August 26, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode, we welcome Jason Love, a multi-talented creator whose filmmaking journey began with nothing more than flip books and a VHS camcorder. What started as playful experiments soon grew into a lifelong passion for animation, short films, and motion comics. Jason’s path is far from traditional—after leaving film school frustrated by outdated equipment, he turned instead to digital tools, teaching himself and later teaching others how to create stories with whatever resources they had. From library workshops to YouTube uploads, his philosophy has always been rooted in accessibility, showing that filmmaking is not about expensive cameras but about imagination and persistence. Beyond his teaching and experiments, Jason’s filmmaking ventures have stretched into comics, hybrid projects, and even television appearances. His Kickstarter campaign for an online animation course revealed his belief in breaking down barriers for aspiring creators, offering entry points as low as one dollar to make animation available to everyone. Jason’s story is a reminder that filmmaking thrives on curiosity, courage, and the willingness to start small, whether through a three-second animation, a motion comic, or a daring performance on national TV.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the INDIEILM Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight seventeen,
Cinema Should Make You Forget. You're sitting in a theater,
Roman Polanski.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
the film biz.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
episode of the Indie Film Huscle podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I am your humble.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory
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With case studies examining successes and failures. This book shows
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(01:42):
want to order it, just head over to www dot
filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy
today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And so On this week's episode, I Have Jason Love.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Jason is an animator, webinar designer, balloon twister, magician, writer,
artist and educator, and he's also self published comics, Pretty
Sure Films, own a screen bringing business, and even.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Performed on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
So here we go Episode eighty five with guests Jason Love.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
You're listening to the day, Jason, how's everything going?
Speaker 6 (02:40):
That's going great. I'm I'm excited to be on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Oh thank you. By the way, that's an awesome name
to have.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It reminds me of Buddy Love from mod Night Professor.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
Oh yeah, there's actually quite a few Jason Loves.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
That's the only downside to having that name, because somebody
else got the url before I.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
You know, I actually know a guy named Lance Love,
and the first time I ever met him, I was like,
that has to be a fake name, and he said no,
He's like, I've had this name since birth.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
Yeah, every once in a while, people, yeah, they get
excited about it.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
So yeah, it's cool name to have. I like it.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So Jason, you know, I wanted to answer, you know,
you you started an animation, and I wanted to answer,
you know what got you started to, you know, animating,
at a young age.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Sure, I started animating.
Speaker 7 (03:26):
Let's see how well I'm trying to think of early
like I was really into flip books. I guess flip
books would have been like the earliest earliest animation, but
I didn't actually get into playing around with it till college,
and it's.
Speaker 6 (03:38):
Hard to say I would.
Speaker 7 (03:39):
One of the influence would be is seeing Wallace and Grommitt,
which I watched quite a bit in high school, and
realizing that my drawing skills didn't have to be you know,
you'd see some the Disney animation stuff and you see
the drawing and you're just like, there's no way, there's
no way I'm going to be able to do that.
And then when Wallace and Grommitt came out, I thought, oh, man,
that's I mean, I don't think I necessarily especially the
(04:02):
first one I would say is the most influential, because
it's like not perfect, but it's still a great story.
And it made me realize, oh, you don't have to
be Animation isn't just drawing, it's it's all these other forms.
And so in college I started off with the old
VHS camcorder that was like a giant now it's probably
the size of a Blu ray player, and the first
(04:24):
one I ever did. It would just spend time laps,
time laps of me drawing something, and so I would
draw a little bit, I would hit the record button,
turn the camera off, draw a little more, you know,
and then hit record, hit turned it off. And it
was very unscientific in the sense of like how long
each frame was, but that was the first and then
college college computer lab. I was playing around and I
(04:47):
realized they had Windows movie Maker, and I didn't know
anything really about it, and I don't even remember how
I started playing with it. I think I just thought, hey,
if I can do this on a VHS, I should
be able to do this somehow with this program, even
if it that same logic of like cutting it so
it's you know, basically a clip for a quarter of
a second or whatever. And then I realized with that program,
(05:10):
I think at that time, you could get it down
to zero point eight seconds or no point maybe it
was point three. Anyways, you could get it down to
almost what they would call in animation thirds, which is
like normally twenty four frames a second, but this would
be eight frames, yeah, eight frames per second and so,
which is good enough to create animation, and in fact,
(05:31):
a lot of Wallace and Gromen it depending on what
you're doing, I mean, some of that has shut it
at eight frames a second, depending on how much detail and.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
Whatnot you want in the movement.
Speaker 7 (05:40):
So and then from there I just kept playing around
with it, and you know, went to film school for
a little while and I ended up dropping out because
they were still using traditional film and I was just
I really hated traditional film every and part of it
was because you know, it was a community.
Speaker 6 (05:57):
You know.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
I went to school specifically to use their equipment, and
they had old Bulls Bullocks cameras eight millimeter. I believe
I'd have to look camera if it's eight or sixteen,
but I believe it's maybe it's sixteen. Anyways, So shooting
on actual film, but these cameras, you know, are getting
beat up by other students.
Speaker 6 (06:14):
So I don't think.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
I think I only had maybe a few seconds that
ever got out without being washed out by light or
because the camera's leaked light or things like that.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
So so then I ended.
Speaker 7 (06:25):
Up just dropping out, and instead of learning, I started
teaching animation to at local libraries and things like that.
So I guess it's a long answer to my road
and animation.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
No, but you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
You know, I've seen you know, universities, and I mean
I work at university too during the day, and I see,
you know, the the equipment does just take a beating,
and you know I work, I mean, I'm in Philadelphia.
We have about three or four of big universities, and
out of those, you know, there's you know, film majors,
and it's interesting to see, you know, you know, different
(07:01):
gear and you know who has a certain amount of gear,
who has you know, this gear, who has to go
to rental houses. But that's the common thing, though, is
gear takes a freaking beating sometimes.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
And I mean another thing I always point out is
just the film itself to buy two minutes, I believe
it was about two minutes. It was two hundred feet
so whatever that I'd have to do the math on
that two hundred feet of film was like twenty bucks
or something, and so you could get a few minutes
out of that.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
And when I.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
Was looking at digital and digital was popping up at
the time, it was just the school I was at,
which was UW Milwaukee, they were a little bit slow
on jumping on that bandwigon and I think they were
really holding on to film.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
I'm not sure what their logic was.
Speaker 7 (07:43):
Maybe they just didn't want to buy the new equipment
or maybe the new students to have it it. Yeah,
it was just so expensive and it's like I can
I can shoot as much as I want on digital,
and you know, I might want to get more storage
or buy a better camera. But it never there's that's
never the issue of paying per per second or per
(08:04):
foot of film isn't an issue with digital.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
So yeah, you know, I was thinking about buying a
Super eight camera and there's a ton of mone sale
on eBay.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Well, they're going for dirt cheap.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
What's expensive is the Super eight film that you have
to put in the camera, and you know it's going
for like a tin of it is like fifty bucks.
And this one guy had a lot for like five hundred,
and you get a couple of them, and I'm saying
to myself, you know, my android has a Super eights
app now that I started playing around with, and you
know it's getting pretty close.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
Right Yeah, And it depends too on It's funny.
Speaker 7 (08:41):
I can't remember the name of the guy, but the
guy who did Grindhouse with Tarantino, Robertdriguez.
Speaker 6 (08:47):
Yeah, I heard.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
An interview with him and he was saying how Tarantino
was like, I'm going to use film and then Rodriguez
used digital and it was easier for Rodriguez to get
the film look than it was for Tarantino, because, like
Tarantino is looking for that old film look, and if
you have a new film, it takes a lot of
work to really get it to that level, like it's
(09:09):
you know, literally being used, and so you can almost
make it easy. It's almost easier to do in digital then,
depending on what kind of look you want, just because yeah,
all those filters and and you can be very deliberate
on the effects you want.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
So yes, I remember reading a review an interview with Terenceino,
and he had to go through and put all those
scratches in himself because he, you know, he wanted it
to look like a grind house, like a weathered film look,
you know, and that like it has just been beaten
up as it's been going to theater to theater to theater,
and of course there's missing frames and all those touches.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
But that's what he had to do. He had to
go through and put in.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
All these scratches and all this other stuff and some
noise and stuff just to give it that aesthetic.
Speaker 6 (09:49):
Right.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Did you started teaching animation at you know, at libraries,
so you know, how did you approach that? Did you
you know, go there and and actually work with the
librarianes and say, hey, I want to start an animation class.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 6 (10:11):
Sort of.
Speaker 7 (10:11):
I've been doing magic for I had started doing magic
before I started teaching at the libraries, and I right
after college, I became a full time magician, and the animation.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
Was a hobby. And it's still questionable.
Speaker 7 (10:26):
I guess I make money from animation, but I you know,
it's not like my full time income. But I won't
even say it's just established a relationship. I basically just
emailed a bunch. I got a list off of the
Internet of all the libraries and just said, hey, I'm
doing this animation workshop. It teaches kids how to do
animation at home. At the time, I was calling a
cheap animator, which I don't call it that anymore. I
don't think they like that name, but they yeah. And
(10:49):
then then the librarians they need to fill up their summers.
Summer is usually busy time if I want to do
animation workshops or like, I have one coming up that's
in December because it's Christmas break, but most of them
have been most of them are summertime, and so yeah,
they they just be like, yeah, you know, bring me in,
and I do it mostly in Wisconsin. I can't think
(11:10):
of any too many that I've done. I've done magic
shows all over, but I haven't quite I haven't promoted
as much out of Wisconsin. But I mean there's so
many libraries that if I recommend that to most artists
to contact, libraries are a good place to contact if
you're looking to make a few extra bucks doing teaching
any kind of art format. You know, it helps if
(11:31):
it's something that kids can do. Although I have done
older you know, mine are always teens, and I've done
some adult stuff, but most of the libraries are looking
for you know, mostly kid oriented. But I've also done
like art museums. I've done a few of those, and
those are more looking for adult stuff. So yeah, the
(11:52):
libraries was just an easy choice because I had a
little bit of a relationship with them and had all
their contact info.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Yeah, you know, of mind, he actually pitched a screenwrining
course to a local library.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
It's his local library, and they ended up.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Saying, you know, we'll let me, we'll get back to you,
and then they ended up actually getting back to them.
He thought they were blowing them off, but they came
back and said, yeah, would you mind teaching a screen running.
You know, it started off as as just a one
off like seminar for like, you know, an hour or two,
and then it became, you know, started becoming more and more.
And I mean that worked out pretty well because he
pitched it as, hey, look, you know it's it's writing
(12:28):
and we're in a library, so it does tie in together.
And they gave him a little a little room off
to the side.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And you know, it worked out pretty well.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
But so, you know, that's a pretty good tip though,
is to you know, libraries. Can you know, if you
have a library in your area, that can be you know,
worked out pretty well if you you know, pitch them
right and uh, you know, pitching the right the right
project at the right time.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (12:48):
I think a big part is just making it sound like,
you know, like you have if it's your first one,
making it sound like you actually have it planned out.
You know, when I sent out my stuff, I said
specifically what they had learned. And I mean even now
I switch it up depending on the mostly on the
students just because I have enough experience that but as
long as they have the feeling that you have an
(13:09):
outline of what you're going to do, and then you
send it to them and say, this is the outline
right now.
Speaker 6 (13:12):
What I tend to do.
Speaker 7 (13:13):
If I haven't really promoted it much lately, but I
might start again for the summer is I'll say, first
of I'll ask their interest, and then they'll usually say
they want more info. And that's when you give them
the big spiel. I feel like sending out like a
big spiel to can be overwhelming to library, and so
it's easier to say, you know, hey, is this something
you're interested in. I'll send you more information. They'll email
me back, and then I'll say, okay, here's the outline.
(13:35):
Here's the I don't like to have a class more
than twenty five students. You know, here's the requirements. Blah
blah blah. And then they see that I have these
requirements and it makes them realize, oh, this guy's done
this before. He knows what he's doing. So it's just
a trick for someone, even if it's the first time.
Just have that thought up front so that when they
email you back, it sounds like you know what you're
doing because you have your requirements and you're like I
(13:57):
usually like to have a projector so I say that
you know, it's the quiet, it's not required, but it's
nice blah blah blah.
Speaker 6 (14:02):
And yeah, it just makes it look a little more professional.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
That's very cool.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
And you know that that's that is a really excellent
tip about pitching too, because I think that works in
other other areas as well, because you know, when I've
I've gone to pitch events and I've seen also you know,
the the and and going into discussions about the you know,
the the elevator pitches. You know, I've always been told
if you do have something to show, it might be
(14:28):
it's actually a little better than if you just actually
talk to them and and you know what I mean,
like it if you can actually show like even a one.
Speaker 7 (14:35):
Sheet right right, And I do that with the libraries
now as I can show them past student work and
things like that, and so, but yeah, it's definitely good
to have. If you have something, it's always better because
it's physical confirmation.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
As you talked these animation courses, you know, when did
you get in to start making short films?
Speaker 7 (14:56):
I would just say kind of along the along the way,
I mean the first first video I did was in college,
and I had the mindset of I wanted to become
a professional magician. And the first video I ever made
was basically a weird animated promo video for my magic show,
just because I thought it'd be weird, and most magicians don't,
(15:18):
I don't know. For some reason, I loved animation anyway,
so it was kind of like, well, I'll have this
unusual thing and then I could play it before.
Speaker 6 (15:25):
Shows, and we did a little I did a little bit.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
I used to work with another entertainer at the time,
and so in that that whole video actually funny enough
is I used Photoshop, But I mean photoshop now has
an animation feature somehow, I haven't done it in a while,
but I know you can do animation with Photoshop.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
But I would literally had the layers and I would literally.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
Save a photo, change you know, change my arm, save
the photo. So I that was I guess the start.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I already forgot the question when did you get into
short films?
Speaker 7 (15:56):
Oh yeah, okay, So I would say, I guess, in
theory that would be the short film. And then I
think the next short film would have been years later,
and it was I wanted to learn flash. So it
was one of those things where I'm like, Okay, I'm
gonna literally teach myself Flash while making this short film.
And that one was It's called Hillary's Adventures in Politics,
(16:18):
and I was hoping to get it done like super
fast because it was the time when Hillary was going
to be she was working for the primary, you know,
trying to get the primaries with Obama, which would have
been you know, like eight years ago, and I thought
I would have it done for sure by the time
anything happened, and it took me forever. So it was
it was definitely a learning experience. It ended up being
(16:41):
like it was over five minutes.
Speaker 6 (16:43):
I can't remember the total, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
And ever since then, it's just been stuff like that
where I get an idea and I'm kind of like,
I'm gonna make a you know, I'm gonna give this
a try, or if I'm learning a new program. So
like another one I did was with I was working
on my comic book and I wanted a motion comic,
so I decided to kind of make a short film
that was motion. You know, it wasn't perfect animation, it
was simplified animation and yeah, just I get random, I guess,
(17:11):
and it ended up getting stuck into them. Is the
long term project.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
So is there any place online where people can check
out some of your short films?
Speaker 7 (17:20):
Yeah, I think both. I think most of those are
if you go if you just go to YouTube and
search admin of Magic. I believe it's under that channel.
I have like three or four different channels, and I
lose track of them. I think that one has those.
Most of my other ones before that were before film school,
(17:40):
are you know, locked away somewhere so you can't see those,
But you can see the Hillary wan for sure. And
I think the the first one I made is somewhere
looming on YouTube, but I'd have to look that up.
But the Hillary one's definitely on there. If you look
up Hillary's Adventures and politics, that should come up.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Cool, and I'll look for that and put that in
the show notes for you know, anyone who's interested. So,
you know, you mentioned comics as well, and you know,
so you know, when did you start developing your own comics,
And also want to ask, you know, did you actually
animate your own comics from the beginning, or like like
animate them yourself, or did you have sort of farm
that out.
Speaker 7 (18:19):
You mean for the motion comic. Yeah, yeah, no, I
did it all myself. I my wife does all the illustrations.
So I did the animation and those were I did
them relatively quick, but they were a bit tedious because
I was using a mix between Flash and Premiere and
on CS three and so it worked, but I was
(18:42):
having issues with Flash not being able to handle that much.
You know, they were drawn an illustrator. I'd bring them
over to Flash and then Flash, and I think it's
just my computer was having a hard time doing anything
longer than you know, ten to twenty seconds. So then
I would cut those out into shorter pieces and put
them together and for me, and then sometimes do use
(19:02):
some of the camera movements in Premiere. But yeah, that
the movements were more me and actually the illustrations were
i'd say ninety percent my wife doing that.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
So so, now when you did your comics, did you know,
did you you know, put them online or you know,
just just to show to sort of make a portfolio,
we put them online topes of getting out the work
or you know sort of that was the goal of
these or would you have another goal in mind?
Speaker 7 (19:30):
So the comic book that's a it's actually goes back
to the animation I ended up making. Uh So the
comic book's called mad Men of Magic, and it was
an idea that I came up with. So I used
to perform as the mad Man of Magic, and I thought,
you know what, it'd be fun to make a comic book.
And then I had come up with this idea, and
I was actually going to coffee with some friends who
(19:53):
are really big comic book nerds like I, you know, know.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
A little bit, but these people like they their go nuts.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So I we'll be right back after a word from
our sponsor, and now back to the show.
Speaker 7 (20:10):
I brought on some of the concept drawings that I
had and just asked them. I said, hey, this is
the idea.
Speaker 6 (20:15):
You know.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
I was kind of just as a fun project. I
was coming up with these ideas.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
What do you think? And they thought it was a
cool idea.
Speaker 7 (20:21):
So then my logic behind making the character a magician
was worst case scenario, if this book doesn't sell, I'll
make it. I'll use it for my promotional material, kind
of like that first animated project. So almost make it
made its fail safe for if it if it didn't
do well, and so I ended up doing the motion
comic just because I wanted to do a Kickstarter for it,
(20:43):
and I knew I needed a video and I liked animation,
and I liked like motion comics. I know some people
hate motion comics, but I find them interesting and some
are better than others, like anything, and so so yeah,
I animated it after we were already working on the
as a comic book.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
What software did you used to animate that?
Speaker 7 (21:06):
A mix between the Flash Premiere and kind of making
the cutouts and illustrator or you know, the the images
an illustrator that had the separate you know, assets. So
that was a cool part about using illustrator I hadn't
quite thought up before. It was like if my wife
drew a hand, I would tell her, hey, can you
make sure that the fingers aren't different layers?
Speaker 6 (21:26):
These pieces are different layers.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
And so it almost became out like cutout animation because
I had all these when I threw it in a flash,
Flash could separate all those instead of having to you know,
literally cut them out in the program. So yeah, and
then I then used Premiere to kind of put all
those pieces together and do some of the A few
of the effects were done in premiere.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Yeah, you know, you and I were talking before the
show about you know, all the about the Adobe be
Creative Suite and you know, all the things you can
actually do with that, and it's just absolutely amazing. I've
gotten into, you know, comic books and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Now.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I'm not an illustrator by any means. I just write
the scripts and sort of pass them on to the
illustrator who draws them up. But one thing I've learned
also is about all the layers that go into them.
And when you know, when the illustrator comes back to me,
it says, hey, Dave, what do you think of this?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I can say, well could you add this? And she,
you know, I can see.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Her scream when she's adding these layers on, you know,
like adding a hat on or doing something different. I mean,
it's it's absolutely phenomenal, you know, being able to add
those layers and then if want I'm gone. It's a
click of a button and the layer's gone.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's uh.
Speaker 7 (22:33):
I play around with this stuff, and my wife's really
the illustrator person. I'm more of a photoshop guy. Like
I like photoshop, but in that you have layers too,
but yeah, illustrator is amazing just in the sense that
you the way to tweak things or even Flash. Sometimes
I'll draw some of my just sort of goof around
comics have done in Flash because you don't have to
(22:54):
literally draw, you can you can tweak those little points
you can, you know, and then it's like, oh, got
these layers and get rid of this and then undo.
It's just amazing with the different programs.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
One of the things I was told at the beginning
with Adobe programs is the strength, the biggest strength is
also the biggest weakness, and that is there's more than
one way to do things in Adobe programs. So because
I mean I've seen it too, you know, I've gone
to different you know, seminars, and the way one person
does it in the way another person does are completely different.
And is anybody is anybody really doing it the quote
(23:29):
unquote best way?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Well, who knows? Right?
Speaker 6 (23:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (23:33):
I went to I used to belong to the Milwaukee
well I still do these don't have meetings Milwaukee Animation
Club and there was a guy doing a presentation on
Flash and he was the way he did did lip
sync was very strange where he had he had it
as like one asset and they had all the different
frames and basically he would It was very weird and
(23:53):
I don't even know if I could reproduce it. And
I wanted to be like, why do you do it
that way? But I didn't want to ask you ever
want to ask it just that because I'm just like, wow,
that seems like more work, Like you could just do
it way simpler. There is a few benefits, but to
what guess the way he did now they think about it.
But yeah, it's interesting how each artist kind of figures
(24:13):
out their own own way of doing things.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Yeah, I've learned that, especially too. When I took a
seminar with the editor. He's an editor at SNL. He
just you know, was going about you know, he said, listen,
we're not going to talk about which is better, you know,
Windows or Mac. We're not going to talk about which
is better Adobe or Avid. He's like, if whatever works
for you works for you, and just do the best
work he can, and.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
We're just going to leave it at that.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
But he but having said that, we did learn on
a tophy though, so you know, but it was you
know that seminar, by the way, was absolutely excellent, and
I have to get him on the show as we
talk about, you know, different seminars and stuff like that.
You know, you actually launched a kickstarter last year in
November twenty fourteen. Could you take us through you know
where the impetus were too care This kicksort of came.
Speaker 7 (25:01):
From sure, trying to think of like the very beginning
of it. That's a hard one.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
I think it was. I'd been doing these workshops for
five six.
Speaker 7 (25:10):
Years, the animation workshops, and I had decided that just
to make a product out of it, and I wish
I could remember. I don't remember if I had in
a great story like the other one, even you know,
even like the Madman of Magic. I at least met
somebody for coffee. I think it was just I don't
think anyone mentioned it. I think I was just looking
for something to sell digitally, to do a digital product
(25:33):
that can sell through my website. And I had some
friends who had have been doing digital products, and I thought,
you know, what skills do I had? And I thought
about doing like a plut and twisting tutorial. I thought
about doing a few other things, and I said, well,
why don't I just take my workshop and turn that
into a digital course. And so yeah, I just started
(25:54):
with that and then put the time into it, and
it was successful, and I'm a bit behind I'm getting
out the deliverables. But part of that is it's expanded
as I've done it. You know, Originally I thought, oh,
I could just videotape my workshop, and as I've been
delivering stuff, I realized I want to go, you know,
here's an opportunity to actually get in depth and to
(26:15):
do some new animation. So each each lesson has been
has its own original animation, and so that all those
things have been adding up time wise more than I expected.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
And so well, actually, the.
Speaker 7 (26:28):
The timeline we have now is to launch it to
the general public doing like probably a discount. Is that
is Cyber Monday. So that's the thirtieth I believe we will.
We'll have a where other people can buy it other
than you know, the Kickstarter people, and the Kickstarter people
will have all their stuff, you know, slightly before then.
So yeah, I guess that's the that's kind of a
(26:50):
roundabout story I guess of how that got started.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Well, you know, I was actually one of those Kickstarter
of people. And one of the most tractive things about
your campaign was you started at one dollar. However, you
got the Basic Home Animation Handbook for you know, the
digital copy as a PDF.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
For one dollar.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
I think that is an amazing way to open up
a crowdfundy campaign because to me, you want to get
people in because everyone can.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Everyone can spend a dollar.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
I'm pretty much sure we can all agree that a
dollar is not asking people too much. So if I
you know, if you know, you started a dollar, I
think that really opens up and you can sort of
parlay that and people can.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Say, all right, so what's the next level? Five?
Speaker 5 (27:38):
Now?
Speaker 4 (27:39):
But yours was eight, and you know, yours went from
one dollar all the way up to twenty three hundred
dollars for perks, you know, at the different and the
perk structures.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So you know, did you.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Plan that accordingly so that you know, hey, I want
to make sure everyone can get a piece of this.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
That's why you priced the handbook the pdf at a dollar.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
I did, and it didn't work out quite as good
as I would. I mean, I think the campaign was well,
went well, but I was hoping to make it almost
like a like a news story where it'd be like,
you know, you literally, I mean, there's very little you
can get for.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
A dollar a dollar.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
So I'm happy with the campaign overall, but I was
kind of thought, to me, the goal was to get more.
It wasn't about making a lot of money. It was
to try to get as many people in because again,
I've taught animation to hundreds of of mostly kids, but
hundred of hundreds of people, and so the idea of yeah,
(28:35):
like basically saying there is no barrier to buy this,
and it worked out, Okay, we got you know, over
we got several hundred people who signed up. Again, I
kind of would hope that that more people. And then
again not for the money, but for the fact that
I am really passionate about animation and the idea of
(28:55):
all these people being able to make animated videos from
home was exciting. So again, very happy with the campaign,
but it was kind of surprised more people didn't jump
on the dollar the dollar thing, because I mean, even if.
Speaker 6 (29:08):
You're kind of like, well, do I want to learn animation,
I don't know.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
It's like, well, it's a dollar, just bay the dollar,
and you know, if I could have learned animation for
a dollar when I was tinkering around in my in
my college dorm room. Man, that would have saved me
a lot of time. So but yeah, that was Yeah,
the original thought was I really wanted to get people
excited about animation.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
So and you know, that's that's a good point, is
you know, even if they don't want to learn, you know,
they could say, wait a minute, do I want to learn?
You know, maybe I don't, but hey, listen, it's a dollar,
so who do you know? What is it gonna matter
in the end. And you know, there's a great article
if I've once read, and now I'll link to it again.
It's called everything is Sales. And I know some of
the listeners this podcast heard me talk about it before,
(29:53):
but to me, when you're when you're launching a crowd
front a campaign.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
And now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
First off, it's a full time job, as I'm sure
you know, Jason, So you're always emailing talking to people
about it, and it's sort of you're trying to sell
them on this idea and then you're trying to get
them to engage and actually, you know, make a conversion,
which is them you know, them purchasing, you know, pledging
at a perk, at at at a certain level. You know.
(30:31):
I think a lot of artists tend to go into
crowdfunding campaigns, uh, not prepared for the business aspect, because
I've seen another other kickstories as well, because I mean,
if you listen to the podcast before, I at least
once a week I'm getting, you know, hit up for
a crowdfunding campaign through my website or what have you,
(30:51):
or on Twitter, and it's just like, you know, I
look at their campaign and it's just so poorly planned out.
That's why whenever I see I mean even like you,
I see someone like you, I show your campaign, I'm like, wow,
this guy gets it a dollar. That's a great way
to you know, introduce, you know, to get someone you know,
to look at this campaign. I have other people send
(31:12):
me campaigns they're starting at like fifty dollars.
Speaker 7 (31:15):
Yeah, and I know that Kickstarter says twenty five is
like the sweet spot. Yeah, but yeah, I definitely and
in retrospect, like financially, I think it did help because
I mean it helped me, but again, I wish more
people had jumped in on that just in the sense of,
like you said, you know, people see it at that
and I think I think I did a relatively not
(31:35):
to toot my own horn, a good job of getting
that across with the video, and I think that's what
got people excited about it in general. Was you know,
the goal wasn't like, oh that's you know, I'm not
going to I'm using the money for this. I'm using
the money for that. Was like, we're trying to get
animation to everyone, have people have access to be able
to create their own animated videos. And so, uh, you know,
(31:58):
the few people who jumped on the high higher tiers,
I have a feeling that's what made them say, Okay,
I'm willing. I have the financial I have the finances
to do this, and so they jumped on it as that.
But so yeah, so it was a I feel like
it was a good idea in that way. And now
that it's done, I can still continue selling it, so
(32:20):
it will get out to you know, more people as
I do it. But but you're right, a lot of
people they have to think about what. You know, people
are taking a chance, and it's like, do are they
going to take a chance on you? At fifty dollars,
it's kind of a high amount to start with, so
I completely agree.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Yeah, And you know, the other thing I always think
about is relationships. You know, you know, like you just said,
within fifty dollars, if you know, if you're a complete stranger,
you know, it's very hard to get such stranger to
give in fifty bucks.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
But if you know, the moved familiar they are with you,
the better the chances.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
St are of them, you know, upping that perk, you know,
I mean I've seen it before too, you know, where
someone has actually a solid, solid network, and you know,
he was crowdfunded in a day, right, and that's just
all the people he knew. Then he finally, you know
that he did a soft launch, and then he finally
got all the people that he knew.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I'm sorry, then he.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Got after the people that he knew, he got the
rest of you know, we've released it publicly, betweeting it
out and that was all.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Just you know, di icing on the cake.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
But but you know, you know, your kickstarter was a success,
you know, and I have the handbook, you know you did,
you know, you did release that and you were releasing
the updated iterations of it, so, you know, I wanted
to ask, you know, Jason, to anyone listening to this
who was interested in getting into animation, you.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Know, what do you recommend they do?
Speaker 6 (33:46):
Uh, that's a good question.
Speaker 7 (33:49):
I guess my gut reaction is to say, uh, you know,
order the order the book and if if you want
to sign up, I do have.
Speaker 6 (33:56):
A you know, we can set up for.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
Getting email when it when it goes live, and that's
at learn to Animate course dot com. And if you don't,
and it'll be higher than a dollar for this one,
just because the Kickstarter, you know, prices are will be
a little bit different, and I feel like I owe
it to the Kickstarter, the people who are willing to
put the money up front to make it a little more,
you know, to make if I kept at the same price,
(34:21):
I think I'd feel bad a little.
Speaker 6 (34:22):
Bit for them, So I can't.
Speaker 7 (34:24):
I don't know specifically what the prices will be yet
to get closer, but if you want to join the net,
that's a good place to start.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
And it's not set up yet, but there should be.
Speaker 7 (34:35):
Like the first few chapters, I just talk about the
equipment that that I give away for free, just for
people to kind of have an idea of what the
book's about and to to you know, know what what
equipments are involved. If you didn't want to buy the book,
I would say, you know, just experiment with Again, I
used Windows movie Maker. It's not super hard. You can
(34:57):
use almost any video editing software where that allows you
to that allows you to turn the image image duration below.
I'd say point point point three is pretty good.
Speaker 6 (35:16):
Three six, nine.
Speaker 7 (35:17):
I'm trying to do the math, but even lower is better.
And I can't think of those numbers out the top
of my head, just because when it when it like
I think of it as a frame rate is different
than the like the decimal point of a second. So yeah,
if you can get to get to that, if you
can get to point five, it's probably not good enough,
but you can still play around with it and see.
(35:38):
To me, it's all about experimentation and trying new things.
And with apps now one can get away with a
lot more than they could before smartphones. So if that's
a possibility, that's always a good option as well.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Yeah, you know, as I told you before, I uh
through email, I actually was taking a online course, very
very short and simplistic, but but you know, it was
a good compliment to your PDF.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
And you know, as we were going back and forth,
you know, one of the things that.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
I've been learning about too is you know, just creating
you know, just different characters because obviously I'm not an illustrator.
If I was, you know, when I do it, I'm
going to use actual three D models and you know,
like a set and everything like that. But but you're
absolutely right though I won't use myself my Smartphone'm probably
gonna use my dslry. But but you know, yeah, one
(36:36):
of the one of the things that you know, I've
noticed too is, you know, it not to be too
ambitious the first time. It's kind of like making it,
you know, like a live action movie.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Well you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
And it's kind of you know, if you're if this
is your first movie, you're not going to make, you know,
a Mortin Scorsese film. You're not going to make Taxi
Driver in your first effort. But you know, you need
to need to think of a much lower, much lower scale,
just so you can acclimate it to the process for sure.
Speaker 7 (37:05):
And I usually tell people to start with with with
the students that usually wanted to they have these like
grand visions, and I say, well, thinking thinking seconds, like
if you can get three to four seconds, like, that's
pretty good in a you know, two and a half
hour workshop. You know, I think too, it helps to
(37:26):
if one wants to think grand, I think, what's the
what's the first short thing I need to shoot?
Speaker 6 (37:32):
And that's kind of what I do with with Hillary.
Originally I was going to shoot.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
It in all cutout animation, and I I cut out.
I did the cutouts for like the first scene, and
it turned out cool because it was like paper cutouts.
But then I instantly realized just from that six seconds
how much work that was going to be, and then
realized how much time flash would save me, and so
then I.
Speaker 6 (37:54):
Switched over to to digital.
Speaker 7 (37:58):
But yeah, it's definitely it also too. I mean, thinking
small like that allows someone to experiment with more. So
it's it's not thinking of it as a hindrance. It's
better to think of it like, oh I can now
I can instead of having to spend three years on
doing this hand drawn thing.
Speaker 6 (38:17):
I can.
Speaker 7 (38:17):
I can experiment with sand animation, I can experiment with
stop motion, I can experiment with claymation, I can experiment
with all these other things, and you know it's easy
to make something short in an afternoon. So yeah, experimenting,
playing around with it and then deciding what that next
step is is better than try to take it all
on at once.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Yeah, definitely, you know, and I was even speaking to
you about some of the other resources you know out there.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
You know, granted they're not free, some of them are.
You know, it's a premium, but you know.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
The you know, I just saw an article today about
how film school, the online film schools are actually going
to cause the physical film school will lower in price because.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
You know, there's a lot of there's so many resources
out there now.
Speaker 7 (39:05):
Yeah, it makes sense, and I think premium has its Uh,
it definitely has its perks because you know, as as
people who use the Internet constantly, it's it's easy to think, oh,
i'll just get I'll just look it up online, and
especially like the more technical stuff, the problem with that
(39:25):
is it's not always put together in a way that's
that's helpful to learn. And like, again, that stuff's out there.
And in film there's actually quite a few that I
think do a pretty good job for free. But in
animation specifically, I think of like my you know, rows
and rows of animation books, and I'm just like, man,
I'm glad I got these because if I had to
(39:47):
try to figure out how to find this information in
this order on through random websites, it would it would
just take forever.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
And so.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 7 (40:08):
Uh, you know with the books that can at least
be like all right, I you know, I have ones
that talk about just timing. I have ones that just
talk about storyboards. I have ones that just talk about
you know, very specific things, and yeah, doing Google searches
on that would probably take an hour just to find
a good, reputable site that would help be helpful. So yeah,
(40:31):
it depends on specifically what they want to learn. But
I think premium is a good way to go when
when you're willing to cut cut cut down on googling time.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
So yeah, very true. And you know, it's always good
to have a good network too. You know, there's I mean,
I just got an inmate the other day. I know,
Sheane Hubert. I tell you are yeah, I'd tell your promise.
His last name he actually he's a director's cinematography and
he's opening up his own online film school now and
that's a monthly subscription service. So again I'm like, wow,
(41:04):
there's just so many options out there now, and you know,
the paying, you know, paying a monthly subscription fee is
a barrier to entry, so it kind of just keeps
people out for who are just signing up and you know,
they just want to be part of another Facebook group
or what have you. So I mean, I got the
first month for free, so I'm going to check it
out to see if it's somebody we don't want to
(41:24):
keep going on with.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
But again, even that you know, you get to see that,
you know it's a it's a pretty good network.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Because that used to be the argument for phisical schools
was well, hey, you know education secondary because you're getting paid.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
I'm sorry, you're paying to get to be a part
of this network.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
So when you go out, you know, you're an alumni
and you go out and then you can meet other
alumni and you're when you're here, you're working with each
other and you know who to trust. You can both
have relationship. But you know, again now you're seeing that
more online now too.
Speaker 6 (41:50):
Yeah, for sure, and I think too with paying it's
that money is going to create the stuff. So it's
not like that. Good examples.
Speaker 7 (41:59):
I actually have a MBA and I am on a
few business ye subscriptions where you know, I'm taking classes
through these websites and I have to say I'm learning more,
you know when you go to the college. And so
a good example of being like a class and then
the teacher puts up a note saying, oh today we're
(42:19):
not having class, and all the kids are like, you know,
all the students master's degree level students are like, yeah,
I don't know. I'm thinking, Man, I just paid a
hundred Like if I did the math, I'm probably paying
one hundred bucks to sit in this class.
Speaker 6 (42:32):
And we're excited to basically.
Speaker 7 (42:34):
Throw away that hundred dollars where you know, the monthly
subscription is you know, thirty bucks a month, and yeah,
like I get access to all these resources and it
tends to be better because there's a higher stand you know.
And maybe business school's not the best example, but like
I specifically interested in online business and so most of
(42:55):
the professors are behind and you know, they're they have
their specialties.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
But the online business.
Speaker 7 (43:01):
Schools that are online, like they have to be up
to date because otherwise, you know, people will drop out,
where basically the universities just have to get convinced kids
that they needed to you know, a piece of paper then,
you know, as opposed to actually having the best information.
So I'm definitely pushing people to go more towards online
(43:22):
schools and and things like that. I think they get
a higher degree of quality that way.
Speaker 6 (43:29):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
You know, I also think now you know, Spike lel
us Or, I think with Spike Lee said, you know
they used to go to film school, just get the equipment. Well,
now you know, everything is so democratic. You know, the
equipment is inny palm in your hand now, yeah, because
you could you could learn using your phone and then
then you can actually you know, you know, I always
say the best mistakes the ones you make for free
because you don't want to rent this huge camera package
(43:54):
and then go, oh, well, you know this, this film
really sucked.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
It didn't even look good because I didn't even know
how to use the camera. Uh, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
And then you know, and then you really look back
and you say, wow, we just wasted five thousand dollars,
you know, or God forbid, even more. But now you
know you can actually start, you know, teaching yourself, you know,
filmmaking just by you know, shooting stuff on your phone,
editing on your computer, and then you know, you know,
like Mark Duplas said, and then in a block post,
you know, teaching yourself. Every weekend, you and your friends
(44:23):
go out and shoot a short film for one hundred
bucks and that's it.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Yeah, the hard part's finding the friends.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
So what I and what I would, uh, what I
used to do was you know, I when I was
in college or even when I got out of college
I got out in twenty ten, I would just you know,
grab student student you know, uh students that are actors,
you know, and going to the uh the acting side
of things, and they're always looking for for stuff and
you know, either that or I would just well, well, now,
(44:54):
I you know, I have so many different friends. If
I were to post something, I'd say, listen, I'm gonna
be upfront with everybody. Hey, listen if I want to
do this, and it's just going to be for you know, us,
and you know we're not going to waste everyone's time
though at the same time, you know it's going to
be you know, something small, but we're not gonna waste
everyone's time. But hey, this is what it's going to be.
And you know, we're not sending this to film festivals.
It's just you know what I mean, it's going to
(45:15):
be something that's more of a learning experience. I think
if you're up front two of people, they more appreciate
that than when when some some student filmmakers post things,
it's usually like they act like they're making the next Casablanca,
and they're like, well, I might want to scale that
downright pur hyperbole.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Is is it could be your downfall?
Speaker 6 (45:32):
Right for sure?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (45:35):
So you know, Jason, I want to ask you know,
I know we didn't get this into your as we're
talking about your story, but you know, uh, you performed
on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. You know, could
could you you know, talk about that, you know how
that came to came?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
To be sure?
Speaker 6 (45:49):
At that time, I was just performing.
Speaker 7 (45:53):
Was my only thing, Like now I have I do
a mix of stuff just to keep myself saying I
was performing full time. I'm at a theme park near Chicago,
part of the six Flags Theme parks, and I just
sent him to be honest, I just sent him a
promo pack and just was saying, hey, you know, I
do these weird stunts something you know I and I
(46:16):
don't even remember what was in the pack. And a
producer called and said, hey, you know we do this segment.
We're looking for just unusual acts.
Speaker 6 (46:23):
What do you got?
Speaker 7 (46:24):
And I gave him a list and it was things
that he had all seen. And then I said, you know,
give me, give me a week. I'll call you back
with you know, some some stuff I know you'll never
have seen.
Speaker 6 (46:34):
And he's like, okay.
Speaker 7 (46:36):
So then I called him back and he took the
first thing, uh, the first thing I had, and yeah,
they just flew me out and did my did the
routine and you know, it was it was interesting. I
was on with Rachel Ray, who I hadn't didn't know
who she was at the time. It was kind of
bizarre because I came back and I saw her face
(46:58):
like on like rich crackers and stuff, and I'm like, oh, weird.
I didn't really notice this person, and then I noticed
she was everywhere and then and then I was on
with Russell Crowe as the other star guest, and I
think there was a band, but I can't remember who
they were. I'm not big music music kuite, so but yeah,
(47:19):
that was basically it. So, I mean, that's a good
That's one of those things where and I've come close
to get on Leno. I don't know even know if
they switched you. I don't really watch a lot of TV,
so that's like my biggest downfall for that stuff. But
I definitely it was one of those things where I
just took a chance and just figured, well, it can't hurt.
I just had my basic promo pack that I was
using already, so it didn't take much. I just added
(47:41):
a little cover letter and yeah, they took it, so
it worked out well.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
You said you were almost on Letno, did you mean Letterman?
Speaker 5 (47:51):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (47:51):
Yes, sorry, almost on Letterman. Yeah, and that one.
Speaker 7 (47:54):
I can't remember the reason that the stunt I was
trying to sell to them. They questioned.
Speaker 6 (48:03):
They were They had some things that they weren't sure
about that I.
Speaker 7 (48:08):
Eventually fixed, and then I ended up I ended up
doing it on America's Got Talent instead, and I kind
of wish I'd just done it on Letterman.
Speaker 6 (48:16):
I think I think I could have done on Letterman,
and I guess.
Speaker 7 (48:19):
I could still I'm not sure if they made that
switch yet, because I know all the hosts are switching that.
Speaker 6 (48:24):
I don't know what that is because I don't watch TV.
Speaker 7 (48:26):
But I'll have to see if they're still doing the
For that one, it would have been on stupid human tricks,
So that one, I'll have to see whoever's coming up
next if they do that or what.
Speaker 4 (48:37):
But the way late night TV works is, I'm sorry,
the late night TV hierarchy, as it was explained to me,
is now it's Fallin, then it's Kimmel, then it's Conan,
and then it's you know who. I guess whoever. I'm
not sure whoever is left. But I mean, I'm not
(48:57):
a big Jimmy Fallon fan. I'm more Kimmel and Conan fan.
I actually have a couple of friends work for Jimmy Kimmel,
and like that's why I want to support him as well,
because he's also a talented guy. But but but yeah,
I know that whole that whole regime just completely shifted around.
Speaker 6 (49:16):
Yeah, it's a bit. It's a bit overwhelmed for somebody
who doesn't watch TV.
Speaker 7 (49:20):
Do they do do you know if they do any
kind of odd I imagine they have to because all
of them are kind of goofy. They're not you know,
they're not like I don't. They're all goofy guys. So
I imagine they probably bring on do some kind of
segment like that. But I don't Again, I don't know,
you would know better than me.
Speaker 6 (49:39):
Do they have that.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
I think they do because I know a lot of
what they're doing now is Kimmel focuses on two things.
That's the celebrity reading me, celebrities reading mean tweets about themselves,
and he also has a lot of man on the
street stuff.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Fallon will be right back, throw a word from our
sponsor and now back to the show.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Does his own I mean, he was doing that lip
syncing thing and a couple of things.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
But that's a good question. I'm sure if somebody listening
to the podcast is probably like, come on, guys, of
course they don't do or whatever, you know, But but yeah,
I'm not one hundred percent sure though.
Speaker 7 (50:22):
Okay, yeah, Conan would be one I'd be excited to
be in actually all of them. Really, I'd be excited
to be on their shows more than like Leno. I'd
never really, I think I think booking wise, if I
would have played my cards the way I should have.
It was a good because the guy, the producer I
talked to said if we were on Letterman, there'd be
no way they would bring us on Leno and then
(50:44):
but I think Letterman would have been like whatever, And
so yeah, I like, as someone who doesn't really watch,
I liked Letterman more than Leno. But yeah, that's just
kind of how it fell together, I guess. But yeah,
any of those guys, I enjoy the stuff that I've
(51:04):
seen from them, so I'll have to send some stuff out.
I'm also performing a lot less, so I guess that's
a good excuse to spend the time to send them
some promo stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Now, did you actually get to meet Jay before the show?
Speaker 6 (51:19):
We did?
Speaker 7 (51:20):
It's it's a weird deal because like they and I
think I've heard this from someone else. Oh yeah, some
other performers who I think we're in a different show.
And I can't remember who the host was, but they
do like a so you go in and you do
like a dry run or whatever they call it something,
I can't.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
Remember what they call it. Andress rehearsal, Yeah, dress rehearsal.
Speaker 7 (51:41):
But like but Leno's not there, like you do it
without him, and so it's weird because he's like watching,
but he's not like there, or they tell us that
he's watching, and then yeah, we do that, and then
we went back to the dressing room and then he
basically just showed up and said hi and talked to
us a little bit for the show.
Speaker 6 (52:00):
And so he's there all day.
Speaker 7 (52:02):
I can imagine, like you know, he got I can't
remember the time we got there, probably like eight, and
he he was already there and we still had, you know,
like several hours before showtime. So he must put in
a he must have been putting in like twelve hour
days or something crazy.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Yeah, you know, eventually, you know, like I think Letterman said,
eventually get used to it, like Howard Stern got. It's
just so used to it now because he just got
in that groove right right.
Speaker 7 (52:30):
Yeah, it makes sense. And they were making stylistic changes
because we so the routine we did was I would
lay on a bed of nails and then we put
like another bet of nails on top of me, and
then the other guy would stand on top and then
get on top of a unicycle on top of me.
And ride a unicycle back and forth on that on
(52:51):
that top bed of nails. And then the gag originally
was and I think he.
Speaker 6 (52:57):
Came up with this.
Speaker 7 (52:58):
The guy who I did it with is his name
Circus Boy Bobby Hunt, and he would throw eggs at
my face, was like the gag, and the guy the
producer was they were going back and forth on whether
they thought that was too like joky, so then they
were going to have him juggle. And then I think
Leno said after he saw the I think we did both.
(53:19):
They were kind of like goofed around during the dress
rehearsal and he said specifically, yeah, let's just do the eggs,
and I think he regretted it because he ended up, Uh,
circus boy Bobby Hunt ended up playing it up a
little bit, and I think I think Leno got some
eggs on him and so he quickly during the commercial
ran took off and I think he got touched up
(53:40):
and uh Bobby had put his hand like in Leno's hair,
So I think I think it Uh yeah, I'm kind
of curious if that pissed him off or if he
was cool with it or what. But he you know,
he did the rest of the show and we didn't
end up getting a chance. We got a photo with him,
but we didn't I didn't ask.
Speaker 6 (54:01):
But it was fun. It was a fun, fun time.
Speaker 4 (54:05):
So yeah, that that I mean that that is you know,
one in a life, one in a lifetime opportunity, you know,
And you know, I think that you know that that's
an amazing story. And you know, it just goes to
show you Jason, you know, it depends on your network
and it also depends upon your portfolio. That's that's just
(54:26):
two things.
Speaker 7 (54:27):
And taking a chance, I think that was that was
a huge part. It is just I it was kind
of just like I'm just going to do this and
what's the worst that could happen? You know, And yeah,
and it worked out.
Speaker 6 (54:40):
Very cool.
Speaker 4 (54:41):
And uh, you know, Jason, we've been talking for about,
you know, fifty minutes now, So in closing, is there
anything that maybe we haven't talked about that maybe you
wanted to discuss or is there any sort of anything
you wanted to say sort of put a uh, you know,
a period at the end of this whole conversation.
Speaker 6 (54:58):
Yeah, that's that's the lot of pressure.
Speaker 7 (55:02):
Yeah, I would just say, I mean kind of going
along with that theme of taking a chance, I think,
take a chance, but then also like stick with it.
I mean, I'm one of those people who have multiple interests,
but I feel like I still stick with the general
you know, the I like animation, I like the things
that I like doing, I stick with and eventually have
developed an ability.
Speaker 6 (55:21):
To make a business out of it.
Speaker 7 (55:23):
And so you know, whether you're a professional whatever you're doing,
or and someone who wants to get into some kind
of art field or non art field, you know, just
making it like part of part of one's life, I
think is really the secret to to pulling that off.
And so granted I'm not I mean with an NBA
could be working for some corporation making you know, widgets
(55:45):
or car parts or something. But instead I'm you know,
making a modest income making comic books, animated videos and
teaching people to do different creative stuff.
Speaker 6 (55:56):
So I think.
Speaker 7 (55:59):
You don't have to pick like this is the thing
I'm going to do. I guess that's one lesson as well.
But making that part of one's life and taking chances
is important.
Speaker 4 (56:10):
Yeah, and you also get to come on podcasts and
have me WHR questions at you.
Speaker 6 (56:15):
Yeah, yeah, which which is exciting. Yeah, it's been fun.
Speaker 3 (56:20):
Jason. Where can people find you out online?
Speaker 2 (56:22):
Sure?
Speaker 7 (56:22):
The best place to find me right now is Compulsive
Creative dot com and if you're interested in the animation course,
learn to Animate course dot com.
Speaker 6 (56:34):
Those are those are the best places.
Speaker 7 (56:35):
Otherwise Twitter, it's kind of probably the best place on
Twitter is Jason Love's life at Jason Loves Life and yeah,
I guess that's everything else is through Compulsive Creative. So
you could just search for that on different social medias.
Speaker 4 (56:50):
Awesome, and I'll look to that and everyone in the
show notes so you can contact Jason Jason Love. Thank
you very much for coming on.
Speaker 6 (56:57):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (56:58):
Oh, it's been my pleasure. And I want to wish
you the best of luck with everything. And I'll keep
you informed of what I do with my stop most animation.
Speaker 6 (57:05):
Yeah, I'm excited to I'm excited to see it.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
Oh, thank you very much. All right, Jason, take care
of my friend.
Speaker 6 (57:10):
Yeah, yep, you two see it.
Speaker 3 (57:12):
Bye bye.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Indie Film huscle
dot com. Forward Slash eight seventeen. If you have it already,
please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com, subscribe and
leave a good review for the show. It really helps
us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much
(57:34):
for listening to guys. As always, keep that hustle going,
keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll
talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (57:41):
Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
Indie film hustle dot com. That's I N D I
E F I L M h U S T l
E dot com.
You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the INDIEILM Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight seventeen,
Cinema Should Make You Forget. You're sitting in a theater,
Roman Polanski.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
the film biz.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
episode of the Indie Film Huscle podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I am your humble.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory
film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who
prey upon them. The odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker.
(00:59):
The distribution model of making money with your film is broken,
and there needs to be a change the future of
independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the film entrepreneur.
In Rise of the Film Entrepreneur, I break down how
to actually make money with your film projects and show
you how to turn your indie film into a profitable business.
(01:20):
With case studies examining successes and failures. This book shows
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or any other kind of video content, the Film Entrepreneur
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available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook. If you
(01:42):
want to order it, just head over to www dot
filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy
today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And so On this week's episode, I Have Jason Love.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Jason is an animator, webinar designer, balloon twister, magician, writer,
artist and educator, and he's also self published comics, Pretty
Sure Films, own a screen bringing business, and even.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Performed on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
So here we go Episode eighty five with guests Jason Love.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
You're listening to the day, Jason, how's everything going?
Speaker 6 (02:40):
That's going great. I'm I'm excited to be on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Oh thank you. By the way, that's an awesome name
to have.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It reminds me of Buddy Love from mod Night Professor.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
Oh yeah, there's actually quite a few Jason Loves.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
That's the only downside to having that name, because somebody
else got the url before I.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
You know, I actually know a guy named Lance Love,
and the first time I ever met him, I was like,
that has to be a fake name, and he said no,
He's like, I've had this name since birth.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
Yeah, every once in a while, people, yeah, they get
excited about it.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
So yeah, it's cool name to have. I like it.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So Jason, you know, I wanted to answer, you know,
you you started an animation, and I wanted to answer,
you know what got you started to, you know, animating,
at a young age.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Sure, I started animating.
Speaker 7 (03:26):
Let's see how well I'm trying to think of early
like I was really into flip books. I guess flip
books would have been like the earliest earliest animation, but
I didn't actually get into playing around with it till college,
and it's.
Speaker 6 (03:38):
Hard to say I would.
Speaker 7 (03:39):
One of the influence would be is seeing Wallace and Grommitt,
which I watched quite a bit in high school, and
realizing that my drawing skills didn't have to be you know,
you'd see some the Disney animation stuff and you see
the drawing and you're just like, there's no way, there's
no way I'm going to be able to do that.
And then when Wallace and Grommitt came out, I thought, oh, man,
that's I mean, I don't think I necessarily especially the
(04:02):
first one I would say is the most influential, because
it's like not perfect, but it's still a great story.
And it made me realize, oh, you don't have to
be Animation isn't just drawing, it's it's all these other forms.
And so in college I started off with the old
VHS camcorder that was like a giant now it's probably
the size of a Blu ray player, and the first
(04:24):
one I ever did. It would just spend time laps,
time laps of me drawing something, and so I would
draw a little bit, I would hit the record button,
turn the camera off, draw a little more, you know,
and then hit record, hit turned it off. And it
was very unscientific in the sense of like how long
each frame was, but that was the first and then
college college computer lab. I was playing around and I
(04:47):
realized they had Windows movie Maker, and I didn't know
anything really about it, and I don't even remember how
I started playing with it. I think I just thought, hey,
if I can do this on a VHS, I should
be able to do this somehow with this program, even
if it that same logic of like cutting it so
it's you know, basically a clip for a quarter of
a second or whatever. And then I realized with that program,
(05:10):
I think at that time, you could get it down
to zero point eight seconds or no point maybe it
was point three. Anyways, you could get it down to
almost what they would call in animation thirds, which is
like normally twenty four frames a second, but this would
be eight frames, yeah, eight frames per second and so,
which is good enough to create animation, and in fact,
(05:31):
a lot of Wallace and Gromen it depending on what
you're doing, I mean, some of that has shut it
at eight frames a second, depending on how much detail and.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
Whatnot you want in the movement.
Speaker 7 (05:40):
So and then from there I just kept playing around
with it, and you know, went to film school for
a little while and I ended up dropping out because
they were still using traditional film and I was just
I really hated traditional film every and part of it
was because you know, it was a community.
Speaker 6 (05:57):
You know.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
I went to school specifically to use their equipment, and
they had old Bulls Bullocks cameras eight millimeter. I believe
I'd have to look camera if it's eight or sixteen,
but I believe it's maybe it's sixteen. Anyways, So shooting
on actual film, but these cameras, you know, are getting
beat up by other students.
Speaker 6 (06:14):
So I don't think.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
I think I only had maybe a few seconds that
ever got out without being washed out by light or
because the camera's leaked light or things like that.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
So so then I ended.
Speaker 7 (06:25):
Up just dropping out, and instead of learning, I started
teaching animation to at local libraries and things like that.
So I guess it's a long answer to my road
and animation.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
No, but you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
You know, I've seen you know, universities, and I mean
I work at university too during the day, and I see,
you know, the the equipment does just take a beating,
and you know I work, I mean, I'm in Philadelphia.
We have about three or four of big universities, and
out of those, you know, there's you know, film majors,
and it's interesting to see, you know, you know, different
(07:01):
gear and you know who has a certain amount of gear,
who has you know, this gear, who has to go
to rental houses. But that's the common thing, though, is
gear takes a freaking beating sometimes.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
And I mean another thing I always point out is
just the film itself to buy two minutes, I believe
it was about two minutes. It was two hundred feet
so whatever that I'd have to do the math on
that two hundred feet of film was like twenty bucks
or something, and so you could get a few minutes
out of that.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
And when I.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
Was looking at digital and digital was popping up at
the time, it was just the school I was at,
which was UW Milwaukee, they were a little bit slow
on jumping on that bandwigon and I think they were
really holding on to film.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
I'm not sure what their logic was.
Speaker 7 (07:43):
Maybe they just didn't want to buy the new equipment
or maybe the new students to have it it. Yeah,
it was just so expensive and it's like I can
I can shoot as much as I want on digital,
and you know, I might want to get more storage
or buy a better camera. But it never there's that's
never the issue of paying per per second or per
(08:04):
foot of film isn't an issue with digital.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
So yeah, you know, I was thinking about buying a
Super eight camera and there's a ton of mone sale
on eBay.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Well, they're going for dirt cheap.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
What's expensive is the Super eight film that you have
to put in the camera, and you know it's going
for like a tin of it is like fifty bucks.
And this one guy had a lot for like five hundred,
and you get a couple of them, and I'm saying
to myself, you know, my android has a Super eights
app now that I started playing around with, and you
know it's getting pretty close.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
Right Yeah, And it depends too on It's funny.
Speaker 7 (08:41):
I can't remember the name of the guy, but the
guy who did Grindhouse with Tarantino, Robertdriguez.
Speaker 6 (08:47):
Yeah, I heard.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
An interview with him and he was saying how Tarantino
was like, I'm going to use film and then Rodriguez
used digital and it was easier for Rodriguez to get
the film look than it was for Tarantino, because, like
Tarantino is looking for that old film look, and if
you have a new film, it takes a lot of
work to really get it to that level, like it's
(09:09):
you know, literally being used, and so you can almost
make it easy. It's almost easier to do in digital then,
depending on what kind of look you want, just because yeah,
all those filters and and you can be very deliberate
on the effects you want.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
So yes, I remember reading a review an interview with Terenceino,
and he had to go through and put all those
scratches in himself because he, you know, he wanted it
to look like a grind house, like a weathered film look,
you know, and that like it has just been beaten
up as it's been going to theater to theater to theater,
and of course there's missing frames and all those touches.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
But that's what he had to do. He had to
go through and put in.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
All these scratches and all this other stuff and some
noise and stuff just to give it that aesthetic.
Speaker 6 (09:49):
Right.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Did you started teaching animation at you know, at libraries,
so you know, how did you approach that? Did you
you know, go there and and actually work with the
librarianes and say, hey, I want to start an animation class.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 6 (10:11):
Sort of.
Speaker 7 (10:11):
I've been doing magic for I had started doing magic
before I started teaching at the libraries, and I right
after college, I became a full time magician, and the animation.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
Was a hobby. And it's still questionable.
Speaker 7 (10:26):
I guess I make money from animation, but I you know,
it's not like my full time income. But I won't
even say it's just established a relationship. I basically just
emailed a bunch. I got a list off of the
Internet of all the libraries and just said, hey, I'm
doing this animation workshop. It teaches kids how to do
animation at home. At the time, I was calling a
cheap animator, which I don't call it that anymore. I
don't think they like that name, but they yeah. And
(10:49):
then then the librarians they need to fill up their summers.
Summer is usually busy time if I want to do
animation workshops or like, I have one coming up that's
in December because it's Christmas break, but most of them
have been most of them are summertime, and so yeah,
they they just be like, yeah, you know, bring me in,
and I do it mostly in Wisconsin. I can't think
(11:10):
of any too many that I've done. I've done magic
shows all over, but I haven't quite I haven't promoted
as much out of Wisconsin. But I mean there's so
many libraries that if I recommend that to most artists
to contact, libraries are a good place to contact if
you're looking to make a few extra bucks doing teaching
any kind of art format. You know, it helps if
(11:31):
it's something that kids can do. Although I have done
older you know, mine are always teens, and I've done
some adult stuff, but most of the libraries are looking
for you know, mostly kid oriented. But I've also done
like art museums. I've done a few of those, and
those are more looking for adult stuff. So yeah, the
(11:52):
libraries was just an easy choice because I had a
little bit of a relationship with them and had all
their contact info.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Yeah, you know, of mind, he actually pitched a screenwrining
course to a local library.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
It's his local library, and they ended up.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Saying, you know, we'll let me, we'll get back to you,
and then they ended up actually getting back to them.
He thought they were blowing them off, but they came
back and said, yeah, would you mind teaching a screen running.
You know, it started off as as just a one
off like seminar for like, you know, an hour or two,
and then it became, you know, started becoming more and more.
And I mean that worked out pretty well because he
pitched it as, hey, look, you know it's it's writing
(12:28):
and we're in a library, so it does tie in together.
And they gave him a little a little room off
to the side.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And you know, it worked out pretty well.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
But so, you know, that's a pretty good tip though,
is to you know, libraries. Can you know, if you
have a library in your area, that can be you know,
worked out pretty well if you you know, pitch them
right and uh, you know, pitching the right the right
project at the right time.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (12:48):
I think a big part is just making it sound like,
you know, like you have if it's your first one,
making it sound like you actually have it planned out.
You know, when I sent out my stuff, I said
specifically what they had learned. And I mean even now
I switch it up depending on the mostly on the
students just because I have enough experience that but as
long as they have the feeling that you have an
(13:09):
outline of what you're going to do, and then you
send it to them and say, this is the outline
right now.
Speaker 6 (13:12):
What I tend to do.
Speaker 7 (13:13):
If I haven't really promoted it much lately, but I
might start again for the summer is I'll say, first
of I'll ask their interest, and then they'll usually say
they want more info. And that's when you give them
the big spiel. I feel like sending out like a
big spiel to can be overwhelming to library, and so
it's easier to say, you know, hey, is this something
you're interested in. I'll send you more information. They'll email
me back, and then I'll say, okay, here's the outline.
(13:35):
Here's the I don't like to have a class more
than twenty five students. You know, here's the requirements. Blah
blah blah. And then they see that I have these
requirements and it makes them realize, oh, this guy's done
this before. He knows what he's doing. So it's just
a trick for someone, even if it's the first time.
Just have that thought up front so that when they
email you back, it sounds like you know what you're
doing because you have your requirements and you're like I
(13:57):
usually like to have a projector so I say that
you know, it's the quiet, it's not required, but it's
nice blah blah blah.
Speaker 6 (14:02):
And yeah, it just makes it look a little more professional.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
That's very cool.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
And you know that that's that is a really excellent
tip about pitching too, because I think that works in
other other areas as well, because you know, when I've
I've gone to pitch events and I've seen also you know,
the the and and going into discussions about the you know,
the the elevator pitches. You know, I've always been told
if you do have something to show, it might be
(14:28):
it's actually a little better than if you just actually
talk to them and and you know what I mean,
like it if you can actually show like even a one.
Speaker 7 (14:35):
Sheet right right, And I do that with the libraries
now as I can show them past student work and
things like that, and so, but yeah, it's definitely good
to have. If you have something, it's always better because
it's physical confirmation.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
As you talked these animation courses, you know, when did
you get in to start making short films?
Speaker 7 (14:56):
I would just say kind of along the along the way,
I mean the first first video I did was in college,
and I had the mindset of I wanted to become
a professional magician. And the first video I ever made
was basically a weird animated promo video for my magic show,
just because I thought it'd be weird, and most magicians don't,
(15:18):
I don't know. For some reason, I loved animation anyway,
so it was kind of like, well, I'll have this
unusual thing and then I could play it before.
Speaker 6 (15:25):
Shows, and we did a little I did a little bit.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
I used to work with another entertainer at the time,
and so in that that whole video actually funny enough
is I used Photoshop, But I mean photoshop now has
an animation feature somehow, I haven't done it in a while,
but I know you can do animation with Photoshop.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
But I would literally had the layers and I would literally.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
Save a photo, change you know, change my arm, save
the photo. So I that was I guess the start.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I already forgot the question when did you get into
short films?
Speaker 7 (15:56):
Oh yeah, okay, So I would say, I guess, in
theory that would be the short film. And then I
think the next short film would have been years later,
and it was I wanted to learn flash. So it
was one of those things where I'm like, Okay, I'm
gonna literally teach myself Flash while making this short film.
And that one was It's called Hillary's Adventures in Politics,
(16:18):
and I was hoping to get it done like super
fast because it was the time when Hillary was going
to be she was working for the primary, you know,
trying to get the primaries with Obama, which would have
been you know, like eight years ago, and I thought
I would have it done for sure by the time
anything happened, and it took me forever. So it was
it was definitely a learning experience. It ended up being
(16:41):
like it was over five minutes.
Speaker 6 (16:43):
I can't remember the total, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
And ever since then, it's just been stuff like that
where I get an idea and I'm kind of like,
I'm gonna make a you know, I'm gonna give this
a try, or if I'm learning a new program. So
like another one I did was with I was working
on my comic book and I wanted a motion comic,
so I decided to kind of make a short film
that was motion. You know, it wasn't perfect animation, it
was simplified animation and yeah, just I get random, I guess,
(17:11):
and it ended up getting stuck into them. Is the
long term project.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
So is there any place online where people can check
out some of your short films?
Speaker 7 (17:20):
Yeah, I think both. I think most of those are
if you go if you just go to YouTube and
search admin of Magic. I believe it's under that channel.
I have like three or four different channels, and I
lose track of them. I think that one has those.
Most of my other ones before that were before film school,
(17:40):
are you know, locked away somewhere so you can't see those,
But you can see the Hillary wan for sure. And
I think the the first one I made is somewhere
looming on YouTube, but I'd have to look that up.
But the Hillary one's definitely on there. If you look
up Hillary's Adventures and politics, that should come up.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Cool, and I'll look for that and put that in
the show notes for you know, anyone who's interested. So,
you know, you mentioned comics as well, and you know,
so you know, when did you start developing your own comics,
And also want to ask, you know, did you actually
animate your own comics from the beginning, or like like
animate them yourself, or did you have sort of farm
that out.
Speaker 7 (18:19):
You mean for the motion comic. Yeah, yeah, no, I
did it all myself. I my wife does all the illustrations.
So I did the animation and those were I did
them relatively quick, but they were a bit tedious because
I was using a mix between Flash and Premiere and
on CS three and so it worked, but I was
(18:42):
having issues with Flash not being able to handle that much.
You know, they were drawn an illustrator. I'd bring them
over to Flash and then Flash, and I think it's
just my computer was having a hard time doing anything
longer than you know, ten to twenty seconds. So then
I would cut those out into shorter pieces and put
them together and for me, and then sometimes do use
(19:02):
some of the camera movements in Premiere. But yeah, that
the movements were more me and actually the illustrations were
i'd say ninety percent my wife doing that.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
So so, now when you did your comics, did you know,
did you you know, put them online or you know,
just just to show to sort of make a portfolio,
we put them online topes of getting out the work
or you know sort of that was the goal of
these or would you have another goal in mind?
Speaker 7 (19:30):
So the comic book that's a it's actually goes back
to the animation I ended up making. Uh So the
comic book's called mad Men of Magic, and it was
an idea that I came up with. So I used
to perform as the mad Man of Magic, and I thought,
you know what, it'd be fun to make a comic book.
And then I had come up with this idea, and
I was actually going to coffee with some friends who
(19:53):
are really big comic book nerds like I, you know, know.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
A little bit, but these people like they their go nuts.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So I we'll be right back after a word from
our sponsor, and now back to the show.
Speaker 7 (20:10):
I brought on some of the concept drawings that I
had and just asked them. I said, hey, this is
the idea.
Speaker 6 (20:15):
You know.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
I was kind of just as a fun project. I
was coming up with these ideas.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
What do you think? And they thought it was a
cool idea.
Speaker 7 (20:21):
So then my logic behind making the character a magician
was worst case scenario, if this book doesn't sell, I'll
make it. I'll use it for my promotional material, kind
of like that first animated project. So almost make it
made its fail safe for if it if it didn't
do well, and so I ended up doing the motion
comic just because I wanted to do a Kickstarter for it,
(20:43):
and I knew I needed a video and I liked animation,
and I liked like motion comics. I know some people
hate motion comics, but I find them interesting and some
are better than others, like anything, and so so yeah,
I animated it after we were already working on the
as a comic book.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
What software did you used to animate that?
Speaker 7 (21:06):
A mix between the Flash Premiere and kind of making
the cutouts and illustrator or you know, the the images
an illustrator that had the separate you know, assets. So
that was a cool part about using illustrator I hadn't
quite thought up before. It was like if my wife
drew a hand, I would tell her, hey, can you
make sure that the fingers aren't different layers?
Speaker 6 (21:26):
These pieces are different layers.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
And so it almost became out like cutout animation because
I had all these when I threw it in a flash,
Flash could separate all those instead of having to you know,
literally cut them out in the program. So yeah, and
then I then used Premiere to kind of put all
those pieces together and do some of the A few
of the effects were done in premiere.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Yeah, you know, you and I were talking before the
show about you know, all the about the Adobe be
Creative Suite and you know, all the things you can
actually do with that, and it's just absolutely amazing. I've
gotten into, you know, comic books and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Now.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I'm not an illustrator by any means. I just write
the scripts and sort of pass them on to the
illustrator who draws them up. But one thing I've learned
also is about all the layers that go into them.
And when you know, when the illustrator comes back to me,
it says, hey, Dave, what do you think of this?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I can say, well could you add this? And she,
you know, I can see.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Her scream when she's adding these layers on, you know,
like adding a hat on or doing something different. I mean,
it's it's absolutely phenomenal, you know, being able to add
those layers and then if want I'm gone. It's a
click of a button and the layer's gone.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's uh.
Speaker 7 (22:33):
I play around with this stuff, and my wife's really
the illustrator person. I'm more of a photoshop guy. Like
I like photoshop, but in that you have layers too,
but yeah, illustrator is amazing just in the sense that
you the way to tweak things or even Flash. Sometimes
I'll draw some of my just sort of goof around
comics have done in Flash because you don't have to
(22:54):
literally draw, you can you can tweak those little points
you can, you know, and then it's like, oh, got
these layers and get rid of this and then undo.
It's just amazing with the different programs.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
One of the things I was told at the beginning
with Adobe programs is the strength, the biggest strength is
also the biggest weakness, and that is there's more than
one way to do things in Adobe programs. So because
I mean I've seen it too, you know, I've gone
to different you know, seminars, and the way one person
does it in the way another person does are completely different.
And is anybody is anybody really doing it the quote
(23:29):
unquote best way?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Well, who knows? Right?
Speaker 6 (23:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (23:33):
I went to I used to belong to the Milwaukee
well I still do these don't have meetings Milwaukee Animation
Club and there was a guy doing a presentation on
Flash and he was the way he did did lip
sync was very strange where he had he had it
as like one asset and they had all the different
frames and basically he would It was very weird and
(23:53):
I don't even know if I could reproduce it. And
I wanted to be like, why do you do it
that way? But I didn't want to ask you ever
want to ask it just that because I'm just like, wow,
that seems like more work, Like you could just do
it way simpler. There is a few benefits, but to
what guess the way he did now they think about it.
But yeah, it's interesting how each artist kind of figures
(24:13):
out their own own way of doing things.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Yeah, I've learned that, especially too. When I took a
seminar with the editor. He's an editor at SNL. He
just you know, was going about you know, he said, listen,
we're not going to talk about which is better, you know,
Windows or Mac. We're not going to talk about which
is better Adobe or Avid. He's like, if whatever works
for you works for you, and just do the best
work he can, and.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
We're just going to leave it at that.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
But he but having said that, we did learn on
a tophy though, so you know, but it was you
know that seminar, by the way, was absolutely excellent, and
I have to get him on the show as we
talk about, you know, different seminars and stuff like that.
You know, you actually launched a kickstarter last year in
November twenty fourteen. Could you take us through you know
where the impetus were too care This kicksort of came.
Speaker 7 (25:01):
From sure, trying to think of like the very beginning
of it. That's a hard one.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
I think it was. I'd been doing these workshops for
five six.
Speaker 7 (25:10):
Years, the animation workshops, and I had decided that just
to make a product out of it, and I wish
I could remember. I don't remember if I had in
a great story like the other one, even you know,
even like the Madman of Magic. I at least met
somebody for coffee. I think it was just I don't
think anyone mentioned it. I think I was just looking
for something to sell digitally, to do a digital product
(25:33):
that can sell through my website. And I had some
friends who had have been doing digital products, and I thought,
you know, what skills do I had? And I thought
about doing like a plut and twisting tutorial. I thought
about doing a few other things, and I said, well,
why don't I just take my workshop and turn that
into a digital course. And so yeah, I just started
(25:54):
with that and then put the time into it, and
it was successful, and I'm a bit behind I'm getting
out the deliverables. But part of that is it's expanded
as I've done it. You know, Originally I thought, oh,
I could just videotape my workshop, and as I've been
delivering stuff, I realized I want to go, you know,
here's an opportunity to actually get in depth and to
(26:15):
do some new animation. So each each lesson has been
has its own original animation, and so that all those
things have been adding up time wise more than I expected.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
And so well, actually, the.
Speaker 7 (26:28):
The timeline we have now is to launch it to
the general public doing like probably a discount. Is that
is Cyber Monday. So that's the thirtieth I believe we will.
We'll have a where other people can buy it other
than you know, the Kickstarter people, and the Kickstarter people
will have all their stuff, you know, slightly before then.
So yeah, I guess that's the that's kind of a
(26:50):
roundabout story I guess of how that got started.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Well, you know, I was actually one of those Kickstarter
of people. And one of the most tractive things about
your campaign was you started at one dollar. However, you
got the Basic Home Animation Handbook for you know, the
digital copy as a PDF.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
For one dollar.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
I think that is an amazing way to open up
a crowdfundy campaign because to me, you want to get
people in because everyone can.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Everyone can spend a dollar.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
I'm pretty much sure we can all agree that a
dollar is not asking people too much. So if I
you know, if you know, you started a dollar, I
think that really opens up and you can sort of
parlay that and people can.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Say, all right, so what's the next level? Five?
Speaker 5 (27:38):
Now?
Speaker 4 (27:39):
But yours was eight, and you know, yours went from
one dollar all the way up to twenty three hundred
dollars for perks, you know, at the different and the
perk structures.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So you know, did you.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Plan that accordingly so that you know, hey, I want
to make sure everyone can get a piece of this.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
That's why you priced the handbook the pdf at a dollar.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
I did, and it didn't work out quite as good
as I would. I mean, I think the campaign was well,
went well, but I was hoping to make it almost
like a like a news story where it'd be like,
you know, you literally, I mean, there's very little you
can get for.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
A dollar a dollar.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
So I'm happy with the campaign overall, but I was
kind of thought, to me, the goal was to get more.
It wasn't about making a lot of money. It was
to try to get as many people in because again,
I've taught animation to hundreds of of mostly kids, but
hundred of hundreds of people, and so the idea of yeah,
(28:35):
like basically saying there is no barrier to buy this,
and it worked out, Okay, we got you know, over
we got several hundred people who signed up. Again, I
kind of would hope that that more people. And then
again not for the money, but for the fact that
I am really passionate about animation and the idea of
(28:55):
all these people being able to make animated videos from
home was exciting. So again, very happy with the campaign,
but it was kind of surprised more people didn't jump
on the dollar the dollar thing, because I mean, even if.
Speaker 6 (29:08):
You're kind of like, well, do I want to learn animation,
I don't know.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
It's like, well, it's a dollar, just bay the dollar,
and you know, if I could have learned animation for
a dollar when I was tinkering around in my in
my college dorm room. Man, that would have saved me
a lot of time. So but yeah, that was Yeah,
the original thought was I really wanted to get people
excited about animation.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
So and you know, that's that's a good point, is
you know, even if they don't want to learn, you know,
they could say, wait a minute, do I want to learn?
You know, maybe I don't, but hey, listen, it's a dollar,
so who do you know? What is it gonna matter
in the end. And you know, there's a great article
if I've once read, and now I'll link to it again.
It's called everything is Sales. And I know some of
the listeners this podcast heard me talk about it before,
(29:53):
but to me, when you're when you're launching a crowd
front a campaign.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
And now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
First off, it's a full time job, as I'm sure
you know, Jason, So you're always emailing talking to people
about it, and it's sort of you're trying to sell
them on this idea and then you're trying to get
them to engage and actually, you know, make a conversion,
which is them you know, them purchasing, you know, pledging
at a perk, at at at a certain level. You know.
(30:31):
I think a lot of artists tend to go into
crowdfunding campaigns, uh, not prepared for the business aspect, because
I've seen another other kickstories as well, because I mean,
if you listen to the podcast before, I at least
once a week I'm getting, you know, hit up for
a crowdfunding campaign through my website or what have you,
(30:51):
or on Twitter, and it's just like, you know, I
look at their campaign and it's just so poorly planned out.
That's why whenever I see I mean even like you,
I see someone like you, I show your campaign, I'm like, wow,
this guy gets it a dollar. That's a great way
to you know, introduce, you know, to get someone you know,
to look at this campaign. I have other people send
(31:12):
me campaigns they're starting at like fifty dollars.
Speaker 7 (31:15):
Yeah, and I know that Kickstarter says twenty five is
like the sweet spot. Yeah, but yeah, I definitely and
in retrospect, like financially, I think it did help because
I mean it helped me, but again, I wish more
people had jumped in on that just in the sense of,
like you said, you know, people see it at that
and I think I think I did a relatively not
(31:35):
to toot my own horn, a good job of getting
that across with the video, and I think that's what
got people excited about it in general. Was you know,
the goal wasn't like, oh that's you know, I'm not
going to I'm using the money for this. I'm using
the money for that. Was like, we're trying to get
animation to everyone, have people have access to be able
to create their own animated videos. And so, uh, you know,
(31:58):
the few people who jumped on the high higher tiers,
I have a feeling that's what made them say, Okay,
I'm willing. I have the financial I have the finances
to do this, and so they jumped on it as that.
But so yeah, so it was a I feel like
it was a good idea in that way. And now
that it's done, I can still continue selling it, so
(32:20):
it will get out to you know, more people as
I do it. But but you're right, a lot of
people they have to think about what. You know, people
are taking a chance, and it's like, do are they
going to take a chance on you? At fifty dollars,
it's kind of a high amount to start with, so
I completely agree.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Yeah, And you know, the other thing I always think
about is relationships. You know, you know, like you just said,
within fifty dollars, if you know, if you're a complete stranger,
you know, it's very hard to get such stranger to
give in fifty bucks.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
But if you know, the moved familiar they are with you,
the better the chances.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
St are of them, you know, upping that perk, you know,
I mean I've seen it before too, you know, where
someone has actually a solid, solid network, and you know,
he was crowdfunded in a day, right, and that's just
all the people he knew. Then he finally, you know
that he did a soft launch, and then he finally
got all the people that he knew.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I'm sorry, then he.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Got after the people that he knew, he got the
rest of you know, we've released it publicly, betweeting it
out and that was all.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Just you know, di icing on the cake.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
But but you know, you know, your kickstarter was a success,
you know, and I have the handbook, you know you did,
you know, you did release that and you were releasing
the updated iterations of it, so, you know, I wanted
to ask, you know, Jason, to anyone listening to this
who was interested in getting into animation, you.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Know, what do you recommend they do?
Speaker 6 (33:46):
Uh, that's a good question.
Speaker 7 (33:49):
I guess my gut reaction is to say, uh, you know,
order the order the book and if if you want
to sign up, I do have.
Speaker 6 (33:56):
A you know, we can set up for.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
Getting email when it when it goes live, and that's
at learn to Animate course dot com. And if you don't,
and it'll be higher than a dollar for this one,
just because the Kickstarter, you know, prices are will be
a little bit different, and I feel like I owe
it to the Kickstarter, the people who are willing to
put the money up front to make it a little more,
you know, to make if I kept at the same price,
(34:21):
I think I'd feel bad a little.
Speaker 6 (34:22):
Bit for them, So I can't.
Speaker 7 (34:24):
I don't know specifically what the prices will be yet
to get closer, but if you want to join the net,
that's a good place to start.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
And it's not set up yet, but there should be.
Speaker 7 (34:35):
Like the first few chapters, I just talk about the
equipment that that I give away for free, just for
people to kind of have an idea of what the
book's about and to to you know, know what what
equipments are involved. If you didn't want to buy the book,
I would say, you know, just experiment with Again, I
used Windows movie Maker. It's not super hard. You can
(34:57):
use almost any video editing software where that allows you
to that allows you to turn the image image duration below.
I'd say point point point three is pretty good.
Speaker 6 (35:16):
Three six, nine.
Speaker 7 (35:17):
I'm trying to do the math, but even lower is better.
And I can't think of those numbers out the top
of my head, just because when it when it like
I think of it as a frame rate is different
than the like the decimal point of a second. So yeah,
if you can get to get to that, if you
can get to point five, it's probably not good enough,
but you can still play around with it and see.
(35:38):
To me, it's all about experimentation and trying new things.
And with apps now one can get away with a
lot more than they could before smartphones. So if that's
a possibility, that's always a good option as well.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Yeah, you know, as I told you before, I uh
through email, I actually was taking a online course, very
very short and simplistic, but but you know, it was
a good compliment to your PDF.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
And you know, as we were going back and forth,
you know, one of the things that.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
I've been learning about too is you know, just creating
you know, just different characters because obviously I'm not an illustrator.
If I was, you know, when I do it, I'm
going to use actual three D models and you know,
like a set and everything like that. But but you're
absolutely right though I won't use myself my Smartphone'm probably
gonna use my dslry. But but you know, yeah, one
(36:36):
of the one of the things that you know, I've
noticed too is, you know, it not to be too
ambitious the first time. It's kind of like making it,
you know, like a live action movie.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Well you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
And it's kind of you know, if you're if this
is your first movie, you're not going to make, you know,
a Mortin Scorsese film. You're not going to make Taxi
Driver in your first effort. But you know, you need
to need to think of a much lower, much lower scale,
just so you can acclimate it to the process for sure.
Speaker 7 (37:05):
And I usually tell people to start with with with
the students that usually wanted to they have these like
grand visions, and I say, well, thinking thinking seconds, like
if you can get three to four seconds, like, that's
pretty good in a you know, two and a half
hour workshop. You know, I think too, it helps to
(37:26):
if one wants to think grand, I think, what's the
what's the first short thing I need to shoot?
Speaker 6 (37:32):
And that's kind of what I do with with Hillary.
Originally I was going to shoot.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
It in all cutout animation, and I I cut out.
I did the cutouts for like the first scene, and
it turned out cool because it was like paper cutouts.
But then I instantly realized just from that six seconds
how much work that was going to be, and then
realized how much time flash would save me, and so
then I.
Speaker 6 (37:54):
Switched over to to digital.
Speaker 7 (37:58):
But yeah, it's definitely it also too. I mean, thinking
small like that allows someone to experiment with more. So
it's it's not thinking of it as a hindrance. It's
better to think of it like, oh I can now
I can instead of having to spend three years on
doing this hand drawn thing.
Speaker 6 (38:17):
I can.
Speaker 7 (38:17):
I can experiment with sand animation, I can experiment with
stop motion, I can experiment with claymation, I can experiment
with all these other things, and you know it's easy
to make something short in an afternoon. So yeah, experimenting,
playing around with it and then deciding what that next
step is is better than try to take it all
on at once.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Yeah, definitely, you know, and I was even speaking to
you about some of the other resources you know out there.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
You know, granted they're not free, some of them are.
You know, it's a premium, but you know.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
The you know, I just saw an article today about
how film school, the online film schools are actually going
to cause the physical film school will lower in price because.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
You know, there's a lot of there's so many resources
out there now.
Speaker 7 (39:05):
Yeah, it makes sense, and I think premium has its Uh,
it definitely has its perks because you know, as as
people who use the Internet constantly, it's it's easy to think, oh,
i'll just get I'll just look it up online, and
especially like the more technical stuff, the problem with that
(39:25):
is it's not always put together in a way that's
that's helpful to learn. And like, again, that stuff's out there.
And in film there's actually quite a few that I
think do a pretty good job for free. But in
animation specifically, I think of like my you know, rows
and rows of animation books, and I'm just like, man,
I'm glad I got these because if I had to
(39:47):
try to figure out how to find this information in
this order on through random websites, it would it would
just take forever.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
And so.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 7 (40:08):
Uh, you know with the books that can at least
be like all right, I you know, I have ones
that talk about just timing. I have ones that just
talk about storyboards. I have ones that just talk about
you know, very specific things, and yeah, doing Google searches
on that would probably take an hour just to find
a good, reputable site that would help be helpful. So yeah,
(40:31):
it depends on specifically what they want to learn. But
I think premium is a good way to go when
when you're willing to cut cut cut down on googling time.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
So yeah, very true. And you know, it's always good
to have a good network too. You know, there's I mean,
I just got an inmate the other day. I know,
Sheane Hubert. I tell you are yeah, I'd tell your promise.
His last name he actually he's a director's cinematography and
he's opening up his own online film school now and
that's a monthly subscription service. So again I'm like, wow,
(41:04):
there's just so many options out there now, and you know,
the paying, you know, paying a monthly subscription fee is
a barrier to entry, so it kind of just keeps
people out for who are just signing up and you know,
they just want to be part of another Facebook group
or what have you. So I mean, I got the
first month for free, so I'm going to check it
out to see if it's somebody we don't want to
(41:24):
keep going on with.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
But again, even that you know, you get to see that,
you know it's a it's a pretty good network.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Because that used to be the argument for phisical schools
was well, hey, you know education secondary because you're getting paid.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
I'm sorry, you're paying to get to be a part
of this network.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
So when you go out, you know, you're an alumni
and you go out and then you can meet other
alumni and you're when you're here, you're working with each
other and you know who to trust. You can both
have relationship. But you know, again now you're seeing that
more online now too.
Speaker 6 (41:50):
Yeah, for sure, and I think too with paying it's
that money is going to create the stuff. So it's
not like that. Good examples.
Speaker 7 (41:59):
I actually have a MBA and I am on a
few business ye subscriptions where you know, I'm taking classes
through these websites and I have to say I'm learning more,
you know when you go to the college. And so
a good example of being like a class and then
the teacher puts up a note saying, oh today we're
(42:19):
not having class, and all the kids are like, you know,
all the students master's degree level students are like, yeah,
I don't know. I'm thinking, Man, I just paid a
hundred Like if I did the math, I'm probably paying
one hundred bucks to sit in this class.
Speaker 6 (42:32):
And we're excited to basically.
Speaker 7 (42:34):
Throw away that hundred dollars where you know, the monthly
subscription is you know, thirty bucks a month, and yeah,
like I get access to all these resources and it
tends to be better because there's a higher stand you know.
And maybe business school's not the best example, but like
I specifically interested in online business and so most of
(42:55):
the professors are behind and you know, they're they have
their specialties.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
But the online business.
Speaker 7 (43:01):
Schools that are online, like they have to be up
to date because otherwise, you know, people will drop out,
where basically the universities just have to get convinced kids
that they needed to you know, a piece of paper then,
you know, as opposed to actually having the best information.
So I'm definitely pushing people to go more towards online
(43:22):
schools and and things like that. I think they get
a higher degree of quality that way.
Speaker 6 (43:29):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
You know, I also think now you know, Spike lel
us Or, I think with Spike Lee said, you know
they used to go to film school, just get the equipment. Well,
now you know, everything is so democratic. You know, the
equipment is inny palm in your hand now, yeah, because
you could you could learn using your phone and then
then you can actually you know, you know, I always
say the best mistakes the ones you make for free
because you don't want to rent this huge camera package
(43:54):
and then go, oh, well, you know this, this film
really sucked.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
It didn't even look good because I didn't even know
how to use the camera. Uh, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
And then you know, and then you really look back
and you say, wow, we just wasted five thousand dollars,
you know, or God forbid, even more. But now you
know you can actually start, you know, teaching yourself, you know,
filmmaking just by you know, shooting stuff on your phone,
editing on your computer, and then you know, you know,
like Mark Duplas said, and then in a block post,
you know, teaching yourself. Every weekend, you and your friends
(44:23):
go out and shoot a short film for one hundred
bucks and that's it.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Yeah, the hard part's finding the friends.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
So what I and what I would, uh, what I
used to do was you know, I when I was
in college or even when I got out of college
I got out in twenty ten, I would just you know,
grab student student you know, uh students that are actors,
you know, and going to the uh the acting side
of things, and they're always looking for for stuff and
you know, either that or I would just well, well, now,
(44:54):
I you know, I have so many different friends. If
I were to post something, I'd say, listen, I'm gonna
be upfront with everybody. Hey, listen if I want to
do this, and it's just going to be for you know, us,
and you know we're not going to waste everyone's time
though at the same time, you know it's going to
be you know, something small, but we're not gonna waste
everyone's time. But hey, this is what it's going to be.
And you know, we're not sending this to film festivals.
It's just you know what I mean, it's going to
(45:15):
be something that's more of a learning experience. I think
if you're up front two of people, they more appreciate
that than when when some some student filmmakers post things,
it's usually like they act like they're making the next Casablanca,
and they're like, well, I might want to scale that
downright pur hyperbole.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Is is it could be your downfall?
Speaker 6 (45:32):
Right for sure?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (45:35):
So you know, Jason, I want to ask you know,
I know we didn't get this into your as we're
talking about your story, but you know, uh, you performed
on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. You know, could
could you you know, talk about that, you know how
that came to came?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
To be sure?
Speaker 6 (45:49):
At that time, I was just performing.
Speaker 7 (45:53):
Was my only thing, Like now I have I do
a mix of stuff just to keep myself saying I
was performing full time. I'm at a theme park near Chicago,
part of the six Flags Theme parks, and I just
sent him to be honest, I just sent him a
promo pack and just was saying, hey, you know, I
do these weird stunts something you know I and I
(46:16):
don't even remember what was in the pack. And a
producer called and said, hey, you know we do this segment.
We're looking for just unusual acts.
Speaker 6 (46:23):
What do you got?
Speaker 7 (46:24):
And I gave him a list and it was things
that he had all seen. And then I said, you know,
give me, give me a week. I'll call you back
with you know, some some stuff I know you'll never
have seen.
Speaker 6 (46:34):
And he's like, okay.
Speaker 7 (46:36):
So then I called him back and he took the
first thing, uh, the first thing I had, and yeah,
they just flew me out and did my did the
routine and you know, it was it was interesting. I
was on with Rachel Ray, who I hadn't didn't know
who she was at the time. It was kind of
bizarre because I came back and I saw her face
(46:58):
like on like rich crackers and stuff, and I'm like, oh, weird.
I didn't really notice this person, and then I noticed
she was everywhere and then and then I was on
with Russell Crowe as the other star guest, and I
think there was a band, but I can't remember who
they were. I'm not big music music kuite, so but yeah,
(47:19):
that was basically it. So, I mean, that's a good
That's one of those things where and I've come close
to get on Leno. I don't know even know if
they switched you. I don't really watch a lot of TV,
so that's like my biggest downfall for that stuff. But
I definitely it was one of those things where I
just took a chance and just figured, well, it can't hurt.
I just had my basic promo pack that I was
using already, so it didn't take much. I just added
(47:41):
a little cover letter and yeah, they took it, so
it worked out well.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
You said you were almost on Letno, did you mean Letterman?
Speaker 5 (47:51):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (47:51):
Yes, sorry, almost on Letterman. Yeah, and that one.
Speaker 7 (47:54):
I can't remember the reason that the stunt I was
trying to sell to them. They questioned.
Speaker 6 (48:03):
They were They had some things that they weren't sure
about that I.
Speaker 7 (48:08):
Eventually fixed, and then I ended up I ended up
doing it on America's Got Talent instead, and I kind
of wish I'd just done it on Letterman.
Speaker 6 (48:16):
I think I think I could have done on Letterman,
and I guess.
Speaker 7 (48:19):
I could still I'm not sure if they made that
switch yet, because I know all the hosts are switching that.
Speaker 6 (48:24):
I don't know what that is because I don't watch TV.
Speaker 7 (48:26):
But I'll have to see if they're still doing the
For that one, it would have been on stupid human tricks,
So that one, I'll have to see whoever's coming up
next if they do that or what.
Speaker 4 (48:37):
But the way late night TV works is, I'm sorry,
the late night TV hierarchy, as it was explained to me,
is now it's Fallin, then it's Kimmel, then it's Conan,
and then it's you know who. I guess whoever. I'm
not sure whoever is left. But I mean, I'm not
(48:57):
a big Jimmy Fallon fan. I'm more Kimmel and Conan fan.
I actually have a couple of friends work for Jimmy Kimmel,
and like that's why I want to support him as well,
because he's also a talented guy. But but but yeah,
I know that whole that whole regime just completely shifted around.
Speaker 6 (49:16):
Yeah, it's a bit. It's a bit overwhelmed for somebody
who doesn't watch TV.
Speaker 7 (49:20):
Do they do do you know if they do any
kind of odd I imagine they have to because all
of them are kind of goofy. They're not you know,
they're not like I don't. They're all goofy guys. So
I imagine they probably bring on do some kind of
segment like that. But I don't Again, I don't know,
you would know better than me.
Speaker 6 (49:39):
Do they have that.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
I think they do because I know a lot of
what they're doing now is Kimmel focuses on two things.
That's the celebrity reading me, celebrities reading mean tweets about themselves,
and he also has a lot of man on the
street stuff.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Fallon will be right back, throw a word from our
sponsor and now back to the show.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Does his own I mean, he was doing that lip
syncing thing and a couple of things.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
But that's a good question. I'm sure if somebody listening
to the podcast is probably like, come on, guys, of
course they don't do or whatever, you know, But but yeah,
I'm not one hundred percent sure though.
Speaker 7 (50:22):
Okay, yeah, Conan would be one I'd be excited to
be in actually all of them. Really, I'd be excited
to be on their shows more than like Leno. I'd
never really, I think I think booking wise, if I
would have played my cards the way I should have.
It was a good because the guy, the producer I
talked to said if we were on Letterman, there'd be
no way they would bring us on Leno and then
(50:44):
but I think Letterman would have been like whatever, And
so yeah, I like, as someone who doesn't really watch,
I liked Letterman more than Leno. But yeah, that's just
kind of how it fell together, I guess. But yeah,
any of those guys, I enjoy the stuff that I've
(51:04):
seen from them, so I'll have to send some stuff out.
I'm also performing a lot less, so I guess that's
a good excuse to spend the time to send them
some promo stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Now, did you actually get to meet Jay before the show?
Speaker 6 (51:19):
We did?
Speaker 7 (51:20):
It's it's a weird deal because like they and I
think I've heard this from someone else. Oh yeah, some
other performers who I think we're in a different show.
And I can't remember who the host was, but they
do like a so you go in and you do
like a dry run or whatever they call it something,
I can't.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
Remember what they call it. Andress rehearsal, Yeah, dress rehearsal.
Speaker 7 (51:41):
But like but Leno's not there, like you do it
without him, and so it's weird because he's like watching,
but he's not like there, or they tell us that
he's watching, and then yeah, we do that, and then
we went back to the dressing room and then he
basically just showed up and said hi and talked to
us a little bit for the show.
Speaker 6 (52:00):
And so he's there all day.
Speaker 7 (52:02):
I can imagine, like you know, he got I can't
remember the time we got there, probably like eight, and
he he was already there and we still had, you know,
like several hours before showtime. So he must put in
a he must have been putting in like twelve hour
days or something crazy.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Yeah, you know, eventually, you know, like I think Letterman said,
eventually get used to it, like Howard Stern got. It's
just so used to it now because he just got
in that groove right right.
Speaker 7 (52:30):
Yeah, it makes sense. And they were making stylistic changes
because we so the routine we did was I would
lay on a bed of nails and then we put
like another bet of nails on top of me, and
then the other guy would stand on top and then
get on top of a unicycle on top of me.
And ride a unicycle back and forth on that on
(52:51):
that top bed of nails. And then the gag originally
was and I think he.
Speaker 6 (52:57):
Came up with this.
Speaker 7 (52:58):
The guy who I did it with is his name
Circus Boy Bobby Hunt, and he would throw eggs at
my face, was like the gag, and the guy the
producer was they were going back and forth on whether
they thought that was too like joky, so then they
were going to have him juggle. And then I think
Leno said after he saw the I think we did both.
(53:19):
They were kind of like goofed around during the dress
rehearsal and he said specifically, yeah, let's just do the eggs,
and I think he regretted it because he ended up, Uh,
circus boy Bobby Hunt ended up playing it up a
little bit, and I think I think Leno got some
eggs on him and so he quickly during the commercial
ran took off and I think he got touched up
(53:40):
and uh Bobby had put his hand like in Leno's hair,
So I think I think it Uh yeah, I'm kind
of curious if that pissed him off or if he
was cool with it or what. But he you know,
he did the rest of the show and we didn't
end up getting a chance. We got a photo with him,
but we didn't I didn't ask.
Speaker 6 (54:01):
But it was fun. It was a fun, fun time.
Speaker 4 (54:05):
So yeah, that that I mean that that is you know,
one in a life, one in a lifetime opportunity, you know,
And you know, I think that you know that that's
an amazing story. And you know, it just goes to
show you Jason, you know, it depends on your network
and it also depends upon your portfolio. That's that's just
(54:26):
two things.
Speaker 7 (54:27):
And taking a chance, I think that was that was
a huge part. It is just I it was kind
of just like I'm just going to do this and
what's the worst that could happen? You know, And yeah,
and it worked out.
Speaker 6 (54:40):
Very cool.
Speaker 4 (54:41):
And uh, you know, Jason, we've been talking for about,
you know, fifty minutes now, So in closing, is there
anything that maybe we haven't talked about that maybe you
wanted to discuss or is there any sort of anything
you wanted to say sort of put a uh, you know,
a period at the end of this whole conversation.
Speaker 6 (54:58):
Yeah, that's that's the lot of pressure.
Speaker 7 (55:02):
Yeah, I would just say, I mean kind of going
along with that theme of taking a chance, I think,
take a chance, but then also like stick with it.
I mean, I'm one of those people who have multiple interests,
but I feel like I still stick with the general
you know, the I like animation, I like the things
that I like doing, I stick with and eventually have
developed an ability.
Speaker 6 (55:21):
To make a business out of it.
Speaker 7 (55:23):
And so you know, whether you're a professional whatever you're doing,
or and someone who wants to get into some kind
of art field or non art field, you know, just
making it like part of part of one's life, I
think is really the secret to to pulling that off.
And so granted I'm not I mean with an NBA
could be working for some corporation making you know, widgets
(55:45):
or car parts or something. But instead I'm you know,
making a modest income making comic books, animated videos and
teaching people to do different creative stuff.
Speaker 6 (55:56):
So I think.
Speaker 7 (55:59):
You don't have to pick like this is the thing
I'm going to do. I guess that's one lesson as well.
But making that part of one's life and taking chances
is important.
Speaker 4 (56:10):
Yeah, and you also get to come on podcasts and
have me WHR questions at you.
Speaker 6 (56:15):
Yeah, yeah, which which is exciting. Yeah, it's been fun.
Speaker 3 (56:20):
Jason. Where can people find you out online?
Speaker 2 (56:22):
Sure?
Speaker 7 (56:22):
The best place to find me right now is Compulsive
Creative dot com and if you're interested in the animation course,
learn to Animate course dot com.
Speaker 6 (56:34):
Those are those are the best places.
Speaker 7 (56:35):
Otherwise Twitter, it's kind of probably the best place on
Twitter is Jason Love's life at Jason Loves Life and yeah,
I guess that's everything else is through Compulsive Creative. So
you could just search for that on different social medias.
Speaker 4 (56:50):
Awesome, and I'll look to that and everyone in the
show notes so you can contact Jason Jason Love. Thank
you very much for coming on.
Speaker 6 (56:57):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (56:58):
Oh, it's been my pleasure. And I want to wish
you the best of luck with everything. And I'll keep
you informed of what I do with my stop most animation.
Speaker 6 (57:05):
Yeah, I'm excited to I'm excited to see it.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
Oh, thank you very much. All right, Jason, take care
of my friend.
Speaker 6 (57:10):
Yeah, yep, you two see it.
Speaker 3 (57:12):
Bye bye.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Indie Film huscle
dot com. Forward Slash eight seventeen. If you have it already,
please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com, subscribe and
leave a good review for the show. It really helps
us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much
(57:34):
for listening to guys. As always, keep that hustle going,
keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll
talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (57:41):
Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
Indie film hustle dot com. That's I N D I
E F I L M h U S T l
E dot com.
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