Lights, Camera, Action! John D'Angelo on Filmmaking in the AI Era

Hello and welcome to the Thriller Zone.

Of course, I'm your host, David Temple.

It is so nice to have you here.

I cannot believe we are rolling down the end of 2025.

Can you believe it?

Where has this year gone, man?

Well, I can tell you there is still lots of juiciness still ahead for us on the Thriller Zone.

So all you gotta do is hang out for it.

On today's show, we're doing something a little bit different.

You know how we're always talking about thriller writers, right.

Publishers, agen, etc.

Today I'm talking to a filmmaker.

His name is John d' Angelo and he's got a movie coming out called the Hook.

He's an indie filmmaker and he's got some really terrific insights.

If you like to geek out on the business of show business and Hollywood and filmmaking, you're gonna love today's show.

So stick with us and enjoy the show right here on the thriller.

John DeAngelo, welcome to the show, buddy.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

This is great.

You know, I don't get a chance to talk to a whole lot of filmmakers.

I talk to thriller writers, predominantly publishers, editors, agents.

So you're among like the first couple of filmmakers.

And as a closet filmmaker myself, I was so excited to jump on this opportunity.

So I'm glad you cut aside the time.

Yeah, no, this is great.

And, and it.

The genre of the film falls right into your.

Into your.

Into your bag, though, for sure.

Yeah.

Well, I got a couple of interesting things to share with you that is going to shed some light on this.

I want to start out of the gate with.

John is a writer, director, filmmaker, as I said.

Now here's something I was reading on your bio.

I want you to give me some clarification.

He's known for blending classic storytelling with cutting edge visual innovation.

I got a pretty good idea, that is.

But tell my listeners exactly what sets you apart.

Sure.

So when it comes to ICV effects and things like that, I think the most common popular notion is the whole Mandalorian craze that went on years back where they were using Unreal Engine and putting them on these massive LED walls.

And that kind of sparked out of a necessity with Jon Favreau and his team during the whole the lockdown of COVID But it sparked a really great use of that technology.

And just like many others, I kind of adapted to that craze.

I wanted to understand the limitations of what that technology.

Like, what's the bottleneck there?

How far can we take it And I was already a certified Unity game developer.

So I kind of had my head around the engine.

But for a long time, I was like anti Unreal Engine.

For some reason, I was just a fanboy of Unity.

It's silly, but it happens.

Guitar players do it too, like Fender, Gibson, the whole thing.

So to make a long story short, I was comfortable in that engine space.

But Unity wasn't capable of getting where Unreal Engine was getting in that space.

So I jumped in, started studying it, fell in love with the engine, got certified in that world, and then I hit the bottleneck.

And the bottleneck was the technology's there, but it's very, very, very expensive.

So over time, those LED panels became more accessible, they became cheaper, but they're still not quite where they need to be.

So I use the technology currently to do all of my previs.

To do all of my conceptual things.

I build my environments entirely in unreal engine.

In 3D environments, I set my virtual cameras to match the cameras in the real lenses, and then I place them to the centimeter of will it be in real life.

So when we show up on set, there's no questions of whether or not the shot list will work physically in the space.

The next step is to get to the production level where there's enough funding behind it to do the LED volumes.

But I am ready for that when it comes.

Well, now there's two things to unpack there, folks.

I want to.

I want to break this down.

One, I'm going to flashing back to like the late 90s or mid to late 90s, and I'm hanging out with some cats in.

In North Carolina, and they were doing something that is now kind of normal.

And I want to make sure that I'm on the same page with you.

They would get in the back of a car and hang their camera out the window and shoot the.

The.

The world going by.

Then they'd come back to their driveway, project that video up on a screen behind them, and then drive.

And this was like, long time ago.

And I would sit there and watch that.

Dude, that's frigging amazing.

The projection process.

Yeah, that's been around for as long as.

I mean, there's some footage go way, way, way back in black and white days where they were doing this force perspective and all that kind of stuff.

Like it was.

Yeah, that concept of being able to trick the.

Trick the camera because you're dealing with two dimensions, and it really gives you a lot of flexibility for that.

Yeah.

Well, one more thing.

I want to drill down on.

I think it's so funny now when I watch people, when I watch a scene like We'll Go True Detective the first season, and those cats are in the car and the reflections are going by on the grass or on the glass and so forth.

And.

And my wife, who doesn't know technology, all she goes like, where are they driving?

That's amazing.

I'm like, baby, that's happening in a studio.

No, it's not.

Look, the things are going by, but now, John.

And this is where I want to catapult straight ahead.

Because you're probably waist deep in this right now with AI.

Like it is being able to create universes out of thin air.

How is that changing the way you work?

And you're way ahead of the curve.

Yes.

So AI.

I live AI pretty much every day.

Yeah.

And I keep.

I really try and stay ahead of how far along we are in not only realism, because that.

That's what everyone's concentrating on.

That's sort of the surface level.

Like, how real does this stuff look?

Passing QC is a whole nother nightmare.

Right.

So when you get something that can generate a realistic video, but it's pumping it out at 7:20, then you're bringing it into something like Topaz, and you're uprising it.

You're getting artifacts.

Then you bring it into your editor, and then you're getting electric blacks, and there's a bunch of squares in your blacks.

And then you try and put temporal on it to like make it, but then everything looks like it's made out of plastic.

And then it turns into this whole.

You're just fighting with the limitations of the output.

You're not.

You're not fighting limitations of realism anymore.

So when Sora 2 dropped, the very first thing that I realized with Sora 2 was I think we're pretty much there to shoot pickups with AI.

And what I mean by pickups is like, I need to get that aerial shot of a crime scene at night.

I need to get the outside of an office building with a flag flapping in the wind.

Right.

You nail those, it's pumping them out of 1080 right now.

Soon they're going to get rid of all the little particulates and the issues that happen with artifacting.

I'd say this time next year, I don't think a second unit is going to need to be activated on a.

On a film set.

Unless the.

Unless the actual talent is.

Is needed for those.

For those pickups.

I don't see it happening.

Isn't it.

Crazy times we're living in, right, bro?

Crazy times we're living in.

Yes, but.

All right, I will say that.

I just want to say one last thing on that.

Yeah.

It is really, though, a syndrome that we have as.

As a human race.

Like, we get way ahead of ourselves.

Like, if you.

You can have conversations with people right now that don't really.

They're not really living the space.

And they could swear to you.

We are 24 months from being able to type.

A lizard falls in love with a Chihuahua.

Enter.

And you get this fully animated movie about, like, engaging, changing your life movie.

We are so far from that.

But it's how you use those tools with the tools we do have that are over developed.

Like an Unreal engine.

Yeah.

Now we're cooking.

Okay, well, folks, before you turn that dial, as we used to say during my radio days, before you distract your attention.

And thank you for letting me geek out with John here, a fellow filmmaker.

But this stuff is very exciting because.

And this is a conversation, John.

I have every single solitary, freaking weak.

People go, oh, geez, dude, you can't use AI.

That's not.

You're cheating.

I'm like, it's a tool.

You can take a knife and you can cut an apple and eat it, or you can take a knife and stab someone and kill it.

It's still just a tool, right?

That's right.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yep.

And yeah, yeah.

And I will say this too.

I'm pretty sure there was a lot of horseshoers pretty pissed off at Ford if you go back far enough.

Just saying.

Nice analogy.

Okay, now that I got the chili bum cell worked out of myself, I want.

I got like five questions.

We're.

We're tight on time.

We want to make sure everything grooves here.

I know you started out as a songwriter and performer.

I get that energy already.

Now we're talking about your new film, the Hook.

When does the Hook come out?

So the Hook doesn't have a release date yet, but it is looking like it's going to be next year.

I'm hoping for a Q2, Q3, but I don't want to overstep.

But that'll be wherever the distributor lands it.

Yep.

All right, well, this is not his first rodeo, kid, so he knows what he's doing.

But what I want to do is how much of, like, when you're on the set.

Musicians are a very specific breed.

I know because I am one myself.

When you are on the set, how much of that was there?

Like, a particular Scene that you were working in, where you go, oh, you know what?

I've already scored this thing in my head.

Do you have the music and the film in your head going simultaneously?

Because it's.

I do.

And I'll tell you this, though, so.

So when it comes to the levels of filmmaking and productions, right, like, you have the really, really high level where, like, Guillermo del Toro doing Frankenstein, right, You're talking like, this is the.

This is the far end.

You get all the tools and the whatever when you're in that situation.

It's sort of like all of the pieces on set, like, gravitate to his gravity.

They all move to his orbit.

Right?

Yeah.

If he wanted to say, literally, like, hey, look, today I'm feeling purple.

Like, he's got 60 people trying to not only figure out what that means, but they're going to, like, articulate it somehow to the best of their ability.

Now, why I say this is because when you're on these smaller sets, while I'm overly thankful to be on them, there's not a lot of room to be able to have those kind of, like, expressive moments where the team just sort of like.

Like, is finding a way to see all of that vision.

Does that make sense?

So what I do to get ahead of that is I just score a soundscape.

And a soundscape is like, it can't be too specific because I. I can't be like, hey, this scene, I really wanted this feeling, like, I can't do that because there's just not enough bandwidth on set.

But what I can do is I could score how I want the movie to feel in general.

Yeah.

And then when we get to a happy moment or whatever, I don't reference it right, because it's a dark tone.

I'm not gonna reference that during a.

A nice scene, but I do that and I send it to the cast.

Michael Jai, while he was on set, multiple times.

Not only he blasted it on set through his Bluetooth speakers, he was always on his earpods, just listening to it with his eyes closed.

So some artists and some actors, they really do appreciate having that sort of engagement, but others could care less.

They're just like, yeah, tell me where to put the camp.

Like, yeah, I don't care about your violin piece in A minor.

Just, where's the camera going?

It's really.

Though it's.

It's not counterintuitive.

It is very intuitive.

And again, I'm not trying to upstage you at all.

This is your show.

But I remember I was doing My, My only real independent film that went anywhere that's on Amazon prime right now.

I did the same thing.

I had a buddy of mine, Kim Planner, I said, score me three tiny little pieces of music.

Just, it's like two minutes each.

They don't have the attention span.

And then we'd get to the set because I'm directing them.

I'm like, now listen to this and just do this for.

To set the emotion.

And I want to make sure I'm doing the same thing you're saying.

Set the emotion.

Do with it as you wish.

You've already got the lines memorized.

This is simply to embellish the moment so you can feel it.

Now go do what you do best.

We're on the same page, right?

That's right.

If it, if it finds its way into their performance, great.

No one will ever know where or when it touched it.

But yeah, yeah, perfect.

Now, one of the reasons I meant I agreed to meet with you because my next question is going to tee that up.

And when I heard this about you, I'm like, dang.

Well, first of all, he's a filmmaker.

I gotta hang with this.

Cat number two is that I've been working on a Neo noir thriller for about two and a half years.

I'm sending it out to agents right now, and it's based in, wait for it, Vegas.

Okay.

So when I read.

So I'm reading your bio in your, Your press sheet, I'm like, oh, my God, I've got to talk to this cat.

So noir as we know, think Chinatown, for instance, usually screams, you know, rain alleyways.

And yet you put the hook the movie in Vegas in August, which, besides it being probably very pleasant, temperature wise, what did Vegas give you, let's say thematically and.

Or emotionally, that you couldn't get in a traditional, more traditional noir setting?

Well, so I, I've.

First of all, what you're saying about noir is that is.

And Vegas, Vegas particularly could give you some of the best noir ever, especially if you utilize the strip.

If you utilize the downtown is insane for that.

But this movie was originally supposed to be very true Detective season one.

This was.

This was supposed to be Arkansas.

It was supposed to be like there was actual crocodiles.

Like in the original concept that the, the three writers of us, we were all like kind of floating around.

So there was a.

That the final battle scene was supposed to happen on a boat.

The Jolly Roger, like, it was a whole thing.

So when we found out the limitations of the production forced us to shoot local we ended up just having to lean into what we had, and the noir thing either took a hook, a hit, or it ended up being okay.

Well, you know, that'll be for the audience to decide when the movie comes out.

But it wasn't.

The.

The production, unfortunately, wasn't able to go full hip tilt into the original noir, dark Louisiana vibe we wanted to go for sure.

Okay, well, I'm.

I'm with you on Vegas noir.

And when I started.

Yeah, when I started crafting this story, especially this.

I've done a lot of business in Vegas, and what I like is.

And, dude, I'm.

I'm probably easily twice your age, at least.

Anyway, so I'm sitting here thinking about old Rat Pack classic Casino, and if you take that world and you desaturate it, let's just say that for just kicks and giggles, you know, turn the color down and make it a black and white.

Dude, you're.

You're in the middle of noir.

You're really close.

I mean, very little.

Now it's just props and performance, and that gets you there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I can't wait to see this.

Now you got an ex FBI profiler in the hook now, if I'm not mistaken, had his faith, injustice kind of blown apart.

I want you to drill down on this for me.

Underneath the genre and the kill count, what was that nerve or impetus that you were poking at with that character?

Sometimes, and I want to put it this way, sometimes we as thriller writers are doing our own self therapy in our books.

So I'm like, I want to drill down on John and find out what he.

I'm using self therapy as a wide.

Yeah.

What's he working on in this movie?

Well, so the Malcolm Miller character that you're referring to, I would say the best way to sort of describe him was I really felt for the story to get engaged quickly, there needed to be an existing history between the characters.

And I felt like that just moved things along faster on the page, and it asked more questions, early questions that I didn't have to answer right away.

Right.

It's because everyone can relate to having a broken, estranged relationship with somebody, and we just assume, let the core story move forward and we'll figure out the rest as it goes.

And that's really how those stories kind of.

Kind of work.

Right.

The other way could have just been stick two characters together that have never met.

That's season one of True Detective.

Right.

Force these two guys, they get to know each other on the spot, that whole thing.

But I decided to go that way because I felt like I got more bang for my buck early on.

Character centered.

And when you're dealing with actors like Marlon and Michael, you have to lean into the strengths of what you've got to work with.

And those guys, those two actors are just at our peak at.

They literally shook each other's hands and nice to meet you.

And action.

Like, they just went because of.

Wow.

And that's.

You have to lean into those strengths when you're.

When you're dealing with these budget, budget films.

So.

But now to dive down a little bit into the storyline back in the day.

And this is.

This isn't spoiling anything.

In the.

In the.

For the movie.

Ten years before, in this movie, in this storyline, that character was investigating a serial abduction case, and he was telling the FBI it was serial, and they didn't want to hear a serial abduction.

They were just saying, there's not enough to go on on that.

Meanwhile, at home, he was having trouble with his wife was terminal, and she was dealing with health issues.

So he was losing her, unraveling.

And then he just sort of snapped and started to be a little too aggressive, and he lost his badge.

So all these years later, it turns out he was right.

And at the beginning of our movie, these.

The FBI has to, like, put their tail between their legs and go, like, this guy that knew these cases better than anyone, we probably need to go get him back in, at least to consult.

And then, of course, when they find him, he's an alcoholic and he's got an estranged relationship with his daughter because of what he went through all those years ago, losing his job and his wife and everything else.

So it just sort of like, that's where we meet this character at the beginning.

Wow, dude, a couple of things popped into my head.

May I call you dude?

Couple things popped into my head when you're talking about this for folks who are spending their time crafting these characters on the page.

I'm.

I don't want to insult my listener to say that, oh, you're.

You're probably not getting the film speak like we're doing, but.

Because I know you're getting it, but like, when you're crafting the characters from the standpoint of how the camera captures the world, how it moves, how the color affects things.

And the reason I say colors, I'm a huge David Fincher fan.

So when I take Fincher, for instance, in color painting, a scene has a particular mood.

What I'm getting at is, do you find that And I don't know how long you've been doing.

How long you've been doing this.

Making films.

Making films.

I've been.

I've been creating moving pictures for 15 years.

Okay.

Finally got into the feature film stuff recently.

Perfect.

So this teased me up perfectly.

So what do you see differently?

What do you see differently from 15 years ago to today?

Both from the style, meaning what the audience is being, what they get pulled to, what they get connected to.

How do you see that style change from 15 years ago today?

And it can be.

It can be style.

It can be timing.

It could be material.

It could.

It could be anything.

I think all of those are connected to the realization that what's in the frame matters more than the frame.

So I think that's, for me, and that was a difficult thing because for the longest time, I just worried about technically, how do I become the best technical filmmaker?

Because that's how I'm going to get noticed.

That's how I'm going to get work.

I need my work to look as good as Fincher.

I need my work to look as good as Anderson.

Right?

Yeah.

When you think about those kinds of things too much, I feel like your entire Persona professionally becomes about what's happening with the camera.

And then you have to really question, what am I trying to do for a living?

Am I trying to be a director of photography, or am I trying to be a director of film?

Good.

If you're a director of photography, then worry about the settings, worry about your ISO, worry about all of those things, because you're going to need to understand it.

And I'm a firm believer that, like, I'm a better director because I went through those processes myself.

I'm not saying abandon those things.

You do need to understand how all of your departments work.

But I feel like detaching myself from how I create the frame technically to worrying about what's in the frame.

All of those things you counted off on your fingers just fall into place.

Yeah.

A lot easier, dude.

So well put, man.

So well put.

Thank you.

Now.

Oh, here you go.

I'm again talking to you as a filmmaker to filmmaker.

You've got what I call from the little bit of deep dive I did on you and already of what I've picked up, you're.

You're the.

You're the quintessential example of creative tech brain meets storyteller brain, because.

And you just said this.

There are guys who just focus on, hey, that camera's gotta move.

Cool.

I'm all for cool.

Moves.

But if a cool move is just for the cool move, but it doesn't inform the scene, doesn't inform the emotion, then you're.

It's just a cool fucking move.

And yeah, big deal.

So.

But you're this, you're the great example of like creative tech, especially with this background with gaming.

Jesus.

And then meeting storyteller brain.

So with your film the hook, what's one tech choice?

And if we've already covered it, I just want to drill down one more time.

What, what's a tech choice or a workflow that actually changed the way you shot Point A, point B.

And what's one sexy tool you deliberately skipped because it would have just been like noise.

No, this is, this is a fantastic filmmaking question.

Like, I feel like I think you could apply this question across the entire process of making movies from writing take what, what did, what did you want in a movie that was sexy and then wasn't needed?

You could take it all the way to post production in color.

Like.

Yeah.

So this is a very, very good question.

So in the hook I will start with, with one of the things that we did.

We got a Chapman Dolly.

And that was an expense that we had to fight for because most.

Wait one second, folks.

A Chapman Dolly is a very, very big dolly that weighs a ton.

It's very expensive and it, it's the machine that you move that the camera sits on to make these beautiful moves.

Sorry to interrupt.

I just want to make sure that.

Yeah, that's great.

I probably should.

Should have teed that up better yet.

And, and the Chapman Dolly is thousands and thousands of dollars, right?

Yeah.

And if I'm not mistaken, you can't even own a Chapman Dolly.

You have to rent them.

Right.

So.

And, and I say if I'm mistaken because I think overseas you can get, you can get something, but like here in the States, certainly you have to rent them.

So we made sure we got that because it, I would say 50% of every single shot you could possibly do when trying to achieve a high end cinematic camera.

I mean, look.

Is accomplished using a Chapman duck.

Yeah.

So the other thing that must be.

Is that.

So that was a fight we had to get.

What a sexy thing that I forgot, like I didn't get was I didn't go with a Steadicam operator.

Oh.

So now had I, if, if I could go back, would I get rid of the Chapman Dolly and instead have a Steadicam operator?

Because there was so much dialogue and there was a lot of walk and talks.

Arguably, yes.

But we weren't sure what the locations we were going to have at the time were.

And if we had beautiful locations, things that we could boom over, and we could do all that kind of stuff, then, especially if we were going to build more sets on a soundstage, then the Chapman Dolly was the right decision.

So I don't regret the Chapman Dolly.

We got some absolutely stunning moments with that piece of equipment.

But I feel like we probably could have banged our Bang the buck a little more if we had a Steadicam operator all those days.

Yeah.

And again, not to.

Not to say my bicycle's cooler than yours, but in my film Chasing Grace, it just so happens that one of my oldest, longest grace best friends in the world, my Ride or Die, is a Steadicam operator.

And fortunately, I was able to have him be a part of every little short film I made.

And in this film, Chasing Grace, folks.

And what that means is he puts on this rig on his body that basically absorbs the motion of the camera.

What that does for you is allows you to go like John's inferring.

You can go through all kinds of scenes.

You can run down a street, you can run backwards, you can climb up over walls, and that thing is always staying liquid.

Those guys are very good at what they do.

Those machines are very heavy.

And he'll tell you right now, at age 56, that it has now become a young man's game.

Another story.

The Chapman Dolly, on the other hand, as I said, weighs more than a car.

And the reason, part of the reason they're mechanically so sound is you can roll over anything and it doesn't vibrate or.

Plus, it gives you a chance to kind of like, extend your camera up and over walls and so forth.

So I love hearing this kind of tech coming from a guy who is doing it right there, front and center, because it just opens the world for people who don't play in this sandbox.

So thank you for sharing that.

Of course.

Absolutely.

This is great chat.

Now, you have been around this business a while between music and bands, and now a.

This Vegas noir.

Am I saying it's Michael White, but he has a Michael Kai White.

Michael J. Jai.

Jai, Sorry.

And then Malin Aerman.

Okay, so at this stage, this is just.

This is getting you to reveal something about you.

What still, honestly.

And every director, every performer.

And if you're a musician, you're a performer, you look like an actor.

So I'm sure you've done some kind of acting somewhere.

So what.

What.

What still honestly scares you, when you get on set and you're responsible for this entire world, the entire crew that shows up, right down to the crafty, right down to the people on the other side of the camera, what still scares you when you, right before you call action?

Can I. I gotta be honest with you.

What scares me more is not having that control.

I, I, I feel honestly now, especially after going through.

So when you jump from commercial work and music video and corporate work and you're doing a ton of like national ads for brands, things like that, you're in control of every aspect of the production you can you, from dealing with the agencies to making sure everybody's fed and making sure everybody gets paid for extras at a bar.

All of it.

All of it.

You control everything.

Yeah.

And you get, you have enough time to get ahead of things or whatever.

When you're working with a production company that handles all of that, you're only given as much information as you're given.

And if you can't get ahead of some of those problems, you don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring you.

Yeah.

So while it's a high level of stress, maybe anxiety, and it's not the sexy aspect of what we do for a living, dealing with the production side of it.

I would say if you're, if you're a director and you're getting into the hot seat, you need to want, crave, beg for that control.

Even if you lose four more hours of sleep during production every single night, you need to beg to have oversight over everything because it's going to be your fault regardless.

Just know this, like if somebody doesn't, doesn't show up with a prop and you didn't know about it, it, it's on you.

Even if you were never given the chance to get ahead of it.

So just get ahead of it and crave that stress.

Crave all of that.

So that's my answer about the stress.

But I'll say the thing that terrifies me the most.

Yeah.

Is.

Such a great question.

I think probably what scares me the most is worrying about the pacing of the totality of the screenplay.

I think that's the most nerve wracking aspect.

I feel like making sure that an actor early in production, that's shooting out of order, who's supposed to be angry, is the right kind of angry right now.

Not angry because it's just angry.

Why are they angry?

Because that's gonna play later in the film when you watch the final version.

If it's the wrong kind of angry, the Audience is gonna feel it.

And I think that's the scariest part.

You sit there looking at the frame and you go like, this is the right emotion, right?

I feel like this is the right emotion.

So that's probably the scariest part.

Yeah, boy.

Dude, that is so on it.

I'm.

I'm flashing back to many years ago when I'm in this same place.

And you, John, you just nailed it.

You can have an actor, because movies are shot out of order.

Everybody knows that.

So John and I could be in a scene, and I could have this righteous indignation because I'm on page 27 and I'm on day one.

But the scene doesn't happen until 37 minutes into the movie.

And actually, that anger is supposed to be inside and quiet, and he's brooding because he's, well, you stole something from me, which.

You betrayed my trust.

All right, so what he just said.

What John just said is exactly right.

And I can see why.

And I remember these days, like, does it match?

Because you can't go back and go, hold on a second.

Let me go back and just look.

Look at what page it is and pull up that video, would you?

Let's go to Video Village and just see that scene from it.

No, you can't do that.

So that is so dynamite.

And there's no turn.

Turn it.

Change emotion knob in post.

I can get the volume up to 11, but I can't get the emotion to 11.

Yeah.

All right, we're gonna wrap here in one more question, but I want to ask you, is there anything that we haven't covered?

I don't generally do this, but anything that you would like to mention about the movie, about the process, about Vegas, about what you hope people will in the thriller, writing, creating, directing world, some way you can put your fingerprint on something.

But before I close with a question.

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to speak just a little bit, like, for.

Very, very quickly, just to the people that are struggling to make it in this industry in general.

Please.

Especially as a director.

I think there's far too much negative content online about how difficult this industry is, how impossible it is, how much the ship has sailed, how little money you can make as a filmmaker.

All of these things.

You can watch a trillion videos right now online, and every single one of them are just youtubers sitting in front of a camera talking about the concept of where the industry is, or it's something a podcast or an interview of somebody that's been jaded because Maybe they haven't gotten where they felt like they should be in the industry, so they feel like there's a ceiling.

And I want to just speak to the people with dreams of doing this very quickly and just say this, please.

The way in is to be humble and help.

That is how you get in.

It isn't more difficult than that.

Find a production company.

Don't expect anything in return up front.

Help.

If you're good at coloring, color people's movies, if you're good at music, score people's movies.

Like anything you can do to get in the orbit of decision makers.

As someone with value, I'm telling you, there are still movies being made every single day at every single price budget.

All of them, from a hundred thousand dollars movies to $10 million movies to Blockbuster movies, over a hundred million.

They're all getting made every single day.

And the reason you're not on those sets is, is because the people that make the decisions early don't know you're valuable.

So just let them know your value.

Don't worry about your movies.

Don't pitch your stuff unless it comes up organically.

Sure.

Step by step by step.

So I just want to demystify a little bit of all this negativity online.

That's.

That's what I would like to say.

Thank you for that.

I.

Man, that is gorgeous.

I appreciate that.

And there's.

I've been in and around this business since I was 16, so that's 50 years this month.

And there is something I learned at my first tour of duty in Los Angeles.

I did three tours.

The people who are nice and show up and just be kind will skyrocket eventually.

Because here's why.

People like to work with people they like.

And I'm not oversimplifying it because you kind of just intuited that.

That's simple.

Show up, be helpful, and for the love of God, don't pitch your stuff.

Hey, I've got a. I've got a screenplay right here, Bob, while.

Mr. Director.

While I'm carrying your coffee for you.

That's so good, John.

Now's not the time, buddy.

Yeah, good stuff.

All right, last question.

Well, I always close my show with best writing advice from and.

And guys like James Patterson, David Baldacci, Dean Koontz, Meg Gardner, Don Winslow.

These cats have been on the show, so people tune in to hear what they have to say.

So given that we spend most of our time with thriller writers and less with thriller filmmakers, however, that is about to change.

What's your best Creative advice.

Now you just gave me a dynamite piece of insight, but I want a piece of creative advice that people are going to walk away going.

John d' Angelo said on the Thriller Zone.

This piece of creative advice to future media creators and this is what I'm going to take away and meditate over the weekend and make it my own.

It's all you, you, you have to, you must.

If you've heard this 50 times elsewhere, I don't care.

This is 51.

You must write what you like.

Yeah, you have to like.

If there's nothing else that, that I could give to advice that I can give to somebody else.

If, if the people in your immediate vicinity don't gravitate to what it is that you like, then either you have to change that environment or you have to succumb to being a work for hire and, and then do what other people want.

But if you're going to write and pursue a career that, that defines you, you're not going to do it.

Chasing trends, you're.

No one's that fast.

No one is fast enough.

Productions aren't fast enough.

Decision makers in this business don't move fast enough for you to make a trendy movie.

It just, it's impossible.

So you're always going to be behind the cue ball, always going to be a step behind the game.

If you don't just do what's you because then the industry has to keep up with you.

And whether or not the timing's right for you or not, that's going to be a question of whether or not people accept and, and, and are moved by your work.

But you can rest, rest assure one thing.

You're never behind the cue ball.

If you're just doing stuff that means something to you, that because you are the cue ball, then you're never behind it.

Yeah.

So.

Ah, such words of wisdom.

I don't know about wisdom, but they're words.

Dude, I could talk to you forever.

Seriously, I really enjoyed this chat.

Thank you so much.

Well folks, once again.

Now I always say, hey, if you want to learn more, go to blah blah blah.com for the Love of me.

I could not find your website, bro.

Oh no, that's okay.

Red Gin Productions is my production company and you could go to redgenpro.com but that is just a production company if you're doing commercial work.

But okay, I did find redgen pro.com but I'm like this is not okay.

Okay, so Red, make sure I write this down.

It's, it's R E, double D. Right, Jin?

Like the genie.

DJ I N N. Yes.

Got it.com R E D D G I N N. Dude, this has been amazing.

Thank you so much for your time.

I'm sure you're hustling off to some.

Some set somewhere, doing something really impressive.

I got another podcast, actually.

Okay.

Looking forward to it.

This is great.

Thank you so much, John.

And I wish you such huge success.

Oh, thank you so much for your hospitality.

Look forward to seeing you again soon.

Your number one podcast for stories that thrill the Thriller Zone.