You, you might think, you know what that guy walk into his car
• 1:20:01
  with the, the, the six pack of beer and the cigarettes and the
• 1:20:06
  nachos is all about. But there are so many deeper
• 1:20:12
  levels to that person in the world around us that, that, that
• 1:20:16
  have created that person that you can't take anything at face
• 1:20:22
  value. You know you, you can't.
• 1:20:25
  You have to realize that there is.
• 1:20:28
  There are 1,000,000 stories or more happening around you at all
• 1:20:32
  times. You know, there's drama in your
• 1:20:36
  backyard right now. There's there's a spider sitting
• 1:20:40
  in his web waiting for an Ant that got caught to die.
• 1:20:47
  And in the same time, he's hoping that nobody comes to eat
• 1:20:50
  him. So there's there's a lot of
• 1:20:54
  drama out there and you don't see everything at first glance.
• 1:20:59
  You got to you got to take the wide shot and say, how do how is
• 1:21:05
  that thing way over there affecting this thing right in
• 1:21:10
  front of me And does it in many, in many cases, if you watch a
• 1:21:18
  film a couple of different times, you'll see how something
• 1:21:24
  in the first scene affects the middle of the story.
• 1:21:27
  You know, especially if they make it obvious.
• 1:21:30
  Sometimes they make it obvious, but they say all the greatest
• 1:21:36
  movies are just a bunch of dominoes where if you you get to
• 1:21:45
  the end, there's no way you could have gotten to the end
• 1:21:48
  without starting where you did. If you started a minute before
• 1:21:51
  it. You would have never told that
• 1:21:53
  same story if you had taken 1 scene out the the Domino's.
• 1:21:58
  This is for a great movie. You know, if you take 1 scene
• 1:22:01
  out you, you've got 2 movies, you know, and you've got
• 1:22:06
  disconnection. So there's, I think I got that
• 1:22:13
  analogy from a screen writing book.
• 1:22:17
  I'm not sure, but there was something along those lines.
• 1:22:21
  It might not have been Domino's, but but that's, that's the
• 1:22:25
  thing. It's like it's it's all
• 1:22:27
  connected and there's a lot more to everything than meets the
• 1:22:32
  eye. What's the worst advice you've
• 1:22:33
  ever received? Give up.
• 1:22:37
  Yeah, I've had people, I mean, since since I was a little kid,
• 1:22:44
  I say I want to do something. They're oh, don't waste your
• 1:22:47
  time with that. Just go, go to work on a
• 1:22:49
  production line. I grew up in Detroit where
• 1:22:51
  everybody worked in the production line on, on cars.
• 1:22:55
  And you're not going to make any money doing that.
• 1:22:58
  Just go to work in the production line.
• 1:23:01
  I don't even like cars. I don't want to work on a
• 1:23:03
  production line, you know, And so many people told me to not
• 1:23:14
  follow my heart for so many times I listened and OK, I just,
• 1:23:20
  I just won't try. I just won't try or I'll give up
• 1:23:24
  now and or I'll let this, I let a lot of time go by not doing my
• 1:23:30
  own thing because I was too busy doing somebody else's stuff.
• 1:23:35
  Just try to pay rent or whatever.
• 1:23:38
  Why? Why did you listen to them
• 1:23:39
  though? I mean.
• 1:23:41
  I didn't know better. I didn't know, didn't know that
• 1:23:46
  what I know now or what I feel now did.
• 1:23:48
  You not feel that it was wrong then that you would just not
• 1:23:52
  following the right path? When I was really young, I guess
• 1:23:57
  in my 20s, I just thought I have to do whatever I can to get by.
• 1:24:04
  I and also wasn't certain that I wasn't sure what I wanted to
• 1:24:13
  write back then either, you know, in my early 20s, I mean,
• 1:24:18
  in 91 when I wrote, when I started writing Eternity's
• 1:24:21
  Grasp, I didn't have the title. I just, I just got an idea and I
• 1:24:30
  was the, the thing that inspired me was Stephen King's stories,
• 1:24:36
  reading those and Jeffrey Dahmer, you know, who was of
• 1:24:42
  course a real person, tragic person.
• 1:24:45
  You know, it's not a heroic figure to me at all, but an
• 1:24:51
  inspirational one because there's a, there's a story
• 1:24:56
  there, you know, which is sad and human, a sad human story.
• 1:25:03
  If you, I don't know if you, if you saw the Dahmer miniseries
• 1:25:08
  they put on, I think it was Netflix.
• 1:25:10
  It's well done, very well done. I think it's 8 or 10 parts.
• 1:25:16
  It was a real focus on his relationship with his father.
• 1:25:20
  And it was it to some degree, you know, you understand him.
• 1:25:31
  You don't understand the fetish. But but as far as a guy goes,
• 1:25:36
  you know, somebody who just wanted to have friends, he
• 1:25:40
  didn't go about it exactly the right way.
• 1:25:43
  But you know, he was a sad, lonely guy.
• 1:25:48
  That's all there is to it. You know, that's that's the
• 1:25:50
  basis of it. And before I I heard those
• 1:25:56
  stories, everything else I wrote prior to Eternity's Grasp
• 1:26:03
  didn't. I didn't have a solid concept of
• 1:26:07
  what I just knew I wanted to write.
• 1:26:09
  I didn't know what I wanted to write.
• 1:26:11
  No idea. And I didn't even think about
• 1:26:12
  screenplays. I didn't learn about screenplays
• 1:26:14
  until 2000. Thousand one, 2002 somewhere in
• 1:26:18
  there. And I was like, oh geez, one
• 1:26:21
  guy. When I finally went to acting
• 1:26:24
  school in 2000, I met the acting community and I was like, these
• 1:26:29
  are the greatest people in the world.
• 1:26:30
  They're the nicest, friendliest people.
• 1:26:32
  That's what a lot of people don't realize about most actors.
• 1:26:37
  I mean, even the big name actors, they're great people.
• 1:26:40
  They're really friendly. They're so nice and welcoming
• 1:26:44
  and they, they want to talk and they want to teach.
• 1:26:48
  You know, every once in a while you get that that bodacious jerk
• 1:26:55
  who wants to tell you everything he's been in, you know,
• 1:27:00
  hopefully I'm not that guy. He the the thing was in the
• 1:27:08
  acting community, I was encouraged to write and bring
• 1:27:12
  things out. So I became more of myself as I
• 1:27:16
  got older than I did when I was young.
• 1:27:19
  And I was told the I, I was told not to take chances and invest
• 1:27:26
  in anything. I was told never buy a house.
• 1:27:30
  I was told. I mean, this is just the kind of
• 1:27:33
  advice I got because I was running into people with who
• 1:27:37
  were giving me bad advice and I didn't know anyone else.
• 1:27:41
  It's just crazy how people would just run their mouth with things
• 1:27:43
  they don't know anything about or just that that they don't
• 1:27:47
  realize the power of words. This is crazy.
• 1:27:51
  Well, let's let's make it more positive.
• 1:27:52
  What's the best advice you've ever received?
• 1:27:54
  Oh. Man, probably from my
• 1:27:58
  father-in-law, bless his soul, he's he said.
• 1:28:07
  Just let them drag you around, do whatever they want.
• 1:28:15
  The wives, the wife. I thought you were going to say
• 1:28:18
  that. No, it's like, it's like if she
• 1:28:21
  wants to go somewhere, just go. If she wants you to wear a
• 1:28:25
  certain shirt, don't argue. Just put the shirt on, put the
• 1:28:28
  tie on she wants. Just just go with that.
• 1:28:33
  It's knife coming a lot. It's going to be a lot easier
• 1:28:36
  for you. Don't argue.
• 1:28:37
  That's basically, that's basically the whole thing.
• 1:28:40
  It's like don't argue with your wife.
• 1:28:41
  And it's like, you know what, he's right.
• 1:28:44
  Just just roll with it. You know, I do argue with my
• 1:28:49
  wife. We argue on a daily basis or we
• 1:28:52
  wouldn't be in love. So but you know, I, I know when
• 1:28:59
  to stop. I think that's that's the thing,
• 1:29:05
  You got to know when you've lost and you're not going to win.
• 1:29:09
  Well, you're never going to be right, let's face it.
• 1:29:11
  No, no, not going to be right. No, not going to be right.
• 1:29:15
  So that's how that goes. What's the biggest life lesson
• 1:29:19
  you've learned so far? It's lifeless.
• 1:29:22
  Oh I I should have never sold my Apple stock shit.
• 1:29:25
  When did you sell that? 2008.
• 1:29:29
  So what do you mean? Rough a bit then though.
• 1:29:31
  Yeah, but if I kept it, I'd have a couple $1,000,000 Shit.
• 1:29:37
  Yeah. I don't know if that's a life
• 1:29:40
  lesson. A life lesson?
• 1:29:42
  What would a life lesson be? I think in retrospect, it just
• 1:29:52
  listen to your gut before you listen to anybody else.
• 1:29:55
  It's it, it's worth it. I would have done a lot more
• 1:30:04
  earlier on if, like I said, I wasn't listening to that poor
• 1:30:08
  advice that I got from people when I was a teenager.
• 1:30:13
  They told me don't even buy a car.
• 1:30:16
  Don't you don't need a car. There's plenty of buses.
• 1:30:19
  You'd get around everywhere on a bus, you don't need a car.
• 1:30:22
  But in America, it's freedom and you kind of need it to do
• 1:30:24
  anything, really. No kidding.
• 1:30:27
  But I bought into that, you know, because they were.
• 1:30:30
  That's what I was being taught by my own parents, you know,
• 1:30:35
  don't, don't get it. You don't need a driver's
• 1:30:38
  license. But you don't.
• 1:30:40
  You don't need a driver's license.
• 1:30:42
  No, you're not. If you don't, you don't have to
• 1:30:43
  drive. You just take the bus.
• 1:30:45
  OK, so that was the 1980s. Oh, 1970s.
• 1:30:51
  That was the 70s in America, Detroit.
• 1:30:54
  I got lots of bad advice. I'm glad you didn't listen to it
• 1:30:59
  as well. Nice of.
• 1:31:01
  It not all the way, no anyway. Do you have any upcoming
• 1:31:07
  projects or final thoughts that you'd like to share with our
• 1:31:10
  listeners? Upcoming projects.
• 1:31:16
  Well, I did just launch the new Mike rembus.com, so please look
• 1:31:21
  at that if you want to see everything I've ever done and go
• 1:31:25
  down the the Mike Rembus rabbit hole just to explore and have
• 1:31:31
  some fun and thank you. And other than the Eternity's
• 1:31:37
  Grasp, I'm still plugging away on those screenplays.
• 1:31:44
  I have an idea for another website that is a rival of X
• 1:31:57
  Twitter. You know, who knows?
• 1:32:00
  I, I don't know if that's going to go anywhere.
• 1:32:02
  I don't know how good I'll be at creating that, but I think
• 1:32:07
  there's a, there's a possibility I'll come up with a prototype in
• 1:32:10
  the next year or so. So, but I'll, I'll have that on
• 1:32:15
  the website too, you know, at some point other other projects,
• 1:32:20
  I've got the screenplays out there.
• 1:32:22
  I want I want to share them with people who would like to read
• 1:32:25
  them, especially if they'd like to invest in them.
• 1:32:29
  And you know, I'm all for directing, but other actual
• 1:32:37
  projects that are that are working everyday.
• 1:32:40
  No, it's just eternity's grasp right now is.
• 1:32:43
  She the best of luck with the book and everything that you're
• 1:32:45
  doing. Mike.
• 1:32:46
  It's been an thank you pleasure having you on the show.
• 1:32:49
  Thank you so much. Great to be here.
• 1:32:52
  Great to have you here. So I'll talk to you again soon.
• 1:32:57
  Absolutely. Thanks again to all the
• 1:32:59
  listeners of the Christian League Podcast.
• 1:33:01
  Thank you so much for watching and listening.
• 1:33:04
  Go out of your way to check out Mike's work and check out his
• 1:33:07
  book when it drops in 2027. Thanks for watching, thanks for
• 1:33:11
  listening, and as always, be safe, be well, and I'll see you
• 1:33:15
  in the next one.