IFH 501: We Flipped The Script on Alex Ferrari with Guest Host

RB Botto 0:56
Welcome to the indie film hustle podcast episode 501. I am Alex Ferrari with the new voice. I've had a transplant. That is a lie. I am your guest host RB Botto. CEO Stage 32 and Creative. To be the guest posts or a retrospective on indie film hustle. I'm going to be interviewing your favorite indie filmmaking guru, the God of indie film, podcasting. The master of hustle himself. He's wearing a hustle hat as you can see in front of you. It is the Alex Ferrari. Which by the way, I have to say most people they would do a retrospective and honor themselves they would do it on like the even episode like 500 we're doing 501 because that's all you need to know about today's guest.

Alex Ferrari 2:25
I like to you know, I like to be a maverick sir. Normally would be an episode 500 but I I said no. Let's do Episode 501.

RB Botto 2:34
And here we are. It's not quite these go to 11 it's not quite spinal tap. Like you turned it on one louder, right? Just decided what the hell you know, we've been at big celebration for 500 everybody's gonna be riding a high let's bring them all the way the fuck down on 501 by honoring my style honoring me

Alex Ferrari 2:56
honoring the I just It's okay, let's just clarify that I don't want it this is not about honoring me. It's about doing a retrospective on the show and what we've been able to do with the show and and that kind of stuff and and I thought there would be nobody better to do this guest hosting jobs or than you because you were you were very close. Very closely there at the beginning of indie film hustle if I'm not mistaken our episode was the first time we've spoke was Episode 29. I think that's the number and that was probably what to cut like three months four months in to indie film hustle. So you know you you came down from Mount Hollywood, and graced graced my show with your presence. And Abby's obviously after after Episode 29 that exploded and obviously that's all you all you're doing, sir.

RB Botto 3:51
Yes, I showed up. I came down from Mount Hollywood with my my flowing robes, my staff and grace to my presence and I think what I how many shows right done with you know, 11 Oh, no, it's

Alex Ferrari 4:06
it's something between all the interviews and the stuff that we've recorded. I don't know probably 11 1213 something around that and something.

RB Botto 4:13
I'm very proud to be the old time record holder guests of the indie film hustle podcast. So yes, to be sitting here before you today. With your smiling face, and that beautifully decorated room that y'all

Alex Ferrari 4:31
stop.

RB Botto 4:33
Can't I just tell you the honor? No, seriously, I'm very, very excited to be here. And if you're wondering why I'm doing this, it's first and foremost because I love Alex. He's a dear friend of mine like a brother. Second of all, we have an unbelievable relationship. He asked me to do this. I was very very honored. If you don't know who I am really, really quickly I run stitch 32 which is a social network of people in the film industry education platform. 800,000 people Worldwide get on stage stage calm, it's free. Think Facebook, LinkedIn for the industry. But also, I'm a writer, and I'm a director. I'm a writer, producer, and started acts as an actor. But the only thing I've really act in activism recently was a small little bit in one of Alex's films. So that'll tell you even a little bit more about how much I love.

Alex Ferrari 5:20
And we can and we, and we've had, we've had episodes about on the corner of ego and desire, and your amazing performance in that. And we could we could talk a little bit about that later. But, but yeah, it's good.

RB Botto 5:36
So let's talk let's talk. So obviously, if you're new to the show, we've already said Alex's has this is 501. freakin episodes. 501. All right, and let me tell you, it doesn't go like 10 minutes, the man can talk. When he has me on forget, I think our episodes like four hours. So it's like it's it gets a little crazy. But he's done 500 of these shows, he has been an eye he's written a couple of books, advocate to everybody in the industry clearly has helped so many people. So today, what we're gonna do is we're gonna, we're turning the mics around, so to speak, or, as Alex said earlier, flipping the script. And I'm going to do the interviewing and talk to Alex about how this all came to be. And I think, you know, I actually would love because when we first met, I actually believe you came over the Hollywood Hill, I think you came down to Manhattan Beach, we were on the Raleigh studios lobbies have an office there and you came to visit us I'm almost positive and you broke up with you. Which I thought was really really cool. A couple of bottles of vinegar.

Alex Ferrari 6:39
Yes. Right.

RB Botto 6:40
And you said to me, You were like, this is what I was doing for a little while. And now I'm in back in the film business and I'm getting go and I was like, well, then you're gonna film this is pretty amazing. So tell me what tell the audience what brought you back what you know what you were doing, what the vinegar business was, and how that all led to you saying, Okay, I'm putting a flag in the ground. That flag isn't before muscle.

Alex Ferrari 7:06
So, in 2015, not 2015 2012 and 2012. My wife and I decided to open up olive oil and balsamic vinegar tasting shop, in Ventura Boulevard, and on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. And within, I don't know, three months of the idea we were already in. Like, that's crazy. And by the way, I had no retail experience. Neither of us did. I just I olive oil and vinegar. Like why why that specifically? So the story is, my wife and I went on our babymoon when my twins were still on born to Napa. And since I don't drink wine, even though I've tried a million times, and I know it's your life's journey to get me to drink. I I've tried things. We went and we discovered olive oil and vinegar there. And it was just very romantic. It was Napa and Sonoma. And we did olive oil tastings and 25 year aged balsamic, and we're like, oh my god. So we came back and my daughters were born. And you know, I'm just sitting there. And I just, I got I was really burned out at the time of the film industry, I was doing a lot of post on very kind of like low budget, you know, video, straight to video kind of films. And you know, I was chasing money from horrible distributors who weren't going to pay me and all this kind of stuff. And I just got burnt out. It was just like a year prior to that was just getting burned out of this post, just kind of like constant work. And I wasn't happy. I just wasn't happy doing that kind of work. And I direct every once in a while. But you know, it was few and far between it was mostly post that was keeping me alive. So I had the bright idea of saying, Hey, I'm gonna open up an olive oil and vinegar shop and my wife who normally is the is the she comes, she brings you back to Earth. Like I'm in the I'm always in the cloud. She's down to earth. She said must have been the hormones kicking. Hey, let's do it. And that's all I needed in the gate open that I just went when crazy. So we opened up this store. It was the largest olive oil and vinegar tasting shop in LA. And that's not something to be proud of, because the rent was obscene because we were in Ventura, but because we were stupid. We had no idea. And it was the three of the toughest years of my entire life. It was devastating. It was ballbusting work. It was just manual labor at I mean, in your everyone's like what are you talking about manual labor. In order to keep the shop open. We had to go and open up farmers but we did farmers markets. So I did at the peak of our of our business we were doing 20 to 25 Farmers Markets a week. So I had a lot of employees running and I was I was the best sales guys. So I was always I was I was doing, I don't know, five or six farmers markets a week myself. Wow. And so it was basically Tuesday through Sunday. I only had Monday's off because there was no farmers markets open on Sunday on Mondays and I would work all the big all the big markets from Calabasas to Pacific Palisades to Beverly Glen to you know, hollywood I'm like I worked all the big markets. And I also I have tons of stories about celebrities that bought my olive oil and I hung out and talk to celebrities and shit. It's hilarious stories. But anyway, but it was just like waking up at four o'clock in the morning, loading up my you know, my small car with you know, I don't know 400 pounds of olive oils in vinegar and stuff.

Alex Ferrari 0:00
All right, where was it?

RB Botto 0:02
You're in the middle of schlepping the olive oil around, right and

Alex Ferrari 0:08
so loading up loading up my car with 400 pounds of olive oil and vinegar, which it's not, you know, it's not light. So physically, I've been literally breaking my back, you know, I would get I get injuries at my hands would be fully calloused up. I like I went to the doctor one day, I'm like, what's going on with my hands. He's like, dude, you've got workman's hands. Now I'm like, holy cow. Like I've been, I've been a post guy all my life. So I didn't really didn't know this kind of labor before. So I did that for three years. And we worked all the big, all the big events, I mean, 60,000 people at bikini, that big festival, all I mean, we did everything. So we did all this, but it was just so ballbusting work, the amount of work that we were putting out didn't make sense for the amount of money that we were getting in. And then I never left the business. 100% I always did a job here or there. But you know, I was I wasn't focused, my energy wasn't on it. But jobs would come in, and I would do a job here and there. But you know, as well as I do can't leave this business. He just can't. It's just it's always gonna be in you in one way, shape, or form. And, and then, about a year before indie film hustle, I picked up a book that had been in my list on Amazon forever, called the four hour workweek. With Tim Ferriss. Yeah, you know, the very influential book. And I picked it up. And it was the first time I realized, I guess it's not the first time but it's the first time I realized again, that I can make money online. And because I had an I had an online business in the late 90s, I had websites, and I was selling ads, and I did a whole bunch of stuff back in the 90s. I just didn't stick with it. It was a little bit different back then. But then afterwards, I read this book, and I was like, You know what, I think I might be able to do something with this. And I was thinking about what niche Should I go after? And how can I be of service to people? And then my wife's like, Why are you being an idiot? Just do film. I'm like, I don't want to film again. And and then after a while, it's like, you know what, maybe I can actually I started looking at what was out there. I was like, you know, there's not a lot of I everything I'm seeing doesn't have any real street credibility, in my opinion. Like a lot of these podcasts. And a lot of these websites that were out there, they were all talking from theory. But I got the shrapnel. I'm like there's no one telling it how it is. So let me throw my hat in the ring. And that's when I launched indie film hustles the blog came up first. Three weeks later, the podcast came out, which was always part of the process, and then YouTube and everything else came after that. But that's how, that's how it all came about. And then I just went at it with an insane amount of hustle like an obscene amount. Like I said, everyone's doing one episode a week, I'm gonna do two, I am still doing two. I don't need to do any more. I still don't need to do to have this one show, not the other six that I write

RB Botto 3:06
everything else you got going on? Right? Well, I'm gonna first of all, I'm just gonna attest to the fact that the olive oil and vinegar were fucking delicious. They went through it rather quickly. You know, I am an olive oil, obviously, being Italian olive oil and balsamic kind of sorts. So you did a fantastic job. But you know not retails not easy. I find it fascinating that anyone could leave film and to go to do something else and say it was harder work.

Alex Ferrari 3:36
It was backing. It was physically physically harder. Yeah, exactly. Right. Like I love. That's how brutal this was for me that I was like, You know what, I need to go back and do I need to go back to the film industry. It's so much easier.

RB Botto 3:51
Like I left the verbally abusive relationship to go into a fiscally abusive relationship, or verbally abusive relationship,

Alex Ferrari 3:57
I think, pretty much pretty much.

RB Botto 4:01
Unbelievable. So you get started I when we met you were just kicking everything off. We actually hit it off immediately. I think we were sitting in my office. I think we did like a three hour Oscar thing.

Alex Ferrari 4:13
So we did. Originally we did ours, because I know you're up there in age. So I'll remind you. So we originally I originally recorded you on Skype, and it took us like, I don't know, we were going back and forth. And then your connection went bad. And then we had to like I'll just call you back at home. And then you went we finished the interview at your house when the interview it was it was a weird thing. But we finished that interview up and that was like an hour and a half back then when we first met. Then after that, I think maybe I don't know how long later we did the Oscar thing at the office where I went down to Manhattan Beach, and it's Manhattan Beach or, well, yeah, it was my beach. So we went down my head beach, went to the studio and then we sat there for three and a half hours during the two and a half hours. Almost three hours talking about all the Oscar, all the Oscar stuff that day and they we live streamed it, and then I put it on my podcast. And that's, I think that was the second time we did it. And then then the rest is is a is history

RB Botto 5:14
and been rolling ever since. So okay, you you put your, like I said, you put the flag in the ground, you're starting the podcast. Now, you know, of course, you got to go out and get guests and everything like that where, you know, what were the challenges early on, I mean to because, you know, credibility matters in this business, maybe a little bit less now than it did when you started. But but it certainly matters to an extent, and anybody with you know, anybody that knows how to operate, as my mother would call to Google machine could figure out pretty quickly whether somebody is, you know, real or not. So how did you get with no audience at the beginning or very little audience? How did you start to land those guests that made a difference and move the needle with your audience.

Alex Ferrari 5:57
I just started reaching out to authors and filmmakers and screenwriters, and just, it was 2015. So podcasts were even still a little bit more new. So they weren't being hit up constantly by this stuff. And when they went to my website, the website looked professional. So the website look professional, it looked like I knew what I was doing. I've been faking it till I make it made it all my life. So I was able to present a very polished look. And then I remember when I landed Duff, Simmons, Duff Simmons back in the day, the two day all around, baby Oh, no. Oh, no, he's still kicking Duff Simmons. I was like, blown away that I got dog. He was like episode eight. And I was like, Oh my god, I got Duff Simmons. Was it a two day film school as today film school? Yeah, and I took that course helped me make my first short film and you know and all this stuff. So he was I was like, super excited. I got dove and and then just started landing other guests little by little and just one grows. When you get one, you start landing the other asset land the other and, and it's sooner or later, it just starts, you know, after 30 or something like that. You just do it. And and then I got you to come on. I don't know how I even reached out. I found out about you. I think I heard you on another somebody else's podcast. And I was like, Well, if he did that guy's podcast, I'll do mine. I don't remember what I don't remember who it was. But I just emailed you. And you're like, sure i'll come on. So it was a different time. Now. Everybody has a podcast now. It's just like, Oh, God, right? Why am I wasting my time, but back then, you could reach out to, you know, certain directors and certain screenwriters and certain producers. And it was still a novel idea. I mean, don't get me wrong. podcasts have been around, but they're not as popular in 2015 as they are now. Like they now it's right now. It's a completely different world Six years later, is a completely different world. But that's how I that's how I started grabbing guests. And, and Bill and I think the biggest thing is, and this is what they've told me, you've told me this in the past too, is when I talk to my guests, I talk to them, like their colleagues, I don't talk to them, like I'm a journalist, because I'm not a journalist. So I talk to them at a level that is, you know, I might be talking to a huge Oscar winning director. But at the end of the day, filmmaking is filmmaking, we and we still, we still cross over the same dead bodies, your bodies might be a lot bigger than mine and you might be dealing with things that I definitely don't understand it and as an independent, but there's a camera there's a you know, a set as a set, you know, try drama, drama on a set is drama set, getting money for a film and get all that stuff is the same and you know, directing is directing, if he's directing a $20 million star, you're directing a newbie that just came off of, you know, just came into the business, it's still the same issues you have to deal with no matter what you do, like if you paint there's no matter if you're Picasso, or someone who just you know, picked up a glass of wine and just started painting. Paint still has to hit the canvas, how you do it, the struggles there's still that same kind of stroke so that's the connection I'm able to do with my guests that I really didn't realize I had until years later Honestly, I was just talking like, like you and I talk but it was something that I guess was a little bit more special than the way other film other podcasts might approach the approach their guest

RB Botto 9:18
Yeah, yeah, well I would say as somebody that's done some of those painting on wine nights the paint doesn't always hit the campus I'm just I'm just saying

Alex Ferrari 9:28
sometimes you drink the pain sometimes you drink the

RB Botto 9:32
think I've ever gotten some pain in the wine that's the one thing you said that they connected with me because I want to I want to talk about this cuz I think it'd be interesting to the audience just said, you know, you've been faking it till you make it your entire life. Now, I just First of all, I'm going to tell you why I disagree with your assessment of yourself. And then tell you like the I'm not a big fan of the fake it till you make it.

RB Botto 0:00
So I want to touch touch on something you said during that last answer, which is you said, you know, fake it till you make it. And I think it'd be interesting for the audience to hear this. Because I do believe that there are a lot of people in the filmmaking world, and I see this advice, you know, on Twitter and some places, and it drives me a little bit nuts, and I'll get to why. But I'm also I want to get to why I think that that's not true about you, personally, from my perspective, through my lens, but the whole thing of, you know, faking it till you make it. I think it's easier than ever to expose people. And I think it's easier, you know, with if you have any sort of online footprint, you know, like I said, it's pretty easy to figure out who is doing, what the same they're doing and who, you know, as accomplished, whatever. I think if you're standing in front of your own name, you're standing in front of your own credits, and you're standing in front of your own content, I think it's pretty easy to figure out. I don't believe that you fake it till you make it you I but first of all, I don't love that. Like I said, I don't love it, because I think you want to do it. The way you get around it, in my opinion, is knowledge and action, right? And that's why I don't think do you think you made it because you came into this, and you immediately went about learning everything you needed to learn, and then applying it taking action and applying it. So you know, you build the website, you learn how to do SEO, you learned you may have had the experience, right. But you've learned further how to do it in this day and age, and you probably still are in the month a month, because it changes all the time, you learned how to record a podcast you learn what mattered where it needs to go, how to do it, all these different things. So to me, that's not faking it till you make it I To me, that's just making it happened to me, that's, you know, saying I'm going to take action on the thing that I want to do, and to be able to take action on the thing I want to do, I need to have a knowledge base, and I need to understand how things operate. And then like you said, the biggest thing, the biggest asset that you had, that you brought to the party, is you had a knowledge base of the industry so that when you did speak to gas, they knew that you weren't faking it till you make it, they knew that you knew what the fuck you were talking about. And that matters. You know what I mean? Because that that's where integrity comes from. So I don't know, I disagree with you, I don't think that you faked anything.

Alex Ferrari 2:24
Well, I thank you so much for that, when I sit when I mean, fake it till you make it in not in the sense of what I was doing as far as the content I was doing, or the podcast or the show, but presenting an image that is maybe larger than what it is.

RB Botto 2:41
But that's branding, that's marketing. And you know what I mean? Like, that's confidence to look, everybody pushes themselves, everybody pushes their brand, even online, this should apply to different types of people online, really on social media, that are sort of the extroverted, right, there are those who have created a complete fake tapestry of what their lives are on Instagram, you know, who go to some exotic place, change clothes, 550 times, and then post a picture a day for the next, you know, looking like they hear looking like they're there or whatever, right? And then there are those that are actually living that kind of life, and they're just showing you the best parts of it. Right? They're not showing you when they wake up in the morning, but they're showing you that the standing in front of the loop, right, you know, I mean, like, it's that kind of thing. And you So to me, those people are just showing you the real, and they're gonna show you the heightened aspects of it. I think that's true of any marketing or any business, you know, you're going to show, you're going to put the best foot forward, you're going to show the glossy website, you're going to show the gluten, your best gas, you're going to show that you have you know, and if you have to play up that knowledge a little bit, I don't think that's faking it. I basically saying i don't i don't think i branched out.

Alex Ferrari 3:55
no I agree with you, then I guess the faking to make it I guess is not. I think just my definition is a little different, different than yours. But I agree with what you're saying that, that Yeah. If you're telling people that you know about the film industry, and you don't, and you just graduated from college and you're just like, yeah, I'm an interesting industry vet and you've got a bunch of fake you know, fake credits on IMDB. The second that you are meet speaks to them that will go Oh, God, we can smell them out in a heartbeat. Especially and then let alone professional screenwriters, professional directors who've been around the net who've got tons of shrapnel. They smell it, they smell it pretty quickly. And I think that's the thing that set sets the show apart. You know, all the shows that I do apart that I connect with are with my guests at that level, which is not something they're used to. Most guests don't connect that that most guests when they do a show. It's just like very, you know, kind of, you know, not not fake but like one dimensional very surface. It's very on the surface where I dig deep deep in and I asked questions that, that I just truly want to know as a filmmaker, you know, like, when you're talking to a big director, I'm like, Dude, what was it like getting that first job? You know? Yeah, I know you want the Oscar, we'll talk about your Oscar in a minute, man. But like that first job, what was that like?

RB Botto 5:17
Well, and that's, that's, that's interesting, too, because that means that you and this, I think you do do this very well. That means you also know your audience, right? Because it's true. It's anybody could watch. You know, I hate to put it this way. But anybody could watch a masterclass and listen to three hours of masturbatory conversation a half hour of Yeah, you could do it in 30 minutes of worksheets, okay. Anybody could do that. But nobody is going to not everybody is going to get down to the root of how'd you do it? Why did you do it? You know, what, what were the sacrifices? What were the things? So really, that brings me to the audience? How did you know early on, without any sort of audience response yet? Because the podcast was just starting? What your audience would want to hear? Did you kind of make it for yourself? Did you kind of say like, this is the information, I'd want to hear

Alex Ferrari 6:07
this, though, it's still to the show. All the questions I asked are questions that I want to know. So I, I know that my audience wants to know this because I'm a filmmaker. So I just put myself in the shoes of the people listening, and I've gone through all the troubles that they've gone through, I've gone through other troubles that they will never go through. Like, you're almost making a $20 million movie for them up.

And many others still gonna happen. You know, so so

all of the so I've gone through every every pain point that my audience has gone through, because I've been living it and to a lesser extent in the screenwriting space, you know, I'm no screenwriting guru by any stretch. But for whatever reason, my screenwriting podcast is one of the most popular ones out there. So it's because I'm asking questions as

RB Botto 6:59
screenwriters focus the screenwriter, lazy as fuck, and they procrastinate all day long. And they want to listen to podcasts. They want it, they want it, they want to hear other people pitch about the fact that nothing's working. And it's getting sold today than ever. How do you crack that character arc? Like, you know?

Alex Ferrari 7:17
So but that's the but that's the approach I do all my shows is, it's me, I want to know these questions. I truly, like when I sit down with, you know, some of the guests I've sat down with, you know, I truly wanted to just go like, how to do it. How did you get to that point? What did it feel like when you got called by Sundance? What did you feel like when you got up there and accepted the Oscar? Like, these are questions that I truly just want to know from a human being to a human being like, and a filmmaker, to filmmaker, filmmaker, screenwriter, just going? How did that work? Like, you know, when you wrote that first script, and you sold it? What was that like? And then how did the town treat you? And oh, when you dropped off, because you're not the hot shit anymore? How did you recover? How did you break out of that box? These are all questions I want to I wanted to, I truly just want to know. So asking questions is really easy for me. Because these are all just questions I want to know about. And that's what I think the audience responds to. But there was no, there was no market research, the only market research I did was in 2005. When I released that first movie, my first short film broken, and I said, Hey, I'm going to create a DVD with three and a half hours of how I made it, because I think there's no other information out there about this, and I think it'll sell. And I was right. It is pre YouTube, pre everything. So I just like I'm a filmmaker, I can't find any information about how to make an independent filmmaker independent film with shake and Final Cut Pro and a dv x 100. A mini DV 24 p camera. I can't find it anywhere. So guess what, I'm pretty sure that some other filmmakers out there want to know about it. So that's what I did. And boom. And if anyone goes back to the archives of indie film, hustle, most of my initial content was based off of that TVD I would be releasing videos of that, because that's all I had. I was like, well, I got three and a half hours of something that's 10 years old. Let's get that ball rolling. But there's still good information I still get people are still watching that stuff. And people are still buying that. That package, even to this day, even though it's some stuff is outdated, but a lot of stuff is still very, very solid. So that's how I did my market research. Honestly, it's just like, what do I want

RB Botto 9:28
to cool man to cool. So let's get to just in case, anybody just jumping in at this exact moment in the podcast and haven't listened to anything else. We'll catch you up. So Alex is through breastfeeding, he's started to watch teenage years. He's vinegars and olive oils. And then he's launched this podcast and so tell me when you knew. Tell me you know, I think you said I was Episode 29. So I'm sure I'm pretty sure that it was probably immediately after that, but When did you know? You know, you had something when did you know you had sort of the tiger by the tail? The audience was there and the audience was coming with you. Oh, I

Alex Ferrari 10:09
knew that. God episode eight or nine honestly 10 because I saw the numbers. I mean, look, I'm marketed the show and I still market obscene Lee like it. I mean it I the brand, and it just, it's everywhere. And at those days, all I did was just pounded and pounded and pounded, and I was still doing post at the time. So indie film hustle was a side hustle for me. It wasn't my full time gig at that point. Yeah, it took me a few years before I could get it into full time, full time world. But I was I was I had a mastermind with a bunch of other podcast hosts at the time, and they were all buddies of mine. Because all of them reached out to me like Who the hell are you? Where did you come? I came in like a like a complete like a bull. It just it was just like, Who are you where you're everywhere now? Like, I can't go on Facebook without seeing one of your posts. Like, what are you doing? And we created a mastermind with a bunch of other podcasters and blog blog, bloggers as well. And we started talking and one day one of the guys said, Hey, man, do you know you're number one on iTunes? I'm like, What do you mean, you could go to iTunes, and type up the word filmmaking and all that shit. I'm number one. And then, within 15 minutes,

everybody on the planet knew that I was number number one filmmaking podcast. And to this day, you still see it everywhere, which is true. So it but my and my buddy, who was a competitive podcast at the time, he's like, I should have never said a word to God. So funny. But

that's when I didn't. That's when I knew I knew about three months in, but three months, and I was like, Oh, I'm obviously there's something here.

RB Botto 11:50
That's awesome. So all right, she had three months in, you get nine some big guests. That Well, you're banging the bang in the well. I mean, it's not you get? Yeah, well, yeah. Well, in Episode 29. But now, you know, so you, obviously you I did designs? on bigger, right, you had your designs on building this brand. So when, you know, when does the book come into play? The first book, like when does you know? Well, I mean, that book, you know, clearly was a slice of your life. But was also a guide was you know, it was it was a hybrid, which is a really interesting concept. So when did that become sort of a reality for you? When did you kind of sit there and say, Okay, I'm gonna make this war. This brand is gonna there's gonna be extensions to this brand, right?

Alex Ferrari 12:42
Well, for me, it was first things up was this is mag, which was my first feature. So I knew I needed to break through my fear of doing my first feature I, I had the technical capabilities 15 years earlier, to make a feature film. And I also had, I could have made 115 years ago, but I was scared. I wouldn't say what scared I think it was this subconscious thing about what happened with me with the mobster that associated feature film with pain. So I would constantly sabotage myself or give myself excuses and things like that. And finally, I decided to break through that and indie film, hustle. And the tribe were the ones that gave me the strength to go out and do my first feature film, which I shot and I think 30 days after I decided to do it, we were shooting. And, and we went to shoot it. And then, I mean, I crowdfunded it, as I was shooting it, you know, because I was like, it was so inexpensive. And then the crowdfunding, you know, paid for a lot of stuff. And it completely paid for everything. So I was in the black by the time I released it, and then, and then we sold it to Hulu, and that whole that whole thing, so it was a really interesting world. But my thing was, I'm like, I'm, I'm okay, if it doesn't work out, I was gonna go back to my podcast. That's the way that was, that was the excuse that I had in the back,

RB Botto 14:02
but they had to do right, you set expectations for yourself. There's a lesson in that. But you know what I mean, you said, I'm gonna do whatever I can do, but I'm going to have a fallback. That's where there's a lot of lessons in all this, which I want to get to in a minute. But, but this that took place, just not to interrupt you. But I feel like that is the lesson that's great for you know, for the for the audience, which is I think a lot of people just don't, they don't plan in the way that you know, I know you said you were doing it within 30 days, but that doesn't mean that you didn't put significant planning and thought into doing it and of course you are right, and then you thinking through what's it going to be? How is it going to be? You're still recording to podcasts, we're still doing all this stuff. So you know, maybe for the sake of the audience, cuz I wanted to definitely get some audience questions and get that stuff that's gonna, you know, let them gain some of your knowledge, course knowledge based on what you did. How did you manage, to time to be able to be running this thing, putting together the plan for a film because we all know putting together a film and And crowdfunding alone. It could be a full time job. We all know this. Or if you don't know you should know it. So how are you? How are you juggling all that? You know your family life and everything? How did you kind of say, this is how I'm going to put this together and not run into traffic.

Alex Ferrari 15:19
I just ran into traffic. I, I just look, I wish I could tell you that I had this amazing calendar that I spread everything out in and everything was, you know, minute, Li micromanage to us, I just did it. The shooting of the shoot of shooting, the film was spread out over three or four weeks, eight days. So Oh God, because it was spread because it was I was doing it like when people were available, and we just go out and shoot and things like that. So we'd shoot some stuff, then I started crowdfunding and then so it wasn't like I was shooting every day directly while I was crowdfunding, it was kind of like, shooting on and off. So I'd shoot then I come back and edit, shoot, come back and edit. But it all happened within a three week period. And it was about eight full days of shooting. And and then just I just wasn't I just as a machine man, I just because of all my technical knowledge over the years I picked up and post. podcasts are very easy for me to produce. And I was just like pumping everything out and pumping out all the content pumping out all the marketing for many people listening. For the last five years, I've done everything myself. Yep, every like literally every edit every output every everything was being done by myself only recently that I finally put a team together. And now I'm like, I can't believe I did all this stuff by myself. It's insanity. But it was doing all of that. So it was doing the movie during the crowdfunding during the podcast, and also doing post when post jobs come up because I still had to, you know, feed the family, and then also doing the family as well. And it was it wasn't easy, but I just there was so much energy that I just love doing it. I just realized I realized how much i'd love doing what I was doing. I was like, Oh, I found I found my happy place. I've been waiting a long time to find this happy place. I've been miserable. I was that angry, bitter filmmaker that I joke about? so much. And I decided to go this is I'm happy here. Let me let me let me keep going. So I just did it. Man. I wish I wish I had a fancier answer for you. But I just did it. It was just pure. brute brute strength. A brute, brute brute force. It was just brute force. What I liked a little fancier.

I'll send you my calendar. So it's micromanage to the minute.

RB Botto 17:42
Right. You know, I asked you a question. Actually, I was thinking as I'm sitting listening to you, I'm thinking that you know, if you want to expand your team, I actually have a really good idea for you. So you saw Breaking Bad, right? Know where this is going? And you remember the character you'll right? Yeah, of course, you're the best. Yeah, your next hire needs to be somebody, you know, like, you're somebody like that, to just sit in that chair behind you, with your arms crossed while you're doing the interviews.

Alex Ferrari 18:14
Okay, look. Alright, so and we're gonna, okay, we're going to look, I've been known for having a very nice background, when I record my shows. And there is a reason why I am in this void with the chair in the background. Mind you, my team is annoyed as hell with the chair, they've actually put stormtroopers in post in that chair, they've put other things in there cuz they just like, move the chair. I'm like, No, I just leave the chair there. We will get into why I'm in this void a little further down the line in this interview. But that is, but that is, but I like your idea. I like your idea. Yeah, I think you're solid, you know.

RB Botto 18:57
I think he'd be more than happy, just, you know, but probably be happy to feed him in zt. And he probably would sit back there. And yeah, you probably get any answer you want out of anybody.

Alex Ferrari 19:07
But to answer your first question, which was about the book. So the movie came first. Then in 2018. I said, and I told you, I think at Sundance, that year, I told you the idea for the book at that party that we were at, in Adam's House, the one that we actually shot the movie in a year later. I told you, I'm like, Hey, I'm thinking of writing this book. And here's the story. And I hadn't told that story to anybody. I mean, it is. So it's like a dark place. I don't want to I don't want like to go there. But I threw it at you. And you're like, that's a pretty cool story. It's a pretty cool idea. I'm like, yeah, I'm thinking about writing. I'm thinking about writing the book for that. I don't know if it was the book or the movie. I think we were still in the movie states. I was going to write a screenplay or something like that. And then a few months later, my my friend Boris, who will still be known as Boris told me will write a book. If you can't write the screenplay, write the book. I'm like, son of a bitch, I can write the book. And then I went down the path of writing this book, which I said, you know, if I'm going to write this book, I want to create an, a, a blueprint of what not to do when you're chasing your filmmaking dream, or your screenwriting dream or any dream for that matter. And it was, it wasn't just to tell my story, it was truly to help people who read it, to give them options, and to tell them to let people know that you can leave a bad situation if you can't. But that was part of everything I was building with indie film, hustle, and I told them, I told my audience, when I released the first two chapters on and released the whole book, I told them, hey, if you want to know what the origin story of this, you know, voices on this podcast, here it is. This is this is the beginning, the true beginning of shrapnel, I had a couple of you know, a little bit of hits here and there. But this was the beginning of the onslaught that the industry has done to me over the years. And this was a very big amount of shrapnel that I carried around. So that's why when I started the show, I was like, these guys have no idea what they're talking about, I gotta throw my hat in the ring, I got to tell people what it's really like out here, because it's not peaches and cream and, and it's a lens here and like, look at the cool new red and like, that's all cool, that's part of it. But if you walk in thinking, that's it, you're gonna get destroyed. And I want and I wanted, I wanted to let people know the truth. So that was, that's how that the book came about. And it took me a year to write. And I cried right, while writing certain chapters, it was just very difficult to go down that road again. And then it took me about like, another six months to record the the audio book because I was like, Oh, God, I want to read this again. I don't read it. I actually wrote my second book, did the audio book for the second book, and then went back and recorded the audio of shooting for the mob, because it's just so painful to do. But yeah, then that's kind of grew everything from there.

RB Botto 22:04
It's a great book, it's a lot of fun. If you haven't checked it out, you need to check it out shooting for the mob, if you like, you know, the gangster genre, but also learning about film along the way. That's a it's actually a it's a great game. It's a tremendous hybrid of that. I mean, you tell the story really, really well. It is a movie, I don't know why it hasn't gotten made yet. What's going on, I thought the financing was coming in. I was already I was doing acting lessons. I've been practicing my Italian as you can tell, you know, my accent you are when we make the movie, you have a part Eric, right. I'm actually in character speak. So you're very method. You're very method, very method. So I mean, what's that? Why, why is this that we're always getting?

Alex Ferrari 22:48
Well, right now that I'm in some major transitions, which we'll discuss in a bit. You know, we have, we have some potentials for writers who are interested in writing the the script, I don't want to write it, I have a feeling going to have to write the first draft, just to get the ball rolling on this. But I rather have someone else write it from a second perspective, not just mine. And so we have some people and then we've got some interest in some interested parties. But you know how it is, man unless you got it. You need a minimum is you need a script. The book is nice, but they need a script. Once you have a script, then there's a conversation then there's like, Oh, I can send a script to an actor. You could send a book to an actor, but then it's just like, by the time the script comes around, they might not be available anymore. And it's like, it's a whole thing. So you know, like I've told you before I want the movie to be made one day I think it will be made I think that'll probably be the next thing I direct and the only two only two caveats I have with anyone who gets involved. The project is I direct and my cinematographers, Boris and that's it. Open to almost anything else.

RB Botto 24:01
Almost anything else? Almost anonymous.
RB Botto 0:09
So yeah. All right so the two stipulations for the film of course there's the third one which is that you know I am featured prominently

Alex Ferrari 0:18
you'll play me and I get you

RB Botto 0:20
and I get to drink. I don't want to play you man, I want to mobsters. I get to bring my own teamsters with me that those, That's it?

Alex Ferrari 0:29
That's fair enough. Fair enough.

RB Botto 0:31
I just my my only my acting writers is basically, you know, bourbon and the dressing room at espresso. espresso I and my team. My guys,

Alex Ferrari 0:42
fair enough, fair enough. Hey, listen, we just need I think at the end of the day, maybe next year, I'll start writing something. And before I can, I think I'll be able to write us a first draft of that scripts before I'll be able to afford to hire one of the amazing writers that I have access to who want to write it, because I just can't afford paying, paying them at the moment. What

RB Botto 1:07
kind of brings it a good question into play so well, for one, I think that's a great idea. I mean, because nobody's gonna know the story to uh, you know, I mean, that's one thing. But it brings up another interesting idea, which is, you said that while you were filming this as Meg, you were crowdfunding during it? I find interesting. And because crowdfunding is not easy, and people don't realize that you need to really needs to crowdsource months before you crowdfund. Right. So my question to you is, how that early on, you know, obviously, you would establish the camaraderie or you know, in a community, a closeness with your community, let's say that, okay, and intimacy with your community, not for So, so many years at that point, but for quite a few, right? And you went to them to say, help me. Okay, first of all, was that easy. Second wall, what were some of the challenges that you faced? What were the responses to response? I'm curious about that. Because it's going to lead into the question of why not crowdfund? Not the whole movie, why not crowd fund the fee for one of these writers who I'm sure you have negotiated a lower fee for two, two, for all the value you for them, to help you finance, the scream, the writing of the screenplay. Because you've gone you've done it before, and you bring tremendous value and 99% of crowdfunding is the value you bring other people right then and ask them to bring you value back, you know?

Alex Ferrari 2:42
So I, when I crowdfunded mag, I promised myself, I'd never do it again, because it was so painful. And I don't particularly like asking for money in that way. I just just me personally, I'm a guy who just, I look, I never asked my parents for money, I went out and did garage sales to get extra spending money, so I can go buy my Garbage Pail Kids, and my baseball cards and my comic books. So I'm just not that I just don't like doing it. I did it for make, because I wanted to go through the process. I also wanted to teach my audience what I learned. But I learned it's really difficult. And really, if there's no other option, great. Right now, I don't know, maybe that's something I'll play with in the future. But I would just, I don't know, I wouldn't, I don't know, maybe I would just rather build a course and sell it and then use the proceeds from that. To help me fund it. I don't know. And I don't know.

RB Botto 3:34
Yeah, but I mean, you're putting so much value out there I think I mean, again, I think there's a lesson here too, is that I you know what we see what I see every day on stage 32 and when I've spoken to you about a million times on the show and privately and more on panels together and everything like that is that a lot of people don't understand that the reason why then maybe they're not getting the reach if you are putting yourself out there maybe the reason why you're not getting a response is because you're not bringing any value. You just think the thing that you have this value of the screenplay your talent or whatever, but you don't recognize the fact that the person you're trying to bring that to they want value brought to them they're human beings they just like you right just like you said earlier I talked about you know Oscar winning directors like to human beings just they are and they have feelings just like you and they went through a lot of shit just like you would if you made that movie, right? So you if you're not bringing value, that's probably why one of the reasons why you're not getting a response and then you have people that don't put themselves out there at all which I totally get like I get that your your mentality is I don't want to go hand in hand. And I think a lot of people feel that way about just like I don't have the knowledge base is a little different. Obviously, I don't have the knowledge base. I don't have this. I don't I don't know how to bring value. But at the end of the day, this world operates on the value you bring other people, your relationships grow from the value you bring other people and what you've done with this podcast and with this brand has been To bring tremendous value to everyone, and you, and you bought much of that value, certainly the podcast for free. I know you sell courses, I know you do things and everything like that, and God bless you, you should and people should pay you for it. But you bring so much value for free. I'm curious why you would think that you wouldn't get a response?

Alex Ferrari 5:23
No, no, I don't think I wouldn't get a response. I don't think that's the case. I you know, I think I would if we did crowdfund for shooting for the mob. I just know what's entailed. I know what's entailed in doing that. And I don't, it's kind of like, I know, the mountain I got to climb. Because I've climbed it before, and I don't want to go back down that mountain, I might be able to get, I might be able to get the money that I need to get the first draft done. But I don't know I just a lot of time and and time is something very valuable right now, for me, it's a lot of time and effort. And I would much rather focus my energies elsewhere, and more

RB Botto 6:00
time and more time and effort than it would take to write the first graph yourself.

Alex Ferrari 6:05
You see, that's different conversation, because the time and effort to write a draft yourself is, you know, for me personally, on a writing standpoint, I've written a handful of screenplays in my life. And I've always written both films, as far as stories are concerned, had wonderful help from my actors on ego and desire on dialogue. We could talk about that later. This is true. So, um, but I feel that, you know, I've been talking to some of the greatest minds in story for the last six years. And I think I've picked a couple of things up. So on another level, I just want to kind of go at it and say, like, I know, I'm not I'm not a professional screenwriter, nor do I want to be a professional screenwriter. It's not one of my goals in life. But do I have enough to get this over the over the the starting line? Not the finish line? Can I get it over the starting line? Can I present something, can I write something that is at a at a place where I send it to you, you read an NGO? You know, what I think we can, this is something we can work with is a good starting place. I don't have any illusions, or delusions, that I'm able to I'm going to be able to do the full thing myself. But you're still gonna have to raise the finance afterwards. But yeah, but but the difference is a rewrites cheaper second, and and also, I'll have something to show people. So I can then maybe package it, and maybe we can go into another we can have another conversation, then I can talk to a producer like yourself, and go, Hey, here's the script. What do you think, what can we do with this? Is this something we can go out with? Can we maybe get some some attachments to this? Can we have a conversation about it? I don't know. And then I become my listener, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I'm back to the same place that everyone listening to that to bulletproof screenwriting is that well, like I got a script in hand, what can I do with it. And that's another journey now that I go on. And that's another journey that I share with my audience. So I think that for me, I would much rather go up the hill of writing a screenplay, than to crowdfund for someone else to do it. That's me talking right now, in six months, I'd be like, screw it. I'm gonna, I just, I just want to get this thing going.

RB Botto 8:27
Yeah, I think my concern would be, and I know, we have the benefit over the audience, because you and I have had many private conversations about this. So like, we get to talk, like, you know, like, you know, show to the mobster stroking into the hands.

Alex Ferrari 8:43
While the radios while the while the radio is playing loud, like showers on Oh,

RB Botto 8:47
yeah, like the NFL coaches that, you know, go like this with their plays, you know, I, my concern would be, and the only reason we're talking this through is not to put the audience through the paces of how the hell we're going to do your movie and how we're going to get this done. But for just kind of almost like a knowledge basis know coming from producers angle, or even from a screenwriters angle, you know, knowing some of the screenwriters that you've spoken with, and knowing how I would operate and things that have been brought to me in the past that I've read where people like maybe you could do the rewrite will pay you there. There are times you read those scripts, and you go, this is a page one rewrite like this is a total rewrite. So brings me back to square one because then then the rewrites not cheaper. And a lot of ways to rewrite could even become more expensive because it's, you know, you're really coming up with a whole totally new concept. I've seen this. It's funny because I've seen this from the producer side of things where we are I was producing the movie, we had three producers on it and one of them was the main money guy. And the two other producers me and the other guy liked the liked it well enough. We thought we thought it was good, but it needed a little polishing, whatever, but the guy with the money was like, Nope, I don't like any of it, and then go into another writer and the concept stayed. So the original writer got like a story by, but the script change dramatically and, and and what much more positive way I might add, because they brought in somebody that was, you know, pretty top drawer that, of course included the money and everything like that. But that was just a producer's way of looking at it was like, Well, you know, we this is the way we want to get it done. So I don't know something to think something to mall, my friend because again, among other things value to this community. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think that the community would get behind you.

Alex Ferrari 10:40
Yeah, I, I look, look everyone listening, if anybody's interested in if you think this is going to be a thing that you want me to crowdfund the beginnings of, you know, trying to get the money to get a writer to write shooting for the mob with me, then, let me know, you could email me you can text me, you know, not text me, but you can email me, you can message me, hit me up on social media. I'm curious, because I haven't even I just, it's just it's just, I just don't like doing it. But if the audience is like, Look, man, if you got we want to see this movie made, I'm sure I could do it. I'm sure we could raise the financing for it. It's just it's a hill right now that at the moment where I'm sitting right now, I can't even think about going up. I would much I would much. And also don't forget to that, like the story is the story. Like, yeah, we're gonna change a few things to make it for the move, you know, make it more, more adaptable to the cinema. But no one's coming in and changing this to like, you know what, maybe we should make Alex a girl. I'm like, No, it's not gonna happen. Like, there's certain things that have to stick within it open in certain areas to kind of make it more cinematic because the book is just biography, which is not as exciting as cinema could be. So it will change but I don't think it's a page one. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think the concept the concept is the concept, the concept is not going to change, we're not going to completely derail from where we went in the book. So I don't think it I don't think I have a fear of that. But I do think that like there could be 30% 40% shifted around as far as arcs and maybe adding in characters or combining characters or things like that. Yeah, but the general where we're going is where we're going. It's like there's a mobster as a filmmaker, you know, and how we get to the end and how he gets out and all that kind of stuff and everything all the mayhem that happens within I mean, some of the stuff that's in that book, you can't write you can't write it. Like I said in the beginning of the book as like if you guys believe this is this is this is based on a true story. And if you believe this is fiction, I should get a fucking Award for Fiction because it they who make this shit up.

RB Botto 12:46
Well, look, man, you know, if you decide to go down the crowdfunding bad, there's the extra added bonus that you could get rid of the extra olive oil and balsamic vinegar inventory that could go for like five or $5 donation that you could get one of those.

Alex Ferrari 12:58
It's all it's all. It's all gone. I think we have. I think we have a handful of the vinegar left only a few bottles left. Honestly, olive oil doesn't go You can't it doesn't age. Well. I'll have all these the difference. But vinegar does. So there might be a couple of vinegar bottles left over, but I shine those motherfuckers Limited Edition. What? Number? There's only three or four left. That's it. 10 grand each. We're out the door.

RB Botto 13:28
I freaking love it. I love it. All right, she did the book. Life is moving on. Things are happening. Yeah, you're doing some education, things like that are going on. So now. Talk to me a little bit about you know, you started it. Again, we started talking about extensions of the brand. And I think that this is fascinating. I actually would like to even talk a little bit about that, because I think that creatives don't understand in 2021 I think we're in now I don't know this pandemic, it could be 2040 I have zero idea. But branding in this era, your personal brand is so important. Now you have built the brand on being you know, like you said sort of the regular guy, the everyman doing this thing, okay, knowing it, and being there with everybody else and the person that's going to talk with people not at them not down, not up to them. Okay. And you built this really nice tribe. How do you what how did you see your brand as this book is coming out and as everything is growing? How did you see your personal brand and where did you want to take it at that point?

Alex Ferrari 14:40
Well, right now my personal brand is really attached to indie film, hustle, and and bulletproof screenwriting and film shoprunner and all the other entities that I have around indie film hustle. So you know, recently I opened up a new company in a new weapon new podcast and you everything that's aimed more at asking the bigger questions about life and digging a lot deeper in to why we're here. And, you know, what are we doing? And what's the purpose of all of this? These are like very large questions. And I wanted to kind of dig deep into that stuff. And that company is called next level soul. And that company and that podcast I'm interviewing, I've had the pleasure of interviewing some very big people already that they want, they reached out to me wanting to be on the show. And I'm asking them questions that they don't get asked normally. So for me as a brand to answer your question. I'm a little bit of everything so I'll you know, for for a large part of my tribe. I'm the screenwriting guy, you know,

RB Botto 15:43
yeah, let you get away. I can't let you get away with it. Alright, so I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna, I'm gonna zone in. Tell me tell me. So. Alright, so like that's like me saying, Okay, my brand is stage 32 Yes, I'm the face of the brand. Surely completely got it. What else do I do? I'm an actor producer. Yeah, okay, right. Right. But if you asked me and I hope that you know if you go audition is what I think if you went to my social media and you didn't know me, okay, and you just started scrolling through I would want you to see what why I feel my brand is is or tries to be which is inspiration aspiration, motivation. And by the way, if you're not following me on freakin Instagram, right. Now put in rb, my initials, walks into a bar, and click that follow button. I bring a lot of value. But seriously, that's my brand, my brand. I always love it in spurts. So plug, man, I gotta plug it up. inspiration, aspiration motivation, because that's really what I want to bring to people, I want people to understand that I am just like them. Okay, I am scratching and clawing just like them. There is no straight line in this business. It doesn't matter even if you have accomplished something. You know, people think there's such a thing as a meritocracy in this business. And in small tiny pockets that might exist. But the reality is you're jumping through hoops every day. And sometimes those hoops are on fire. And sometimes they're five freakin floors of the ground on fire. And you got to get through them. Okay, but the point of the matter is, is that it can be done. Right now I feel like you bring a lot of the same things to the table, you bring inspiration, aspiration motivation. So I look at myself that way that if I had a branding exercise, if I was sitting down and doing you know, one of those insane type of things where you're really kind of self evaluating yourself, that would be what I would put down for my brand. So we know the brand, we know you're synonymous with indie film, hustle, and I get that and all the other ones bulletproof and everything like that. But how do you see? How do you think this you? How do you how do you see yourself? What what's the brand of Alex Ferrari?

Alex Ferrari 17:50
For me, I think I think other people see me as someone who wants to help, help, not only filmmakers, but people in general, but I'm known more for filmmakers and screenwriters, giving them the straight truth. There's integrity within the brand that I've created for myself. In many ways, I've become a defender of the little guy, you know, with, you know, breaking the story on distribuir, and all of that whole thing that happened and fighting, you know, predatory distributors, and, you know, and creating the things I've created to help filmmakers, avoid being taken advantage of all that kind of stuff. So I think, as a brand, my personal brand, I think it's that as someone who's trying to help, trying to inspire trying to help people get through the through the own blockages, help guide them through, you know, the paths of not only the industry, but also life in many ways. Because a lot of the stuff that we talk about, I mean, I created a podcast is all about motivation. The filmmaking motivation podcast was just me talking for three to five minutes about motivating you to get off your ass and do it or think about things a little bit differently. It's about that for me, it's always been about being of service to the audience and being service to people. And when I discovered that, that's when I became happy. I was miserable for most of my life, being honest, like, I mean, look, I mean, of course, that's like, like, No, it wasn't like a troll or anything. But no offense to all the trolls out there. Please don't tweet me. But But, but generally speaking, I was extremely unsatisfied with my professional life. And in the moment I launched indie film, hustle, I was happy. And then I started getting addicted to helping people. And then now the different brands I've created. I've just kind of branched out into trying to help more people and guide people in whatever way I can. If I can help you. Avoid a predatory distributor if I can help you Get off your ass and work out if I can help you, you know, in any way, shape or form, I think that's the brand that I've created in a way of, you know, being raw, but being loving at the same time. And that's a very, that's not a very easy balance to do, because a lot of people are raw and brutal. But I'm raw and I am encouraging so I like my, the, you know, the saying I always say is, follow your dream, but Don't be an idiot. And that's basically sums me up pretty, pretty much like follow your dream, but like, do it right. Think about it, you know, you know, don't just think pie in the sky. Because I've been that guy. I've been delusional guy. I've been bitter guy I've been I've been everybody listening, I've been on everything you guys have been. I've been out of the business. I've been, you know, in a small market. Looking in from the outside, I've been in the business, looking in out. You know, I've been I've done a lot of stuff. So if I can help in my journey, and I'm learning new stuff every day, but if I can help people on their journeys by either digging into other people's, like my guest journey or my own, that's kind of what I do with everything I do, including my new my new show and everything I do with indie film hustle. Yeah, that's a better answer, by the way. All right.

RB Botto 21:19
Now, you know, you got to trim it down to like two or three words for the story personal brand. Seriously?

Alex Ferrari 21:25
Yeah. It's, it's, it's a lengthy it's a lengthy answer. Yeah,

RB Botto 21:29
yeah. Yeah. Some people might go, you know, for like, like coffee or something and come back, but but you know, although most will be riveted. Now, you said a lot of things. You said, you said a lot of things in there that I actually think are really cool and worth unpacking, because it is part of your persona. And part of it really is a lesson like you said, you know, Don't be an idiot. Of course, I have the one that says rule number one, don't be a dick. Rule number two, see rule number one, right? But the thing is that there is really a second rule to that, obviously, don't be a dick, but the way the United deck, and sometimes you don't know that you're being one, right? Sometimes you don't realize you're being one because you're just saying like, Oh, look at my look at my look at mine. And again, we talked earlier about the value, you bring the other person's human being right. So the other part of it is the knowledge base. And the other part of it is understanding how the course operates, right? You just said, I'm learning every day. I love that, because that is a life mission of mine, I want to learn, I'm a sponge, I want to learn everything. And if I'm really excited about something to get it, you can't, you know, there's not enough that you can put in front of me. But the point of the matter is, is that I also recognize the fact that when I walk into a different industry, or a different arena, okay, that they're the people I'm going to be meeting along the way, and certainly the people I do want to surround myself with to be successful, I need to understand their business and how it operates. So I don't look like an amateur. Right, right. So I don't come across as somebody that has know what to do so that they don't look at me, like we were saying earlier where we go, we can tell five minutes. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't want to be that guy. Right. So there's a great lesson for the audience in there in the fact that and the second is one other one where you said I'm happy. So you know, kind of unpacking everything you just said in a lot of ways you have done something where you feel you are giving tremendous value to other people. And that brings you happiness, and within that you are on a constant quest to knowledge that you could be better and better with each episode and each thing and that you can be more and you can inform and you can know your guests and bring better interviews and bring better value. That's a lesson to everybody listening, because that's exactly how you should be running your life. Whether you're a screenwriter and actor or filmmaker, a producer, or you're not even in this business, and you happen to stumble upon this podcast somehow. That is exactly where you got to be you got to know the industry. So people don't look at you like you're an amateur, you have to be on a constant, you know, a constant quest to learn. And you got to get rid of the idea of balance and embrace the idea of happiness of all pursuits. So that means you know, when people say like, wow, you work 80 hours a week, some weeks. Wow, like, that must be like, I'm like, that's your choice. Some time and I actually know some weeks I enjoyed some things I want to kill myself. So yeah, but it's it's happiness in all pursuits. So it's interesting to hear you say that you had been unhappy for so long. And then you started doing this and you got the reaction you got and the happiness and everything came with it.

Alex Ferrari 24:39
It's because you find Look, it takes it takes Everyone has their own path and their own journey and in for, for me, it took me 3839 years, something like that, to find this. And I tell I teased it in 10 years earlier, and I rejected it which was I thought I got The exact same feeling when I released my when I released my my broken DVD when I was helping filmmakers. And I got that feeling. And I still get people talking to me about that. But like, I still get people who tweet me the big like, I found my DVD like, it's still a thing, which is so cool. But I rejected it. Why did I reject it in 2005 is because that my ego was still going, I'm not, I'm not an educator, I'm a filmmaker, I'm, you know, I'm the next this or the next that that's where the ego was at that point in my life. I think everybody who gets into the game, all wants to be the greatest. They want to be Kubrick, they want to be Spielberg, they want to be Nolan. If you're a writer, you want to be William Goldman, you know, you want to be the greatest screenwriter of you know, you want to be that everyone gets into the game for that. But the truth and the honesty is that there's only one Stanley Kubrick, there's only one Steven Spielberg, and they'll never be another one like him. But you can do what you can do, at your level, the best you can and what makes you happy. And, you know, any delusions I might have had of being the next quitting Tarantino, which, by the way, I'm sure everyone listening here, I'm sure there's hundreds, if not 1000s, who like the next this or the next that you can't be the next somebody else, you got to be the first view. And that's right. And that's what I came to grips with. I was like, you know what I'm gonna do me and my path is not like anybody else's. Look, dude, I've been I've opened up a podcast in 2015. And all the doors that I was trying to get in and talking to people and building relationships with people that I've wanted to build up in those 40 years prior, have swung open for me. I'm building relationships and friendships with people like yourself and other people that would have not been able to get access to if I was just outside the door knocking going, Hey, Help me Help me Help me. Right. But so there isn't really like, and I want, this is what I want to happen I want when shooting for the mob gets made. I want major people that I work with on the project to have come from the podcast connections that I've made, or relationships that I've built, whether that be screenwriters, producers, actors, who ever, I think that's an amazing story, because there's just nothing no one's ever walked that path. I'm walking, that there is nobody who's used a podcast to leverage a podcast, to make their movie in the way, the way I'm doing. And by the way, not my intention. It's a it's a, I think going 2015 you know what I'm going to do, I'm gonna open up our podcast, which is going to that's going to open up all these doors. No, it's just happened over the years organically and naturally. So that is that for me is that's for me is what I found when I when I discovered my thing, the thing I'm good at the thing I want to do, and that still includes making movies, and that still includes writing and but now it's not just making movies. making movies is one aspect of many things I want to do like writing a book, doing a podcast, doing a show, creating education, speaking, all those things hold a space on that, on that shelf, where used to be only directing. And now directing is one of many things, which makes me so much happier, because because most directors are miserable because they don't get the direct very often. They're always hunting to look honestly, directing is one of the toughest art forms to do. I'm not saying all directors are miserable. But but it's a it's a very difficult thing where I trust me if I know the directors listening at the highest levels, or the lowest levels, much rather be directing, then finding money dealing with politics, casting people, they wouldn't, they would just rather just show up to a set and go, action and cut. Let me create a need. It's a brutal, brutal business. And one thing I came one thing I discovered, and it just just makes the most sense. It's a little bit morbid, but it's true. In 50 years, in 100 years, no one's gonna give a shit about what you did. And 500 years, absolutely, they're not going to give a shit about what you did. And if in 1000 years, they're still talking about your your one in your one in the billion. Because who are we talking about from 1000 years ago, Jesus? Buddha, you know, Ganga is Khan. there's very few Socrates. There's handful of people that hold throughout history, which is a short history, by the way, we're only talking about a few 1000 years that we've been recording it. So if you think that a movie that you make, or a screenplay that you write now is going to be talked about for millennia, you know, possibly, but that's very rare. You know, and look, look at and I always go back and like Clark Gable, one of the biggest movie stars in his day. If you ask anybody on the street today, how many people who know car Gable is that number starting to drop more More and more and more and more and more, like, you know, and in about 20 years 30 more years, other than Gone with the Wind, what other Clark Gable movies are there? Unless you're a cinephile, no one cares. Do you see what I'm saying? So it keeps you present gives you a perspective on life. And like, why chase for something that like, Oh, it's gonna this and this, No, man, just do stuff that makes you happy to stuff that you're helping other people in one way, shape, or form, whether that be through art or through it something else?

RB Botto 30:27
Yeah well, you know, now that I feel like we're through the most depressive part. Which, which ended with you know, you just got to be happy. They're completely irrelevant. And then like, but be happy, like your work?

Alex Ferrari 30:43
I mean, your your work, but your work means nothing on it.

RB Botto 30:50
So really, I mean, where can we go from here? I say that, like, we could pick any topic and move off. Look, look,

Alex Ferrari 30:59
listen, listen. Listen, the reason why I said that is that I don't say it to be like, no, whatever you do here doesn't matter. It actually does a lot. But when we are chasing all these dragons, that really don't matter. At the end of the day, do something that makes you happy. Because all you have is your life here, while we're here, and create things that make you happy, and do things that make you happy and things work out. You know, it just does, like, trust me from someone who had to do I mean, you can go look at my IMDb, man, I did a lot of post man, I worked on a live pipe, I probably finished 60 or 70 features in my day. And three of them, I enjoyed four of them, I enjoy the rest of them were for $1 for a check. And I'm grateful for the work when I got it. But I wish I would have figured this out earlier, not the podcast thing, but just big figuring out I gotta make myself happy. It took me a long time to figure that out. So that's all I'm saying is find that bliss, do that what Joseph Campbell says, find your bliss. Do that. Because all this ego, all this stuff that like I'm going to be the next great thing, I'm going to get that shit out of the way. Just do stuff that makes you happy. And other people will feel that energy. And I think you could agree with that. If you are enjoying what you're doing. If you're writing, if you're directing that energy is addictive for people working with you, and also people watching or consuming your content.

RB Botto 32:26
Yeah, yeah. So I'm just I'm curious of what year Zoloft became the main sponsor.

Alex Ferrari 32:36
I mean, listen, pharmaceuticals, man, it's the wave of the future. I'm just saying. I'm not on any antidepressants. But I want to pop like a couple shots of bourbon. So after after,

RB Botto 32:51
I can imagine

Alex Ferrari 32:52
I could hear Amanda what happened to rb, he just doesn't want to do anything anymore. And I just did this podcast with Alex to fuck me up really bad.

RB Botto 33:03
Listen, I get what you're saying. You do have to find your bliss. I do. I will say this man. I think that people when they're unhappy in this business, it's for a lot of people. I think it's self inflicted from the standpoint that it comes back to what I said earlier about knowing the industry and knowing how it operates. Like when you are just blind emailing somebody, this is my script. This is my logline or writing, if you are so unaware that you're targeting somebody who's super busy, and you write them a blind eight, paragraph dm on Instagram, then the first thing that person is going to think is this person doesn't know how the industry operates. I have no relationship with this person. This person wants something from me without offering me any value. And then they don't get a response. And then they wonder why they don't get a response. And then they get depressed. They get they get beaten down and everything like that. What they don't realize is that if you don't, this business is hard enough. And it is a very, very difficult business to break through in achieving too difficult even when you do break through. It's a difficult business to stay in. Okay, tastes change all the time. Things change all the time. And you look at the moment we're in right now, two years ago, you can sell a romantic comedy today. It's like they can't get it's like, Hey, I got an idea guide me to grow the like sold. Fantastic. Place doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Just Yeah, we'll take it like they everybody wants romantic comedies. Right? So but you got to know that and you got to know the business and you got to know how it operates and how it works. And that's where I feel people lose their bliss because everybody comes in, as you said, not very eloquently in the way that maybe you want to stab myself in the heart. You can you basically said that. Everybody comes in from places like energy and they're all excited and they want to create and we do everybody comes in, they want to succeed. They want to be artists, and then what they would they find out the hard way sometimes, but if you're open hearted and open mind this it becomes easier. They, they find out that this is a business. Okay? And you could write the most beautiful script in the world by the way you could be the next Spielberg or better everybody than what you'd be more talented than Spielberg. And the reality of the situation is, if nobody knows you don't put yourself in the right positions. You don't have the right contacts, right? Or if the moment isn't the moment where Spielberg in type movies are being made, right? You may not succeed, you may have all the young you can win the most prestigious, prestigious screenwriting contests in the world which I don't even know what the hell that is anymore. And don't tell me it's the nickel, but stone and but just to say like, you know, there is prestigious distribuye Award contest number seven, and you want it, the reality is situation is it may be that unbelievable piece of writing that makes people go, Oh my God, you are brilliant. And this still might not be a market or an audience or the time it could be wrong for that thing. And that's what Keynes me and what I have, I have empathy. I have empathy in spades. I know you do, too. And running a platform like Stitcher, where you hear these stories every day, you build up and you pulled up and the answers become natural, just like the way we talk about. And like you said, it's not harsh, it's truthful, okay, it's totally true. The contemplation, honesty, and, but, um, it kills me when I see like a writer, say, like, I don't understand, like, I'm getting all this great feedback, I got it, I got a no script request, I got a double recommend, I got this, I got that. And nobody's buying it. And then you look at what, you know, go tell me what the screenplay is about. And they tell you it's like this dystopian, you know, crazy. I'm like, okay, that's $120 million movie, your nobody knows you. It's not based on IP, there's a million, there's a million reasons why. But it's up to you to know those reasons why and then go to the place, go to the place where you have the best chance of success with that, so that you're not getting beat up by 1000 knows that, almost rhetorical, they're going to happen. Because it's not a fit for those people, you got to go for where it's a fit. But to do that, you have to have that knowledge. And if you don't have that knowledge, and all you have is the excitement of creating the work, the bliss is going to go away, because you're not going to recognize how the business operates. And you need and once you understand both of those avenues, the bliss comes back, because then it becomes hunger man. Like, how am I going to do this? Where all luck? Yeah, Netflix bought 50 romantic comedies, how do I get there? What production company sold those scripts? How do I get to a production company? What manager rep those writers? How do I get a manager? Like that's the way your mind starts thinking, not like, Oh my god, I got such great

coverage on this thing. And it's where do I go? How do I get there, what relationships and naturally you were talking about, about knocking down the doors, opening those doors. And again, creating a situation where you are talking to people that can help you in your career. But your first move is to give them value to let them come on their show, come on your show and promote what they're doing. Talk about themselves a little bit, talk about what's coming up. And you know, and that's what it's all about. Right? So that kind of logic and understanding I hope for people that are listening is is a lesson I hope, you know, I hope that I have talked you off the 5050 to a balcony that Alex put you on and made you realize that there is actually a path and a life beyond. You know who you are.

Alex Ferrari 38:45
Oh my god, you've made me you. You've made me feel bad about what I said, sir. For the tour, you're still listening. Thank you. I got everything I said I come from a good hug from a good place. I'm just trying to present perspective

RB Botto 39:04
on on Sky agree and you always do and you always do that was you know, that was a little cyanide ish, but it was. It was fantastic. So tell me a little bit more about who who have been actually I'm actually gonna ask. I'm gonna ask you a two parter. Tell me some of your favorite guests that you've had so far. But I but even more so. I'd love to hear like pieces of advice. You've heard from people that may you go like, wow, like that actually stopped you in your tracks. Like, you know.

Alex Ferrari 39:38
Some of my favorite conversations have been recent because in late last year, I got I had a kind of run of amazing guests, starting with Alex prayas, who was the director of the CRO and iRobot. And then Oliver Stone showed up and Oliver was a great conversation. It's just you know, when you're talking to an icon, it's very difficult to, to accept what's going on. You know? So if you go back and look at that conversation, I'm just so happy to be talking to them. And I'm just asking them questions that he was even just like, wow, you did your homework. I'm like, Yeah, man, I know. You started off in horror man. Like you started off your first two features were horror films. So how did that go? And like, how did you go from there to platoon and then and then the run to hand?

RB Botto 40:28
You do the hand? He did the hand? Yeah, he

Alex Ferrari 40:30
did that I was a second. All right. with Mike. Okay. It was a Michael Caine, right? Yeah. So he did. He did the second he did the hand. And then he did him. I think years earlier. He did that. But then he won the Oscar for Midnight Express. And then. And then he told me the realities of that when in the Oscars, like, Yeah, that's great. But everyone thought I was an idiot. And I couldn't get work. And I had to go off and do Salvador by myself. So he goes on this, this, this run of like, and he did, actually, he did a movie a year for like, a decade. And every movie was just like, what the hell like it was everything was just being hit out of the park, boom, boom, boom, boom, it was a run like no other really. It was pretty remarkable to I saw talking to Oliver, it was pretty interesting. It talking to him was humbling, not because of who he was. But understanding that he is still dealing with the same crap that every independent filmmaker is because he's an independent, essentially, you know, he doesn't he does do do movies, every you know, but he's raising financing. He's like, yeah, I can't get financing for my next film. And I'm like, her Oliver Stone man. Like if you can't get much access to the rest of us app, on certain extent. So Oliver was really interesting. I think Rick Linkletter gave was a great piece of advice. And his advice was, however long you think it's going to take is going to be twice as long and be twice as hard.

RB Botto 41:53
That's a great buy is an excellent quote. And I mean, that kind of perspective, right? So much of life. I know you're on this journey, as well. I mean, we talk a lot, but so much of life is perspective. Like if you could understand, and we talked about this a million interviews, but the long game, like if you can embrace the long game, and that means that's not an invitation to be lazy. You know, that's not an invitation, but it's but it but it is an invitation to not to distress yourself, it's an invitation to take care of yourself. Because things don't happen overnight in this business. That's why I love that quote, twice as long. I, I would argue me five times as long to

Alex Ferrari 42:35
know exactly, but it's gonna, it's gonna take a lot longer than you think it's gonna be, and it's going to be twice a lot harder than you think it's going to be and it's so true. Because when you walk into this business, you're like, oh, wow, five years, I'll do this, like, now. It's gonna probably take you 10 or 15. And it's just the way the game is. Rick was Rick was an amazing conversation, Ed Burns was great. Because it was, it was a fan of the show, which blew my mind. And he's like, I read your book. And I've been listening about distribution. And because it's one of those guys who just he's still hustling. And he's at burns. But the way he makes his movies to have the control that he does, he's still, he's still brothers mulling it. And the way he makes this movie, so he was a really amazing conversation, Barry sonnenfeld he's a great guy, I

RB Botto 43:25
was just gonna say Ed burns is a great burns a perfect example and dropped you I actually got to meet him back in like 2003. When I was running raise, we threw a party for a movie called confidence that he was in with Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weiss. And I, you know, an East Coast guy, you know, sat down and did a whole East Coast vibe. And he's one of these guys. I remember him saying back then, because he didn't really, you know, for him to get like starring roles. He had to write his own shit and raise his own money. He did it on his own. This was the first time Well, one of the first times that he was actually being handed a, you know, a leading role, you know, co starring against Weiss And I'm Hoffman. And you know, we sit at the after party, and he's like, goes, you know, my biggest fear. I remember him saying to me, because my biggest fear, he goes that this movie flops, and everybody says, This guy can carry a movie, and I have to go back and start raising money for my own stuff again. And that's pretty much what happened. We threw the party at the after party at Sundance, the movie played well at Sundance and they did fine and meet your soul. They got a got to release everything like that. But to shoot you know, these are the things that you control. The studio didn't know how to market it, didn't know whether to market it as like a comedy drama. They didn't know he was perfectly fine in it. But here he is, all these years later, and he scratches and clawing, still auslin. And that's the lesson that till so I didn't mean to abuse.

Alex Ferrari 44:50
Barry sonnenfeld is one of the funniest conversations I've ever had in my life is money. Oh my god is he got started off in porn. And his story about his first set porn. When he shot his the first six, he shot 30 porns in six days to pay off is to help pay off a 16 millimeter camera. If you want to hear the if you want to, if you want to hear the the insane story is in the first 1015 minutes of that episode, you should definitely listen to it. But those and I've been so blessed I mean Edwards a wick. It was like sitting. Edwards a wick was talking to Edwards a wick was like talking, like I was in the church of cinema. It was I was an all the his his energy, his presence. And the way he spoke about cinema was unlike anything I spoke spoken to anybody about it was just like this reverence for for cinema and the way he approached because I mean, I'm such a big fan. I mean, Jesus Christ, such a big fan of his films, but you could tell that that filmmaker made glory and Last Samurai and, and all the movies that he's made in his career, those kind of guys, man, you know, talking Oh, Kevin Rannells frickin love talking to Kevin Rose just like Dude, Robin Hood, and you start talking to some of these, some of these directors who directed some of the movies that you grew up with. I mean, you know, Nick castle with Last Starfighter, and like, you start hearing all these stories and the more you start talking to these, these, you know, some of them legends in the film industry, you start realizing that everyone's got the same hustle, man. we all we all got to walk. Some people just get better opportunities, some paces right place right time. You know, I keep talking about how Hollywood takes away the keys from some directors. You know, like, I want to see another Wolfgang Petersen movie, I want to see another Peter werum film, I want to see another Brian De Palma film with a budget, hollywood budget again, you know, I want to see, but the Hollywood take, and it's a shame and I'm talking to a lot of directors, not of those know that the keys have been taken away from but like Taylor Hackford man, frickin gap. I mean, and the list goes on. And I've been so blessed to talk to them these amazing, these amazing directors. But that perspective, that's the one thing I love about talking to people like them, is that and Eddie Eddie said this the best Eddie Byrne said this the best. He's like, Alex, you're creating a service that you don't understand what you're doing. And I go, What do you mean, he goes, when I just got finished with brothers macmullan I was walking in New York on this somewhere in Broadway. And I'm just walking and all of a sudden spike lee jumps out like 20 feet ahead of me, and just starts walking towards something. And all I want to do is run up the spike and go spike, she's gotta have it. School Days, do the right thing. How'd you do it? Boom, boom, boom, but I didn't have the balls to do it. He got in his car, and he left. And you ask those questions of people's idols. And they understand like, you know, and like it was like a 30 or 40 minute conversation about brothers with molan. He told me every speck every little part of it Troy Duffy, oh god, that was a hell of a conversation about boondock saints, what a great conversation hours and talking to them. But you He goes, you do that service for people who like I guess I do, because he goes, now you have that private conversation with someone, you record it and now everybody in the world can have access to that kind of information. Like what was it like shooting the crow? You know, when you know, when the things happen on the set of the crow like and you ask Alex and he tells you you know what happened with Troy Duffy and the whole explosion of his documentary of how he got screwed over and you know, Harvey Weinstein those are those are conversations that you have a party you've had these parties with these with these people, but you don't record them generally. And some stuff is informed for public air but some stuff is and those stories really are, it was trying to say is the the perspective of these guys and these gals that I talked to, especially the ones who aren't at higher level in our industry, it just gives you a perspective on the journey. Because you realize that they are human. They started like you did you know I had Russell Carpenter the DP of Titanic and the new avatars if they ever get released James and I asked him first question out of my out of my mouth is like I'm gonna talk about Titanic and True Lies and Ant Man and all the other things you've done in your life Russell but how'd you get ghouls to? And he was floored by that but that's the kind of that's the kind of thing that humanizes like they have

RB Botto 49:44
parcel that's exactly yeah do you in this nation have it all I mean, like that's people don't realize that human beings just like and even so the people that you've mentioned that have been put either put in directed jail, you know, or you know, are deemed too old or too dusty. Like You know, people like Taylor Hackford have found ways in projects and people, you know, and all that. But I'm saying, but there are still a lot of people and what I, what I think the general public doesn't realize maybe other creatives don't realize, for the purposes of this show, is everyone has peaks and valleys. Everyone, and everyone is a human being and everyone has emotions. And even though it might seem on the surface that, you know, wow, what a career, there have been a million projects that got away a million things that were going to go didn't go a million things they've lost out to a million times, they were told that they weren't the right person, the job got fired off there before it ever got going, you know, whether you're a writer or an actor, it doesn't matter happens all the time. You know, the, the, the the mission is survival, and advancement, right. It's to keep going and to keep learning from it.

Alex Ferrari 50:54
Yeah, I mean, the one guy I forgot to mention is Joe Carnahan. And Joe Joe's interview I had with Joe one of my favorite conversations I've ever had on the show. And he's telling me stories about like, how the, the investors of narc are like, not paying people while they're shooting it, you know, and he's telling Ray Liotta and, and Jason Patric, I would walk if I were you, because if this guy doesn't pay you and all this kind of stuff, and and how no one Leo don't we I'm actually shocked he didn't win how he and how he walked away from Mission Impossible three, you know, like, he got stuck into the studio system. And he you know, Tom, it may work with Tom Cruise on Mission Impossible three, and you'd like walk away. That's, that's pretty damaging to your career. Like, I mean, wait, I mean, if he can't, if he got that opportunity, like so then he goes off and make smoking aces. He's like, and that was basically smokin aces was a big fu to, to Hollywood that was like, it's a Hollywood It was a studio film. But it was just like this explosion of anger that he had. And you watch that movie, it's just full kinetic. And he's one of the I my opinion, one of the most underrated writers of his generation. In my my personal opinion, he's, he's got films, I wanted to see Pablo kill for killing Pablo. I would love to have seen that movie narc did it really well. But that would have been great. But all these and you start hearing stories like that, like I talked to Joe, the other day, and and, you know, he's still hustling man. He's still going through stuff. Like, it's not like a magical door that's opened up and like, Oh, well, you're this guy down, you could do whatever you want. You just call up somebody and someone gives you a check.

RB Botto 52:25
Then work that way. He's still the biggest of the big, the biggest, the big. So that's the pitch. And you know, people are like, you know, like, how do I get to Netflix? How do I get to Netflix? What you don't realize that a lot of these shows that are showing up with Star attachments, of course have been packaged, but there are plenty of shows that I know of personally by big people that have been pitched that have been turned down everywhere. Um, there's a couple of big ones that are out there right now that you know, and a couple couple of motors that are running around town right now I can tell you, I'm not gonna say who it is. But I mean, big name talent attached to it. And it's being rejected everywhere. And you would think in a second like you would, most of us would say, this person, whatever. He wants to pitch somebody, somebody is getting in the business of this person, and it's being rejected all over the place. It happens all the time. People don't realize even like, you know, you look at manque like the David Fincher, you know, project that went last year. That script his father wrote that script in 1993 or 1997. And he's been trying to get that done made favour and it was just a Netflix decided they wanted to be in the David Fincher business. And that's how that got made. So this stuff happens all the time. I want to ask you, though, is you know, when you talk to Ed Zwick, did you tell him that he's about 10 to 20 years from his his life's work being completely irrelevant and obsolete?

Why do you say that, sir? Well, because you know, as time goes on, all of our work is completely nobody cares anymore. I hate. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

Alex Ferrari 53:55
But let's look at a grand scale dude in 1000 years,

RB Botto 53:58
could you tell him that 99% of people walking down the street would know who he is? Did you tell him that?

Alex Ferrari 54:04
I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna argue that 99% of the people walk in I don't know who it is only filmmakers do. That's just that's just, that's okay. Listen, listen, Rob. Hey, we're all gonna die one day.

RB Botto 54:22
So funny. All right. So let's talk a little bit about Alright, so you know, you're you're crushing it, you got all these? You got the podcast going, you got the other podcast go on. You started the new podcast. And then a couple of months ago, you've just you decided that you were going to go into the witness protection program and now you're in a room in some undisclosed location correct. And, and this is uh, this was as you would say, in on the corner of ego and desire, a bold choice. Witness program. So first of all, what are you running for? And you know,

Alex Ferrari 55:01
well, it's an obvious the mob, obviously, I finally found me. And I had to I had to go into witness relocation. That's why I have a nondescript background with the chair and the chair.

RB Botto 55:13
Which by the veto is sitting there right now with that lighting, it will be even more menacing as the day goes on. He would look even more if you put a little front light coming down. Like kind of Oh, yeah. Demon or an angel. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 55:30
So yeah. If people in the tribe might have noticed that my background has changed yodas missing. People don't know where Yoda is. No, that's very important. And all my kind of cool stuff that I have in the background. Normally, I, by the way, Yoda is 1000s of years old, he's not irrelevant. Yoda will be around in 1000 years, I promise you. I promise you listen, listen, I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you this in 1000 years to probably be a Jedi religion, and Superman will be considered a real person in history. Well, not so there's hope, everybody. Hey, let's bring it back. I'm just bringing it I'm just bringing it together. Like everybody, you can remove your lips from the exhaust pipe. Oh, God, you're killing. You're killing me. No pun intended. So anyway, all seriousness though, you move or you want to tell the story? Do you want me to tell people what you've done? Well, I'll tell the story. I'll tell the story a few years Oh, story, I sit back here enjoying my coffee. Okay, so a year or a year or two ago, I started thinking about moving out of LA. And, and many people are like, wait a minute, LA is the place to be if you're in the film industry, all this kind of stuff. And you know, you can't do why if you're there, and you've made it and you know, I purchased a home there. And you know, so many of my friends are like, dude, you've made it, you bought a home in LA, like, in a good neighborhood and all this kind of stuff. And you're all everything. And I've been I was in LA for 13 years. And I started thinking about moving and then the pandemic happened and then kind of delayed everything. But a few months ago, I finally did the move sold my house left Los Angeles. And I have now set up shop in Austin, Texas. And I am not alone in that. There's a lot of my brethren from California coming out here because I see California plates everywhere. And I decided to move out here because for many reasons, but I felt that for me, my business is not determined on being in Los Angeles. I, everyone I talked to you is on Skype, it's on zoom. I don't I see you only at events and or festivals or AFM or those places because you live in, you know, bfhi I'm not driving over to Manhattan Beach. That's insanity. From the valley, that's just like, it's essentially me driving, I should just drive to San Francisco at that point. It's about the same amount of time. So I have so many, I have so many responses to that. So I decided like you know what, where is where's my company going to be able to grow faster? Where's where am I going to be able to get more bang for my buck? Where am I going to be able to upgrade my lifestyle for my family. And Austin was the place I chose you know, we looked at a few different cities and fell in love with Austin and the quirkiness and the weirdness of Austin is very, very interesting place I love it. And, and me finding it out here. I I we bought we bought a house, we're building everything up new corporate headquarters are being built out here for indie film, hustle, and bulletproof screenwriting next level soul, everything that I'm doing is going to be based out of Austin. So my corporate headquarters will be here. And we're going to be moving on from there. So I'm really happy. As of this recording, I have not moved into my house yet. When you see a new background that I'm going to be building on building new sets. There'll be different sets for indie film hustle and for next level soul so there'll be different sets and different everything in the background for that new new studio for educational products that I'll be creating and, and YouTube videos and things like that. So I'm able to grow here a little bit faster than I can in LA. And you know this as well as I do. Taxes are a bitch.

RB Botto 59:42
I feel like you my family. I feel like you've left at the most stable time in Las history. I mean, politically, everything is fantastic. Really under control, taxes. Everything is

Alex Ferrari 59:52
there's no fun. There's no fires, there's no fires,

RB Botto 59:54
it's no I just can't understand why you would would go at this particular time. seems strange to me. Well, I so so what we can expect what you're telling us is, we probably can expect a new background and maybe two chairs,

Alex Ferrari 1:00:11
no chairs actually, there'll be a full Yoda might be my god will probably be back. Yoda is in a container right now using using the force to keep keep up anybody. But no I have big plans for what I want to do with indie film hustle with bulletproof screenwriting next level soul and all my other companies that I run underneath these brands, and I think I'll be able to do it here faster and bigger than I can they're like you can't bought it's very difficult to buy a studio in you know, and by, you know, by Studio by land in LA, it's just too expensive. You know, I'm not rolling like you just yet so. So I can't, I mean, I don't got credit. I don't have crazy states 32 money. So but so he's, he's quiet now guys. No, but, but seriously, so I just felt that it was the best move for my company, best move for my family, as well. And just an upgrade in lifestyle and, and cost of living and everything like that. I mean, I mean, it's just a lot cheaper to live here. It's still expensive in a lot of people's eyes, but coming from LA it's extremely portable here. And there's a thriving film community. You know, Rick's out here, Rick Linklaters out here. I have I've had the pleasure of hanging out with him a little bit. And and Roberts out here, Mr. Rodriguez, which is my goal to get Robert I've said it, I'm putting it out to the universe, Robert will be on the show. I'm not sure at the end of this year, but by next year for sure. I'm gonna get Robert on the show. He's one of my number one. He's actually the number one guests that want to get on the show out of everybody on the planet I want to talk to, it's Robert because Robert for me, as a Latino filmmaker is the guy who kind of opened up opened the doors and, and inspired I mean, he's still inspiring people to this day. I mean, we still talk about El Mariachi, for God's sakes as the myth that it is it's almost almost he's he's almost a mythical being in the in the in the indie film space, you know, so, so there's a thriving film community here. I mean, it's not LA, not making any illusions of that. But there is a tremendous amount of tech coming here, which is another reason there's a ton of tech coming out here and we're where my company is going, I want to start, we're going to be working into that world as well, as far as you know, building things in the tech space as well. And, and also, there was another little known podcast and moved out here, Mr. Mr. Joe Rogan. And a lot of podcasters are flying out here as well, because of that, and by the way, Joe saved $17 million by moving out here from that 100 million dollar deal that he got from Spotify. He's like, you know what, I don't like la $17 million worth I'm just gonna

RB Botto 1:03:05
can't blame them. It's a great city. I'm I love Austin, I spent a lot of time down there and it's it is a thriving scene. And you know, it's a it's everything that you kind of want out of a small city. Like it's got everything, it's got that vibe, it's got the personality, it's got the artistry. It's got that independent feel to it, which is really, really cool. So, you know, I have no doubt that that will, you will thrive there. I still think you need your veto. For sure. Can you T's Can you tease anything that you are going to be working on? Can you give your audience your fan base? The people that have suffered through you telling them they're irrelevant? Can you give them Jesus crap,

Alex Ferrari 1:03:51
you're never gonna let that go? You're never I will never ever live next five to 10 years. Jesus Christ I can't believe it. I'm when I have the editing power, I'm gonna edit that whole piece out you'll no one will ever hear it. I will I will make sure that I recreate it playing both roles. That I would like to see that I would like to say no, um, so no, um, as far as teasing is concerned, I am I am actively rebuilding indie film hustle from scratch. So there's gonna be a brand new, a brand new website is going to be coming out which is not an easy feat, but that's something that I want to I'm currently actively working on. And there'll be a revamping of about a bunch of that stuff. There's going to be new, new courses that I'll be creating myself. There's going to be a lot more video content, there's going to be a lot there's gonna be a lot more stuff that I'll be able to do here that I wasn't able to do there in in the way that I want to do it. So you know, obviously could have rebuilt the site there, but It's just different. It's kind of like a fresh change, everything has to be changed over. So over the next three or four months, it's going to be a big a lot of transitions, a lot of things happening at indie film hustle, that will be changing and for the better hopefully in providing more value to my audience, and, and to the community into the tribe. So that's, that's what I hope I can provide them. From my new base in Austin, Texas. That's pretty freakin awesome, my friend. Thank you, Mario. Awesome.

RB Botto 1:05:30
What happened? We touched on what happened we touched upon on this illustrious journey of grind and hustle and indie film, what happened? We touched on

Alex Ferrari 1:05:44
the only thing eating out anything else you want to share? The only thing I can think of is that a lot of a lot of people specifically podcasters even you ask, how are you doing this? Like how like 500 episodes Jesus Christ. There isn't any one which is

RB Botto 1:06:03
still completely obviously not to me that we're celebrating you on the 501st podcast, but by all means, get on with

Alex Ferrari 1:06:11
my, my five, my 500th episode was pretty cool. Well, we had Neil Blomkamp on it, the director of director of directing district night, so I wanted to kind of give him a highlighted episode because he's a he's an inspirational figure. Now, of course, this art is his art still relevant to a few people. Just a couple. Not many, though. I mean, soon, it's gonna be gone. It's gonna be gone. It's like a material. No, I can see this. I can see this on. It's like a deteriorating option in stock market. I can see this at panels and events for years to come. Yeah, just better hope that COVID rages again. So you don't have to sit together on a panel. I've given you some ammo that you will use now for the rest. Like, we'll be on the set shooting shooting for the mob. And you're like, you know, why are we even doing this? I mean, if 50? Like no one

RB Botto 1:07:05
Yeah, like, Can I get another take? And I'll be like, fucking doesn't matter. Doesn't matter, Alex Really? In the grand scheme of things? Do you really need another fucking tape?

Alex Ferrari 1:07:16
Oh, my God, oh, my god. Anyway, um, what was I saying? I forgot what I was saying. If we ask how are you doing at all, you're really talking about how you be. The thing is that, and I know you'll agree with this is the consistency. And so many other podcasts, and so many other blogs and websites and people in the space that you and I both know that consistency is tough to keep going this is not an easy thing to do. to consist consistently put out content being a value, day in, day out week in week out. It's not easy to do. I do it at a high level as far as output is concerned. Honestly, I wish I could go back to one I did. I did want an episode a week of indie film hustle for eight or nine months, but then I got so backed up by all these interviews that I was recording, I was like, these poor guys are waiting six months to get out. I gotta because I want to talk to people. I like talking to people I like you know, having guests on. So it's just continuously doing it one page at a time, every day. Go, you know, do one little thing every day that keeps you moving forward. And then you turn around, you're like shit, I got 500 episodes 501 episodes today. And it's insane. Like I was like, as we were getting closer to it, I was like, Well, shit, this is pretty insane. You know, and I can look at it at bulletproof screenwriting, and that's at 140 or something like that now. And that's like, I just started that like a year or two ago, like I like how is that? Like, how it's insane that it just keeps going and keeps going like that. But it's that consistency and what you've done with states 32 I mean, I mean, you I think you were at three years old, four years old when we met, I think, yeah, probably about that. Yeah, yeah, about that, going into our 10th year, which is insane. Right. So yeah, it's about four years, because I just got through my sixth anniversary. So you know, doing that for a decade is a lot of work. It's a lot, it's a lot of work. So everyone listening, you have to understand that it is going to be a lot of work, but you got to enjoy the journey. And get to you know, do what you can while you're here and make yourself happy while you're here and and be of service to other people while you're here. And that could be through your art and could not be three art. But regardless, I'm going to go right back around to this regardless in 500 years and no one's going to know who you are the people who were here and you affected their lives will know. And that's the goal of what we do is not to affect 500 years ago from now. It's to affect the people that are here now enjoying your movies, enjoying your art. That's all that really The matters is today and now, whatever happens, history will take care of it. But right now you can control what happens in your world here. Yeah, I don't know if that was a total stick save, but it was close. You got a piece of the puzzle. I tried to bring it back. I tried to bring it back a little bit. It's

RB Botto 1:10:20
true, but it's true. I tried to do their Chairman cards gives it a six points, right. Oh, my God, you said what you said is absolutely true. And I hope that, you know, hopefully, today, we gave people a lot of laughs and, you know, an insight into the man who has value to you and everything that he has done. But I also hope that you kind of took away the, what you said there at the end, they think is probably one of the most important things and there were a lot of them over the last, you know, two and a half hours, almost the, the, the idea that you you know, for a lot of people, it's a struggle right now, you know, between COVID, and between everything going on mental health is a big thing, mental health, you know, begins with you taking care of yourself. And you know, and it doesn't matter, if you see other people doing it every day, and you know, it matters what you can do when you can do it, and how you can do it. And that begins really with surrounding yourself with really great people. And that's something I know you do very, very well to surround yourself with great people. And that, you know, clearly inspires you and keeps you going and gives you you know, that sort of window back. And I think for a lot of people right now, you know, understand that it is one game, do you said, You know, I did a podcast and one day I woke up and had 500 of them? Well, that's it, you didn't do 500 in a day, and you're not going to write a screenplay in a day and you're not going to land 20 acting gigs in the day, and you're not gonna it doesn't happen like that. It's a body of work over a lifetime of effort. And the whole idea is that, you know, you get up, and you take a little step every single day for yourself, not for anyone else, not because people on Twitter are telling you that you're an asshole, if you don't do it or anything like that. It's because you're doing it for yourself. And that all begins with taking care of your own mental health and your own and surrounding yourself with positive people and cutting out the negative people. And I think that, you know, I'd be curious to ask you this, because you said, you know, earlier that for a lot of your life, a lot of the things you were doing didn't make you happy? Would you attribute the fact that one of the reasons why you're happy, so happy doing this is the fact that you are surrounded by positive minded people and creative people and people that are out there doing it, and sharing the struggle with you and sharing the real with you. And that that is you know, that humanity gives you sort of you know, that that feeling of happiness.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:47
I think the thing that gives me the feeling of happiness is being of service to other people. And doing what everything you said talking to people and doing the work that I do. I think that being of service really helps because the the first 40 years first 39 years of my life, it was a struggle because I was trying to reach a dream. It's not that it was unobtainable, but the way I was trying to achieve it was not the right way. I did all the mistakes that we've talked about, I've been the you know, the needy guy, I've, I've hit up the wrong people, I've had my ego out of control, I thought I was the next this or I tried to emulate that. And, and I was in then, then I would go back into my post suite and my company. And then I would have, you know, a 21 year old director who just got $3 million to make an independent film. And who's never seen Blade Runner, when I'm telling them like, hey, do you want to be color? This look like a little bit like Blade Runner and like what's Blade Runner? And I'm like, I want to smack you. And that kind of anger of like, why them not me? Why did they get the chance? Not me? I mean, I'm I have more than enough skills. I have more than enough talent, why the hell am I not getting a shot, because this guy, you know, this guy got shot. And they obviously don't know what they're doing. Because I'm literally looking at the film. And I'm working on and I'm fixing their mistakes, and I'm doing all that stuff. So there's so much bitter and anger that I had for most of my career. I was very angry and bitter. And the moment that I you know, I got to kind of a cleansing in the olive oil and vinegar fires. That really woke me up a lot because I was like, Oh, this is what I've been doing is I mean it's real work, but it's not this kind of work. And this is brutal physical labor and I needed that beating the universe said no, no, you really don't understand what you've got. Let me let me beat you down and also gonna make it to the point that it was your idea.

Like you chose this path, No one forced this on top of me like No one forced me to do a manual labor job. It was my idea was self inflicted, and to go down that road, so and then when I left that, that's when I came back almost cleansed. And said, you know, let me open up this online business, which is as far away from manual labor as you can get is online, where it becomes passive, and this, there's a lot of work, don't get me wrong, but it's that that kind of work. And then I discovered my happiness along the way. First, it was the happiness of creating content and creating the business and, and that aspect, I always got my juices flowing, but it was more about, I'm like, wait a minute, I really am enjoying people helping people, you look when you and you hear this, I'm sure. When people walk up to you in an event and like, Man, you know that one episode, or the one thing that you put out really changed my life or helped me or saved me, millions or things like that. That is, that's very powerful stuff. It's it's value, a bringing value to you, that's value, it's a feedback and that kind of come that's valued. People don't realize that that's value. And it's addictive, it is addictive, it's real, it's like that kind of that kind of juice that you kind of get stuck on, it's a drug. And there's a reason why that there's been scientific research that like, you know, you you get an endorphin rush more from getting than taking, you know, they could give you 100 bucks, or you can give you 100 bucks to give to someone else, you'll feel better giving the 100 bucks to somebody else. It's weird thing. But it's something that because we as a species are built, to give to cooperate, that's how we been able to do what we do. And we actually have an endorphin, wired we have our brains are wired to enjoy giving of ourselves, and it's so amazing. So I do it in this way. Because I get to mix my passion, my love with being able to give, and I'm also benefiting from it. Because when I have a conversation with these guests that I'm able to talk to, it's I mean, they're answering my questions, you know, so I get, I get to ask, you know, Oliver Stone, whatever the hell I want for an hour, I saw a lot of people in the world that would love that opportunity. And I don't take it for granted. You know what I mean? So I but I at the same point, I'm also helping other people along their journey, and also providing value to Oliver or whoever else, the guest is to promote their book, but to promote this or promote their film or something like that. But at the end of the day, it always is about being of service. And I think that's what's made my mind my mental health better, because people knew me before in different muscle, especially like my wife who saw me through the whole, she's been with me for years, she seen me change. She's like, you seem so happy now, I've never seen you this happy. I'm like, Yeah, I know, I kind of realized that. And I'm like, I'm gonna, I think I found what I want to do. And, and then when I was able to do it full time, which happened about three, three and a half years ago, then it all changed and was like, Oh, my God, I get to wake up every morning and do what I love to do. That is a feeling that I know, you know, and that many people in this world get that. And that's what our goal is to try to help people get to that place where they are able to do what they love to do, and get money and we get paid to do it so they can survive as an artist,

RB Botto 1:17:57
right? Well, I gotta say, Man, I think that that would probably be a good place to leave this because went from, you know, people on the balcony to giving loving and endorphins and all that. So I feel like that is where we want to leave people. But yeah, I just want to say, Man, this. First of all, I'm honored that you asked me to do this to you know, to be a guest host for you. And to celebrate everything that you've accomplished, everything you've done with this amazing podcast and with the brand itself. 500 episodes 501 now is is remarkable. And then when you add in all the rest of it, it's you know, the another 140 and then the new one you have and then all the education, all the other videos and all the other stuff that you do, it's an amazing amount of content, and incredibly value valuable, the amount of value you bring to people is just off the charts. And for me, it's been an absolute pleasure to be with you all these times. And to call you my friend and do have done you know, a million panels would do I have a million laughs at you mostly at your expense, which I really enjoy. But, no, but yeah, I'm just thrilled for you. And you deserve every accolade. And I do hope that if you are listening to this right now, I do hope that you will let Alex know very, very simply that you know, each bring value to you that that matters. That's how you can that's how you can bring value to other people you get people say a lot often like how do I bring value to somebody that where I feel like they've accomplished so much more than me? And the answer to that question is you recognize the fact that they're human beings just like you they have emotions just like you they get up in the morning like you to get a bed like you and they have struggles in between just like you and they may be having a bad day too and may not want to go out there and create and do that thing and everything like that. If you bring them value, you're going to lift them up, and that's how you bring them value. So I hope you will do that for Alex. And I'm looking forward to 500 more shows and if I'd been on 13 times I expect to be on 14 in the next 500 at least

Alex Ferrari 1:20:01
Man, I appreciate you, you coming on man, I don't think there was anybody else I could have gotten to do this show this episode specifically, because you've been, you've been there at the beginning with me and kind of seeing what I've gone through and seeing the company grows in the show grow. And I'm, I'm proud to call you my friend as well. And in all the good times we have, I can't wait for you to fly down to Austin, when hopefully, it'll be the Austin Film Festival, if not, hopefully be south by. So you can show me around as far as I've been to either of those festivals, as you could show me, you can show me what it's all like. And I told you, I told you this, when you do move here, and you will eventually I told you, I would take a shot. So that that's incentive and so when you eventually decide to stop paying this ridiculous tax, you'll, you'll come out here and when you do, I will take a shot, it will be tequila. Not the keynote won't be rum, it will be rum, preferably Cuban rum, if we can get that that's the only alcohol I've ever drank. And it's usually because I had a sore throat. But that's the old Cuban thing, like take a little bit of ROM, Lola and lohani. And you're done. But Ron would be the only thing I would drink. But you need to be moved here not hanging out, not just at the festival. I have a stipulation, I have moved here and set up shop here. So if you ever do that, I publicly said it, I will take a shot with you even though I don't drink. That is a wild wild. He said that goes into the column of reasons to move. And I think at that point, we should star wipe out of this. And if I said I've said this before, as well, man, thank you for being in my movie, you brought so much wonderful energy and ego and desire. I still remember when you came over and watched it with Amanda and how you guys pissed yourselves watching it. And when we saw it at the Chinese theatre. It was, it was just a great time. And so I appreciate you trusting me with the insanity that that movie was, was so much fun. It was so much fun, I want to do it again, we got to get this other one off the ground. So to see, so the sequel will be so this is the thing. So we're going to do three we're going to do a three parter, it's going to be like Rick's before sunset before sunrise. And before midnight, we're going to do every five or 10 years, we're going to go back with these characters and we're going to be at a different Film Festival. So we did one at Sundance and they're going to meet up again at South by and then and then the last one will be a can so that will be over the course of 10 years to see what happens

RB Botto 1:22:42
so that then we should do it. And then we should just do a spin off of just my character where I recollect my entire producing career and everybody tells me how irrelevant it is.

Alex Ferrari 1:22:52
Obviously, obviously it's obsolete it's absolutely except for the people here in present time sir. Man it has been it's thank you so much for doing this brother. I appreciate it. And thank you for all the work that you do with states 32 and all the help the service you provide to the community as well and I wish there was there's more guys like you and me out there bringing good good quality value to people and creators out there and I hope everyone listening follow that bliss. Take it one day at a time and here's to another 500 or 10,000 who knows right that I do these things.

RB Botto 1:23:35
And listen again the value comes in you know follow Alex on Instagram frog throw your shit you never throw your because

Alex Ferrari 1:23:42
everyone knows it already but yeah indie film hustle at indie film hustle is where everything is on all the social medias except for Instagram which is I film hustle and then all the other you guys all know my stuff you know I don't have to tell you all my stuff and indie film hustle but really any film also.com bulletproof screenwriting.tv film entrepreneur.com indie film hustle TV that TV and I Fh academy.com for education and there's a bunch of other stuff as well but that's that'll

RB Botto 1:24:16
make mine really simple man. I'll leave out my only fans one because I don't want to complicate matters stage 32 days 30 three.com profile get on there it's free join the community and instagram and twitter just Are you my initials walks into a bar RB walks into a bar and that's how you bring value follow the people you know like this shit told me doing a good day they know that you've gotten value out of it I just think that's wildly important.

Alex Ferrari 1:24:45
And are you Is it that is that the website the other website besides only fans cameo? Is that the one that you like you can I don't know that one How do I get on that? Isn't isn't cameo the one where you can get celebrities to like give you like Happy Birthday shout outs. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Aren't you on that? I mean I would make keep they keep wooing me but I'm holding out for Betty White money. Or, or Rudy Giuliani money, either one. You know, listen man. I want that Betty White coin. Come on. How much is he charging? I have no idea but if I had to guess knowing how she's probably getting paid in crypto, she probably is rightfully inflating crypto. But my friend thank you again so much for doing this brother. I appreciate it. Thank

RB Botto 1:25:30
you. Man. I guess just I hosted I hosted I get to sign it out. Right. So you have been listening to the 500 and first episode of indie film hustle with my special guest. Alex Ferrari, the rich bado RBU. And we'll see you down the road. I'm sure I'm sure. The 502

Alex Ferrari 1:25:53
I'm sure I'm sure you'll be back on sir. No doubt. I don't think I could get rid of you, sir.

RB Botto 1:25:59
You cannot get rid of me.

Alex Ferrari 1:26:01
Thank you again, my friend.