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IFH 850: Why Most Creators Never Finish Their Film (Hard Truth) with James Altucher · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
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  Speaker 2: fifty Cinema should make You forget. You're sitting in a theater,
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  Speaker 2: Roman Polanski.
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  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
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  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we showed you how to survive
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  Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
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  Speaker 1: the film biz.
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  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
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  Speaker 3: I am your humble.
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  Speaker 2: Host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
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  Speaker 2: the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
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  Speaker 2: a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
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  Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: My Next Guest is a multi number one Amazon bestseller
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  Speaker 3: and hosts one of the top podcast in the world
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  Speaker 3: with guest James Altacer. Hey, James, thanks a lot for
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: coming on the show.
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  Speaker 4: Dave, thank you so much for asking me to come
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: on the show. I'm really grateful.
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  Speaker 3: You know, James, You've been a mentor of mine for
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: years now. Ever since I've heard of you, like in
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: around twenty ten, I think I heard of you around
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: then for your article about how much of a scam
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: college is. And by the way, when I read it,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: I was like, this guy's one hundred percent right, and
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: you know from there, everything that you published, everything that
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: you know, I have all of your books everything, so
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  Speaker 3: and also basically you've been an indirect mentor for me
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: this whole time.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: Well thanks very much, David. Yeah, that that college article.
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  Speaker 4: I got a lot of backlash on and even lost
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: friends over it, but but I still believe it, like
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: you know, and now we're seeing the outcomes, which is
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: that you know, most people are graduating and taking jobs
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: that don't even require a college degree. And you have
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: people even like Google saying they're no longer looking at
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: whether or not someone has a college degree. So I
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: think gradually what used to be controversial is not being
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: a legitimate discussion. So so I'm glad that's happening.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I actually knew a guy who was a
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  Speaker 3: headhunter for Google, and he said what they were doing
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: now was they were looking at kids in high school
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: because with the you know, we're in the information age,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: so we said, by the time they're in high school,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: they're most likely nine times out of ten or maybe
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: even ten times out of ten, they're already online learning
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: this stuff, and they already know what they're going to do.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: And some of these kids are geniuses and artificial intelligence
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: the other these other kids are geniuses, are coding, and
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  Speaker 3: they don't need college because they already know what that age.
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  Speaker 3: They already know more than most teachers do.
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  Speaker 4: Well, the thing is, too college is teaching, and this
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  Speaker 4: is not always the case. So I'm not going like
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  Speaker 4: a thousand colleges into one basket, but college is teaching
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: kind of slightly older knowledge, like something that's already been
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: put into a textbook. Now. Normally that might be a
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  Speaker 4: good thing because it's knowledge that's been studied and curated
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  Speaker 4: and thought about in the next fair amounted on and
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: so on. But technology is changing so fast right now,
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: and opportunities and innovations happening so fast. Like I just
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: saw a help wanted ad the other day for a
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: self driving car engineer, in other words, an engineer who
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: specializes in self driving cars. Well, there's no debrie in
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: college that teaches that, because self driving cars on the
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: road didn't even exist a year ago. So things are
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: just happening too fast, and what you need now is
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: to develop skills and not necessarily a paper certificate. And
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: there are many many ways to develop skills, college being one,
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: and maybe not even the best of them.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is another reason why I started this podcast.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Was one I was inspired by you, and two because
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: this is basically like a film school. You know, each week.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: You know, the way I always tell people to think
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: of this podcast is each week it's like having a
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: different instructor come in, and you know, I'm always the same,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: but you know, I'm always talking to a new person
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  Speaker 3: who's actually out there doing stuff, who's you know, like yourself,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: who's worked at HBO. Uh, Like other people who've cosed
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: come in and they've they've done their own indie films
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: or other people who've cosed come in and like they
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: I had Alex dannelaris on here, who who wrote Bergman.
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  Speaker 3: He won an Academy Award.
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  Speaker 4: So it's like, yeah, that's a great get. Uh.
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  Speaker 3: I actually reached out to him through Facebook and we
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: had a couple of mutual friends and I said, trust me,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not crazy or anything, and uh he he,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: you know, we got to talking and he said, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: and uh, I've had. You know, I've had the writer
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: of John Wick on here. I've had I've had so
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: many great guests on here, James, I've been so very fortunate.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: But that that that I want this to be like
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: a offshoot, free film school for people, that is so great.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: Are you I don't even know. Are you heavily involved
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: in film?
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  Speaker 3: Like?
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  Speaker 4: Is that a passion of yours? Oh?
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, I am. I I love writing and uh so
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  Speaker 3: I'm real big into screenwriting and then I also like
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: doing filmmaking as well.
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  Speaker 4: Have you worked in any uh screenplays? Oh? Yes, I
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  Speaker 4: have actually like screenplays that like that were produced. Or
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  Speaker 4: are you working on one and trying to get it bought?
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  Speaker 4: Or what's your what's your goal?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I've actually done both, so those first screenplay is
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: getting produced. I've produced everything that anything that I wanted
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: to do I sort of produced. For instance, in twenty ten,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: actually I actually wrote and directed and produced my own
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: TV pilot. I got to I was the first person
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  Speaker 3: to shoot at this brand new sound stage here in Philly.
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  Speaker 3: Right after me. The production that came in was After
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: Earth with Will Smith and m Knight Shyamalan. So I
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: took this TV pilot. We got to I pitched it
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: to NBC, and then I pitched it to G four
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: right before they closed, and the guys at G four
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: were like, this is amazing. This is exactly what we
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: would have bought and had on this had on this network.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: But we're where we're going out of business, so unfortunately
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: we can't buy anything.
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  Speaker 4: But still, you know, that's great because you keep doing
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  Speaker 4: stuff like that, and persistence wins. Persistence plus love equals
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: accomplishment is what I always feel.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and against I always read your blogs and you know,
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  Speaker 3: especially about writing and creativity. But you know, actually, James,
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  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask a lot about your background, and
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: you know, again I touched on up briefly about HBO.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, how did you find you know, as
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  Speaker 3: you were of you got out of college.
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  Speaker 4: I think you went to Yale, I think, and I
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  Speaker 4: went to Cornell.
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  Speaker 3: Oh Cornell, I'm sorry. And so if you get out
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  Speaker 3: of college, you landed a job at HBO in their
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  Speaker 3: IT department. So how did you land a job there?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I was thrown out of school. Actually, I was
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: studying artificial intelligence, and even back then in the early nineties,
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: I was studying virtual reality and I pitched HBO on
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: this idea that I wanted them to fund about about
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: kind of virtual reality and storytelling and virtual reality. And
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: they said, no, it's a little not advanced enough for us,
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  Speaker 4: because back then, you know, VR was was not like
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: it is today. But they said, anytime you want come
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: to come work for us, you know, leave the academic
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: world and come work for us. And so I didn't
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  Speaker 4: think I was qualified enough. I felt like, oh, I
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  Speaker 4: need to like write a novel or something before I'm
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  Speaker 4: cool enough to work at HBO. Like I loved HBO.
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  Speaker 4: I loved all the shows on HBO everything. And it
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  Speaker 4: took two years before I, so to speak, chose myself
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  Speaker 4: and said, you know what, I don't need to write
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  Speaker 4: a novel. I'm good enough to work at HBO. They
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: already asked me two years ago. And so I started
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: working there about two years later.
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  Speaker 3: And you, so, where did you actually pitch them the
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  Speaker 3: idea for your TV show? Which I think is brilliant
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: by the way, Three Am the TV show is called
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: three Am for those of you who don't know. And
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: James basically would go round outside and talk to people
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: at three am in the morning. So, James, how did
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: you actually end up pitching that show to them.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: Well, what happened was I started. First off, they didn't
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: realize they needed a website. Like this was back in
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: nineteen ninety four, nineteen ninety five. Nobody knew. No corporations
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: realized at that time that they actually needed a website
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: because the web was relatively young and not that many
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: people were on it. And I convinced them they needed
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: a website. And that's a whole story because at first
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: they really resisted, and then I was in charge of
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: creating their website. So I went up to the CEO
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: who's now the CEO of Time Warner, and I said, look,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: HBO is really great at original TV programming. This is
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: how HBO was making their brand. And you know, HBO
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: was the first to do this. Now everybody's doing this
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: now even you know, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, you know Hulu,
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: they're all doing original TV programming. But at the time,
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: HBO was the only company in the world doing original
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: programming other than the kind of the broadcast stations like
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: ABCNBC and CBS.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: We'll be right.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: to the show.
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: So I said, you're so good at original TV programming,
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: Why don't we do original web programming because the web
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: might end up being a bigger medium than television, which is,
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: of course is what ended up happening. And so they said, sure,
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: just do whatever you want. We don't even care. And
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: so I started doing this original web series called three Am,
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: which was I was always curious, what are people up
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: to at three in the morning in New York City?
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  Speaker 4: What are you know? And of course they're up to
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: nothing good. Particularly I'm like, not like on a Saturday
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: night where everybody's sort of out going to a party
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: or whatever, but like on a Wednesday night, if you're
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: out at three in the morning, you're up to something
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: and it's probably not good. So I would go out
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: this like this for three years, I would go out
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: and just interview essentially prostitutes, drug dealers, homeless people, criminals,
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: anybody I could find at three in the morning on
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: a Wednesday night, and then I would transcribe the interviews,
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: design around them and put up four interviews a week
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: that I did from like nineteen ninety six through nineteen
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: ninety eight. And then eventually during this I pitched Sheila Evans,
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: who was the head of documentaries and family programming for HBO.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: I pitched her on the idea of doing it as
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: a TV show. She said, sure, let's do it. She
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: gave me money to shoot a pilot. I shot a pilot.
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: It was about forty five minutes, and then ultimately she
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: didn't She didn't air it, even though I was still
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: doing the web series for HBO and I continue doing it.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: She didn't air the pilot because she said, and you know,
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: mind you, this is the head of HBO's family programming department.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: She said, you know, for a show like this, we
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: either need to see you catching footage of someone fucking
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: their mother, or we need to see your neighbors fucking
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: And so it didn't air, but it was fun doing it,
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: and you know, I pitched other shows to HBO as well,
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: And as you know, you have to pitch like lots
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: of shows to get one going, and everyone is all
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: happy and loves you for a long time, and then
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: you realize they're just saying that and you have to
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: keep going and its persistence. But ultimately, rather than continuing
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: pitching TV shows, I ended up starting a business creating
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: websites for entertainment companies, which was kind of more my
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: skill set.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: So you know, James, it's funny because you know, with
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: TV the way it is right now, I think a
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: show like three AM would be a hit. I really do,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: because you know, everybody, every network now, every time I
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: talk to an agent, a manager, etc. They're all looking
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: for TV pilots over everything else.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think there's so much opportunity out there in
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: TV right now that it's almost like it's crazy, Like
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: there's so much original programming and then there's so many
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: reality shows and there's so many channels for reality shows.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: It's I think we're in a whole new world now
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: for quality TV.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, you know. I mean Game of Thrones is amazing.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: Again another HBO show. Everyone tells me to watch Westworld.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: I haven't watched that yet.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: But west World's a great example. A. It's an HBO show,
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: and not to go on about HBO, but B I
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: just noticed that. You know, Charles hu who's a great
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: science fiction author, is a story editor on Westworld. And
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: Ed Brubaker, who has been one of my favorite Colic
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: book writers for twenty years. He actually wrote an episode
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: of West World. So what kind of shows you that
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: all the talent all the best talent in the world
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: from other media are moving towards TV. It's why you see,
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: like you know, Kevin Spacey stars in Westworld, or Woody
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: Allen does an Amazon sorry starts in the House of Cards,
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: or Woody Allen does an Amazon show. Or Brian Koppleman,
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: who wrote Rounders and Oceans thirty, he's doing the TV
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: show Billions. So all the all this great TV talent
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: is also moving into the movie space, like Stranger Things
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: has went on a writer and Matthew Modin two movie
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: stars being a star on a you know, ten episode
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: TV show on Netflix.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and Netflix also, I mean that's another opportunity, you know,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: as we talk about opportunities, you know, you know, anytime
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: I talk about my TV pilot, people always say, well,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: have you tried Netflix? Have you tried Hulu? Have you
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: tried Amazon? And I always say, I haven't tried those
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: those avenues yet because I want to have even more
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: stuff to pitch, because like you, like you just said, James,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: you have to have a ton of ideas to pitch
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: and they'll probably take one at you know, at most.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, Netflix is a company that's committed
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: uh six and a half billion dollars to buy original
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: programming that dwarfs every other company, like including HBO. One
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: thing I want to add, but one more or last
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: thing about HBO that's very interesting is that if you
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: look at all these companies that are doing original programming,
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: starting from the very first one after HBO Showtime, but
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: then moving to you know, Bravo and now Netflix, Amazon
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: and so on, there's always someone from HBO who who
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: originally worked at HBO, who is involved in the original
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: program and had all these other networks and websites and
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: channels and everything. I think. You know, you have these
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: like hotbeds of people, say you're the average of the
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: people you spend your most time with, and you have
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: these hotbeds of talent, and they they create, you know,
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: essentially the people in the talent that gets spread out
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: to create entire industries. That's why you see things like
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: the Homebrew Club of the nineteen seventies, who came out
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: of that, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, the founder
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: of you know, Osborne Computer Compact, like all these like
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: founders of the original comput companies came out of this
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: one little kind of nerdy club in San Francisco that
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: spawned all this talent. So whatever it is that you're
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: interested in and passionate about, you kind of have to find,
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: you know, where that that homebrew club is and basically
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: spend time with those people and you'll rise up with them.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: I was talking to a guy yesterday who is an astronaut.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: He flew in the Space Shuttle twice, and he was
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: talking about how twenty years earlier, you know, there were
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: ten people in his lab at MIT he was a
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: student there. Three of them became astronauts. And so again
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: if he was just hanging out at some random bar,
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: you could never say three of these people at this
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: bar became you know, flew in outer space. But he
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: found the place where he wanted to be an astronaut.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: He found a place where these were, where all the
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: future astronauts were.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we talk about spending you know, your
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: the average all the people you spend time with. You know,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: that's why also about podcasting, you know, you get to
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: spend time with all these you know, different people because
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: you know, again you spend a lot of time with
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Brian Koppleman and every time, you know, I was actually
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: just listening to the interview you did with him, and
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: you know, you two together are amazing because it's always
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: about creativity and writing and it's always you know, about
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: you know, discovering new things, always pushing boundaries with yourself,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: you know, and again I think that's just amazing. That's
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: another sort of avenue of the podcast actually helps people
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: with is just sort of discovering those new ideas and
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: finding out, you know, maybe I should you know, spend
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: time with people who like this instead of the one
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: I am right now.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's it's so important, like all you know,
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: this is where like it's so important to say no
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: to all the things that aren't good for you like
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: to to to really, you know, each person has to
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: blaze their own path, and that path is kind of
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: carved out with your yeses. But if you say too
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: many yes is, if you don't say the right yes,
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: then you won't find the people you need, you won't
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: find the places you need. You don't you won't find
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: the knowledge you need. And it's very unique to you
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: to choose to I hate to say the phrase choose
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: yourself over it over here, so very you need to
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: you to basically choose the right things that are good
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: for you when so many other people need other things
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: from you, like Dave do this, Dave do that, Dave,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: why are you wasting your time doing this. Everyone's got
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: their opinion on what Dave should do, but you've got
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: a carve out what Dave should do.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely right. And you know, I want
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: to talk about choose Yourself too. I again, that is
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: a phenomenal name for a book. And on episode ninety
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: nine of this podcast, I had on Morgan j Freeman.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Morgan has an amazing story, absolutely amazing and basically, to
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: give you a concise sort of version of it, James,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: he basically he won Sundance. He was an award winning
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: sun Dance director and he parted it all away and
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: he ends up now now he's working for MTV. He's
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: been very very you know, open about it. But he
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: had a phrase called green light yourself and he said,
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: if you have a film project that you want to do,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: and he said, no matter what it is, he goes,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: don't ask anybody for permission, green light yourself and just
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: go do the thing. And it reminds me a lot
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: of choose yourself, you know, give yourself permission to succeed,
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: give yourself permission to do these things.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Well, I get. I'll give you two examples. One time,
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: a friend of mine who was very familiar with YouTube.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: He worked for a YouTube advertising network, so he literally
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: was behind the making of millions for many YouTubers. He
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: was telling me he wants to create his own YouTube
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: channel and I said, well, and he had all these
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: great ideas and he said, well, what's stopping you? And
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: he said, well, I don't have the camera equipment yet.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: And he said, I'm saving up for it. And I
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: picked up his iPhone and I said, what are you
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: talking about this? The video camera in his iPhone is
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: much better than cameras from fifteen twenty years ago the
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: entire movies were shot on. So you know, that's just
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: an excuse.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Like just use this camera like you take Michelle von
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: who now has a thirty million dollar you know, cosmetics company,
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: she started making YouTube videos. Her first sixty four videos
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: were horrible, and then she did one video that went
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: viral and using the ads off that, she finally bought
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: some decent camera equipment and has now built an empire.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: You kind of just have to go out and do,
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: Like our comfort zone is papered, but completely papered, layer
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: six layers deep by our excuses, and you kind of
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: have to just punch through that and just start doing,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: you know. The The other example I have is a
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: well known one, Robert Rodriguez with l Mariah Chi. I'm
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: sure you know the movie. He shot it with just
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: eight and eight thousand dollars budget, and what he did
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: was he made a list of uh and it's like
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: famously called now the Robert Rodriguez List. He made a
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: list of just all the things he had access to,
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: like his brother, his cousin's brother's trailer, his fire hose
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: is whatever, and you know, just with all he said,
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna make a movie using all of these things.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: And he made a movie on a tiny budget, and
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: then it became it made him millions of dollars and
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: it became this huge hit and one prizes at Sundance
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: and everything, and now he's like a well known director
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: and writer.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when I was making my own student film because
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: I didn't go to college for a film. I went
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: for business, and so I'll you know, while I was
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: making going to college for business, I was, you know,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: making movies and stuff. And I made a movie and
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: the one thing that I made I made it with
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: one a ninety nine dollars digital camcorder that at the
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: time was like amazing. And this was back in around
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: two thousand and eight, I believe, or too yeah to
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: his name, and I had the book Rebel Without a
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: Crew by Robert Riguez cause he talks about kil Mariachi
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: and yah, yeah, it's absolutely phenomenal book, absolutely phenomenal because
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: you can't beat that empirical, you know, discussion, because you know,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: it's all nothing, no theory whatsoever. There's no theory. It's
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: all about this is exactly what I did. This is
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: the nuts and bolts. And the other book was Make
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: your Own damn Movie by Lloyd Kaufman, and it was
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: just those two books together taught me more than I
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, I couldn't imagine a better film school than
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: those two books. But hopefully this podcast is a good
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: film school as well. But but you know, but yeah,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: I agree, man, agreed, James. It's just going out there
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: and making something for even like like the Duplas brothers
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: even say, you know, make a movie for a hundred
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: bucks this weekend, a short film for ae hundred bucks.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: You're not wasting a ton of money. And it teaches
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: you how to actually make a film before you start
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: getting those bigger budgets and so you don't make all
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: these expensive mistakes.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: That's amazing. I didn't know that about the Duplas brothers.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: They're kind of intriguing me more and more because I mean,
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: I forget the name of which brother, but I see
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: him in TV shows all the time, and he's just
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: he's just really funny and brilliant. But but then I
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: realized they were they were actually making shows and movies.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: What what were some What's some stuff that they've made
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: recently that that I've liked?
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: I forget, Well, the one I think you're referring to,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: I think was Jay he's been on.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: The League, you know the League, and and and Mindy.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, and uh, they actually have I think they have
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: a deal with Netflix. I might be mistaken, but there's
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: actually two movies that they've made for Netflix. One is
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: kind of like a time travel movie. Basically, they they
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: sort of go to this like cottage and then there's
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: a guest house in the back. They and whenever they
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: go into this guest house, they they get the optimal
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: idea of their of their spouse. So it's so it's
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: it's I think it's Jay or Mark is the is
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: the is the husband, and I forget who his wife is.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: But whenever they go into this guest house by themselves,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: they the optimal version of their of their spouse. So
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: there now it kind of plays out with which one
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: do you want more? And there was another one I
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: forget the name of it, but but they play a
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: version of of a psychopath who lures people, you know,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: off the internet and then they sort of, you know, uh,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: he sort of tells them, you know, make stuff up
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: and then you know, this person is trying to sort
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: of figure out, you know, what's true and what's not.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: It's really good. But but yeah, yeah, they are absolutely
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: phenomenal and if you could ever give them from the podcast, James,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: I'm sure they would be phenomenal guests.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and they did Togetherness on HBO, which I
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: really liked.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Togetherness, that's right. I forgot all about that show.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: I actually haven't seen that.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: That was a great show. I loved it.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I haven't seen that yet. It's again, it's all
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: my list of things to watch because I I when
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: I when it got canceled, everyone said how great it was,
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: and I was like, we know what, I'll add to
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: the list of things to.
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: Watch, you know, but that's such an interesting thing that so, yeah,
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: it got canceled. And by the way it got it
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: had Amanda Pete, it had had some guys. He was
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: a famous actor, I forget his name. They had the
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: duplus brothers who have been so successful, and yet it's
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: still still network executives cancel things. So it's almost like
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: it's like a case study and how you can't be disappointed.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: You have to do what you can. You have to
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: keep pushing forward, can't give up. Louis A. Kay is
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: a great example. He had Lucky Louis on HBO. He
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: had other sitcoms, you know, that was canceled. He had
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: other sitcoms canceled, and then finally he has this little
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: tiny TV show on FX which becomes this huge, huge
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: hit for him. No one would have guessed. They didn't
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: even they barely wanted him to do the show. They
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: gave him the lowest budget Possible came this huge hit
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: after so many cancelations, after so many disappointments. I mean,
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: he made a movie that was just the worst movie
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: in history according to the reviewers, and he never gave up.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: And now, I mean I just watched them live in
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Madison Square Guarden. He sold out Madison Square Garden five
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: times this year, and just a phenomenal exhibition of what
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: persistence can do.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, James, as we you know, we
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: talk about persistence. You know, there was an interview you
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: did for your podcast, The James Altager Show, and you
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: head on a guest and I think it was I
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: forget his name, but you were talking about tight feedback
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: loops and you were talking about, you know, this is
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: how you get better. Was basically, you know, a mentor
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: would help you out with this, but because they're already
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: doing that tight feedback loop and you know exactly where
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: you're going wrong, you know exactly where you're going right,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: and you can sort of, you know, break this out
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: sort of like a big puzzle, like you know, Okay,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: I'm terrible at this, so I should get better and
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: I slowly build it up. There was a there's a
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: book I forget the guy by John Waitson I think
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: his name is, but yeah, yeah, yeah, And he had
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: a really great analogy because again you're a big chess guy,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: where he would start off with just a king and
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: then he had to you know, then then his his
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: mentor would say, Okay, now you're gonna He was a
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: king and a bishop and then a king and a
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: rook in et cetera, et cetera, so he could focus
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: and not get lost in the chaos. So what I'm
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: trying to say with all this is, do you think
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: that you know, Louis c. K and all these people
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: like Brian Koppleman Two, do you think that they always
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: had that tight feedback loop and they always were just
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: sort of not just trying to work harder, but they
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: were also trying to work smarter too, if you know
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: what I mean.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. So, so let me go down two different angles
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: with this. So one is and I write about this,
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: and so I write about all these people in my
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: book Reinvent Yourself, which is coming out January, that about
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: essentially how we're all in a constant state of reinvention
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: and you know, we all need we're all trying to
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: get to the next level of creativity. We're all trying
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: to kind of move forwards and figure out what does
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: it mean for our lives to have meaning and so on. So,
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: but I talk about this concept of a plus equal minus,
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: So you want to find a plus which is both
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: a real and virtual mentor. So like in Josh Waitson's case,
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: he mentions how he had a mentor, he had a
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: chess professional teaching him. Then you want to find your equals,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: so people you could play who are roughly your level,
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: or people who could challenge you, whether no matter what
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: your career is, who are roughly your level, who challenge
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: you back and forward. And that's how you get feedback
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: as you get you know, challenged by your equals, and
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: then your mentor can kind of analyze how you responded
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: to it. And then a minus so someone you can
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: teach and because that solidifies learning, and also the people
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: you're teaching will challenge you too the last few questions
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: that you don't necessarily know the right answer to. So
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: plus minus equal and you know, in in chess is
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: a great example, or tennis or any sport like let's
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: just take tennis, you know you're playing against an equal
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: and let's say you're served it doesn't go well for
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: five servers in a row. Well, your mentor can tell
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: you what you're doing wrong. And then of course when
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: you're teaching a serve, you'll understand much better the mechanics
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: of what a serve is as you're teaching. And so
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: that's a great example where plus minus eql will make
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: you a bet a better tennis player.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's one of another thing that I found
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: out too, is, uh, there was a book I was
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: reading where they were talking about the discussion the uh,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: the point of of the psychology of small wins. So
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: you build up momentum and confidence because what you're doing
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: is even these tiny little victories, you sort of string
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: them together and now suddenly you feel you're feeling better
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: and your confidence and your skill is doing a lot
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: more than say, if you just try to tackle this
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: problem all at once. You know you, so when you
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: break it down and you're winning those little mini battles,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: it does a lot more for your confidence.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think the book you're referring to
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: is Little Bets by Peter Simms, and in there he
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: discusses chrit. The very first chapter is Chris Rock will
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: build up a new act. You know, he'll spend like
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: a year creating an act that he'll then you know,
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: eventually be an HBO special.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: But he doesn't just sort of like write that act
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: and then you know, risk everything in one HBO special.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: He'll go to the laugh Factory in New Brunswick and
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: he'll have just like notes on a napkin. He'll read
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: straight off the napkin. He won't even do his whole
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: kind of Chris Rock thing. He'll just sort of read
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: straight off his napkin and if it gets a few chuckles,
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: if he'll note the one the jokes that got some chuckles,
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: and he'll start working on them and crafting an act
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: around them. He'll really kind of test stuff out with
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: these little bets, these little experiments.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's what you know again when
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: we're talking about reinventing ourselves and also with writing. So
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: I want to talk to you about, you know, your writing,
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: and you know that's something that we we sort of
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: these little, these little changes, you know what I mean,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Like these little these little things that can make you
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: have more confidence and make you and sort of let
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: you also propel you forward with that momentum, because you know,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: sometimes when people are outlining something or staring at that
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: blank page, they to freeze up or they or they
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: start writing. And I mean we've all been there, James.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: You start writing and you go, oh god, this is
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: this is just terrible, this sucks. Who the hell is
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: gonna want to read this stuff? And then you just
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: sort of throw it away and you keep starting this
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: process over and over again. But I think if you,
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: you know, our perception of how we write is also
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: a big, a big factor in this, which again comes
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: from changing our perceptions, so we're allowed to actually, you know,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: have these small wins.
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I agree, And look, writing writing is a
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: very good way for me to find these small wins.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: I write every single day. I've been writing every single
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: day for twenty five years, and much of that time
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: I've been publishing every single day. And look, when you
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: not every not every writer does that, by the way,
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: but I do. And when you publish every single day,
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: you have a chance to see, oh do people like this?
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: Do people not like that? And that doesn't necessarily make
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: you a better writer. Like it's not always like you're
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: catering to public opinion, but you know, you just use
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: it as one component among many. On the feedback you're
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: getting to your writing.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: So as we talk about you know you're writing, James,
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: So what does you have the same routine every morning? Mean,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: like you get up at a certain time, then you
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: sort of you know you're gonna have a cup of
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: coffee and start writing. Or is every day sort of
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: different for you?
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: I think I think most days, or let's say more
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: than fifty percent of the days, are I wake up,
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: I have coffee, I read, I write. I always read
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: before I write. But you know, some days are different.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: And I don't like to have any one routine because
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: it's important to mix things up so that you know,
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: basically a soup with just hot water and it is
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: kind of boring. You have to have lots of different ingredients.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: So I like to have lots of different ingredients in
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: my day. And if you just eat the same ingredients
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: every day, you'll get bored so and you'll even forget
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: that you're eating. Your taste buds won't congratulate you anymore.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: So you want to have different ingredients make up every
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: each day so that you know your your creativity is
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: at its heights. Now. Other people do the exact same
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: thing every single morning in order to keep doing things,
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: but I don't like to do that. It's sort of
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: like if you drive the same route every day, sometimes
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: you get to the destination and you can't even remember
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: how you got there. You can't even remember driving because
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: you were sort of daydreaming the whole way. If you
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: do something different, if you don't commoditize kind of your
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: your habits that you do you or your routine, then
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: you'll you'll be much more aware of everything that's happening
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: around you. And I think that's very important.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: So, James, what is your writing you know method look like?
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, do you do you sort of outline exactly
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: every article? I mean, I imagine you have to outline
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: every book. But I mean when you're writing sort of
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: you know, articles, do you outline what exactly it's going
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: to be? And do you just sort of try to
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: get it out as fast as you can.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: No, I don't necessarily outline. I mean sometimes there's a
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: rough outline, like let's say I interview Barack Obama or whoever,
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: and I'll say ten things Barack Obama told me, so
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: that's kind of makes up a rough sketch of things.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: But then storytelling, I don't really outline so much, like
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: I just let that kind of come out, Like I'll
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: kind of just start with a first line, like you know,
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: and then this was the time I stole money from
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: my mother, and and I'll just like the start story
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: kind of unravel itself from there. Yeah.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: You know, one thing I've learned is that if you
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: do think too much, and you do you know, outline
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: too much, it's a way of you think you're doing something,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: but it's just a way of it, but it really
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: just keeping you busy and you're not actually getting anywhere,
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, And you just sort of
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: keep you know, outlining, going back revising the outline, and
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: then you're on a third version of the outline, but
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: you're never actually doing anything. It's so important I've realized
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: just even this year, how important to actually just just
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: thrusting yourself into the work, you know, if it's a screenplay,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: open up final draft or fade in and just start
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: writing it and sort of letting it fall as it may.
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: If you know what I mean, James, Yeah, you have
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: to just keep doing That's the important thing.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know, I was reading Ryan Holliday's book
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: about the Obstacle is the Way, and you know, one
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: of one of some of the things that he was
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: saying in there were just really amazing about how the
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: obstacle is really the way. Your perception of the obstacle
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: is very key because if you view it as a
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: way to gain a further advantage, it doesn't look like
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: an obstacle anymore, and the impediment to action leads to
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: more action itself, like Marcus Reli has said, and again,
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: just changing that small perception has such a huge advantage
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: as you're trying to sort of do do your work,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: whether it be writing or solving it an IT problem
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: or you know, building a website or what have you.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, you need to see how that sort of
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: ties in through everyday life.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, look, I had all of us
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: have obstacles all the time and what we want to do.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: So so you know, one that I spoke about earlier was,
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: you know, HBO rejected a couple of TV show ideas
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: I had, even when they had expressed interests. Okay, no problem.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: That's when I sort of said, you know, you always
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: have to say, well, in what way will this work
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: out the best for me? And what I ended up
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: doing was starting a company rather than doing a TV show.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: You know another thing, you know, sometimes you have arguments
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: with partners and you could you can, like, if a
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: partner turns out to be not so good for you,
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: there's no point in like explaining to him how he
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: or she is wrong or no good for you anymore.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: What you do is you end up finding another partner
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: to buy out the old partner, or you end up
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: starting a new business. Like the what I tend to
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: do is I tend to lean into the problem and say, Okay,
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: this is a problem or an obstacle, how can this work?
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: Rather than trying to fight the obstacle, how can this
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: work out the best for me in some other alternative way.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: And you know, this sort of ties in also because
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: you know and choose yourself. As we sort of go
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: back to that book which I'm gonna link to in
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: the show notes everybody, because that book is absolutely phenomenal.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: You know, you talk about making an idealist and that
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: really pushes the boundaries of your creativity so whatever, you know,
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: your your idealist, the subject is going to be. You know,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: making these ten ideas makes you sort of broaden your horizon,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: broaden your perspective. So you know, in fact, James, do
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: you want to, you know, maybe just talk about idealists
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: just for those of you, for those out there who
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: who've never maybe not read Shoose yourself. You know, I
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: think it's you know, I don't want to. I don't
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: want to say it because but I mean, you're you're
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: the man who created this, and I just want to
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: ask you, do you want to talk about idealists for
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: a little bit?
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean it kind of came out of a
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: time when I was just had no ideas and no creativity,
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: and I was dead broke, and I needed to I
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: had two kids, and I needed to make something of
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: my life, or at least make sure I didn't go
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: broke and die. Like I was kind of suicidal. Like
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: I was spending tons of money and I had already
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: had sold a company, but then like blew all the
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: money and gone broke, and I just needed to try things.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: But everything I was trying was just failing, and it's
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: because I wasn't having any good ideas, and I realized,
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: you know what, my creativity right now is pretty weak,
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: like I'm not doing anything to improve my creativity. And
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: the creativity muscle or the idea muscle is just like
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: any other muscle, really, like if you don't walk for
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: two or three weeks, like let's say you were in
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: a coma for some reason and you were in bed
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: for two weeks, you actually need physical therapy to walk
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: again because your leg muscle is atrophy so quickly. So
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: it's the same thing with the idea muscle, and so
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: what I do to exercise the idea muscle is all
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: right down ten ideas a day and doesn't have to
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: be good ideas. In fact, you can't. They can't be
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: good ideas. Most of your ideas are really bad. You
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: can't come up with three thousand, six or fifty good
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: ideas a year. And so I'll come up with all
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: sorts of ideas, like I don't know, ideas of where
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: I'm going to take my kids over on Christmas vacation
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: that they've never been before, or ideas for businesses I
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: could start, or ideas for virtual realities i'd create, or
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: ideas for Airbnb to be a better company, or ideas
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: for Uber to be a better company. And I'll just
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: come up with ideas for other people, ideas for Dave
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: Bulla's guess I could introduce him to for his podcast.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: You know, I'll just come up with ideas for anything.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: And then gradually what happens is and I noticed this
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: very quickly, between three and six months, you'll start to
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: really feel like an idea machine, and it just keeps
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: getting better and better, until your creativity is at an
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: enormous height compared to where you were before and maybe
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: even compared to other people, and it just really works.
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: It works for anything, like if I want to meet somebody,
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: I'll come up with ten ideas for them.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: And invariably there might be if I do enough research
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: and work, there'll be one at least one good idea
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: for that person, and eventually I'll be able to arrange
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: a meeting. Or you know, I run a business, so
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: if I'm coming up with ten ideas for my business,
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: invariably there's a good idea in there that will make
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: my business more money. And so, you know, this is
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: a very important topic to improve creativity, improve your ideability,
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: and improve your ability to make money, improve your ability
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: to network and help other people make money, and so on.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: You know, one thing I did with the idealist James
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: was I would share it on my Instagram particularly, And
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: what I started doing was for a whole week, I
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: was coming up with ten different movie concepts angela, well,
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: thank you, James, and I tagged you a couple of times,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: and some of them I stopped because I was like, James,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: gonna be pissed off. You're like, thank you bullets tagging men.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: So what I did was I fist off about that.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: I uh so, like people were responding to it. They
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: were like, hey, where are you you know, why are
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: you doing this? Where did you get this from? I?
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: And I would always say, you know, by choose yourself.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: It's ninety nine cents on Amazon, uh you know, and
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: I would say, you know, for the kindle version, and
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: I would just say, you know, the you know, these
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: are concepts that I would any of the best ones
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: I would actually turn into a log line, and then
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: from the log lines, the best log lines see what
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: I would do in terms of actually making a screenplay
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: where there was one I came up with that I
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: actually really really liked, and I ended up turning that
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: into a screenplay and I'm going to go back and
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: it definitely needs a couple more drafts, but I was
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: blown away that it just came out of almost almost
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: nowhere because I was just writing, writing, writing, trying to
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: be you know, keep my brain out of it as
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: much as possible and just focus on the subconscious and
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: let that flow, you know, that flow state that the
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: writers always talk about, and just getting there and making
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: it seem that, you know, where you can actually just
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: keep writing without actually thinking. It's kind of like what
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Ray Bradbury says, don't think why you're writing, feel while
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: you're writing.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: So, so what's the screenplay about? Uh?
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: It's a story about five kids who are trapped in
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: a treehouse, uh and with a monster down at the
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: base of the sort of this treehouse, so they can't
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: get out and they're basically stuck during the snowstorm in
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: this treehouse with this sort of unseen monster creature force
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: down there that's sort of stalking this treehouse.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: That's neat and what what are you going to do
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: with it?
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Well, once I polish up the drafts. I'm actually gonna
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: send it out to a few contests, and if if
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: it never goes anywhere, then I would probably end up
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: shooting it myself.
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: Cool. That sounds great, And you know, I.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Actually want to ask you too, James. You always we
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: talk about, you know, you know, creativity and writing. Is
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: there any sort of you know, film ideas or TV
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: ideas that you have right now that you're that you
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: wanted to, you know, either talk about or even just
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: that you maybe are going to pitch at some point,
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: or maybe there's just like he is floating in your
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: head for different movies and shows.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: You know. It's funny. There was a reason article about
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: me in the New York Times and it kind of
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: went into what I about my minimalism philosophy, And afterwards
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: a couple of television companies called me, some really big,
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: well known ones that you would know of and asked
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: me for ideas. But I'm not sure I really want
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: to put in the hard work for a TV show.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: Like right now, my podcast has a very big audience,
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: and so I almost say it's like my podcast audience
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: is the same as like a bad cable TV show
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: audience in the sense that in terms of the numbers,
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: and which is good. It's growing, you know, I feel
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: that podcast audience is growing, so it's only going to
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: continue to grow. And I've really decided I'm gonna double
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: down on the podcast and focus on making that as
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: good as it could possibly be, although I am working
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: on fiction right now.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: You know, what if you here's just an idea, what
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: if you actually started like a podcast sort of series,
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: almost like Cereal was where they had sort of like
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: a pot it's almost like an old timy radio show
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: and basically, you know, it's a radio play, you know,
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: And I've I thought this thought of this myself. You know,
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: if you ever have an idea that's more like an
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: like like that's more suited towards audio, you know, podcasting
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: is a great way to release it because again, no,
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: there's no more gatekeepers or virus to entry.
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I've been thinking of exactly that. Like, So,
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: in addition to doing the interview show, which I always
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: do and I always and I won't stop, and I
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: love interviewing you know, people and everything, doing kind of
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: like mini series alongside of it within the same show,
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: within the context of the James Altasher Show.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and your podcast numbers by the way, I mean
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: you probably get you know, a hundred times what I get.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: But I mean your podcast is one of the best
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: podcasts out there because the questions you ask and the
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: guests that you get. I mean that that it's important
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: because it's not just about the guests you get, it's
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: also the questions and what you're talking about. I've always
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: learned something every episode of your of your podcast.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Well you know, and as you know, it's really not
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, guests are having kind of guests that
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: people recognize is part of it because then you know
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: that that helps with downloads. But ultimately you have to
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: bring the job home with with the questions and the preparation,
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: as you know, and and everything, and that's what really
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: drives the podcast.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, And James, I don't want to take up
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: too much of your time. I know you're extremely busy.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: I had some Twitter.
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: Question enjoying this. Thank you so much David for having
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: me on.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: Oh you know, I appreciate you coming on, James, I
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: really do. And I you know, I had some Twitter
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: questions come in. Do you mind answer a few questions?
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: Sure?
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: So the first question comes from Martin Tiller, and Martin
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: wants to know how long have you been doing the
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: ten Ideas.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: A day since two thousand and two?
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: And this kind of ties on what we were just
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: talking about. It's Martin again. He wants the question is
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: how much time do you put into researching your guests
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: for the podcast?
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, I put in so much time, Like
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: you know, So last week was Stephen Pressfield was on
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: my podcast. I probably read I read ten or no,
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: maybe eleven books by him, eleven and took notes on
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: each one, came up with questions about each one. Watched
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: two interviews he did, one with Oprah and one with
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: the Marie Folio. I tried to find other interviews he did,
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: but he doesn't really do many interviews, not in the
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: past like five years. And you know, I watched the
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: movie The Legend of Backer Vance, which he wasn't as
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: involved in, but I still wanted to watch it. I've
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: done I've read more about the history of you know,
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: the three hundred, which he writes about in the novel
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: Gates a Fire. I mean I probably prepared maybe be
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: forty or fifty or hours for that for you know,
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: a one or two hour interview, and I flew to
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: I live in New York City, but I flew to
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: LA and drove to Malibu to interview him, and because
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: I wanted to do it in person, because I admire
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: so much as his books. And but that's like an
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: example of what of what I do. I'm preparing an
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: interview right now with somebody who's an expert in nutrition
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: that I really admire, and you know, he lives in
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: a southwestern state and I'm planning on flying to visit him.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: I'm doing a ton of research, and I just I
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: put my all into into these things.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know what you mean about Stephen Pressfield not
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: wanting to do or doesn't do a lot of interviews.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: I've actually tried to get him a lot to come
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: on this podcast, and each time he politely declines. But
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: like you know, The War of Art is an absolute
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: essential read. If you're going to be an artist, no
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: matter if you're gonna write, paint, make movies, whatever, the
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Art of War is required reading.
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, War of Art and its companion piece, Turning
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: pro are just brilliant, Like they're they're very good. And
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: you know, his novel Legend of Backer Vance is very good.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: Gates spires very good. And then he has a new
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: novel which is kind of almost a fictional version of
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: the War of Art, which is called The Knowledge, which
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: is about what he was going through to battle his
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: own resistance in the nineteen seventies. And it's a great book. So,
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: you know, he's very interesting, he's very a big inspiration
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: for writers and creatives.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. I actually had his editor on, Sean Coin,
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: And it's funny because I actually won. Do you know
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: who Robert McKee.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: Is, Yeah, yeah, of course he wrote Dialogue and story story.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I actually won first place in his writing
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: competition that he had, and I got to and one
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: of my my prize was to go to New York
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: to take his his four or three day seminar story
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: and it's basically the whole book. And it's funny because
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: Sean Coin is also his editor. So when I went
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: up afterwards as the seminar ended, I said, you know, hi, Bob,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: you know we have a mutual friend, Seawan Coin, and
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: and he goes, oh, well how about that? You know,
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: And but I wanted to bring McKee up because I
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: think he'd be a great guest in your podcast, James.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he would be awesome, Like, you know,
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: I'm interested in him. He's he's a fascinating guy.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely fascinating. The story semino was actually really good.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: I actually when I learned, I learned about the principles
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: of story. And again, you know what I did was
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: I made a deal with myself. You know, I realized
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: you have to sort of make deals with yourself sometimes.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: And my whole thing was, I bought a whole pack
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: of pens, brand new, my favorite pen in the world,
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: the pilot V seven's, and I just everything he said,
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: I wrote, I would not stop writing for anything.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: So even if I already knew it, it doesn't matter.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: You just keep writing. And by the end, I had
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: so many notes that I could now go back and
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: dissect story and I could also I found subple merria notes.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: Even before I went to the did the seminar in
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: New York, James, I actually listened to every podcast, every
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: video interview he did, found any crib notes I could
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: of the actual seminar, and I put them all together
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: in this sort of like big binder slash file that way.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: I was so prepared for this that you know, I
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: was hoping to come out and just be, you know,
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: an absolute genius of story by the end of it.
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: And were you.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually I would say that I definitely had
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: more confidence in myself going out.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: What would like help me out, like what would be
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: like the main thing that you learn, like what makes
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: a great story?
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: Telling the truth?
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: What does that mean? Be specific?
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: So telling the truth, it doesn't mean the facts of
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: what happened. It's the why of why they happened. And
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: when you get down even deeper than that, there's two
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: things that you have to focus on. The philosophers of
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: the world either thought that you were being or becoming,
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: So basically they thought that everything is in constant flux,
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: or everything is not in flux. It's just always the same.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: It just appears that it's in flux. And he talked
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: about all the philosophers throughout time whether what side they
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: stood on either being or becoming, Being or becoming, And
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: he said, as you write your story, you have to
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: make a decision about which one you think it is,
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: and the principles of that will guide your story throughout.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: So if you think that everything is in flux. Well,
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: then you know, then nothing ever stays the same. You can't.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of like what Hera Kleitis said,
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: you can never step into the same river even once
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: because it's doesn't exist at all, or you're on the
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: other side where you think that it's always being it's
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: always the same and these principles are going to stay throughout.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: So it's kind of like you have to make that
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: decision and that guy's your story throughout.
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: Okay, I like that, that's interesting. I'm gonna I have
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: to read Story. I know that it's like the key
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: book for uh, for screenwriting, so I want to read it.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's always like there's three books that everyone talks
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: about for screenwriting. Story by McKee, uh, Screenplay by by Sidfield,
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: and obviously say The Cap by Blake Snyder. Those are
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: like the if you could read even just one of
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: three of those books, most screenwriters and most you know,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: Hollywood producers, they sort of go back to those three books.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: There's actually no, there's actually another.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, go ahead, no, no, keep recommending.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: There's gonna be another screenwriting book that I recommend that
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: I think is the best one out there. It's called
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: The ninety Days Screenplay by aut Want. That is that
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: is the best book of screen screenwriting I've ever seen,
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: I never read.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: So here's here's an idea I had for like a
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: fun little sitcom type TV series. So it's called Guru's
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: Gun Wild, and it's instead of Girls Gun Wild, Guru's
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: Gone Wild, and it's basically, you know, I know a
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: lot of people in kind of the self help and
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: personal improvement industry, and of course all of us have
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: our own share of problems, but many of these people
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: kind of put forward this public space that's like perfect
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: in order to kind of attract their you know whatever,
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: their their people for their seminars or whatever. And I
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: was thinking it would just it would be like almost
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: like this Seinfeld type thing where you know, the character
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: based on me would meet with like the character based
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: on whatever well known person, and then they would just
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: be complaining about relationships the whole time, and stories would
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: kind of like veer off from there. And I just
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: thought it would be like a funny idea and kind
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: of like the Larry Sanders show meets Seinfeld type of thing,
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: but with like the self help industry.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: And the self help self help industry is huge. And
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: by the way, I'm glad you mentioned the Larry Sanders show.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: I love that show, and you know, he passed away
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: earlier this year, and I hope more people actually find
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: that show because I think it's a it's a gem.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: James, well, well, think about the hotbed of talent. You know,
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: we talked earlier about places you could go where a
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: very small group becomes this amazing, amazingly talented group of
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: people later on. So of course Gary Shamling already was
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: amazingly talented, but look who came from there. Bob Odenkirk
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: was on the show, and of course he's you know,
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: well known for Breaking Bad and Better Call Saw. Judd
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: Apatow was a writer for the show, and of course
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: he's made the funniest movies of all time ever since then.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: Jeffrey Tambor was on the show, and then of course
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: he did Arrested Development and now he does Transparent for
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: for Amazon. Gosh, I was just reading about. Oh. John
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: Stewart was on the show and went on to do
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: The Daily Show. So it's just a NonStop the talent.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Janine Garoppolo was on the show. It's just NonStop the
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: talent that was on that show almost almost every week,
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: and the writers of the show and everything.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's absolutely phenomenal. And you know, when you can
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: get those sort of hotbed of talent, uh, you know,
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: then it becomes almost the opposite problem, which is how
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: do you keep all that talent? Because you know, at
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: some point, you know, when somebody comes so talented in
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: those those writer writings, writers' rooms or or something else,
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: you know, they end up getting offers to leave. I
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: mean it happens a lot on late night. I have
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: a friend of mine he actually writes for Jimmy Kimmel
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: and he actually talked about the same thing. You know,
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: it's a lot of the times you get a lot
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: of offers. There are a lot of really cool things
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: because when you're when you're doing good work, constantly people
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: come up to you to make you more opportunities.
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, John Stewart had a philosophy about this.
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, The Daily Show is a great, uh kind
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: of management study because he created all this, He created
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: this environment with all this amazing talent. Also like Steve Carrel,
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: Stephen Colbert at Helms and all of those guys left
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: and John Stewart encouraged them to leave. I mean, John
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: Stewart even helped develop Stephen Colbert's show, The Colbert Show.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: And why did he do that well because he knew that,
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: you know, talent needs to be needs to flourish, it
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: needs to grow, it needs to go onto their own thing.
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: But because of the high standard set by that talent,
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: knew good talent will come in and take over. And
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: that's what's happened. That's what happened. I mean, the Dallas
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: Show probably never had a year over year where it
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: was worse one year in the year before.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, again, you know, as we talked
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: about a lot of talent, you know that that's always
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: that idea too, is having that farm system always being
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: able to pull and recognize talent. It's kind of you
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: know what like a professional sports team does the same thing, right,
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: They always are on the lookout, having scouts, making sure
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: that they get the top guys over somebody else. And
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: but by the way, I do like that grew idea. Yeah,
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: you know, you know, as I'm thinking about it as
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: I talk, that would actually be a funny show because again,
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: the self help industry, James is so huge I mean
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: I used to go into borders back when they existed
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: and now Bourns and Nobles, and there'd be a just
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: a huge wall of self help books. Also, you know,
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: it's it's kind of that family guy joke. Brian wrote
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: a book called like thinke it, do it want it?
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: Or something like that, and it was, you know, most
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: of it was blank pages so you could fill it
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: out yourself.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, James, that's great, but that's a funny idea.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just because you know, then he was on
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: Bill Maher Brian the Dog was and he was like,
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: you know, Brian isn't wanting it and wishing it the
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: same thing? And why are most of the pages blank?
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: He's like, this is that lazy as hell? But yeah,
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: I think that a grew idea. It would be awesome, James,
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: especially now, I think I think the self help industry,
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: I think it maybe started off in the right direction,
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: but then you know, as other people sort of get
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: into it, it's sort of this is a lot of
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: I guess, I don't know, I guess maybe a lot
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: of it sort of comes watered down, if you will.
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, you can imagine like two I mean, look
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: there's all these look, getting real help requires hard work.
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: It's not like I'm going to read an Instagram quote
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: and suddenly be helped. But you could imagine these two
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: guys who have like, you know, tons of followers or
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: whatever on Instagram or Facebook or wherever they're meeting, and
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: like one of them sad because his latest quote or
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: post didn't get as many likes. Another person might be
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: like upset about like a girlfriend, and you know, it
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: just kind of you know, you kind of kind of
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: see the real thing. But meanwhile, the you know, some
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: side stories might be problems at seminar or you know,
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: the you know, how they overcome their problems with the
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: girlfriend or whatever. Like, you know, there could be many
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: different substories in there. I probably should write like, well,
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: how you know, it's like a page a minute, right
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: for a script. So if you're read a twenty two
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: minute show, it's twenty two pages and you need what
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: do you mean? You need like three storylines intersecting and
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: kind of a beginning, middle, and end for each one.
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: I'm asking you, I'm learning from you.
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: So so TV shows, depending upon which like what kind
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: of show, it's going to be the way that the
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: format works changes a little bit. So if you're writing
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: something like Seinfeld, it's a lot different than something like,
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: let's say The Walking Dead, because if you're worrying a
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: one hour show, you write it like a movie. If
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: you're writing a half hour sitcom, it's everything becomes like
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: double space and it looks almost more like a stage play.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: How that's laid out. So if you're gonna do like
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: something like you know, Seinfeld, everyone loves Raymond, it would
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: actually be double what you think because each page is
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: at now thirty seconds instead of a minute, so it
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: would be for a twenty minute show, it becomes like
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: forty to fifty pages, and et cetera, et cetera. So
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: that so if you whatever software, like if you use
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: final drafts, fade in writer's duet, there's so many out there.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: Now will be right back after a word from our
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: You know, it does all the heavy lifting for you
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: so you can focus on writing, and that that's key.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: What so other than just the spacing and stuff, what
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: are the what are the beats of a sitcom?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: So again you know there's uh so again, like if
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: we use siginfld as an example, Seinfeld was revolutionary because
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: all four main characters always had their own storyline. So
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: Jerry had a Kramer, BB, George, c Elaine d and
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: you know, all of them would end up intersecting at
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: some point or another throughout the show. And and what
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: I love about Seinfeld was everything is different. No, no
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: two episodes are ever the same. And I think that
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: was the genius of Larry David because you know, I
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: actually knew a guy who wrote a couple of screenplays
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: for Seinfeld, and it was Fred Stolers's name, and.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: Actually I'm Facebook friends with Fred Stoller. He's a good guy.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've tried to get him on the podcast, but
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: we can't make our schedules sort of coincide. I'm gonna
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: keep trying. And you know, he would say, whenever he
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: would hand in a script Larry David had, we always
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: go through it and he would add the final touches
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: to it, and sometimes he would change a few things
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: up here and there. But basically, you know what exactly
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: you have a beginning, middle, and end, and you know
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: the beginning and the end or twenty five percent each,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: and that middle part is fifty percent, So that would
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: you know at the end of one hundred percent, and
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: you know, you sort of have these storylines they can
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: sort of intersect as they are, depending upon how you're
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: gonna write the story. So with Seinfeld, like I was
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: just saying, it's a lot, you know, each episode was different,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: and then sometimes at the end everything would sort of
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: all intersect with each other. All four storylines would intersect,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: you know, and then sometimes there would be only two
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: storylines that would actually intersect, or sometimes it will be
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: two storylines period. So that was a brilliance of Seinfeld.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: You never knew what how actually the story was going
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: to play out, and that's why I think Seinfeld is
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: still one of the best TV shows ever, if not
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: the best TV show ever.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's really interesting. It's probably a good model to follow.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure you're you're referring to. He had a
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: e wo an excellent book, My Seinfeld Year where he
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: writes about this stuff.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, I think you know. I actually bought
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: the Kennel version. And that's actually where I started saying
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: that to Fred. I said, you should come on this
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: podcast and we can, you know, dig in a little
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: deeper talk about TV writing and how it's changed, if
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: it even has changed, and you know all that good stuff.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: But but yeah, My Seinfeld Year is a fantastic e book.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I I'm a fan of that one. Yeah,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: I didn't. I just got Seinfeldia, which is kind of
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: a history of the Seinfeld Show and it's it looks interesting.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: Really, I haven't heard of that. So basically, is it
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: like all about how it got developed and stuff?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: See that? Yeah, I love stuff like that. It's very interesting.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: I actually have a book about Lost, the TV show Lost,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: and I was the only one that Damon Lineloff actually
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: signed off on, and I think he wrote the foreword
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: for it as well. But it's basically goes into the
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: whole mythology of Lost.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: Oh wow, what's the name of the book? You know?
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: I'm I don't have it right handy. It's actually buried
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: in among my library of books. I'm gonna I'll tell
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: you what I will. I will message the title to you.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, Because I just finished rewatching Loss for probably
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: the third time. I watched it with my fourteen year
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: old sod did she like it? Oh? She loved it. Yeah,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: it's a great show. I mean a lot of people
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: hate the ending but I love it mine. I have
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: no problem with it. I thought it was a great show.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it was a phenomenal show. I spent
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: season one. I literally was always like, what the hell
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: is going on? You know, it's been in a good way,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: not like, you know, in a bad way. And he
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: would always be guessing about, you know, what the hell
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: would are these things and how how this actually is
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: and you know, and then they actually started doing a
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: podcast about it. I mean, this is you know, a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: couple of years ago, when the show was still in
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: the air, they would actually do podcasts about the episode
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: and you know, answer some fan questions. It was actually
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: really interesting way they did that. I think it actually
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: helped out you know, interaction and also helped out you know,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: the fan base to make them, you know, to make
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: them much more inclusive.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I I loved every aspect of it. So
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: but you're right, the first season was great, but I
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: love I loved the last season too. I liked the
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: whole story of you know, Jacob and the Man of
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: and Black and so on.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was phenomenal. And you know, I know a
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: couple people who wrote a couple episodes of Loss and
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: I want to have them on the show too, because
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: they would explain to me how they actually wrote the episodes.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: And basically what they would do is you said, you know,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: either JJ or Damon who would come in and they
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: would say, Okay, this is what has to happen in
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: this episode, and now okay, this is your episode. Now
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: episode two, this is what has to happen, So this
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: is your episode. So that's why a lot of times
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: you would see things that would never actually explained because
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: writers were just encouraged the user creativity and come up
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: with this stuff, but they didn't necessarily have to tie
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: in with anything.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: Well, and I'm fine with it, Like everybody wanted like
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: very nice explanations for everything. By the end, I'm okay
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: if you know, not everything in the world needs to
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: be explained, like, it's okay that not that you can
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: still use your imagination to understand what's happening.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, I agree, James. And you know that's
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: why in the first episode there was all these you know,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: strange things going on, and I was again, I was
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: cool with them not explaining a lot of stuff. Yeah,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: so you know, James, again, I don't want to take
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: up too much of your time. I know you're a
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: busy guy.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: So I just want to really appreciate this though.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah again, James. I one of the reasons I
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: started the podcast was because of you, and it's amazing
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: that we're you know, you're you're going to be episode
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: like one one, I think. But I just wanted to ask,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: you know, James, just you know, in closing, is there
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: anything that we didn't discuss and maybe you wanted to
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: talk about or anything you wanted to say this sort
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: of put a period the end of this whole conversation.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: No, I mean, I'm really uh. It was a good
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: conversation for me. I learned more about screenwriting, which is
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: something I'm always interested in. I just want to mention
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: if I'm gonna be promotional at all, which I which
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: I don't like doing, but I'll do it anyway. I
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: do have this book that I'm really happy with called
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: Choose Your called Reinvent Yourself, which is coming out January fifth,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: twenty seventeen, and I'm super excited about it. And you know,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: if people want to learn more about it and the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: stories that kind of inspired it, then then I would
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: I would get it and.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: Everyone I'm gonna link to that in the show notes
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: as well on Amazon, and James, you can count on
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: me buy a copy on day one. I'm gonna buy
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: it the minute it comes out. And you know, because
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: again I have every single one of your books and
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: I think they're all phenomenal.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: Oh well, thanks so much, so I appreciate that.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: And James, where can people find you out online?
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: People can find me at James Altatra dot com or
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: at They could find me on Amazon, or they can
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean Twitter, at Jay Altacher, Instagram
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: at Alta. Sure, there's all sorts of places. I'm every everywhere.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: Again, I want to say thank you so much. This
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: has been an absolute pleasure, and again if you ever
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: want to come back on please the door is always
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: open and I wish you the best luck with everything.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: Excellent, Dave, thanks so much and good luck with everything.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much. James, thank you very much. Yeah
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: again again, it was great talking to you, and I
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: wish again let's talk soon. James. Okay, hey here, buddy,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: Bye bye.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Indie film huscle
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: dot com Forward slash eight fifty and if you have
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: it already, please head over to filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: really helps us out a lot, guys.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: Thank you again so much for listening.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Guys, as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 1:07:59
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• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: dot com.