Innovative Fundraising: Scott DuPont's Unique Approach to Fundraising

[00:00:00] Entertainment Insights Don't take life too seriously Welcome to Brainsky Unleashed

[00:00:07] Alright, so on today's podcast we have Scott DuPont. He's an award-winning actor, director, producer,

[00:00:16] he's worked on over a hundred short and independent films as well as TV pilots,

[00:00:20] serves as president of the Florida Motion Picture and Television Association

[00:00:24] and president of the Florida Cast and Crew Association, and near and dear to my heart,

[00:00:29] Scott DuPont, the guy's an aspiring pilot, plans to be getting his pilot's license here sometime in 2023.

[00:00:34] I look forward to flying with him. And so welcome to the program, Scott. I'm very excited to have you.

[00:00:39] Thank you very much, Tom. All that stuff was kind of in my past.

[00:00:43] I'm no longer residing in Florida, although I do some movies there quite a bit, but I'm currently in Hollywood.

[00:00:50] But the beauty is you can be anywhere these days to be in the film business. You don't have to be in Hollywood.

[00:00:54] Oh, and I think the pandemic actually probably taught us that, you know, well in a very serious way.

[00:01:01] Yeah. So you're in Hollywood now. And you've, you, we've met because it was, it started over conversation about funding movies, which I found utterly fascinating.

[00:01:14] I never realized how movies were funded. It was just not something that was necessarily on my radar.

[00:01:20] What I found in talking to you is that it's, it's not as complicated as people may necessarily believe that it is.

[00:01:27] It is something that actually can be a profitable venture, depending on, you know, people's stomach for doing it.

[00:01:35] Some movies can be, or some projects can be less risky than others.

[00:01:42] So can you kind of maybe go into that for a little bit and describe what is involved with, with funding things like this?

[00:01:50] We'll start with that.

[00:01:52] Okay. So I could probably talk not because I'm Mr. Know it all, but there's so many moving pieces to financing the film.

[00:01:59] I could literally probably talk for an hour or two, but I'll try to condense it into just a few minutes here.

[00:02:03] Um, independent films are very risky because you never know where it's going to be distributed, how it's going to be seen, how many people will watch it.

[00:02:16] Very few people are seeing independence in theaters.

[00:02:19] Now they're still going to see Top Gun Maverick minions, Jurassic Park.

[00:02:22] Um, and then there's just so many elements about independent films.

[00:02:28] And because the good news is because the production costs are so low.

[00:02:34] I mean, you can literally shoot a movie on your iPhone with really good lenses.

[00:02:40] That's the key and good lighting.

[00:02:42] Um, and the editing software and everything is like pretty much 20 to 30 cents on the dollar compared to what I was paying to produce a movie 15 years ago.

[00:02:52] Can I stop you right there?

[00:02:53] Can I stop you right there real quick?

[00:02:55] Cause you just said something that, that kind of keyed in with me.

[00:02:58] Um, even just lately as I'm working with podcast softwares and editing software, some for some of my own projects, what editing software is, would you even recommend that are that you would qualify as, you know, worth having or, or even affordable for people who are young and starting out?

[00:03:14] Um, what, what's funny is I'm not an editor.

[00:03:17] So I'm not the guy to talk to.

[00:03:18] I, I hire the editors, but I do a little bit of editing, uh, rudimentary editing myself on, I think it's iMovie on my Mac book here.

[00:03:27] Um, and people have done movies on that.

[00:03:31] I wouldn't suggest it.

[00:03:32] Um, but, um, but Adobe premiere final cut, um, and just all the plugins, a lot of the audio mixing.

[00:03:42] It's just gotten so cheap and so affordable.

[00:03:45] So it really can be successful then with what exists on the market.

[00:03:49] And, and you don't have to really just be a full on, you know, Hollywood studio to be able to produce a really great film anymore.

[00:03:57] Oh, absolutely.

[00:03:58] I'll give you one example.

[00:03:59] I don't want to name the title of the film cause it might hurt how low the production cost was, but a friend of mine here in Hollywood, a couple of years ago, he, uh, did a whole movie start to finish for about $60,000, which is really tricky.

[00:04:18] He pulled a lot of favors.

[00:04:19] He got some locations for free.

[00:04:21] He knew everybody cast and crew.

[00:04:23] They came in over a very short weekend.

[00:04:25] Anyway, this film, he got on to be and the first quarter alone, uh, the film brought in $35,000.

[00:04:36] The second quarter brought in like $30,000, third quarter, 25,000.

[00:04:40] This has been going on now, not only on to be, but other AVOD platforms and other streaming platforms.

[00:04:45] So the movie on that micro micro budget, about $60,000 is probably doubled or tripled its money.

[00:04:53] That's fantastic.

[00:04:54] Yeah.

[00:04:55] But getting, getting back to the, uh, the finance part, um, it is very hard, but like you said, it, it's not overly complicated.

[00:05:04] It can be simple if you know the exact steps to take.

[00:05:08] And the first thing I would do is I would reach out to a veteran producer who's done a lot of films, has gotten distribution, has a track record, um, put together a business plan, which would include your team, um, figure out a reasonable budget.

[00:05:26] Um, you can make a really high quality documentary in my opinion, these days between a hundred thousand and 500,000.

[00:05:34] And you can make a very high quality narrative, a traditional feature film for two 50 to 2 million.

[00:05:42] And you don't really need to go above that.

[00:05:44] And then also have a, in your business plan.

[00:05:47] And while you're reaching out to potential investors, obviously share the risk and nine out of 10 people are not going to be okay with that risk.

[00:05:55] And that's fine.

[00:05:56] You just keep going and going and going, sharing your exciting project with people.

[00:05:59] And if you continue long enough and you have a great plan, you will get a few people that say yes.

[00:06:06] Um, but while you're talking to them also have a very clear marketing strategy where you see the film's audience being and how you're going to connect the audiences to the film.

[00:06:18] So how you monetize, cause that's what investors care about.

[00:06:21] Which, which makes perfect sense.

[00:06:24] Uh, there's a, there's a movie, uh, that you just recently did that I, I, I, uh,

[00:06:28] saw recently that I'll, we'll, we'll get into here in a little bit, which kind of does actually go into all of that, which is actually, uh, quite a good movie.

[00:06:35] Um, one thing I would love to get into as well is a little bit more about you because you have a very impressive story.

[00:06:41] And, uh, we talked about that a little bit the other day.

[00:06:44] Uh, can you kind of expand on, on some of the struggles that you went through and how you ever overcame it?

[00:06:49] Because I mean, it's pretty wild in my opinion.

[00:06:53] Yeah.

[00:06:54] So, so anyone that's lived long enough or anyone that's had some amount of success has had failures and challenges.

[00:07:00] I've had a lot of them, but the one you're referring to was probably the toughest challenge I've ever faced.

[00:07:09] If not one of the, one of the toughest challenges I've ever faced in my life.

[00:07:12] And it's very, very dark, dark period in my life.

[00:07:16] Um, this was in 2008.

[00:07:19] I was living in Florida, um, summertime and no, no matter where you are in show business, um, you're going to have ups and downs because at that time in 2008, I was a professional actor.

[00:07:34] Um, I did some hosting conventions once in a while, and then I was producing films.

[00:07:40] So that was my only source of income.

[00:07:41] I didn't have like a nine to five.

[00:07:43] I didn't have a side job.

[00:07:44] So I was only working in the entertainment industry, which is up and down, up and down.

[00:07:49] Even people like, um, Al Pacino, my sister lived with him for seven years.

[00:07:54] That's another side story.

[00:07:55] We don't need to get into today.

[00:07:57] Um, but we got it.

[00:07:58] We got to do that one at some point.

[00:07:59] That's she, she went through the period where right before Scarface, he was with, with his houses and his overhead.

[00:08:08] He was going through a tough time.

[00:08:10] So it doesn't matter the level we all have ups and downs if you're truly just in the entertainment business.

[00:08:14] So what happened in 2008?

[00:08:17] Um, I wasn't producing a film at the time and I was going through the summer, which is always the slowest production period in Florida, just because it's raining all the time.

[00:08:28] It's really hot.

[00:08:29] Not a lot of stuff shoots there.

[00:08:30] Maybe a couple of commercials and some corporate training videos.

[00:08:33] So at the end of the summer, three, like, uh, uh, whatever they called phase four, five rate, the rate, whatever the rating categories.

[00:08:47] Um, four.

[00:08:49] Yeah.

[00:08:50] Category.

[00:08:51] Thank you.

[00:08:51] Category, uh, three hurricanes.

[00:08:54] They all got up to category four or five came through Orlando.

[00:08:57] Orlando.

[00:08:58] What's very rare about that.

[00:08:59] They normally don't get inland so far because Orlando is right in the middle of the state.

[00:09:04] It's nowhere near the coast.

[00:09:06] It's an hour and a half, two hours from either coast.

[00:09:08] Anyway, we got hit so bad with these three hurricanes.

[00:09:12] One of the hurricanes, my street, I lived in winter park, Florida was, was shut down for, for two weeks.

[00:09:18] You couldn't, you couldn't get a car or truck down our street for two weeks.

[00:09:22] Now about the same time this happened.

[00:09:25] So obviously if there's trees down power, we were out without power for two weeks too, with all this stuff going on, obviously no one's shooting anything.

[00:09:34] Universal Studios, Florida, where I had an office for the first time in 18 years, all of their sound stages went dark.

[00:09:44] They cut the power because they weren't going to doing it and shoot anything for the rest of the fall.

[00:09:48] In fact, they were pulling a whole bunch of props and scenic things into their sound stages to protect them from the hurricane damage in case something else happened.

[00:09:59] About the same time, the big recession happened, the big banking and housing crisis, which was devastating.

[00:10:06] And then because of that, the state of Florida had to pull their film and television incentives, which was about $50 million a year, which incentivized a lot of filming to happen in the state of Florida.

[00:10:22] And then the icing on the cake was my talent agency, the link agency, Tom Link, still one of my best friends.

[00:10:30] He called me up and he said, Scott, you're the first call I'm making.

[00:10:33] We've been together a long time.

[00:10:35] I'm closing my agency because like there's there's not going to be any business here for six months or a year and I can't survive.

[00:10:44] So during all that, going through the slow summer, didn't have anything production, three or four months of just catastrophic disaster.

[00:10:53] I went through all my savings and I knew I had to get out of Florida because there wasn't going to be anything shooting there in the next six months.

[00:11:01] Everything was kind of recovering and people were figuring out if they even wanted to shoot a movie in Florida or do a TV show anymore.

[00:11:09] So I knew I had to get out. I thought about maybe Louisiana where they had massive film incentives.

[00:11:15] They were still shooting a lot of stuff, maybe Atlanta. But I said, no, I really got to go west to Hollywood.

[00:11:20] But my problem was I needed to come up with my last month rent.

[00:11:26] I was actually behind because I didn't want to, you know, just skip rent.

[00:11:29] And that would have been a disaster because I couldn't have gotten a new place if they call your last land or said, oh, yeah, he's like a couple thousand dollars behind.

[00:11:35] And I needed a couple thousand bucks to pack up the smallest U-Haul I could get to drive west and basically start over again.

[00:11:45] So here's my dilemma. No money. First thing is I did is I reached out to about a dozen family members, very, very close friends, and they all are great people.

[00:11:56] They all would have helped me. But because of the financial crisis, the uncertainty, the stock market was tanking.

[00:12:03] I mean, everything was upside down. If none of your listeners are old enough to remember that it was a brutal, brutal time.

[00:12:10] And no one was able to help me out, even with a loan or whatever.

[00:12:13] And you were in this terrible position where you can't stay where you were.

[00:12:17] I mean, yeah, no, I had to get out.

[00:12:20] If your career was going to move anywhere, you had to go somewhere.

[00:12:22] Yeah. So obviously you don't want to be a deadbeat for the landlord either.

[00:12:25] I mean, that's not cool.

[00:12:26] Yeah. And it's not going to do – first of all, I needed a lot of gas, even if I just drove my car with nothing, to get across the country from Florida to California.

[00:12:37] But I figured I needed about $5,000 just to pay off rent, take care of some bills, get a U-Haul, and pay my first month's rent.

[00:12:46] And then I'll figure it out from there.

[00:12:47] I don't really need much of a kitchen.

[00:12:49] So just to clarify, we have a situation where your career is in great shape.

[00:12:54] Everything's going great.

[00:12:55] You've got some money in your pocket.

[00:12:57] Things are going well in your life.

[00:12:59] And all of a sudden, nature just destroys your career.

[00:13:05] That doesn't always happen to everybody.

[00:13:06] But in this situation, it literally just destroyed everything you had.

[00:13:09] You burnt through virtually everything you had trying to weather the storm.

[00:13:15] And now you're in this horrible position, and you just made probably one of the wildest decisions I've ever heard in my life.

[00:13:23] Go ahead.

[00:13:23] So it was a very, very dark time.

[00:13:26] First of all, I'm like sweltering in my apartment.

[00:13:29] There's mold starting to grow because there's no air conditioning.

[00:13:31] I can't even turn on a fan.

[00:13:33] So I'm sweating.

[00:13:34] I'm miserable.

[00:13:35] I'm just desperate.

[00:13:37] And so after a few days, I started asking this question I learned from Tony Robbins in the darkest, darkest times.

[00:13:46] Like kind of reprogram your brain a little bit.

[00:13:49] Like what could be good about this situation?

[00:13:51] What's great about this?

[00:13:52] Yeah.

[00:13:53] What's great about this?

[00:13:53] Because sometimes when you have these failures or dark, dark places, it could mean something good is going to happen.

[00:14:01] So my brain, like what's great about this?

[00:14:03] My brain goes, nothing.

[00:14:04] And then I changed the question.

[00:14:06] What could be good about this?

[00:14:08] I said, nothing.

[00:14:10] I said, what good might come out of this in the future once I get through this?

[00:14:14] So for days and days and days, I was really in a bad, bad place.

[00:14:19] And I remember this book.

[00:14:20] I still have it here somewhere from Robert Rodriguez called El Marachi.

[00:14:27] He's the guy that basically he checked himself into a couple of hospitals and research clinics and he sold body parts.

[00:14:34] He sold plasma.

[00:14:36] He might have donated sperm.

[00:14:38] He sold blood.

[00:14:39] They did testing on him.

[00:14:41] And he came up with a few thousand, I think, seven to ten thousand dollars to make his first movie.

[00:14:46] And I was like, I don't really want to jeopardize my health.

[00:14:49] That's one of the things I really value.

[00:14:52] But that stuck to me.

[00:14:55] It's like, what could I sell?

[00:14:56] Because I basically had nothing except some old furniture.

[00:14:59] And I wasn't going to sell my computer or any of my production equipment because I needed that.

[00:15:05] Like, how can I sell body parts or how can I what can I sell that might get me some money?

[00:15:12] So what I did is I took that kind of framework.

[00:15:14] OK, if I sell body parts, somebody might buy them.

[00:15:18] And I took this old picture that I'd done maybe one or two years prior.

[00:15:24] It was in a magazine article.

[00:15:25] It's a pretty cool shot in this hotel lobby.

[00:15:29] I'm in a three piece suit, all decked out like a head to toe shot.

[00:15:34] And I took that picture.

[00:15:36] And and this is just figuratively.

[00:15:39] And I said, Scott DuPont Inc.

[00:15:42] Would you like to invest in my future?

[00:15:46] I'm selling my body parts.

[00:15:49] Figuratively, very clear.

[00:15:51] Figuratively, figuratively.

[00:15:51] Figuratively, yes.

[00:15:52] So I took this picture and this this is.

[00:15:55] See, I've been doing business plans for films for 25 years.

[00:16:00] And at this point in 2008, I had probably done eight or 10 films already and I'd raised all the money.

[00:16:05] They were successful.

[00:16:06] So they're making money.

[00:16:07] So I had a track record, but no one was going to invest in a film at this point.

[00:16:10] But I figured if I had this picture along with a detailed business plan, which ended up being about 12 or 13 pages long, explaining all my future revenue sources like future movies that I knew I would be doing at some point.

[00:16:26] Future acting gigs.

[00:16:28] If I got some future hosting gigs.

[00:16:31] Any revenue that Scott DuPont Inc., one of my companies, generated if they invested X amount of money.

[00:16:39] And this is just figuratively on that picture I described.

[00:16:43] I think I sold a hand for $2,500.

[00:16:46] An arm was $5,000.

[00:16:48] A leg was $30,000.

[00:16:50] So I just did a diagram with dollar figures on each part.

[00:16:54] And then I had this 13 or so page business plan and I started calling lots and lots of people.

[00:17:03] And here's a tip.

[00:17:04] Whether you're raising money for a movie, something as crazy as I was doing.

[00:17:08] I was selling kind of future income of all the stuff I'm going to do the rest of my life.

[00:17:14] It's a pretty good deal.

[00:17:15] So by somebody buying your hand, they're not physically taking your hand, but for all future business, they bought into you, Scott Inc., and they will get a cut of what you do.

[00:17:28] One half percent gross income.

[00:17:32] Off the gross.

[00:17:33] For the rest of my life.

[00:17:36] So at the end of the day, here's where it went.

[00:17:40] I was calling and calling and calling.

[00:17:42] A lot of people wouldn't pick up the phone because everyone was like, oh, God, Scott's probably looking for money or he's probably got another film project.

[00:17:48] And I know I'm not investing in film projects right now.

[00:17:51] These were all people I knew.

[00:17:52] And then I would even the people I couldn't reach.

[00:17:55] I would email out this business plan with a really passionate paragraph describing exactly what I was offering.

[00:18:04] And it got to over 500 people.

[00:18:08] And then a couple of days went by.

[00:18:11] No one called me back.

[00:18:12] No one responded.

[00:18:13] And I'll never forget.

[00:18:14] I woke up because I couldn't sleep.

[00:18:17] I woke up one morning at 5 a.m., turned on my email, my computer.

[00:18:22] And out of the 500 plus people that I called and emailed, two people replied back.

[00:18:28] Yes, I'm interested.

[00:18:30] And those two guys, one of them you saw in the film.

[00:18:34] His name is John.

[00:18:35] And one of the checks I handed to John because he bought a hand was.

[00:18:43] Crazy.

[00:18:44] The way that sounds is absolutely crazy.

[00:18:45] For that, for that last quarter, John got two film checks because he did invest in a couple of films.

[00:18:51] And then he also got a Scott DuPont Inc. revenue check from all the acting gigs and any revenues that I got from different projects.

[00:19:00] And the other guy's name, a guy's name, Charles.

[00:19:03] And he invested, I believe it ended up being two gross points.

[00:19:07] I think he bought an arm or something or maybe half a leg.

[00:19:11] And those two guys, I ended up with like $15,000.

[00:19:16] That bailed me out and opened up the whole new chapter of my life here in Hollywood.

[00:19:23] And I'm really, really just not only grateful, but every time I write a check to those guys every single quarter, I love writing out the checks because they're partners.

[00:19:36] They're basically invested in my success no matter what I'm doing.

[00:19:40] And I'm happy to share with them because I will never, ever forget those two guys for bailing me out.

[00:19:46] And they had belief in me.

[00:19:47] And one of the lessons, it doesn't matter whether you're in the film finance business or real estate or you're selling cars or you're selling an idea.

[00:19:55] No matter what you're doing, people need to believe in you.

[00:20:00] And that's usually what they invest in first.

[00:20:03] Then if the project looked good or whatever you're selling or sharing looks good, then they'll say, yes, we'll invest or we'll support you.

[00:20:12] And that goes back to the basic principle of relationships.

[00:20:16] It almost doesn't matter.

[00:20:18] It really doesn't matter what industry, anyone that's trying to make any money, do any business with anybody.

[00:20:23] It's always about the relationship first.

[00:20:26] I mean, OK, not so much necessarily.

[00:20:29] I want to buy a hard drive from Amazon and I really like, you know, I really like the customer service people over there, you know, or Bezos himself.

[00:20:38] But in most business relationships or personal relationships, it's always about the it's the relationship.

[00:20:44] It's the people.

[00:20:45] It's that bond, that trust.

[00:20:46] And it's really kind of nice that you had some people that believed in you and talk about adding value to their lives.

[00:20:53] They bought your body parts.

[00:20:55] I mean, well, here's what they funded you.

[00:20:59] And it's changed their lives because their bond with you improved their lives.

[00:21:04] There's value there.

[00:21:05] Oh, absolutely.

[00:21:06] So first of all, it gave both of those individuals, John and Charles, great satisfaction and value in their lives that they could help out a friend in need.

[00:21:17] So that's one of the greatest gifts is contribution, is sharing, providing value for other people.

[00:21:24] And secondly, you know, they're getting some sometimes there's some decent checks.

[00:21:29] Sometimes there's smaller checks, but it's kind of fun.

[00:21:31] It's mailbox money they're going to get for the rest of my life anyway.

[00:21:34] As long as I'm generating income.

[00:21:36] And then any time I have a big film premiere or an event, they get invited.

[00:21:43] So they've been on the red carpets.

[00:21:46] John actually got pulled in that movie, Movie Money Confidential you talked about, and that was fun for him.

[00:21:51] So, yeah, there's like it's a win-win for everybody when you do business the right way.

[00:21:57] That's fantastic.

[00:21:58] I mean, to me, that's a great story.

[00:22:00] I mean, you know, it's overcoming tremendous odds in one of the most creative possible ways.

[00:22:05] I give you a lot of credit for that.

[00:22:06] I never would have thought of anything like that.

[00:22:10] I probably wouldn't do anything like that, frankly, because I think it's kind of crazy.

[00:22:13] But God bless you for doing it.

[00:22:14] And I mean, look, it worked out.

[00:22:15] It's got a great result.

[00:22:18] Yeah.

[00:22:18] So you're obviously successful.

[00:22:24] You have made things happen in your life.

[00:22:27] There's a lot of people who are getting started in their careers.

[00:22:30] And as they enter, maybe they're entering in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s.

[00:22:34] You don't know.

[00:22:34] But they're getting started in their careers into Hollywood.

[00:22:37] What kind of advice would you give them as far as how to get people to believe in them?

[00:22:44] You know, there's a lot of distractions.

[00:22:46] What did you do to make sure that people believed in you?

[00:22:50] And what do you think others can do to just really hone in on that important, critical

[00:22:55] component of a relationship?

[00:22:57] It's a tough question.

[00:22:58] Well, a couple of things.

[00:23:00] If you're just starting out whatever business or career you're doing and you're passionate

[00:23:05] about it, I hope you are because there's no sense pursuing it if you're not really excited

[00:23:08] about what you're getting into.

[00:23:10] Number one, you really need to start with a bulletproof mindset.

[00:23:16] And a couple of things that you can do, there's a lot of things you can do.

[00:23:20] But here's a few quick tips.

[00:23:21] I get up at 430 every morning because a lot of my investors and clients are on the East

[00:23:26] Coast.

[00:23:26] And I can get a lot of productivity when my phone's not blowing up, when social media,

[00:23:33] emails, texts aren't coming through.

[00:23:35] I have my quiet time where I'm focusing on my goals and my dreams.

[00:23:40] My phone's still on airplane mode.

[00:23:42] And sometimes my computer shut off for two hours.

[00:23:45] So that's my time.

[00:23:46] During that time, I spent 15 minutes just getting in a state of gratitude.

[00:23:50] Things that I am thankful for, the fact that I got through that dark story I just shared,

[00:23:57] the fact that I still have my health.

[00:23:58] A lot of people don't have their health.

[00:24:01] The fact that I'm relatively young, I've got a lot more years I can make movies and do

[00:24:06] things.

[00:24:07] I read books, business books, marketing books, positive inspiration books.

[00:24:13] I'm just feeding my mind before I start my day.

[00:24:16] And then the other thing, and our mutual friend who we got introduced by was JT Fox because it

[00:24:22] was his event.

[00:24:23] Make a success.

[00:24:24] JT always says the shortcut is to get a mentor, hire a coach, learn from someone else who has

[00:24:36] successful and has done whatever it is you want to do and follow their path.

[00:24:41] Don't try to recreate the wheel all by yourself.

[00:24:46] You might stumble around and figure out how to do it, but it'll take you 10 years instead of

[00:24:49] six months.

[00:24:50] Yeah.

[00:24:51] It's a shortcut.

[00:24:52] Yeah.

[00:24:53] Yeah.

[00:24:53] Okay.

[00:24:55] Well, that's excellent advice.

[00:24:57] Sounds like we may have something in common and a respect and appreciation for Tony Robbins

[00:25:03] there.

[00:25:03] I heard a little bit of Tony Robbins' advice as you were going through some of that.

[00:25:08] I've been through some really tough stuff in my life, and Tony Robbins played a role,

[00:25:13] at least as a personal power.

[00:25:17] I forget the name of the program, but getting grateful.

[00:25:21] Very important.

[00:25:21] I don't think enough people recognize how important it is to be grateful.

[00:25:28] Yeah.

[00:25:28] It's huge.

[00:25:29] And then also, one thing I've started recently the past year or two is visualizing and being

[00:25:38] thankful for stuff I have not received yet.

[00:25:41] Or let's say I have a film idea.

[00:25:44] I visualize the film getting produced.

[00:25:47] My best friends, my investors, all in this huge theater at the premiere on the red carpet.

[00:25:52] And by visualizing things and being thankful in advance, I don't know how this works.

[00:25:59] I don't need to know how it works, but it helps you get to your goals quicker.

[00:26:03] I mean, that's a biblical component, frankly.

[00:26:07] I mean, if you're familiar with what's in the Bible, that's a pretty important component as to

[00:26:13] what's in there.

[00:26:14] So you've got two very interesting points with gratitude and being thankful for what doesn't

[00:26:19] even exist yet.

[00:26:20] So that's kind of beautiful.

[00:26:23] You don't generally see that a lot in media these days.

[00:26:27] Typically, it goes the other direction.

[00:26:29] So it's nice to see that you're living proof of that does work.

[00:26:33] It is actually a very reliable way of being successful.

[00:26:37] So that's very important.

[00:26:38] Is there anything that you would say that should be off limits to people, a third rail kind

[00:26:44] of thing?

[00:26:44] Is there developing their careers in Hollywood or the entertainment industry?

[00:26:52] A couple of things is always, always do the right thing and keep your integrity because

[00:27:01] most people in Hollywood are good people, honest people.

[00:27:05] But I don't know, five to 10 percent, they're they're shysters.

[00:27:08] They try to cheat or scam people, especially when you're raising money.

[00:27:13] But but just in general production terms as well.

[00:27:17] So if you develop a reputation of always honoring your word, doing what you'll say you'll do,

[00:27:26] there's a there's a great expression in Hollywood.

[00:27:29] If you're if you're not 15 minutes early to your call time, like being on set, whether

[00:27:34] you're cast, crew or anything, you're late.

[00:27:37] So always arrive early, always ask what you can do to help others.

[00:27:44] You know, sometimes if I get there early, I'll ask the craft, even even if I'm producing,

[00:27:49] I'll ask the craft service people, hey, do you do you need help setting up this table or

[00:27:52] whatever?

[00:27:54] And then if you have that reputation of always doing what you'll say you'll do, it's really

[00:28:02] tough for people to talk bad about you and whether or not you're you get pulled into another

[00:28:08] production, which I do from time to time as an actor or people want to hire me as a producer

[00:28:13] or I'm reaching out to investors to do my own things.

[00:28:17] It really helps because your your integrity, your reputation is everything, much more powerful

[00:28:28] than you're describing just being giving of yourself.

[00:28:32] Yes, people like that.

[00:28:35] Contrary to what some egos feel, people actually like that.

[00:28:37] It's a great way to build relationships.

[00:28:39] Let me give you another quick example.

[00:28:41] I mean, I could give very specific examples to stories about this all day long, but there

[00:28:46] was another guy in the movie that you saw, Movie Money Confidential named Dave Mackey.

[00:28:52] We were driving in the car together along the beach.

[00:28:55] Very short segment.

[00:28:56] He was talking about why he invested in film.

[00:28:59] He said, hey, I talked to Scott for five minutes and I was in.

[00:29:01] I invested.

[00:29:02] Well, our relationships goes back about 20 years.

[00:29:05] I was doing a short film producing.

[00:29:09] It was called Six Out of Seven.

[00:29:12] And he just had a really, really good look.

[00:29:14] He's a model.

[00:29:16] He's a spokesperson.

[00:29:17] Just like girls go crazy when they see this guy.

[00:29:21] And we hired him to be the kind of the hot, good looking bartender.

[00:29:26] It's a small part.

[00:29:27] And during the short film, we literally had no money, but that was OK.

[00:29:30] It was going to be a short scene.

[00:29:32] We would provide a demo reel, plus we'd get to work together.

[00:29:37] And I found out that, and he didn't even come to me about this.

[00:29:42] I found out that the same weekend that we were shooting our short film, he had gotten offered

[00:29:50] a commercial.

[00:29:51] He auditioned.

[00:29:52] They changed the shooting date.

[00:29:54] So I said, Dave, I heard you book this commercial.

[00:29:56] And it wasn't a lot of money.

[00:29:57] You know, back 15 years ago, I think it was $750.

[00:30:01] But there also could be residuals if it spun off.

[00:30:05] It could be thousands.

[00:30:06] I said, Dave, you got to take the commercial, man.

[00:30:10] I mean, we can find someone else to be the bartender.

[00:30:12] It's only a short film.

[00:30:14] He's like, no, Scott, I gave you my word.

[00:30:17] And I'm like, Dave, take the commercial.

[00:30:18] And he didn't.

[00:30:19] Like, his word was so important to him.

[00:30:24] This guy turned down $750, potentially thousands.

[00:30:28] And I will never, ever, ever forget that the rest of my life.

[00:30:33] And we've done a lot of things together.

[00:30:35] And I really respect him.

[00:30:37] Yeah, integrity.

[00:30:38] Yeah, awesome.

[00:30:39] So, Scott, how do people learn more about you if they want to?

[00:30:44] I'm on all the different social media platforms.

[00:30:47] Scott DuPont, you'll see my picture there.

[00:30:51] IMDB.

[00:30:51] Yeah, IMDB, Facebook, Twitter, all this stuff, Getter.

[00:30:57] And then if you want to watch our movie, it's actually free right now at moviemoney.com.

[00:31:03] So you don't have to pay anything for a limited time.

[00:31:05] You can check it out.

[00:31:06] And then if anyone is interested in maybe you have a script idea, you have a great book,

[00:31:13] and you just someday you want to produce your own movie,

[00:31:15] I have a free podcast called Finance Your Movie.

[00:31:21] And you can go to financeyourmovie.com.

[00:31:23] It's on all the different platforms.

[00:31:26] And I have a few people that are in the real estate business, and they listen to my podcast,

[00:31:32] interesting enough, just because the strategies I use to help people raise money,

[00:31:38] they apply to almost anything.

[00:31:40] But obviously, it's specific to raising movies.

[00:31:43] The big difference between our industry and anything else is there's a lot of risk.

[00:31:48] If you invest in a piece of real estate, at least you've got an asset.

[00:31:51] If you invest in a stock, at least you have an asset.

[00:31:55] Well, when you're investing in film, you're investing in the person and hope that it becomes

[00:32:00] the next Blair Witch Project or the next Terrifier 2, which just blew up last month.

[00:32:05] Yes.

[00:32:06] In most cases, you can't necessarily repossess a film.

[00:32:11] The collateral is not there.

[00:32:12] Now, your arms and legs are, and I would feel bad if you managed to lose those.

[00:32:16] And so are there any other projects that you're currently working on that people should be

[00:32:19] aware of?

[00:32:21] We have a new one.

[00:32:23] We haven't really announced it or talked about it yet, but it will be out most likely the

[00:32:28] beginning of next year, probably March.

[00:32:30] It's called Burt Reynolds, The Last Interview.

[00:32:34] So we're really excited about that.

[00:32:36] And then I've got a couple more projects we'll be announcing probably January, February that

[00:32:42] we'll be shooting next year.

[00:32:43] So people should be following you on your podcast to hear that.

[00:32:46] Yeah.

[00:32:47] If they're interested in the entertainment business.

[00:32:49] Absolutely.

[00:32:49] Okay.

[00:32:49] And do you have any final thoughts or sage advice for anyone that's listening?

[00:32:55] Yes.

[00:32:57] The one thing I would say is invest in yourself.

[00:33:02] You had a great podcast with a gentleman who couldn't even afford a hotel room.

[00:33:08] Amazing, wasn't it?

[00:33:09] And he invested in attending mega success, surrounding himself with a group of billionaires with a B,

[00:33:19] a lot of millionaires and ultra, ultra successful people.

[00:33:22] Buy a book, invest in a coach.

[00:33:25] But the more you invest in yourself, that's probably the best thing you can do.

[00:33:30] Oh, listen, I can't agree with you more.

[00:33:32] Scott, I really appreciate you doing this.

[00:33:36] I've said this to you before.

[00:33:37] Every time I talk to you, I learn something.

[00:33:41] I would really look forward to having you back on the podcast again.

[00:33:45] And I certainly wish you all the best of luck with the projects that you have coming up.

[00:33:50] I personally will be watching them all and subscribing to your podcast.

[00:33:55] And thank you so much.

[00:33:56] Thank you, Tom.

[00:33:57] Really enjoyed it.

[00:33:58] All right.

[00:33:58] All right.