IFH 301: How to Make Money as a Filmmaker with Jakob Owens

Alex Ferrari 1:49
Today we have on the show director, entrepreneur and YouTube sensation, Jakob Owens, Jakob has been able to build an amazing company around himself as a director, and he just envelops what indie film hustle is about. And also just a lot of the things I talked about how to build a brand, how to build a company, leveraging that brand and company to be able to get gigs as a director. And that's what he's done, man from literally from the ground up, coming from Arizona. And Notting Hill, you know, live in the big Hollywood Hills or anything like that, just really hustling man. And he's such a great story. And he came across my path a few months ago. And I just, you know, we had a mutual friend that connected us. And I was like, Hey, I gotta have you on the show Jakob. So you can drop some major knowledge bombs on the tribe and, and kind of show you guys how he did it, how he was able to build up an over 100,000 following on Instagram, how he's become the number one member of unsplash.com by just giving away mazing images of himself and what he does, as again, a way of promoting himself, how he's been able to build up almost 800,000 followers on YouTube by creating value for that community, creating value for filmmakers, and how he does it with shooting music videos, shooting short films and things like that, and how he's able to leverage all of these things into an actual business, how he's actually going to be able to make money doing what he loves. He's created ancillary products, other things like that, that he sells, as well as lots and courses, and all sorts of other things as well as a production company that does a lot of music videos every year, and so on. There's just so so much stuff that he does. Oh, I'm really, really happy to have him on the show. And this conversation was fairly epic. So please enjoy my conversation with Jakob Owens. I like to welcome to the show Jakob Owens, brother, thank you so much for taking the time out to be on the show man!

Jakob Owens 3:54
Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Alex Ferrari 3:57
We have some technical issues, but we are back we're gonna give this a shot. So thank you for hanging in there.

Jakob Owens 4:03
That what happens. Right? That's what happens on set you'll think you record and then it doesn't or sound off or or you know, like talents late to set and nothing ever goes as plan like you always got to be ready to on the fly. Just so that's life.

Alex Ferrari 4:16
Dude. I mean, it's, it's just you and me on on a Skype call. I can only imagine when there's 1000s of dollars running through them every minute that goes by.

Jakob Owens 4:24
Oh, absolutely.

Alex Ferrari 4:26
So how did you get into the business man. And like I said, like I said early in our early recording, you are one of the most predominantly like great self promoters out there. And you know how to get yourself out there. So I wanted to have you on the show, to kind of hopefully teach filmmakers a bit about promoting yourself getting out there and also the business side of what you do. So first and foremost, how did you get into the film business?

Jakob Owens 4:48
Yeah, so I mean, I got in the film business by kind of a, you know, a stroke of luck, but I also just, you know, I just love to, to make videos and you know, ever since I was a kid I was always picking up my parents heights was Sony, Sony or Canon high tape, camcorder and I was always running around the neighborhood in my house with my little brother, mainly but all our friends and we're making like little monster movies and our own little Sports Center highlight reels and like we'd go outside and film was dunking and do like our own dunk contest and raise up scores and film. Like we were just always I was shooting and making like videos to everything you know, and like, and that was back when you had to like, you know, if you messed up, you stopped it even then you hit rewind on the tape in play and wait for that moment of like, okay, start and then Alright, I'll pull it. So it's like editing and camera.

Alex Ferrari 5:39
Those were the days Did you ever do two VCRs? No, because you're much younger than me. That's why I've completely aged myself. Let's continue.

Jakob Owens 5:50
Always Always like doing it. It was always fun. And then in high school. That's right around like when I got like a PC and Windows Movie Maker came along. And I figured out how you could like we now the our family now had like a little digital camera and I figured out how you could like take it and put it in a computer and like start like actually editing it in the computer. And oh, well this is cool. And and so literally, my my high school football team, I was an athlete, and I didn't play football, but I was friends with a lot of the football players and they knew I made videos and like to make videos so they're like, Yo make us like a Under Armour commercial for the pep rally. Because it was like the big first game of the year. And so we made this horrible Under Armour commercial.

Alex Ferrari 6:31
How did you just stop for a second the underarmor commercial? How you didn't edit it, right? Oh, did you edit in Windows? windows player? Oh, yeah. Windows Movie Maker. Yeah, cuz I was gonna say did you do that in camera? Cuz that must have been

Jakob Owens 6:42
That this is what I figured out how to get digital now.

Alex Ferrari 6:47
Okay, good, good, good.

Jakob Owens 6:48
But yeah, no, we we put it together. And we played it at the pep rally. And it was it was what was cool about it was the first video that ever played out of school pep rally, like in the school's history. So that was like, that's a cool little milestone in itself. But after the video played, literally, like the whole day, throughout school in the halls or classroom, like I had, like students, or teachers coming out to me, we're like, that was so cool. That was so amazing. Like, you should make videos like you should make videos for your job. And that was kind of like my aha moment of like, always like to do it. But this is what I want to do with my life. You know what I mean? And so went to film school at ASU. And when I think it was my sophomore, junior year there, I just now picked up it's still tapes. At this point. It was a Canon Hb 30 little mini like dv tape, and I was shooting you know, some videos and in film school and, and at the time, my buddy was like, hey, you're in film school. Right? And, and I was like, Yeah, he's like, you want to make a music video? Cuz he was an artist went to high school with him. I was like, Yeah, sure. And so I borrowed my buddy's t to I because the T two I was just like fresh on the scene. I remember I remember when he brought it over to my house. Before we shot the video, we like pull it up. And we're looking at it. I just remember thinking this was the crispy is most HD footage ever. I was freaking out. I was like, bro, this is crazy. These tapes and stuff. And so we shot the video on the TTI. And we that was right when I started my YouTube channel. The buff nerds created that and started I put that video on there. And all of a sudden, I started getting hit up by like a bunch of local AZ artists. Yo you do music videos, how much you charge. I was like, yeah, and so I just started shooting all these local music videos while I was in college. And then artists started reaching out to me from California, I was reaching out, you know, to artists, like hey, I shoot your videos, here's videos, I'm done, I just kind of fell into that, like YouTube Music Video scene, I saw it as like a way to kind of like come up kind of an entry point for myself. And it was just cool to work with these independent artists grow my talents and and and you know, I just ended up growing a big following and just kind of working my way into the industry through like music videos. And then you know, here's probably seven eight years later, got a bunch of stuff going on. And you know, I've done all sorts of different all sorts of different projects from you know, TV shows, music videos, commercials, all you know now YouTube got my own filmmaking product company like I just do a ton of stuff and that was kind of like how I got into everything was just to music videos on my entry point right?

Alex Ferrari 9:30
That's insane man that's insane. And it's it's fascinating to hear that story how you've been able to do that because how old are you about 2828 next next month I'll be 29 Jesus Christ man. I wish I was 28 again, but enjoy it does go fast brother. At Hardee's golf has already am already close to 30 what Yeah, and just just on a side note is your body feel the same as it did when it was 18 And I'm still relatively young you're in good shape Dude, you're in great shape.

Jakob Owens 10:06
And I I still feel in great shape and when I go work out but like I'm still I'll wake up and I'm like, yeah like why am I so? I feel like I'm 50 right now like it's funny it goes it goes quick

Alex Ferrari 10:18
And that's that you actually are taking care of yourself can you imagine?

Jakob Owens 10:22
Right if you're not

Alex Ferrari 10:23
Like my my chunky ass back in the day I was just like wow cuz 18 Dude, you're just like, let's do this and I love your shirt and for people who are not watching this I love your shirt says make handheld great again. Right so I want to talk to you at 40 and see if you're still wearing this.

Jakob Owens 10:40
No, definitely not I already feel it like I did a TV show earlier this year and the whole like I wanted to make an admission that the whole way through it was like a documentary TV show. And I want to go handheld tripod or whatever on everything I didn't want like stabilizers and easy regs. For all it's a wore me down three months of like, you know, four days a week shooting with, you know, anamorphic lenses roll them off. friggin Yeah, is it? It'll wear you down. So no, I probably won't be wearing this shirt. even five years from now.

Alex Ferrari 11:14
But for right now enjoy. You can't brother. So you really use get you started music videos. Did you? Is there something about that format, that kind of platform that you like as a director? Because you've done probably more music videos. Anything else? Right? Oh, for sure. Yeah. What is it about as a director? Do you love so much about music videos?

Jakob Owens 11:33
The reason I love it, especially for me, I have such a short, creative attention span. Like even when I was a kid, right? Like, I was making board. Like if you go back to my closet, I have multiple board games that I created laminated. I design my own golf course I designed my own shoe line, like a fully drawn painted out I was I made a local magazine for neighborhood kids, could we play what wiffle ball and I keep the statistics and write articles on it. Like, literally, I was always creating and doing something. And I think that's why like music videos are kind of what drew me to music videos. First off, and just why probably the projects I enjoy the most is because like, it's always something new. It's always something creative and different. And you kind of get to flex those creative juices a lot more frequently than, you know, some of these other long form projects that take up way more time or attention spans. And you kind of got to focus on solely one thing over an extended period of time, but music videos, it's just like, always, flashy, fun, fast, you know, here, you do a project here, and then boom, next day, you're working on this one over here and, and working with, you know, a bunch of different artists and just, you know, of all different kinds, you know, I don't know, it's just, it's fun. I think it's, it's kind of a, probably one of the most fun, you know, things for me just because again, all that, you know, the creativity and how quickly things move and change and new projects and stuff

Alex Ferrari 13:00
And so you can basically creatively, you could do whatever the heck you want, anytime you want. There's no real rules.

Jakob Owens 13:06
And you don't have to worry about audio. So you know, it's like,

Alex Ferrari 13:09
There's no there's no, no slate. Unless you're doing like some cinematic you know, inserts.

Jakob Owens 13:15
But no, not having like, because I remember I was doing music videos for so long. And then I went to do my first short film and I was like, Oh yeah, this is what it's like to friggin try and capture audio because but, uh, this was kind of the fun thing for me to do.

Alex Ferrari 13:31
Now you also do a lot of Warner's that's kind of like a bunch of that again, talk to me when you're 40. But but on your on your channel, you do a lot of wonders. And for the audience, listening a wonder is basically the entire music video in one shot, meaning you never cuts. I know. I've done some wonders. They're extremely creative. Because you've got to figure things out. And everyone thinks, oh, three minutes, you're done. It's a short day. I'm like, Nah, dude,

Jakob Owens 13:58
It's it's tough because one little thing goes wrong. Like one person misses their march, the camera rotates this way and focus buzzes and goes out like and they don't hit like, boom, reset, like, like, I know, the music videos are probably a little easier, but in the sense of wonders, compared to like short films or whatever, because I've used a couple like short films that are just solid one takes and on both is funny. I don't know how it happened. But on both of them, it took exactly 14 tries, which is crazy because one of them took 14 tries. And then we shot one like two weeks later and that one was 14 tries. And it was like what like it just happened to work out that way. wasn't like I was like, Oh, that was a 14 one. Yeah, let's stop it there because the other one like it just happened but it was crazy because every little thing from on the steady came when you know to come in and we're rehearsing, blocking for hours and all this stuff and the camera at one point comes is like focused on the girl. And the guy says something off camera and she steps into frame kind of jolting lane so the camera has to swing on her shoulder. And then pull focus and nail it on hammer the other side of the car at a to a. And like, you could be gone through the whole short and you get to that moment and you turn a whip and it's just like super soft and then it takes them into find a reset, like, know what I mean? Like you got to go again. So it's one or no joke and and I just they're fun. They're challenging and when you can really do it well it's it's almost like live theater playing out. Like it's just because it's everything's got to be so in sync in unison and the actors, they can't miss their lines. They're hitting the line. So it's just like, oh, are some cool about it that I just really like it but they're not easy. It's so it's, I don't like them because they're, you know, easy to do. They're not. I don't know, I just like how they look. You know,

Alex Ferrari 15:45
And you handheld. A lot of times you're hand holding or you're using steady or some stabilizer

Jakob Owens 15:49
If I do a one or it's usually going to be steady cam. But I've done a few where it's handheld but like even there's so there's those I just love the tension they bring out in like a story or the shots like there was this new show on Netflix that just came out a hunting or hunting on hill of Hill House.

Alex Ferrari 16:08
Yeah, I heard about it. Yeah.

Jakob Owens 16:10
And there's I think it's like episode six or seventh late in the season. And there's like, I feel like it's like a 20 minute water. And it's so like the way the tension and the way. I was just like Mind blown. Like I was just sitting there going wow, for all the lighting changes to the actors and their marks. And it wasn't one of those things where they like, go dark. And then it's like, oh, that was a stage like it was solid all the way through. I don't know. So there's just so cool to me.

Alex Ferrari 16:40
I mean, I'm assuming you like Birdman is funny. I've never seen dude, you've got Come on.

Jakob Owens 16:47
At so many people will be like, bro than you like, do you find inspiration from Birdman or this now I'd probably never see you so

Alex Ferrari 16:54
Gotta watch Birdman that do that when I watched that movie was it was like the first time I had been a while since I watched a really insanely good movie. And I was like, Oh, that's what a director is. You forget, like, it's not it's not generic. It's like this guy had a vision. And he nailed it. And I was like watching it. And then only like halfway through the movie. I'm like, wait a minute, a lot of the same me he did stitch but right now he's going 20 minutes at a time. 15 minutes at a time. It's It's insane what he did. Now you are arguably one of the best self promoting filmmakers I've seen online, from your work on unsplash, to your YouTube channel, to your Instagram to all the things you do. And I wanted one of the reasons I wanted to have you on was so you could help filmmakers understand the importance of marketing themselves and themselves and of their project. So What tips do you have for them?

Jakob Owens 17:46
Yeah, I mean, as a filmmaker, it's like, you know, you're a freelancer or filmmaker, like you got to, you got to find work, you know what I mean? Especially I think, you know, in a day and age where more and more people are getting access to cameras and becoming film filmmakers or videographers or content creators, whatever, like, you need to stand out. and be creative about how you get yourself in front of people's eyes. And that's like marketing, you know, and like marketing yourself. Like, you have to do things, whether it's you physically, like emailing people every day, or like reaching out to people or, you know, manually doing it or doing it in creative ways on like, Instagram, YouTube, or whatever to have people stumble across you like you have to, like take action, especially with you know, like I said today and creating a brand for yourself is super important. You know, you know, creating that kind of visual brand that people like can connect to that's more than just like your name. You know what I mean? I think that's why buff nerds like has always been such a unique thing is like on my YouTube channel. It was my youtube channel became my production company, people became knew me or know me as the buff nerd. Like, I'll be called out in public as the buff nerd. Like people know, a lot of the artists that were on that YouTube channel as like starting out on the buff nerds and like, their people were like, yo, you should make it a music label. But like, the brand, like helps me, you know, promote and market myself and also think creatively about like content, you know what I'm putting out there for Instagram for like, you know, I'm buff nerds, right? So Instagram buff nerds media, like if I'm gonna think Okay, um, let me take two giant reds with huge lenses and curl them and like, you know, put it on Instagram and like, this is how real makers train buff nerds media, like that's a creative way to like get yourself out that people are gonna laugh, they're gonna tag friends are gonna share it, you know, all those things. So you got to be able to think creatively, and that sense of like, okay, you know, but having a brand can also help do that a lot. So rather than just like your name, I mean, that same content would have worked with just my name but being known as the buff nerd in the production company buff nerds media, it's just it just kind of all fits in together and yeah, don't marketing yourself. You know, especially in today's world is just super important. You got to know You got to get your work and your name out in front of people's eyes. Because there's so there's so many people now, you know

Alex Ferrari 20:05
My God. I mean, when I was coming up when I was coming up in the 90s and the early 2000s, it was not nearly as competitive as it is now. And now everybody will because now it's cool. Ever since Quentin Tarantino showed up when Quinn Tarantino showed up and all of a sudden I said, Oh, you can be a rock star director. He was the first rock star director, where he was like he made directing. Super cool. There was Scorsese, and there was Spielberg. But he made it look cool, right? And then from that point on, things change. Now everyone's like, I want to be cool director and it becomes like, you're like almost like an actor. Right? No, I'm getting that press. Right. And now, with YouTube and everything. There's so much content. There's so many content creators, and people don't know, understand marketing don't know how to get themselves out there. Right.

Jakob Owens 20:52
Yeah. I mean, that's the like I said, that's the biggest thing, because it's like, just, I mean, there's kids that are probably 10 years old now with,

Alex Ferrari 21:00
With features under their belt.

Jakob Owens 21:02
Yeah, like, I mean, because even like you were saying, your data yourself, like you wish you would have had windows moviemaker, it's like, well, it's like, I wish I would have had premiere you know, or something like it's like, there's always that new wave coming in under that's like, has that technology available to them that future generations that have a foreign, but now with how available it is how far along it is how affordable you know, even like 4k cameras are now it's just like, it's, it's crazy, because now there's so many people doing it. And you have to be able to stand out and how you stand out is not only your work, and how like the quality of it and the uniqueness of it, but how do you market yourself and get yourself out there?

Alex Ferrari 21:44
And I think you could do more with the brand than you can with your own branded name, which I mean, I have a name, I have my own name Alex Ferrari, which is kind of like a little brand within itself. But indie film hustle is my main brand. And I could do things with indie film hustle that I wouldn't really feel comfortable doing with Alex Ferrari. Would you agree? Yeah. 100% Yeah, you do that all the time?

Jakob Owens 22:06
Yeah. So I mean, yeah, I like I it's funny, I'll get questions. Like, I have a little mentorship group where like, I have, like filmmakers that come in, and we talk about a bunch of stuff, and I help them, they can come on my sets. And we do a bunch of stuff like that. And one of the things you know, I always talk about is like, if you want to have like a personal Instagram, cool, but make them a separate one for your filmmaking stuff. Like Don't, don't combine both like, because especially now Instagram, I tell people, it's like, it's your reel now. Like, it's your website, it's your portfolio, people can come straight to your answer. I've been booked off so many jobs just because of my Instagram. Like, when people come there, they can see like, Oh, he's done this, he's done this, oh, this video is cool. His words cool. I like I like what he's about his workout, like they can just see. But then if throughout all that content, and videos are behind the scenes, or whatever I'm putting on there, I have like, pictures of my dogs and this and that, like, it just kind of waters it down a little bit. So it's like, if you want to have your personal one, cool. But if you want to be also like a filmmaker or brand or business like Star doesn't have another one too. You know, don't don't try and like find the balance between both like, you know, that's important. I think personally,

Alex Ferrari 23:15
One thing I would also say and this is just my opinion, though, like on your on your business one, leave politics out, leave religion out, leave all of that stuff out. Because look, there's a lot of things I would want to say about today's world, but it's just not on brand. And you got to be conscious of it.

Jakob Owens 23:31
Even with my personal it's weird because my Jacob Owens one also is kind of it's my personal account, but it's also now kind of like, yeah, of course have 100 100,000 followers on there. So I can't there's certain things like I can't do or say because just people will be like, they'll stop. People will just stop being fans of you instantly because of one little thing. You know what I mean? Like I was in Texas, and like the majority of my family's from Texas lives in Texas. cowboys at heart. Sure. One of them's a big hunter and he hunts for food and like he doesn't he doesn't big game hunt or anything like that. He hunts kills, eats feed like Cheerios family, they last them all year and all this stuff. And he took us hunting. It was a really I've never been hunting and it was just a really cool experience. But he had video of me shooting a deer which we ended up using like in the eating the meat and everything like it wasn't for fun sport like we it was utilized and, but not thinking about it. I put up the video on my Instagram story of me shooting the deer and people went off on me and like, I was like, dang, like, I can't have like, that was a moment I realized I can't have a normal life or share things I'm doing in my daily life anymore. Knowing people, people will just rail into you. And we're just like, I'm not a fan of you anymore. How could you get and I is funny I would. I'm so responsive to like my community and people that follow me. And so I was sitting there just like, calmly like just, you know, responding Back to people. And I was like, sorry, you feel that way. I was like, but I just have a question like, have you ever eaten? You know, a burger before? Yeah, right. Right, right. And they'd be like, Well, yeah. And I'm like, so you support the killing of animals for food thing? Because I mean that that animals being slaughtered, you just didn't see it. And now you didn't see it, but you're still in there, like, and a lot of people are like, Oh, man, like I didn't, I didn't think it'd be like that, like, thanks for taking the time to respond. Like, I'm still a fan like, but it's crazy. Like, people will just fly off the handle and rails and like over little so I imagine that

Alex Ferrari 25:33
And that was just off of like, you know, you shooting a net. Can you imagine if you got religious or political, right? I mean, it's just insane. So as for people listening, just if you are going to create a brand, even your own personal brand, you know, I'm sure you know who Gary Vee is, right? Yeah, yeah. Gary Vee said it very well. He's like, Look, dude, I'm very opinionated about what's going on in today's world. And I cannot say a word right about it. Because I he was like, just can't it's not, it's not on brand. So you always have to think about what is your brand? What does your brand represent? Now, if your brand is politics,

Jakob Owens 26:06
You can lose a lot of business by doing exactly. You could have clients that you've worked with before done lots of work. And if you post something to Facebook or Twitter, that's like, you know, if you're in support of Trump, and they hate they're not they're strong against tropical

Alex Ferrari 26:18
Vice versa, right?

Jakob Owens 26:20
Yeah. And whatever. They could be like, I'm just like those people, like, I'm not fans of you anymore. You could have those people be like, Oh, we don't want to work with him anymore. We want to end so you can lose a lot of business and especially, you know, depending on the industry you're in like but you know, it's just like, you gotta you got to be careful. And keep that kind of stuff to yourself, because you could lose a lot of business or potential business down the road. And you see all this stuff, even now in Hollywood surfacing like, with like, old viewpoints from 10 years ago that it was hard, just yeah. This, this actor said this, and 10 years later, it comes up and then they're dropped from this client or this or this

Alex Ferrari 26:59
What happened with James Gunn on Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah. Yeah. Such an insane like, 10 year old Twitter that he was trying to be funny. Right. And he got, he got lost. He lost Guardians of the Galaxy. I was like, not, it's insane. It was insane. So everyone out there. Yeah, just keep it to yourself, guys. Be on brand, do what you're doing. And that's that, let's move on from there. So you started your YouTube man, but you've got what almost a million followers now?

Jakob Owens 27:29
Well, yeah, on on YouTube, there's like 700-750,000.

Alex Ferrari 27:35
That's a lot of followers man, for a filmmaker. And, you know, how did you Is there any tips? Well, first of all, when you started it, was it part of a larger marketing plan in your own mind? Or did it just kind of organically happen?

Jakob Owens 27:48
It just kind of organically happen. Like, you know, I was, like I said, I was doing music videos for like, futuristic k ID, who's now Kyle, and some other like, artists DUI hoodie out, like in these artists. And it started just growing kind of a fan base for like, music, music videos, independent artists, and then like filmmaking, and filmmaking, tears behind the scenes videos, it was just kind of a combination of both those things. And it was never like, my intention, like always saw it as a bigger picture. Like I said, For me how to like grow, because I remember, I was in film school, this is a good story. I just thought about it. I was in school. And it was my senior senior year. And I was in my directing class. And for our thesis, we could either make, you know, our short film thesis film, or the alternative, which was like, the alternative and kind of looked down on was do three music videos, I was like, shoot, I'm just gonna turn in three music videos that I've been shooting, and they'll be like, there's my final shot. And but so I wasn't I was the only one in the class there was probably like 2520 to 25. And you follow over the course of two semesters, this this outline and you check back in in class and you'd have your pre production packet and all this stuff. And every time it would come to me my professor in class in front of everyone, Doug and now we come to Jake we all know is not like he would like call me out in class and because a couple kids I wasn't friends with too many people in there but a few people and they'd come up to me like bro, we know what you're doing, like keep doing you like don't worry about him and but that's insane. Call me into his office hours, one time and he told me straight in my face. He was like I could fail you. And it was just like, basically he said this too. He said all your ego is your your muse. I could send your music videos to five directors I know right now and they would all say sucks. And I just remember saying I promise you and I remember sitting on the house desk on like, and this is right at the time, I started getting a couple 100,000 views on like videos and I was like, I was like, I know I'm not where I'm at or could be but I don't Suck and they don't suck. Otherwise I wouldn't have I kind of got a little bit of a to like good as I wouldn't have hundreds of 1000s of views on my YouTube channel and it kind of he had this like moment of like, oh, what like, and then and then you got right back into his, you know, stick of whatever and I need to follow his plan or I know I'm never gonna go anywhere with music videos. That's what he said I would never go anywhere with music because

Alex Ferrari 30:22
There Yeah, cuz neither David Fincher Michael Bay, and Tom Fuqua, Spike Jones, none of those guys did any well. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Jakob Owens 30:42
Yeah, so it's just like, I continue doing my thing. And I was just like, I, this was kind of my way in, I see it working because right at the time, Mac Miller was kind of blown. He was really blowing up on YouTube and said, Rex arrow, who was doing his videos was as well. And so I was just, I just saw the potential I saw where it could go. And yeah, just kind of, you know, ended up senior thesis turning in three music videos, he ended up apologizing to me on the spot there, it was just like these turned out great. On the same sorry, blah, blah, blah. And now you're a couple years, you know, later down the road, he was asking me if I would come back and speak to his directing class, after because I had moved out to LA, I'd been there probably three or four years done a bunch of like, really cool projects. And it took off kind of rather quickly once I moved to LA and he was like, hey, do you mind coming back to speak in my directing class at ASU? And, and now like, I remember last year, he messaged me a link to his new like film that he had just shot and asked me to watch it and give him feedback. Like, no. I didn't respond. I didn't respond to his message. You know, Facebook will tell you if you've seen the message or whatever, it's Oh, my students too good. respond back to me now or my former student. And it was crazy. So it's crazy story. So tell, don't ever let people tell you, you can't or won't do something. If you got the determination and drive like you can make it happen. Because like, what if I was like an impressionable kid? It was like, Oh, yeah, maybe it does come

Alex Ferrari 32:11
Right. And you're done. Maybe,

Jakob Owens 32:13
Maybe these aren't any good. And I wouldn't, but I knew like, I was like, This is what I want to do. It doesn't suck. Like, I feel like I'm good. I see where, like, I had that confidence and that drive. And so it didn't stop me. But I can only imagine, you know, someone else is having a different impact, potentially. And so it's crazy that a student or a teacher would even say that to a student,

Alex Ferrari 32:32
You know, what's it? Well, first of all, that is a fantastic story. And the one thing I just want to mention is that you were part of the new generation, and you are figuring new ways out to do the same thing, if not better than the old generation, he was stuck in his dogmatic way of doing things. Right. You don't, I don't find you to be very dogmatic in the way you do things you're gonna be, you're gonna be doing it your own way how you want to do it. And that's how innovation happens. But people that are behind you are scared of change. And that's when that stuff happens. So like you said, If anyone does that to you, just listen, listen, be be Listen, take it in, but filter it and keep doing what you're doing. If you feel that it's what's going to happen. Help you you are perfect example of that.

Jakob Owens 33:21
Yeah. And again, like, there's nothing else I would have rather been doing with my life. So it's like, for me, there was no other like, option. It's not like, Okay, well now what am I gonna do? Like it was just to me, it was like, no questions like, I'm, I don't care if I fail like this one. I'm gonna try. You know what I mean? So yeah, so that was that was my college experience. Like,

Alex Ferrari 33:44
Go back? Did you ever did you ever watch this movie?

Jakob Owens 33:46
No. I watched I watched the trailer I watched it. I ended up like googling the trailer and watching that I was like, now I'm cool. But he was like, my nutshell, that was kind of my college film experience. Like I had some other I had some other crazy stories in my like, cinematography class as well, like, pretty, almost on par exactly what that story and just like, yeah, it's just, it was a interesting.

Alex Ferrari 34:15
Yes. Like, when I when I tell people that I was making, I shot a feature film in Sundance, I went out there and just shot a whole movie at Sundance while I was going on. And I'm being stopped on the street from people I know, in the business. They go do you do and I'm like, I'm shooting a movie. And they're like, and the confusion on their face was fascinating. Because all they saw was a little Blackmagic Pocket camera. I shot the whole movie in a pocket camera, because I wanted to be kind of low profile, low profile. Yeah. And it worked. It worked great. It premiered at rain dance. It was a big huge, you know, it's a it's a nice experience, but they just couldn't grasp how someone could just go off and make a movie for like three grand or four. Right? Right. You know, or and that's the same thing that happened to you, like people just couldn't figure out like, you can make a living shooting music.

Jakob Owens 34:57
Well, yeah, I mean, and then that's it. mean YouTube, like, cuz I remember when I got my first like, even like YouTube check, I think I was still that much polishing. Now remember, it was only like 200 bucks, but I was like, what I was like $200 I was like, I was like, This is crazy. And like, then it just kept going from there and going in and and ultimately, like that became a huge, you know, revenue stream for me and and then would allow me to do other things that I wanted to do as well that like, hey, I want to go do this project, I have money to fund that or this like so. But again, I feel like it stemmed from me never thinking about that it was just I like to do and I was doing what I wanted to do. And then that came along as a result, I feel like especially now like filmmaking is becoming like such a like, Cool trendy hip thing to do. Or people are kind of getting famous off of it or more popular and making money or whatever. And, and so you have these people, I think getting into it for the wrong reasons, not because they truly love it, but because they're looking for that, you know, that fame on YouTube or that, you know, that, you know, look on Instagram and and i don't think that won't last, eventually that's gonna burn off and die. But and why I think it works for me is just, I just truly love to do it. I was never thinking like, Oh, I want to be famous, I want to be famous, or I want to have a name, or I want to make tons of money off of YouTube. I just made videos and put out there because I friggin like to do it. And I was trying to get to a point in my career where I was a stat established and making a career off this stuff and, and everything came as a byproduct of just my love for it. You know what I mean? So that's awesome, dude. Now what advice

Alex Ferrari 36:39
Would you give filmmakers wanting to grow their YouTube channel?

Jakob Owens 36:43
Man, it's tough now. Again, it's because it's become so oversaturated. And like the way YouTube is now it doesn't pay out as much as it used to do to like, just the ad content pocalypse that they had and then everything and so I mean, if you're getting millions of views on videos, like you're, you're good and you're doing well. But other than that, I mean, it's, I use YouTube now as a vehicle to one keep keep information flowing out there I like I genuinely like making like informational videos and putting that stuff out there. But it's also a good way to just keep my name out there and my brand out there and you know, promote certain things I have going on. Or if I have a new project and do behind the scenes, like I like sharing all that stuff and, and creating content just when I'm not working on a project. It's just something I like to do. And it's not like the moneymaker that it was for me back in the day, but I just like to do it. But if you're trying to grow your YouTube channel, I wouldn't bank on that being your, your, your end all be all like it should be, it should be a side hustle to what you're also trying to do. Like it shouldn't be, you know, they should work symbiotic until like, you're putting out content, grow your name, grow your content, like get followers to your Instagram to book more jobs here to work on pet like, it should be, you know, it should be where you host your work and you do some passion projects and stuff. But I don't, I wouldn't recommend it, at least in my opinion to anyone as a filmmaker right now to necessarily like, make it your career, and I'll be all because the chances the chances are slim are not saying it can't happen. But it's definitely slimmer than what it used to be.

Alex Ferrari 38:28
But wouldn't it but isn't it you know, I'm assuming you've had a lot of people, it gives you a lot of credit or creates more credibility for you in your brand. When you can point to YouTube and go Yeah, I have almost, you know, a quarter three quarters of a million people who follow me on there, that adds a tremendous amount of value to you as a filmmaker because now you have an audience that you bring and that's what I'm saying. And that's

Jakob Owens 38:50
That's what I use it for now as for the the audience and the following and directing towards you know, the that kind of name recognition, whatever I don't, I don't do it for the money now. It's just to keep that you know, that name, allow that recognition to have my following. So it's like, it's definitely having that following. You know, and that recognition helps in certain instances. But yeah, if like, someone's like, literally, like, I want to make my entire living off YouTube. I don't know if you know, I'm not gonna say don't do I'm gonna say go for it. Like, do whatever you want to do. Sure. just based off of, you know, just what's been going on with YouTube. I don't know if it'd be the smartest but I would never tell anyone like Nah, don't do it. Like don't like if you want to do it you're passionate about you want to become a friggin YouTube star and have a million subscribers Go for it.

Alex Ferrari 39:38
Oh, would you agree though, like, in today's world, as of this recording, it's still mean something that if you as a filmmaker walk into a meeting, and you have a million or 2 million followers, helps. Even if you're looking for money for a project or anything like that. It just it just does help a lot, not only with credibility, but just like, I've got followers so I'll be able to sell a product to at least get that film out there.

Jakob Owens 40:02
Now I've had, I've had people, you know, in companies like, like projects I've worked on asked me to, like, do promotional stuff of the show, you know, that we're shooting on, I put it on your like Instagram, your YouTube, can you like put the trailer on there? Like, they want that content. They want that to be

Alex Ferrari 40:19
A channel, the channel

Jakob Owens 40:20
And audience and those people. So definitely, like, if you have, you know, more of you can use that to your advantage and like, you know, use that your your following and your numbers to, you know, get land you a job or get paid extra on a job. Well, yeah, I'll do you know, pay me and I'll put it up there. I'll promote it.

Alex Ferrari 40:38
Do you know what the rock says? Right? The Rock in his deals, he gets like 20 million for the movie, but then he gets like 1.5 million to do to use his social media to promote the movie. Oh, there's a lot of stars, Kevin Hart, all those guys. It's part of the marketing plan now. So studios are paying the actors who have huge social media following just poor in the movie to promote their movie through their channels. stars are actually charging for that now, which is good, because it's a lot of work. It takes time and money to build that up. I didn't know you didn't know that. Oh, for sure. Absolutely.

Jakob Owens 41:13
I mean, that would be that would be Yeah, like the same thing as like, you know, a brand reaching out to me for you know, to do a project for them, like create a piece of content, and then then being like, Hey, we want this to post on your social media. And maybe Alright, well, you know,

Alex Ferrari 41:27
What, what's your marketing budget?

Jakob Owens 41:29
What's your What? You know? Cuz? No, it makes it makes sense. Because you're, you're being hired or paid to do this job. But this is this isn't for my whole, you know, audience over here. This isn't your audience like so? Yeah, if you want to access that, who you know. So that makes sense. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 41:44
It pick up my day rate, or we're gonna have to talk about marketing budget. Right. Now, how should filmmakers handle their social media, if they want to build that kind of either brand or personal brand? handle their social media? And essentially it just like, how should they? Because Because a lot of filmmakers have no idea how to post on it, what frequency to post on what kind of content they're posting, because a lot of them just just yell and announce stuff constantly not providing value.

Jakob Owens 42:14
Yeah, it's funny, I actually have, I have a guide on my online store. That's how to grow your Instagram, like, four years ago, because I made it. Two or three years ago, I had 9000 followers on Instagram. And I remember it was at that moment, I was like, I have a solid loyal following. And I was like, but I want to like try and grow it. So I was like, doing little things that I thought would help grow it. Next thing, you know, I was at 50,000, then I was at 65. And literally earlier this year, I think at the beginning of the year, I was at 65, or 70. And I made it like a goal at the beginning of the year, like I want to hit 100,000 before the end of the year. And so I wrote down that goal. And then I was like, Alright, what are the little things I can do? That will get me to that goal, because it's one thing to like, set a goal. But then you gotta have your plan of action of like how you're going to achieve that goal. Otherwise, it's just like a dream, right? Like, you're like, Oh, I want to hit 100,000 followers. That's a goal. No, that's a dream. Like, it's, you got to make it a goal by writing out your plan. And so I was just like, the, for me, it was at the beginning of the year was posting twice a day, like I posted once in the morning and once at night. Now I typically just do once in the morning, because it's a lot of work. It's not that easy. It's not It's not easy. It takes it takes a lot of work and effort to you know, do it. But I would post like twice a day, once in the morning, once a night. And I was always thinking like you You want to share stuff that's interactive, right? Like, it could be as simple as posting something than asking a question so that people will engage on it or, or tag friends or you could start a conversation and show it shows up more in Instagram Instagrams algorithm, because it's like, oh, this photo is getting a lot of interaction. People want to see it so it pushes it. And so I was doing stuff like that I was doing like giveaways that companies were sending me you know, gear and then I would just give it out and have people tag their friends and people would see my profile. Oh, he's got a cool profile, like, I'm gonna follow Him and, and then I was thinking of content that would be like, cool that people would want to like, share, tag their friends. And just like that would be almost not I hate to use the word viral, but like stuff that's viral, asking a sense of people are going to share it, or they're going to screenshot it and put it in their story and be like, laugh out loud Jacob Bowens, like, you know, just basically get eyes on it. And I think one of the early ones I did was, uh, I like hated using gimbels. And I still do, I think they're kind of sterile and whatnot. Like, if you're going to be, I would rather use a steady cam, you know, obviously, but, or go handheld. And one of the things I did was like, I was in the way I was in the gym working out and I picked up a weight and I was doing a shoulder exercise, and I like, picked it up like this. And I was like, kinda looks like I'm using a gimbal right now. And I was like, I was thinking I was like, Alright, what can I do and I was like, I made a Little Instagram video with rocky music and I said gimbal training, you know, how you how you train to like how filmmakers trained to run a gimbal and it was like me with a 45 pound weight holding it and doing these steps and then rotating around. And I posted it knowing like I was trying to think creatively of like, okay, content that people would share, they would get retweeted or people would tag their friends and, and it just went stupid dumb on Instagram and Twitter, I hit a couple 100,000 views within under an hour. And then like say, same thing when I was on like this other music video set, I was doing this fish tank trick where I took a fish tank and this is something I did years ago on a music video. But then all of a sudden, it popped into my head like, Oh, I should put this on Instagram, people are probably going to trip out like it'd be a good little like little piece and so I put the fish tank in the water had my red in the fish tank and I was shooting this music video saying because there wasn't budget for the whole underwater spiel for a read and everything and and so I did this ad my friend Corey literally filmed me like and kind of do a little zoom and stuff to as we're doing a scene where I've got the fish tank in the pool and the camera in the you know, under the water kind of shoot. That's how

Alex Ferrari 46:09
You shot fish. That's awesome.

Jakob Owens 46:11
Well, tank hack, and I put it up on Instagram, I forget what I said. But it was something kind of clever that got people to like interact. But also it was just kind of a more shocking video, you know, something that's going to be like, whoa, hey, Timmy, did you see this? Like, we should try this, blah, blah, blah. And it just did a million views on Instagram and that day and like I was just like what like in and then so I made a YouTube video kind of capitalizing off that like fish tank camera hack, and like just showing will have done, you know, and so just kind of thinking like content like that. And rather than just like a picture of a street lamp that is like night vibes, you know, it's like, no one's gonna that's not gonna do anything. I'm going to do anything night fives lives I don't know, it's not going to do anything to grow your Instagram or your following or get people to your page. So I was always kind of in the mindset of like, what's gonna get people to my page, what's going to get other people to get people to my page or like, get people to share my photos or videos and and then unsplash was another one. You said you found me on unsplash I was like, I take a lot of photos too. But again, on brand wise people don't want to just see my like people follow me for more filmmaking stuff, they don't want to see a picture of that I took of my girlfriend or like a cool Hawaii landscape. It's just not as much of what what people are looking for. And so I was like, Oh, I want a cool place to like, share my stuff. And I found unsplash put it up on there. Just again, thinking as many ways as you can get your work out in front of different people, faces places and put it up on unsplash. And a year later became the number one most followed user on that in my friggin was face. My face was all over billboards, ads, Instagram, Facebook everywhere, and people were just like, I remember the first one one of the first big ones I got was some dude DMA who follow me on Instagram. He's like, yo, bro, I'm here in a mall in South Africa. And he pans over and there's just a 20 foot ad of me on the side of a mall wall just like me underwater with my camera and it said live adventurously or something like that. And then I was I was in a b&h photo store for like an ad for like a hard drive. It had me with my camera that they pulled off on splash. And so my face started getting out there that way and, but that started with me thinking like, Okay, what are the all the different ways I can, you know, get my stuff out there and in front of people. And so yeah, you just got to be proactive about it. And just like it's work, I mean,

Alex Ferrari 48:38
It's working very well. I mean, because a lot of people would have been afraid of putting their face on on something like unsplash because they because you don't know what you're going to be used for. And

Jakob Owens 48:48
I've been used so there's this picture of me my brother in Hawaii, my brothers on my shoulders. were hiking back to a waterfall and we're both shirtless but I got him on there and the waterfalls off in the distance and it was used on a an ad for you know an article with some article on Google that power on Facebook that popped up my sister sent it to me is that how to know if your your best friend's gay or not, or whatever it was sure was a picture of me and my brother and or something like that. And I just remember it started making its rounds and I had all my friends and family on like texting me this picture like hey, I saw this ad on Facebook like what is this like? And I'm just like

Alex Ferrari 49:29
Backfires every once in a blue moon but you get a lot more positive every once in a while there's

Jakob Owens 49:33
Some some random thing that pops out but no, it's it's been cool. I mean, I've had ads billboards, different things all over the place, just you know, from you know, different countries here in the US to just online but the question I get all the time is like bro, why do you Why do you let that stuff go for free? Or, you know why? Why would you Why would you do that and, and it just goes back to eventually it's going to lead to Something because, one, I just wanted my work to get out there. And it was getting out there more. But a lot of people started discovering me because of unsplash. And like you said, You found me there. I had other like, you know, a share grid?

Alex Ferrari 50:13
Of course, yeah,

Jakob Owens 50:14
No, no, Brian, those guys, of course, as they were putting all, they were putting populating their website with all my photos, because I had all these gear photos on there. Sure. And so then I had a Skype call with them, we became friends. Yeah, we've lost on some projects together. And they paid me for a bunch of different content pieces we've done and co collaborated on a bunch of stuff. And but that led because I just put up stuff for free on my unsplash like, and then I got this one company in China wanted to use one of my shark photos of this photo that took a shark for their, like some big campaign they're doing, they paid me even though you don't have to get paid through unsplash, like, all the photos are free to use, they just were like, Hey, we want to pay you for the photo, they paid me $500 just to use a single photo for a little campaign. So it's like, you never know where it could go. And I wasn't afraid of letting some photos go for free or, you know, letting it get out there. But I grew a lot of people that follow me on Instagram. Now, I would say probably 25% of them probably found me through unsplash you know what I mean? is like, you just never know where someone can go. And the day that unsplash does maybe monetize or somehow monetizes their stuff. I'm the number one most followed user, there's going to be a way for me to capitalize on that. So, you know, you just never know. And so I'm always like, been one to you know, not Scavo like, oh, like I'm not putting up my stuff there. You know, people can use it for free like so

Alex Ferrari 51:36
You're not you don't let the ego get too much in the way when it comes to that stuff. No, that's awesome, dude. And now let me ask you because you've got, you've been approached probably by a lot of companies, a lot of opportunities. What's the craziest thing you've been asked to, like either pitch or be a part of and you're just like, what, God, God hell. You don't have to use their name. But just like, you know, it's just a cool story. I always love asking these kind of questions.

Jakob Owens 52:04
I don't know. I don't know if there's ever been nothing's popping in my mind right now. I mean, the majority of has always been pretty on brand and to make sense, you know, brand it's usually some type of camera gear company or some reaching out to me.

Alex Ferrari 52:16
The Gay the gay ad with your brother. And I think that

Jakob Owens 52:21
The biggest, loudest thing that's come across the US I've had, I mean, I've had I've had like beard companies reach out to me like hey, yeah, this new beard gel. We want you to like market and promo become the face of or like make a YouTube video. I'm like, No, like, I'm not Yeah, you're not a celebrity. That's not i'm not out here. Just like yeah, beard on. Like, I just don't it's not my brand. like yeah, it's part of me and part of my brand, but it's not i'm not over here.

Alex Ferrari 52:48
You know, for everybody. everyone listening. If to everyone listening, Jacob has a gnarly beard. Like it's super. And it's short. Now. It's a little shorter than you cut. I trimmed it up a little bit. Yeah, cuz normally, it's really, you know, and all those photos are they're really, really long. So I completely understand why a beard company would come to you. It just makes perfect sense. Yeah, that's, that's maybe the most I guess. That's the only thing that pops to mind. But that's also, like you said, you understand enough that that's not part of the brand. Right? And you're being true to the brand as opposed because if your followers they follow you for filmmakers, like, do talking beard cream, like

Jakob Owens 53:26
I like it. No, that's exactly like I could have taken whatever they wanted to pay me and then all of a sudden I'm on my Instagram like, yeah, try my new beard cream and get or from whatever get 50% buffoonery

Alex Ferrari 53:36
For the buff nerd beer curry. Right?

Jakob Owens 53:37
Yeah, it's like, it just wouldn't. Like, it would have made sense a little bit. But at the same time, it's like, no, people aren't following me because of my beer. They're following me because of filmmaking. And so like, no, yeah, just recognizing, yeah, kind of going back to that recognizing, you know, your, your brand your lane and and focusing on that.

Alex Ferrari 53:53
Now, I'm gonna ask you a few questions. I ask all of my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today?

Jakob Owens 54:00
Just work on something every single day and like, reach out and connect with people. Like, that's the biggest thing. Like, all my biggest coolest jobs have just come from knowing the right person or like, you know, or even vice versa. Me bringing people on to projects that were cool projects is because I knew like, when I get a project, first thing I do a thing of like, Oh, my homie who's the DP who I was, yeah, bring him like, Who else do I know? I'm not out there scouring like, oh, who can I bring on this project? It's people I know. And so like, it's just you know, connecting and networking with people, I think is probably the number one most important thing but then yeah, working on your craft every day. When I was in college. I was I just told a story the other day when I was in college, I would sit in my dorm room and go Okay, what can I work on today? And I was like, I kind of want to work on like coloring so I would go out and shoot like as much like videos of like flowers and nature and try and go back and then color the footage in like the most like, nature natural beautiful way and then I was like, Alright, I really want to work on like, like a trip. Editing sequence like, I need to be better at that. And so I'd set my camera on a tripod in my dorm and like film myself, like freaking out on the bed and like, grab my head. And I would sit there and mess with the footage and try and like figure out how I could do like cool flashes and blurs into the next thing. And like, I was just always working on some if I wasn't like actually on a job or working some I was just sitting there always trying to think of like, what could I do today that would like, you know, take you take you to the next level. Yeah, practice. I mean, it's like with anything with a sport, you know, you're going to practice to get better. Same thing with like, filmmaking, you know, if you're a writer, you write every day or try and write as much as you can. Like, the only way you're going to get better is if you consistently do it, and you work on the skill. So those are probably the two biggest things, I think.

Alex Ferrari 55:47
Good advice. Now what lesson took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Jakob Owens 55:52
Is to not take criticism so hard? Like, because early on, early on, I would like would someone be like, Yo, this sucks. I'm like, no doesn't. It's great, like so that's just no matter who you are, you could be Drake. Drake has haters, Drake, but he's got the biggest records and numbers of all time. Mmm, same thing. There's, it's just there's always going to be people that have an opinion don't like what you put out, you know what I mean? Or, or create. So you can't like, early on when I was like, you know, first uploading videos, if I'd get a comment like that, it would just bug the crap out. Like, you know, in college I've got no it doesn't sound like you just don't know, anything that you know what I mean? That was like, it took me a while to like, kind of like, get over that and not take it so seriously and realize like, Look, it doesn't matter. You could have the most masterpiece. cinematic someone's gonna say something they don't like about it because no one likes the exact same stuff. You know what I mean?

Alex Ferrari 56:53
Have you ever have you ever seen Shawshank Redemption?

Jakob Owens 56:55
No, I have not.

Alex Ferrari 56:56
You're killing me. Dude. You're absolutely killing me. You're absolutely killing me.

Jakob Owens 57:01
It's funny. I tell people this a lot. I don't watch a lot of content. Like out there. Like I don't watch a lot of movies. I don't watch a lot of YouTube videos. I try and stay. I mean, I watch stuff for sure.

Alex Ferrari 57:13
Did you see Star Wars?

Jakob Owens 57:14
I did.

Alex Ferrari 57:15
Okay, good. All right, so I'll use Star Wars as my reference. Okay, Star Wars one of the greatest films of all time, George Lucas was walking around on set of Phantom Menace with a T shirt of the bad review from like the New York Times. ripping apart Star Wars so there's always a hater somewhere. It makes you anytime I always use Shawshank Redemption. Like if someone really comes down I'm gonna just Google bad review Shawshank Redemption which is arguably one of the greatest films of all time. And it's just like there's always a dude this is like this was horrible this right? Yeah, don't take it seriously.

Jakob Owens 57:49
So yeah, just don't don't take it so seriously and personal and and a lot of time it's just people you know whether they truly mean it or not, they can be just completely trolling you and actually like it you know what I mean? It's they're sitting behind a computer and they can be all this is tight. This video freakin sucks!

Alex Ferrari 58:11
Alright, now I'm gonna give you the toughest question of the entire interview. Three of your favorite films of all time?

Jakob Owens 58:16
Oh, Inception pops in my head. First off, okay. Signs, The Strangers.

Alex Ferrari 58:21
Which was last one?

Jakob Owens 58:23
The strangers

Alex Ferrari 58:23
Oh, yeah.

Jakob Owens 58:25
This because what I liked about that so what I liked about that one so much is I feel like they did something a lot of horror, I guess. thriller. Yeah, horror films didn't really do which is the absence of like, sound and music. Like they just use silence so well. Like I just remember one of the scenes where she's standing in the kitchen is the wide shot. And there's it's just the normal ambience, there's no music telling you something's coming or building you. Oh, I shouldn't be scared. And he just walks in the shadows off in the background. You barely see his face, like the mass and the shadow. And I just remember Oh, shit, like, Oh, and there's it's just silent. There's nothing and I just remember so many times to the movie. Obviously there are jumpscares and stuff but just that kind of moment in moments I because I like horror films. Those are like that's my favorite like genre and I would love to do some horror films one day but that's that's what I like. And so that film always stood out science was like the first movie that like I saw that I really wanted to like, I want to do this like I remember being a kid and watching it. We had little headdress in the our TVs in the headrest of our car. Yeah, I'm on a trip to Disneyland and me and my best friend we were back there and we popped in signs. I just remember being so scared and watching this movie and loved it. But then I saw there was a behind the like, you know, behind the scenes section on the DVD and it was m night. Talking about his first home a monster movie. He put a mask on a RC car. He was driving the RC car round that was the monster and it just I related to it because I was like I made a monster movie with My brother like and so that one just always stood out to me and I loved it and and then inception. I just remember walking out that movie going, how did someone write this? Like I just, I was like trying to pay off Oh, my head hurts. And I was like I was so I just remember like, how and it was just so well that I don't know I just like, yeah, so those are three that stand out to me for those reasons and, and and now this this list might be long but where can people find you? know it's pretty simple I mean just the main things Instagram is at Jacob Owens and Jacob is with a K. So it's a little different. It's not Jay Z ob just add Jacob Owens on Instagram at Jacob Owens on Twitter, but there's an extra s on the end. So there's two s's and then yeah, my website, I guess, you know, but my main thing is, yeah, YouTube buff nerds, the buff nerds if you want to get technical, it's the YouTube is the buff nerds. So yeah, those are kind of the three that I'm definitely like, I don't really do Facebook like that. I'm pretty much just Instagram, a little bit of Twitter and YouTube YouTube heavy. Shoot, I've dropped a video every day for the last six days on there. So I'm always just doing stuff on there.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:15
That's awesome, dude, that's awesome. Jakob, dude, I want to thank you so much, man, you've dropped an amazing amount of knowledge bombs on the tribe today, brother. So I really appreciate you man.

Jakob Owens 1:01:25
Cool, man. Ya know, it's been fun. It's been fun.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:28
Thank you again, Jakob, for coming on the show and dropping some major major knowledge bombs on the tribe today. I guys I recommend you go and check out all the things that Jakob has to offer. his YouTube channel is amazing has a lot of great great content on there can really help you guys out especially if you're into music videos, and want to build up your own production company build up your social media following. He has a quick videos and tutorials and things like that they can help you out with. So I'm going to put links to everything he has to offer, which is quite a lot in the show notes at indiefilmhustle.com/301. And we also have Jakob on IFH TV, I was able to grab some amazing content that he's been able to put on IFH TV for you guys, the tribe, the members of indie film, hustle TV, so definitely check him out. And I put links to that in the show notes as well. Also guys, on a side note I've been getting, I was kind of inundated by email and messages, and all sorts of stuff about Episode Number 300 about fear and how it touched you guys and brought some of you guys to tears while you were listening to it. And I really, it makes me feel really, really good that that kind of content is connecting with you guys. And I continue I will continue to do more content like that. possibly even this week, we'll see what what tickles my fancy, but I've got so many I can't even tell you how many great episodes I've got coming up in. In the coming weeks and months. I have so many in the can literally just waiting to be released. But I only sadly only released two episodes a week because I'm a human being. In addition to the bulletproof screenplay, it's three episodes a week I'm on right now, I can't do any more. But I got a lot of great stuff. So definitely keep an eye out for that. And if you guys head over to indiefilmhustle.com/YouTube, you can check out the video podcast, I'm not publishing the video podcast versions of the show on YouTube. So if you want to check out live interviews of the podcast, please check them out. I don't release them at the same time. They might be scattered a little bit. I'm gonna probably do Jakobs next week. But you could definitely check out all that good stuff. And if you just want to see me talk to our guests and interact. It's a really, really cool experience. So definitely check that out. And lastly, guys, my book shooting for the mob is going to be released March eighth. The publisher is trying to catch up with the orders. And we will have it out March 8, but you can definitely pre order at indiefilmhustle.com/mob. If you want to check out my book shooting for the mob if you don't know what it's about. Just check it out. Just go to the URL, you'll know what it's about. If you haven't been listening to the podcast, but I can't wait for that book to get out. And I will let you guys know also about my signing tours, seminars, workshops I'm gonna be doing around the country as well over the course of this year. There's a lot of cool stuff coming from indie film hustle. And for me this year, I am planning to take indie film hustle to a whole other level this year. So thank you guys so much for all the support. I can't do it without you and the tribe. I just can't So thank you again, and please share this information, please. You know, tweet, retweet it, tell people about it. You know, talk to your friends about it. Just just really get the word out on what we're doing here at indie film hustle, because I really, really want to get this information out there to help as many people as human We possible thanks again for listening guys. I hope you got some value out of today's episode. And as always keep that hustle going. Keep that dream and spark alive. And I'll talk to you soon.