Feature Filmmaker

Ep. 70 - A Case for Hiring Yourself as Producer

March 18, 2022 Anna Thalman
Feature Filmmaker
Ep. 70 - A Case for Hiring Yourself as Producer
Show Notes Transcript

This week on the podcast, we talk about what it means to produce. A producer makes a film exist. A producer is a creator. This is power allows you to own your own work and be in control of your film career. 

In this episode, Kent talks about the role he played as producer on our feature film. We have since been asked about producing several other projects. And while that isn't out of the question, we recommend that you  join the Feature Filmmaker Academy instead. You could potentially make an entire feature for the same price as hiring an experienced producer (including us) would cost.

So, while it's true that you may spare yourself some work, you may also miss out on what you could learn, which is worth so much more.

Make Your Feature Film (Free Step-by-Step Guide):
www.InvisibleMansion.com/FreeChecklist

Learn about the Feature Filmmaker Program:
www.InvisibleMansion.com/FeatureFilmmaker

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Anna Thalman:

Hey, welcome to the podcast today. We are going to talk about producing, kind of about what it means to produce the role of a producer. This was inspired by several people have reached out, asking us to produce for them in the last little

Kent Thalman:

while. Yeah. Where they've thrown the idea around, or we've just had experiences in the past with. Producing films for friends or looking for people. This is something I think we all do. Even in film school. I remember it was always like, there's a writer director. Who's written something they plan to direct and then they say, but I am not a producer. Right. That's what we all say. We say, ah, but I, I will not produce it because that's above me or below me or not me or whatever. For some reason producing as a no-no for them, maybe you relate to this. You just don't want to produce your movie. I don't think anyone

Anna Thalman:

really wants to. I know there are people who want to produce, but they're rare.

So

Kent Thalman:

funny though, because it's like, Want to eat the bread, but I don't want to harvest the wheat or grind it or bake it. And then the little mother hen says, well, then I'm going to eat it. And that's what producers do they eat the bread because they own the movie except in this world of sort of students, it seems that. And not just students, but young, you know, it's just, this always happens. We say, I don't want to produce it. I want my friends. It's hard.

Anna Thalman:

I don't know how to make money. I just want to do the creative part. And

Kent Thalman:

I'm not trying to like, say like, oh, you're all terrible. If you want someone else to produce your film, it's totally natural to be looking for a producer to partner with. But what does that relationship? What does that look like? That's kind of something we want to talk about because often what it usually means is, oh, well you're producing, which means you're going to find all the money. And then it's kind of funny to me because. The writer director has all the power because they own the script, at least until there's money. But even then sometimes they sort of still have the power because usually the producer would pay that writer to option the script and then they own the project. If they can get it funded, they hire

Anna Thalman:

a director. Therefore they can also fire you as

Kent Thalman:

director of as director. They could dig it, option your script depending on what the contracts. And then hire whatever director they want, you know, kind of like hiring your own boss. Yeah. Trying to get a producer. So anyway, so there's a lot of nuance to it and that's just, we just want to explore what is the producer's job? What does that mean? And what are all the potential nuances? I'm sure we can't cover them all on a single podcast because it's a pretty, foggy landscape. Yeah.

Anna Thalman:

I dunno. I guess to me it just sounds like. Me saying, Hey, I really want to do this thing that I think would be really fun. And I want to hire you, but I have no money to pay you to get the money so that I can do the thing I love and to pay yourself so

Kent Thalman:

that you can pay me. Could you start a business and then hire me to do the thing that I most want to do in that business. That's really what you're asking your people to do. And there may be people who do that and sometimes it works great. So I'm not saying it can't be done because. I think we've been in those situations to some degree or another on both sides of the coin. It just happens a lot. And I just think that it's something that we need to understand fully before we walk that road, because we talk a lot about on this film on this podcast and, and in our, feature filmmaker academy, we talk about, Getting these movies made. Right. And we talk about, okay, if you need to write the script, if you don't have one sitting around or your friend hasn't written one that you're like, let's do it. You've got to write one. Right. And, and, if you're gonna make a move. It's got to come from somewhere. And so you could sit around and wait for it or you can just write it well, then you've got to make it okay. So who produces and what is the producer do? So

Anna Thalman:

that's yeah, I was going to ask you that since. So you were the producer on our feature film that's right? Yes. So what would you say is the role of a producer?

Kent Thalman:

Well, I'll tell you what my role was. So interestingly, when we came up with this idea, we were prepping another more expensive feature. And so if you're not from. Some of the history, if you haven't heard it on some of our previous podcast episodes, we said, let's make something now that nobody can stop us from making it's all our own resources, the budget. So, you know, we knew our numbers and we knew what we could get pulled together, you know, and whatnot. So we said, we're going to just make it in a way that. Is very resourceful,

Anna Thalman:

really realized on the other feature that we were looking at name talent, and most name actors were not interested in working with a first-time director and I don't blame those big part of it. Yeah. And so we said, let's make something that can show what we can do and that we can work with actors.

Kent Thalman:

And so we knew already because Ann was directing this other feature that we would have Anna directed this one. So I said, Anna, what do you think about directing a feature? And I will. Help you get that going. So I'm kind of taking it more of like a business venture. Right. I said, okay, I need someone to direct it. So Anna, I want you to direct it. And so of course she, as a good director, Okay. Is there like a story to this ambiguous movie idea? Like, cause I was like, we could shoot it in our house. We could use our own kids, we could shoot it in Peachtree city. We can

Anna Thalman:

shoot it really fast.

Kent Thalman:

Shoot it super cheap, you know, like we'll do all this stuff and then she kind of goes, okay, so what's it about like, and so I said, listen, I'll pit. A hundred ideas to you and you're bound to like one of them and want to direct it and feel like you could make that personal. I really only pitched about 25. I think in the end I wrote about 25 ideas. Some of them were very similar to each other, but I was kind of, you know, well, we could take a distraction or that direction or this direction. And she said, I really like this thing, this thing about this metaphor that you've kind of come up with with this child leaving home and getting lost. And that was kind of the kernel of the idea. And so I said, okay, great. I'll write it. I'll write it really fast. I outlined it. We outlined it. We worked with, Brando and Claire. Well, They were heavily involved in the early stages. Claire was on art Brando was, he started the film. One of the people who started the film and he also was, was key on script. He has, has a writer credit. Actually, he participated so much in the script, but, but at that phase I was kind of helping the writing early writing portion until Anna Brandon started writing on it. So we were brainstorming. We kind of built some characters out, outline. Story structure. And then I wrote like a 42 page first draft because it was almost in between a script and a step outline and we just got that going. And then from there, the ball started rolling. And before we even really had, like, I think in the end, the script was about 70 two-ish pages long if I remember correctly. And then it got a little longer, I think it broke 80 because of. Some writing that we did mid production, but before it got to that point, we had already funded the film. So we just threw a pitch deck together and pitched it to a bunch of investors. We'd already been pitching to investors with this other movie that was bigger. And so this one was fast. I think it only took us about a month and a half to get them to get those people talking to us. And about two months before money was in the bank, Tickets were getting bought and we were man, we, I can't, I still can't believe how fast we got that movie happening. Having never done it before. So that's tangential. The point is that's just to explore. My role on it. And continuing from there, I just tried to do as much logistical work as I could with a lot of which was outsourced to the remarkable chastity, to who stepped in. And we don't even know what her credit is on this movie. She just stepped in and did she, did she can have whatever credits you want? She did everything that I couldn't do because I was deepening the film, which was. Something I don't recommend, but live and learn. We did it. We all work way too many hats way too many hats, but chastity stepped in and did a ton of logistical work, which was kind of, you know, Peru cereal. But it was also like, whatever the heck other department heads, she would have assumed the title thereof. But otherwise I just, I had to staff the film. That's another big thing that a lot of producers do. Casting wise. There wasn't much to do in casting. So we just pretty much talked between the foreign. And I, myself Brando and Claire, and figured out the casting for the main, and then the smaller, smaller roles, chastity chastity was really casting director for the lot of the smaller roles. And then Anna decided. You know. Okay. You know, these are the final decisions on, on the side, on the smart side characters. And then from there I've been helping manage coordination between, people involved in post-production, communicating with investors, setting up test screenings and submitting to festivals,

Anna Thalman:

yada yada, and in short form, what would you say is generally the role of a director or a producer of a

Kent Thalman:

producer in short form? I don't think I can describe in short form what a producer generally is because there's so many, there's so many different kind of types of producers. It can be split into so many jobs. And so I don't know. I think just, I think what most people want from a producer, what they're looking for, they're looking for someone who will help them get it funded. I think that's one of the number one things people want producers to know. And I would say that definitely producers can do that. Lead creative producers do that. They want, they sometimes, they want someone who will help staff the film. Often and manage a lot of the logistical weight of kind of managing the crew, like locations, department and, and art department, and, you know, communicating logistically with all those departments. And then I think they want someone who will carry the film through post-production and especially distribution negotiations and all that kind of stuff. They want someone who's going to help them with that stuff. But for example, in Hollywood, an independent producer is usually someone who one of the biggest things they do upfront is package the film. That's something we basically did, but in a Hollywood sense, what packaged really means is, well, you're getting like the big, the big three together, the script or the concept of the story you're getting that locked down, paired with the appropriate director. And talent. Usually you're looking for name talent. Those three, that trifecta will influence how attractive the project is to. Studios, you know, and so they want to package these and then those independent Hollywood movie producers will take that around. Sometimes they'll have, what's called a first look, deal with a studio, which means paramount has a first look deal, which means any project that, you know, Joe Templeton, the producer packages, he pitches it to paramount first and they say, Yeah, we want to do it because we get first look or no we'll to a pass on this. It doesn't look like a good fit for us. And then he's free at that point to take it to other studios, not something that most listeners or ourselves for that matter are in a position to do. But that is typically what their role is, their packaging, the director, the producer, and the script together. They usually have some sort of ownership of that script, that project, that concept, but in the super indie world, That's rarely the case. I feel like it's rare that there's a producer,

Anna Thalman:

right? Your sister's not going to be packaging you as a director if you've

Kent Thalman:

never directed. Yeah, exactly. That's why the relationship is different on first films typically.

Anna Thalman:

Well, and I feel like the way you just explained our story, it almost sounds like we did. Exactly what we're saying, because

Kent Thalman:

I want it because I kind of, well, but I also wrote it. So I had a lot more ownership over the script than most of your Hey friend of mine. I want you to produce my movie that I wrote. It was actually the opposite. It was Anna. I want you to direct, I was packaging a film. I've written the script. So I owned it. I didn't. But either way, whether I bought it or, or, or written it, it was my script. At least at the

Anna Thalman:

beginning. Well, and I think it's different because we are a married couple. And so it does make it a little, a little interesting because we do share, you know, what's mine is yours. So it did kind of feel like this is our project. Like we own it. I will get a producer credit as well, but also like me directing was something that we chose because, I was on this other project. And so we were trying to do that, but you also want to direct your own projects down the line and we probably won't collaborate in the same way on future projects. So what would you recommend to a first time filmmaker? Do you think they should go try to find a producer?

Kent Thalman:

I think, I think that there's no should, right. We all have different situations. You might have that buddy from film school who was like, I'm going to become a producer. It's a great fit. Everyone feels good. You haven't fought yet. And you know, had a falling out yet. So you're still in a position of not being consistent. You're still in a position to do that. Maybe you don't have a close person, you know, like that, maybe you don't feel like, man, I've got that friend who wants to produce, who doesn't have their own stuff. That's like always happening. We just said like, let's get together and get going. Let's get making movies. That's great. If you do, maybe it's a spouse. Maybe it's a friend maybe who, who knows what, but if you don't have that. What do you do? Do you go knock doors and solicit the help of producers? I think that works for some people when they move to LA and they w and like, they do the Damien Chazelle thing, right. They write tons of scripts for movies that aren't theirs, and they just sell those scripts. If you've got a career, my gosh, I'm blanking on her name, who just made promising him. I'm blanking on her name. She was an actress, she was an actress and a writer, and she had this career that was going on for a while of, you know what I mean? Like they had already established a pretty solid career in that vein. So stepping into their first, their directorial debut is going to look totally different than most of our directorial debuts, where we're making, you know, low to no budget films. Like. The Linklaters the Nolans the shells, frankly. Chanel's first feature. Wasn't his first feature. It was the second feature. If, you know, if you know his history at all, because he did the first feature thing, then he started writing like crazy. His writing career was pretty good. In fact, he wrote 10 Cloverfield lane right before he wrote, well, I don't know when he wrote those in sequence, but he wrote 10 Cloverfield lane and whiplash. I was asked to direct 10 Cloverfield lane, which might've been his second feature, but he didn't. So he directed whiplash instead. And that movie did great. My point being, he established a writing career after doing his first feature. So, so there's just, it's fluid. It depends if you're not in LA, if you're not around a bunch of Hollywood producers, if you don't have like a, any sort of established name in any role, you're likely going to have to make her film, which maybe means, and I just think it's worth. Being open to this idea and maybe it means producing your own film. Well,

Anna Thalman:

and I think it's important to understand what you're giving away. If you give that role away, because you know, people don't realize, for example, if you win an academy award for best picture, that goes to the producer.

Kent Thalman:

Yeah. A lot of people know that, but it's shocking sometimes to talk to young people who are like, don't know that. If the director directors often win them because they're also producers on the film owns

Anna Thalman:

the film and they have a lot of

Kent Thalman:

power. Not that Oscars are really a thing that anyone here needs to worry about on their first load,

Anna Thalman:

the way of understanding, right? Like who gets, who owns it, you know, are you handing over entire ownership of your film when you could hire someone? Not like lead creative producer, but also just as an associate producer to help you get a lot of the work done or what kind of producer would that be? Well, and I

Kent Thalman:

would say associate producers, usually someone who kind of helps in like an almost indirect way, like, Hey, we're going to, how did you define it? I would say like, if it was like a rental house, let's say you have a great relationship with someone. That's got loads of gear and they come on and say, I'll be executive producer and we'll just give all this to you on. In exchange for shares, that's really more of an executive producer relationship because they're giving you their money or resources in exchange for ownership on the film. But they're not having like, as direct our relationship with the actual, elbow grease, you know, like the work that is required to make the film in my mind, that's more of an executive producer title. There's exceptions to that. It's hard to define these things. Associate producer would be almost. Help or support that isn't in exchange for ownership, it's more just like an exchange for credit. But once again, on Hollywood movies, that isn't really the case. I'm just, this is just what I've witnessed in like low budget indie features. Whereas producer itself could mean several different things. Just the straight up line, like produced by it's usually like Lee creative producer, Lee creative producers. What we were just describing. It's someone who really. Takes the reins and is in charge of this movie lives or dies on my shoulders. Right in my hands. I've got to, I've got to pull this together, make sure it gets finished and see it through to the end. That's really the lead creative producer summed up in a nutshell, but then other producers might have roles that are just purely logistical and you could even potentially give those kinds of titles. You know, the unit production manager or a production manager, UPM is technically a directorial department role, but these people who were managing the logistics of. Contracts and payroll and they can not, they can sometimes stretch out and do more things. That's sometimes it's something you want actually from a producer and they might get a producer credit, or at least a production manager credit. So the logistics of making the film is a lot of different people's jobs, depending on how many people you have making the movie, which in our case was not very many. So you can see how complicated it can get or how simple it can get. If there's not that many people, there's really not that many credits to Dole out. I don't have like seven producer credits. I have one producer, that's it? You know? Yeah. I guess

Anna Thalman:

I feel like I, in being asked to produce things. A few times in the last few months I've thought about it and thought about like, you know what I do that if someone wants me to produce something, it's a lot of power to hand over, here's my whole business idea thing and you just can own it and have it and pay yourself out of it. I feel inclined to say. You know, I have kind of considered one a little more heavily and I started to break down what I would do exactly week by week and realized most of what I would do is already what we offer so joining the academy is like hiring us to be the producer of your film. You're just going to do a little more of the legwork that way, but, or, or your producer, if you have someone on board helping. But it's still a lot of it. Like you still do need to do yourself because I'm not going to go in and write your own bio for you. I'm not going to write like the summary of the story. If you wrote it, those are still things that, as a producer, I'm going to say, okay, now you need to do this. Now you need to do that. And you're going to go take

Kent Thalman:

those steps. Yeah. Producer's job has a lot of you're right. A lot of delegation

Anna Thalman:

to it. Reaching out to investors. You're going to have a lot more success, I think, with your own context. And so while I could reach out to your contacts that. Be a little weird. Maybe if, you know, you'd still have to make the initial introduction and say, Hey, I'm making this film and this person is producing for

Kent Thalman:

me. If you're interested, you could talk to them and me, but directors all the time are in on those conversations. Especially writer, directors that are like, this is my vision. This is my story. This is my pitch. But. This is the producer. You should know him because you're going to be really like signing contracts with this person. Right? Like if those are different people,

Anna Thalman:

I just, I guess for those reasons, I feel like inclined to suggest on your first film. You maintain some kind of a producer credit and you hire on help for the things you need help with, but there is a degree of producing that you can't avoid, I think.

Kent Thalman:

and once again, that might be different for different people. Like we've talked about your Hess on this podcast and they were friends in film school and that producer's contact was his brother who really. The bulk of it, not all of the production costs. And so the brother of the producer now that said those relationships fell into place and it worked, and that might be the case for a lot of people. It really might. It might not. And so if it's not. You can decide to wait until that relationship develops in your life, which you can't necessarily control. You can make efforts and take steps towards getting to be friends with a producer type. Yeah. Or you could not wait for that to happen in your life. Produce it because producing is giving yourself the power to make the film exist. And that to me is the biggest thing that the producer does. The bottom line of a producer's job is to make films exist. Directors can direct films, but that is a position on the team. And that's a hugely important one, but really at the bottom of the day, who makes a film, the producer does like everyone makes it right. But the producer is the one who's like. I think it takes a lot of faith to be a producer. And I really agree with, Todd Gardner who had a great podcast, I don't think he's still doing it, but it was called the producer's guide. He's produced movies like, pro Harvard, triple X and stuff. And he said a funny thing. He was, he was interviewing a producer of faith films and he said, I really feel like all. Movie producers are faith filmmakers. He said, because basically your job description is go out, package a film, pitch it to like a ton of people. And just basically day after day, get told this will never work. And you just have to listen to that. This will never work person after person, after person, until it does. And you get the movie made and then you go onto the next film. And no matter how many times you do it, you'll just have to listen to people. Well, that one will never work. That'll never come together that I don't get it. It doesn't make sense. And so I just think a lot weighs on the producer. And so if you've got a movie you want to make, you've got an idea or a script, or you're just itching with creative, monsters inside you that need to get out. You likely may need to produce your own film. At least consider it. Other opportunities may arise, but. If you want the film to exist, then you're being called to be a producer. You know, like it's just, I mean, it's,

Anna Thalman:

it's true. If you, if you have a friend who's in the same position who hasn't made something before and they're willing to do it, just for the credit and the experience experience. Maybe that's fine and go for it. Yeah. I think it happens all the time. If you're actually considering hiring us. For example, as producers, I would say you're going to save a lot of money by just joining the film and family academy and following how we explain how to produce the film all the way through, then paying me 10 times that which could be the budget of your whole film to produce it. And so I think if we're looking at resource filmmaking and trying to make a huge return on investment with your first film as a case study that you can use to produce. All the films that follow and show your investors I made this film for this amount and we made a return that was this large. And people start to see that and want to invest in you get a career going because you can prove that you know how to sell a film and make money, make a profit for your investors. It's just something to consider as a way to save money, but obviously get some help. You don't want to be the sole producer and director on set. That would be extremely difficult and overwhelming that

Kent Thalman:

help might not be in the form of another producer credit. It might just be

Anna Thalman:

someone in your

Kent Thalman:

team who might just be getting a team together. That includes. DP and a locations manager and an art director slash production designer. And so if you've got those department heads, they're all acting as semi produced cereal rolls, right? They are. Organizing and making certain things happen for the creative thing to come to life. And so everyone on a films in some way, a producer there, they're bringing the logistics together, even like a first aid super has a foot, maybe a foot and a half in the producer world. Right. Because at the end of the day, I just think about the word produce. Like just take it totally out of the context of moving. And just let it just be a word in the Webster dictionary, right. Produce means to create, So when you think of the word like production, you can think of that in like manufacturing or in, you know, the food industries or whatever production itself has this, this idea of like, it doesn't exist and then you make it physically exist in the world. And so all of us have some responsibility in producing. And so I just believe that producing your own film and even. To be straightforward. Getting involved in the film and family academy is giving you the power to produce your own film, which gives you the ownership of it, which lets you first of all, be more creative, it puts the ownership back in your hands because most film contracts use leverage cell 50 out of a hundred shares. And the other 50 are owned by the production entity. In our case, our production company that we are owners of is invisible mansion. Pictures owns 50% of all the movies we're ever going to make because we're producing those films. And we are going in as like a venture capital sort of sweat equity relationship with. Equity investors who put in cash investments. Well, and we

Anna Thalman:

intentionally want to own a majority of the shares

Kent Thalman:

or at least half. Yeah. So that no one can, you know, can I kick you out of that creative role? Yeah. So, so putting you in yourself in that position really puts you in a better spot. Even if your film doesn't make a ton of money. If it does, it makes profit, then you will start to. Some of that pro-rata split after whatever deal you've written up, contractually. And so, it's just a good thing. And, and I don't think there are a lot of directors out there and I've, I've actually heard some big directors say that like, you should not be too wrapped up in the business of film. If you're a director, I don't necessarily super agree with. I do think that you need to be able to step out of it. Like you can't be trying to make creative decisions and be thinking, yeah, but is that going to sell? It's like, well, you know, there's a time to just be honest and take risks and be true and artistic, but then there's times where you need to go and say, but let's get it made. Let's get it happening. Let's make it, let's use our resources. What are our resources? You know, and what's our end game. That's not bad to know. And it is possible to balance those things and having that power just makes you equipped to, to, you know, make produce films, to make them exist. So for me, like, like what your point is, where you're like, well, you could just do the film and family academy where we educate you on how to produce your own film. Then you don't have to depend on someone else. And it makes you enter this movie-making machine. Like you just become this being of movie production. Well, and they're

Anna Thalman:

really what I realized when I considered this producing job was that there really isn't much more that I would be doing as a producer than I am already doing in the film and family academy. Like, there's just a lot of work that you, as a director will need to do anyway, assuming that you're directing. and so I think it's worth considering, and also just to not let that stop you again, we're all about nothing needs to stop you from making your feature film. And so if you have a friend who wants to produce that works out great, good. Do it. But if you don't have that, don't be afraid of. Producing it yourself. A lot of that is work. You're going to be doing anyway. It's very valuable. It's going to help you have that power to continue to make films down the line and not depend on someone else to get your films made. So don't be afraid to go for it.

Kent Thalman:

Yeah, my super agree. And it's just, it's like one of the best ways to give yourself a super in-depth education. It's just a lot of us don't know those skills and, It's only family academy. Obviously I'm referring to that in part, when I say the word education, but I also am a big believer that we learn by doing not by theorizing. And so by joining some family academy, you're getting that theorizing part of it. And by theorizing, I don't mean like film theory, per se, as a practice or as a discipline, I'm really referring to very pragmatic. Education,

Anna Thalman:

we'll tell you exactly what to do in some tips to do it, but then you'll learn even more just doing

Kent Thalman:

as you do it, as you do it, you'll start to learn all the lessons that no one can teach you, not even us. And, you know, Stephen King says in his book called on writing. He says, you don't need a book on writing, including this one, which I think is really interesting. I found his book extremely helpful, even though he says that about his book, he says, what you really need to do is read a lot and write a lot. So those are the two biggest things. And so for me, it's like, you don't need us to tell you how to make a feature film. You don't need it, but. I found the book on writing to be extremely powerful as a screenwriter, not even just as a novelist, cause I'm not I'm frankly, not a novelist. I guess my point is you don't need the Phillip family academy to make a film, but

Anna Thalman:

it,

Kent Thalman:

but it will help you like you, you could follow the steps of the checklist. If you, if you're familiar with our free checklist, if you're not go check it out. Invisible mansion.com forward slash free checklist. And as the link in the show notes, and you'll be able to get that checklist and you can follow that thing right down

Anna Thalman:

and it's, we hope some people will just use the checklist and make a movie without ever signing up and paying us anything. But we do offer. Lots of individual like personalized support in the program. If that's something that helps you and our promises that you'll be able to make your feature film or your money back. So that guarantee is reassuring.

Kent Thalman:

There is I believe value in the resource in the sense that, it goes way more in depth. So you're going to learn a ton through the program you're going to learn all these lessons and you're gonna make that film either way. And hopefully you make the next one. And the next one you, and you make dozens of feature films in your lifetime. Maybe will be John Ford and you'll break that 100, you know, mark, work Godard. Regardless, like you're gonna learn all those lessons either way, but for the first or second feature, we just believe that we are offering a resource that could help you avoid loads of the pitfalls that come with that first feature film and save a lot of money and save a lot of money because those pitfalls usually cost money through the nose. And you know, some of that's our own personal experience, some of it's research and learning we've done and mentorship that. But a lot of it's experience and you're going to have some of that, no matter what, but the film family academy could be. I mean, it will be a huge resource to that first film. So on the one hand I'm kind of selling it, but on the other hand, Like, like Anna said, we're totally open to the idea that you could easily just go make a film. It's not like no one made films before we made the film family academy. We're the first we've invented this new thing or whatever.

Anna Thalman:

Yeah. Yeah. But it's good to know what your options are, what your resources are. And hopefully this podcast is a useful free resource. We never put ads on it. We always want to create lots of free stuff. They can help you. But also the film and family. Academy makes it really personalized. We're currently offering where you can sign up for a monthly mentorship meeting. That's one-on-one with me. And we talk about your specific project and set goals for the next meeting. And I can coach you. I'm a certified coach as well through any obstacles that you're facing. I don't know if we'll be able to sustain that forever, but right now that is something we're doing. We're always trying to add stuff to the program and improve it once you're in you're in for life. So you get all of those things as we update it.

Kent Thalman:

And the sooner you make. The better. It's like

Anna Thalman:

investing

Kent Thalman:

well and not just that, but like, it gets better if you start sooner, you know, like it gets better sooner. Yeah. It's like investing. Like if you start in your twenties versus your thirties, like you'll never catch up, you know? And I'm not, if you're in your thirties, that just means let's go, let's keep going. You know, like, or some of you may even be in your forties or fifties or sixties or whatever. Just, you know, if you want to make movies, there's no better time to start, but now, and if you want to make movies, there's no better position to be. And then the role of producer, if you want to do other roles, that's fine. That might change in the future. But early on, if you want to guarantee that the film exists, you produce it, or you let your best friend that best friend that says,

Anna Thalman:

all right, thanks guys. We'll see you next week.

Kent Thalman:

Bye bye.