Alex Ferrari - Indie Film Hustle, Thriving in Film

Alex Ferrari - Indie Film Hustle, Thriving in Film - Alex Ferarri worked like a demon to get into the movie industry. He did the 10000 hours...and still hadn't broken through in a meaningful way.  

Here is Alex's LinkedIn profile

Alex's website is an absolute treasure trove of knowledge. Get his books here. Seriously, if you are trying to figure out a film career Alex is the man and his website has the answers. He's also got several podcasts on the topic of film making. 

Since the establishment wouldn't have him. He built his own production company and he's a smash hit...and the establishment now calls him. 

Geoff Calhoun co-hosts with Pete A Turner on this fun episode of the Break It Down Show. 

All screenwriters should get Geoff incredible guide here

Haiku
The Film industry
Is a closed community
Fuck ‘em start your own

​Similar episodes:
Geoff Calhoun https://youtu.be/TtTPVk1KNjs
Hilliard Guess https://youtu.be/nk3VNBl2MNM
Peter Jang https://youtu.be/_qmAKxGRKMc ​

Join us in supporting Save the Brave as we battle PTSD. 

​Executive Producer: Pete A. Turner ​​
Producer/Host: Geoff Calhoun www.wefixyourscript.com
Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev ​

​​The Break It Down Show is your favorite best, new podcast, featuring 5 episodes a week with great interviews highlighting world-class guests from a wide array of topics. Get in contact with Pete at peteaturner.com www.breakitdownshow.com

Transcription

Pete Turner  0:00  
Hey everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of your break it down show I wanted to do today's live intro for our full episode that we recorded a few weeks back with Alex Ferrari. And my guest host is Jeff Calhoun. And I guess the first thing that goes both these guys are in the film industry, you should definitely check out Jeff's book the guide for every screenwriter if anyone in your family is interested in the story, or in screenwriting, that's the book to get. But let's talk more about Alex. Alex also has a book the rise of the film entrepreneur. ​

Pete Turner  0:00  
Hey everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of your break it down show I wanted to do today's live intro for our full episode that we recorded a few weeks back with Alex Ferrari. And my guest host is Jeff Calhoun. And I guess the first thing that goes both these guys are in the film industry, you should definitely check out Jeff's book the guide for every screenwriter if anyone in your family is interested in the story, or in screenwriting, that's the book to get. But let's talk more about Alex. Alex also has a book the rise of the film entrepreneur. And it's it's like the word film and entrepreneur mix together. But you can get that on Amazon or just go to his website is packed full of powerful powerful content on how to get a movie career or a film career started. You can do that a couple of ways you can go to Alex Ferrari comm or film trip earner and then just you'll navigate around there. He's got multiple podcasts, many videos, books, blogs, if anyone in your life Especially right now with this whole COVID thing going on is interested in this. You can go get lost in here for 100 hours and come out and know a lot about the film industry. And here's the thing for Alex had to make his own way he tried and tried and tried for years to break into the traditional terms, but it just just didn't work out for him and realize that he said I'm just going to have to do this myself which is a story we hear all the time on the break it down show. So it's great to hear another one of those success stories where someone said I'll be damned if I want to be damned by this and then went out got to work and got the thing going so what I want you to gather from this episode is Alex is great people super high energy and you should definitely go to his website, Alex Ferrari, and you'll find everything you need to know there. Okay, listen, if you love the show, love what we're doing. Obviously, we're doing more live things now. We're always working on improving what we're doing. So it'd be great your support, you can share you can like you can comment rate and review for our authors, all of these things. When you participate on social media and helps other people see that hey, things are happening and that is big way to help. Obviously, if you want to buy shirts and that kind of thing, great. I guess that's the big thing. That's the big ask because just support the show however you can. And of course, the final ask is support, save the brave save the brave.org. And that's where we put our time and effort in as a charity. And as a show, Scott, john and i all contribute monthly, our time and our money to the effort to help PTSD and build community around those that have served for us. So those are the big notes right now. I guess we'll get to it. So here comes my man Alex Ferrari, lions rock productions.

Unknown Speaker  2:38  
This is Jay Mohr.

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This is Jordan Harbinger. 

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This is Dexter from the offspring

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nice Sebastian Younger Rick Murat Stewart

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COPPA. This is Mitch Alexis handy somebody there's a skunk Baxter

Unknown Speaker  2:47  
Gabby Reese Rob bell. This is john Leon gray

Pete Turner  2:49  
and this is Pete a Turner.

Alex Ferrari  2:54  
Hey, this is Alex Ferrari and you are listening to the break it down show

Pete Turner  3:00  
Yeah, we've got Alex Ferrari on and my co host course the wonderful Jeff Calhoun, whose book is fantastic. And I'm sure we'll discuss that. But this is going to be focused on screenwriting and that part of the craft because you know, we like the arts. We know we like you guys getting creative. So, Jeff, tell us about Alex and by the way, and tell us about his badass podcast and let's let's get going.

Geoff Calhoun  3:22  
Oh, man, we've got Alex Ferrari with us today. And this guy's amazing. He is a filmmaking indie, screenwriting hero and warrior and to have him on the show is fantastic. He is the film entrepreneur himself. He is running the bulletproof screenwriting podcast, which is amazing. And he interviews like top talents in the field. And Alex, we're just excited to have you on.

Alex Ferrari  3:44  
Oh, man, thank you so much. That was a great intro, guys. I appreciate it so much.

Pete Turner  3:48  
Hey, I want to ask first about the podcast. Tell us about that. Because everybody says, Hey, listen to my podcast, right? And you've been at it for a little while. What do you see in the podcast world is Like, where? Where have you come from? And where do you see it now?

Alex Ferrari  4:04  
Um, I launched the indie film hustle podcast back in 2015. And when I came on the scene, there was a lot of podcasts in the filmmaking space. And there was a handful in the screenwriting, but not that many at that time. And I came in and I kind of just bombed rushed this this space because they saw everybody was doing one episode a week, so at least I was like, Well, I'm gonna do two episodes a week. So I just started literally doing two episodes a week. I did that for four years straight. I just stopped doing two episodes a week in January of this year in of that podcast specifically, and then I that podcast used to be the everything podcast, so I would, I would have screenwriters, I would have DPS. I would have distribution, I would have everybody on that podcast. And I started to realize that some of the more popular podcasts were the screenwriting ones, and I started seeing certain content of mine. getting a lot of attention that was screenwriting. And I realized that's like, you know what screenwriters really don't care about the latest distribution, and the latest lenses and cameras. So I'm like, I need to kind of build out a set a secondary business of content, a brand and content to serve that audience. So that I kind of spend off in the film also created the bulletproof screenwriting podcast, to kind of better serve that side of my audience. And very quickly, it kind of exploded fairly quickly to the point now where that podcast, it's not as big as indie film hustle by numbers, but it's not far behind which you shot which is shocking to me. So, and it's just grown organically. And I put on that podcast, the blue screen report I do once every other week. So I only do two a month on that one. And it still grows very, very fast and exponentially. And you know, the biggest thing I said to ask you Question. The second part of your question, Where do I see it going? The problem is that during the time I've been doing this, which has only been about five years, I've seen a lot of podcasts come and go. Yeah, it's, it's hard, it's hard. It's hard. It's not an easy thing to do to be consistent, especially if you're not making money doing it. If it's a if it's a passion project, but you haven't figured out how to generate revenue with your, with your podcast and or company or brand that you're trying to create. It's difficult to keep going through because you got to pay the bills, you've got to do your side hustles you got to work a full time job sometimes. It's very difficult I was in the I was in a good situation where I still was able to do my posts and and direct every once in a while when I you know when I got directing gigs, and then do this on the side hustle to the point where I was able to about two and a half years ago, turned everything I just shut all that down and then focus 100% on my companies, and I've been blessed and to be able to do that. But the thing is, is to keep going keep doing it ever Every single day, little little bit every week, just show up, just show up, just show up. But if you're not authentic with what you're doing, if you're just coming on and babbling about stuff like with your buddy, like, Hey, you know, I just saw the Walking Dead this weekend and you know, blah, blah. And that's great if you're a movie review site, but people want authenticity. And you know, I can't go into, I don't know, I don't know what other area of the business or if I opened up the Jelly Bean podcast, I don't eat jelly beans. I don't think I've ever eaten the Jelly Bean maybe once or twice in my life. Because all of a sudden jelly beans are the thing like the beanie babies. Imagine that I would have opened up a Beanie Baby podcast in the height of the Beanie Baby Boom, because that's where the money is. Um, I'm not authentic and people smell it. So authenticity and showing up every day are the two biggest things. And I think people are going to jump in and out more now because now podcasting is even harder. than it was when I jumped in in 2015. So everyone thinks they can do it. And that's fine. But at the end of the day, it's just like the film business is just like screenwriting. Everyone thinks they can do it until they get into the weeds. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, wait a minute. This is a lot harder than what it looks like on television. Yeah. And then they draw and then and they dropped. So for me, I personally never look at anybody as a competitor, because nobody really can compete with me, because there's only one. Yeah, just like I can't compete with other people, because there's only one of them and their audience might be attracted to them. And there's other two other things I would suggest one the audience is going to be they're attracted to you personally. And you're in your brand of information, or they're going to be attracted to the information in general and they don't care who's saying it. So the first part is much more powerful, because people are attracted to my method of really, really gun sharing this information, my interview method how I talked to guests, as opposed to more sent more sanitized, you know, reporter style, you know, 60 minutes style kind of, you know, because I'm not a journalist. I'm a dude. I'm a filmmaker. I'm a screenwriter and I talk to other filmmakers and screenwriters, just like you and I are talking right now. There's no pretension. I'm just like, dude, I don't care when I was talking to john August on the show. I'm like, sorry, did you see the name? I just dropped it. So

when I was talking to john August, for example, or Jim rules or any of these guys, these big screenwriters that I talked to, I talked to them like they're filmmakers, I talked to them like there's like they're people I don't, I'm like dude, so like, you know, like when I was talking to um, I was talking to Russell carpenter, the VP of Titanic on the show, and Avatar and everything and the first question I have for him I'm like, so Russell critters to how did you get he was like, really No one's ever asked me that I'm like, yeah, cuz I truly want to know how Russell Carpenter got his first gig dp critters too, because I remember critters dues VHS box. In my video store. I'm like, holy cow, I want to know that story. But that's how you do it. So it's authenticity. And yeah.

Geoff Calhoun  10:19  
Well, I mean, I love I love the podcast, because for me, it's not you don't have the same episode twice. And I think that's fascinating. Because you can see a lot of podcasts they get kind of repetitive, but it feels like you're learning as well. So you ask really intelligent questions, and you pull out just nuggets from people that I don't even think they realize that they had, and I think it's really great. Um, but the screenwriting aspect? I mean, how long have you been screenwriting? Did you start out screenwriting when you were directing? just writing your own stuff? Or Yeah,

Alex Ferrari  10:53  
yeah, I've never I've never sold a screenplay or anything like that. So I'm a screenwriter. by necessity. So I write my own material. And I've been a writer for a long time as a general statement, I, I wasn't a writer for a long time because of because of the educational system. Here in the US, where I was put in the slow reading group in first grade literally

Geoff Calhoun  11:21  
crazy I had the same thing.

Alex Ferrari  11:24  
I was put in the slow reading group and they called it the slow reading group do so from that moment on in my subconscious. I'm like, Well, apparently I don't like to read apparently I can't write. And that whole thing was in the back of my head. Yeah, until until college. Basically, when I got into college, where I went to film school, first of all, and then I went back to traditional college. I went to full sail for film school for a year. And then I went back to traditional college just for fun. Yeah, educate myself. Wow, were that all of a sudden, I was a horrible student throughout high school and I barely Made I better look I just got enough to graduate. Because I never I just I tried to hustle my way through high school and I barely work cuz it I did. But then when I went back to college I was like valedictorian of my film class, I was on a class and and I and and when I went back to college just for fun, I was like these lists 4.0 and I'm like, wait a minute. Yeah, if I kind of enjoy what I'm doing apparently I'm not as stupid as I was told. I was Yeah, actually. And it took me a few years later before I started writing seriously, because I never thought of myself as a writer. And then now I'm an author of two books. It's awesome bestselling books and I've written a lot of my own project I've read almost all of my projects Yeah, other than work for hire stuff I've written everything right. Or created a script for it.

Geoff Calhoun  12:48  
So that's crazy that you say I mean, when I when I look at our journeys are so scarily similar. I was in in a in a slow reading class as well. There was me the the kid that drooled and the girl That had English as a second language. 

Alex Ferrari  13:02  
And that'swhat's so messed up.

Geoff Calhoun  13:04  
Yeah. And then, and then another another kid that was just permanently. Yeah, just sitting there and I'm sitting there and I'm just like, I don't know what's going on and I used to. You'll appreciate this. I used to take hostess cupcakes to school and bribe the other kids, but ties my work, because I couldn't alphabetize because I'm dyslexic, right? So I go there, and my mom would be like, I just bought a whole box of cupcakes where the cupcakes go, I don't know, mom. And then she goes by another night and I just bribe kids. until until we find out that yeah, that I just see letters different. Yeah, yeah.

I'd do it today if I could. And yeah, and so you know, and same thing that I wrote, I wrote a book and I've written screenplays and people see, seek me out and it's, it's pretty crazy to if you look at where you were as a kid, and those changes villages, you know, you would have never thought you know, you'd be a best selling author, or you'd be you know, running this really big indie film hustle franchise or, or we fix your script. So it's just, it's just kind of cool to see what that type of drive can do for somebody and you're in. That's why you're a warrior of the indie film business. I

Alex Ferrari  14:22  
I appreciate that the worrier, the indie film business. This is purely because I've taken so much shrapnel in my day. Going through this business, as my first book completely explains dramatically almost made a $20 million movie for a mobster and then got tossed around Hollywood for about a year. So that I mean, that was just that was the origin story, if you will, but I've taken so much shrapnel over the years that I think the main purpose of why I do what I do is because I don't want to see other people go through the same pain I've had to go through. I was wondering, Why do I have to go through all this? What Why am I suffering through this? Why did it happen? Do the How cruel is it to be literally three feet away from your dream, and you're talking to Batman about being in your movie. And, and it gets yanked away. And that happened again and again and again. Like that's, like, that's just cruel. Like, why is that happening to me? Because other people just they try and they never make it and that, you know, happens in every industry, but to be given the like, you could touch taste it. Yeah, you can. It's right there. And it happened multiple times throughout my career. And I'm like, why is this continuously happening to me? And then I, you know, when I finally opened up in the film, also bulletproof screenwriting, I was like, This is probably one of the reasons why I do it is because I couldn't open this up if I hadn't gone through all of that, and have that trap No, and gone through and taking the taking the hits, like like, like Mr. BALCO has so beautifully pointed out, life is about getting hit and keep moving forward. How hard can you get hit and keep moving forward? And that's, that's so true. It's so true.

Pete Turner  16:03  
It's funny that industry, especially in our like, you know, the show business industry, and I'll throw podcasting in there because it is it's a show business and and how, you know, the production houses and all these different places. They're desperate for fresh, new, authentic content. And you're like, Well, I think I think I have some knock on the door. You know, I spent a lot of time developing this stuff. And these people that are desperate for content and want authenticity, and they want like that real gritty stuff that only someone like an independent person, whether they're podcast or screenwriter or film producer can do and then won't take the meeting.

Alex Ferrari  16:42  
I'll explain to you the reason why. The main reason why that happens in all industries, but let alone and ours is because everyone says they want originality, but if they actually truly looking for originality, they want to through traditional channels. They want Take it through other channels because of risk because of just the way the things have always gone this kind of dogmatic way of doing things it's just the way it is I've run into that a million times in in my life where I try to do so that's why I decided to to not even play their game anymore and I just I own party and I play by my own rules now and I don't care about Hollywood I don't care if I get called by Kevin Fahey but I will take the meeting. Um, you know, I don't I don't I it doesn't bother me anymore because I got tired of trying to sneak into the I look, I try to hustle my way into Hollywood. So I tried every way possible because I was like, hey, worked in high school, why shouldn't work in Hollywood. So I tried every little thing I did was trying to kind of manipulate the system and trying to get in somehow. And it never worked and got in sometimes it didn't get in other times, but but sooner or later, the bouncer would show up and like you You're not allowed in this party Get out of here. They would they would escort me out right till Finally I until I finally turned about 40 I just turned to myself, I looked myself in the mirror and I said, I can't, I can't do this. And I got it. I gotta build something myself. Or I'm gonna I'm not gonna be the 60 year old guy peddling his first time screenplay, and has been bumping around the business for 30 or 40 years. I can't be that guy. I've got families, I got a family at all this I can't do it.

Pete Turner  18:28  
What did it take for you to get to that point, though? I mean, because you can, you can, sometimes you got to get laid smooth to get in the door to like, you got to get pounded so flat. They're like, Well, come on in, you know. So what made you make that ultimate decision where you weren't able to outwork that problem, but you have plenty of work to do something else that ended up being better for you.

Alex Ferrari  18:49  
Um, what happened was, I was attached to another project with a big screen writer and producer and I was that I was already doing castings we were moving along. This is during the indie film hustle time. So this is this was 2016, if not mistaken. And I, it fell through again. Again it fell through and I was down the path again. And I'm like sad about it and I just literally looked in the mirror one day, I'm like, dude, you're 40 tomorrow, you're gonna wake up, you're gonna be 70 and you're still hustling this same 1992 dream. It's not 1992 anymore, you're not gonna make the one in the film that's gonna blow you up. It's not that time that window is closed. And originally before the 90s I was trying to do what Spielberg and Scorsese did in the school brat days of the 70s and 80s. And that window was closed. Like you can't, you can't build your career or try to launch a career based on the past. You've got to look around you have what's going on right now. What are the technologies around? What are the opportunities around at this moment in time? And where is that Gonna go maybe in a year, if you're, if you have that kind of insight, and position yourself to take advantage of the window, there are windows of opportunity to show up. So like it were Mark duplass with puffy chair. The second Netflix started streaming and nobody else wanted to go on Netflix. I remember it suck, when it launched, there was nothing on it was bad movies, but then all of a sudden you got Mark duplass and Jay duplass. And they're like, oh, mobile puffy chair up there. And then they start building a relationship and now they've built out you know, a hell of a relationship with Netflix. And and that's an opportunity, that's a window of opportunity. But that whole mumble core movement during that time, which was the late 90s and early 2000s. That's a moment it's gone. You can't make a mumble movie today. And it's not going to have the same but you know you're not going to submit to the south by and go oh, you're going to be just like The duplass brothers or Lynn Shelton or swans Berg or anything like that, know that those that that moments gone you know so now there's a different moment so for me I looked in the mirror and I said okay, so what can I do? I'm like I'm just gonna go make a movie. I'm gonna direct the movie and I did. And 30 days later, I was I was shooting a movie with my with a friend of mine who's a comedian. I called up all her friends. She called up all her friends. And they're all amazing like, you know, world caliber talent, stand ups and improv actors. We wrote a an outline or scripts for a script. And we had them improv each scene, and we just put it and we shot it in eight days. That's awesome. And I and I edited the whole thing. I put it together I crowdfunded it through indie film hustle, because I wanted to go through that process. Hopefully I'll never have to go through that process. It was successful. rudo. I don't like begging for money. Yeah. For me, it just for me, if there's no other Do it, God bless and, but I just couldn't do it. I didn't like it. But I was able to crowdfund the entire movie. So I was in the black while I was shooting. So I could be as experimental as I want it to be. And I made a movie that was aimed at my audience. But it wasn't directly designed for my audience. But the concept of me making it and everything was something that I was able to do. And we sold, we sold it overseas, we sold it to Hulu. It was extremely profitable, and I'm still selling it to this day, we're still making money with it, and we'll continue to make money with it. I control I control certain rights that allow me to do what I need to do with it on my own, so I can sell it to my own platforms and put it up on my streaming service ifH TV, and, you know, add, you know, Director commentary and all this kind of cool stuff that I have up there for it. But that's what that was the thing that launched me and then I that was the moment that I realized, I said, Oh, I don't need them. And yeah Don't need them. If I don't, if I could get away from the whole I need to play in this monster law, this monster sized sandbox, which is a Marvel movie or even a studio movie. I can do my own thing. And don't get me wrong. I would love to play in that in that sandbox. But when you play in someone else's sandbox, you're gonna play in someone else's by somebody else's rules. So I'm not a good I, you know, I I like to call myself unemployable. Yeah, I am not I am not a good employee. I'm a good partner. I'm a good collaborator, because that's what you need to be in this business. But I'm not a good employee. I was fired from both of my field my my full time jobs I had in my 20s very proud of my firings By the way, and because both both firings led to other things, and

but that's what I decided that's what I finally came to the realization to. So for screenwriters, specifically guys, I know a lot of people listening are probably like, well, that's great as a filmmaker I'm like, Yeah, but as a screenwriter, yeah, you, you're, you're, you're, you've been designed in the womb by the system. I get into what I was just about to ask you. That's good. Okay.

Geoff Calhoun  24:17  
Yeah, you're on it. You're rolling. No, because I was gonna say that with your book phone. entrepreneur, right. It's what I you know, I look at it from a screen printer. Screen right, Trump put a new word first.

Alex Ferrari  24:28  
That's trademarked, too. I got that too.

Geoff Calhoun  24:32  
So, yeah, so I wouldn't because that's how I'm reading it. And I'm looking at him like you're absolutely right. Because what's your book preaches? Really, if I'm gonna boil it down to is is to not be rigid? And and that's really like you're saying like screenwriters are bred that you're going to make success one specific way in the studio environment. And when I'm out teaching seminars or classes or mentoring, I keep telling people, you can't be rigid. You have to look at Ways of branding yourself getting it out there. And I tell everybody, you, you're the only one who's going to make you successful. So, and that's really what you preach, and you preach it in such really interesting ways. They mean my mind was set to fire on different things I can do for the community and provide value. And, and I think it's just great. I think anybody you know, screenwriters as well should definitely read film for trip renewer and then look through that lens. I mean, maybe you'll end up making your own stuff, and doing it that way. Or maybe you can come up with a way of branding your own business like, like we've done and, and, and really getting out there making yourself successful. Because like you I've had that taste of that almost taste of victory where I pitched somehow I query the guy with my zombie comedy called hipster z, which is about a zombie virus in a small southern town that turns the locals into flesh craving hipster zombies, right. So funny. topical He ended up sending it to Fred seabirds who loved it thought it was hilarious. And he runs freder ringer, right. And then he sent it to Cartoon Network. And then they call me up and they say, hey, do you have a kid show? Because we like your voice. And I I absolutely lied and said yes, of course.

Alex Ferrari  26:18  
Yes. You always

Geoff Calhoun  26:20  
cars I do. Right and so so I'm gonna hang up and and I call up. My friend and I say guess we'll work on a right tonight. So you know, we wrote we wrote a kids show and then send it out to them and they liked it, but they ultimately passed. And after going through that, I realized that Yeah, same thing I have to I have to start creating my own way of being successful.

Pete Turner  26:44  
Hey, this is Pete Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here and if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear, the best plan and show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you. That's esteemed Double that scalable and fun, hit me up at Pete epic down show calm, let me help I want to hear about

Geoff Calhoun  27:07  
creating my own way of being successful.

Alex Ferrari  27:10  
The way the system is built the way the studio system is built. And Hollywood is built, it's built on very archaic, a very archaic model, which is built back from the Chaplet days, you know, that they've been building the studio system and they've been building the television system, in this way to funnel content to funnel people in. But we live in a world that is that is not necessary to maintain a not only maintain a career, but to strive in a career in screenwriting, and in filmmaking, because they need fresh content so they can just, you know, they basically rape and pillage in many ways. If you go if you get in and you know how to play the game and you know how to play the politics and work your way up. And that could be a five or 10 year process, you know, then God bless you if you want to go down that road and you want to end up Can't make anything for less than a million or 5 million or 10 million, like I can't get up for less than 10 million, I don't want to do that. Then God bless you good. But the problem is that those with those sandboxes that our people are allowed to play, and it's getting shorter and smaller every day, they're getting larger, but the opportunities are getting smaller, there's less Apple getting access to those, it's not the 90s. It's not the 80s or 90s, or even the early 2000s. So now with that said, there is a tremendous amount of opportunity now that there wasn't before with all the streaming platforms that are out there. But then you're not playing in those large sandboxes anymore. I know some of these shows, their budgets are just like you look at them. I'm like, how is that even working? Because and, and by the way, the system is starting and it's already going in that direction where you can't make a living in the system like you used to. So residuals are going to go away. I promise you they were there ready going away on streaming. like Netflix doesn't play residuals. Yeah, you know, those guys. They buy a flat out. So the days of what like friends and Seinfeld did, yeah, those days are gone. Those days, y'all I made $20 million off of, you know, reruns and yeah, and the writers made money to all those writers are getting paid a little something off of that. That system is going to go away. Just like pensions went away. Oh, man in America, you know, because it got too expensive. And they're like, No, no, no, you guys go into the 401 K's that's that's the safe bet. Right. We won't get into it. I could talk all about that. Oh, no, we

but it's the equivalent of that because the studio systems like oh, no, we're gonna pay residuals, residuals, residuals. Yeah. Because why they were trying to attract talent. Why? Cuz it wasn't a lot of talent. Now, there is nothing but talent. There's nothing but content. So they're like, Well, why are we paying these astronomical, you know, residual payments on screenwriters actor Directors, all of that, like, why are we doing it? So that is going to go away. So it's going to become more and more difficult for screenwriters, let's talk specifically to actually make a living inside the system when they're not working. So you're going to be turned into employees, you're going to be turned into factory workers, which is already happening. I know writers who are working on shows who are on streaming platforms are making their you know, money every every week, but it's not like astronomical money. Maybe that season could pay for their year, maybe, maybe if they live in LA, maybe not. Maybe they could pay for half their year, and they gotta jump on another show to survive. And if they don't do that, then they're screwed. And now they're hustling and it's becoming the crab, you know, mentality that just pulling people that it becomes because when everyone's going after the same piece of meat, there's gonna be blood. It's gonna be blood in the water. So what I decided to do and it's what I suggest, and what I teach all the time is to create your own blue ocean. If you've ever read the book, The blue ocean red ocean strategy, which is where everybody's going after the easy fishing is a red ocean because there's blood in the water. Or you can go to a blue ocean, where there might be some good fishing. It's untested, but there's not a lot of competition. So you create your own blue ocean in the sense where people can, you can build your own world and then your screenwriters are listening right now going well, how do you do that? Alex, I'm a screenwriter, like I all I know is, write a script, submit it so to a to a festival to a competition to an agent, and hope and pray that someone from Mount Hollywood is going to come down and tap me on the shoulder and go, you shall write, like, that's an insane business model. So you have to create your own business model. You know, how do you do that? You you first of all, can. You can you can write so you're a writer, right? There's a lot of jobs out there that will have that will pay you to rights. That might not be screenwriting per se, but It could be other avenues you could be writing. If you're a storyteller, write a novel, create create an IP, that's another way of doing it writing is that the most affordable way to express yourself as an artist, other than paying for a mandolin 15 bucks at Guitar Center and playing it's, that's the only cheaper way I know other than maybe singing, that's free. But you still need music so much. So screenwriting is a very low cost of entry. You need a laptop, basically, at this point, and you need a software. That's Yeah, and yeah, that's all you need to be to be to express yourself. And if you just want to write and tell stories, then do that. Right tell stories, if you want to be more entrepreneurial, or films or paranormal or screenshots or neural nets, but um, but if you want to be that, then team up with people who want good content, who have the same mentality that you do. So you Find a young filmmaker or an old filmmaker, doesn't matter who is who's got to film entrepreneurial mindset and go, I need content. Do you want to partner with me on this film? Do you want to partner with me on this limited series that I'm putting together? Great, okay, you provide this, I'll provide the production. Let's come up with an agreement. And let's make something happen. You're going to get, you're not going to maybe get paid up front, because I'm not getting paid up front. Well, we can go into this as partners, and we can make something happen. And now you have, you know, you have something that you Yeah, you're a producer writer at that

point is your producer writer and then you can leverage that and continue Exactly. And there's a lot of ways but you have to think outside the box. And that's what I've been, that's what Rise of the entrepreneur the book is trying to say like we have been trained that this is the only way to make money with a film is to make the film, find some way to magically get the money that you need for it magically produce this thing that magically finish it and magically have all your deliverables ready. Ready for them to hand it over to a stranger who you trust, who's going to send you a check eventually, in an uncertain marketplace that is changing daily, literally today as we're recording this hourly. Yeah. You know, with the whole virus and what's going on in the world today. That's insane. You have to be able to control your own destiny. And and it's really difficult to break people out of that mindset because that's all we've been taught because that's what the Hollywood machine has been putting out since the the golden days they like I've said before, they're really good at selling the sizzle. They really suck a steak, huh. And that, but they're the best at the sizzle. They are the best they're Hollywood. So much so that the entire world follows us follows our trends follows our pop our pop culture, because of the Hollywood system of being able to sell the sizzle. So yeah,

Geoff Calhoun  34:56  
that's what I would suggest. No, I think it's I think it's great. I mean, mean, with screenwriters. When I'm at script summit, you know, because I'm in the director there, and they're there. And we're talking about what they're do. And people are trying to sell their pilot, or they're pitching their pilot, I make sure to tell them like your pilot, or your feature is your resume. It's what you can do as a writer, I would not, don't don't expect to try and sell this thing. Just get it out there use it as a way of a calling card of this is what I'm capable of, this is what I can do. And then people can see your skill level. And if they like it, if they're impressed, they're going to invite you into their bubble, and then you can start collaborating. That's absolutely true. I love it. thinking out of the box is really the only way to go forward and become successful.

Alex Ferrari  35:45  
Well, if you think about it, like look, if everybody in their mother has a pilot. script, a show Bible. Yeah, a screenplay everyone does, right. I mean, I always I always joke here in LA when I get into Whoo, I'm like, how's the script going? And, and nine out of 10 times you're like, How do you know? You know, it's either How does the audition go? or How did the how's the script going? And like, how do you know I was writing a script and like walk into any Starbucks in LA, all you see is laptops with final draft on it. It's a running joke here. But that's but that's the truth. So So now you have you're competing with everybody, especially in a market like LA, but in the grand scope of you know, if you're trying to get into LA or trying to get into Hollywood or trying to get into Atlanta or, or any of these other hubs, but all the decisions are still made in basically la Hollywood. So if you're trying to compete with everybody, what are your chances, your chances drop dramatically. That to even get seen even get noticed. But if you go over to this other area, where the competition is a lot less that blue ocean, where you're now one of those writers who partnered with a production company who partner with a director who partner with a film filmmaker who's either creating their own IP who has a series of their own novels that they've self published online, who then they just are creating revenue from their writing in other ways. I promise you, there's less competition over there. There's just less competition. So then it's happened to me, where now I'm getting called by people that I would have killed to talk to years ago, when I was hustling on the way up, I would have never been able to sit down with john August for an hour and pick his brain. It's awesome. And I, you know, and john reached out to me, you know, it was like, That's insane. And that happens all the time. And now I get called from production companies, I can call from finance companies. I get access to people that I would have never in a million years when I was in my desperate mode, which by the way, we can smell desperate. It's like, it's like a perfume is like a it's an odor. sighs it's it's called desperation. jakar like it's really it's, it's it's really, I laugh about it because man I doused myself. I mean, I was like, I was on a set. I still remember this. I was I was working as a VFX soup on a set, and the producer showed up and that producer just happened to be someone who produced something once and I was on him like stink on poop, man, I swear to God, it was I'm like, Hey, man, Hey, dude, I got this project. I got the script. It's like It's like living in a brutally the grip that has the screenplay. And in fact, the producer on the set, it was that I was literally that guy. And you could just see security and now I get that I get people coming up to me like, Hey, I got this thing. I'm like, dude, I'm that you're and I'll tell him like, I'm not your guy. Dude. You need to do your homework. I have no power. I can't produce your movie. It's not that's, you know. I could teach you how to produce your own movie, but I can't do your movie. So that's that's the, that's the main difference. I think that's true. I get that to come in and I get a lot of

Geoff Calhoun  39:13  
people that come in and even from out of country and they want to sell their they want me to sell their script for some reason. And I tell them well, and they say it has to go to Hollywood, I go, Well, I can't do that for you. But you know, making films locally.

Alex Ferrari  39:29  
It has to go to

Geoff Calhoun  39:30  
it has to go to Hollywood. And like, you know, this is like a number one guy in Russia and I was like, you know, they make films in Russia, I think and you seem to have the connections you can go there and take care of it.

Alex Ferrari  39:40  
Only the only connections I have is the Kansas film market. I don't really know of any other place producing your material, sir. I'm sorry.

Geoff Calhoun  39:48  
That's funny.

Pete Turner  39:50  
So but Okay, so all of these later steps let's talk earlier steps you know, where you got the person who's sitting there in traffic going to their job, but they didn't Get out everyday cuz they got a family, but they have a dream of maybe being a writer, they've bought Jeff's book and they're trying to go through the 27 step process, and all those things. But what does that person do? I mean, what does it look like for them? You're saying, hey, go to the blue water? What the fuck does that even mean? If you're a person who's right now in their Prius, commuting and trying to figure out what's next.

Alex Ferrari  40:24  
Um, you got to educate yourself, man. You got to educate yourself. You got to educate, educate, educate. You got to read books, a lot of books, not only about the craft, but about business, and about what you're trying to do. There are writing business books out there. If you want to write if you want to tell the story. Figure out how to write a novel. Figure out how to write short stories. Put them out on on medium, start creating an audience. Start building things out, start providing a value to an audience in one way, shape, or form. You know, I'm a filmmaker. You know, I never considered myself an educator. I never considered myself, you know, a leader of a tribe before, or anything like that. But because I'm able to do these other things allows me to go out and make a movie whenever I want. That is amazing because I play it at different rules. Like my last movie on the corner of ego and desire. I made that for $3,000. And I shot it at Sundance completely, you know, gorilla, gorilla. I mean, I shot the whole thing. I shot the whole thing at Sundance, while the Sundance Film is going on. And, you know, I even shot two scenes at Sundance headquarters, and I'm fine with that. And I did submit it to Sundance and that's another story. It's hilarious. But um,

but I but that but because I'm providing service to somebody to other people, and helping other people with their dreams, I'm able to achieve mine and that is one of the greatest quotes if you want to have if you want to achieve your dream help somebody else with theirs. So And I know that might be a little Fufu for a lot of people out there listening, and that's fine. All I could tell you is how it's worked out for me. If you're able, in today's world with today's technology, and in the window of opportunity is now you can reach a massive audience instantly. Now how you attract that audience is up to you, you can attract it with your genius. That's one way you could attract it with being of service providing and providing a service to them. There's basically three major ways and I talked about this in the book. You can entertain them, you can educate them, or you can inspire them. And that's three ways that you can build an audience through those three ways. And as you're building an audience, when you're building that audience up and and connecting with them on an organic and authentic level, when you start and if you use more and you've positioned the brand or if that brand is you in the proper way, you can initiate start inserting your work, your products, your things that you're going to try to sell to them to provide them value, whether that's entertaining, whether that's inspiring or there's educating I'm not saying everybody's got to go out and build a course that's not the thing. If you're able to curate really great content in a niche will go, you know, and you want to, you know, like, Okay, I'm gonna do there's a great I can't believe this thing. sasquatches Okay, so Sasquatch. Bigfoot right? Bigfoot? There is an audience for Bigfoot. The Bigfoot fanfiction. I'm not kidding you. And so there's there's there's Bigfoot fanfiction. I'm not gonna use Oh, wait, Jeff, put your eyebrows down.

Geoff Calhoun  43:46  
On a gig right now for Sasquatch.

Alex Ferrari  43:49  
Okay, so then you're gonna love this. Mmm, remind me to tell you the funny story about the Sasquatch at the end. So, so there's the Sasquatch. There. Sasquatch stuff right? As a writer. So let's say you like you want to write stories. Well, you can attach yourself. I'm not saying to be the Sasquatch guy, but if you provide value to the Sasquatch community and fanfiction, and you start writing fanfiction, you might be able to self publish a book in that niche. And writers need to do the same thing as filmmakers find a niche and write in that niche and provide value for that niche. So I'm using the niche of Sasquatch is for instance, writing this writing a book about Sasquatch or fanfiction about Sasquatch, and that can go into any I'm just using said Bigfoot for Yeah, but it's, but it's a thing, by the way, and I'll tell you at the end why it's, um, you could start writing stories for them. You could start creating an audience around them if that's the kind of stories you want to tell. It might not be your your cup of tea, but I'm using it as an example. And then all of a sudden you start putting out your own products for that community. Like hey guys, I know you love good stuff. Put in sasquatches. I've got my self published fan book or not fan book, just fiction, my big fit Bigfoot fiction book coming out. And it's on order here and all of a sudden you're starting to build up something. And now you're also generating revenue for yourself. Because everyone talks about the art in the art is great, but the word is show business and the word business has twice as many letters as the word show. There's a reason for that. You if you can't make money doing your art, you're a hobbyist. I can go buy a guitar right now and start playing it in my room. But until I'm making money with it, I'm a hobbyist. I'm sorry if I can't put food on the table to support my family. I'm a hobbyist. So understand who you are in the in the journey that you're on. You know, it took me a while before my podcast was not a hobby anymore. It wasn't a side hustle, because now it's become my business. It took me a while before being a filmmaker was my business. Were post production wasn't just a hobby when I was editing stuff on the floor. Friends, it became a business. So you got to make that that distinction in your own career. So I'm building this building this business, you know, selling Bigfoot, memorabilia. And then well that's the other thing. Once you build that audience up, what else? Could you sell them? How else can I provide value to them? Could you sell them Bigfoot t shirts? Bigfoot this Bigfoot that then I want to write a screenplay about Bigfoot. Great. write a screenplay about Bigfoot. Team up with a filmmaker make a Bigfoot movie, and you've got a built in audience waiting for your product. Do you see how this all plays out? This is how it works in screenwriters are no different than filmmakers. Yeah, that's how they did it with

Geoff Calhoun  46:42  
50 Shades of Grey.

Alex Ferrari  46:44  
Oh my god, which is, you know, 50 Shades of Grey. Yeah, exactly. It was it was basically a self published book. And they slowly built it out and look what it turned into. Yeah, it was started out as fanfiction on a website. Correct. And it just kept going. movies in terms of history, and you know that and whoever referred who wrote that has turned into, you know, a billion dollar franchise at this point in the game. So and that's, by the way, an outlier. It's an outlier. That's a lottery ticket. But there's for every one of those, there could be 10s of thousands, who naturally millions could generate 5060 $70,000 a year, is that enough to survive? Is that to put food on your table that enough to pay your mortgage and put your kids to school? That's a full time gig in a lot of places in this country and a lot of places in the world. You can look at it differently, like, yes, do I want to make billions of dollars to be able to and be able to have a tremendous amount of resources at my disposal to create more impact in the world? It starts with, how am I going to pay my rent, and what can I generate to pay that rent? So if I look I needed I need $4,000 a month to cover my nut. So then you've got to as a writer thing, okay, how Can I generate that money with my art? And if you ask that question, the brain will answer it. And then those, that positive question will create positive answers. And you will start to think differently, and your mind will start being reprogrammed just a little bit. So you could start doing that. And the funny story is that the reason I even know about Bigfoot fiction is because a buddy of mine, a buddy of mine wanted to play a prank on his brother. And I said, he was what can I do, man? He's been busting my balls forever. What should I do? I'm like, Well, I think there's a thing called a big foot pornography. Oh. And I was like, What do you mean? I'm like, look it up and we googled it. And we're like, oh my god. There's like this subculture of people who love to read Bigfoot, sex novels. So like interactions with Bigfoot and all this kind of craziness, right? This is what you this is what you do go on his computer at home and constantly check just like while he's not looking do a bunch of it and then for like a week and then they get away from it so the history is there and then like one time do it and leave it open for his wife defined it. And I don't want to say I because I read a little bit of this stuff because I was curious. I was like, I don't want to put it on the air because it's just up when we can't go up. I'll tell you I'll tell you what I said. what some of the descriptions I read were just really it puts shame blacks to shame. Oh, it was just brilliant. But that's but that's thinking outside the box you never thought like I'm sure something no writer out there listening to this will like, I never thought I can make you know 50 grand a year 100 grand a year selling. You know stories about Bigfoot, maybe not pornography stories, but just regular fan fiction. If that's a thing

Geoff Calhoun  50:01  
I'd like to clarify, I'd like to clarify that my Sasquatch gig is not that.

Pete Turner  50:07  
But we also we can also clarify that Alex is squatch curious.

Alex Ferrari  50:18  
I have to admit, I was squatch curious. I did.

Geoff Calhoun  50:21  
I did went down that rabbit hole.

Alex Ferrari  50:23  
I went down for obviously for educational purposes

Geoff Calhoun  50:28  
because it makes you better.

Alex Ferrari  50:30  
It makes me a better writer and I had to come back and report it back to you to people because you're not gonna know I know. I know many of you listen. Quietly are going to Google Sasquatch porn or sacrifice porn rise

Geoff Calhoun  50:43  
in brave sacrifice. Oh, you

Alex Ferrari  50:44  
know there's there is a there's a whole industry wrapped the rise small.

Geoff Calhoun  50:55  
I'm a best selling author. What are you best selling author in Sasquatch porn. Sasquatch for

Alex Ferrari  51:02  
those really. I'm like yeah, that my new Porsche outside. Oh really? You know I'm I'm riding, I'm riding the Sasquatch port all the way home sir.

Geoff Calhoun  51:12  
I learned it from the film trip.

Pete Turner  51:19  
Let's spend a few minutes doing that aside because there are a lot of folks out there that do want to get educated. Let's so film to printer talk about your books, talk about your services. Let's cover that those basis.

Alex Ferrari  51:32  
Yeah, my book. My latest book is called Rise of the film Schopenhauer, which you can get at film biz book calm. It's available everywhere, Audible, Amazon, Barnes and Noble. And it's basically a book on how to make how to turn your independent film into a money making business and then shoot in. I have tons of case studies in there and I break down every aspect of the film superior method that I came up with using today's world using tools and services and out things out there where you can actually, it's not something that's like very philosophical or in theory, every practical and in today's world. My second, my first book was called shooting for the mob, which is my story about almost a $20 million movie for the mafia, and then was thrown around Hollywood and met the biggest movie stars in the world, billion dollar producers and all that kind of good stuff when I was 26, where my life was threatened on a daily basis, and it was the most horrific time of my life. But I wrote it all down for you folks to read. So you can hopefully not have to go down that road. I run indie film hustle, bulletproof screenwriting TV, which is dedicated to screenwriters. The podcast is there and possible for screenwriting podcasts, which is available everywhere. I have a service called bulletproof script coverage, which is all it's a service I designed to help screenwriters get their scripts. hovered for based on the budget range that they're looking at. So, and we match, we match script writers with the kind of film they're making. So, you know, a lot of times a lot of these script coverage services will just, you know, throw an indie film to a guy who's just read studio projects and he's going to go pass or he's going to tear it apart, because he doesn't understand what they're trying to do with the film. So we actually do it per budget range. So there's three groups in there and that's a cover my screenplay calm and indie film, hustle TV has numerous which is kind of hundreds if not thousands, it's over that there's thousands of videos up there now. And hundreds and hundreds of hours of contents and a lot of screenwriting content up there as well educational, we have movies about screenwriting and documentaries, about screenwriting, as well as educational and shows as well. And that's a t indie film hustle.tv. And I can keep talking I got a lot of stuff. That that should be that should be good.

Pete Turner  53:57  
But but this is this is what the show Looks like I mean, you talked about this. And oftentimes it gets easy. Like, I go find blue water and I make things but you're talking thousands of hours of content, or work to create this content, like you built a body of knowledge through a lot of hard work. You know, it's like, we're about to hit 700 episodes here by show, you get to that point by getting up every day, doing the work, and just invest them in yourself and others and all of a sudden, you start to get those phone calls, you start to get those opportunities that you could never have gotten when you first started. So so when you when you guys hear this and hear Alex talking about this, this is what it takes. If you have to outwork your problems, it's work and it's a lot of work.

Alex Ferrari  54:42  
It's a lot of work and you know what that work is what's gonna set you apart from the crowd because everybody in this business thing, a lot of people coming into this business think it's easy, or thinks it's gonna it's gonna just happened for them. They're going to get that lottery ticket and whatever avenue of the business they walk into screenwriting directory, do some work. Whatever it might be, and they think it's just going to happen for them because that's the story they've been told they've been told the El Mariachi story. They've been told the paranormal activity story. They've been told the Shane Black stories and the Joe Osterhaus stories are when they were selling screenplays for 234 million spec screenplays. Those days are gone, guys, those days are gone. And then that was a limited window of opportunity. And it was happening for a few people. It was not happening for everybody. But of course, there's that hopeful thing because us as artists, you know, we are very hopeful as a general. We're hopeful creatures. And we were like, maybe it's us. It's our turn. And we're also delusional creatures. Meaning Yeah, I completely understand that because we're delusional in ways as as you and I, you know, you guys and I both know that we meet delusional screenwriters and delusional filmmakers all the time. And there's nothing wrong with that I was delusional when I was starting out. It's completely delusional. I was delusional up until like 10 years ago was like completely like, I was still ice drank that Kool Aid But that work that perseverance that you keep going no matter what, when it's not sexy when no one's watching, yeah, when when you know, no one's gonna watch you wake up at five o'clock in the morning to write for an hour before you go on to your commute. No one's gonna watch that. No one's gonna give you an Attaboy or an Atta girl. for that. It's difficult, it's painful. But if you do it every day, and you keep punting it you keep going every single day. Eventually you look around and like, oh, I've got 10 screenplays I've written Oh, I've got a bunch of movies all I've got, you know, you're just a bunch of content that I can use to build it. It takes time. It takes a lot of time. The best advice I ever got from screenwriters was from Jim rules. The writer of Fight Club is the best good writing advice ever I ever heard. And you can get that screenwriting vice at WWE jokey. Selling No, he said, sell it right sell it in my new book no joking. No, the the best advice he said is like, if you're if you're starting out as a screenwriter, this is what you do. You sit down and I want you to write a screenplay. I want you to sit down and you learn the craft. Read books, sit down and read the script. Don't stop. Just keep writing every day and write it until you're done. Don't go back and rewrite it. Just write the whole thing done. When you're done with that first draft, print it out, put it in your desk, start writing your second screenplay, do the exact same process, do not stop, do not pass, go do not collect $200. Just keep going. When you're done with that first draft, print it up, put it in your desk and start a third screenplay, do the exact same process. And at the end of that, print it and put it on your desk. Then you pick up the first screenplay and start your rewrite. Because now you are much better writer than you were when you first started. Yeah. And I said wow. It's so simple, but so difficult to do, because because we want to quit, we want to tweak because that one screenplay is our baby. That's the thing. That's the one that's gonna blow us up. But as you guys know as well as I do, professional screenwriters are not working on a screenplay for five years. No perfect. Professional screenwriters are pumping out 234 screenplays, if not more a year. And they're not precious with them. And they're piling them up. And they're going and it just keep going. That's a professional screenwriter. That's a professional writer, the guy who's or the girl who's sitting there writing that screenplay for five years. I mean, I don't know if you guys know that. I'm sure you know, that you bet that you met and then like a year or two later, like what are you working on? I'm working on that thing. It's almost there. It's almost there. Wow. And if that's just delusion, that's just fear.

Geoff Calhoun  58:50  
That's fear. Yeah, it is. It's actually fear. They're just locked in. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari  58:55  
they're here, because it's safer. It's safer to stay in that little rural They've built for themselves. And if they don't go out there with it, they can never fail. So they'll just keep writing it. And it happens. It happens in editing. I saw it in editing all the time, I saw producers and directors make up crap in the editing room to keep that ball rolling, because they didn't know what else to do. They've been on that project for a year. And then afterwards, you're like, what do I do with this done? I have nothing left. It's a scary thing.

Pete Turner  59:23  
One of the things that I've learned along the way is that everybody has a great idea. But not everybody writes it down. And then there's a gate there. It's like, Hey, you had a great idea and you wrote it down. Do it again. And now like there's another gate and then after that, it's like now keep doing it again. And if you're able to do that, you are worth someone's time you're worth someone's money. And and maybe they don't see you there and your underwear, drinking coffee writing a script for an hour before you go to work. But when they see you have all these brilliant ideas, and and you've done it, they know what that means. They know that you spent the hours you know, before work or in the Starbucks, and that they don't have to pay for that growth, you've already created that value. They see that they know what that means. And that's what you're trying to really attain. And what, what Alex and what Jeff both do is they take that time and they compress it ever so slightly. There's still lessons to learn, there's still things you're going to be pigheaded and hard headed and not learn them. But at least you've got these opportunities to smooth that ramp out a little bit. Because like any endeavor, you know, you go work at some company, you don't become VP, or executive VP in five years. It takes 10 1520 years to do these things. And so what so that's what I really want to do. Jeff, talk about your book, plug your book, because it's incredible as well.

Geoff Calhoun  1:00:44  
Oh, thank you. Yeah, the guide for every screenwriter is, I like to call it the biggest little book in screenwriting. It takes an all encompassing aspect of screenwriting, and it piles everything together that you need into an easy to read and follow book that you can pull out anytime anyplace and access it easily it's written in a way that it's not over overly textbook II. It's it's great for beginners or even for veterans who need a refresher. It's been a bestseller a few times and it's just excited that people are really enjoying it. And it's it's, it's introducing them to the art of screenwriting, which to me blows my mind. You know that some for some people, it's been the first book they've ever read in screenwriting, and I just like, wow, it's just, I'm honored to be able to do it. Oh, thank you so much.

Alex Ferrari  1:01:34  
It's a great book, when I had on my show people loved you, man. It was a very popular episode. And thank you. I know, I know. We sold a couple books for you. That was excellent. Excellent. Excellent book. Thanks for coming on. One thing I wanted to say. Yeah, of course, one thing I wanted to say guys, in regards to the two people saying two ideas The only thing that matters is not your idea because everyone's got ID right everyone who I'm sure listening when I'm like, Hey, I could put up, I could do a podcast. I could read a screenplay, I could make a movie, this great idea, or I can I could build that product. Everyone's got an idea. The only thing that matters is execution is exit execution. That is what sets everybody apart, sets you apart from everybody else, because everyone could talk about building a product, but only a handful of them got on to Shark Tank. Yeah, because they went through the work, built it out. And then the guys that do show up on Shark Tank with an idea they get thrown out, like, like you haven't put any of the work and like wait, oh, it's a proof of concept. We haven't gotten to market yet. We have no skills. You're like, why are you Why are you here? You're not ready for us. And that's what happens. A lot of a lot of filmmakers and screenwriters. They just show up with an idea and they expect that their genius is going to be seen and someone in power who has put in the time. Who has put in the execution in their own business? Or in their own world is gonna go Oh, you you're, you know, how much do you want? Can I just give you money? That's what they expect.

Geoff Calhoun  1:03:15  
They expect a ray of light breaks through the sky and shines down upon the screenplay and the producer is off striking. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari  1:03:24  
that's why I always asked me to like, aren't you afraid of like, you know, other people who are going to come into into your space? I'm like, No, no, because I know what it takes to do what I do. And I know what it takes to do what I do at the level that I do it. So if somebody else wants to come in and play in the in the ballpark, go, come on, it's a fine, it's not gonna be able to compete me with me, first of all, because I'm me. And I'm not gonna be able to compete with you because you're you. But if you're going to try to you know, do something, God bless, man, because I know what it takes. I know how long many hours I work. I know how hard I Have to hustle. Yes, to keep this thing going and to expand it and to grow it. So if you want to do it, come on I and I've seen it. I've seen I've seen people come up, and they're just like, Oh, yeah, we did. And I see people who are like, antagonistic towards me because I'm, for whatever reason, think I'm some sort of heights in this space. And they'll like, try to either undercut me or do something, and I'm like, do what you got to do, guys, and I see them fall away, because it just, they're, they're going out at the wrong way, and they're trying to do it the wrong way. That's fine.

Geoff Calhoun  1:04:34  
Because you know, your value that you provide to the community and by knowing what you can provide, you can sit grounded like that. But the other aspect of that is that a lot of screenwriters and I'm gonna have to assume filmmakers feel that this is a zero sum game, that it's you versus me that in order for me to succeed, I have to destroy you and knock you down. And I keep preaching that to the to our communities. It is not a zero sum game, then you know the rising tide lifts all shifts, it shifts at the very least you should be building the connections so that these people can be like, hey, I need your help on this project or Hey, I need your help on this project. And then you start building each other up, and then you start succeeding that way. And that's, that's just a part of that kind of that culture that I myself am trying to position myself as the paragon of screenwriting saying, guys, we got to do this together. If you want to succeed, it does not have to be, I don't have to knock you down to succeed in the amount of time and that it takes to put in to be successful. I mean, I run 60 to 80 hour workweeks, and I tell that to other writers in their in their mousetrap. Well, I mean, do you want to be successful or not, you know,

Alex Ferrari  1:05:48  
amen. No question about it. And I think that that whole zero sum game comes from the old Hollywood system, where, you know, there's one job, and there's 10 writers vying for that job. And I am to cut you, I need to destroy you, that's absolutely get that gig. And nowadays, that's not the case where you could just like, I'm gonna create my own gig, or I'm gonna partner with somebody, there's just too much opportunity out there to do that. And the olden days there was there was three, look, there was three channels of television networks, that's all there was, you know, I grew up with three channels and two local channels with the TV channel changer. You know, I remember that. So there's that and PBS. So there was basically three major networks. And there was only there were a bunch of movie studios, but there was, you know, only so many movies to go around at the time as well. Now, there's almost infinite amount of opportunity with the streaming platforms with YouTube. I mean, let's not even talk about just creating your own shows and putting them on YouTube, putting them on Vimeo and selling them, putting them on Amazon Prime. And calling them an Amazon Prime original, you know, or exclusive or whatever you want to do as a mark writing, there's so there's so much opportunity but you've got to change your thinking you can't think of the old pair the old mindset, because if you do, you're done, you're done. And you know what that's you know in a lot of ways that's better for the rest of us who are trying to change the way they're thinking and pivot and adjust and if you think things are and what you said earlier, things are changing so much if you think things are changing right now a lot wait 15 minutes Oh my god, you know things. I mean, the business is changing now on an hourly basis because of what's going on out in the world. And and no one knows what's going on and it's going to be a lot of chicken littles it's going to be a lot of stuff. And I think I hope it's not now but I know eventually I think there is going to be a time where the whole system is going to come crashing down on itself because it's being propped up by kind of like a bubble in many ways through foreign sales or through other things that they're doing. And when it does come down, for better or worse, it is going to be the opportunity for the new to rise from those ashes. And it's happened multiple times in this industry. And it's a very resilient business. We're not going away because people need to be entertained, so it's not going to go away. But it happened when the DVD market crashed. It happened when the VHS showed up, and people lost their mind. the studio's lost their mind, then, you know, when DVDs showed up, every day, the dynamic changed again, then streaming showed up. Remember, streaming was going to be the editor, you can go back to television, when television showed up, everyone was like, no one's gonna go to the movie theaters anymore. It's always a change. And we're in that moment, we're in a very crucial time in our industry. And if you are thinking it's 1999 you're done. You've got to look at A year, two years down the line where everything's gonna be, because if you're already in, if you're already doing what everybody else is doing is too late. So kind of like what I did, and kind of what you do, guys. When if you have 700 episodes, I'm assuming you don't do an episode a day so you probably been in this game for

Pete Turner  1:09:16  
a while I do end up I five episodes a week. Yeah, for sure. 

Alex Ferrari  1:09:19  
Oh, you're a beast. You're a beast. Yeah,

Geoff Calhoun  1:09:21  
he's awesome. Yep. He's a beast.

Pete Turner  1:09:24  
But that's how you do it right? That's that that's the woodshed you get and then you out produce your peers. And then when someone with the paycheck comes along, they're like, Who is this guy? What's he doing? And you get opportunities from that. It's the same thing.

Alex Ferrari  1:09:36  
It was this masked man. Exactly. So then you've been doing this for a while. So you saw, you know, when I came in 2015 I can't say that, like, oh, podcasting is the future. I knew that there was potential there but I never knew what it was gonna turn into and yeah, and how it's continuing to grown, and how much just competition is rushed in. But if I would start a filmmaking, podcast, or screenwriting podcast, right Now, it's gonna be exponentially harder to gain an audience than it was when I started in 2015. And that's not a long time ago.

Geoff Calhoun  1:10:09  
No, I know, man, it's

Alex Ferrari  1:10:11  
about five years ago. That's not a thing. You know, it's nothing in the grand scope of things. So that's where you have to be as a writer.

Pete Turner  1:10:20  
Well, listen, it's awesome having you on. And I hope we can do this some more and hopefully even get a chance to get together when I'm running around up there where you're at, but it's just great to have these stories and hope folks are inspired as least as much as I am. I can attest specifically And personally, the quality of Jeff's book and I can hear it what you're talking about, Alex, you've got these principles down, these things translate across the industry. And it's just great to be able to share some time with you and Jeff for bringing you on. I just I just love being able to do this.

Alex Ferrari  1:10:51  
No, thank you so much for having me guys. I truly appreciate it. It's an honor just asked me to be on I was like, of course, of course. I well. I always like to share as much information as humanly possible to as many people as I can.

Geoff Calhoun  1:11:03  
Well, we appreciate you coming on and just dropping. Film nuggets, brilliance after brilliance, and we really appreciate it. Glad you're on. Oh,

Alex Ferrari  1:11:13  
of course. Of course. I appreciate you guys and you guys do keep doing what you're doing, man. We're all in this together, we got to inform and educate people as much as possible. The film schools aren't doing it. So someone else. I mean, look, I love Look, I love my film schools, and they do what they do very well, as far as like teaching you how to make a movie great. But when you get out, how do you how do you sell that? Yeah, I think how do you how do you build a career? I mean, I know the cool lens. I know I know that new cool lens. I I

Geoff Calhoun  1:11:44  
know the Alexa is the shit. But how do I sell How do I make a career out of this and and they're just putting them right back into the into the they're building employees. They're not building entrepreneurs. I had I had a screenwriting students mom called Me, a screenwriting student, his mom called me and she said, My son took the screenwriting course and left not understanding screenwriting. And then I bought them. I bought him your book, and now he's writing his first screenplay. And he's super excited. I was like, You're welcome. You're so cool.

Alex Ferrari  1:12:21  
I mean, that's that's but that's the way the world is man because and again, and we can we really should have a conversation one day on the show on a show any show about the economy, about the educational system. Yeah. You know, it's, it's based on an industrial revolution, not on the information age, and all of that kind of stuff because it's to the building out of boys and not building up for today's

Geoff Calhoun  1:12:45  
world was because they weren't in a slow reading class so they don't understand what it takes to write a book make everybody can understand. Yeah. back to

Pete Turner  1:12:57  
where to go.

Alex Ferrari  1:13:00  
was about to say about to say well Thanks again guys for having me on. I appreciate it anytime you want me back, I'm more than willing to come back and talk