This week, Cole identifies the innovation from Ben Afflack as a Director and CEO of new Movie Studio.
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Big week, huge week. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but what's up everyone? It's America Plus. I'm your host, Cole McCormick. It's another week, another episode. What's going on, everybody? Happy to be here. March 19th, Sunday, folks. We're here again. It's been a wild week. First update I got to give you. I have made a pivot. There's been a pivot this week in how I am manifesting money. I quit my job. I quit the tablet job. I just wasn't, I wasn't aligned with it. I wasn't really connected with it.
I just wasn't making any money with it. I'm outside of these grocery stores with this booth, with these cheap government tablets. I'm looking for people on EBT, but like, there's like barely anyone walking around. And I'm, it's just not like, it just wasn't aligned. Like ultimately, it just wasn't, just wasn't my thing. And I got a boost of confidence the night before I quit. And I think I've discovered like, or I say discovered. It's an entire industry. Have you, has anyone ever heard of drop shipping? Because that's what I'm about to be doing. This seems to be the, a similar type of opportunity as the tablet gig.
I'm in charge of my hours, the amount of effort I put in, hopefully equals, equal money, you know, equal payment. So here's another thing, drop shipping. If you don't know what it is, I'm able to sell things online without having a physical inventory near me. I just, I'm on Shopify. Shopify is like a platform that give you like access to just make a website and just like make a storefront. And it seems like something I'm about to like really like dig into because with this entire mission of building my own Star Wars, my own brand, I have a zero experience doing a brand.
So I see this as a way to actually like get some teeth to actually sink my teeth into and practice, like have like a, have like a little incubation experiment laboratory, which is what I'm always talking about. And I can actually experiment with brand. I can experiment with storytelling because what it is, so you have the storefront and then you choose what supplier you want to pull from. And you got to do, you need to do a TikTok, you need to do an advertisement. And that's all storytelling and editing and just like getting the person hooked in, you know, and it's this balance of like having like a store and having like impulse buys, you know.
So I'm not looking to get rich quick. I'm just looking to be in charge. I'm looking for authority. I'm looking for autonomy. That's like the ultimate mission here. And what I want to talk about this week revolves around autonomy, just like better ways of doing business, smarter ways of doing business, experimenting, just trying to do your best with having a healthy system or and trying to be fully in charge. We're focusing on directors. We're focusing on Hollywood a little bit this week, America Plus. Oh, if you haven't noticed, I got to say. The updated image, if you're on your podcast app, if you're listening to this right now, we are officially America Plus, Colmah Cormac is officially in phase one.
So give a round of applause for that one. Thank you so much. It's a big deal. Phase one, we were in phase zero for 2022 2023, it's new vibes. And we are I'm updating the flag. I'm updating the image. It's a bit more glossier, a bit more, a bit more fiery. There's some Bitcoin orange in there. So tell me what you think of that. Tell me if I should adjust it somehow. I think it's centered. I'm pretty sure it's centered. But yeah, we're doing more stuff. I also got a new hosting company. I switched over hosting companies, just like silly little like podcast update, podcast technical update.
I switched over from Castos to RSS.com. The main reason was because RSS.com just has more podcasting 2.0 features. And I'm just trying to be more aligned with podcasting 2.0. You'll hear more about that later. But I just want like phase one, I want to have a more broader net. I'm going to be putting the show out on more platforms. And I'm going to be doing a better job implementing value for value and pitching value for value. And yeah, like I just want to continue to build this system of the podcast ecosystem. This is like its own thing, like podcasting is its own medium.
And whatever medium you're in, you need to put immense energy into crafting that network you have or whatever infrastructure you have, whether it be getting people to buy something or getting people to see something, podcasting is something that I'm just obsessed with. So we continue to evolve. And this week on America Plus, this first clip I got to you folks is coming from 1960. I saw this wild interview with the legendary director Orson Wells. If you know anything about Orson Wells, he is a gentleman. He made what is considered to be the best film of all time, Citizen Kane, the best film of all time when he was 25 years old.
That's how old I am right now. And I have a 10 minute short film and a podcast. So this guy, he was killing it. And here's a little interview from him as a middle age man, discussing that time, discussing his mindset, like how he achieved what he was able to achieve. Because the film is known for just a lot of technical advancements, the way they used focusing, like the way that they're able to focus on multiple people at once was like innovative back in the 40s. And I'm going to tie this all in. I'm going to tie this all in to modern times, the future of creation. I thought you could do anything with a camera that I could do or the imagination could do.
And if you come up from the bottom in the film business, you're taught all the things that the cameraman doesn't want to attempt for fear he will be criticized for having failed. And in this case, I had a cameraman who didn't care if he was criticized if he failed. And I didn't know that there were things you couldn't do. So anything I could think up in my dreams, I attempted to photograph. You got away with enormous technical advances, didn't you? Simply by not knowing that they were impossible or theoretically impossible. And of course, again, I had a great advantage not only in the real genius of my cameraman, but in the fact that he, like all great men, I think, who were masters of a craft, told me right at the outset that there was nothing about camera work that I couldn't learn in half a day, that any intelligent person couldn't learn in half a day.
And he was right. It's true of an awful lot of things. Of all, of every other, you know, the great mystery that requires 20 years doesn't exist in any field. And certainly not in a camera. It's the most overrated mystery on earth, you know. And I was lucky enough to be told that by the absolute best living cameraman. The best dead director just said that there's not much to learn with the camera. There's not much to really, there's not a lot to really know. The most overrated mystery is the camera. This is in a time when film was, you know, there was a golden age of film. There was a golden age of Hollywood.
And 1960, you know, he was reflecting on this different time. And the times are changing in that era in the 1960s and movies are changing. You don't really hear about a lot of movies made in the 60s, do you? It's, you know, like shit changed in the 70s, right? A lot of things really pushed, like punched in in the 70s. And I just thought that was interesting regarding just his knowledge of him, regarding the knowledge of his cameraman to be wise. I think that's brilliant. I think that's like super important. Like he was a person who saw the craft.
He was a person who was a master of his craft. And that brings me to a person who's a little controversial. If I say he's a master of his craft, is that hate speech? Ben Affleck. We're going to a Ben Affleck interview now, folks. I see a connection here. He is innovating the same way Orson Wells innovated with Citizen Kane and his his ability to use his imagination and his ability to see the opportunity within the set, within the story is similar to what I see Ben Affleck do right now. I'm bringing it back from a while ago. I think before the New Year, he was interviewing being interviewed in the New York Times.
And he was talking about his new production company. He has this brand new, brand spanking new way of making movies. It's his new payout structure pretty much. And there's a little refresher. That's familiar territory to me. That was very interesting. So what's the problem that you're trying to solve here? The problem is that movies have not adapted to modern technology for one thing. They're still making movies like they were in the 40s and 50s with slow film, heavy cameras, a lot of equipment, a lot of lights. They're just practically speaking a massive amount of money is wasted.
I didn't work on it. I know that. So I could bang. I knew I could say 15% at least off the top. I thought, well, there's a margin there. Second of all, movies don't prize the right people. You can spend more on the right person that will make a better movie for less. I don't know if other businesses function the same way, but I can tell you that this business does. And we went out and did some proof of concept stuff, our first couple of movies, and it's the idea has borne itself out and it's really been gratifying. So the people who principally create value on the sales side, on the audience, eyeballs side, these artists who have worked their entire careers, like my wife, building a name, a reputation, a connection with fans that has real value.
And oftentimes that value isn't reflected in the deals that are made. And so what I do with Jerry really understood was to embrace that, structure it so that, hey, whatever the market bears, and we want to be able to enjoy competition, we're going to explain to Adam Smith this thing to death, is an invisible hand. We're going to say, whoever wants this, we're going to disconnect the idea of like, what does it cost, what's your rate? Never mind. I don't go into the Apple store and say, how much did you pay them to make the iPhone? And then tell them what I'll pay.
They tell me what it costs. Which we should say is how Hollywood has been operating, at least most recently. It seems- I'll put it there. I'll stop it there real quick. So that's his innovation. That's what he's doing. He debuted that when it was this month. This is three months ago. Right before the new year. What is that movie? What were those proof of concepts? If you haven't been in the realm of movies, if you don't follow movies, he just got done debuting this past weekend at the festival South by Southwest, sort of like a business, tech, film festival, sort of like a combo of a few different things.
He was there and he debuted the newest movie that he directed called Air. Have you seen that trailer for Air? It's Ben Affleck, Matt Damon. It's Viola Davis. It's about the story of how Nike made the deal with Michael Jordan. And it's blown the roof off. Everyone's saying it's legit. Everyone's saying it's awesome. And this is the first movie, the first- I believe it's the first official movie that is utilizing- that his company is utilizing this new structure. And what this whole thing is, I'm going to be reading a few sections of an interview he just did a couple days ago.
He's talking about what the philosophy is, what he's able to do with this. And I also want to go into- he has a really interesting story because when I try to connect him and Orson Welles, it's not a clean connection. You know, there's- I don't see a clean parallel with Orson's story and Ben's story or my story, but there are things that sort of rhyme. I do see certain rhyming points. And Orson Welles being a figure who was- he came from theater and radio and he was just this like magnificent storyteller. And he was in a position to make a movie.
He didn't really care about making movies, but as soon as he started to make them, he started to love them. And he has his whole ethos if you follow Orson Welles. And Ben Affleck on the other hand, he's this guy- he's been acting since he was like nine years old. Like he's been trying to be in the business- he's been in the business for over three- close to four decades. He's like 50. And he's been- he's been doing it. And he's been a celebrity. He's been a celebrity for most of his career. But what I think is so eye-opening is that he's actually- like ever since the pandemic, you know, ever since he was- ever since they did Zack Snyder's Justice League, he's really just turned a page and he's in a different vibe right now.
He's in a different mode. And I'm going to be reading this excerpt right here. We're going to begin with just some- a little recap of what he's gauging in terms of like the public eye, his kids talking to him. He's talking about TV movies. He says- so the person's like asking him about his company, what's going on there, what's- what like made you start thinking about this. And he goes, my daughter is 17. She lives her life largely in opposition to the work her- her parents have spent their lives dedicated to. Where she'll say things like, I'm not sure if film is really dot, dot, dot.
I mean, do you think it's a genuine art form? Ben Affleck's kids literally criticizing film as a- as a medium. And the parents being Jennifer Garner and him. So we got 13 going on 30 being criticized along with Batman and I can't- I can't respect it. I'm not able to respect that- that questioning, that line of questioning. And the- the interviewer goes into- oh, I'm sorry. After that he says, okay then. So these movies that I like, they're not fucking working anymore. He was talking about his- his- his alcoholic movie that came out, smack dab in the pandemic, called The Way Back.
Literally about a- a guy who's divorced, uh, uh, he's drinking too much, but he's got to like help these kids play basketball. Um, that's the type of movie that he, like, enjoys, right? He enjoys watching them and he enjoys making them. But for the younger generation, she doesn't- they- they- they really don't- don't see that as valuable to go to the theater. So now he says, okay, that's fine. Like, that's not fucking working. Um, and then the interviewer goes to, um, as opposed to what? Like what other film? What other type of film?
And he goes, the Justice League experience. The fact that those stories became s- uh, somewhat rep- repetitive to me and less interesting. Yeah, I did finally figure out how to play the character Batman and I nailed it in the flash for the five minutes I'm in there. It's really great. A lot of it is just tone. And uh, the interviewer goes on to, but not Justice League. What went- what went wrong there? And Ben- um, he's- he's telling you the narrative of just what makes Hollywood so absolutely shitty. Justice League. You could teach a seminar on all of the reasons why this is how not to do it.
From production to bad decisions to horrible personnel tragedy and just ending with the most monstrous taste in my mouth. The genius and the silver lining is that Zack Snyder eventually went to the AT&T and was like, look, I can get you four hours of content and it's principally all the slow motion he shot in black and white. And one day of shooting with me and him, he was like, hey, Ben, do you want to come shoot my backyard? I was like, I think there are unions, Zack. I think we need to make a deal, but I went and did it. And now Zack Snyder's Justice League is my highest rated movie on IMDB.
So that's his experience. He has- he embodies like the most like cliche story of a celebrity, right? And he's in these silly movies. You know, everyone makes fun of Armageddon. Uh, he's a- he's an oil driller, but he's also an astronaut and he's saving the world. Just some like really silly shit. And he's in this horrific movie called Justice League that was reshot, um, by Joss Whedon. And it was really just- just disgusting. Joss Whedon is the director of Avengers. He did the first two Avengers and they brought him in to reshoot Justice League and it's just- it's a horrific, horrific story of just abuse and verbal abuse, physical abuse, just making people feel uncomfortable.
And Ben being Ben, he's- at this point of him- of him making Justice League that he's like literally he's lamenting about. After decades of making movies, this is the movie that he is like speaking to the Hollywood reporter to about it being terrible. Um, and- and post two Oscars. He has multiple Oscars at this point. The interviewer asks, um, da-da-da-da-da, if the Zack Snyder's Justice League is so highly rated, isn't that because of, uh, uh, Zack Snyder's fans being so intense online? And Ben's saying, say what you want. It's my highest rated career movie.
I've never had one that went from nadir to pinnacle. Retroactively, it's a hit. All of a sudden, I'm getting congratulated for the bomb I'm in. But I was going to direct a Batman movie and Justice League made me go, I'm out. I never want to do this any again. I'm not suited. This was the worst experience I've ever seen in a business which is full of shitty experiences. It broke my heart. There's an idea of someone, Joss Whedon, coming in and like, quote, I'll rescue you and we'll do 60 days of shooting and I'll write a whole thing around you, uh, what- what we have.
I've got the secret. And it wasn't the secret. That was hard. And I started to drink too much. I was back at the hotel in London. It was either that or jump out the window. And I thought, this isn't the life I want. My kids aren't here. I'm miserable. You want to go to work and find something interesting to hang on to. Rather than just wearing a rubber suit and most of it, you're just standing against the computer screen. If this nuclear waste gets loose, well, that's fine. I don't consend that. I don't condensate to that or put it down. But I got to a point where I found it creatively not satisfying.
Also just sweating it and exhausted. And I thought, I don't want to participate in this in any way. And I don't want to squander any more of my life of which I have a limited amount of. So that's some serious life shit, dude. Ben Affleck's talking about his kids, his life. This is no longer like simply making a film. I think the narrative, a part of the narrative around Hollywood is how complicated making a film has become. Yes, there was like a time when you could, like, you could just sort of create anything or maybe you could just just be wild.
If you watch the movie Babylon, they go into just like how like insane shit was on set and how just chaos everything was and how sound changed the culture, how the technology of sound changed the culture of how they made movies and how they engaged on set. And I feel as though we're in like another period of that. The interviewer goes on to say about now, focusing on the studio, artist equity. I heard you recently say 15% of a movie budget is waste. Which 15% are you talking about? Ben goes, I don't believe in the whole I get paid even in failure thing. It's always struck me as a as bizarre that I walked away with so much money from from giggly or jiggly.
I don't know how to say this word. Jiggly, giggly, whatever. And everyone else got flattened. That was clearly a bomb at the box office. I think it was like in the 90s or early 2000s. It seems a little bit that I was not aligned quite with the investors in that regard. The studios and the people who make the movies are increasingly separate from different worlds. They don't understand one another's values and their suspicion and it creates conflict. I was on my 2016 movie live by night and they were dressing an extra. It must have cost $700 to dress this extra in the period 500 feet away from the camera and we were waiting while they did the touch ups.
It was just like, guys, this is not meaningful, but it's taking away from the time and the resources we have to do something authentically enough that moves the audience. They don't care if the curls are 1930 or 1920. So there he is acknowledging the simplicity of the creation of film. This is not some mega mystery. This is not some infinite time to ponder and to think and to meditate on the value of film or on the authenticity of the moment. This is a movie. We make movies. He makes movies. And this is him really going for it. This is him really saying like, we can do it better.
We can extend the value of this entire project. The interviewer, the operating principle of artist's equity is that people who work on a film have an ownership stake. How did that work on air? And here he goes, Ben Affleck, I was talking to my cinematographer, Bob Richardson, the cameraman if you don't know. I was talking to my cameraman, Bob Richardson. He's a genius. And I said, Bob, what if I gave you a million bucks to save me five million? Could you do it? And he goes, fuck, I'll save you 10. There are people who just have their hand on the wheel in ways people don't understand. Your editor, producer, DP, which is a cameraman, first assistant director, production designer.
The idea is you get really good people and you say to them, look, if we're able to accomplish what we set out to accomplish, we're going to participate in a very significant way in the delta between what the movie costs and what the movies makes when we sell it. The people who were bonus on this movie, Air, like Bob and all the crew, their bonus was a piece of the pool of the sale to Amazon. Almost all of them on a weekly basis now are the highest paid crew people in history by a multiple. So Ben, and the reviews for Air are just going ballistic. Everyone saying that Ben directed the shit out of it.
Everyone saying that it's fun. It's like, like, it feels good. It feels it's upbeat. It's about just a positive story about people, about family. And it's just a crowd pleaser. Like he made a really good like film movie in the sense that he likes movies. And this is like the first use case of actually having an equitable system, which is incredible to share the profit, to share the profit with the people who made it. That's exactly what I'm trying to do. That's exactly what I want to get involved with. I love that system. So I need to see this film and I, I got to get involved with this.
I got to get involved somehow with, with this, with that. Now the dream, of course, is that with my dropshipping business, I can fund all my movies. Probably not. We'll see. The interviewer, do you want artist equity to stay independent or do you want a studio deal? The, and it then goes, the first look deal is going to be a dinosaur very soon. If you don't know what that is, that's been around for a while. The first look deal, that's when a studio just gives a person or a production company money. It's, hey, you got a first look deal. We're giving you blah, blah, blah, millions.
And maybe you're contracted to do a few movies, whatever you want. First look, you got it. Whatever we want, you got first look. And he's saying it's a dinosaur. This is a stupid deal. You're restricting yourself in unimaginably disastrous ways for a few shiny trinkets. And he's talking about the Oscars, I think. The experiment for me is to say to the studio, don't worry about the, don't worry what the budget is. That's my job. I'm going to do my best with the budget. I'm going to guarantee, I'm going to guarantee you and cover all the overages. And by the way, director, actor, company, all on the hook for overages.
Interviewer. So is there a scenario where your director of photography would have to pay money if you went over budget? Crews usually don't assume that kind of risk. And Ben goes, they'd make much less because we'd go, we went over guys. So we're going to get paid like a scale movie. So the compensation is if we do very well, Bob should do galactically well. So should our first assistant director. And so should Chris Tucker, Viola Davis, Matt Damon, who are driving the value. The studios, historically, you'd go in pitch, then they'd quietly go back to the marketing and distribution and say, well, let's run the numbers.
And they go to the territory and talk about genre and stars. Now it's a, now it's much more, it's a much more course process. They say, well, we have 118 categories for content. We know X works and Y. So we'll pay Z for that. But there's no formula for something being good. At Artist Equity, we have a joint venture with a data research AI modeling company that has a lot of consumer information. We can reach out to people and go, what are you watching? What do you, why do you like this? Do you like this? The inscrutability around the streamers is very frustrating because you go, are people watching this or not?
And the interviewer goes, do the streamers give you any data on your movies? And Ben goes, no, they don't. So that's super interesting. Like he's looking for data on a business level. He's looking for data. Also from an artist level, he's looking for data. He has an artistic yearning to make something in a certain way. And if you've seen any of Ben Affleck's films, we're talking about Good Will Hunting, we're talking about The Town, we're talking about Argo, we're talking about The Way Back. These better movies are the smaller dramas. And I've said this before, the smaller dramas in the theater just don't exist.
So how can we save money? How can we be more efficient so that we can make the thing we want as best as we freaking can? We've got the last section right here, folks. Last section of the interview. The interviewer goes, let's say one of your old movies is a hit on a streaming service and then he interrupts. He goes, well, last year, my 2010 movie, The Town, licensed for 15 million again. That means that Netflix paid 15 million to have the rights to stream that movie for a while. Because it streams. That's the other big tenant of our company. We seek to retain the negative to be the copyright holder, which is the share, which we share with the artist.
Being the copyright holder, even if it's in 15 years when it reverts and it should revert, you should own it because if it works, if it's Shawshank Redemption, they're still fucking watching it. The biggest thing on Netflix is friends. There's enormous value in libraries and the streamers have overreached and recaptured too much value. The old gross days, you could really make money. You've taken away some of that value. So I need at least to be able to know, hey, look, I know people are watching. I know what this is worth to you. That's all he's looking for.
He just wants to know what people are interested in. And it's so wild to think that the streamers are holding all that because the streamers want to... That data is gold pretty much. Data is the new gold, right? Or the new oil is what they say. And then last question from the interviewer, Amazon is releasing air in theaters. When you started this movie, did you envision it for streaming or theaters? And he goes, I assumed it would be a streaming movie because I thought maybe dramas would never come out again in theaters. The way back when they pulled it, I was so heartbroken.
And then the former Warner Brothers chairman, Toby Emmerich, was like, we're going to rush it to iTunes. And then I got all these emails and calls and people saw it and it was like the day I thought, well, shit, I'd rather have people see the movie. I like a theater as much as the next guy, but a tree falling in the woods. And now there's an enormous pressure that I feel here. I mean, I hope that it works. So he's stepping into the unknown right there, folks. That's what I interpret. We got a person, we got an American filmmaker trying to innovate. We have an American artist seeking to have a better business and a better system to create what he wants to create.
And I think that's inspiring as fuck, dude. So what do you think of that? Do you think there's any value in that? Do you think there's value in this Ben Affleck thing and in this equity pool that has? If I made a movie and I could make some money off the back end, like, not even like, okay, so the most recent example is this Keynes movie I'm going in. I was on, I was doing lights for it. If it was possible for me to make any money, if that movie gets picked up by any bigger company, like, that would be almost life changing. Like that, like that is such an awesome system.
Like that is so cool. So I want, I got to be involved with that. I got to find my way into that because that's the type of Hollywood system I want to be in. I want to make movies in. That's the way this, this is the way, right? So I personally see value. I personally see value. And with that, folks, we are going to head on to the value for value section or otherwise known as the boosts. Folks, America Plus is a value for value based show. If you don't know what that is, value for value means, means that I just produce, it means that I produce awesomeness, right?
Value means I put intention into this. I put my time, I put my talent into the podcast and you have the opportunity to, to show me your value, to show me your time, your talent and your treasure if you want to help me out in any way, just by you listening is sending value, just by you just giving your voice to me if you want to support me in any way. If you don't know what I'm talking about, value for value, there's a new website called value for value.info. This gives a really good breakdown on what this whole structure is. Pretty much it's fully listener supported.
America Plus is fully listener supported. And I'm going to be reading the boost from a couple people who sent me some satoshis. If you don't know what a satoshi is, we're doing this thing. Value for value is also aligned with Bitcoin. There's certain podcast apps that allow you to send Bitcoin to each other. This whole, like I've mentioned the word podcasting 2.0. If you go to podcastapps.com, there's a huge list of apps that are aligned with this project. They give you more rich features. There's, there's chapters. There's, there's little gifts.
There's photos. There's transcripts. And this whole podcasting ecosystem is really just evolving. So get on the innovation, go to podcastapps.com, find your favorite podcast app and send me some satoshis if you think I have any value here, folks. I would love to hear that. I would love to hear what you have to say. I would love to hear about your innovation. We're going to read the boost from last week. I got a list of two folks who supported the show. Here we go. We got this first one. This first one is from user at, at user 609-63622-8262-6894. They send in 100 sats.
Thank you so much for your satoshis. They go with gratitude. Thank you for sharing. Boostar, boostar. Boost me, bitch. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing, user at 602. Like that's, or 609. That's, that warms my heart. Warms my heart. Last week was number 61, bank run for run. I was talking about all the bank runs. I was talking about all the, all the banks collapsing, the entire financial system collapsing. This last one from at Joel W. He's talking about the banks here. He says break the banksters boost. He sends in 1,111 sats.
Break the bank, the banksters boost. F those devils. Boost. Yes, I feel you Joel. I feel you. And now as the French say, it is time for le boost. Joel W. is the most consistent booster on the planet. One of my biggest supporters, so I just want to give a little round of applause to Joel W. I just want to give a shout out to you, man. I just appreciate you as a listener. I appreciate you as a supporter. I really value you. And I think you have like, you're funny, you're cool. And I vibe that we vibe. So folks, if you want to be involved with that feedback loop, get the fountain app specifically. I support fountain.
I'm not a, there's no specific deal with it. I'm not sponsored, but it's the app that I sort of just fell into and it's like, I believe one of the best apps to perform value for value, to be engaged with value for value. It's a whole new ecosystem. It's a whole new way to consume and support creators. So check it out. Check it out right there. This back half of the show, I want to connect what I just talked about with Ben Affleck and Orson Wills with me. Because I'm on my own journey. I'm on my own path of creating my own system and I'm just doing my best to combine all these systems.
I see great value with, with, with value for value with Bitcoin, with podcasting and this podcasting 2.0 thing. It's connecting those Legos and I want to connect this like this weird Lego thing, this podcast Lego thing. And I want to have this other side. I want to have this other, these other Legos. I want to connect business and knowledge of branding and the ability to sell something and knowing what a good story is. And I want to connect these Legos and you can actually have like a production movie studio and then I want to have these two weird origami Lego looking things and I want to just do it like a little click.
I just want to click them, dude. I want to click them together and I think it's possible. I totally think it's possible. I see an opportunity here and I see an opportunity with all my ventures. Of course, I'm just like Mr. Positive. I'm just Mr. Optimistic. I can be a little ignorant with that, but I move forward knowing and having immense faith within my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I know God's got my back. No matter what I'm going through, I'm, I am conscious with all this. So I've been creating all this stuff. I've been creating these, these animations.
I've been, uh, now a sad news. I sort of failed this week with the animation. I didn't do anything with the animation. I didn't even submit it to this whole like online challenge. So way to go Cole. Just lame-o, lame-o. But I got to keep working on that. You know, it's hard. Animation is hard and I think my animation skills will evolve alongside the AI animation skills. So maybe it's going to come to a head and maybe I don't have to do much work in the next, in the next year so I can make my thing. We'll see about that or make a movie with Ben Affleck. That could be an option too.
That'd be sick. Um, all right, what do we got? What do we got? My own creations. I, the last couple of weeks, I was talking about ordinals, this new thing, this like Bitcoin NFTs. Um, I've been like, that's been my latest obsession. And I decided to give one of my favorite podcasting apps, or one of my favorite podcasts. It's a podcast about podcasting. It's called the podcasting 2.0 podcast. It's insane. But I decided to tell them about it. They sort of like shitted on it, like a few weeks ago and I fell down the rabbit hole and I fell in love with it.
And I was trying to give them a little nudge. I was trying to give the hosts Dave Jones and Adam Curry. I was trying to, trying to give them a little nudge on to look into the protocol again and my heart breaks here. Check this out. Cole McCormick, 33, 33 through fountain. He says, you guys should look into the ordinals protocol more. See a line. They don't like it. They don't like it. The ability to transcribe a Satoshi with media feels super important. You know, I'm not so sure. Yeah, it's very expensive. Damn, Adam Curry, how are you going to call me out like that, dude?
Come on, man. It's expensive. You're the raw dairy is expensive, bro. Your meat from Texas is expensive, bro. Like yeah, everything is expensive, bro. Like a house is expensive. Ordinals are expensive, dude. Like yeah, you got a million Satoshis running through your note every single day. Yeah, it's expensive to do an ordinal. It's very interesting. This is a clashing of the generations. Where is the innovation? But I also want to take wisdom from them because if they don't see immediate value in that, then that's something to take note. So a part of being wise, a part of knowing innovation is knowing when people are not into something and then making that choice to either lean into it and push it if you have that instinct or just let it down and to let someone else take that idea.
So, you know, something that I've been practicing when it comes to my creativity is doing a better job at writing down the ideas I have along with not being like married to the original idea. You know, that's like a big thing for me. And you hear this anytime any director makes a movie, you know, they there's a certain intention for a movie and you know what you want to make. At the same time, it is this like own living organism that while you go through the process, while you push through the machine, push the material through matter. What am I even saying?
While you make the movie, a different story happens. Like you find the cuts, you know, the editing sort of finds itself, you know, if you've ever created anything, if you've ever, if anything has ever lined up, you know, if the stars have ever lined up or or if if anything has ever evolved in front of your eyes while you were trying to create something, you know what I'm talking about. And I can't help but see the same thing within my own world. I'm just seeing how this all unravels. And I'm also been doing better with or I'm practicing to do better with being in like the unknown, like getting comfortable with the unknown, like not trying to predict the future along with not trying to bring up certain thoughts and emotions from the past into my present.
That's a huge creativity like kill dude, like don't do that. Don't bring your past up. Stop bringing your past up. Stop trying to predict the future. You know, that's been this biggest, the biggest lesson this week for me. I had a really impactful meditation this past week. I've been doing the Joe to Spend This Stuff. And the complete meditation is like over an hour. And you know, it's hard. I'm not going to lie. It's hard to stay focused on meditating for an hour. But Thursday was like just one of those days I was able to just slip in. I've been able to do this like six days a week.
I've been really consistent with doing it six days a week. And Thursday for some reason, man, like whoa, like I was just, I just got a whole burst of emotion just pouring out of me. And I just got this download of just like a motion of like feelings that I felt when I was a kid about like dreams and movies and having a company and being in charge and leading and like performing and doing all these things. And I went through a trauma when I was a teenager and this past Thursday I was just able to just, I was able to break down some of that trauma and it felt, it felt really good.
Even when I bring it up right now, you know, I can sort of feel like a remnants of that, of that emotion, of that, of that thing. It's like, but I'm, I'm just like moving through that, you know, it's like wet sand slowly drying. It's been, it's been flooded for a while, but now I'm able to just let it go, let it breathe, let the land breathe. And then we can play, we can, we can create more things in the sandbox, right? Sandbox isn't fun when it's flooded. So I don't know what my point was that with that. I just wanted to express that I am, I'm continually, I'm searching my soul.
I'm finding my soul. I'm finding my place in space and I continue to see inspiration everywhere I walk and everywhere I look. And I think it's cool, you know, I think it's cool that I can identify parallels and connections between me and Ben Affleck and Orson Welles. Like these are all radically different lives, you know, different, different lives in different times and different ages and different bodies, but we're all just sort of reflecting similar things. I see reflections mainly. So I think that's valuable. I think that's highly valuable.
So, and I just want to hear what you think about that. Are you working on anything? Are you innovating on anything? Are you trying to be the best version of yourself? Do you see how this world is changing? Do you see the opportunity that we as humans have to come like to better ourselves so that the world can be better? Like that's just become more and more evident to me. Like it is so based on an individual level. That's only when like the whole collective will like, will be healthy, right? When the individual is healthy. So I see Ben being honest about his alcoholism and his journey through, through Snyder cut and his heartbreak and his journey.
I see growth there. I see, I see the human story there and I see the Orson Welles story of him just living in a certain time and, and wanting to express a certain idea of, of his dreams. It became something legendary. It became something that other people grabbed onto for forever. And that's all anyone wants, right? That's all like any artist. Any artist just wants to have something that just grabs you forever. Have something that just, it just does it, you know? Cause you know, Shawshank Redemption, we're watching that for a while. We're watching Shawshank Redemption.
I'm watching the dark night, you know, when I'm like 80. I'm watching the dark night when I'm 80 years old. Like apps are freaking literally when I got great grandkids. Come over here, we're gonna watch Batman. Come over here, kids. Come over to Grandpa's house. We're gonna watch Christiano and Trilogy. It's gonna be, I'm gonna be in like a hoodie with like a Batman. I'm gonna be in a Batman hoodie with some Yeezys on begging my great grandkids to, to watch Avengers with me. Who's with me there, huh? That sounds awesome. And hopefully my movies too.
Hopefully the things I created as well. Because that's what I want ultimately. My own Star Wars, my own brand, my own company. I'm trying to understand what it takes to get a person to look and to get a person to engage and this podcast is the most raw version of that. So I just want to thank you for being a part of this. Thank you for being a part of the innovation and just like, you should do that too, man. You should do that too. I mean, keep on going. That's all I got, folks. That's America Plus, bitch. Stay free.
Big week, huge week. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but what's up everyone? It's America Plus. I'm your host, Cole McCormick. It's another week, another episode. What's going on, everybody? Happy to be here. March 19th, Sunday, folks. We're here again. It's been a wild week. First update I got to give you. I have made a pivot. There's been a pivot this week in how I am manifesting money. I quit my job. I quit the tablet job. I just wasn't, I wasn't aligned with it. I wasn't really connected with it.
I just wasn't making any money with it. I'm outside of these grocery stores with this booth, with these cheap government tablets. I'm looking for people on EBT, but like, there's like barely anyone walking around. And I'm, it's just not like, it just wasn't aligned. Like ultimately, it just wasn't, just wasn't my thing. And I got a boost of confidence the night before I quit. And I think I've discovered like, or I say discovered. It's an entire industry. Have you, has anyone ever heard of drop shipping? Because that's what I'm about to be doing. This seems to be the, a similar type of opportunity as the tablet gig.
I'm in charge of my hours, the amount of effort I put in, hopefully equals, equal money, you know, equal payment. So here's another thing, drop shipping. If you don't know what it is, I'm able to sell things online without having a physical inventory near me. I just, I'm on Shopify. Shopify is like a platform that give you like access to just make a website and just like make a storefront. And it seems like something I'm about to like really like dig into because with this entire mission of building my own Star Wars, my own brand, I have a zero experience doing a brand.
So I see this as a way to actually like get some teeth to actually sink my teeth into and practice, like have like a, have like a little incubation experiment laboratory, which is what I'm always talking about. And I can actually experiment with brand. I can experiment with storytelling because what it is, so you have the storefront and then you choose what supplier you want to pull from. And you got to do, you need to do a TikTok, you need to do an advertisement. And that's all storytelling and editing and just like getting the person hooked in, you know, and it's this balance of like having like a store and having like impulse buys, you know.
So I'm not looking to get rich quick. I'm just looking to be in charge. I'm looking for authority. I'm looking for autonomy. That's like the ultimate mission here. And what I want to talk about this week revolves around autonomy, just like better ways of doing business, smarter ways of doing business, experimenting, just trying to do your best with having a healthy system or and trying to be fully in charge. We're focusing on directors. We're focusing on Hollywood a little bit this week, America Plus. Oh, if you haven't noticed, I got to say. The updated image, if you're on your podcast app, if you're listening to this right now, we are officially America Plus, Colmah Cormac is officially in phase one.
So give a round of applause for that one. Thank you so much. It's a big deal. Phase one, we were in phase zero for 2022 2023, it's new vibes. And we are I'm updating the flag. I'm updating the image. It's a bit more glossier, a bit more, a bit more fiery. There's some Bitcoin orange in there. So tell me what you think of that. Tell me if I should adjust it somehow. I think it's centered. I'm pretty sure it's centered. But yeah, we're doing more stuff. I also got a new hosting company. I switched over hosting companies, just like silly little like podcast update, podcast technical update.
I switched over from Castos to RSS.com. The main reason was because RSS.com just has more podcasting 2.0 features. And I'm just trying to be more aligned with podcasting 2.0. You'll hear more about that later. But I just want like phase one, I want to have a more broader net. I'm going to be putting the show out on more platforms. And I'm going to be doing a better job implementing value for value and pitching value for value. And yeah, like I just want to continue to build this system of the podcast ecosystem. This is like its own thing, like podcasting is its own medium.
And whatever medium you're in, you need to put immense energy into crafting that network you have or whatever infrastructure you have, whether it be getting people to buy something or getting people to see something, podcasting is something that I'm just obsessed with. So we continue to evolve. And this week on America Plus, this first clip I got to you folks is coming from 1960. I saw this wild interview with the legendary director Orson Wells. If you know anything about Orson Wells, he is a gentleman. He made what is considered to be the best film of all time, Citizen Kane, the best film of all time when he was 25 years old.
That's how old I am right now. And I have a 10 minute short film and a podcast. So this guy, he was killing it. And here's a little interview from him as a middle age man, discussing that time, discussing his mindset, like how he achieved what he was able to achieve. Because the film is known for just a lot of technical advancements, the way they used focusing, like the way that they're able to focus on multiple people at once was like innovative back in the 40s. And I'm going to tie this all in. I'm going to tie this all in to modern times, the future of creation. I thought you could do anything with a camera that I could do or the imagination could do.
And if you come up from the bottom in the film business, you're taught all the things that the cameraman doesn't want to attempt for fear he will be criticized for having failed. And in this case, I had a cameraman who didn't care if he was criticized if he failed. And I didn't know that there were things you couldn't do. So anything I could think up in my dreams, I attempted to photograph. You got away with enormous technical advances, didn't you? Simply by not knowing that they were impossible or theoretically impossible. And of course, again, I had a great advantage not only in the real genius of my cameraman, but in the fact that he, like all great men, I think, who were masters of a craft, told me right at the outset that there was nothing about camera work that I couldn't learn in half a day, that any intelligent person couldn't learn in half a day.
And he was right. It's true of an awful lot of things. Of all, of every other, you know, the great mystery that requires 20 years doesn't exist in any field. And certainly not in a camera. It's the most overrated mystery on earth, you know. And I was lucky enough to be told that by the absolute best living cameraman. The best dead director just said that there's not much to learn with the camera. There's not much to really, there's not a lot to really know. The most overrated mystery is the camera. This is in a time when film was, you know, there was a golden age of film. There was a golden age of Hollywood.
And 1960, you know, he was reflecting on this different time. And the times are changing in that era in the 1960s and movies are changing. You don't really hear about a lot of movies made in the 60s, do you? It's, you know, like shit changed in the 70s, right? A lot of things really pushed, like punched in in the 70s. And I just thought that was interesting regarding just his knowledge of him, regarding the knowledge of his cameraman to be wise. I think that's brilliant. I think that's like super important. Like he was a person who saw the craft.
He was a person who was a master of his craft. And that brings me to a person who's a little controversial. If I say he's a master of his craft, is that hate speech? Ben Affleck. We're going to a Ben Affleck interview now, folks. I see a connection here. He is innovating the same way Orson Wells innovated with Citizen Kane and his his ability to use his imagination and his ability to see the opportunity within the set, within the story is similar to what I see Ben Affleck do right now. I'm bringing it back from a while ago. I think before the New Year, he was interviewing being interviewed in the New York Times.
And he was talking about his new production company. He has this brand new, brand spanking new way of making movies. It's his new payout structure pretty much. And there's a little refresher. That's familiar territory to me. That was very interesting. So what's the problem that you're trying to solve here? The problem is that movies have not adapted to modern technology for one thing. They're still making movies like they were in the 40s and 50s with slow film, heavy cameras, a lot of equipment, a lot of lights. They're just practically speaking a massive amount of money is wasted.
I didn't work on it. I know that. So I could bang. I knew I could say 15% at least off the top. I thought, well, there's a margin there. Second of all, movies don't prize the right people. You can spend more on the right person that will make a better movie for less. I don't know if other businesses function the same way, but I can tell you that this business does. And we went out and did some proof of concept stuff, our first couple of movies, and it's the idea has borne itself out and it's really been gratifying. So the people who principally create value on the sales side, on the audience, eyeballs side, these artists who have worked their entire careers, like my wife, building a name, a reputation, a connection with fans that has real value.
And oftentimes that value isn't reflected in the deals that are made. And so what I do with Jerry really understood was to embrace that, structure it so that, hey, whatever the market bears, and we want to be able to enjoy competition, we're going to explain to Adam Smith this thing to death, is an invisible hand. We're going to say, whoever wants this, we're going to disconnect the idea of like, what does it cost, what's your rate? Never mind. I don't go into the Apple store and say, how much did you pay them to make the iPhone? And then tell them what I'll pay.
They tell me what it costs. Which we should say is how Hollywood has been operating, at least most recently. It seems- I'll put it there. I'll stop it there real quick. So that's his innovation. That's what he's doing. He debuted that when it was this month. This is three months ago. Right before the new year. What is that movie? What were those proof of concepts? If you haven't been in the realm of movies, if you don't follow movies, he just got done debuting this past weekend at the festival South by Southwest, sort of like a business, tech, film festival, sort of like a combo of a few different things.
He was there and he debuted the newest movie that he directed called Air. Have you seen that trailer for Air? It's Ben Affleck, Matt Damon. It's Viola Davis. It's about the story of how Nike made the deal with Michael Jordan. And it's blown the roof off. Everyone's saying it's legit. Everyone's saying it's awesome. And this is the first movie, the first- I believe it's the first official movie that is utilizing- that his company is utilizing this new structure. And what this whole thing is, I'm going to be reading a few sections of an interview he just did a couple days ago.
He's talking about what the philosophy is, what he's able to do with this. And I also want to go into- he has a really interesting story because when I try to connect him and Orson Welles, it's not a clean connection. You know, there's- I don't see a clean parallel with Orson's story and Ben's story or my story, but there are things that sort of rhyme. I do see certain rhyming points. And Orson Welles being a figure who was- he came from theater and radio and he was just this like magnificent storyteller. And he was in a position to make a movie.
He didn't really care about making movies, but as soon as he started to make them, he started to love them. And he has his whole ethos if you follow Orson Welles. And Ben Affleck on the other hand, he's this guy- he's been acting since he was like nine years old. Like he's been trying to be in the business- he's been in the business for over three- close to four decades. He's like 50. And he's been- he's been doing it. And he's been a celebrity. He's been a celebrity for most of his career. But what I think is so eye-opening is that he's actually- like ever since the pandemic, you know, ever since he was- ever since they did Zack Snyder's Justice League, he's really just turned a page and he's in a different vibe right now.
He's in a different mode. And I'm going to be reading this excerpt right here. We're going to begin with just some- a little recap of what he's gauging in terms of like the public eye, his kids talking to him. He's talking about TV movies. He says- so the person's like asking him about his company, what's going on there, what's- what like made you start thinking about this. And he goes, my daughter is 17. She lives her life largely in opposition to the work her- her parents have spent their lives dedicated to. Where she'll say things like, I'm not sure if film is really dot, dot, dot.
I mean, do you think it's a genuine art form? Ben Affleck's kids literally criticizing film as a- as a medium. And the parents being Jennifer Garner and him. So we got 13 going on 30 being criticized along with Batman and I can't- I can't respect it. I'm not able to respect that- that questioning, that line of questioning. And the- the interviewer goes into- oh, I'm sorry. After that he says, okay then. So these movies that I like, they're not fucking working anymore. He was talking about his- his- his alcoholic movie that came out, smack dab in the pandemic, called The Way Back.
Literally about a- a guy who's divorced, uh, uh, he's drinking too much, but he's got to like help these kids play basketball. Um, that's the type of movie that he, like, enjoys, right? He enjoys watching them and he enjoys making them. But for the younger generation, she doesn't- they- they- they really don't- don't see that as valuable to go to the theater. So now he says, okay, that's fine. Like, that's not fucking working. Um, and then the interviewer goes to, um, as opposed to what? Like what other film? What other type of film?
And he goes, the Justice League experience. The fact that those stories became s- uh, somewhat rep- repetitive to me and less interesting. Yeah, I did finally figure out how to play the character Batman and I nailed it in the flash for the five minutes I'm in there. It's really great. A lot of it is just tone. And uh, the interviewer goes on to, but not Justice League. What went- what went wrong there? And Ben- um, he's- he's telling you the narrative of just what makes Hollywood so absolutely shitty. Justice League. You could teach a seminar on all of the reasons why this is how not to do it.
From production to bad decisions to horrible personnel tragedy and just ending with the most monstrous taste in my mouth. The genius and the silver lining is that Zack Snyder eventually went to the AT&T and was like, look, I can get you four hours of content and it's principally all the slow motion he shot in black and white. And one day of shooting with me and him, he was like, hey, Ben, do you want to come shoot my backyard? I was like, I think there are unions, Zack. I think we need to make a deal, but I went and did it. And now Zack Snyder's Justice League is my highest rated movie on IMDB.
So that's his experience. He has- he embodies like the most like cliche story of a celebrity, right? And he's in these silly movies. You know, everyone makes fun of Armageddon. Uh, he's a- he's an oil driller, but he's also an astronaut and he's saving the world. Just some like really silly shit. And he's in this horrific movie called Justice League that was reshot, um, by Joss Whedon. And it was really just- just disgusting. Joss Whedon is the director of Avengers. He did the first two Avengers and they brought him in to reshoot Justice League and it's just- it's a horrific, horrific story of just abuse and verbal abuse, physical abuse, just making people feel uncomfortable.
And Ben being Ben, he's- at this point of him- of him making Justice League that he's like literally he's lamenting about. After decades of making movies, this is the movie that he is like speaking to the Hollywood reporter to about it being terrible. Um, and- and post two Oscars. He has multiple Oscars at this point. The interviewer asks, um, da-da-da-da-da, if the Zack Snyder's Justice League is so highly rated, isn't that because of, uh, uh, Zack Snyder's fans being so intense online? And Ben's saying, say what you want. It's my highest rated career movie.
I've never had one that went from nadir to pinnacle. Retroactively, it's a hit. All of a sudden, I'm getting congratulated for the bomb I'm in. But I was going to direct a Batman movie and Justice League made me go, I'm out. I never want to do this any again. I'm not suited. This was the worst experience I've ever seen in a business which is full of shitty experiences. It broke my heart. There's an idea of someone, Joss Whedon, coming in and like, quote, I'll rescue you and we'll do 60 days of shooting and I'll write a whole thing around you, uh, what- what we have.
I've got the secret. And it wasn't the secret. That was hard. And I started to drink too much. I was back at the hotel in London. It was either that or jump out the window. And I thought, this isn't the life I want. My kids aren't here. I'm miserable. You want to go to work and find something interesting to hang on to. Rather than just wearing a rubber suit and most of it, you're just standing against the computer screen. If this nuclear waste gets loose, well, that's fine. I don't consend that. I don't condensate to that or put it down. But I got to a point where I found it creatively not satisfying.
Also just sweating it and exhausted. And I thought, I don't want to participate in this in any way. And I don't want to squander any more of my life of which I have a limited amount of. So that's some serious life shit, dude. Ben Affleck's talking about his kids, his life. This is no longer like simply making a film. I think the narrative, a part of the narrative around Hollywood is how complicated making a film has become. Yes, there was like a time when you could, like, you could just sort of create anything or maybe you could just just be wild.
If you watch the movie Babylon, they go into just like how like insane shit was on set and how just chaos everything was and how sound changed the culture, how the technology of sound changed the culture of how they made movies and how they engaged on set. And I feel as though we're in like another period of that. The interviewer goes on to say about now, focusing on the studio, artist equity. I heard you recently say 15% of a movie budget is waste. Which 15% are you talking about? Ben goes, I don't believe in the whole I get paid even in failure thing. It's always struck me as a as bizarre that I walked away with so much money from from giggly or jiggly.
I don't know how to say this word. Jiggly, giggly, whatever. And everyone else got flattened. That was clearly a bomb at the box office. I think it was like in the 90s or early 2000s. It seems a little bit that I was not aligned quite with the investors in that regard. The studios and the people who make the movies are increasingly separate from different worlds. They don't understand one another's values and their suspicion and it creates conflict. I was on my 2016 movie live by night and they were dressing an extra. It must have cost $700 to dress this extra in the period 500 feet away from the camera and we were waiting while they did the touch ups.
It was just like, guys, this is not meaningful, but it's taking away from the time and the resources we have to do something authentically enough that moves the audience. They don't care if the curls are 1930 or 1920. So there he is acknowledging the simplicity of the creation of film. This is not some mega mystery. This is not some infinite time to ponder and to think and to meditate on the value of film or on the authenticity of the moment. This is a movie. We make movies. He makes movies. And this is him really going for it. This is him really saying like, we can do it better.
We can extend the value of this entire project. The interviewer, the operating principle of artist's equity is that people who work on a film have an ownership stake. How did that work on air? And here he goes, Ben Affleck, I was talking to my cinematographer, Bob Richardson, the cameraman if you don't know. I was talking to my cameraman, Bob Richardson. He's a genius. And I said, Bob, what if I gave you a million bucks to save me five million? Could you do it? And he goes, fuck, I'll save you 10. There are people who just have their hand on the wheel in ways people don't understand. Your editor, producer, DP, which is a cameraman, first assistant director, production designer.
The idea is you get really good people and you say to them, look, if we're able to accomplish what we set out to accomplish, we're going to participate in a very significant way in the delta between what the movie costs and what the movies makes when we sell it. The people who were bonus on this movie, Air, like Bob and all the crew, their bonus was a piece of the pool of the sale to Amazon. Almost all of them on a weekly basis now are the highest paid crew people in history by a multiple. So Ben, and the reviews for Air are just going ballistic. Everyone saying that Ben directed the shit out of it.
Everyone saying that it's fun. It's like, like, it feels good. It feels it's upbeat. It's about just a positive story about people, about family. And it's just a crowd pleaser. Like he made a really good like film movie in the sense that he likes movies. And this is like the first use case of actually having an equitable system, which is incredible to share the profit, to share the profit with the people who made it. That's exactly what I'm trying to do. That's exactly what I want to get involved with. I love that system. So I need to see this film and I, I got to get involved with this.
I got to get involved somehow with, with this, with that. Now the dream, of course, is that with my dropshipping business, I can fund all my movies. Probably not. We'll see. The interviewer, do you want artist equity to stay independent or do you want a studio deal? The, and it then goes, the first look deal is going to be a dinosaur very soon. If you don't know what that is, that's been around for a while. The first look deal, that's when a studio just gives a person or a production company money. It's, hey, you got a first look deal. We're giving you blah, blah, blah, millions.
And maybe you're contracted to do a few movies, whatever you want. First look, you got it. Whatever we want, you got first look. And he's saying it's a dinosaur. This is a stupid deal. You're restricting yourself in unimaginably disastrous ways for a few shiny trinkets. And he's talking about the Oscars, I think. The experiment for me is to say to the studio, don't worry about the, don't worry what the budget is. That's my job. I'm going to do my best with the budget. I'm going to guarantee, I'm going to guarantee you and cover all the overages. And by the way, director, actor, company, all on the hook for overages.
Interviewer. So is there a scenario where your director of photography would have to pay money if you went over budget? Crews usually don't assume that kind of risk. And Ben goes, they'd make much less because we'd go, we went over guys. So we're going to get paid like a scale movie. So the compensation is if we do very well, Bob should do galactically well. So should our first assistant director. And so should Chris Tucker, Viola Davis, Matt Damon, who are driving the value. The studios, historically, you'd go in pitch, then they'd quietly go back to the marketing and distribution and say, well, let's run the numbers.
And they go to the territory and talk about genre and stars. Now it's a, now it's much more, it's a much more course process. They say, well, we have 118 categories for content. We know X works and Y. So we'll pay Z for that. But there's no formula for something being good. At Artist Equity, we have a joint venture with a data research AI modeling company that has a lot of consumer information. We can reach out to people and go, what are you watching? What do you, why do you like this? Do you like this? The inscrutability around the streamers is very frustrating because you go, are people watching this or not?
And the interviewer goes, do the streamers give you any data on your movies? And Ben goes, no, they don't. So that's super interesting. Like he's looking for data on a business level. He's looking for data. Also from an artist level, he's looking for data. He has an artistic yearning to make something in a certain way. And if you've seen any of Ben Affleck's films, we're talking about Good Will Hunting, we're talking about The Town, we're talking about Argo, we're talking about The Way Back. These better movies are the smaller dramas. And I've said this before, the smaller dramas in the theater just don't exist.
So how can we save money? How can we be more efficient so that we can make the thing we want as best as we freaking can? We've got the last section right here, folks. Last section of the interview. The interviewer goes, let's say one of your old movies is a hit on a streaming service and then he interrupts. He goes, well, last year, my 2010 movie, The Town, licensed for 15 million again. That means that Netflix paid 15 million to have the rights to stream that movie for a while. Because it streams. That's the other big tenant of our company. We seek to retain the negative to be the copyright holder, which is the share, which we share with the artist.
Being the copyright holder, even if it's in 15 years when it reverts and it should revert, you should own it because if it works, if it's Shawshank Redemption, they're still fucking watching it. The biggest thing on Netflix is friends. There's enormous value in libraries and the streamers have overreached and recaptured too much value. The old gross days, you could really make money. You've taken away some of that value. So I need at least to be able to know, hey, look, I know people are watching. I know what this is worth to you. That's all he's looking for.
He just wants to know what people are interested in. And it's so wild to think that the streamers are holding all that because the streamers want to... That data is gold pretty much. Data is the new gold, right? Or the new oil is what they say. And then last question from the interviewer, Amazon is releasing air in theaters. When you started this movie, did you envision it for streaming or theaters? And he goes, I assumed it would be a streaming movie because I thought maybe dramas would never come out again in theaters. The way back when they pulled it, I was so heartbroken.
And then the former Warner Brothers chairman, Toby Emmerich, was like, we're going to rush it to iTunes. And then I got all these emails and calls and people saw it and it was like the day I thought, well, shit, I'd rather have people see the movie. I like a theater as much as the next guy, but a tree falling in the woods. And now there's an enormous pressure that I feel here. I mean, I hope that it works. So he's stepping into the unknown right there, folks. That's what I interpret. We got a person, we got an American filmmaker trying to innovate. We have an American artist seeking to have a better business and a better system to create what he wants to create.
And I think that's inspiring as fuck, dude. So what do you think of that? Do you think there's any value in that? Do you think there's value in this Ben Affleck thing and in this equity pool that has? If I made a movie and I could make some money off the back end, like, not even like, okay, so the most recent example is this Keynes movie I'm going in. I was on, I was doing lights for it. If it was possible for me to make any money, if that movie gets picked up by any bigger company, like, that would be almost life changing. Like that, like that is such an awesome system.
Like that is so cool. So I want, I got to be involved with that. I got to find my way into that because that's the type of Hollywood system I want to be in. I want to make movies in. That's the way this, this is the way, right? So I personally see value. I personally see value. And with that, folks, we are going to head on to the value for value section or otherwise known as the boosts. Folks, America Plus is a value for value based show. If you don't know what that is, value for value means, means that I just produce, it means that I produce awesomeness, right?
Value means I put intention into this. I put my time, I put my talent into the podcast and you have the opportunity to, to show me your value, to show me your time, your talent and your treasure if you want to help me out in any way, just by you listening is sending value, just by you just giving your voice to me if you want to support me in any way. If you don't know what I'm talking about, value for value, there's a new website called value for value.info. This gives a really good breakdown on what this whole structure is. Pretty much it's fully listener supported.
America Plus is fully listener supported. And I'm going to be reading the boost from a couple people who sent me some satoshis. If you don't know what a satoshi is, we're doing this thing. Value for value is also aligned with Bitcoin. There's certain podcast apps that allow you to send Bitcoin to each other. This whole, like I've mentioned the word podcasting 2.0. If you go to podcastapps.com, there's a huge list of apps that are aligned with this project. They give you more rich features. There's, there's chapters. There's, there's little gifts.
There's photos. There's transcripts. And this whole podcasting ecosystem is really just evolving. So get on the innovation, go to podcastapps.com, find your favorite podcast app and send me some satoshis if you think I have any value here, folks. I would love to hear that. I would love to hear what you have to say. I would love to hear about your innovation. We're going to read the boost from last week. I got a list of two folks who supported the show. Here we go. We got this first one. This first one is from user at, at user 609-63622-8262-6894. They send in 100 sats.
Thank you so much for your satoshis. They go with gratitude. Thank you for sharing. Boostar, boostar. Boost me, bitch. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing, user at 602. Like that's, or 609. That's, that warms my heart. Warms my heart. Last week was number 61, bank run for run. I was talking about all the bank runs. I was talking about all the, all the banks collapsing, the entire financial system collapsing. This last one from at Joel W. He's talking about the banks here. He says break the banksters boost. He sends in 1,111 sats.
Break the bank, the banksters boost. F those devils. Boost. Yes, I feel you Joel. I feel you. And now as the French say, it is time for le boost. Joel W. is the most consistent booster on the planet. One of my biggest supporters, so I just want to give a little round of applause to Joel W. I just want to give a shout out to you, man. I just appreciate you as a listener. I appreciate you as a supporter. I really value you. And I think you have like, you're funny, you're cool. And I vibe that we vibe. So folks, if you want to be involved with that feedback loop, get the fountain app specifically. I support fountain.
I'm not a, there's no specific deal with it. I'm not sponsored, but it's the app that I sort of just fell into and it's like, I believe one of the best apps to perform value for value, to be engaged with value for value. It's a whole new ecosystem. It's a whole new way to consume and support creators. So check it out. Check it out right there. This back half of the show, I want to connect what I just talked about with Ben Affleck and Orson Wills with me. Because I'm on my own journey. I'm on my own path of creating my own system and I'm just doing my best to combine all these systems.
I see great value with, with, with value for value with Bitcoin, with podcasting and this podcasting 2.0 thing. It's connecting those Legos and I want to connect this like this weird Lego thing, this podcast Lego thing. And I want to have this other side. I want to have this other, these other Legos. I want to connect business and knowledge of branding and the ability to sell something and knowing what a good story is. And I want to connect these Legos and you can actually have like a production movie studio and then I want to have these two weird origami Lego looking things and I want to just do it like a little click.
I just want to click them, dude. I want to click them together and I think it's possible. I totally think it's possible. I see an opportunity here and I see an opportunity with all my ventures. Of course, I'm just like Mr. Positive. I'm just Mr. Optimistic. I can be a little ignorant with that, but I move forward knowing and having immense faith within my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I know God's got my back. No matter what I'm going through, I'm, I am conscious with all this. So I've been creating all this stuff. I've been creating these, these animations.
I've been, uh, now a sad news. I sort of failed this week with the animation. I didn't do anything with the animation. I didn't even submit it to this whole like online challenge. So way to go Cole. Just lame-o, lame-o. But I got to keep working on that. You know, it's hard. Animation is hard and I think my animation skills will evolve alongside the AI animation skills. So maybe it's going to come to a head and maybe I don't have to do much work in the next, in the next year so I can make my thing. We'll see about that or make a movie with Ben Affleck. That could be an option too.
That'd be sick. Um, all right, what do we got? What do we got? My own creations. I, the last couple of weeks, I was talking about ordinals, this new thing, this like Bitcoin NFTs. Um, I've been like, that's been my latest obsession. And I decided to give one of my favorite podcasting apps, or one of my favorite podcasts. It's a podcast about podcasting. It's called the podcasting 2.0 podcast. It's insane. But I decided to tell them about it. They sort of like shitted on it, like a few weeks ago and I fell down the rabbit hole and I fell in love with it.
And I was trying to give them a little nudge. I was trying to give the hosts Dave Jones and Adam Curry. I was trying to, trying to give them a little nudge on to look into the protocol again and my heart breaks here. Check this out. Cole McCormick, 33, 33 through fountain. He says, you guys should look into the ordinals protocol more. See a line. They don't like it. They don't like it. The ability to transcribe a Satoshi with media feels super important. You know, I'm not so sure. Yeah, it's very expensive. Damn, Adam Curry, how are you going to call me out like that, dude?
Come on, man. It's expensive. You're the raw dairy is expensive, bro. Your meat from Texas is expensive, bro. Like yeah, everything is expensive, bro. Like a house is expensive. Ordinals are expensive, dude. Like yeah, you got a million Satoshis running through your note every single day. Yeah, it's expensive to do an ordinal. It's very interesting. This is a clashing of the generations. Where is the innovation? But I also want to take wisdom from them because if they don't see immediate value in that, then that's something to take note. So a part of being wise, a part of knowing innovation is knowing when people are not into something and then making that choice to either lean into it and push it if you have that instinct or just let it down and to let someone else take that idea.
So, you know, something that I've been practicing when it comes to my creativity is doing a better job at writing down the ideas I have along with not being like married to the original idea. You know, that's like a big thing for me. And you hear this anytime any director makes a movie, you know, they there's a certain intention for a movie and you know what you want to make. At the same time, it is this like own living organism that while you go through the process, while you push through the machine, push the material through matter. What am I even saying?
While you make the movie, a different story happens. Like you find the cuts, you know, the editing sort of finds itself, you know, if you've ever created anything, if you've ever, if anything has ever lined up, you know, if the stars have ever lined up or or if if anything has ever evolved in front of your eyes while you were trying to create something, you know what I'm talking about. And I can't help but see the same thing within my own world. I'm just seeing how this all unravels. And I'm also been doing better with or I'm practicing to do better with being in like the unknown, like getting comfortable with the unknown, like not trying to predict the future along with not trying to bring up certain thoughts and emotions from the past into my present.
That's a huge creativity like kill dude, like don't do that. Don't bring your past up. Stop bringing your past up. Stop trying to predict the future. You know, that's been this biggest, the biggest lesson this week for me. I had a really impactful meditation this past week. I've been doing the Joe to Spend This Stuff. And the complete meditation is like over an hour. And you know, it's hard. I'm not going to lie. It's hard to stay focused on meditating for an hour. But Thursday was like just one of those days I was able to just slip in. I've been able to do this like six days a week.
I've been really consistent with doing it six days a week. And Thursday for some reason, man, like whoa, like I was just, I just got a whole burst of emotion just pouring out of me. And I just got this download of just like a motion of like feelings that I felt when I was a kid about like dreams and movies and having a company and being in charge and leading and like performing and doing all these things. And I went through a trauma when I was a teenager and this past Thursday I was just able to just, I was able to break down some of that trauma and it felt, it felt really good.
Even when I bring it up right now, you know, I can sort of feel like a remnants of that, of that emotion, of that, of that thing. It's like, but I'm, I'm just like moving through that, you know, it's like wet sand slowly drying. It's been, it's been flooded for a while, but now I'm able to just let it go, let it breathe, let the land breathe. And then we can play, we can, we can create more things in the sandbox, right? Sandbox isn't fun when it's flooded. So I don't know what my point was that with that. I just wanted to express that I am, I'm continually, I'm searching my soul.
I'm finding my soul. I'm finding my place in space and I continue to see inspiration everywhere I walk and everywhere I look. And I think it's cool, you know, I think it's cool that I can identify parallels and connections between me and Ben Affleck and Orson Welles. Like these are all radically different lives, you know, different, different lives in different times and different ages and different bodies, but we're all just sort of reflecting similar things. I see reflections mainly. So I think that's valuable. I think that's highly valuable.
So, and I just want to hear what you think about that. Are you working on anything? Are you innovating on anything? Are you trying to be the best version of yourself? Do you see how this world is changing? Do you see the opportunity that we as humans have to come like to better ourselves so that the world can be better? Like that's just become more and more evident to me. Like it is so based on an individual level. That's only when like the whole collective will like, will be healthy, right? When the individual is healthy. So I see Ben being honest about his alcoholism and his journey through, through Snyder cut and his heartbreak and his journey.
I see growth there. I see, I see the human story there and I see the Orson Welles story of him just living in a certain time and, and wanting to express a certain idea of, of his dreams. It became something legendary. It became something that other people grabbed onto for forever. And that's all anyone wants, right? That's all like any artist. Any artist just wants to have something that just grabs you forever. Have something that just, it just does it, you know? Cause you know, Shawshank Redemption, we're watching that for a while. We're watching Shawshank Redemption.
I'm watching the dark night, you know, when I'm like 80. I'm watching the dark night when I'm 80 years old. Like apps are freaking literally when I got great grandkids. Come over here, we're gonna watch Batman. Come over here, kids. Come over to Grandpa's house. We're gonna watch Christiano and Trilogy. It's gonna be, I'm gonna be in like a hoodie with like a Batman. I'm gonna be in a Batman hoodie with some Yeezys on begging my great grandkids to, to watch Avengers with me. Who's with me there, huh? That sounds awesome. And hopefully my movies too.
Hopefully the things I created as well. Because that's what I want ultimately. My own Star Wars, my own brand, my own company. I'm trying to understand what it takes to get a person to look and to get a person to engage and this podcast is the most raw version of that. So I just want to thank you for being a part of this. Thank you for being a part of the innovation and just like, you should do that too, man. You should do that too. I mean, keep on going. That's all I got, folks. That's America Plus, bitch. Stay free.
