 Welcome to Start Up The Storefront, presented by Aurobora. All right, welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we have Chuck Harrington and Michael Lange just released a new movie, Cowboy Drifter. It's been out for a little while, I guess, before we begin. Let's tell people where they can find it. We usually end with this, but just for people to get a sense of where the movie actually is, where is it? Okay. Because it's not quite out yet. We're in the process of releasing it to streaming services. We're going to have it on Amazon. We're going to have it on Peacock and we're going to have it on Tubi in the next month. None of those platforms give us an exact date, but we are coming soon. Yeah, it's coming soon. Actually, if you go on Amazon now and you type in Cowboy Drifter, you'll get the one sheet for the film, you'll get the cast list, and you'll get the trailer for the film, which is fabulous, the fabulous trailer. So if you really want to check it out now, go at least look at the trailer right now on Amazon. All right. So the reason I want to have you guys on several. One, as an entrepreneur, it's similar. I'm a real estate developer entrepreneurship all around, have an idea, create an idea, bring the right people together. There's money involved and then there's execution. I've been always so curious about the movie making business, TV making business. And so we're going to get into it with you guys today. And so the first step, writing it, the idea of it. What was the idea, the inspiration? People haven't seen the movie. It's amazing. It's a really well done movie. Shot super, I think like it's, I'm not a big movie guy, TV guy, but I like the way this thing was shot, the cinematography of it. But what was the idea of to give people a window into what is Cowboy Drifter? It's a great question because when I, when I first had an idea to write the script, I had nothing to do with what you actually see in the film. And you're not a writer. Just, you're just, I'm a writer actor. Yeah. I've written several scripts and we can talk about that. Excellent writer. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Originally, I wanted to write something for myself. So I wasn't going to give this script to Tom Cruise or, you know, Matthew McConaughey or any of those folks. If he did, it would be out in the movie theaters already, by the way. Just that's the part we're going to edit out right now. Actually, Paul Wagner, Tom Cruise's producer, did read the script. One of the early iterations. But I wanted to write something for myself and, you know, I grew up in the South, so I'm attached to Southern themes. I love the idea of redemption. And I figured I'd write about an old Cowboy type character who played guitar and sang on stage and something happened to him that he had to redeem himself for it. That was the original idea. And there was a Hank Williams senior sort of theme floating around in my head. I'm a big Hank Williams senior fan. And follow his story. It's pretty amazing. And then I realized I can't play guitar and I really can't sing. So let's figure this out. So I had to, I had to go back to square one. And I just came up. That's actually funny knowing that I've seen the movie. Yeah, exactly. It makes sense. Okay. And the irony is that my father in the film, the character, he actually, he does all the singing and guitar playing. And he's the white buffalo in the film. By the way, he's fantastic. He's amazing. Fantastic. He's amazing. So we accomplished at least some of my original idea. Yeah. So then I sat down and write a story about redemption and any good piece of art has to do with conflict. And in this story, it's a conflict between a father and a son, even though the father's not there, that sort of fleshed that out and really dig into that. And I mean, you realize I don't want to give anything away in the film, but it becomes not about father and son. Certain events happen and it becomes about this man. Caskey Jones is my character, having to, to figure things out for himself, having to change his life, not for just for himself, but for other people. And that's the redemption that comes in. And when you started writing this concept, how much time do you give yourself or you like some writers, you know, we have some friends that are writers, they'll sit with it for a while, years, they hold on to it. They say it's not the right time. It's not the right time in history or culture or whatever it might be. Do you give yourself like a set timeline of saying, OK, I'm going to spend a year writing this and then I'll try to find a Michael. How long did you play with that? I wrote it in spurts. So I would write pieces of it and then I would put it down because I didn't have to finish time because I knew I was going to do this all on my own. You talk about entrepreneurship. This is what Cowboy Drifter is. I mean, it's starting from scratch and, you know, getting the pieces together as you go. So I had time to tell the story. So some days I'd literally be driving down the road and a scene would come into my head, the dialogue, and I would go home and I'd find the script and I'd sit back down and I'd start writing again. I mean, I can't tell you how long it took me to write this script, but it took several years. And I wouldn't call it a passion project. You hear that word a lot in Hollywood. You know, so-and-so has a passion project. To me, a passion project is, you know, someone sits down to write, but it's not really, you know, he may or may not get it done, finish the project. And I knew we were going to shoot this film. I knew I was going to get it done. I knew I was going to raise the money. I knew I was going to finish the script and get people attached that would help me see it through. And then at what point do you go, all right, I think it's ready. And then how do you decide how much money you need? Like, how does that work? The whole money side of it? Well, to the first part of the question, the script is never ready. Right. Right. There's a lot of notes that go back. I mean, it's just never ready until you shoot. And then sometimes you shoot and people add lib and there's no ad lib in my script on this. And this Michael saw that no one ad lib. But, you know, it's never ready until, until the day comes and you put it on film and then you can't go back. The raising the money was the was the hardest part for me. How do you figure out how much money you have to raise? How does that work? You know, you raise as much money as you can. And then if you find out you don't have enough, you try to go back and raise more. I assume you never have enough. You never have enough. Yeah. An independent film is just that. It's just no one knows. You just, you, you, you raise as much as you can, you hope for the best. And we use every nickel of it. Yeah. Otherwise you don't know this. Yeah, absolutely. And at some point you guys have to figure out like how many people to hire the set. And so does the money dictate how much time you have to shoot and then who can be associated with the film? Yeah, you want to definitely answer that. I mean, the money, basically, I mean, what he said is totally true. You'd ever have enough money. However, I must say that I think some of the best work I've ever done in my career is when someone said you can't have that. And then I have to figure out what's a creative way of getting the same thing that I wanted, but without the money or the piece of equipment that I needed to get what I wanted. I'll give you one example in the movie. It opens on a closeup of Kasky, of course. And it's, he's looking, tell me if I'm misremembering this, but I think it opens on a closeup of you and there's a perfect in his face. Yeah. And then you cut her out to the other side and his house is on fire. So obviously we did not have enough money to burn down a house. OK. I don't know if you ever know. Oh, I mean, big movies they do. Sure. So I had to figure how do we make it look like the house is burning down? How'd you do that? Never mind. Movie magic. No, movie magic. So you make like a little house, like a little popsicle house. We did. And then you light that off fire. Is it CGI? We did. Actually, this is where my mind goes. I'm just curious. I don't want to give everything away. But later we did do a little house. OK. Because he burns down another thing. Yeah. Anyway, so Kasky's a bit of a pyromaniac in the film. He's a pyromaniac. Yeah, yeah, which we never really explained in the movie, which is fine. You don't have to. We didn't have to. But it's symbolic. I think the yeah, it's more of a symbolism than anything else in the movie. That's what I'm going to go with in our next festival. As a writer, that's what I'm going with, too. Yeah, that's what I saw. That was my take. Absolutely. So basically, the way we did the first one was we had fire bars, you know, which are with gas in them that burn. And I used a very long lens so that compresses the image. Yeah. So I had him at a certain distance away from the fire bars and then the house behind that. So everything looks like it's way closer. It really is. That's pretty smart. So the fire bars are filling the frame with fire. Yeah. And our brains assume that the house must be on fire because what else would be burning? Yeah. So he's in the foreground, big close up. And the idea is, you know, you're looking at him, really. But I mean, the shot that tied everything together was when you were driving away. Right. Let's do this. Give people a window into the amount of things you've been involved in. Professionally. Yeah. Oh, boy. Give some quick names. Quick names. So people know that you're a criminal mind, bones, X files, Northern Exposure, a show called Greek, which was about college kids. A successful New Yorker in L.A. Exactly. Here you are. It's hard not to be successful here when you're from New York. That's right. Because you get there. Massachusetts people here are just, you know, slower. It's not that they're slower. They're laid back. They're laid back. Just like in a Woody Allen movie. If we went to Jamaica, it'd be the same thing. Be the same thing. I've been I've shot in Jamaica. That was a nightmare. OK, so when I think about having watched the movie, all the people that you guys were able to ensemble as part of the cast, I mean, tremendous, tremendous, tremendous musical talent. That was all tremendous musical talent. And so like the movie for my perspective can be entertaining purely on the music front. Right. And then there's the other side of it of like the storytelling. Both great. So you got all those people involved prior to Michael getting on board or how does that operate? I mean, it's all one big stew. And you continue to stir it in however direction you can. And are you selling them a dream? Or are you? Because with a small budget, it's also difficult, I imagine. All the music drops came through a music supervisor. And I would OK them or not, basically in charge of the music. And I said, yes, I like this song. Does this person, does this artist, Shaky Greys, for example, he has a song in the film. He's fantastic. The song was presented to me. I didn't love as much as the one I clicked on next. And I said, this is the one we need to put in the film. We need to go get this. And we had a budget for music. And we were very lucky. We got the revivalists for goodness sake. I mean, one of the hottest bands around. The music's fantastic. The music's fantastic. Really fantastic. And it really, I think it helps to tell the story of the movie, too, is not just music for the sake of music. And then what's the woman's name, the singer, like the main singer? Aubrey Peebles. She's great. She's fantastic. Yeah, Aubrey. Yeah, she was in Nashville. She did the show Nashville, 65 episodes. Unbelievable voice. She was amazing. She had such an amazing voice on that TV show that they had to stop letting her sing because she wasn't one of the main principles. She was her current character. But when she came to us and she sang these songs, and I got to listen to her in the recording studio in New Mexico, I mean, I had tears in my eyes. She didn't have to act that part. She's incredible. I mean, she is amazing. She was amazing. It's funny. I think when I think about myself as a business mind entrepreneur, I have friends of mine who are musicians. And some of them, when they do sing, I'll find myself going to this deeply emotional place. And I'm like, why am I like, I'm in conflict with myself. I still like, oh my god, I am a human. And when I heard her, I knew immediately, I was like, she's one of those people you see live, it moves you. Yeah, as the entrepreneur, I mean, I need things to go right. I need to assemble a cast, a group of people who are going to make this task work. And listening to her sing as a producer, not just the actor, but as the producer, I say, this is gold. This is money. We're going to put her on camera, singing as much as possible. Smart. And actually co-wrote one of the songs for her that she sings in the film. Look at you. Musical credit. Already gone. That's the song that she sings that I said, we need a song for her. No one has the right song for her. This is what we need to write for Aubrey. She's a teenager. She's living in New Mexico in a crappy part of town. She's older than her years. She wants to sing. She wants to get out and fly. And she can't do it because she's under the control of her mother. And she wants to leave. So she's basically already gone in her mind. Interesting. And I sent this email to my music supervisor. And he took that. And we basically wrote the song Already Gone based on that conversation, that email. How many things do you have to do when it comes to getting things ready before you hit the start date on, OK, we're starting to shoot? Like, what is that? Is that just a simple version of you guys set a date? We set the date. And then you work sort of. You assemble the project as best you can. And then you hope that Monday morning, you're going to be ready to go. Our problem was Monday morning, we didn't have an actor to play the mortician. And here it was Saturday in New Mexico. You got a good one. We're sitting in an office. And Chelsea Ross is presented to me. And I say, this is great. And one of our producers, who's no longer with us, he said, well, he wants. He's not dead. He wants to be with us. He was not excommunicated. Chelsea wants a first class flight from Chicago to New Mexico. By the way, there's no direct route to get to New Mexico. So I was going to say, how do you do that? You put him in a black Uber? Yeah, so I said, how much is he? He said $1,700. We don't have $1,700. So it took me about 30 seconds. I paced up and down the hall. And I say, we have to have Chelsea Ross. He's one of the greatest character actors. I don't know him from Hoosiers, but all kinds of films. Major League. Rudy, you name it. Major League, he's phenomenal. So I said, we have to have Chelsea Ross to do this role, because he's perfect for it. So I came back to the producer and I said, well, I'll pay for it. Just take it out of my check. I didn't have a great check to begin with. It didn't matter. We had Chelsea. So he shows up Sunday. Monday morning, he nails every shot he's in. He works for two days. He's fantastic. There's no film if there's no Chelsea Ross in my mind. How many people do you guys have as a whole team, like on set? You're filming in New Mexico. How many people are there? At least 50. I mean, it depends on the day. But people are running about in every direction. I'm the actor, but I'm also the producer. So I'm trying to juggle things. As I'm acting, as I'm coming off camera, I'm getting told certain things that we don't have or certain things we need, getting questions that I'm trying to prepare for the next shot, but yet I put on my producer. It's tough, but I was prepared. Yeah, I love that. When it comes to real estate development, it's actually very similar. It's like you never really have anything. And you're always missing things or in search of something. It probably is similar. You live in that balance. And money can save you for sure. But I think sometimes what you said before, like getting scrappy about solving problems actually leads to a better product for you. So you come from the television world. One, what was attractive to this project for you? And then what made you want to do a movie? Well, I mean, I think TV directors, until they get further along in their career, always want to do. It seems like TV is sort of the second choice. You really want to do features because in a feature film, the director has a lot more creative control, theoretically. I've now come to the conclusion that TV was perfect for me because it has the infrastructure already there and all you have to do as a director is direct, which is what I love to do the most. I don't like, like I would be a horrible entrepreneur because I don't have the patience to fail. I think that means you're smarter than us. Not necessarily, but I mean, I think when you're an entrepreneur, you have to have the patience to continue to fail until you succeed. Yeah, it's awful. Whereas I like to go in, everything's there. I say action, something happens. In an independent movie, that is not the case. I say action, but no one else is there. But what attracted you? I have to do it. What attracted you to this? What attracted me to this was it's really about the script. So I get a call from my agent. There's this indie movie and they would like to talk to you. So I said, okay, I'll read the script. I loved the script. So it's really, for me, it's about, it's either if it's a gigantic check and the script sucks, I'll do it. But if it's a great script, I don't care about the check. I didn't care. Which is good, because we didn't really give them a check. They didn't really have a big check. You know, the script was amazing. And I just, I totally, I mean, I didn't identify because I'm nothing like Kasky Jones and I've never been like Kasky Jones. But I just loved, you know, everything about the script. The dialogue was fantastic. The characters were rich, developed and interesting. And the situation was it was, it had a nice drive to the story, but it wasn't like stoop insane. You know, it wasn't like just for the sake of driving. It had a meaning to it. Something that I've always thought about is obviously you guys have to go through proper channels. The agents go back and forth. At what point do you two actually chat? Like when do the agents finally allow the creators to actually have a discussion? Well, early on. Yeah, it was okay. Basically, Also, there was a timeframe on this that was pretty tight. Yeah. They were already committed to start. We were six weeks before we were gonna shoot. And we didn't have a choice because we were coming up against holidays and things like that. We had a finite amount of time. We had to hit that amount of time. But his agent got in touch with our producer and he said, yes, Michael wants to meet with you. So I met with the producer, with Michael and two other qualified candidates to direct the film. And I looked up Michael's credits ahead of time, of course. And when I looked on IMDB and the page kept scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and you see 260 plus episodes of television and you look at all the television shows he's done that he named off of just phenomenal shows. It's like, if this guy wants to meet, it's like, I'm gonna say yes, unless he's a complete jackass, you know? And he came in and we sat down and he's, I mean, it was phenomenal. It was easy right from the get-go. And Michael, how many scripts do you see, would you say, over the course of like, yeah, over the course, or how many things is your agent send you that you have to rifle through on either a daily or monthly basis? During the heyday. During the heyday? Oh my God, I've had a heyday now. It sounds so old. You know, probably thousands. When you never stopped working for years. You never stopped working. Yeah. I mean, TV scripts, you know, hundreds and hundreds. I mean, I can't tell you what a coup it was to get this. Yeah. But here's the thing. So for you to be inspired by it or see something. I think he brings his DP that he's used in a lot of shows. And DP, as you said, the cinematography is phenomenal. It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. Can I just go back though? I appreciate what he said about a coup. However, I think what I heard from my friend who recommended me, he said, I gave them three names. I gave them two young, up-and-coming film directors. And then I gave them your name. And what I told them was, if you want someone who's gonna do the best possible, he's gonna make the best possible movie out of your material, then go with Michael. Cause he's a TV director, that's what he's used to. A TV director doesn't a huge amount of say on the material. That's interesting. So he said, if you want like someone to come in with their vision and maybe change your movie, then these other two guys might be okay, but it's not gonna be as much your movie. And it definitely won't be done on time and on budget. So Michael would be, he'll make the best possible product out of what you wrote. Stay in the box, so to speak. And I think that's true. Cause I had one kind of semi-big note about what I felt just in terms of the script needed to start off with, which he liked, fortunately. That's what happens. You have a meeting, you sit down and as soon as you start talking, you forget that he's directed 260 episodes of television. You just start talking about the script. What do you think of the script? I mean, I'm completely open to creative suggestions. I mean, he knows it by now, but yeah. So he had a huge note for me that I had rejected on many, many drafts. And that was putting Caskey's father in the film at the beginning so that we know who this person is. And that makes the story so much better. And then you hire, you know, the white buffalo, Jake Smith to play Caskey's father and he's this giant like Harley Davidson wearing long beard, hat and the whole thing, he's perfect for it. So that note, if it wasn't sealed the deal, you know, had been sealed before with Michael. That note, I literally went home and couldn't wait to get on the computer and start writing. And then I, and then two days later, I said, can we have lunch? And I took him the pages. I took like six pages that I'd written in half an hour because I knew what I had to write. And I gave it to him, we're ordering sandwiches and he's going over these six pages of the script. And, you know, he really, I think he was impressed that I took the note, but he's also impressed with the pages that I gave him. Yeah, no, that's what I mean. He made it a million times better than my note, which is of course a nice part of the process. I like that. And what land did you guys in New Mexico with all the, like how does that in that process start? Okay. Tax incentive, that's a great question. Yeah, you can't shoot things in California because it's just too expensive. That's why Boston is attractive now. I guess Massachusetts has a good tax incentive. Yeah, it's 25 cents on the dollar. So every dollar we spend, we get 25 cents back. So that's in New Mexico, it's huge. And it still exists. It's literally, they give you a quarter. It's weird. That's incredible. It's why so many projects are filmed there. Breaking Bad was filmed there, is that right? Breaking Bad, I mean, the scenery in New Mexico plays a role as well. The music, the scenery in the background, it adds to it. You get the desolation of this place. And is the expensive part like housing people or is it RVs at hotels? How do you do that? I think the expensive part is, the cast requires, no one's gonna do it for free and there's always a haggling about that. And there's just a large amount of people that you have to. You're the one negotiating it or is it agents? I'm ultimately the one that has a final say. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if Michael's agent comes back and says, he needs more money, I can say this is what we have. Right. Or if an actor comes back and says, she needs more money to play the role. It's like, well, we're gonna have to get someone else because this is all we can afford. Oh, did you lose anybody because of that? We didn't lose anyone. Okay. We didn't lose anyone. I think because here's the thing, it's the material. The script is so good that for creative people, I'm gonna include myself in that list, it's really about the, that's the part that turns us on. Yeah, Chelsea Ross literally said, I mean, I asked him, I said, why did you do this film? It's only two days, there's no money in it. He said it was the script. He said, even my agent told me not to do this film because there's no money in it. But he said, I like the script so much that I wanted to do it. And I hug him every time I see him. See, what I love about that in entrepreneurship, it's like, at least for me, so I get the question a lot when I talk to new entrepreneurs around, when they go raise money, why do people give you money? How do you do it? And I always say, for you as a new entrant into the business you're about to go and whether it's like CPG, whatever they're trying to do, let's say the sparkling water. If they're new, three reasons people give you money generally are you, your reputation and your product. And you're a new entrant, which means the you bucket is pretty low, the reputation is zero. And so it means you have to put all your energy into the product. And that's what people ultimately will invest in. It's in this setting when you're new, the you piece, like you in the sense of, I know he's new to it, but I think, or he or she, but I think he's gonna, I think they're gonna break down every wall to figure out every single problem. They seem committed. And then the product being it's gotta taste good it's gotta, it has to be solving some problem that is simple to identify. Those are the two things that I think. And so it seems like obviously here you have the product, right, the script, the story, it's sold. The difference in our business is most people you're trying to get money from independently at least they don't know anything about making films. They might, they would know a good script from a lousy script. So what are they asking you? Are they like, how am I gonna make money? What are the questions that people are asking you in the while you're raising? Like you said, it's the you part for me. This is, we call it lawyers in Dennis. I mean, you're literally asking money from family friends, from your own friends, from people that you've met, that they have friends that might invest. You're doing a lot of digging to try to find the money. But I found it at least for this project that they believed in me. They believe I could get this done. They could see it in my eyes when I sat down with them. And I couldn't present them with a plan that I was gonna say, hey, this is gonna make you X, Y amount of money. And in fact, you might lose money. In fact, you probably will lose money because it's an independent film and it's a hard day to make money from through this process. But they believed in me, they believed in the vision that I had and I was able to sell. That's so cool. And so for them, they just wanna see it come to life. They wanna see it come to life. I guess this is the payoff. And there's a mystique about being involved in a movie. Some of them came to the set. There's a social capital component to it. They get to eventually get on, they'll get to have viewing parties with their friends and say, hey, I was an exec producer on that movie or I put money into it. That's amazing. That's a kick, that's good. It is. The social capital piece is real. Okay, and so then you guys wrap the movie. Marketing, how do you get the word out about the movie? How do you do that? That's probably the hardest part. That's the hardest part. Because there's so much content. After raising the money, which is the hardest part. There's no blueprint script. There's no blueprint. Okay. You hire a sales agent and you try to get them to try to sell the movie on its own merits. So before I can even try to get it on social media and try to talk to anyone about publicizing it on behalf of the two of us or the Cowboy Drifter team, we have to find a sales group that'll try to get out there and hoof it and try to get this in front of as many distribution companies as possible. Okay. And luckily we've come to the point where we've gotten in front of three and they've all said yes and getting it on Amazon is fantastic. And Peacock is great and there's thousands of movies on Tubi, everybody goes to Tubi to look for films they can't see on other streaming services. So the platforms themselves are, you know, we're pretty lucky. And are you always selling in a sense? Like are you just constantly going back to them saying like, hey, you should have this or like, what metrics do they look at? Or is it just based on? They have their own metrics. So it's up to them. You show them your product, they may or may not have a need for it. This is a serious drama. It's pretty heavy. Do they have too many dramas already? Are they looking for more romantic companies or what? So it's a miserable process trying to sell it. When you know you have a good product, you should be buying this product. I mean, it's not like if I wanted to make like a soft drink and if it tasted good and if the packaging was kind of cool and if I had the right marketing, it works. But a movie, you don't really know. I mean, we could have the right marketing. It could be a great movie, which, you know, let's say this one is for sake of argument and you still, it may not work. In the world you live in, so in like the retailer space. And no, I just mean like in the TV world. In the retail space, retailers look at the data and they say it looks like people are looking for a better for you ice cream based on what we know. And so a retailer may approach entrepreneur or a company to make that product. Is that how, is the TV world like that? Where they go, okay, we have a sense that people like crime, I don't know. Right. I mean, there are certain genres that always sell. Crime is one, I think medical shows go in and out but they're pretty. Legal shows. Vampire, things usually go in and out. So yes, yes that is. Because in my head I went to, what about Yellowstone? Yellowstone is such a banger of a hit, right? It's got some cowboy element to it. Is this a world where plug and play? It seems like an easy sell. That's just me, thinking about it right now. I think that's quite possible. I mean Yellowstone has brought the cowboy back, the cowboy, you know, the dramas. So perhaps, you know, on the other side of the table they're going, yeah, we need more films like Yellowstone. Yeah, because there's data now to suggest that there's a lot more data. Crushing. But then on the other side of that, some people are like, oh it's just a copy of Yellowstone. And then that's a negative. All of the truth of the matter is, Cowboy Drifter, you know, Caskey Jones is neither a cowboy nor is he a drifter. Yeah, can you talk about other names that you considered for the movie? I've found, at least for me, when I write a script either the title comes right away, you know, exactly what it's gonna be. Or you write the script and it'll come at some point. So Cowboy Drifter, the film comes into the latter category. It came at some point. And that's when, you know, I said, I mentioned Hank Williams Sr. I was a fan of his music and his story, his life. The name of Hank Williams Sr.'s backup band was called the Cowboy Drifting Band. And once I read that, I said, this is it. I'm just gonna make it concise, Cowboy Drifter. And at first I had the Cowboy Drifter and I gave the script to a friend. It was much like Facebook. You know, when Zuckerberg first came out with Facebook it was the Facebook. I gave it to a friend of mine. His only note was, take out the the. Just make it Cowboy Drifter. And it's just, it's a great title. And I actually make fun of that he's a Cowboy in the film. The person he meets along his journey, she keeps calling him Cowboy. And he keeps saying, I'm not a Cowboy. Don't call me that. That's right. Yeah, so. Do you guys have a favorite scene? Favorite scene. I'm not ever good on the favorite thing. Like favorite color, favorite scene. Or how about where there's a story? Like something stands out, something didn't go right, something went wrong, you had to figure it out. The fire one's interesting, right? This is a five hour podcast. I can easily talk about what went wrong every single day. Give people a small window into things that aren't going smoothly. It's tough. Let's just say that things went wrong every day and we solve them. Every day's an adventure. Actually the best, kind of the best, the one we can talk about the most is on day five at lunch there was the crew went out on strike. Cause they had signed up, they had all, it was originally a non-union show. This producer who shall go nameless however he is in the credits if anyone wants to look at his name decided to play hardball with the union. He was given misinformation about a right to work state and the crew, the union came to try to, what's it called? Sign everyone up, there's a word for it, but they ended up signing up and the producer decided, you know, screw the union. Oh my God. And which I kept saying, this is not a good idea because the IA, which is a big, you know, it's a big international or a big union and you really should make a deal with them. It's, you're not gonna win a war with them. So on day five at lunch, we had 18 days, which is why I say we had 17 and a half because on day five at lunch, the crew left on strike. Someone from the union literally comes to the set and whistles and ushers everyone off the set. So we're having lunch with the cinematographer Jules Abarth. He's literally sitting across where you are now and he saw and he heard the whistle and he put his tray down and he got up and he walked out. Not a word spoken. What? So we had to negotiate. Not only did we have to negotiate, but we also had to load all the equipment into the back end of the trucks because they literally walked off without, yeah. Day five, Jules was about to fly back to LA. So what is this negotiation like? It's pretty short. Yeah. They slip you a piece of paper and they say this is what we want and you read it, you scribble back and then you agree. And what's on it? Give people a window onto things on this list. Is it like bathroom breaks? It's a short window with only a dollar sign on it. And they said they take the money and put it in their pension fund, which is fantastic. I hope they use it well. So you have to do it. In New Mexico, we did. So part of our budget was spent on. You're being shaken. Getting the crew back. Shaken down, as they say. Yeah. Depending on who you talk to. Depends on who you talk to. And then everyone, okay. So you have a bunch of people who defect. I would take that personally. The union, that's what they have to do. Then they come back. Right. And it's all kumbaya? Absolutely. And they were so happy. I mean, to come back. To come back and also to be in the union. But the New Yorker and you wants to kill them. Come on. The upside was correct. The upside, I think in the end, some of the non-union people that worked in our crew became union. Yeah. And they have some really great career. Better benefits. Got it, got it. So it worked out for the best. And it worked out. So it was for the best. I did have to rewrite part of the script based on losing that half a day. But you know, that's part of the job. We took out one thing which wasn't really in it. We made it work. That's insane. We made it work. That sounds so crazy. It was crazy. From an entrepreneur perspective. It was crazy. Can I talk about the, it wasn't quite as easy as that. There was a meeting on Saturday. This was on a Friday. So then Saturday we had a meeting at the production office. And the producer, it was an 11 o'clock meeting. I came into the office at 10.30 because I always get there half hour early. Yeah, humble brain. And then 11.05, I look at my watch and no one's called me into the meeting. So I go to the production coordinator. I say, is the meeting started? Oh yeah, they started at 11. I went, hmm. Okay. So I think they didn't want me in the meeting. You know, the producer didn't want me. This was a different producer entirely. I just wanted that. No, not Chuck. What's called the line producer. The line producer. Wow. So I go in, I say, hey, you know, I decide, okay, I'm not gonna say what, you know why. So I just go and sit down. What's going on? So we've decided we're gonna, this is the producer, the other producer, not the Chuck. Chuck was sort of observing. And I think I know where he would have eventually come down because he did eventually. So he says, we've decided we're gonna go non-union. Screw the union. We're gonna go non-union. So I said, I don't think that's a very good idea because already the crew is not very good. And now we're gonna get worse people and we're gonna be picketed and we're gonna not get permits and the police are gonna, the teams through, you know, the drivers are gonna pick at us. And then he said, well, we'll just keep the call sheet secret. He literally said that. I went, I laughed because, you know, right, we're gonna keep the call sheet secret. So I said, well, here's the thing. I did this because it's an amazing script and I think we can have a beautiful movie out of it. Obviously I didn't do it for the money because what I make in two days shooting is what I'm making on this. I'm exaggerating somewhat, but, well, when you count residuals, bro. Anyway, so I said, so I am not interested. So not only are you gonna have to find a new crew, you're gonna probably have to find a new director. So then I asked what was the amount of money that was gonna take to make it work with the union. And they told me, and I said, so for that amount of money, like we're gonna shut down for two weeks in order to find a whole new crew, a significantly worse movie. Got it, got it. And I think just pay the money. Got it. And when that happens, do you have to pay it immediately or how does that work? Yeah, you pay it immediately. We were lucky it was a Friday, not a Tuesday. That's right. Because we didn't have the weekend to at least discuss amongst ourselves. So that was nice. But it was, it was literally, it was every day something came up, but you know, you're used to it. Your working day never starts and it never ends. It's a normal process. And when you build a house, isn't it the same thing? Every day something goes wrong? Yeah, so in development, in real estate development, yeah, for sure, when things go wrong. I mean, when you don't get a call, something is not working well, you're worried. Right. I'll put it to you like that. And so problems become opportunities that you expect them. Same thing with us. That problem though of someone shut, like people walking off. I don't think I'll ever deal with that. Right. Hope not. Yeah, I hope not either. That's pretty well. I think to be like, I think Chuck would probably agree with this too. There's a part of me, anyway, I'm not gonna speak for Chuck, that when things go that wrong, I like it. Because it forces me to really come up with my problem solving. It like makes me notch my problem solving up to 12. Totally, totally. I don't like it because I'm in charge of the whole process and like it. Yeah, if it could go wrong to the point where we're gonna get shut down completely, it's obviously I'm the one who loses the most. That's a great story though. I appreciate you sharing that. When it comes to film festivals, awards, how does that whole game work? Yeah, we've done a few film festivals. It's great. We did a couple in New Mexico, we went to Chicago, we did one in Marina del Rey. It's just nice for the exposure to get the film out, get the people to. And do you have to pay to be at those? No. No, no, no. You get invited? You get invited. Yeah, they have to screen the film and decide whether or not they want us. We've been pretty lucky. There's one in Park City, you talk, right? I've heard about the one in Park City. That's where they shoot Yellowstone also. What's that called? All these sundowns, sundowns, sun, wait, no, the dance, dancing in the sun. Sundowns is kind of going in different direction in terms of what they want for films and Cowboy Drifter, redemption piece. I thought that would have been perfect. You would think it would have been like 15 years ago. Probably not now. That's a bummer. I asked initially, how do you determine when you make a film, for what audience you make a film, that sort of thing. I didn't exactly make this film at the right time in history. There's so many, there's a wider array of films being made now than there used to be. And this kind of redemption piece film used to fit into a little box and people really loved the box, what was inside the box. And then things sort of changed and there was, for a good way. You could see whatever you want now. But to your point, I think when Yellowstone came back, people realized that, oh yeah, these kind of Western guy trying to do the best he can for his family sort of thing. These films, let's not forget about these because there's a reason people enjoy them in the first place. And for me, my hero is Paul Newman. Every Paul Newman film more or less was about redemption. It was about, can this guy overcome these obstacles in order to get his character or to get to a certain place in his life. And those were the films that inspired me. So I wanted to, at Cowboy Drifter, sort of as a throwback film to some of the old Paul Newman films. And we discussed that when we were prepping the movie. That was sort of the feel that we wanted to go for. It was certainly a part of my writing. I felt that way. It hits, always the back of my head. What are your greatest desires for this? Like what do you want people to take away from both this interview but also from what you guys created? I want people to see it, first of all. You talk about startup to storefront. We're at the point now, we're at storefront with this project. And for the amount of money, the little amount of money we spent, what we were able to do with this film, who we were able to, luckily to get, to be in the film, to be working on the film, we couldn't be more proud. So first and foremost, we want eyeballs on the film. And if they like the film, they don't like the films totally up to them. I mean, our job is done. So you want people to watch and we like the greatest, widest audience possible. And I've been, we did these film festivals, like you mentioned, and I had women from France come up to me and want to talk to me about the film. I had young kids, I had older adults. I was amazed that it sort of struck people differently but all walks of life. And that really made me happy. As we embark on the social media campaign for this, I'm excited to see what that does because it's been able to change businesses. It's been able to change people's lives. We've had a number of these people on our podcast with TikTok and the Instagram. So it'll be really interesting to see what happens. This is a very niche kind of film too. So it's not easy to market. It's almost a good thing though. It's like own your niche, plant your flag. And I think the film makes it easy in terms of owning the niche. Yeah, because there's nothing people could say, oh, this is just like per se, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's not today, not on TikTok. If the film does really well, I might grow the beard out again. Just in a month. How long did it take you to grow? Six months. Six months. He didn't shave for six months. He didn't shave one time. I scared more people walking around the streets of Hollywood than you could ever imagine. So the union comes to shake you down and you're looking with that crazy beard. Yeah. They're not scared of you. They're like, sign this check. Yeah. I felt powerless, but we did what we had to do. And they did too. Yeah. It is where it is. Yeah. When did you finish shooting the movie? We finished before COVID. Yeah, before COVID. Yeah, a year before COVID. We kept it on the shelf for a while too. Yeah. I mean, we had to. Go check out the trailer on Amazon. Yeah, check out the trailer. Absolutely. It's a great film. It's a great film. Believe me, I have a good perspective on my work. I've done a bunch of stuff that's not so great. I'm so proud of this movie. I can't say enough how proud of it I am. Every aspect. It's a great movie. I love the cinematography. The story's amazing. The music's amazing. It checks a lot of boxes. Kudos to you guys for putting this together. Kudos to you, Chuck. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, share with your friends, your family, or anyone you might think might benefit from the conversation we've had today. And if you haven't already, please take a moment to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. We'd greatly appreciate it. Your feedback helps us improve and reach more people who can benefit from our discussions. The best way to stay connected with us and get the latest updates on future episodes is through our social media channels. You can find us at Startup & Storefront. We'll be back next Tuesday with another great episode. See you then.