IFH 088: Why Filmmakers are Always So Damn Broke & What They Can Do to Change It

Alex Ferrari 0:36
Now guys today, you know, I'm pissed, I'm pissed off, and we're going to talk about some real shit today. So if you don't want to listen to real, real, raw information, stuff that may not be easy to listen to. And some of it might be in my opinion, but this is going to be the realest shit I've ever said on this podcast. So if you're interested, perk up those years, because we're going to talk and we're going to talk real. And at the end of this, we're going to see a light at the end of this fucking tunnel. And yes, I know, I've got like two days left on my crowdfunding campaign, but we'll talk about that later. You know, because I want to, I wanted to get into this because something happened to me a little while ago, and it affected me, it affected me really, really deeply. And I kind of just had an epiphany that I'm like, you know what I needed, I need to talk about this. And I need to lay this out for the tribe. And for whoever is listening to this podcast out there. I have a story about an artist now, I was driving in LA and in LA, when you're driving around, you stop at, you know, off ramps of the highway, there's always some homeless person, or someone you know, asking for help. And, you know, it just becomes something you always see in the back of your, you always just see it, you know, it's something you there. And then when you have some money you give, I always try to give as much as I can. Whenever I see somebody, but I saw this one person. And she She hit me to the core of my, my soul, when I saw her was a beautiful young girl. She must have been probably in her early 20s. And the look on her face, while she was standing on the side of the road asking for money with her little sign which I'll tell you what it said in a minute. The look on her face was so I mean, it just it's like bringing a tear to my eye just thinking about what she looked like she had this fear, this, the pression this, this like hopelessness. And the sign said, I'm an artist. I'm homeless, and I need money to eat. Please help. Now, what brought what really caught my eye was the fact that she had drawn this beautiful calligraphy on this piece of cardboard, some piece of cardboard she found somewhere in a dumpster. And she had a pen and some colors. And she drew this beautiful calligraphy, stating what I just told you it was and it broke my fucking heart. Because she had so much talent. And I'm like, Why? Why in god's green earth can't this artists make a living? Why in god's green earth can this artist is beautiful young lady cannot make a living doing her art? Why does she have to be standing on the side of the road, begging for money, begging to eat to survive. And she has this talent. That's obvious. It's not like I'm making it up. She has this amazing talent, which is a monetize, you can make money doing that she can monetize that talent. But she doesn't have the skills, or God knows what else has happened in her life to get her to the position she is at. But I think if she would have had the skills, the knowledge, the support, to be that artist, she wouldn't be on the side of the road. Now I had $20 in my pocket, and I handed her over to her without even thinking twice. If I had more, I would have given her more that day. And I'm no rich man by any stretch of the imagination. I've got a family I have to support. But when I saw that, I was just in awe of even at the lowest part where she was at. And again, I can't make any judgments about where she is or who she is or what she's gone through. But at that moment in time to be where she was at in her life. She still used her art to express herself, even if the expression was to ask for money. To survive, to eat, to have a place to sleep in the night. And that just rang so true to me, as an artist, as a filmmaker, that I was like, Oh my god, I can't believe this dungar. And I gave her some words that go, look, I stopped for a second ago, I'm an artist too. And there is hope, you know, keep your head up, keep working. And I couldn't do anything else for her. At the moment, I was just so it just, I mean, I was just so breath taking my breath was taken away from me. And the light turned green, and I had to go. But that woman's face that young girl's face is burned into mice into my brain. And I will never forget her or her sign. So this episode is dedicated to all the starving artists, and in my world filmmakers, because that's who I talked to. I talked to filmmakers. But everything I'm about to say, is something that could easily be translated to any art form, whether that be music, whether that be painting, whether that be writing a novel, a script, whatever, almost all the forms of art, what I'm about to say, can translate into that form. But I'm going to focus on filmmakers. And I'm going to use filmmaking terminology, because that's who my tribe is, that is a tribe that I'm trying to help. But in, in the broader term, I want all artists, no matter what format, you choose, to be able to make a fucking living wage, doing what you love to do. This world is big enough, there is enough people in it to support your artistic endeavors. And I want to make that very clear to everyone, there is a enough people on the planet to support you, you your individual little art, whatever little or big, or whatever you want to do, it can be supported by this population by this planet. Okay, so I'm going to get into it. Now, guys, by the way, I, if any of you guys have been listening to my podcast for a long time, you know, I don't curse very often. I rarely curse, because I like to keep the show clean. But this, this show is gonna be fucking not that clean. And I'm doing it for a reason. I want to shake you up a bit. I want you to wake up out of your delusion sometimes that we as artists get through and trust me, as I go through this, you'll understand my journey, too, because I'm going to talk a little bit in detail on things I probably never talked about on the show before to illustrate what i'm talking what I'm trying to explain to you guys today. All right. So if you are offended by a cursing, I'm sorry, there's gonna be some in this in this show. So step one, have a plan, have a plan. Now, I'm going to give you some examples of what I mean have a plan, you have to have a plan on how you're going to support yourself, while you're building the skills needed to make a living as a filmmaker, or as an artist. Does that make sense to everyone listening, have a plan. There's so many artists, so many filmmakers that go out and like I'm just gonna go and be an artist, I'm just going to be I just wanted to show art, and I just want to do art, and I want to make my movies and I don't want to worry about the business. If you go down that road, you will never ever, ever make it a living as an artist. Okay, sure there are the lottery ticket guys, always our there's always exceptions to every rule. But the 99.9% of the rest of us, we're not going to be able to do that. So you have to have a plan. My plan was I chose editing, I chose post production to make my my put food on my table. And by doing that I learned an immense amount of skills that helped me as a filmmaker, as a director. Because those skills I was able to translate into my directing career as in commercials and music videos, where the point was I was being packaged out as not just a director for hire, but a director who could also shoot a director that could also edit and post and I could package it all together making myself much more appetizing for potential clients. Why? Because I had a plan. I thought about I'm like, Well, if I don't Oh, and by the way, this was all at 20 something when I started this journey, I did not have this all mapped out. By the way, I'm not that smart. I kind of fell into it and I kind of was very instinctual about it. So I'm here to hopefully We pass that information on to you. So you don't have to learn the hard way, which are a lot of lessons I'm going to talk about that I had to learn the hard way. So find something that you can do for a long time to create to, to support your creative aspirations. Okay, whatever that might be. And, you know, working at the local, you know, the local restaurant as a waiter. Yeah, you could do that. And many artists here in LA do that. But I would I would go out, I would go out and try to do something a little bit more, you know, try to get where if you're a filmmaker, and you're trying to break into the business, why not work as a PA, why not work in the grip department? Why not work on the set? Why not work in a post production house? Why not work in visual effects? Why not work at a casting office, why not work at an agency, work somewhere that you're going to get access to information to knowledge that can help you build up that toolbox, build up that Arsenal, that you will be able to use on your own projects, on your own creative endeavors, not having a plan is the single biggest mistake I see filmmakers make. And I've seen so many come through my doors, who like mortgaged the house, and they roll the dice. And that's all beautiful and very romantic. You know what I mean? Very romantic to do that. But Don't be an idiot. I'm sorry. You don't do things like that. This is the real world. You don't go out and put your house on, you mortgage your house to make your movie. It's very romantic. But if you do that, and have no backup plan, and you risk yourself, your family, your home for your art. I'm sorry, you're an idiot. Like I said before, you could do that if you want to. Hell, Kevin Smith did it with clerks. He put a bunch of stuff on his credit cards. I was on $30,000 to make clerks. Robert Townsend was one of the first independent filmmakers to do that. If you guys don't know Robert Townsend, as you look them up, he did a movie called Hollywood shuffle back in the days when films were films as far as making movies actually on 35. And it cost a ton. And he put everything on his credit cards. He's the first guy I think, who did that, that was well known and actually hit Spike Lee did that. Robert Rodriguez, you know did with it, you know, he was a guinea pig to make his moving in to get a $7,000 budget to make El Mariachi, you know, everyone does a lot of different things. Now, if you want to risk it all, go for it, knock yourself out, but you're risking it, and you're rolling the dice. And in today's world, it's not the world of Kevin Smith anymore. It ain't the world of Robert Townsend, which was the 80s. Okay, it's 2016 guys, as a lot more competition out there. And the whole, I sell it all by stop, I put on my I put on my credit cards, or loan myself out or mortgaged my house to make a movie story that's been told already. So now I'm going to get you a lot of heat. All right. And I'm not saying I am saying you shouldn't. But it's not smart. You have to have a plan on where you want to go with this. So again, step one, have a fucking plan. Step two, learn every aspect about filmmaking that you can, okay, every aspect, and again, a filmmaking or whatever your art might be, but learn every aspect of it. So as a filmmaker, I don't want to hear about a director who doesn't understand lenses, who doesn't understand cameras, who doesn't understand post basic post production, I don't need I don't want you guys to become experts in everything. But you should know enough about every avenue enough that you could do something with that information to help you make your movie. You know, and it's not gonna happen overnight. You know, but something as simple as this. throughout my entire career, audio has been my nemesis. I hated it in college. I hated it during productions. I don't want to deal with it. I just didn't like audio, I hated an audio post. It just drove me nuts. It was something I never liked to doing. But now because I started doing it, I was gonna do my own movie. And and I was gonna create this is mag, which is the first feature as you all know, that I've done and I'll talk a bunch about that in a minute. It was the first time I was going to do everything by myself, essentially, almost the entire production was going to be handled by me. And the one area that I felt really weak in was audio. So what did I do? I took an audio online course. A wonderful audio online course that is available. Here's my plug at the ifH film school which is amazing. In just two hours, in two hours, I learned the basics about how to record great audio onset. Simple, it's not complicated, I now can talk to an audio guy at his level. I'm not an expert by any stretch, by any stretch, am I an expert in audio, but I know enough to get clean audio on my movie. And in the future, I hopefully will have bigger budgets where I can hire a professional audio guy. But that is what I'm talking about. Because if I didn't learn that piece of information, I can't move forward, I can't learn or it's going to cost me a lot more to get to get it done. So what I'm telling you is learn as much as you can about the film, the filmmaking process, and I'm not talking also about just the creative, fun part. Educate yourself about every aspect of the creative and business side of filmmaking. Okay, every aspect. So you need to understand the business, like I've said many times before, and I may quote Suzanne Lyons, a good producer, friend of mine, she says, the word show, and there's a word business, and the word business is twice as long as the word show. And there's a reason for that. It is real reason, you have to understand the business of it, you have to understand distribution, you have to understand marketing, you have to understand all this other stuff. And we're going to get into a couple of those other avenues in a little bit. But you have to understand everything, okay, everything, how to open up an LLC. You know, when you're opening and you're making a movie, you need to have an LLC, you need to understand insurance, you need to understand everything, as much as you can. And again, you don't have to be experts at everything. But you need to know enough about it, to move yourself forward and not have it hold you back. Does that make sense? I really hope it does. Three, big huge tip on how to be a successful or at least a artist that can sustain himself or herself throughout her life is to show up every day. As Woody Allen has said, 90% of success is just showing up. And he's absolutely right. Consistency, builds a career, builds your art, showing up every day, and just doing it. Read a book every day, learn something new every day, try a new thing. And it builds up into this unstoppable creative force. Imagine this guy's imagine this. Why don't I'm gonna put I'm gonna put something out in the world right now. I'm gonna put everybody here in this podcast to try to do something for me. Why don't you guys read 10 pages of a book every day. 10 pages 10 pages will take you 20 minutes. You could do it on the john. You could do it on your commute. If you can't read it, listen to it. Listen to 10 minutes, left 10 minutes or watch a 10 minute course 10 minutes of an online course a video, a tutorial, YouTube tutorial, listen to audio books, or listen to a podcast, an informative podcast like one like when you listen to right now, of course. But listen to something like that every day. Now imagine if you read 10 pages every day. How many books would you have read by the end of the year 10 to 12 books out an average of a 250 page 250 pages a book, let's say some will be shorter somebody longer. So let's say between 10 and 15 books. So imagine if you've read 10 or 15 books a year? How much stronger? How much more informed? How much of a better creative filmmaker or artist would you be if you had that much information in your noggin? Imagine you learning about every other aspect of the business. You know, maybe learning about the legalities of the film business is boring to read a book for you know, 1020 you know, just sit down and start reading a book. But a 10 pages a day you can learn something. And if books aren't your thing, like I said, a lot of people are visual learners. I'm a visual learner. I listen to books. I listen to books, and I watch online courses. I watch tutorials, I watch videos, I watch documentaries. That's where I get that's how I absorb information better than than just reading a book. I do read books, of course, for enjoyment, but where I really absorb it is visual. I'm a visual learner. So whatever works for you, but do that every day, no matter what. And watch the magic that'll happen. If you're a filmmaker and you start reading books and directing books and cinematography, books on audio books on Art Department just read books about life, because you can't be a good artist. Unless you understand the world around you. Read a book about Other things other than filmmaking, imagine how much richer you will be as an educated filmmaker about other aspects of the film business. How much more dangerous as a filmmaker would you be? If you had all that information in your head, you know, Chris Nolan, and just wake up and be Chris Nolan, Robert Rodriguez in wake up and be Robert Rodriguez, Tarantino did not wake up and become Tarantino, they all showed up. They all, every day, did something small, to build up their information, build up their arsenal of knowledge that they can use to do their art, and in our world that just create the art, sell the art make a living, doing the art doing your film. All right. So number four, and this is one that filmmakers completely and totally underestimate, and don't want to deal with. But guess what, if you don't do what I'm about to tell you, the chances of you making a living in today's world or tomorrow's world, as a independent filmmaker, trying to sell your stuff online, by yourself, you're done, you're dead in the water. So what you need to learn is branding, audio, audience building, and marketing. Those three things are huge. I cannot express to you enough, the importance of branding, audience building, and marketing. If you don't do that, without that, you will have an extremely hard time, if not virtually almost impossible, to make a living as a filmmaker, or as an artist on the internet or wherever you're trying to sell your stuff. Now of course, you're going to do the whole Oh, I don't really want to do everything myself. I just want to make my movie, have a studio pick it up, and I'm off off to the races. That is the lottery fucking ticket mentality that I am raging against. At indie film hustle. And I know a lot of my other contemporaries do the same thing. Scott over a film trooper Jason over at indie film Academy. Those guys all say the same thing. It's a lottery ticket mentality. You can't think like that. That's not a fucking business plan. Okay, I don't want to hear about oh, you know, my business plan is to make a movie and win Sundance. That's not a fucking plan. That's a pipe dream. And it might happen. But that's not the plan might look right now I'm getting. I'm shooting. This is Meg. I'm getting ready to submit it to Sundance like every other filmmaker on the planet. Okay, that is my goal. My dream? Would it be wonderful to get into a Sundance or South by Southwest or at Tribeca, or any of these big festivals? Absolutely. I would love it. But it's not my only plan, guys. I'm going to submit it. I'm going to give it my best and might get paid. It might not. But I have other plans after we're like, oh, let's see how it works. If it doesn't work, we got this plan. Boom, boom, boom. And then we got three or four other plans lined up back to back. We have strategies. I'm aware this movie's gonna go. You can't just whisk it all on one thing. You know, it's lunacy. It's absolute lunacy. And that's when you're desperate. And when you're desperate is when you sign horrible distribution deals with horrible distributors when you'll never see a fucking dime. And that's what I hate to see filmmakers do. They spend a year year and a half of their life making a movie if not longer, sometimes, they have no plan on how to market it, or sell it or build an audience to sell it. And then oh, well, I guess I'm gonna have to go to AFM and try to sell it and then they spend 1000s of dollars going to AFM and they figure out that they can't sell it anywhere else until one distributor comes on like look kid, I'll take it on for you. I'll release it on DVD I put it over on Netflix for DNA never gonna get any fucking money and that's happened I'm gonna say the majority of the time when I've seen filmmakers go through this process that's the end and I'm not the only one to say that you could talk to any professional in the business any distributed any any any go over talk to Jason brew breaker over filmmaking stuff. He'll say the same thing. Okay, there's so much that you need to understand about the branding about the audience building and about the marketing. You've got to educate yourself. You have to educate us about how to brand yourself as a filmmaker. Okay, now brand your movie that's different. brand yourself as a filmmaker like Scorsese branded himself, like Spike Lee branded himself, like Mark duplass. Brands himself, like Joe Swanberg brand himself. They all have a brand, how big or small, it's irrelevant, but they all have a brand the Coen Brothers a brand everyone has a brand. You have to learn and understand your brand and take care of it, nurture it, and build it, then you start creating a brand around your movie. But before you could do that, you got to start building an audience. Now you can build your audience in many different ways. And there's a whole courses about this. And I'm planning I'm probably going to build, I'm going to probably create a book or on a course on everything I'm talking about later on. But you have to understand about how to build an audience so you can sell to that audience. And then marketing, oh God, marketing, marketing, the evil word of marketing. Well, you know what, Seth Rogen, Seth Godin. And Rogen, Seth Godin, who's a marketing genius, has said it best marketers ruin everything. So when something's cool marketers will come in and screw it up. Facebook being an example of that, Twitter, Instagram, and so on. That's what marketers do. But marketing is not this evil thing that you have to be like, I don't want to be a marketer. I don't want to be a marketer selling my stuff. Well, I hate to tell you, because if you don't know how to market, Yang gonna sell shit. Yang gonna sell your movie, Yang gonna make a living, you ain't gonna pay the rent, you're not going to eat food, you're going to be living on your parents couch, and you're going to be looking for a job at the local Olive Garden. And if you want to work at the Olive Garden, that's fine. But I don't think you're listening to this podcast because it's a thing called Olive Garden hustle. It's called indie film hustle for a reason. You're trying to learn how to survive and thrive in the business. And I'm gonna give it to you straight as straight as I know how to give it to you. Sorry, I'm angry guys. I just that that story at the beginning of the episode got me so riled up, that I decided to just kind of just blurt all of this stuff out. And I worked hard on this podcast, and I want you guys to listen. Because it's, it's the message that I've been trying to say, with indie film hustle. So let's continue before we go off track. So branding, audience building and marketing. Step five, be an entrepreneur. Now, what is an entrepreneur, if no one knows what an entrepreneur is, entrepreneur is just a fancy French word, it says someone who hustles a whole lot, creates a business and sells a product, whatever that might be a service, a product, so on. That's an entrepreneur, filmmakers who are not entrepreneurs, in today's world, 2016. And moving forward, because the world's only going to be going more towards this avenue, you're not going to have a chance, you have to think bigger, you have to think more than just, I'm just going to make a movie. And I'm going to get distributed, and I'm going to get the money and go, No, no, you can't do that. Now, mind you, I don't think I'm going to be selling Meg dolls, action figures, and mega t shirts, you know, just help support this as Meg, it's not probably going to work with that kind of movie. But there are other things that you can do. So perfect example, is look at movies like Kung Fury and turbo kid. Okay, on the side of like, filmmakers, indie filmmakers, these guys were no one's nobody's before they came out with this, to my knowledge, because I had never heard of them. But they both came out with very successful not only crowdfunding campaigns, but they were able to sell and continue to make money and build an audience with these guys in the show notes at indie film hustle.com, forward slash zero 88, you will have links to all of the stuff I'm talking about, okay, Kung Fury, and turbo kid, these guys built up an audience around their product, their brand, and around the concept of what they were trying to do. They funded it, they sold it, and they and it's been they've been very successful. Now, success is very, a very unique term, what success to you $10 million and living up in the Hollywood Hills, or I made 100 grand, and I can live for a year while I create more art. That's the that's something that you need to decide, decide for yourself, and what you have to do to get to that point. But those guys, they did really well. And two other amazing examples are two documentaries, food matters, and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. These guys are entrepreneurs to the UMP degree. If you go to food matters calm I think it is if not gonna be in the show notes. Food matters actually built up this documentary about food. It's about how food matters. And it's all about healthy food and GMOs and healthy eating and all that kind of stuff. Well, they build up so much momentum off the off the documentary, that they actually build up a platform. So now they're a distributor. They're a distributor of other movies. In the same token, this is just a family. This is a couple in Australia who did this. They're not big guys. They built their entire business up now they've got a to my understanding a multi million dollar business built up or for one movie, and they were able to spin it and leverage it to build an entire business around to help people in the cause that they're trying to help with. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. Same thing happened with Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. If you guys haven't seen that movie, it changed my life when I saw it. But this guy on Australia and again, I don't know may something in Australia, I don't know, maybe maybe I should move to Australia, I have no idea. But another Australian guy came over and decided to juice himself out of his sickness for 60 days, and it changed his life. And he changed people along the way, his life, and so on and so forth. He got huge sponsorship, sponsorship deals with juicers, he's built an entire business up around that Sick and Nearly Dead. I mean, I saw his stuff at Bed, Bath and Beyond. They were giving away his movie, next to the juicer. That's an entrepreneur that someone's thinking outside the box. Before he was a filmmaker, he was a businessman. And that's how it worked. And now he made a sequel to it. And he's building a business up, he does lecturing, he does touring. I mean, it's remarkable what that guy's done. But that's what I'm talking about being an entrepreneur with your movie. There's millions of stories, and I would say millions. But there's a lot of stories out there. I wish there was millions of stories. But there's a lot of stories out there filmmakers who decided to take control of their life, their creative lives, and make a business out of filmmaking. Because I hate to tell you guys, this is a business, you've got to sell your product, you've got to make a living doing this. If not, you're going to just get up enough energy or enough willpower or whatever, enough money to make one movie. And if it doesn't pop, you're done. And you can't look at filmmaking as a homerun Derby. Because it's not. If I'm going to use baseball as an analogy, you got to work on the singles. Just gonna keep popping those singles in boom, boom, they ain't fancy, mean flashy, their singles. But you know what, singles after singles after singles turns into homeruns. Okay, and that's what you need to focus on. Don't focus on the homerun, I think that's what all a lot of excuse me, a lot of filmmakers, including myself, focused on is these homerun mentality this, like, I got to knock it out the park, I gotta get that deal with Warner Brothers off this one movie. You can't do that. You got to just hit singles, man. And maybe, maybe one day that balls thrown just right. And maybe you pop that ball, just up in the air high enough that Tom run, and it happens. But you know what, if you haven't practice hitting those singles, you're never gonna be able to hit that home run. Okay, so focus on that be an entrepreneur, take control of your filmmaking and creative world, I just want to let you guys know something. There is over 7.2 8 billion people on this planet. All you need is 1000 people a year to pay it 10 bucks a month. That's 120,000 US dollars, which is an amazing salary for an artist and a family to certain extent, living in Los Angeles, depending on where you live, of course, in Beverly Hills, not so much. But everywhere else. Yes, it's an amazing salary. You know, and I can only imagine what 120,000 us could do for people living out outside of LA, living in other parts of the of the US or another country. Imagine that. Now you're saying, well, it's how do I get 1000 people 1000 people is not a lot of people in the scope of 2.7 point two 8 billion people, you have to create enough of an audience that someone's willing to pay you $10 a month for your art, or for your knowledge, or for your information, or for something that's related to what you're trying to do as an artist. It's not impossible. When I break it down into those numbers. It's not only possible, but it's very probable, but it takes a lot of work, but it is doable. So now I'm going to go on to Step six. This is another big one. Don't give up. Do not give up. Now, I am far from perfect. I have lost my way. So many times off my pass off my path. You know, my path is a filmmaker. That's the journey. That's my journey. I'm walking on that path. And it's gotten so tough. And so rough. You know, living in you know, I was living in Miami and that's a smaller market than La obviously, and it was tough making a living as a filmmaker, as even a post guy, which is an actual like, you know, not just creating movies, but actually just editing and post production and things like that. Things got so rough sometimes that I jumped off the course I jumped off my journey. You know, I've, I've had multiple different businesses over the years that I kind of stepped off the journey and went down other paths. I had a comic book business, I hid in my comic book business when things got really tough. I had an eBay and Amazon business selling DVDs. Many of you know my DVD story that helped me get to LA. And I'll put that I'll put that link to, to the to that episode as a fun story. I even opened up an olive oil gourmet shop. And that was only a few years ago, a year and a half ago, I closed that business. I was doing that business for three years. And people were like, what the hell is Alex doing? Why in god's green earth is Alex Ferrari opening up an olive oil company? Well, you know what I was so beat up. I was so disheartened by the business, that I had been beaten up by these distributors that I've been working with it, I was just working with them as post, I wasn't even working with them as a filmmaker. Working with them as post, I was just getting beat up constantly. And I was just tired, and I was worn out. And I was didn't feel like I was going anywhere. And I had this crazy idea of opening up an olive oil company. And I'll be honest with you guys, it was it was the right one, some of the roughest years of my life, it was very, very difficult. And I have a newfound respect for anybody working in retail, working events, things like that. And, you know, I, I always feel this is true. And it's happened to me in a few times in my life where you've got to go, if you stay kind of like in the middle and you don't get pushed either. Either way, either really low or really high. You kind of just kind of muddle there and don't move. And I found that that's not really good for your soul is not good for you as an artist, you got to kind of be pushed and tug the bit. So when I went on this crazy adventure of opening up an olive oil company, it brought me down very low, it brought me lower than I've been in over a decade easily. And it was very tough, and it was very emotionally draining and physically just brutal. But one, they'll go into the details of it later. But I think that for me at least, I feel that when you're being brought down so low, I feel is like almost like a slingshot. All that weight was pulling me down, pulling me down, pulling me down to the point where I finally released to the store or released the company. I released it, and it's it's snapped, and that slingshot bursted me out of the cannon, if you will. And that's where indie film hustle was born. Because I had such a new respect and love for what I I loved originally I had forgotten I had fallen out of love with the film business. And now that I saw the options I said, well hell, I'm I got I got I got to go back. And when I came back, I came back with a vengeance. Big time and that's where indie film hustle came from. And then everybody that all my friends and all my colleagues are so happy when came up, but I had never, I don't think indie film hustle. And what I'm achieving with indie film hustle now with this is mag all the things that are happening to me in my life right now. Wouldn't be there if I hadn't been thrown this amazing three year journey or challenge that I had to go through to get where I am today. And a lot of people always say and I'm gonna do a little Tony Robbins on you hear a lot of people always say that, you know, I don't want problems. Well, you know, what problems are what make you who you are. Problems are what shape you as an artist and shape you as a human being. Because if you don't have problems, you don't you can't overcome them. You can't learn from them, and you can't grow and if you can't grow, you're dead. And I hope you heard me if you don't grow if you don't challenge yourself, you're dead as a human as a person and as an artist and I still did business I still I did post production during that process I still did movies I I still you know I did all that kind of stuff I stayed I always no matter how far away from the path I veered. I always had one foot on the path. Always. You know why? Because this this business this calling, if you will, calls to me, like a mythological siren like if I wasn't in a homer story and and it just Call me no matter how many times I tried to leave, it just kept calling me back. No matter how many times I said, I gotta just, I gotta do something else, I gotta quit. This is too fucking hard. I can't take it anymore. No matter what I tried, it always called me back. It always just kept calling me back and saying you, I always ask the question, I got it, I gotta leave, I got to do something else. And I asked the question, I'm like, well, then then my brain or my universe, or my soul, or whatever you want to call it said, Well, what are you going to do? And then I said, Well, I don't have a choice, do I like no, you're not built for much else. So that's why I thought my olive oil career was going to get off the ground. And we did well with that business. And the first time I've actually talked about that, I know a lot of people out in the tribe have heard about it through other interviews and things like that. But it's the first time I've talked about it on the show. And it was the largest olive oil company in Los Angeles. And I, it was the, it was called the dark times. But I viewed I veered off the path. And I understand a lot of you out there are feeling what I felt. And what I feel now. And I know it's really tough out there for you guys. And I feel you because I've been there and I've been there not once but multiple fucking times. A lot of times I've been out there. But the thing that you have to keep in your head as you can't give up. If this is really for you, you won't give up. If this is really your calling, if you're calling is really to be a storyteller, a filmmaker, a filmmaking entrepreneur, then you will find a way, you will find a way to make it work. If I've been able to find a way to make it work, you can find a way to make it work. And I'm telling you, it's not going to be an easy path. Being an artist is probably one of the most difficult paths. Any human being can take. As far as a career choice is concerned. It's very, very difficult to make a living. But it doesn't have to be. If you're smart, the opportunities are there. If you put in the work, you educate yourself, you can take this, you can do it, there is nothing you cannot do. If you do these steps, these simple steps I'm talking about. If you do them, I guarantee you, you'll have some success. It might not be the success in your dreams of millions and millions of dollars. But it's a starting point. Because I guarantee you if you do something long enough, eventually someone's gonna notice you. And you're gonna get opportunities that you never even thought of, because you're doing it. Do you know how many opportunities have opened up to me, because of indie film hustle, because of my want and need to give back to my community to give back to my filmmaking tribe to, to the filmmakers out to the indie filmmakers. You know, how many opportunities have opened up how many meetings I've had, how many things have happened to me, people I've met, purely because I sit in a dark room and I talk on a microphone and try to help people with my podcast, or I write articles or upload videos about helping you guys. You know, and it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. And I can only imagine if I keep doing this, which I will in the next three, four or five years, what I'll be able to accomplish as a filmmaker, and how many people I'll be able to help how many artists, how many stories I've hopefully will have inspired and other filmmakers to make that can change the world because when you make good art, good art can change people. Good art can change a person and if you can change a person, you can change the world. And I know that's kind of fluffy. I know I'm from LA. That sounds really hippy. But you know what? The fucking truth. It's the fucking truth. All right. So step seven, and probably the one that's the most difficult. Out of all the steps I've talked about today, and stuff that a lot of people out there listening to this don't want to do, but I'm hoping you will. You've got to work. You got to hustle. Repeat that. You've got to work and you've got to hustle. This business this film business that you want in so bad on it's fucking brutal. brutal. Okay. Like, like Stallone says and Rocky Balboa, which is an amazing speech. He wrote this business will bring you to your knees, no matter how tough you think you are, like life, life will bring anybody to your knees. And that's only something that you realize as you get older. But this business will bring you to your knees. And you won't even know what to do. But as he says, It's not about it's not about how hard you get hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. You've got to keep moving forward. This is the best time ever to be an independent filmmaker, you have access that us older filmmakers, not that old, but older filmmakers would have killed for I would have killed to have an editing system on my laptop. But I didn't have that option. When I was you know, coming up, I had to drive an hour. And then this is my uphill the snow barefoot story. But I had to drive an hour every morning to my internship, where I got to work on the avid an hour before the production company opened. And then I would stay two hours late. And then drive back home at midnight, because I've been working and practicing on the avid. And I did that for months before I ventured out to become my own freelance editor. Now all you need to do is download DaVinci Resolve or download or you know, buy premiere, you know, get access to premiere for like 25 bucks a month, or whatever the Creative Cloud thing is now, and you can be doing it at home. You have access to things you have access to distribution outlets, you can upload your movie to Amazon right now to Amazon. using certain services, you have access to iTunes, to Netflix, to Hulu, to crackle to all sorts of different avenues that can create revenue streams for you. But you know what you got to work, you got to hustle hard to get the word out about your movie. You can sell your movie right now you can go to VH x or Vimeo or bought multiple other four platforms, upload your movie and start selling it to the public. Simple. Do you know what that means? You have no understanding what that is. I never had that. My generation of filmmakers never had that in my 30s. And that was a pipe dream. I still remember in film school where the teacher told me Oh, this nonlinear editing thing will never work. They'll never get broadcast quality out of a computer. Idiot. You know what I mean? It's It's you, you are living in a mind boggling time to be a filmmaker. It's mind boggling. But you've got a hustle. You've got to work. You got to you have to be smart about it. You have to have a plan a realistic plan. And making a movie and winning Sundance is not a fucking plan. Educate yourself on every aspect of filmmaking, of audience building of crowdsourcing, of crowdfunding of branding and marketing show up every day and put in 100%. And oh, by the way, hustle like you've never fucking hustled before. And that is a recipe for success. This isn't a six month plan. This isn't a year plan. This is a lifetime plan. making a living as an artist is fucking hard. But it doesn't have to be. It's taken me over 20 years to get all of my own bullshit out of my own out of my way. So I can finally make my first feature film. I don't want anyone listening to this podcast, to have to go through the same crap that I did. if not worse, maybe. Okay, you've got to just do it. But listen to these steps. It is a roadmap. It ain't the end all be all guys. It's a start. Learn from other people go out read other books, follow other people listen to other podcasts, educate yourself as much as you can. But this is a good step I wish I would have had this when I started out. I wish I would have I don't know if I would have listened to it because I was an idiot when I was in my 20s but it's a it's it's a blueprint it's a blueprint it's a nice blueprint that if you can follow and do you have a much better chance of success guys and in the future in coming episodes and and coming online courses and things like that. I'm going to talk in detail about this because I think it's something that that that this this community needs. And I'm gonna do my darndest to help you guys as much as humanly possible. So, I hope this episode has lit a fire under your fucking ass. Because I don't want to see any of you standing on the side of the fucking road with a sign saying I'll direct for food. I'm not trying to be funny about that. I'm being real

If you're going to be an artist, you got to learn every aspect you can about your art, you're gonna be a filmmaker, learn every aspect of filmmaking you can. So you can make your art, sell your art, and do it again. And keep creating art, keep creating films, keep creating stories, because those stories will change people's lives. Whether it be entertain them, get them to escape a bit, or change the way they think. Or maybe even inspire them to be a better version of who they are. You have no idea what your little movie could do for another human being. And I can talk about this because certain movies I've made certain experiences I've put out there, this podcast, all the emails and letters I get from you guys, thanking me for the inspiration thanking me for the knowledge that I'm putting out there for you guys. stuff that you're not gonna get anywhere else. Because I care, because I really, really care about you guys. And I don't want to see you on the side of the fucking road with a sign saying, I'll direct for food, or I need food for my family. Because I'm a starving fucking artist. It's not sexy to be a starving artist anymore, guys, I hate to tell you, that went out in the 70s. Okay, so I hope this episode has done some good for you. Please share this episode, with as many fellow filmmakers as you can. I want this message to get out to as many filmmakers as many artists as humanly possible. Because this is an important episode. Because I think it's probably one of the most important if not the most important episode I have ever made on the indie film hustle podcast. I hope you can hear and feel the passion that I have behind my voice right now. I'm not fucking around. And I'm not joking. I want nothing but good things for you guys. I want you guys to survive. I want not Oh, no fuck surviving. I want you guys to to succeed to thrive. Making your art. There's no reason why you cannot. Do you hear me? Hear me again, there is no reason why you cannot make a living, doing your art, doing your film, meaning a filmmaker. Okay, I'm gonna do the best I can to give you the tools that I can see or find the tools for you to help you along this path. All right. Now I was that was heavy. I'm exhausted. I don't know about you guys, but I'm exhausted. Now. I'm gonna say this once. And once alone. We got two days left on this as Meg to hit our goal and hopefully exceed our goal. All right, and we are like 94%. So we're really close. So I'm going to put this out today. So it is accurate. It's two days left, we're over on the 20th July 20 2016. This will be over. As far as this mag is concerned that crowdfunding campaign is concerned. So if you found any value in this episode, or in any episode, anything you can contribute to this to the film would be greatly greatly appreciated. Five bucks, 50 bucks, 1000 bucks, 5000 bucks. Whatever you can do. I'd be greatly appreciated. And if not, just post repost this episode, share this episode, email this episode to everybody you know, that would be amazing. And more than enough, imagine how many lives can be changed. If more filmmakers could actually make a living, making their movies. If more artists could actually make a living, doing their art, and they can create more art. Imagine what a better world it would fucking be. If artists could actually make a living doing their art. share this episode with as many artists, filmmakers and people you think it can help? The URL is indie film, hustle, calm forward slash 088 and if you want to help this is Meg the URL is this is mag.com. Also the show notes for the show are also at indie film, hustle, calm Ford slash 088 and I'm going to leave you with one quote that hopefully will be the final piece of gasoline I have to put on this fire that I'm hopefully is all up inside your ass. If you don't build your dreams, someone will hire you to help build theirs. Tony Gaskin keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive. And I'll talk to you guys soon.