The Journey of a Filmmaker | Jason Sherman

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Jason Sherman, founder of Vingo AI, about his diverse entrepreneurial journey and the importance of creativity in business. They discuss the challenges of marketing and sales, the significance of understanding the problems businesses solve, and the value of beta testing and iteration in product development. Jason shares insights on how to navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship while emphasizing the need for both creative and analytical skills. In this conversation, Jason Sherman shares his insights on the importance of user feedback in product development, his journey in filmmaking, and the creative processes behind his films. He discusses the challenges of writing screenplays, the significance of research in storytelling, and offers practical tips for aspiring writers. The conversation also touches on his favorite sci-fi influences and the evolution of his writing career, including his experiences with publishing and the impact of his work on audiences.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• The hardest part of running a business is answering repetitive questions.
• Creating is the common thread in Jason's entrepreneurial journey.
• Most entrepreneurs underestimate the effort required after product creation.
• Understanding the lifetime value of a customer is crucial for pricing.
• Beta testing and iteration are essential for refining a business idea.
• You must adapt your concept based on market feedback.
• Selling is as important as creating a product.
• AI is the next hurdle for businesses to overcome.
• Creativity is not limited to artistic endeavors; it's essential in all industries.
• You should be ready to pivot your business model as needed. Build something based on user feedback before launching.
• Filmmaking can be a passion, but profitability varies.
• Successful films can be made on low budgets.
• Creative people often have an itch to create.
• Writing a screenplay requires a solid structure and research.
• Don't worry about perfection in the first draft.
• Writing one page a day can lead to completion.
• Interstellar is a standout in sci-fi cinema.
• The importance of storytelling in film is paramount.
• Publishing experiences can shape a writer's journey.

Ready to turn your PASSION into PROFIT?!? Let's get CREATIVE ➡️
https://www.coregroupus.com/profit-first-for-creatives

Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.533)
Welcome to another edition of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today is Jason Sherman of Vengo AI. Welcome, Jason.

Jason Sherman (00:19.726)
Thanks man, I appreciate it.

Christian Brim (00:22.225)
Okay, since this is an audio only podcast, they can't see the wall behind you. but it is is glorious. Describe what I'm looking at.

Jason Sherman (00:37.288)
I call it the wall of historical technology. basically my whole life of every gadget, phone, camera, piece of electronics that I owned starting at like eight years old. And then of course you see a bunch of toys everywhere. Those are vintage figures, know, action figures that I collected as a kid as well. And now they're just, you know...

Christian Brim (00:40.639)
Hmm.

Jason Sherman (01:02.742)
historical, right? Everything here. And then you see my movie awards on this top shelf here for all three of my movies. So it's basically just something for me to enjoy every day at my desk and remember all the different moments in my life.

Christian Brim (01:17.747)
Well, I love it. I don't see the TRS 80. That was my first experience with coding, but I don't see it up there. Is it hidden? I don't see it.

Jason Sherman (01:30.072)
potentially it sounds familiar. It might be behind me or down this way.

Christian Brim (01:32.317)
Yeah, okay.

Christian Brim (01:37.361)
So do you have a very varied, very varied, that didn't, that's not good. Very varied, yes, history and experience. So give us the summary of what brought you here today.

Jason Sherman (01:43.308)
very varied. You know, three times fast.

Jason Sherman (01:55.102)
Like you said, mean, the various projects and companies I've worked on over the last 20 or even 30 years are very diverse. Everything from technology to film to music to writing and everything in between. There's so many projects that don't fit those categories. And over the last several years, I've been really immersed in AI, as a lot of people have been. But I found a gap in the market for

people like myself, like this was something that I needed. And what I needed was I needed my team to stop bothering me. They were consistently messaging me and asking me the same questions over and over again. And I said, I have to be able to give them an AI assistant that can answer these questions. So I worked on training one. Originally it was, me train a GPT and see if I can get one that's good enough for them to use. it was, but.

Christian Brim (02:25.663)
Okay.

Jason Sherman (02:48.556)
It was then closed sourced. It's stuck on GPT. They all have to own the plus subscription. That can get expensive per month. So I said, let me build my own version of this on my own servers and see if I can do it. And I did. And then I got other business owners that said they wanted the same thing. They're like, well, we want that. So I said, OK. Well, it sounds like I got a business now. So I started building it for them and getting their feedback and iterating on that feedback. And now Vengo AI is coming out of beta or stealth.

over the next couple days, hopefully within the next week or two. And everybody can start using it, except for, you know, besides just our 15 customers that we currently have.

Christian Brim (03:25.727)
Yeah, I think one of the most intriguing aspects of AI to me is the codifying, if you will, of your internal intellectual property. Like what, what you know and what your team knows specific to your business. Not even, I mean, it certainly has external applications, you know, customer service, whatever.

But just being able to gather that data in a way that it's accessible seems to be a huge opportunity. And that sounds a little bit kind of like what you've done.

Jason Sherman (04:08.002)
Yeah, I agree.

Jason Sherman (04:12.398)
Yeah, absolutely. I I mean, the hardest part of running a business when you have services and products and whatnot is number one, answering all the questions. They're going to be very repetitive. Two is being able to gather all of the customer data, the sales leads will call them and being able to then zoom out and see at a larger, a higher level, like here are all the customers that are interested in my service for my product. And now I can follow up with them.

Christian Brim (04:22.941)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Sherman (04:41.356)
with granular data and or chat history from my AI that tells me what Dave and Mary and Bill and Jane are all looking for specifically in my products, my services. And that's kind of what we've been giving these business owners.

Christian Brim (04:58.779)
On the surface, when you describe your entrepreneurial journey, I don't see, well, most people would not see a common thread, right? I have an idea, I have an idea, but I wanna hear what your thoughts are on what you think is the common thread through all those.

Jason Sherman (05:13.538)
This is true.

Jason Sherman (05:23.17)
The common thread in my mind has always been creating. I am just in love with creating things, anything. can be, like I mentioned, all those industries we talked about. There's just something about having an idea in your mind, being passionate about that idea, and then going through the journey and the steps that it takes to see it come to life, right?

Christian Brim (05:27.935)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (05:33.247)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Sherman (05:50.658)
I'm not really a big fan of then selling what I built and marketing what I've built. That's always been kind of a sore spot for me, although I've had to overcome that over decades and just figure it out and learn how to do it and push through. But creating is really the thread that weaves my story.

Christian Brim (05:54.527)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (06:09.693)
Well, that's what I was going to say. you know, I, I, think one of the things that when, when I was writing a profit first for creatives and even from the very start when it was getting the title. So, you know, Mike McCallowitz author of profit first, he, he licenses the name to do derivative books. And so there were.

Jason Sherman (06:11.502)
Okay, good.

Christian Brim (06:38.179)
lots of them out there more coming on every day where it was for a specific industry, right? And when I said profit first for creatives, I'm like, what is that? And what industry is that actually describing? Right? And is he even going to accept that as as an option? And so then as I was progressing to writing the book, I'm like, OK, who am I writing this for? And so I had to define it.

just to narrow it down so it could be usable to, traditionally creative industry. So things like videography, marketing agencies, interior design, et cetera. But what, what I realized was that one, all entrepreneurs are creative. They have to be, that's what being an entrepreneur is about, right? You're creating a new solution.

you're creating a business around it. But two, creatives is anybody that self-identifies as a creative. I'd for, vast majority of my entrepreneurial journey would never have described myself as a creative. I'm in a very analytical industry in accounting and financial services and.

Jason Sherman (07:57.058)
Hmm, interesting.

Christian Brim (08:04.507)
is like, you know, what the hell is creative about that?

Jason Sherman (08:07.564)
Well, you have to come up with creative solutions to problems as well, right?

Christian Brim (08:10.363)
Yeah, well true true. I mean yes, but it's not what most people would think of when they think of a creative industry or creative business right Exactly, but but what what I think is true is that One all entrepreneurs are creatives and that's where we need to start from and not focus so much on

Jason Sherman (08:18.747)
artistic really is the word that comes up.

Christian Brim (08:39.077)
whatever skill set we have. you know, thinking of myself as an entrepreneur with financial skills. And if I want to learn new skills and apply them to a different problem, I can, but being an entrepreneur first, and that looks like what you've done is you're an entrepreneur first, right?

Jason Sherman (08:47.619)
Yeah.

Jason Sherman (09:02.446)
first, learning, learning all the business along the way. And a lot of, you know, a lot of people say that to me, they say that they're not used to seeing someone who is very artistic, but then also wears the business hat as well, was able to navigate both. And I admit that was, that was a challenge for me, but I was always a business owner and, being a business owner when the internet was invented and then going through the motions of learning the web and learning, you know, smartphones and learning everything about

Christian Brim (09:06.334)
Yes.

Christian Brim (09:15.305)
Yes?

Christian Brim (09:21.747)
Yes?

Jason Sherman (09:32.674)
how to run a business, you have to learn how to become profitable. You have to learn how to market your ideas and your brand. And you have to learn how to target your customers. mean, these are all things that have nothing to do with being creative. These are things that have to do, these are all business related things. But unfortunately, as an entrepreneur or a business owner, you have to learn how to do the accounting, how to do the ads and how to do the marketing or else your creative juices don't matter.

Christian Brim (09:45.226)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (09:55.966)
Yes.

Christian Brim (09:59.911)
Yes, and I think the genius arrives when you combine those two. When either you yourself embody both of those mindsets of both, I'm just for simplicity sake calling them creative and analytical, but that's probably not great. Or you partner with somebody or you hire somebody that complements you.

But to me, that's where the genius is because you have to have both you have to have both.

Jason Sherman (10:30.062)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, if you don't, then you can't have one without the other, right? It just doesn't work. You know, it's, we could say the same for NASA and their rockets. You know, you can have the creative team that comes up with the solutions, but then you have the engineers that actually implement them, right? So there's, there's those two different sides of the, the, of the coin. So.

Christian Brim (10:36.969)
Yes.

Christian Brim (10:47.07)
Yes.

Christian Brim (10:52.241)
Well, and, and if usually it's, it's the creative, you know, oftentimes they're the, the visionary of the organization and they come up with this idea and then they drop it in the lapse of the analytical, side and they're like, we have no idea how you're going to do that. Like, you know, right. Yeah. I think a John Kennedy and the, the, the, mission to the moon.

Jason Sherman (11:12.684)
Yeah, or can this be done? Can this really can this be done right?

Christian Brim (11:21.755)
if it happened, not stipulating that we went to the moon. But if we did go to the moon, the idea that, we're going to do this and bring somebody back by the end of the decade, and everybody at NASA is scratching their head like, what's he talking about? Right, right. First. Yeah. Or another example I like to use is Walt Disney and Roy, his brother.

Jason Sherman (11:21.868)
Right, whole space race. we're not sure yet. Still not sure.

Jason Sherman (11:38.594)
How are we gonna do this? We'll send the monkey up there first.

Jason Sherman (11:48.972)
Yeah. Yep.

Christian Brim (11:51.583)
you know, I don't remember the specific project and it was when they were developing Disney world, but Roy came in with this idea and he was ranting and raving about it. Roy looked at him and he said, well, that'll cost over a million dollars. and Walt's like, I don't care. Figure it out.

Jason Sherman (12:07.021)
Yeah.

Jason Sherman (12:10.688)
I'm pretty sure it was the tram going through the hotel of the future. That was the one that they really battled on.

Christian Brim (12:13.767)
Okay, well, there you go.

Thank you for filling in the context. just knew part of the story. So, you kind of alluded to it, the things that you've had to learn. What was that like to come to the decision that like, I can't ignore this stuff, I've got to learn it?

You may have to reach back in your memory there a little bit.

Jason Sherman (12:49.014)
Yeah, I mean, it's a very, actually not really, because it's a very repetitive process that keeps coming back. It's cyclical. you know, we can go back 30 years or we can go back to today where I'm on these calls with my team for Vengo, for example, sales calls. And it's really like, hey, guys, the product is built. have 15 customers. But in order to scale,

We have to just sell, sell, sell. It's all about coming up with the right ads, the right content, the right press and media, the right investor relations, the right outreach with distributors. Every single product I've ever had, whether it was a movie, a tech product or a book or anything at all, once you finish creating it, that's literally the beginning of the journey. Even after a whole year of working on something, a whole year,

Christian Brim (13:35.094)
Mm-hmm. Guess.

Jason Sherman (13:42.082)
day in and day out, working nonstop on this project, whatever it might be, when I'm finished that product and I get that huge sigh of relief and my shoulders feel like the big weight was taken off, no. Now I become Atlas and I have to hold the whole world up and really push this thing out there. And that's when things really start. And most entrepreneurs don't know that. Most people think that, I'll just build this app or I'll just write this book or I'll just do this thing.

and it's gonna take off and I'm gonna become a millionaire. And 99.999 % of the time, that is not the case.

Christian Brim (14:18.811)
Yeah, but that seems to be the story that they pitch us, right? The glamorous, the, you know, the glamorous unicorn startup that, you know, I remember very much when, when my book came out this, this March, was a couple of weeks before we, published it. And I, I had this sinking feeling because I'm like, now I've actually got to go use it. I've got to go promote it. I got to go sell it. Right.

Jason Sherman (14:22.988)
Yep. Yep.

Christian Brim (14:48.255)
And but it was exactly what you're saying. Like I put all this effort into getting it done. But so what?

Jason Sherman (14:58.734)
Yeah. You you can make the best movie in the world and if no one goes to the theater, then that's it. It's considered a flop. Look what happened to Joker 2. Everyone thought it was going to blow up and it lost the dramatic amount of money and worst ratings ever. just because you make something doesn't mean it's going to sell.

Christian Brim (15:19.369)
And you know, I like the premise of that movie. I really wanted to like it, but it had such bad reviews, I haven't seen it. mean, like...

Jason Sherman (15:25.934)
Sure. And we can say the same for different companies that came out that crashed and burned and companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars on company. I look at Myspace is a great example of a company that was just doing so well in the early aughts. And then they sold over $500 million to News Corp and Facebook just completely crushed them and they just went out of business in like a year. like just because you have a product doesn't mean it's going to succeed.

Christian Brim (15:47.262)
Yes.

Yes.

Jason Sherman (15:54.294)
you have to be able to sell the living crap out of it.

Christian Brim (15:57.565)
And what has posed the biggest challenge for you in marketing and sales?

Jason Sherman (16:02.872)
Well, there's definitely the over saturation that you have to figure out, right? If you're in a certain market and right now we're in AI, AI people are getting it crammed down their throats, right? It's AI this, AI that, and I totally get that. But at the same token, it's really not that ubiquitous with the world, right? People aren't using it. They're just talking about it, or they've heard about it, you know, and keep in mind, we've been hearing about AI since

Christian Brim (16:23.903)
They're just talking about it.

Jason Sherman (16:31.47)
2001 of Space Odyssey, you know, with with Hal back in the 60s. So we've been hearing about AI. We've been seeing AI on IBM's Watson on Jeopardy and like little inklings of AI have been sprinkled throughout history, but we've never really been able to use it the way we are today with the plethora of platforms and tools, whether it's AI image generation or chat or voice chat or videos or so many things, right? But now that people are actually getting their hands on it and in terms of

Christian Brim (16:33.438)
Right.

Jason Sherman (17:01.282)
Businesses if you're not using AI that you're gonna be left behind Just like just like 20 years ago if you didn't have a website for your business you were being left behind Just like if you just like nowadays if you don't have an app for your platform and you're just a web platform You're probably gonna be left behind and so on and so forth AI is that next hurdle that businesses are gonna have to jump over and We make it easy. That's the key right is

Christian Brim (17:05.364)
Yes.

Christian Brim (17:13.822)
Yes.

Jason Sherman (17:29.838)
ChatGPT, Llama, Gemini, and all these other perplexities and Claude, they're not very easy to use for the everyday consumer. And you've got to have at least $100,000 in your bank account to customize it for your needs in the way that you need it. But we make it easy. So you just get a line of code, and you put it on your website, and now you're up and running. So that's the gap we're filling.

Christian Brim (17:57.353)
Well, you bring in of an interesting point and it kind of ties back into what I was saying about being an entrepreneur instead of focusing on your skills. That kind of translates to, know, if I'm marketing AI, I don't really want to lead with AI because that doesn't solve the problem. And I think one of the most

key things any business can do is have a true understanding of the problem that they're solving. But especially with existing businesses, it gets real easy to focus on your features and benefits, what you do, right? I was having a conversation with a woman a few weeks ago that was starting a marketing agency. And...

We, she'd already come up with her service offerings and her pricing. And even at identified a target market, like I'm going after financial coaches and I'm going to basically help them do a lead generation on meta. I'm like, great. those are all good things. Do you know what that lead is worth to the business coach? And she paused and she's like, no, but I really need to know that. Don't I? I'm like,

Absolutely.

Jason Sherman (19:25.646)
Yeah, I mean, what is it, the lifetime value of the customer, right? Like, what's that going to be? Because if she's spending $1,000 on that lead and she's only getting back $200, then it's not worth it.

Christian Brim (19:29.765)
Exactly. Yes.

Christian Brim (19:38.943)
Exactly. And I was having it in the context of talking about pricing, like maybe your pricing needs to be tweaked, but she may not have a viable business model.

Jason Sherman (19:52.716)
Right. That's what beta testing is for. And that's what iterating with early customers is for, right? You shouldn't be going out, you know, crazy full speed ahead. You've really got to take your time.

Christian Brim (20:04.797)
Yeah. And, you know, you, you use those terms and, I, I don't think most, creative business owners are used to beta testing or iteration, but it's the same principle. was, I was just listening to, an episode that will, will post, in the next week or so, and, and he was a, his, his business is filming.

high school football games with drones. And it wasn't like he got a drone, got his drone's license and said, okay, I'm going to go film high school football games. It was, well, I've got a drone. I think I want to do search and rescue because that sounds like fun. And, well, I don't know how I can make any money at that.

and iterated through just looking for problems to solve. And he landed on this one that was just completely untapped, could charge twice what the market was charging for standard videography. But it wasn't like he set out to build a drone business around high school football.

Jason Sherman (21:30.188)
Right. That's generally how it works out. Right. When you're, when you're, when you're beta testing and you're iterating and I was a drone operator FAA licensed when I made my second movie, I kind of was forced into it. had to create aerial photography and cinematography for my movie. So I did the same thing after the movie. I started looking into different markets. was getting organizations, companies with factories, schools, events, and things like that. I left that market because it wasn't for me, but

I remember doing the same thing and I even did some search and rescue. like when it comes to any kind of idea that you have, no matter what it is, and Vango is no different by the way, we started out as a consumer web app for consumers. We, we absolutely did. We have a consumer app called spinner. It's a video friendship app and the people on that app liked the AI that we built on there, but they wanted to customize it. So we built Vango AI as a customizing tool for them.

Christian Brim (22:12.19)
Of course you did.

Jason Sherman (22:27.096)
And they said, well, we don't really have any content to train it because we're not really business owners. We're just people. So we realized it wasn't for them. that's kind of how we started pivoting towards, know, I was like, well, I need one for myself. And then everyone else needed one for themselves. And I was like, now it's for business. You should never marry your idea. Be ready to adapt to the market. Be ready to pivot your complete concept to something else if you have to. And

Christian Brim (22:33.747)
Right. Right.

Jason Sherman (22:55.052)
I think what you said, no one knows what beta testing is an iteration. think really what beta testing is an iteration. It's figuring out what it is your product is going to be before you launch while you're gaining customers.

Christian Brim (23:04.189)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right. So you're not trying to build it all out at the beginning and then realize no one wants it.

Jason Sherman (23:13.528)
Correct. That I couldn't have said it better myself. That's exactly what happens nine times out of 10. You have to build something that you think people want, get their feedback first, then keep iterating towards what they actually do want. And then that's what you end up launching after you have a hundred people using it.

Christian Brim (23:33.981)
And that's true for any business, technology, service, product, doesn't matter.

Jason Sherman (23:35.84)
Any business. Yeah, don't open a brick and mortar store until you've succeeded at Etsy first, you know.

Christian Brim (23:42.951)
Right, right. So I want to ask some questions about the filmmaking. I apologize. I did not do my due diligence. Tell me about your films.

Jason Sherman (23:51.534)
That's okay. I'm definitely more so inclined to enjoy filmmaking more than anything else, but it's not as profitable as everything else. So I have to kind of take it with a grain of salt. my first movie was in 2010. It was a thriller horror flick called The Bucks County Massacre. Won audience choice award at a film festival, which garnered me an agent in California and distribution worldwide.

2016, I released the King's Highway, historical documentary that won a film festival agent distribution. then WHYY and PBS wanted it on their TV stations for two years. Verizon Fios then picked it up. So that one was pretty big. And then my third movie I shot before the pandemic and during the pandemic, because I was shooting it during 2019 and 2020. And I had to stop production and then continue on when things kind of lifted a little bit.

And I was able to finish that one. It's called Cutting Corners about the real estate industry. And that one also won two film festivals, agent distribution. And so all three of the movies are globally watched by people. then during the pandemic, after I released Cutting Corners, and I always get that itch, Creative people generally get an itch to create something.

While I couldn't work on another movie, I just finished cutting corners and I'm working on all these apps, Spinner and Bingo. I couldn't quite commit to a movie. But what I could do in my spare time was work on an idea I had in the back of my mind for years and years and years and years for a story, which you see to my left, Protocol 7. And Protocol 7 is a sci-fi thriller that takes place in the far, far future. And I wrote the screenplay, 2022.

used Mid Journey to create the AI storyboard to kind of visualize what it would look like along with, you know, what's called the treatment. So you can kind of see what the story is about and follow along. And I even made that poster image using Mid Journey as well, which is amazing because I would have never been able to draw that. I submitted the screenplay to three, well, actually more than three contests, but I placed as a finalist in three contests.

Jason Sherman (26:14.594)
for this screenplay, which I've never done before. So I'm very proud of that. And maybe one day I'll be able to make it using AI. We'll see.

Christian Brim (26:21.933)
So what were the budgets of these films?

Jason Sherman (26:25.974)
The first movie was probably around like $50,000. The second movie probably around the same. And probably all three movies about the same, about $50,000. I'm not able to get large budgets. they were all, like I said, they were all successful. They've all made more than they cost to make. And they've been seen by a lot of people. you know, as far as I'm concerned, those are probably my proudest achievements in my movies, for sure.

Christian Brim (26:53.907)
What were you, director? What role did you play? Okay, you did it all.

Jason Sherman (26:57.068)
writer, director, producer, editor. I had like the first movie had a 50 person crew and cast, so it was pretty big. The second movie, just a smaller, it was a documentary, so smaller. I really like to be hands on. I like to learn everything there is to know about doing things. If I ever do get my hands on a big budget film through a big studio, I'll know how to do quite a bit, which should make the process a lot smoother.

Christian Brim (27:05.352)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (27:26.727)
Yeah, I've been tangential to that with some clients and learned more about the business of making movies. And it does fascinate me where you can take a low budget film and get distribute, if you make a good film, you can get distribution where you can, you know,

make some money at it you don't have to have multi-million dollar budgets. Well sure, sure, but we're scrappy entrepreneurs right? I'm gonna go ahead and put this out there. I have had this most of this year. I have a screenplay I want to write, but I'm struggling with the screenplay.

Jason Sherman (27:58.86)
No. It would be nice, but no.

Jason Sherman (28:05.058)
We are.

Christian Brim (28:22.727)
And so I thought about writing just a short story around it because that is easier for me. mean, the whole structure of the screenplay is fundamentally different. But I'll pitch you the idea, see what you think. is the working title is Dancing Rabbit.

Jason Sherman (28:27.704)
Sure.

Jason Sherman (28:31.758)
Yeah.

Jason Sherman (28:35.19)
It's tough. It's tough.

Jason Sherman (28:42.392)
Sure, I'd love to hear it.

Christian Brim (28:46.183)
And it is about the relocation of the Choctaw people from Mississippi to Oklahoma. And, I'm Choctaw. My wife's Choctaw. And, I've never, there's, there's no movie made about the Trail of Tears. There's documentaries, right?

Jason Sherman (28:57.208)
Cool.

Jason Sherman (29:05.73)
Documentaries for sure. Ken Burns did a bunch of those. Right.

Christian Brim (29:08.273)
Right, but there's no movie. this story centers around a young Choctaw man who is torn between his romantic love and his love for his home. he actually stays behind in Mississippi. The Trail of Tears actually happened, relocation happened over three years. And so,

She goes with the first group and he stays behind and he finally gives up and realizes that home is where the people he loves is. And so he follows her to Oklahoma only to find that she died on the way. So that's my story.

Jason Sherman (30:00.397)
Ugh.

Jason Sherman (30:03.95)
man, there's got to be a happy ending. But when you're watching a movie about the Trail of Tears, it's not going to end well. There's probably a reason. There's also a reason why there's never been a full fledged movie about it, because I would would assume in American culture, they don't want us to know what happened because it's horrible. The genocide and decimation of the people that happened.

Christian Brim (30:07.289)
Well, that's that's the other thing, right? So I'm thinking, was that the right?

Well, yeah.

Jason Sherman (30:31.662)
because of what Andrew Jackson did, right? And I think at the end of the day, the movies that portray indigenous people, such as Dances with Wolves or The Last of the Mohicans, which or, you know, Oscar nominated or Oscar winning movies, those really kind of portrayed them being pushed out as well by the settlers and the wars. But in this particular instance, no, I haven't seen anything like that besides documentaries. What I would do is

try your best to prolong the separation of the two. Because if you rip off that band-aid, then there's really no story. So if it's really more about their lives in Mississippi and how it's established and then maybe halfway through she goes, and then that's when things kind of start to, he starts to try to battle it out on the home front, right? Which is really what you're looking for.

Christian Brim (31:07.828)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Sherman (31:30.862)
try to stand his ground, but then he finally towards the end is when he kind of says, okay, I give up. And that's when he finds out the bad news, which is going to make everyone cry, of course. it's look, anything is possible. There's plenty of indigenous peoples and tribes out there that are willing to be in these movies for sure. I had a bunch of them in my movie, the Lenape for a King's Highway, tons of indigenous people. So

Christian Brim (31:30.952)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (31:42.271)
Yes.

Jason Sherman (32:00.334)
that played parts in my movie. you definitely find them out there. So look, write an outline, write a short story, get it all written out and learn how to write a screenplay. Try your hand at it.

Christian Brim (32:12.093)
I did do a screenplay. I did do a screenplay this time last year for our firm retreat. We made a short film and I wrote the script for that. But then I started trying to do it as a feature film. like, God, because I wasn't, I mean, I did a lot of research and preparing for, you know, the story, getting historical names and events to include in the movie.

Jason Sherman (32:20.48)
Okay. There you go.

Christian Brim (32:39.603)
But when it came to writing a script, didn't know well enough how to write a script. I'd get started, write a couple of pages, it wasn't coming together for me. So I've decided I'm just going to write a short story. then if it works,

Jason Sherman (32:57.016)
Figure it out from there. I mean, there's definitely a structure you have to follow. So I would tend to say read a bunch of screenplays. Read a couple of books on screenplays. One of the best ones that I read that helped me along, because I've been writing screenplays now for 17 years. And Protocol 7 is my eighth screenplay. Three of the movies I made and five of them I did not.

Christian Brim (33:02.195)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (33:16.898)
wow.

Jason Sherman (33:25.422)
I'd like to one day. Save the Cat is name of the book. It's really, really good. Some people argue that it's not, you shouldn't follow it to the T. I would say don't follow it to the T, but definitely look at the structure that it gives you, the beat sheet and the 40 scenes on the card. I like writing them down on index cards, putting them up on my whiteboard, the magnets. I can visualize the whole story, move things around.

Christian Brim (33:30.003)
Okay.

Jason Sherman (33:54.894)
And my advice would be, once you do that, once you have your 40 scenes written out on a board, a cork board or whiteboard, whatever, write those scenes as simply and quickly as you possibly can get them out of your head. Don't worry about how good the dialogue is. Don't worry about how good the descriptions are. Don't worry about any of that. Just make it just bare minimum. What's called a spec script. Just write it out of your head, then put it away for a couple of weeks.

Christian Brim (34:08.543)
Okay.

Jason Sherman (34:24.226)
Come back, read it with fresh eyes, and now improve the dialogue, improve the descriptions. Do your research on all the scenes that you didn't do your research on because you have to do a... Writing screenplay is 50 % research, pretty much. You're just doing research all day long. Well, what did they wear? What did they dance? What foods did they eat? Where did they live? What was the weather like? know, like it goes on and on on on and on, right? So don't do any of that. Just write, write, write, write. And if you get the tendency where...

Christian Brim (34:41.636)
Right. Right.

Jason Sherman (34:53.83)
I could make this better. Don't just keep moving on because you'll always you're gonna have to rewrite it anyway. You're have to come back and rewrite it and rewrite it. So that's that's my advice to you.

Christian Brim (34:58.836)
Yeah.

Okay, I will follow it because you have inspired me. It's one of those things that, you know, at my age at 54, you know, I have a lot of ideas and my filter of what I'm going to work on or not work on is, you know, on my deathbed, am I going to regret doing it or not doing it? You know, and this is one of those things that I would regret if I hadn't done it. So it's going to happen.

Jason Sherman (35:06.232)
Good.

Jason Sherman (35:14.06)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Sherman (35:25.55)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Sherman (35:30.702)
Do it. Write one page every day for 90 days. That's it. One page a day for 90 days or three pages a day for 30 days. You can do it. I wrote Protocol 7 over the course of probably, you know, a month or two. And then I let it go for a couple months, came back and rewrote that sucker and rewrote it again and again and again. So I was really, really happy with it. And I had to rewrite the ending a couple of times to get it just right.

And that ending is really what struck a nerve with the contest. They really enjoyed the way that I twisted it for them to, they had no idea what was going to happen.

Christian Brim (36:09.375)
Is it a sci-fi movie like Blade Runner or a sci-fi movie like Star Wars?

Jason Sherman (36:16.43)
it's not like star wars Not like blade runner I would say it's more like Space odyssey 2001 kind of kind of style but with some elements of There's definitely elements of other You films that you that we could mention that like ex machina there's like elements of that. There's elements of that in there for sure interstellar

Christian Brim (36:27.803)
okay.

Christian Brim (36:40.724)
yeah, that was a good one.

Jason Sherman (36:45.336)
There's pieces of that in there as well. There's definitely bits and pieces of things that inspired me over the years, but it's truly an original story that has never been told before. And that's why it was just nagging me. Like, if you've never seen this movie before, then you have to write it. Yes, it is.

Christian Brim (36:45.617)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Christian Brim (37:02.905)
It's your responsibility. What's your favorite sci-fi movie?

Jason Sherman (37:08.832)
Interstellar for sure. It's just, it really is. It just has everything that you could want out of a movie. It's got far reaching space travel, time travel. Just that time dilation moment is probably my favorite scene of any movie where they go down to that planet of water for 10 minutes, come back up and the guy was up there for 23 years by himself. It's just like, you don't get to see stuff like that very often.

Christian Brim (37:10.385)
Really?

Christian Brim (37:23.55)
Mmm

Jason Sherman (37:35.466)
And then how the story comes full circle, how it was him the whole time trying to reach out to his daughter. And the space travel scenes were just so epic. I yeah, I love Star Wars and Avatar and all the other stuff out there, but nothing really. And Interstellar's soundtrack was great,

Christian Brim (37:55.611)
I would say, I mean, I was six, seven, seven when Star Wars came out. And it was definitely impactful. But as an adult, think Blade Runner is probably my favorite just because of the grittiness of it. It's, yeah.

Jason Sherman (38:02.946)
Yeah.

Jason Sherman (38:14.252)
Yeah, it's a fantastic movie. I mean, I love it. I love all the Blade Runners that have come out too. I mean, it's so hard to always say your favorite and one day I had to commit. I'm stuck with it for now. We'll see. Maybe my movie will come out one day and then I can say Protocol 7 is better.

Christian Brim (38:24.873)
Fair enough. So you're stuck with it.

Christian Brim (38:32.905)
So were your books fiction or were they?

Jason Sherman (38:35.79)
The first book I found it's funny. The first book I wrote was a sci-fi novel 2005 I wrote short stories before that and then one of the short stories turned into that book and Then after that I was writing autobiographies. I'm helping people as a ghost writer Writing other types of books and then I wrote my startup guide strap on your boots in the middle of in between my second movie and like releasing it because I kind of had a gap of time

And everyone was bothering me for tech advice. I was like, let me write this book and get my brain onto paper. And that was really the, the, the book that really has impacted the most people. Cause it's been helping entrepreneurs, students, business owners. And, so yeah, most of them I would say are, are definitely nonfiction. And then I wrote a couple of autobiographies for people. So nonfiction and then the sci-fi novel, that I wrote a long time ago.

Christian Brim (39:31.163)
What's the sci-fi novel? I'm gonna have to go pick it up now.

Jason Sherman (39:33.888)
It's really old and it's probably not that great, but it was called The Box. I mean, it's I love the story. I think it's it's kind of like Independence Day meets Star Wars meets Fifth Element. Kind of like it's definitely the more interesting story in terms of entertainment. But I could call it something else because The Box probably wasn't the best title back then. But there was a moment in time.

Christian Brim (39:39.666)
Okay.

Christian Brim (40:01.181)
You could re-release it.

Jason Sherman (40:03.182)
I might because it's going to be 20 years in 2025. I released it in 2005. And at the time, there was no really big internet presence. It was kind of just starting out. And so I was selling it in local bookstores, Borders, Barnes and Noble. And they had me do book signings. I was in the newspaper for it. And there was a moment when enough people came to the store to buy my book that it outsold Dan Brown's DaVinci Code and a couple.

Christian Brim (40:29.595)
okay.

Jason Sherman (40:31.67)
Yeah, so that was like the kind of cool moment is when I outsold like the big authors at my event. But yeah, I would love to read. I I haven't I'd have to rewrite that book and and re-release it. Well, I had an outline already written out for it.

Christian Brim (40:36.478)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (40:44.509)
Maybe a sequel.

Christian Brim (40:49.712)
Are you married?

Jason Sherman (40:51.054)
I'm partnered.

Christian Brim (40:52.743)
Okay, because I can imagine that your partner is like, trying to keep up with you. Like what? Like

Jason Sherman (41:00.358)
No, she's busy on her own. Nobody can ever keep up with me. So it's just a matter of just tolerating it.

Christian Brim (41:04.253)
Just like what the hell is Jason up to today?

Christian Brim (41:13.299)
Fair enough. Jason, how do we find out more about Vengo?

Jason Sherman (41:18.798)
Go to Vengo dot AI or vent actually Vengo AI comm is more like it and there's a Jason Sherman org is where you can find out more about me and all my links are on there, which probably lot easier

Christian Brim (41:32.071)
Okay, Jason Sherman dot org. I thoroughly enjoyed this interview. Thank you so much for your time. Great listeners. If you liked Jason, or me, whatever any combination thereof, subscribe to the podcast, leave us a rating, share the podcast. if you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message back and tell us what you'd like to hear. Yeah, please. This is great stuff. We had blade runner in here and yeah.

Jason Sherman (41:37.614)
Yeah, me too. It a lot of fun.

Jason Sherman (41:55.81)
Tell us why, yeah. What happened?

Right? There's a lightsaber up there for God's sakes. Come on.

Christian Brim (42:03.487)
Yeah, I mean, come on. Until later, ta ta for now.

Christian Brim (42:16.991)
Jason.

Jason Sherman (42:21.422)
I don't have control over it.

Christian Brim (42:36.35)
Okay.