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IFH 726: Story$elling Your Screenplay with Heather Hale · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle
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  Podcast, Episode number seven twenty six. Writing is the best way to talk
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  without being interrupted. Julius Renard broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's
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  the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive and thrive
• 0:30
  as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film biz. And here's your
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  host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film
• 0:39
  Hustle Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is
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  sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into a
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  profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money
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  with their films from predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who
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  prey upon them. The odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old
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  distribution model of making money with your film is broken, and there needs to
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  be a change. The future of independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the
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  film entrepreneur. In Rise of the Film Entrepreneur, I break down how to
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  actually make money with your film projects and show you how to turn your indie
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  film into a profitable business. With case studies examining successes and failures. This
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  book shows you the step by step method to turn your passion into a profitable
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  career. If you're making a feature film, series, or any other kind
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  of video content, the Film Entrepreneur method will set you up for success.
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  The book is available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook. If
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  you want to order it, just head over to www dot filmbiz book dot
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  com. That's film bizbook dot com. Now today on the show, we
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  have returning champion Heather Hail and today we're going to talk about her new book,
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  story Selling How to Develop, market and pitch your TV and film projects.
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  Now, pitching is an art form. It is something that we all
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  need to do at every level of our lives, whether it's pitching a project
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  to a studio executive to an investor, or pitching where you want to go
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  to dinner and trying to convince your wife or your friends that that's the place
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  we should go. It's all about how you communicate, but when you're pitching
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  your stories, it is about how content and communication come together. And in
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  this episode, I dig deep into how to get the most out of a
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  pitch, what little tips and tricks you can do to help you in the
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  room with a studio executive, with an investor, with someone that's going to
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  hopefully help you with your project. So, without any further ado, please
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  enjoy my conversation with Heather Hale. I like to welcome back to the show,
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  returning champion, Heather Hale. How are you. How are you doing,
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  Heather Corner. I'm good, I'm good. Thank you for so much
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  for coming back. You are a busy bee. So now you're back with
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  your we're gonna talk a little bit about your second book, story Selling.
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  But you were original guest on indie film Hustle in episode two forty talking about
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  how to work the markets have a lot of fun. Thank you. Yeah,
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  absolutely, and you were a big hit. A lot of people liked
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  the love that episode. So when I heard about your new book, I
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  was like, well, we got to have Heather back to talk about this
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  because out of just for my own personal I just have so many questions,
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  so I'm dying to ask. So for people who don't know who you are
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  and didn't listen to that first episode, can you tell us a little bit
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  about how you got into the film business. Yeah. So I'm a writer,
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  director, of producer of film and television, and I have about five
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  broken stories because everybody has to break in and rebreak in and rebreak in.
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  Soson to do my next one. Yeah, so my guess my big break
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  in was The Courage to Love, which was a five and half million dollar
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  Lifetime Original movie that Vanessa Williams stays a peach, Gilbello's and Diane Carroll was
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  in. That's the big one I got you. I did a bunch of
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  other little things, like a couple PBS series that won Emmy's and uh lifestyle
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  magazine that I'm still doing. It's a TV talk show that won some Telly's
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  and ACE Awards, and just lots of I did a lot of infomercials,
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  commercials, trade industrials. Unique So you've been hustling. You've been hustling,
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  yes, indeed, So all right, so let's talk a little bit about
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  selling your story. So how do you, how does one well, what
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  advice do you have to develop a marketable story or screenprayer project? Well,
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  that's a loaded question, it is. It depends on where you're at in
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  the process, It depends on where you're at in your career, it depends
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  on the kind of project. So that's a pretty broad question, but it's
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  of course a question everybody has. So I think a huge part of it
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  is knowing what your concept is and knowing who would buy it and who would
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  watch it. So what are your distribution channels? Is it a limited event
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  series? Is it a contained thriller or an indie feature? Is it,
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  you know, an indie feature, is it something could be a one hour
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  drama, comedy, sketch comedy. What is this monster that you're selling?
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  And then who are the likely buyers or the prospects that would be contenders for
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  financing, distribution attachments, actors, directors. Who are the people that could
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  come on board as part of that daisy chain that get the momentum going to
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  get it pushed up the hill? I think I said this in the last
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  time. I feel like Sissiphus the octopus just pushing like eight rocks up the
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  hill. So that's how I always feel. But I think it's it's being
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  able to identify what the gem of the concept is and who's going to care.
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  Who's going to care enough to fund millions or pay twelve bucks. Who's
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  going to care and want to see that? And how do you get it
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  to them? And what's the best way to pitch it to them? And
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  that can work pretty much on almost any level. I mean, even if
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  it's a small micro budget film, you're just pitching it to somebody who you
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  want to work for very little on the movie. It could be a DP,
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  it could be an actor that you want to bring on board. It
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  could be anybody, or it could be your money shoot in their restaurant or
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  you want them to donate gatorade like whatever. Yeah, all, it's all
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  part of the same thing. Everyone always thinks that you have to sell your
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  story or selling your story is or your project is all about millions and millions
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  of dollars in getting you know, Steven Spielberg, the executive produced. Yes,
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  there are those, but more likely it's like going down to the local
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  pizza joint that you talk to all the time, like, look, this
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  is what I'm doing and getting in those skills that you have to kind of
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  build. Yeah, can I use your restaurant after hours? Would you give
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  us a really good deal on your cameras? Whatever you need, begbarrow steal
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  everything and getting that star to come for one day. You know, whatever
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  it is, it's pitching it in the best life possible and angling it so
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  that your approach strategy is appropriate for whoever it is, whatever it is you're
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  asking for from whoever that prospect is. Well, let me ask you a
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  question. When when I first started my very first short film that I did,
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  I turned it into kind of like I was a nobody with no real
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  background other than shooting a few commercials. This is years ago, and I
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  was trying to put together a small short film which was going to be around
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  an eight thousand dollars short film in Florida, and I made it into this
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  kind of even at that This book of course wasn't available then, and a
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  lot of these concepts weren't even talked about back then. But I because I
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  needed to read it twenty years ago too, right, Yeah, exactly,
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  I would have loved to read this twenty years Ageah So, But what I
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  did was, you know, because I was like, I'm a nobody from
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  nowhere, and I got to put together a team to make this movie.
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  So what I did is made it kind of like an extravaganza in a sense,
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  Like it's a really big, ambitious action film with a lot of visual
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  effects, and I started getting artwork commissioned to make it look good, and
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  I just started building up a bigger, a bigger thing than it was.
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  I was treating it like it was an X Men movie, you know,
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  like I was. I was treating it like a really big budget movie even
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  though it was a small movie, and that attracted talent to the piece because
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  nobody else in my area was doing anything. Is that deception is reality?
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  Right exactly? So is that kind of a good point because I know a
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  lot of people listening might have a short, little short film or a little
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  micro budget film and to kind of create this kind of buzz about it and
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  kind of create like, well, I want to be a part of that
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  craziness. Yeah, I think you know, everyone wants to be a part
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  of the next great thing. Everyone wants to not have missed out. It's
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  like that fomo fear of missing out. If you were the one who who
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  didn't get that opportunity. I have a friend who was next door neighbors with
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  Bill Gates, and when Bill Gates was a kid, he asked him for
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  four thousand dollars to buy his first computer and he said no. So,
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  you know, we all have missed the book. I was just listening to
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  the Jim Patterson masterclass and he said thirty nine people turned down his first novel.
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  Well, and the truth is, are those thirty nine people wrong?
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  Maybe, but thirty nine people who are supposedly professionals in the industry miss the
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  boat on being the publisher for James Patterson. So you need people to think
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  you're the next big thing. And even if you're not the next big thing
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  like the hot Angenoux or whatever, that that project might be Indie Spirit Award
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  worthy, Sun Dance buzzworthy. Is it going to be like you look at
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  distributors, and of course distributors want to see a list talent, but they
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  also love to see a good stable, an ensemble of solid talent where they
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  know that the bar of acting ability is going to be raised to that level,
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  or that the DP or the costume designer, whoever, the key key
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  department heads are that those are rock solid people. So if you can create
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  this ensemble around you that you're the weekly in the constellation, you're going to
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  be able to pitch We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
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  and now back to the show. The strength of your team and kind of
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  try to parlay some traction off of that of everybody's communal efforts, Isn't it
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  true? Though, Like I've seen so many and I've done it myself,
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  so many projects pitched around, you know, really high end, below the
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  line people like really excellent editors, really excellent dpiece. Really yeah, they're
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  the really but that gives you like, as a young filmmaker or an inexperienced
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  filmmaker, they're like, look, I might I have the vision, but
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  these are my craftsmen. These are the people who are going to execute my
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  vision. So at least at minimum, you know it's going to look and
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  sound and look good. And so that make investors and even studios sometimes depending
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  on what type of studio, it is a little bit happier. Right.
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  Yeah, You've surrounded yourself with people who are going to make sure that you
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  deliver good quality. Same thing with your if you're an actor or an actress,
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  trying to write yourself a role and put up the money and buy yourself
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  the role. You know, that is a strategy that works for lots of
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  people. Surround yourself with the best of everything, you know, make you
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  know, let yourself be the week. I always think you should be the
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  weakest player on the bench, you know, then your game is always raised
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  to the players around you. So just make sure you get the very best
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  you can secure and then pitch your heart out of Look at all these great
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  people that you couldn't have afforded, but I've got at this scale because they
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  all want to help me. And it isn't a true as well that when
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  you land that one actor or that one key person below the line, they
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  are the ones that nobody wants to be the first of the party. So
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  yeah, same thing with money. No one wants to be first money in.
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  They all want to be first money out. It's tough, you know,
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  you can often get second and third money, but who's the first to
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  jump in the pool. And I don't know if this is even legal or
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  not, but let's say your mom and dad are going to invest in your
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  in your business. Can you just say we have investors already we already have
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  money in that all the time. I know someone who has half a million,
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  and he or she told me behind the scenes, it's mom, dad,
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  you know, nobody care. It's confidence. It's just all smoke and
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  mirrors, you know. And it's not just smoking mirrors. I mean you
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  want to you want to take care of anyone else's money like it was your
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  own. And you're going to take care of mom and Dad's money because that's
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  not so your own retirement or your own inheritance, but it's your parents.
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  So I think you just you want everyone to know that you honor the produciare
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  relationship that you have and that you're going to do the very best you can
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  in every department, in every element, and make everyone have faith and confidence
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  in you. And you got to pitch and pitch and pitch your heart out
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  every which way. Now, let's talk a little bit about screenwriters, because
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  I know screenwriters unfortunately have the worst worst luck to have to pitch their their
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  wares and many times they don't have those visual stimulation or videos or rip a
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  map or any of those things. What are the biggest mistakes you see screenwriters
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  when they're pitching their scripts. Well, I have a lot of ideas for
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  that, and I also think that times have changed. So they used to
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  say don't use any key art when you're pitching a screenplay. That's sort of
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  true, sort of not true. We talked about this in the other book,
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  How to Work the Markets, But basically, don't use shitty key art
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  right now, things right because most of what comes is awful. So it's
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  okay to use key art. It's also okay to turn down the twelve students
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  who want you to use their key art and use nothing. As a writer,
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  I worked on projects where I was a judge of a bunch of competitions
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  and the people came in and what the writer the creator pitched verbally and on
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  the page was so much better than the chintzy budget that they could swing for
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  some trailer or siesle reel, Like you know, don't don't if it's not
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  fantastic, don't give that because your words should be able to sing. You're
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  a writer, that's what we expect you to be, a fantastic writer.
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  The reverse is true as well. I've seen lots of slick, beautiful,
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  high end ad agency quality pitch decks and sizzlereels where the idea wasn't good,
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  right if the story wasn't there, the characters were no good, it wasn't
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  fresh, wasn't original. So people can see through that. So as a
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  writer, just write the best stuff you can. So then beyond that,
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  you can use things like you don't have to have a photoshoot. You can
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  use things like unsplashed dot com and there's a ton of others that's free images,
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  So just get the image that captures some beautiful photographer who's done it for
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  free and given it to you. Also, you can use any image you
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  want in a pitch deck. Right, it's not going you're not selling it.
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  It's not necessarily going on the internet. And even if it goes on
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  the internet, it can be password protected, so you can grab images off
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  other things, and that's you know, another thing. People can do what's
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  called a rippomatic. Instead of shooting a short film and editing your proof of
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  concept for your feature film or your TV show, grab images of a list
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  stars with the kind of production value you're wanting to communicate and then just do
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  a voiceover that kind of unifies it. So just telling your story and they
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  know that the Brad Pitt that changes even to will Smith that changes to whomever
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  that that's the character we're tracking. Then they can visualize in your mind's eye
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  an A list actor with that kind of production value. Or don't worry about
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  it, just have it written, you know, on the written page.
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  Or grab images. I've done things where wherever the set is, maybe it's
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  Martha's vineyard, maybe it's the wild West, you grab images that conjure that
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  sense of place and time and that mal you and then don't worry about the
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  actors so much. I have a project where we have it's an ensemble cast,
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  and of course we have whoever the haughty of the week is male and
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  female? Right, whoever they are. I'm not going to say who they
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  are because it'll get dated. But your veteran actors, some of your character
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  actors, those are some of the anchors that you know, maybe you're going
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  to stunt cast for a day or two, so maybe in your fantasy you
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  get Frances McDorman and Kevin Costner. All right, cool, and then we'll
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  cast whoerever the stars are, you know, but those are the anchor that
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  are going to let you know the caliber of acting involved. Yeah, I've
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  edited many a ribbomatic in my day for clients where it's a it's a kind
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  of a it's an art form first of all, but also art, but
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  it's also something that not many people even know about. It's not a very
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  known thing. A rippomatic where I literally would go to you know, seven
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  and fight Club and I would because it was a dark thriller risque thing,
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  and I would just grab images of Brad Pitt and I actually carried Brad Pitt
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  through multiple movies in the trailer. And there's a lot of those kind of
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  things like these faux trailers on YouTube now that I did do for fun.
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  But I have a ton on my website. So I have heatherhil dot com,
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  Forward slash story Selling, and I have ripplematic examples and any that you
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  have, I'll put tons more up there. So I keep trying to put
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  things that are good examples, so and there are lots of and the full
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  ones are fantastic because if you've ever seen the trailers that take something like The
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  Shining and turn it into romantic comedy, right, but look at what it
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  teaches you about images and xtaposition of images and music and lighting, like you
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  lighten it up to a different color palette and suddenly it's not the shining anymore.
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  Or you take some you know, Wes Anderson thing and make it gritty.
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  Film noir is like, that's how you can change what we think the
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  genre is and who the target audience is. So I talk a lot about
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  in both books reverse engineering from your comps, your film and television examples that
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  are similar or they have the same sensibility or same target audience, And what
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  can you learn from their taglines, from their keywords? And are you pushing
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  the boundaries in unique and interesting ways? Are you colliding ideas so that what
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  comes up is fresh and in your wheelhouse really specifically, And I think all
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  of these marketing materials, whether they're on the whether it's a pitch deck that's
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  like a PowerPoint, whether it's proposal of Microsoft order PDF, whether it's a
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  salesle reel or RiPP amatic whatever you can animatic, all those things are just
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  to communicate the idea that's in your mind's eye, to kind of emulate the
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  viewing experience for your prospect. Now can you tell that everybody? We just
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  want to go down the line. What does a pitch deck? So you
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  explain to people what the pitch deck is exactly. Well, I think this
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  is all changing all the time because we have a whole generation of students who
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  can edit what twenty thirty years ago. I mean, it's just it's a
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  whole different world. And so we have a very visual, multimedia savvy,
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  social media savvy generation, plus veterans that have been in the business for a
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  long time and have done things in a different way. So I'm not sure
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  that anybody knows this exactly. But in the book story Selling especially, I
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  really tried to say, here's what a synopsis is, Here's what a summary
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  is, here's what a log line is. You're going to hear a ton
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  of different examples of what a treatment script meant all these words. But pitch
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  to me, when I think of pitch deck, I think of a deck
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  of cards, and I think of a stack of images. So I think
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  PowerPoint for pitch deck. That doesn't make it right or wrong. It can
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  be saved as a PDF and sent in different ways. But I think image,
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  image, image, with very little writing in a pitch deck. Right.
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  I did a fantastic pitch deck for a project, and then they wanted
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  to know what were the episode synopsies. They wanted all the words. After
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  I went to all this effort to make this great image rich thing, I
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  had to turn around and end up doing character breakdowns. Here's where each episode
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  would begin and end. Here's our cliff notes. I'm cliffhangers. So to
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  me, a pitch package is any one of these things. It's the package
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  of the material. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 19:57
  and now back to the show. And a proposal might be more like a
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  series bible where you might have here's a synopsis of the pilot. Here are
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  the key episodes that we're going to talk about. If it's a limited series,
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  you might have all of them. And so in the proposal, you're
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  putting everything. And it's a proposal to someone. Is it to a product
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  placement company? Is it to a director? Is it to a star?
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  Is it to someone playing a small supporting role that's really key and they're an
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  A lister and you're going after them, and then you're going to pitch it
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  like I don't know if you've seen the new I don't know if it's called
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  Karate Kid, but the new Karate Kid series Cobra Kai, Cobra Kai.
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  Yes, they pitched that, right. But you know, they pitched it
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  wildly differently to each of those actors, right, because to one actor,
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  it was his chance, he was the victim, he was the one that
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  had the illegal kick to the head, right, So it was totally pitched
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  differently to each of them to get them to feel like they were the protagonists
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  of their stories. Attagons. Yeah, so it's the same thing if you're
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  pitching to someone who's got a it's a fantastic bit part, but they're only
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  in two episodes of maybe a ten episode limited series. You're pitching that key
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  role. None of the rest of it really matters because they're not even there.
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  So you have to make sure that it's what's in it for me and
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  what's relevant to me about this. So it's your custom making pitches per person.
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  Yeah, person, But honestly, eighty five to ninety percent is the
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  same, right, You're just taking out some stuff and shifting it. So
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  I've started doing pitch decks and proposals and then some I don't normally have the
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  ability for a salesle reel. I mean I can do rippomatics and things,
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  but my editing skills or are on the upswing. I'm acquiring them. So
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  if I have someone on the team who's a great editor, that's fantastic.
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  I grab images, and I grabed I'll give like an av time code script
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  of here, well this would be great, this clip, this clip,
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  this clip, and here's how we could pull this together. But for my
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  purpose, I can usually do it with images I've grabbed off the internet,
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  which you know, I'm sure everybody knows. But right click and you can
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  use it. You don't need rights, you don't need to pay for it,
• 22:07
  get the highest reds you can, and then you know, make it
• 22:11
  smaller and wrap your text around it, and you can make a really beautiful
• 22:15
  presentation that really hits the high notes and on the website. I have a
• 22:19
  bunch of examples of everything too, and we'll put those in the show notes
• 22:22
  without question. And then a sizzle reel, because that's also another mystery,
• 22:26
  like a ribble matic. What is a sizzle reel exactly? Well, if
• 22:30
  you think of a trailer, the trailer for a movie, say, for
• 22:34
  example, is often unfortunately beginning, middle, and end, and it gives
• 22:38
  away all the best moments and it ruins the oils. That's typical bad trailer.
• 22:44
  But it gets bucks in the seat of the cinema. A trailer for
• 22:48
  let's say Jane the Virgin for this week will be this week, and they're
• 22:52
  not going to tell you about the pilot. They're not going to tell you
• 22:55
  about the whole season. It's just what's coming up. So if you're or
• 22:57
  Game of Thrones, whatever it is that you're you know, binge watching,
• 23:00
  if you happen to be watching it weekly on say broadcast television, it's this
• 23:06
  upcoming week, the or the like America's Got Talent, Here's who's in the
• 23:10
  semi finals, whatever it is that's coming up, that's the trailer. A
• 23:12
  sizzle reel might be the whole season, here's the whole asset that Like,
• 23:18
  if you were selling a TV show that you've put in the can, let's
• 23:22
  think like The Dog Whisper, it might be clips of the whole five or
• 23:27
  ten years or Big Bang Theory. It might be you know, they might
• 23:30
  be selling that to other countries, and that sizzle reel is the whole season,
• 23:34
  or the whole series, or the whole anthology series you think of True
• 23:40
  detective American horror story. So it's not telling you what's coming up next week.
• 23:45
  It's not telling you the whole story like a trailer might or a trailer
• 23:48
  should tease. So they're all different ways of teasing. It's just how much
• 23:53
  content of the asset are they teasing? And even as I give you all
• 23:59
  those definitions, you know they could all be wrong for a different kind of
• 24:02
  project. It's just I think I love the saying cellicism, not the steak.
• 24:08
  You just you just want to tease and intrigue them so they want to
• 24:12
  come back. They want, they want to It's like a log line is
• 24:15
  to get them to ask to read the script. If if a log line
• 24:18
  gets them to ask to read the synopsis, they just asked for the second
• 24:22
  hurdle, like you want to always go for the clothes. So you're trying
• 24:26
  to get them to ask to read the script, ask to see your You
• 24:30
  know, your screener asked to get to the next step. And if you
• 24:36
  can't get them to make that leap, what's the very best next thing that
• 24:38
  will hopefully keep driving towards your goal? Now, how do you construct the
• 24:45
  pitch? I know that's also a loaded question because it depends on what kind
• 24:48
  of pitch is, But like you know, let's say a screenwriter is going
• 24:49
  to go into a pitch meeting with you know, a potential producer or studio.
• 24:55
  How do you construct literally like construct the pitch like because some of them
• 24:59
  will go in there and talk for thirty minutes. You like, nope,
• 25:03
  So how do you do it? And I talk a great deal in the
• 25:06
  book about different kinds of pitches, different kinds of projects, different environments.
• 25:11
  So the pitch for an on the studio lot meeting, an official pitch meeting
• 25:17
  that might be thirty minutes long, where everybody in the room has read your
• 25:19
  writer's bible, your series bible. They might have even read read the screenplay.
• 25:25
  Like Sometimes you go in and you're pitching after the fact where everybody's read
• 25:27
  everything. And then other times you're doing a pitch fest event or virtual pitch
• 25:33
  fest thing where it's five minutes. It's a total stranger and you've got to,
• 25:36
  you know, do your whole elevator pitch and don't even have time to
• 25:38
  build rapport. So I think it depends on what you're pitching. Character driven
• 25:45
  projects are going to be pitched quite differently than a plot driven project. A
• 25:49
  high concept project is going to be quite differently pitched. Something that might be
• 25:55
  a famous novel or a famous life story somewhere where we have some point of
• 26:00
  reference. That's going to be quite differently pitched than some original worldview of like
• 26:04
  a juno, right, and it's it's a whole You have to know the
• 26:08
  world and the person. And so depends on what it is you're pitching.
• 26:11
  Same thing with a pilot, a pilot for whether it's a comedy or drama,
• 26:18
  it's going to be very much about that driving protagonist because it's maybe a
• 26:22
  serial, it might be a pisodic. Who knows that are we going to
• 26:26
  want to tune into this character week after week? And then in the book,
• 26:30
  I go through everything including reality TV, game shows, documentaries, everything.
• 26:34
  So and it depends on too do you know anything about the people you're
• 26:40
  pitching to. Sometimes who you're pitching to, you can google them and you
• 26:44
  have a good feel for who's going to be in the room. I get
• 26:45
  strategies for how to find out who's going to be in the room. Sometimes
• 26:49
  you're completely prepared and who's in the room is changed by the time you get
• 26:52
  there. Like I had to deal with NPC when when Comcast was acquiring NBC
• 27:00
  Universal. So I had a four year deal, and you would go in
• 27:03
  and who you thought you were pitching to and you've done all your research on
• 27:06
  was different. And I even went in and pitched one day and they had
• 27:08
  to call it off because of the stock shares and who was they were acquiring
• 27:12
  and they couldn't hear of y'all. You know, there's all sorts of stuff
• 27:15
  going on. Same thing with an investor. Are they legit, are they
• 27:18
  real? Are they not? It's just sometimes hard to know who you're pitching
• 27:22
  to, so you want to make sure that you're prepared to kind of lead
• 27:27
  off with some top notes. I often think of like an overture and a
• 27:30
  musical or an opera. It's like boom boom boom, skipping a rock across
• 27:34
  the water, so that they get a sense that there's going to be gunplay,
• 27:37
  there's going to be some fight choreography, there's going to be this epic
• 27:41
  romance. We get a sense of the type of things we're going to be
• 27:45
  seeing, and then you do a deep dive into the character that you're pitching
• 27:48
  to. Maybe the visuals and cinematics to a director, maybe why there's a
• 27:52
  great affinity target audience to an investor. It depends on what you're pitching to.
• 27:56
  Why, who and why? And that's another thing I talk about is
• 28:02
  like a journalism, the who, what, where, when? Why?
• 28:03
  Like think about those things. And so in the book, I did what
• 28:07
  I thought was a lot of fun and I've had a lot of readers read
• 28:11
  it and they loved it. I'm not shooting my own horn. I just
• 28:15
  was really thought every minute, what did I wish I had twenty years ago?
• 28:19
  What does storytellers need to have? And so I did all these works
• 28:25
  sheets and spreadsheets, and here's how to break it down. I have some
• 28:30
  stuff from Blake Snyder in there that would save the cat and all the genres.
• 28:33
  And here's an approach for log lines. And if you don't like that,
• 28:36
  no worries. Here's how to break down a tagline. Here's how to
• 28:38
  use irony, Here's how all the different ways of going from log line to
• 28:45
  synopsis to pitch deck to video, all the different ways, because you might
• 28:49
  have to go backwards and forwards. And that's a big premise of the book
• 28:53
  is as you refine and hone your marketing materials, it becomes real glaring where
• 28:59
  you're problems are in your script right become real clear. So you're rewriting and
• 29:04
  developing as your marketing and as you're pitching, and when you pitch and people
• 29:10
  are confused, it's probably abom in a script, you know, or missed
• 29:15
  opportunity. When someone laughs when they're not supposed to. There's something, there's
• 29:19
  a there's a gap they're waiting for that you you should go back and rewrite
• 29:23
  your script. And not that you should, you know, be influenced by
• 29:26
  all that, but but it's it's not art until someone encounters it, right,
• 29:32
  So what you think is in your head might be quite different. Like
• 29:36
  I don't know if I told you this in the last one, but I
• 29:37
  had a thriller class with Neil Hicks at UCLA that I love, and he
• 29:45
  gave us this exercising class and it was you know what do you want?
• 29:48
  So one character asked the other character what do you want? And my brother
• 29:52
  his wife had just come out of a closet. So this had rocked the
• 29:55
  world of our family. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:03
  and now back to the show. And so I wrote, you know
• 30:08
  what do you want? A divorce? Because to me it was this very
• 30:11
  melodramatic, poignant thing. So I wrote, this is a little exercise,
• 30:15
  and I wrote a divorce, and I did this dialogue back and forth,
• 30:18
  and then he asked us to read it. So here's my family processing this
• 30:22
  challenging thing. And as I'm reading it, the class is in hysterics,
• 30:26
  laughing like it was a spoof or comedy. And I was too embarrassed to
• 30:33
  like I could have cried with how embarrassed I was, but I just kept
• 30:36
  reading it. And at the end Neil Hicks said, that is some of
• 30:38
  the best comedy writing we've ever heard. So they talk about pain plus time.
• 30:44
  Well, I haven't even had the time to see the humor in it.
• 30:47
  But it just shows you that what you think you're expressing, somebody else
• 30:51
  might be getting something quite different based on their worldview or the juxtaposition of what
• 30:56
  you've put together. So it's all about your delivery and their discovery. And
• 31:02
  is there a gap there? And can you is that a missed opportunity or
• 31:07
  do you need to refine your presentation now? And would you agree that Sometimes
• 31:11
  if you are lucky enough to walk into an office or someone's home or or
• 31:17
  you know, to pitching an investor or something like that, and you haven't
• 31:19
  had a chance to do your research because you didn't know who that person was.
• 31:22
  That if you do scan that room and see what they have in the
• 31:26
  room, like, oh they are Laker fans. Oh they got an autograph
• 31:29
  picture of Muhammad Ali. Oh they've got you know, things on the wall.
• 31:32
  Like to kind of like quickly do a profile in your head about them
• 31:36
  and try to connect a create rapport with them in one way, shape or
• 31:38
  form before you even start to pitch, even if it's for a couple of
• 31:41
  minutes. Does that make sense? That's actually an age old sales technique called
• 31:47
  fish on the wall technique. And you walk in and you see the big
• 31:51
  marlin on the wall and you go, hey, did you catch that?
• 31:53
  And it opens up a chance for them to talk about something that they love.
• 31:56
  You may see a photo cube and say, oh, your son's so
• 32:00
  cute he plays soccer. Well, yeah, now he's in college because that
• 32:02
  picture is from when they were five or eight or whatever. But still you
• 32:06
  have a frame of reference. I offer suggest people where ice breaking jewelry or
• 32:12
  like your shirt is the who is it? The camp? Yeah? The
• 32:16
  camp? Yeah, it's just a word that's something. Yeah, well what
• 32:19
  is it though? It's just a place you work out. Yeah, but
• 32:22
  I mean so then we begin to have something to talk about and hustle and
• 32:27
  your baseball cap, indie film hustle. Right, So same thing. I'm
• 32:30
  not wearing anything good. But if I had like a Native American project and
• 32:34
  I had turquoise jewelry and someone said, oh I love that. Oh actually
• 32:37
  Sianmaskazi like boom, and you go right into your story, right. I
• 32:42
  often try to think of what could I wear that will make them. An
• 32:45
  good example, I used to go down every year to the Marlin fishing tournament
• 32:49
  in Cabo San Lucas, where lots and lots of millionaires and billionaires are,
• 32:54
  and he's like twenty five thousand just to fish, right, So I would
• 33:00
  the bag from last year's tournament, so that when I was at Lax and
• 33:04
  you're in this little teeny terminal going to Cablo Saint Lucas, everyone knew you
• 33:07
  were going there, and so by the time you got there you had met
• 33:09
  a few people on the plane you had to switch to a smaller plane.
• 33:13
  They all knew Cablo Saint Lucas. They saw the Bisbee black and blue.
• 33:16
  And then by the time you're on the shuttle, which they always stop at
• 33:20
  someone's house, you know, the Cousins gas station for beer, you have
• 33:24
  made five, six, eight friends before you even got into the hotel.
• 33:29
  Same thing with like the American Film Market, Nappy these things. If you
• 33:31
  bring last year's bag and you're at the Lowe's Hotel, people know that you're
• 33:37
  in that milieu, in that world. So whatever it is that you've got,
• 33:42
  I wouldn't be wearing costumes, but if you have a T shirt or
• 33:45
  yeah, baseball cap something, but even I have like some really cool jewelry
• 33:51
  from the island Morano that's like glass blown, and then you can talk about
• 33:55
  you can figure out a way to have an anecdote that drives you to your
• 33:59
  story. It's just a way to shortcut. I've heard of some of the
• 34:02
  most horrible pitches I've ever heard. I'd love to hear what every one of
• 34:06
  your ones you've heard. But like people like literally dressing up sending chippendale dancers
• 34:12
  to agents, it's not a good thing and it generally does not work if
• 34:16
  you're just trying to get attention for attention sake. That kind of stunted stuff.
• 34:22
  It can work, but from what I mean again, always if it's
• 34:24
  done properly, if it's done well, and it's just generally not A million
• 34:30
  examples are going through my head. And the two that we could talk all
• 34:34
  day about bad pitches, because you know, I've done a million pitch pests
• 34:37
  as I planned and organized millions and whatever. But two that come to mind.
• 34:43
  One was a stripper who did a lap dance as part of her pitch.
• 34:45
  Okay, sure got it. It's fine, but it's a pre me
• 34:50
  too. Clearly, I think every guy in town wanted to hear that pitch.
• 34:53
  He had no interest in her script, so she had to schlep around
• 34:58
  all over town doing lap dance. Is for what like? That's that's not
• 35:01
  going to help you. Another one, This might be incredibly politically incorrect,
• 35:06
  but I will tell you someone came up to me. This was fifteen twenty
• 35:10
  years ago, and I think it was a female to male transgender and he
• 35:19
  was saying that he didn't want that it was a true story. It was
• 35:23
  his story, and he didn't want people taking the meeting just to see what
• 35:29
  he looked like. Right, it was twenty years ago, so it was
• 35:30
  less it was more rare than And I said to him, I said,
• 35:37
  not to be disrespectful, but I wish I had a hook like that.
• 35:42
  And then that the guy laughed. He's like, you know what, You're
• 35:45
  right, like, it is what it is, right, it is what
• 35:47
  it is. So it's not the same as the stripper doing it. It's
• 35:51
  like you give in the room. That's the hook. Okay, now is
• 35:53
  the story there? So there's there's always a hook. There's always an angle
• 35:58
  there. Like I said, I have a million stories of people who have
• 36:00
  done good jobs, bad jobs. It is what it is. I did
• 36:04
  one with Martha's Vineyard project where I went into pitch to I think it was
• 36:12
  NBC's Blue Sky Network USA, so it's USA, and there had there was
• 36:19
  two different execs I was pitching too, and they each had a different assistant
• 36:22
  and so I was doing a lot of coordinating trying to get the two of
• 36:24
  them in the room. And so the day that I came, I took
• 36:29
  chocolate bars from Martha's Vineyard for the two assistants. So it wasn't it was
• 36:35
  a little brown nosing, but it was kind of project specific. They would
• 36:38
  remember. It was just to thank you, I gave it to them off
• 36:42
  to the side, and I think little touches like that are very personal and
• 36:45
  nice, and then they remember that. So I think there's a lot of
• 36:49
  things you can do that are within the scope of not just common courtesy,
• 36:53
  but like I think of I lived in Japan a year. They do ome
• 36:57
  age where they bring a taste of the season. So that was bringing a
• 37:00
  little taste of Martha's vineyard for this comedy that we were pitching to their bosses.
• 37:06
  Uh. In my book, I actually had went around Hollywood pitching with
• 37:09
  a mobster. Uh, you know with the book I wrote a little bit
• 37:14
  ago and that was my hook. Like they I was sitting at the Chateau
• 37:20
  Marmon with some of the biggest actors in the world purely because they exactly they
• 37:24
  just wanted to have a dinner or a coffee or a drink with the mobster
• 37:30
  and he never disappointed. So you use what you got. I guess that's
• 37:36
  the same thing. Like I was talking about the transgender guy, Like I'm
• 37:38
  not I'm not making any kind of a judgment, just that there will be
• 37:42
  that curiosity. Look, you lou kicking tires. It sucks, but why
• 37:45
  not use it? So if you've got a Mafio, so that's willing to
• 37:50
  come with you and Schmooze have at it. Right, I don't think there
• 37:52
  is a Muffia. I don't think there is a Mafio, so that wouldn't
• 37:55
  come around. And Shmrew's it and Shmu's in Hollywood? Are you kidding?
• 38:00
  Yes, they are definitely pitch worthy without question. Right now, how do
• 38:05
  you research potential buyers for either your screenplay or potential projects? Is a lot
• 38:09
  of people just have no idea where to even begin with just searching who's going
• 38:14
  to want this? Yeah, So I cover that real extensively in both books,
• 38:19
  and probably that's one of my that's probably my superhero skill is like,
• 38:23
  my dad was a spy and I was almost a spy, so I don't
• 38:27
  want to see that no idea, didn't I interviewed with the CIA in Arlington,
• 38:30
  Virginia for a week when I was nineteen years old, so my dad
• 38:34
  was Yeah, so my dad was in the Secret Service, and so I
• 38:37
  am like, cool my Spidey skills and spin research and due diligence, so
• 38:44
  a couple of things I learned. Unfortunately, for Sony, you know,
• 38:47
  they had that huge Heathy Leak. I did not know this, but this
• 38:52
  is a terrible uh tip to give people. But it's true, and you
• 38:55
  know, once it's on the Internet, it's out there forever. If you're
• 38:59
  trying to down contact information for someone, like let's say, you know it's
• 39:02
  at CAAA dot com, Like you know the domain name right, and you
• 39:07
  know their name if you put in like if you put in Alex Ferrari plus
• 39:13
  at indiefilm Hustle dot com, something like that, and just do a search
• 39:17
  for that. What I found was a goldline of all the Sony press releases
• 39:23
  that pulled up that person's name that had whatever their actual email address was below
• 39:30
  because it came up on all these different documents, and now you've got their
• 39:35
  contact information. So that's better than variety insight. That's better than i'm dbpro
• 39:40
  it's the stuff they're using internally. So I shouldn't share that because it'll probably
• 39:45
  I'll scramble to change it. But that's been an amazing resource for contact info.
• 39:51
  But I also do like, I'm sure you have run into investors who
• 39:58
  are not investors. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:07
  and now back to the show. No, never, they're all on the
• 40:12
  up and up right, they all have millions. This is my favorite.
• 40:15
  This is my favorite. They say it's only five million. I don't.
• 40:17
  That's no problem at all. I could do five million in my sleep.
• 40:21
  I don't even get up for lessens. But I can't pick up lunch right
• 40:23
  now. I can't pick up lunch. And their shoes are cheap from k
• 40:28
  less right now, there's anything wrong with payless shoes. But if you're saying
• 40:32
  you have five million dollars to invest, you should have paylessues. That's all
• 40:36
  I'm saying, because we can have shoes for kles because we're asking for five
• 40:39
  million, exactly so exactly so. Something else I've started to do is put
• 40:45
  in the name plus scam plus scandal plus fraud plus you know, and find
• 40:52
  out because someone somewhere will have said, this guy's a total fraud, it's
• 40:57
  a skit. So using those search terms, you know, become a world
• 41:01
  class internet search person, because you you'd be amazed what you find. And
• 41:09
  even if you find, you know who is it Zuckerberg. Anyone who has
• 41:15
  ten million friends is bound to have a few enemies. You're bound to find
• 41:19
  some dirt on anybody, so you can see if it's legit or not.
• 41:22
  You can see that. So but finding out what they've done. I had
• 41:27
  an example where I won't use it. I won't usay any names, but
• 41:31
  basically somebody tried to bully me and they won into optioning one of my best
• 41:37
  projects, saying that they had produced a little movie called and then I won't
• 41:44
  say what it is because it's going to be too easy trackdown. They produced
• 41:46
  a little movie called X Y Z. And then when I did some due
• 41:51
  diligence, they have been the second unit producer, second unit line producer.
• 41:55
  Oh my god, so I had optioned at the time, this was pre
• 42:00
  like I should have gone into the bathroom and IMDb to see that they were
• 42:06
  second unit line producer. That's quite different than even if you have one thing
• 42:09
  first line producer. That doesn't mean anything. A wild difference to cut checks
• 42:15
  out of a checking account that somebody else got money into, right, So
• 42:21
  just do your due diligence like crazy. And then, unfortunately, and I've
• 42:24
  found this, if you find someone who has a company name that's really common,
• 42:28
  odds are they chose it because it's really common And you can never quite
• 42:31
  suss them out. So you just there's so many people playing Hollywood. Like,
• 42:37
  if I could go back in time and clean my calendar of all the
• 42:42
  people who wasted my time, how much have like Pulitzer Prize, Nobel winning
• 42:45
  projects right, because we would have all that time back. So do your
• 42:52
  due diligence, and you know, pay attention to red flags because red flags
• 42:55
  don't get better. Yes, without questions. But but I am I am
• 43:01
  shocked to hear all these stories about the business. I've never I could never
• 43:06
  imagine something like that happening and our business. No, it's and aren't this
• 43:13
  is shocking, shocking, shocking, shocking someone. And that's the problem is
• 43:19
  a lot of people are playing Hollywood, playing Hollywood. I wan playing Hollywood.
• 43:25
  So you need to figure out are they I mean, it's one thing,
• 43:29
  like I have respect for the guy who's trying to fund his fluffs breakthrough.
• 43:36
  Fine, if you're going to put up money or whoever, their son,
• 43:40
  their daughter, if they're going to put up money to get a break
• 43:45
  for someone, I'm all over it. Let's surround them with the best talent.
• 43:50
  Let's give like, let's get you your money back, Like, let's
• 43:52
  just be honest about what we're trying to do here. But it's when the
• 43:55
  people are playing Hollywood, they don't really have the money. So you know,
• 44:00
  I'm a former mortgage banker, so I'm pretty good at tracking down to
• 44:01
  see if people have the money or not, because in mortgage banking you have
• 44:06
  to do proof of funds. If you ask for a proof of funds,
• 44:08
  a legit investor will give you proof of funds. They may walk out the
• 44:14
  account number they may have. It just be a letter of from the bank
• 44:17
  manager saying that they have X number of digits. It's none of your business,
• 44:22
  but just some third party verification. Lots of ways to prove that.
• 44:27
  So it's exhausting. I could see it in your face just talking about it.
• 44:31
  You're exhausted about it, like I was involved. I'll tell you two
• 44:37
  things that we've got to move on because I'll just get sick to my stomach.
• 44:42
  So I won a senate accommodation from California State Senate for helping Samone Capistrano
• 44:47
  stay out of the junk bond scandal when Orange County file bankruptcy. San Ue
• 44:52
  Capistrano is the only city to not be dragged through that, and so I
• 44:55
  was the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce. I was really actively involved
• 44:59
  in saving a historic building. YadA YadA, YadA. But we saw that
• 45:02
  coming like a train wreck, like there are signals. There was also a
• 45:07
  company and I'll go ahead and say it because it was a big deal,
• 45:09
  Quest Financial that pulled a scam on lots and lots of films. I won't
• 45:15
  mention them, but there are films you will have heard of. We thought
• 45:19
  we had thirty million raised, we thought we had money in escrow, like
• 45:22
  and I actually had the FBI call me and say you help us, Like
• 45:27
  I was involved in that investigation because I was the one company that pulled out
• 45:32
  and said I said to my partners, who are all high profile, I
• 45:36
  say guarantee you in the eleventh hour, they're going to switch ESCRA companies.
• 45:38
  So they're going to say there was a problem with the wire. They have
• 45:42
  to switch ESCRA companies. And what's going to happen is people who are supposed
• 45:45
  to put skin in the game, who have to put just four hundred thousand,
• 45:47
  right, because you're getting thirty million, this is your skin in the
• 45:51
  game. You're going to go and that's going to not be that building won't
• 45:54
  be there because there's there will be fraud. So there were I helped try
• 46:00
  to help them figure this all out, but unfortunately, not a week goes
• 46:04
  by. You think of the people who are all those Internet scams with that
• 46:08
  you inherited money that all this time Nigerian Prince, yes prince, or even
• 46:15
  the social security scams that are going on. Unfortunately goes on in our business
• 46:17
  all the time, where people say they're going to hire you as a line
• 46:21
  producer for a project and they're going to wire you money and you need to
• 46:23
  buy equipment. The equipment is going to somebody else that's cash out of your
• 46:27
  account because the fund's bounced. So the scams are just it is exhausting.
• 46:35
  I'll tell you, I'll tell you my FBI story if you'd like to.
• 46:38
  Yeahs yes, So the worst. And I've never spoken about this on the
• 46:46
  any of my shows because it's just never come up. But it's not something
• 46:51
  that you actually, you know, talk about a lot. But I was
• 46:53
  called by the FBI, which is not a phone call you want to get
• 46:57
  because when you get it, you're like, hey, this is the FBI.
• 47:00
  I'm like, no, who is this And they're like sir, where
• 47:04
  the FBI. We're like, oh god, and they're like, were you
• 47:06
  were you attached to this proc? Did you work on these projects with these
• 47:09
  producers? And I'm like, yeah, I did. I worked in post
• 47:12
  and I just like, we're flying down to interview you. They've been indicted
• 47:15
  and we want to see if we're going to use you as a witness,
• 47:19
  and we just want to hear your side of the store and not your side
• 47:21
  I'm not in trouble. You're like, hang on, let me just check
• 47:23
  with my mafia so see what exactly this is. Thankfully, years years later
• 47:30
  and my documentation of the Mafia story. The Mafia Story has been documented in
• 47:35
  my book, which is available I'll find bookstores on Amazon as we speak.
• 47:40
  But this was a completely separate thing. I mean, this is probably about
• 47:45
  ten years later. But man, and then they I had him come over.
• 47:47
  We had a sat sit down and we talked over over a coffee No
• 47:52
  no, no, no, it didn't come up a house. We've been
• 47:52
  met at a coffee shop. I'm like, hey, come over and we
• 47:54
  sat down and then afterwards after we felt they felt that like, Okay,
• 47:59
  this guy was obst not involved with anything, and it was cool. Then
• 48:01
  of course I'm talking. Then of course I'm like, so do you watch
• 48:05
  the X Files Area fifty one? Is it real? Come on, tell
• 48:07
  me, tell me? And I just they just start laughing. They just
• 48:09
  start pissing themselves. But it's a serious thing. Another project that was involved
• 48:14
  with the director went to jail because he defrauded tax tax incentives because he told
• 48:22
  he told the state that he paid an actor six million dollars when he actually
• 48:25
  only paid them six hundred thousand dollars right, and probably pocketed and pocket and
• 48:30
  pocketed the difference, and then all of a sudden he's in jail for five
• 48:32
  years. That's hurting not just the irs, but it's also hurting your investors.
• 48:37
  It's hurting the project. It's hurting the star. Everyone's pissed at the
• 48:42
  star because he's making six million when he's only making six hundred thousand. Like
• 48:45
  the lies that go backwards and forwards is, like you said, exhausting,
• 48:51
  and I will say not just in sales. There's, like we talked about
• 48:55
  the beginning, you have to project that you're bigger than you are. You
• 48:59
  have to buy hayless shoes on the first day and with them before they get
• 49:02
  scuffed and fall apart like you have to. We're it's all smoke and mirrors.
• 49:07
  So there are people who are hammering their crew down saying that their budget
• 49:13
  is six hundred thousand, and they turn around and tell the investor or the
• 49:15
  distributor that it's a million dollar project. Well that is truck because the distributor
• 49:22
  will say, well, it's a million dollars wrong, We're going to give
• 49:23
  you six hundred thousand. Well, now you're good, right, But then
• 49:27
  the crews find out you're getting it's a million dollar project. You will meet
• 49:30
  a quarter more an hour, and then they're striking like it's tough. It's
• 49:35
  tough. It's a balancing it's a balancing act of that kind of stuff.
• 49:37
  But we have gone off the rails here, which is but it's fantastic because
• 49:43
  actually it's all very very good information for people listening. Listen. You know,
• 49:47
  you and I have been around the business for a long time. We've
• 49:50
  seen a lot of stuff and and I tell you some people have not.
• 49:53
  Like I know people right now listening to this podcast, their minds are blown.
• 50:00
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 50:07
  to the show. Completely by some of the things that you and I take
• 50:10
  for granted because we've experienced it so many times. But out there, that's
• 50:15
  who they're marking. That's their mark, the guy or the girl listening to
• 50:17
  I think in the last podcast about the thing I overheard at the market right
• 50:22
  about taking skimming off the top of the SAG bond. No, no,
• 50:25
  no, no, no, don't tell us that. So I was at
• 50:29
  the American Film Market and I overheard one distributor training a wet behind the ears
• 50:36
  another distributor sales agent basically saying that the contract should read that they make a
• 50:40
  commission off all proceeds. So what that means is is you know how you
• 50:45
  put up a SAG bond right to pay all your actors. Yeah, so
• 50:50
  let's say that bond is a million dollars, depends on whatever your budget is.
• 50:53
  Sure, you put up that bond to guarantee SAG. After that you
• 50:58
  will pay your actors. So when that refund of your bond your savings account,
• 51:05
  that the positive the composit that you have allocated to pay pay roll comes
• 51:09
  back through the account, they take a commission off the top of you getting
• 51:14
  your own deposit back. So you got to and they're teaching one another how
• 51:17
  to screw independent filmmakers. So you just got to watch. I know,
• 51:22
  shocking, it's shocking. I can't a distributor. Never I thought they were.
• 51:25
  They were, they were the creme of the crab. Never a distributor.
• 51:30
  Yeah, So, I mean it's just I'm not jaded. I love
• 51:32
  what we do and love what we do. We are lucky to get to
• 51:37
  tell stories, to connect, you know, I love it. You just
• 51:40
  have to pay attention to the daisy chain of middlemen in the middle and the
• 51:45
  people who are not creators. I also find that with agents and managers and
• 51:49
  entertainmentaries, and there's a lot of good ones in the business, but by
• 51:52
  the time there's one creator to another and there's twelve, you know, dominoes
• 51:57
  in the middle. By the time the two create can talk together, they
• 52:00
  have a shared vision and they want as much as they can get on the
• 52:04
  screen. They want to be honest and authentic to the material. It's all
• 52:07
  people in the middle who just take a piece off top. Every time your
• 52:10
  money changes hands, someone's getting a piece of it. So it's just a
• 52:14
  tough, tough business. And still we're in it and we're here and we're
• 52:19
  still psychotic enough to do this on a daily vase and smile and smile about
• 52:23
  it, because we're all psychotic and we're all a little bit crazy inside.
• 52:28
  I often say, if I won the lottery, I'd wake up and keep
• 52:30
  doing what I'm doing, only hell of a lot easier. I know exactly
• 52:35
  what projects I'd be working on and who I'd be hiring. I keep doing
• 52:38
  it, it would just be easier. It'd be a lot easier, without
• 52:42
  question. Now, do you have any marketing tips for screenwriters and also filmmakers
• 52:49
  to either help them with their own personal brand or the brand of the project,
• 52:53
  Because I have something like a movie like Kung Fury. I don't know
• 52:57
  if you ever heard of that movie that did so well that they're you're doing
• 53:00
  the future of it now. That was such a well branded I mean so
• 53:02
  brilliantly Brandon with some guy from Sweden I think, or something like that who
• 53:07
  did it. And then that's a great example of a project branding. But
• 53:10
  then there's filmmaker branding as well, or screenwriter branding in general. Like any
• 53:15
  advice you have on marketing tips on how you can get them out there well
• 53:22
  it's funny because you know you also it's the flip side of the coin.
• 53:24
  The more you brand yourself, the more pigeonholed you are. And then you
• 53:28
  want to shift from a historical biopick to a thriller, and oh, that's
• 53:31
  not what she writes, you know. So I think I think Jeff Arch
• 53:35
  who wrote Sleepers and Seattle, said once at a selling to Hollywood, you
• 53:38
  get nouns and verbs, right, nouns and verbs. If you're going to
• 53:44
  use an adjective, they need to be precious. So with you, with
• 53:47
  your project, with your brand, make sure that you're thinking of your adjectives
• 53:52
  as almost SEO search engine optimization words like are you? Is it a hip
• 53:59
  word that's going to conjure that affinity market, the right age demographic? Is
• 54:05
  it? Are they words that really clearly dilionate your worldview the sensibility, Like
• 54:15
  if you think of Wes Anderson, or you think of John Chrishiam, I
• 54:17
  mean you can think of Stephen Key, you can think of some of these
• 54:21
  people, or you think of like Jane the Virgin, like it's a kind
• 54:24
  of a campy telenovela with its tongue in its cheek, like it's really fresh
• 54:29
  in the now. I mean it's much it's been around for a long time.
• 54:31
  Big Bang theory, you know, making peeks hot, like all the
• 54:35
  different things they did, they knew what they were going after and what they
• 54:39
  were creating. So I think it's the same thing for you. If you
• 54:43
  have a project is easier to brand than a person because the person might want
• 54:47
  to evolve and change is and you know, you look at the Beatles and
• 54:50
  the different influences they incorporated as they all right, so music from India,
• 54:55
  like whatever it was that they were doing, they were evolving. So I
• 54:59
  think it's important that you make sure that what you're the niche you're carving out
• 55:05
  for that project is really crystal clear to that niche. And that's a huge
• 55:08
  part of the collaborative process and making sure you're all making the same movie.
• 55:14
  You know, even in a writer's group, that you don't have people trying
• 55:16
  to tuget and tell their story with your script, Like what is the story
• 55:20
  you're trying to tell? And make sure you honor that vision and then beyond
• 55:24
  that, how do you communicate that? And even you know, I've done
• 55:30
  some faith based things that are not necessarily the Christian faith based, but you
• 55:37
  want to not alienate people who aren't feeling that, So you know, how
• 55:42
  can you kind of play down some elements so that you can get these pieces
• 55:45
  of the puzzle and then play up those benefits to other people? So it's
• 55:50
  what are the pieces of the puzzle? Same thing with ethnicity, you know,
• 55:54
  I always try I have a couple of projects now where the characters are
• 55:59
  like George Chris could be a girl or a guide could be black, white,
• 56:04
  Asian, Native American, Like I'm cool with that. So I try
• 56:07
  to like write color blind unless it's really important that it's a ginger scotsman,
• 56:12
  right, Like if it's not to be something that that woman has to be
• 56:15
  middle aged or postman apozzle to that that's what the story is, so whatever
• 56:20
  the issue is. But otherwise, can you be color blind and you're writing
• 56:24
  and you're casting, so that now if you're going to if you're pitching that
• 56:30
  to an African American woman to play the lead, that same pitch package could
• 56:32
  go to an Asian guy to play that same role because it's a thriller and
• 56:37
  they are an agent or whatever. So how do you how are you?
• 56:42
  It's all comes down to who you're pitching to and why? What are you
• 56:45
  trying to get out of them? You know, are you trying to get
• 56:47
  them to fall in love with that role? Are you trying to get them
• 56:52
  to feel like they're going to make their money back? Are you trying to
• 56:53
  get them to open their doors after hours for a location? Like? What
• 56:58
  is the reason you're what are you trying to do with that? Excellent?
• 57:01
  Now, I also want to ask you, because you're out there and you're
• 57:05
  you're in the in the trenches, as they say, what's easy? I
• 57:08
  know, right, what's one of these days? I want to not be
• 57:13
  in the trenches. I want to be like at the Camson Festival on the
• 57:16
  balcony, not in the trenches or on a yacht somewhere. But yeah,
• 57:20
  I'm in the trenches. I can set I can. I can sense that
• 57:22
  from you. I can sense we all want to be at the top of
• 57:24
  the mountain with Stielberg and Cameron and all these kind of guys could just do
• 57:29
  whatever they want, whenever they want. But until that day comes, we're
• 57:32
  here huffing it. So as as as we are here down in the trenches,
• 57:37
  these are the good old days. We just don't know it yet,
• 57:39
  right exactly. These are the stories that will tell These are the stories that
• 57:44
  we'll tell on the yachts. Oh no, but so TV projects or feature
• 57:51
  film projects, what's the bett? What's a good market right now? What's
• 57:54
  where's the most opportunity or in general, what is where is there the most
• 57:59
  opportunity for content creators, screenwriters, filmmakers to make it a dent? Well,
• 58:05
  I haven't. I have an opinion, not advice. So I've got
• 58:09
  lots of opinions. I think no one knows. And if I knew,
• 58:14
  I'd have a crystal ball and we would be on that yacht having a really
• 58:16
  fine wine right now. So I'm not saying I'm the oracle. I have
• 58:22
  my opinions, and my opinion is film and television. I first wrote the
• 58:25
  first book, you know, my book Proposal said that film and television were
• 58:30
  converging, and eleven people thought that was really insightful. And one person's like,
• 58:35
  no, they're not. They're totally different business models. They're totally different.
• 58:37
  No, they're converging. They're so converging it's so seamless. Now the
• 58:42
  viewer doesn't care how that content got to them, whether it was satellite or
• 58:47
  you know, coaxle cables or cell service. They don't care if it's on
• 58:52
  an iPhone screen, a big screen. There was screen. There's home cinemas
• 58:59
  at home or as as good as they are, even better than some of
• 59:00
  the cineplex at the mall. So that convergence is pretty incredible. What everyone
• 59:07
  wants. Remember in the old days with websites, what they called it sticky,
• 59:08
  a sticky website. They want sticky TV now and what is TV?
• 59:14
  Is TV? Cable, broadcast? Is it streaming? Like? What is
• 59:16
  it? It's just content. It's all content. And so what they want
• 59:22
  is whether they're ads supported, whether they're subscription supportive models, whether they are
• 59:30
  you know, there's so many different models. Now what they want is addictive,
• 59:36
  binge worthy, marquee value stuff. And so I think the biggest opportunity
• 59:42
  at the moment is limited events series, anthology series. It's serial programming,
• 59:46
  whether it's episodic look at Black Mirror or which only did three episodes, I
• 59:52
  guess in their next season, which is kind of odd. We'll be right
• 59:55
  back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 1:00:05
  But who cares like it's whatever the stories require so is it or like twilight
• 1:00:09
  Zone they're rebooting. You know these kinds of anthology series where the brand American
• 1:00:15
  horror story, true detective, the genre unifies them and you know that you
• 1:00:19
  can come back week after week and get that kind of thing. Who knows
• 1:00:22
  who's going to be starring in it? Or like one hour dramas and cereals,
• 1:00:28
  your your Netflix and Amazon and who you know. Hulu just won its
• 1:00:31
  first Emmy for Handmaide's Tail. So all of these things. They want people
• 1:00:37
  who are going to be loyal and come back, whether it's appointment viewing or
• 1:00:40
  binge viewing or just wanting to talk about it because we've had this nonlinear time
• 1:00:45
  shift where people don't talk around the watercolor anymore. Right, you could have
• 1:00:50
  seen all of Game of Thrones and I might not have seen any of it.
• 1:00:52
  So how do we engage on that? And that's what's happening with your
• 1:00:57
  your got talents all around the world. Is it's lie they want this.
• 1:01:00
  It's either got to be live and you have to be. It's that fear
• 1:01:02
  of missing out we're talking about, you know, So again it depends,
• 1:01:07
  is it reality documentaries are having a total resurgence of renaissance now because it's easier
• 1:01:14
  to find these things. So I think again, it's all about identifying your
• 1:01:16
  target audience and being authentic and true to the material. And there's some series
• 1:01:22
  out there where one episode is eleven minutes and another one is forty four.
• 1:01:25
  It's whatever the story needed to be for that chapter. So we have so
• 1:01:30
  much freedom as storytellers today, and with the fragmentation of the dial and I
• 1:01:35
  often think of millennials going, what dial, right, what's a dial?
• 1:01:38
  It's a dial? Like they don't even know, they don't even have this
• 1:01:42
  frame of reference. So we have to be able to shift with that and
• 1:01:45
  know that at the end of the day, people like there's so many jobs
• 1:01:50
  in our industry and around the world in every industry that are being taken over
• 1:01:53
  by robots. It's tough for a robot to tell a story. Yeah,
• 1:01:58
  you know, they can't not well, they can't. They can't. But
• 1:02:01
  it's all based on older people's I saw AI doing it. There was I
• 1:02:06
  have a whole episode on coming up about that, like AI and and how
• 1:02:10
  they wrote it. But it's all algorithm based and it's all based on old
• 1:02:15
  scripts, right, And it's just not it's it's not there. Yeah.
• 1:02:20
  So that's where I think. I don't even know if I'm answering the question
• 1:02:22
  now, but I'm interested in what we're talking about. You no, no,
• 1:02:23
  no, I got you made it. You made it a very good
• 1:02:27
  answer to it. But it's being tapped into not just the zeitgeist that's current,
• 1:02:31
  but what matters to you, like, what's frustrating to you, what
• 1:02:36
  kisses you off, what's inspiring to you, Because if you're authentic and real
• 1:02:39
  about that, you're going to find others for whom that's true as well.
• 1:02:45
  And the more you can stay stick to the truth, the more like specific
• 1:02:49
  it is, the more universal it is. So I think, I think
• 1:02:52
  we're in an amazing time. And I think if you just keep sticking to
• 1:02:54
  your guns and stay in the trenches and keep hustling and huffen, you know,
• 1:03:00
  good work rises to the crimea crop. Now, tell me a little
• 1:03:05
  bit about the book. We've talked a lot about stuff inside the book,
• 1:03:07
  but just tell us exactly what the book is. Where can people find it
• 1:03:09
  when it's available. It's called story Selling How to develop, market and pitch
• 1:03:15
  your film and TV projects. It's a Michael Weezy book, and it's there's
• 1:03:20
  a link on my website, Heatherhail dot com Forward slash Story selling that it's
• 1:03:24
  a pre order on Amazon, so they actually can order it now, but
• 1:03:28
  they don't ship till July. So it's done, it's ready to go.
• 1:03:31
  So I don't know what happens in that process of how hard is it to
• 1:03:35
  hit print right and whoever, like get it to you. So it's coming
• 1:03:39
  out and I have had a lot of people read it, and like I
• 1:03:43
  said, not to toot my own horn, but it's really good. I'm
• 1:03:45
  really proud of it. I think I have had people who've been in the
• 1:03:47
  business thirty years who are like, I would read this for every project,
• 1:03:51
  So I'm really pleased with that. And people who've never written anything are like,
• 1:03:54
  oh, okay, this is It's not rocket science, and it's not
• 1:03:59
  colored by numbers either, but there are some steps and there's some things to
• 1:04:02
  think about, and there's a lot of fantastic books out there on everything under
• 1:04:06
  the sun, but I didn't feel like there was a book out there that
• 1:04:10
  explain these things that we're all scrambling to create all the time. Pitch decks,
• 1:04:14
  serious bibles, rip omtics, like what are these words? How do
• 1:04:17
  you pull them together? And do you need a treatment for every project?
• 1:04:23
  Like like and are what order do they get done in? So and it's
• 1:04:26
  I talk a lot about like you know, it's the affinity backwards and forwards,
• 1:04:30
  backwards and forwards. It's it's a never ending process. And it can
• 1:04:33
  be development health or it can be I talk about, you know, a
• 1:04:38
  reduction sauce. You take this huge soup treene and reduce everything down, take
• 1:04:43
  great fantastic ingredients and get to the essence of each of those elements and let
• 1:04:46
  them shine. And that's what you're trying to do. And I also think
• 1:04:50
  of like kindergarten rooms with feng Shue, like everything should have a place,
• 1:04:54
  you know, meson place, meson scene. Everything's got a place. And
• 1:04:58
  do you have all the pieces you need, all the elements so that somebody
• 1:05:00
  can help you achieve your dream. Give them the pieces they need to sell
• 1:05:04
  on your behalf. Now I'm gonna ask you questions, ask all of my
• 1:05:08
  guests, what are what advice would you give a filmmaker one to break into
• 1:05:13
  the business today, Get a job, get a real job. I would
• 1:05:20
  not get a job in the business. I would as a good piece of
• 1:05:23
  advice. It's not a bad advice. I would say, you know,
• 1:05:29
  write what you know, or write what you need to know, like follow
• 1:05:31
  that process of discovery so that you're writing stuff that you would want to watch.
• 1:05:36
  Surround yourself with really fantastic people. Trust your gut instincts. If you
• 1:05:43
  if someone makes your skin crawl run and if you really enjoy someone and they
• 1:05:47
  improve your writing or they improve they're a good collaborator. Like spend time with
• 1:05:53
  people that you know. These productions can be, as you well know,
• 1:05:59
  just holy. And so you want to be surrounded by people who make you
• 1:06:03
  laugh, who make you feel good about yourself, who make you step to
• 1:06:06
  the plate to create the best work. Don't surround yourself with naysayers and people
• 1:06:12
  who make you question yourself and are hypercritical. I mean, it's all about
• 1:06:16
  people at the end of the day, not just the people you're working with,
• 1:06:19
  and not just you know, the people you're accountable to, whether they're
• 1:06:25
  investors or distributors, but also think about what you're putting out into the communal
• 1:06:29
  consciousness. Is that something that you want to be part of your legacy?
• 1:06:33
  But really think about that, you know, put out their images that you
• 1:06:38
  want out there. I think people often try to count out to the to
• 1:06:42
  the market and what they think is good. But how about what we wish
• 1:06:45
  was good, what we wish that was that was that was good? I
• 1:06:49
  like that one that was that was good. That was a good one.
• 1:06:53
  I like that one that was actually really really good that the rest of it
• 1:06:58
  was scrapped. But this, no, no, that was actually really cool.
• 1:07:02
  Can you tell me a book that had the biggest impact on your life
• 1:07:04
  or career? Oh? Yeah, I probably shouldn't because it'll reveal my politics.
• 1:07:13
  Iron Rand Atlas Shrug and the Fountain at I'm a libertarian through and through.
• 1:07:18
  Fair enough, fair enough. You know, she came from Russia and
• 1:07:21
  she you know, so I don't know that we're that we have the American
• 1:07:26
  dream right now, or real capitalism or real democracy, but what what we
• 1:07:30
  hoped it would be. You know, that's pretty pure in that. And
• 1:07:33
  I know those people can't stand her. Hey, everyone's got every I asked
• 1:07:38
  you a question, what was the book the impacted you? And that was
• 1:07:40
  the book? And that's all good. Yeah, Now what is the lesson
• 1:07:45
  that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film business or in
• 1:07:46
  life. I'm probably still learning it. Well, there's several things I would
• 1:07:53
  I guess one of them is life's not fair. You know, I wish.
• 1:07:57
  I mean, that's it, it's really I wish life was fair,
• 1:07:59
  and it's not. It's not a meritocracy. You know. The best person
• 1:08:02
  doesn't always win. And sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you work, It
• 1:08:06
  doesn't matter how hard you want it. Life isn't fair and it stocks.
• 1:08:11
  But you just gotta keep you gotta keep rustling. You gotta keep rustling,
• 1:08:15
  hold on. Only life was fair. Oh my gosh, Well, would
• 1:08:19
  there be better? There'll be a lot better movies in the world. That's
• 1:08:21
  like that comedy and that thriller if life were fair? Now fast, right
• 1:08:30
  now. What is the biggest fear you've had to overcome in your career just
• 1:08:34
  to kind of make those first few projects? Oh? Well, a million,
• 1:08:39
  of course. I think everybody has the I'm not good enough, yes,
• 1:08:43
  imposture syndrome. So I'm not worried about that issue. I think a
• 1:08:47
  huge part of it. This is probably way too truthful, but it's just
• 1:08:53
  coming to me. I'm not married because I have suffered so many betrayals and
• 1:08:59
  divorces per professionally that I'm in a happily committed, eleven year, solid,
• 1:09:04
  rock solid romance. But I think I'm just so I feel like I've been
• 1:09:09
  divorced twenty five times, right, right, It's just I don't look when
• 1:09:16
  you're with a project for three, four, five years and you and you
• 1:09:19
  keep in like, oh, it's almost almost there. It's oh no,
• 1:09:21
  it's almost there. It's almost always o. Nobody's about to drop us.
• 1:09:25
  If the rug keeps getting pulled out from under you, you stop. They
• 1:09:28
  had a ring on it. Like every time I've had a project, I
• 1:09:30
  was in a payer play offer and the first check had cleared and the contract
• 1:09:33
  was signed in it so apart and I didn't get either pay or play,
• 1:09:39
  Like how does that happen? Why is life not there? Like I vetted
• 1:09:43
  everybody, Like every project, I get a step further and then like like
• 1:09:48
  there's a million ways to get screwed in this business, and I've been screwed
• 1:09:51
  by all of them, and I just keep thinking I run out of them
• 1:09:55
  and the next one Like so I don't know, I don't know what the
• 1:09:58
  lesson is there, But we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:10:06
  and now back to the show. You just have to again have people
• 1:10:14
  in your life that you can turn to who can help you see the irony
• 1:10:16
  and the life lessons and the comedy in the shit that we put up with,
• 1:10:21
  Like there's always a pony there. Maybe that it's just not in that
• 1:10:26
  room right right, or it's just a couple of guys in a horse outfit
• 1:10:31
  we're in like Horton, here is a who and we're looking in all the
• 1:10:35
  wrong rooms that are full of shit, Like there's a pony here somewhere.
• 1:10:39
  I don't know where it is. But well, I'm glad this turned into
• 1:10:42
  a therapy session. I'm glad I could help you with this. No,
• 1:10:45
  listen, listen. I actually I absolutely feel you feel I've had so many
• 1:10:48
  projects fall apart, and but for whatever reason, we're still here here and
• 1:10:55
  we and then I don't know if that says something about the business or us
• 1:10:59
  or both. You've gone with the wind. When Scarlett o'hari is standing there
• 1:11:03
  and it's I think a civil war, so war revolutionary's still it's a civil
• 1:11:08
  war. It's work and there's all those dead souldiers yea, and they're rolling
• 1:11:12
  up. That's us Man in Hollywood, right, and you look around and
• 1:11:17
  you're like, I recognize him from twenty years ago. And I used to
• 1:11:21
  hate her guts, but she's a trooper. She's still here. We're going
• 1:11:25
  to be friends. Like you just at some point you see who the survivors
• 1:11:29
  are, and that's us Man. I know what. And it's so true.
• 1:11:32
  And I hope, I mean, I hope we have not scared off
• 1:11:34
  a whole gaggle of people listening to this episode. Listeners, No, but
• 1:11:41
  you know what this is. But this is the truth of the business.
• 1:11:44
  And I'm always like my mantras, follow your dream, but don't be an
• 1:11:46
  idiot. And it's it's like, I'm all about the positivity and the motivation.
• 1:11:50
  You've got to go for it, but you have to be aware of
• 1:11:54
  what's out there. And that was the main purpose I even opened up indie
• 1:11:57
  film Hustle and Bulletproof Screenplay or screen in the first place, because I wanted
• 1:12:01
  this kind of information out there because it's not taught in schools. It's generally
• 1:12:06
  not in books. It's stuff that you hear about in the fact at drinks
• 1:12:12
  at AFM or in a coffee and you never hear the whole show each other
• 1:12:17
  exactly. You're lucky enough to overhear a conversation like this, and that's why
• 1:12:20
  I wanted to bring people like you on the show. So I'm grateful for
• 1:12:25
  your honesty and care. I'm grateful that you're out there doing this and I'm
• 1:12:28
  not the other ones of your episodes, I mean, they're great, So
• 1:12:30
  I'm honored to be on here. And I hope, I hope I said
• 1:12:34
  stuff that was cathartic to people who feel like idiots, because you're not an
• 1:12:40
  idiot, like it's happening to the people. The people who got screwed in
• 1:12:44
  that other deal were third generation filmmakers. Yeah, everybody, everybody. I
• 1:12:48
  thought, you know what, they've got credits. I would be I've killed
• 1:12:51
  have and I saw it coming. And not that my nose hasn't been kicked
• 1:12:56
  on many times, but you see them again, they're patterns you can recognize.
• 1:13:00
  So just it's not fair. It sucks. Get over it and you
• 1:13:04
  yourself and write great stuff and do stuff that makes it at the end of
• 1:13:10
  the day worth it. Yes, right, And at the end of all
• 1:13:14
  of this, you didn't write some schluck and you didn't throw together some piece
• 1:13:17
  of shit that someone else could have like make it work worthwhile without question.
• 1:13:24
  And I have one last question. Three of your favorite films of all time?
• 1:13:28
  Oh well always shash In Redemption is. Oh yes, it's top as
• 1:13:32
  well, also number one recently booted from. I think I need to do
• 1:13:39
  a list where you have the how long they've been on the list? Brand
• 1:13:42
  new one is greatest Showman. I really enjoyed, loved that, loved it.
• 1:13:49
  And then there's a bunch that would be neck and neck for third,
• 1:13:54
  and in there would for sure be Waking That Divine. I love Waking That
• 1:13:59
  Divide. It's that's a really little film, big Fish. I was in
• 1:14:01
  there, Yeah, Tim Burton, and there's one. There's a million of
• 1:14:06
  them. I have a list. I did a list on my website top
• 1:14:10
  ten films, and at two hundred and thirty one, I had to stop.
• 1:14:14
  So now I just go in and sometimes update the top ten. But
• 1:14:18
  I always tell people if if you haven't seen Shashank Redemption, or if you
• 1:14:21
  don't if you don't like shosh Ank Redemption, you are dead inside and we
• 1:14:26
  can't have a conversation. I've yet to meet someone who didn't like shosh Ank
• 1:14:29
  Redemption. And even if they did, if they heard me say these things,
• 1:14:31
  they probably wouldn't admit it to it. But every time, by the
• 1:14:34
  way, anyone listening, anytime I get a bad review or someone doesn't like
• 1:14:39
  something I do, this is all. I google bad review, Shashank Redemption,
• 1:14:44
  and they exist, and you read these things and they were from big,
• 1:14:48
  big reviewers, and you just sit there going, wow's interesting. Though,
• 1:14:55
  shrash Ink is a really good example. I'm not going to say bad
• 1:14:59
  branding or marketing. It was bad. It was. It was bad branding,
• 1:15:01
  horrible. I did not want to see Shawshank Redemption. I have no
• 1:15:05
  interest in seeing this police jail drop like zero interest. It came out,
• 1:15:11
  everyone talked about it, there was I had no interest. It took me
• 1:15:14
  like a year and a half to see Shashank Redemption. And when I did,
• 1:15:16
  I can't tell you how many times I've seen it. So that is
• 1:15:18
  that makes me feel better again. Bad branding, bad advertising, bad marketing,
• 1:15:24
  whatever it was. But at the end of the day, it didn't
• 1:15:27
  matter because it was so good it is and it's played a thousand times.
• 1:15:32
  Stuff like that, it won't matter if it's poorly branded, it won't all
• 1:15:35
  the other stuff just right ship like Shawshanks like She's still sea shells on the
• 1:15:46
  sea shore like Shawshank Like Heather, where can people find you and your work
• 1:15:53
  and your and your stuff that you do Heather Hail dot com and Heather at
• 1:15:57
  heather Hail dot com. I thought a long time ago, just brand you
• 1:16:00
  because you're going to have wear lots of hats, right, and you don't
• 1:16:04
  need The two books are How to Work the Film and TV Markets, which
• 1:16:08
  is by pocal Press, which is a guide for content creators, and the
• 1:16:11
  other is story Selling How to develop, market and pitch your film and TV
• 1:16:15
  projects. And my best film and TV projects are ahead of me. They
• 1:16:20
  are coming right. You don't need to watch anything else. Heaven. We
• 1:16:26
  learned and we're moving forward. Yes, mistakes were made, but now we're
• 1:16:29
  moving forward. Heather, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the
• 1:16:33
  show, and thank you for dropping such honest knowledge bombs on the tribe today.
• 1:16:38
  So I appreciate that through the day and regret it. But who I
• 1:16:42
  am my biggest fault, and then there's plenty to choose between. Thank you,
• 1:16:46
  Heather, thank you. I want to thank Heather for coming on the
• 1:16:49
  show and dropping those knowledge bombs on the tribe today. We all need a
• 1:16:53
  little help with pitching. It's a big, big deal, and if you
• 1:16:58
  don't know how to pitch your story, I hate to tell you, you're
• 1:17:00
  not going to get your story out there. It really is a very helpful
• 1:17:04
  tool to put in your filmmaking and screenwriting toolbox. Now. If you want
• 1:17:10
  to get in touch with Heather or want to read any of her books,
• 1:17:13
  head over to the show notes at indifilm huscle dot com Forward Slash seven twenty
• 1:17:17
  six and if you have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot
• 1:17:23
  com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It really helps
• 1:17:27
  us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening to
• 1:17:30
  guys. As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 1:17:32
  Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening
• 1:17:35
  to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I
• 1:17:41
  N D I E F I L M h U S T l E dot com.