BPS 354: Making Money in Niche Filmmaking with Adam Schomer

Alex Ferrari 0:45
I'd like to welcome to the show, Adam Schomer. How you doing Adam?

Adam Schomer 4:00
Great nice to be here Alex.

Alex Ferrari 4:05
Thank you so much for coming on the show brother. I truly appreciate it like I was telling you earlier. I feel like I know you because you have been one of the stars in two of your projects that I've watched and I feel like I already know you just been watching hours and hours and hours of you.

Adam Schomer 4:56
Loving it. I love that you've watched it. Awesome. And and you have a little insight into a really powerful, crazy journey, a couple that I've been on. So that's cool that you know, I've got to share that with you without, you know being there in person.

Alex Ferrari 5:10
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I So first and foremost, why did you want to get into this insanity that is the film industry?

Adam Schomer 5:20
Great never did, you know didn't have the aspirations as a kid never, never maybe like, you know Billy shoots or my neighbor used to make videos with his guinea pigs like stop motion weird like guinea pigs saving the day,

Alex Ferrari 5:32
I want to I want to see those movies by the way, I want to see those.

Adam Schomer 5:37
Do too. I remember like he would make a theater and like show these things. So back then I think I wanted to do that. But no, no real aspirations and then kind of fell into it in my late 20s, where I was bored at a corporate job and decided to do stand up comedy. Just an hour, it was the craziest kind of most nerve wracking thing. And then that pivoted into improv comedy, which I found to be the yoga of comedy. And that's that I stuck with that. I said, this was really cool. Because not only is the fun of meeting people, but it's got those yogic principles, right release be with a moment. Yes. And that like athletics, and I had been a semi pro soccer player. So it's kind of my next athletic venture. And that led me into writing and all that kind of stuff. So I was writing more and writing comedy. And eventually, that, you know, I won't go long. But eventually that brought me to LA and I just kept wanting to push it, you know, just go to the next level. Okay, write screenplays, be in a film, get my sag card, you know, improv. And I was always producing my own stuff when it came to improv as well. Because, you know, no one just gonna hand you stage time. Even in Detroit, where I, where I grew up was a cool community, everyone was very nice, and it was a good community, but you still had to kind of create your own opportunities to be on stage. So I think that producer Ness started there. And then once to LA, it pivoted. I think when I won't talk too much, but once I went to India, then I came back and, and decided, you know, what, I'm gonna focus on the writing and producing because as you know, acting is a pretty tough world, you know, even tougher than I would say, even like producing, writing, directing. I mean, acting is really, acting.

Alex Ferrari 7:15
Acting is, in my opinion, acting is probably the, the hardest part of our business with writers right next door, and then directors come in after that. But actors is like 3030 rejections a day. Yeah. Writers is, uh, you know, maybe 20 rejections a month. Yeah.

Adam Schomer 7:40
Directors, powerlessness of nitewhite really being able to create your own stuff. Correct. I was like, okay, that's not gonna work for me. And I was already producing my own like, you know, little webisodes in a kid's show. And, and then, uh, not you know, who you've seen anon and had on your other show. When I was in India, my third time there said, Hey, do you want to do this motorcycle riding into the Himalayas over the highest road in the world, and I'm like, This guy is gonna kill me. You know that in my neck.

Alex Ferrari 8:08
By the way, I can't see your face in the dock. You just like I just You were terrified. So So let's give everyone a little bit of context. So your this was your first movie, right? It's just your first dock. Yeah, first rockin first feature. Yeah. So it's called the highest pass. And it's about tell everybody what it's about.

Adam Schomer 8:24
Yeah, I mean, in essence, it's about it's facing death, right, facing death and finding freedom. So facing our fears and finding love. Not that we have to get over fear per se, but just be able to move through it. And then the context is a journey over the highest road in the world. 18,000 feet on motorcycles. My teacher or my guru has a prophecy he'll die in his late 20s. He's that age. It says he'll die in an accident and his Vedic chart, and he asks one of his students me if I want to go and I've never ridden a motorcycle, and I say yes, of course. It's my guru and the Himalayas and you just do it. So I willed myself to say yes, at that moment, I remember like, making my lips move while in the background. My head is thinking he's trying to kill me to take on his prophecy. I'm the sacrificial lamb is your brain drain is a horrible thing to have. Oh, it's armed. Right, you know, every bad story and I'm like, wow, I could write a lot of movies about this because it's so evil. So then, then I went, we went out and I was like, Yeah, let's make this invite other people and let's make a documentary. And and to be honest, I only wanted to do it if we could do it. Well, not not. Not that a handycam or shooting an iPhone is not well but this the Himalayas and India and I really wanted great cinematography and so we you know, like okay, we're gonna do it if we raise money, we're gonna raise money for it and so I went out and raised money and found a great DP that had experience with motorcycles and back then I was like, the Canon five D. was like the thing and And it served us really well on that trip, I mean, to have like a DP sometimes one time, like riding a bike with one hand and, and filming with the other at one point, we can get into that later, but I was.

Alex Ferrari 10:11
So I was able to I saw that movie and I saw the series that you did afterwards about it, which we'll talk about in a minute. But what I found fascinating about the movie is, you know, I've, you know, many people on the show know that I have another show called next level soul, which is all about spirituality and asking the big questions about life, personal growth, health, and all that kind of stuff. And I've had the pleasure of talking to a non, your guru on that. And it was just released, this thing was this week, or last week, I forgot it was this week, I think I released it just came out. It just came out this week. And it is fascinating to talk to someone who you know, in many ways, is a spiritual master, and having a conversation with him and talking to him about life and about your spiritual journey. And about just everything was really beautiful and eye opening. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes for that for that episode. But then I reached out to you, I'm like, Well, I gotta have Adam on the show. Because you know, he's a filmmaker, and he's been, you're not only just like, I shot a little documentary, you've been doing it consistently over for over a decade now. And doing it at a high level, you're doing really great work, and you're doing award winning work and, and movies that many of us have seen and heard of and been on Netflix, and so on and so forth. So going back to the highest pass. Yeah. The insanity of the environment as a producer, because you didn't direct that once you produce that one.

Adam Schomer 11:31
Yeah, I mean, co directed, co directed although credit wise it's not listed. It's a that's a whole story, wrote it wrote it co directed, CO produced.

Alex Ferrari 11:43
I figured I figured there was a story behind that, because like, he's directed everything since what, what happened here.

Adam Schomer 11:51
But it's got strong arm and postproduction, you know?

Alex Ferrari 11:58
Of course you did, because we're what we're making a movie about spirituality and the quest for enlightenment. And yet my ego says, I must have full credit. So

Adam Schomer 12:09
Correct. I got kicked out of the office for three weeks once you know, like, planning.

Alex Ferrari 12:13
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that's, that's a great holocaust. Great Hollywood story for filmmakers. And there's to understand that that look, it happens. It happened to me when we first started, it happens to it's amazing. The Eagles that are in this business, it's fascinating.

Adam Schomer 12:28
And I'm remembering I was consulting with a non timber, like, how do I deal with this? This is a spiritual movie, I'm in post and like, This is crazy. He's like, Look, you have to look at the good parts of someone. They they had the intent, they saw that, you know, we should produce this thing. This is a great, you know, they had that enough there, but not everybody's perfect. So on some level, you're dealing with a five year old, you really are and like that, you have to approach it that way. And would you try to explain yourself to a five year old? No, you just kind of maneuver in some ways around the five year old. And then you know, that's it. It basically it just keep it simple. And I give him the film, he's like, just keep it simple. You're dealing with a five year old and move on and do what you can and make the movie.

Alex Ferrari 13:10
Yeah, that's a fascinating way to approach it. Because I believe I've I've dealt with many five year olds in this business. Many, many, many of them over the years. So how did you so how did you shoot in that intense environment and like it's it's insane.

Adam Schomer 13:27
It's insane. And for a first first to be we were 21 people total meaning the seven riders plus and on and crew. Three, three cars, seven bikes. No scouting, I had never shot in India. We're going over crazy roads. It's so how did I do? I mean, first part of the environment to deal with is the fact that you might die every day being you know, so that's really when comparing producing and death it was death was the main focus, you know, like Oh, I'm in the film, right? I'm writing first and foremost is like how about I survive and let's hope everybody else survives. So that that was the most challenging thing for me was writing and then producing To be honest, like I was calling on great people right and directing it was like okay, I leaned on my DP a lot you know, when it came to the shot I might have know what I like but I'm like show me what you think would be good here. Awesome. I like it too. Let's move forward you know keep it very simple lien on your people that know what they're doing I came from a story background so I knew what I wanted story wise and but God and in packing up and moving no scouting just shooting you know huge credit to the DP huge credit to the whole crew of just like winging it like a documentary is okay, let's go ahead of the let's go ahead of the bikers by half hours in one car ahead. They find a spot they think is great, and we all get a shot as we go by, you know, that kind of stuff now and then we would say Hey, can we Turn around and do that entrance again and have everybody right into this, you know, lunch place.

Alex Ferrari 15:06
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Adam Schomer 15:15
But for the most, most part, you get what you get. And I mean, it was 21 days. It was scary as hell and and you know, sleep was at a total minimum, I remember the first, because in the first few days, you're in the flat and you're in the hills. And then you come to where you see the Himalayas. And this is what can pass the first pass, right? And it's called pile of dead bodies is what rotating is translated as. So again, the story. The writer's mind is like, what? And so, you know, you doing research on the internet is not helpful, because pilot dead bodies and you're thinking I'm going right off the cliff. And that's that. And, but, and before that, I remember like, Oh, my God, like what fight with my co producer, we leave at 5am. So I slept probably two hours before we're about to go into the Himalayas. And it's again, it's just like, okay, so be it. Alright, grab some chai, Alex and some coffee and put on your masks and your gloves because freezing and and off we go. And as you see in the movie, that that whole moment was tough, because we made a decision where the roads really weren't quite open yet before rain started into the Himalayas at that point. So it was it was scary.

Alex Ferrari 16:27
You guys were going on basically, basically, at the seat of your pants, literally and figuratively. Because you're just shooting. So I was watching as I was watching this, I'm like, This is insane. This is an insane kind of doc to be the same same movie. And I see what they're going through. I've been at 12,000 feet, I think at one point in somewhere in Colorado, in Colorado. And it was in summer, so it wasn't freezing was still probably like 60 when it was nice, like 100 down at the bottom. But I had been to to Park City a whole bunch. And so I understand that the oxygen declaration but I can't even comprehend. Traveling at up to 18,000 feet.

Adam Schomer 17:14
And one of our crew went down like way to send them home. You know?

Alex Ferrari 17:17
Yeah, it'll hurt. He'll kill you.

Adam Schomer 17:19
Yeah, that was one of the, you know, my audio engineer. He helped to get it produced good friend from Michigan. And he, it was great, because he was telling me what audio equipment he needed, you know, and stuff. So I'm trying to source it in India, and I could not find an eight channel mixer anywhere except Mumbai. And then maybe my second DP would bring it from and I call him I'm like, do you really need a challenge? Like, Oh, no. He's like, I just, he had never actually been in the field. He told me later, he was just going by the seat of his pants, because he was more sound mix in the back, you know, in the studio. So here I am searching for equipment that he was kind of like, yeah, that's industry standard. And I couldn't find it anywhere in India. So we compromised, of course, but he ended up coming a little a few days late. So I had a second audio engineer from India. And that can beg to come on the trip with us after seeing like the prep. He's like, can I just help in any way? Like, let me be with a non let me be with you guys. This is a trip of a lifetime. So we brought him it's a good thing we did because Andy, my audio engineer, when we were up at the 16,000 foot pass, and we did this part of the film where we went up and check the paths out talk to the generals and the general said, No, it's close for two weeks right there. This passes closer snow. And if you watch the film, you'll see we ended up by carrying bikes over snow and it's crazy. But during that little pre pre meeting Andy art, my sound engineer went down hard with altitude sickness, and we had to send them home the next day. And so thankfully, we had the second audio engineer backup guy. Yeah, backup guy and did his best. And that's kind of the craziness of filming. Like we got lucky, you know, and Andy got lucky that he wasn't hurt, per se but you never know who's gonna have audio. It doesn't out to sickness, it can be in great shape. And

Alex Ferrari 19:07
Ohh, yeah, it doesn't matter what shape you're in it. They'll they'll bring anybody to their knees. It's it's just a weird.

Adam Schomer 19:13
We all had it at some we all had it at some point. And then when you get down to like 11,000 feet, you're like, oh my god, this is amazing. I can brain you know and take a moment compared to sleeping at 15 when you're climatized it's hard. It's really difficult. It just if you haven't acclimatized

Alex Ferrari 19:31
Wow, that's insane. So that so with that film, you released it. You went theatrical with that as well, right?

Adam Schomer 19:37
We did. Yeah, we were lucky enough to win some awards at festivals and distribution company. said let's take it theatrical. We took a theatrical here in LA and went on to Netflix right after that awesome back when Netflix was a little different.

Alex Ferrari 19:49
It was a little it was little starting a little startup. Back then. Now did you did you get any? That was your first experience with distribution

Adam Schomer 20:00
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, the distributor and see what happens,

Alex Ferrari 20:03
And what and what happened?

Adam Schomer 20:06
I mean, you know, thankfully, the theatrical was good meaning we had a run here in Santa Monica and in in LA and people saw it. And we got to write up in the LA Times like a full page, right? Which hasn't happened since on any film I've done. Like, we found a reporter that somehow was into it. Suzanne carpenter and got what would be like a $40,000 ad, kind of wow. You know, in essence, because it's just like a full page, huge photo and great article. So people came out and saw it. And a lot of people actually from that, then go went on the road of dharma. They saw the film sauce and a q&a and said, If you do this again, tell us and so we did. And when that's when we filmed the road to dharma series, and a lot of those people from seeing that film then came into the next series, and we can talk about that later. But it did it did well in the theater, and it got on Netflix and all that, you know, I mean, financially for the investors. No, not so much. But in the, you know, the distributors did their thing where they come up with expenses and all that.

Alex Ferrari 21:03
No, stop it.

Adam Schomer 21:05
So I learned a little bit.

Alex Ferrari 21:09
I just I always like asking, I always like to ask him these questions, because I can never stop reiterating. This fact is that this Hollywood accounting is always Hollywood. It's just the way they do business. It's just the way the industry has done business. And it's, in many ways. I don't even think people who who do it these distributors who do it think they're bad guys, I think they just, it's just inherent in the system, the way the system is built. They're just like, yeah, we're going to give you an MG maybe back then you might have gotten an NG. So you got to know we did not even mg right. So yeah, but then the Oh, you made 10,000 This month, but 11,000 It's inexpensive. What are those expenses? I can't. So those kinds of things. I was curious about if that was your case, as well.

Adam Schomer 21:57
Now, this was they weren't you know, stimuli were they weren't like horrible by any means. But okay, you know, they were still cool. And they you know, they even believe it again, it's like, the good part where they believed in it, and they took a theatrical ego came and as the first film like, you celebrate your wins, and then you take the take the learning on the shoulder and go, Okay, that's fine.

Alex Ferrari 22:14
And so then the second the series wrote the Dharma, which just got released, and when 2020 2020 2020 that released, but you shot it in.

Adam Schomer 22:27
When we did shoot, we shot it in 2012, to be honest, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 22:30
So you shout it out. So it took eight years for that to come out. And that was because it couldn't find financing or couldn't get the thing, you know, funding financing.

Adam Schomer 22:40
Yeah. I don't usually tell anyone your podcast as the scoop on we have the scoop.

Alex Ferrari 22:46
I appreciate that. I don't think it's gonna hurt. I don't think anyone cares. Outside of people like you and me. No one. No one watching it. Like, oh, this has been shot eight years ago. I can't watch this.

Adam Schomer 22:55
You can't tell it. Okay.

Alex Ferrari 22:57
You're in the Himalayas, with bikes that look like they're from the 50s. Anyway. So everyone's jacked up with all sorts of motorcycle gear, no one can tell. And you're going into towns that don't have any technology anyway. So you have no idea if it's 2012 or 2020

Adam Schomer 23:14
That's for sure. And it's shot well enough where you're you're you're in there and you have a feeling of like you're part of that journey. That's a good thing. There's that authentic ness of like you're in it with us It's good like that.

Alex Ferrari 23:24
Exactly. So you shot the the series I wanted to ask you because you since you released it recently, and I think it might have been for the best honestly. I think if you would have released it in 2012 2013 2014. There wasn't as big of a market for doc series as there is now so I wanted to hear your experience as a documentarian Do you see more doc series being more valuable in the marketplace or a doc by itself?

Adam Schomer 23:51
That's a great I mean we all see more doc series in general more ducks in general. And I think the other part of the market that is like like your pocket spirituality has grown right oh huge there is there's more of a market for people that might be on the edge you know, the average guy that maybe comes across and sit or the wife says hey watch this and because you know women tend to be 80% of the yogi community so to speak and so they sometimes bring guys into and like

Alex Ferrari 24:18
I don't know about you I look fantastic a yoga pants but that's just I should say I should I have I have little lemons on right now so

Adam Schomer 24:28
Absolutely.

Alex Ferrari 24:30
Just just the socks

Adam Schomer 24:33
This bank is just this bank so suspects you know, it's on video to what we're doing. So where were we what were what were the doc series doc series? Yeah, that's here. Yeah, I think more valuable I know me personally. I find more value in wanting to tell more of the story more of people's stories more of the wisdom of what goes on there we go into more depth and you know, there's a certain pacing with a feature doc feature length doc that you have to keep up. And that's great and all watching out for my cat walk in my butt. Yeah, I can't say let's say, you know, for the filmmakers out there making an independent series, if there's more value, meaning like it's easier to sell that or make money on, I think that it's incredibly hard what what I've done and your last guest was talking about it too, that she did a independent series, not a doc series, but a narrative series. And I think it's a strange way to go. Not many people do it and then to sell afterwards. But I think inherently on a meaningful level, it's incredibly valuable. I'm still waiting for some of the big boys to kind of come along and say, Hey, this is great on me back to do a season two and a season three before one of the big boys says, okay, everyone's ready for this now. All right. So I hope that kind of answers your question.

Alex Ferrari 25:50
Yeah. It is hard to say because I've seen I've seen people be very successful with duck series. I mean, docks docks right now, are extremely valuable. And they have been probably for the last decade, and they've been growing in popularity. And I've talked about them heavily in my book about finding niche audiences. And if you make a knock about a niche audience, whether that is plant based diets, spirituality, surfing, skateboarding, whatever it is, there's a built in audience that you can target much easier than a broad spectrum narrative. And Doc's have been getting more and more, but I've been noticing, there's been more doc series on Netflix, and on Hulu, and on these other places where they will do a series because inherently there's just more value, there's more content for them to read. So that's when I wrote the Dharma Miko that makes all the sense in the world, because that's a story you can easily tell in a series, you have more than enough content story to fill. That's why when I saw that, and I was lucky, I saw rotor Dharma first. Then I went back and saw the highest pass. And I was like, okay, so they went, they shot that. And then they obviously went, you know, 10 years later, I said, Why did they wait so long? At least the series, but I enjoyed the series much more because you get if you're taking the motorcycle trip up to the Himalayas, with a yogi, I mean, that's more than 90 minutes, man.

Adam Schomer 27:16
I mean, there's there's just so there's so much, there's so much to see so much done to the history, you know, we don't go too much into the history. But the teachings Yeah, all these characters, right?

Alex Ferrari 27:27
Yeah, everyone's fighting their own demons and trying to find their egos. And they're all they're all trying to tell themselves stories of why they shouldn't do this. And I thought there'd be more yoga on this retreat, and all this kind of all this.

Adam Schomer 27:37
All this guy like yoga, stretching or not like Yoga is not stretching, you know, if you want stretching and a massage, go to a spa. You know, he's like, right out of here, you come here to transcend. And that's what you've come for. It's like sweet, you know, that's a good It's to remind people Yoga is not the studio thing.

Alex Ferrari 27:54
No, it's not. It's the it's one of the benefits of yoga is the physical, but it's yoga was never built, as, you know, yogi's, weren't running around in that Lululemon, you know, back in the day, you know, they were, they were, it was a form of transcending spiritually. And I just love him. He's like, I'm here to challenge you at every step of the way. I was like, This is great. So you've got a built in conflict. You've got built in conflict, which is so wonderful. We were able to build out this whole story and then how did that go? How did how did selling that? The series go?

Adam Schomer 28:25
Yeah, I mean, it is a long journey, right? Since we built filmed in 2012, and raised enough money to go shoot it on a on a shoestring, so to speak, and was hoping that when I came back, I'd be able to put a sizzle together and go out to somebody's network and say, hey, look, I have the footage I already have it's here you don't even have to buy into the idea I already shot it. So this was my my thinking was no problem. Right? I'll go shoot it come back and they'll have no choice but to be like, Oh, of course we'll give you the money to finish it. That didn't work. So that couldn't get anyone to to bite on that. And then you have to year goes and I start I was making heal I got brought into produce heal. And while I was producing heal, we had like a couple week break on something decided, yes, you know what, I'm going to go brush up and learn, Premiere full on and did so on my vacation and then started editing. The first two episodes, episode one and two of the road of dharma. Wow. I think that yeah, the whole end of post and distribution, which is a crazy time for a documentary film. I was also editing two episodes, I was really pushing myself to make sure what the demo was ready when he was done. So that you know that's a lesson that people sometimes you got to work your ass off on the side right to be ready. And so when and I think to be honest, I mean, I'm really glad that I had some time as a filmmaker to grow in between and be able to like, show my vision a bit better. And, and to make those first few episodes to be able to show us Don't worry, this is what I'm talking about.

Alex Ferrari 30:02
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Adam Schomer 30:12
You know, this is the style, I want to be able to mix it being entertaining, and character driven, but also have that spirit there. And I'm not putting a man on a pedestal as his guru, I'm trying to make them approachable. And if you resonate with what he says, great, but this isn't a movie of a series about a guru and how to follow him. No, it's about people seeking freedom in our demons, like you said, so I really wanted to get that across. And maybe that was holding back, you know, holding us back with some of the networks is like, you know, we can't go that spiritual yet. But, you know, it's still like a real reality and authentic reality show, in many ways. Like, so. There's danger. So then, yeah, and invest. I showed an investor a couple episodes. And actually, it was more like a friend that I didn't know had the ability to invest. Any and he pulled me aside, he's like, I want to talk to you about the road to dharma, I want to invest. Like, when does that happen? All the time.

Alex Ferrari 31:02
It happens all the time. Oh, all the time, money is easy to get in the business. Don't you know?

Adam Schomer 31:09
It create No, I happen on the highest pass at 1.2. Because we were all the way through posts. And we know we needed a second cut. And I was at an event. And it was a Cornell like event. I went to Cornell University and one of them, one of my buddies says, Hey, I'm looking to invest in film.

Alex Ferrari 31:26
Which, in normal scenarios you would have done you don't want to do that.

Adam Schomer 31:31
No, no. And he's like, I just want to learn, I just want to learn a little bit, you know, I'll perfect and I'm at a great place less risk, because it's already kind of done in and you can see, and so he threw in some money, you know, I know there was the universe, given a little nudges. So it's, it's helped out on the way in its own timing, to use some woowoo language, but it's a way that we got an investor there and then I got another investment we rolled up you know, finished the series on our own and, and take it out on our own digitally and still be able to keep pitching it to networks, we still do to this day, keep keep pitching it internationally to different places. Like we're signing with a network in Germany, signing within sign with a network in Brazil, talking to a network in France, we're on Gaia as well. And then I had to get a little creative and I even caught it create a course around the

Alex Ferrari 32:19
Yeah, I saw that I saw the course on Anons website. So that was really interesting. Is he it's like you read my book. It's exactly what I say is like he create the product and then create other ancillary products that generate more revenue than the movie next exhibition of the movie is it because the future of the future of our business is not 2299 rentals, it's courses it's workshops, it's other businesses as other services wrapped around. Yeah, things that can serve that audience that that niche audiences so for you it'd be the spiritual audience.

Adam Schomer 32:52
And also I knew from I knew from here but things like like an online summit or an online course you can you can access other people's audiences for those things more than you can film so I could say to here like I'd say to Gregg Braden people I knew well and say you can be an affiliate of this course you can make 50% revenue if you promote it to your your people. And you know, there's something free they get to watch the free free episodes and it's something you believe in, you know, and we know each other, so then okay, now you're getting someone personally blasting. And now you're reaching 500,000 people or a million people personally with a course and even if they don't bite the course they might try the free episodes or they might then go find the series and you got some advertising and every it's a win win, they make money. Your list grows too and anyway, so that's another thing you can't do as easily with just a film.

Alex Ferrari 33:44
Yeah, and so that brings me into the next movie heal which i i saw heal before I saw Raja Dharma or the highest pass so I had watched him just purely because I was interested in the concept of the movie The doc and it was down in my wheelhouse. I was like, Oh, let me watch it. So I watched a really enjoyed the film. I knew a lot of the people inside inside the film like you know the people that that are you interview and stuff in the show, but yeah, all those guys. Um, yeah. I just known all of them. And I've read their books and things like that. But he'll was I remember he'll being I met one of the other producers at a summit once I forgot the name of the producer, but one of the other producers I met and he was just at the brink of the Netflix deal. And I just remember that was like this is actually doing it's doing. It's getting a lot of attention. The doc got a lot of attention. So tell me the story of keel and what the movie is about generally, but then how you read it because it kind of almost hit. It almost kind of was the fork over knives of that of that movement. If you're anyone who doesn't know what Forks Over Knives is is what it was basically the I think the first documentary that really talked about plant based diets and in exploded and built multimillion dollar businesses around it to make a magazine even, oh, magazine, food products, it's built, they've done fantastic off of that dock. And heal, I feel is that for its niche in the space? So can you talk a little bit about what it is?

Adam Schomer 35:17
Yeah. And thank you for watching it. And thank you for speaking so highly of it. So where do we want to start? I mean, he'll in general, what it is, is a film about really that, that we have the power within to heal, and that through our emotions, through stress through our thoughts, that we have a bigger part to play in our healing, than just giving our power away necessarily to medicine or to a doctor, or to any healer, to be honest. So it ends up being a, we hope, a very integrative film, not super woowoo saying it's only emotional, we're just saying that's part of the puzzle, and that it shouldn't be talked about. And that's what I like about the film is saying, let's open our, our perception a bit in terms of healing and realize that thoughts do play a part emotions do play support plays a part, your life purpose might play a part. And you might need to move or change something in your relationships to help your body get out of a stress mode, so he can do its thing and help heal your disease. And you also might need to change your diet, you might need to do chemo, you might need to do some other things, right. But it's part of it. And we wanted to just dive into that. And we use a lot of experts, we use a couple stories. One of the stories isn't isn't a happy ending. I liked that about the film. It's, it's it's chronic illness, and it's a damn tough space. And she doesn't know what's wrong. And she's not really willing to make the changes. And the system, as we talked about the film system not necessarily set up, right, or distributors just do their thing. Our health system isn't set up exactly correctly to support the mind body healing. You know, it's, it's not there to help you pay for that stuff. So resources is an issue. You say, Oh, why don't y'all just change this? And you're like, Well, I'm just trying to survive. And so that stuff we continually look at and then heal. We realized after the film, there was more we could offer the audience. So the film did amazing. We, you know, if you want to talk strategy, in terms of what we did distribution, I can Yeah, please, please. Because it's helpful. And I've used it with some films afterwards, when they've come to me, and I usually don't consult, it's not like my job. But when something falls into a niche that I've done, and I feel I can help them and they're primed for it. And I liked the film's like, okay, you know, let's do it. So we realized, of course, we needed an audience, like you've talked about before we release, you can't wait until you release. So as soon as we started filming, we started building a fan base and with a website and getting emails out there and attracting people to the film. So by the time we launched, I think we have 50,000 person email list, which isn't huge. But

Alex Ferrari 37:49
You know what? It's not it's not a joke, either. That's a huge email list for a movie that had nothing at the beginning. That's enough. That's a that's a fairly massive email list. And that's how big this audience is. That tells you volumes of how big this audience is.

Adam Schomer 38:03
Right! Right. Healing in general. You know, people are,

Alex Ferrari 38:07
I don't know about you, something hurts on me right now. Is a little bit hip. I, you know, my ankles is hurting because it's about to rain. So there you go. There's always someone we're all hurt as you get older, something hurts. So hey, who's the audience? Everyone who's in pain from people who are, you know, on the brink of death, because of a chronic illness to my hip hurts.

Adam Schomer 38:30
And it's not like it goes away, you know, like meaning meaning it takes a lot of audience every year, no meaning like,

Alex Ferrari 38:37
The audience. The audience doesn't shrink.

Adam Schomer 38:39
They don't shrink. It's only growing in awareness. And like, we've been out five years, I think, and you know, 12 million minutes a month, we're on prime, you know, like, people were still in the charts in the UK in Germany when it comes to digital sales.

Alex Ferrari 38:57
People are looking for people.

Adam Schomer 38:59
Yeah, one of my good buddies I play soccer was like, Hey, I watched I finally watched a movie here. I'm like, Thanks for the support, you know, five years later, but he's like, it's great. So people, on their own time come to these things. Anyway. So distribution wise, back to that 50,000. We built the audience, we knew we needed to do that.

Alex Ferrari 39:16
Did you self distribute? Or did you go through a distributor,

Adam Schomer 39:18
We did a hybrid type thing. And this is something again, by the time I was working with heal, Kelly Kelly Gore's film Kelly Kelly came up with it. She's a director, she brought me into produce and I'm very thankful that she did because now we're like, co producing partners and great relationship. And so she knew she had done like a horror flick kind of before and you know, so she knew the problems and distribution and what a distributor dusty, we both knew that so that was cool. And so we're gonna do anything in our power to not be in their power. So I knew from the beginning, let's build an audience beforehand so that we could go out you know, independently and have some money to support us. We There was an organic audience of email. So we knew it people that wanted they personally said, I want you to have my email Keep me posted, okay, they'll probably by, you know, the the probably jump in in terms of all that growing and you know, we went to a festival that we knew was our audience and we were the opening night there and there are 700 people and so our investors also get to see that and then see oh, wow, there's, there's an audience here. And it's palpable, and that helped them put a little bit more money for independent distribution. So in terms of strategy, what we did, we decided to do like theatrical on our own and, and screenings on our own. So we brought in a screening guy to handle the small screenings and get people talking about it out there and do you know that's what he got organic press for us? Because some church in Iowa that's going to do a screening is going to tell their people about it, okay. 100 people show up but you know, 1000 people got heard about it and heard about here and maybe it's on their radar next time they see it or hear about or someone you know how it is right, you have to talk about it. Talk about it talk when finally you watch. So we did a lot of those screenings, probably 100 We did a bunch in Australia. Definitely made a little money there. But you know, sometimes it's just break even with the screenings and all that that's great. Definitely made a little money in the screenings, broke even on theatrical, and we came out in I think, eight, eight to 10 cities, you know, hired a consultant to help us do that. So I was like, the point man brought in the screening guy brought him this theatrical guy. And then for digital, we signed with what's called 1091, you know, distribution company. They back then they were the orchard. Oh, yeah, another 1091. And they've had a lot of success digitally come out with some spiritual films, some Alien film, niche films by King films. So they, they knew and we had we, we structured a good deal with them to be honest. And they support us and gave us a little bit of money for even a trailer and all this other stuff that we didn't want to dump a lot into. And so we also then planned it like Kelly and I, neither of us wanted to do this long, protracted distribution cycle of like, Let's do screenings for a year. You know, like the film awake with Yogananda didn't work. We don't want to do that.

Alex Ferrari 42:11
They were super successful theater in Apollo.

Adam Schomer 42:13
Yeah. Yeah, I met them because of the highest pass way back, right.

Alex Ferrari 42:19
Yeah. Well, I would imagine you guys this paths crossed. They've been on the show and been on my show, like three times already. I love them. I love what they did with that film. It's amazing. They actually are a case study in my book, as well.

Adam Schomer 42:32
So Peter came we were they wanted to see Michael Molera, who's the composer of the highest best they wanted to hear his work. So when I showed him a cut of the film, and there again, I'm this is so cool, like, and then I ended up bringing Peter into help edit like the second cut. So we became buddies. And, and I love his story mine and they're great. And then I gave them some footage for a week from the highest pass to us in the film, which was just like, an anon does in a week. I don't know if you know that.

Alex Ferrari 42:55
I think he might. I think I might have seen them in a week. You're absolutely right. That's a week. Yeah.

Adam Schomer 43:00
So becomes a kind of like a small little, you know, a nice little family. And I mean, just an honor to have some of the footage from one of my films with Yogananda in that film. Anyway. So back to the heel distribution thing, we decided, let's not do the long thing like awake, let's do condense. So we pushed the utricle screenings and digital as close together as possible. So we came out in October in theaters. And then by December 5, we're out on digital and of course, we had to do all that you know, independently when it comes to theatrical and all that so that we could have control of all of our dates.

Alex Ferrari 43:36
And and I just want to just stop you for there for a second. So when people listening, the reason why awake, which is a documentary about the spiritual master Yogananda did their long, their long theatrical and screenings was because they had direct CO production or relationship with Yogananda, his organization which basically had access to every Yogananda disciple around the world. So it would be foolish not to stretch that out as much as you could because it was just such a such a built in audience that it may did very well if you stopped millions and they did really, really, really well. So but for you hard, hard to replicate, yeah, hard, very difficult to replicate. I think. Hare Krishna, Hari Krishna, they tried to do something similar, but didn't have the same great film. So I love that film, but didn't have the same access to that because it literally just like touch a button and they can talk to everybody. So with heal, from my perspective, look, listen to what you're saying. It's an audience but it is not a dedikate it's not like people who are just like, you know, religiously about this. It's a much broader, diluted audience. So what your tech your your strategy makes much, much more sense. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. Sir. And now back to the show.

Adam Schomer 45:06
Yeah, we built that audience build the email list and got everyone excited for okay. If you can't see in theaters not your you're not in one of the main cities don't worry, or you didn't get a small screening in your area. It's coming December 5 on digital and DVD even to DVD. And

Alex Ferrari 45:22
Did you do on DVD by the way?

Adam Schomer 45:23
We made like 150 grand on DVD.

Alex Ferrari 45:25
Of course you did. Because What year was this? 2017 17?

Adam Schomer 45:30
The end of 17. So call it 18 2018.

Alex Ferrari 45:33
Right! Still, like CD DVD still sell? People don't listen, people still buy DVDs. If you're at a screening, and you love the movie, and you had a DVD with some bonus stuff in it. Somebody would buy it.

Adam Schomer 45:48
We could I mean, I guess we could believe it. But we couldn't. But you know, a little older audience is a little more has the illness and they're still with DVD at that point. And it's so correct. And that was cool to see that. And we did really well on digital when we came out and our goal was to be honest 1091 But the orchard had already pissed pitch Netflix and Netflix had said no. To the to the Okay, they did this was in the fall before we came out theatrically and all that then we come out theatrically and do this big push. And we hit number one on iTunes. And versus the charts. And stayed there for a few weeks a documentary

Alex Ferrari 46:26
Or an doc in document in that document. Yeah,

Adam Schomer 46:29
I mean, gone, you know, competing with everyone else, almost impossible. But

Alex Ferrari 46:32
Yeah, but still, number number one Doc is no easy thing to do.

Adam Schomer 46:37
But then to stay there. Because usually, we stay for a few weeks. And then in the in the top three for about three months. So we had like the staying power. And then we went back to Netflix and said, you know, the distributors like look people like this thing. It's making money. It's, you know, you should really reconsider it. And then and then they did come up with a two year deal. And it was It wasn't anything great either, to be honest. But it was, it was for us to it was more about exposure. Of course, of course, most of our money was made on just digital sales.

Alex Ferrari 47:08
Really. So most of the money was done still until on transactional. But But this movie, because I always tell people transactional is dead, generally speaking, but but the difference is that your topic, someone will rent it for 399. Some will buy it for 999 to give extra bonuses or extra interviews on it. Because it's such a there's something like I want to heal myself. I'm going to spend 399 It's a horror movie. Oh, wait till I find it somewhere else. There's 1000 other horror movies, but there is no other healing documentary. So you have this really special place. And that's why that makes sense for transactional. And I'm glad that you actually waited. Yeah, I'm glad you actually waited for Netflix as if you would have gotten that Netflix that first deal. You weren't have made as much money.

Adam Schomer 47:56
Yeah, I mean, they said no, to be honest, you know, right. And so my strategy for some other people is like, well, if if you can't turn the dial, show them that you can by trying to get get yourself to number one, I have to in some way, which is hard in itself or just show them there's an audience by selling and who knows, you might not even want to be on Netflix but or go on prime or even know Prime has gotten a little crazy with what they lead on there with docks. Right away prime dropped recently. So after Netflix, we went on to prime which then is just by minute and they're paying you by minute. And that ended up being very lucrative. Also, you know, people,

Alex Ferrari 48:33
You would probably be at the you'd probably be at the higher end of that minute per minute, because there's a range of a penny to 12 cents or something like that. Yeah, yeah, probably higher. Seven, maybe

Adam Schomer 48:44
Sounds we were making per minute. And that's great. At one point, you know, I don't mind sharing this that I one point we were making, there was like 12 million minutes a month, basically is what recently, then prime minutes big, you know, like shove off of dogs. Right? We they dropped us in the UK dropped us in Canada dropped us in France. And we're like, geez, you know, like, what's up, I, you know, what's up, and then suddenly, during COVID, they dropped us in the US. And so we had our distributor, ask them He's like, he's like, they don't even tell me why. I've never had them, overturn it. With all the docs that have they've taken off of ours. And with he'll, for some reason, like a week, two weeks later, they put it back on. So something clicked in their head, like why why do we randomly take this off, you know, oh, it's alternative health and we're in COVID. And that's dangerous, too. Who knows why they turned it off. You know, there's nothing about COVID in there. Obviously, there's pre COVID. And even so, I think people should be able to talk you know, it's a little strange out there. That's a whole nother topic. But distribution wise, you know, Netflix a little you know, a little chunk but the awareness with Netflix went crazy. And then we pivoted to prime after and that's helped a ton and still transactionally you know, people still buy a transaction you But he'll is a you know, kind of an anomaly like we're talking about people are always sick and they're looking for resources and they're motivated. And, and we think it's a very balanced film. It's not too woowoo. So so it has a broad audience, which is what we wanted.

Alex Ferrari 50:12
That's awesome. And then you also, like started building out other product lines and services around heal, which I found fascinating as well. So you had I think a book came out. Yeah, Kelly, so she has a book based on it. So now you're leveraging the audience of the people who've seen the movie to like, oh, the heal, the book is out. I'll buy it. Like I bought the I bought a wake the book. Exactly. I saw the awake book, it was just like the movie companion to the book. I'm like, I'm such a fan of that movie. I was like, I bought it. And then Peter was like, seeing him in the background of my, of my shows. Like, that's, that's amazing. I'm like, yeah, so it's great. So you have the book, but then you also did something, which was really interesting to Summit. So can you go? Can you go into the summit a little bit? What is the how you were able to partner with a very big self help publishing company? And if you don't mind talking about the financials of that, not details, but just general?

Adam Schomer 51:07
Yeah, yeah. Because it is fascinating. And it's, it's something that jumped out to me, as we're making it, where we're like, we have these interviews that are an hour, an hour and a half with these top experts, Chopra, Dispenza. Braid and, and Anthony William Medical Medium was very huge now and was just kind of growing at the time. What are we going to deal with these interviews, we should do something. And so I was, we were super busy, of course of the film, but I was whispering to Kelly, like, we should put these together and sell them in some way or put them for people that want the deep information. So we were considering doing it on our own. And then, and I, you know, we just start all my rallies, people, our Hay House authors, you know, a lot of these, you know, who, let's approach Hay House and see if they want to do something together, because they would have an audience too. And that could be helpful. So we just call them up and had a meeting sat there, you know, with the CEO down in San Diego, and he's super nice. Like, that sounds great. Let's do it. You know, it's like this. Yeah, it's a win, win. 5050 Cool, let's put them out there. And they had their strategies of like affiliate partners and all that. We had all the footage, they had the marketing team to be able to make it happen and get it out there. They had that system. And that's, you know, we just had a really delivering support and make sure it was in our brand that they didn't, you know, make it to Hay House, that it still had the heel ethos to it. And that's something we wanted to keep. And it's a great partnership. I mean, we love Hay House. And we ended up doing a summit two and a summit three, I mean, the summit, finances did fantastic.

Alex Ferrari 52:43
So those are those based on old interviews that you shot for the movie? Or did you have new stuff come in?

Adam Schomer 52:48
For the for the first summit, we took all the interviews from the film, and I don't think we added anything new because we had a team that we filmed. Maybe we did. And so that for somebody that amazing and the you know, the great byproduct that came out last summer of 2018, after the film was out, but then we walked away with an email list that was about 300,000 people.

Alex Ferrari 53:12
Right, and so you're talking dirt, you're talking dirty to me now, sir.

Adam Schomer 53:17
I mean, they were blown away, we were the best we did the summits that year, they were blown away, we were blown away. Financially, I won't go into the details very, very well. The summits alone that we've done, have more than covered the budget of the film. And that makes you kind of think and you go oh my god, you know, like, you put all this effort into editing a film. And you could have shot 18 interviews, and not edited anything and put a summit, but you needed the film to create the buzz. And the film really is the entry point. And here we are, though in 2022. And there's a lot more summits and it's a little more saturated now. So like doesn't that yeah,

Alex Ferrari 53:56
It is it is it is a little bit more saturated. But still, if you've got an audience, and you've got a topic, people, it'll cut through all of that. And it's literally exactly what I was writing about, in my book Rise of the entrepreneur, it's like, the movie becomes a giant trailer, a giant, a giant marketing piece, as and I said in the book, even give the movie away for free, right? Because it's all about driving people to I don't care about 399 for a rental or 999 for you to buy the movie, I care you to buy the summit, that's gonna be $100 or it'll be a couple 100 bucks, or you or my services or my consulting or my books or my other things that have bigger, bigger, you know, interest in, you know, financial interest in as opposed to the movie that I might have a distribution deal that I don't, as we talked about might not get all the money because of expenses and all that stuff. But they don't take money away from summits. They don't take money away from books, they don't take money away from services or other things that you can provide. It's fascinating and that you leveraged the people inside of them. Movies audiences by making them partners with an affiliate program. Yes is the future. It's, I mean, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't they, if they liked the product, don't push it out for them. It's not that hard. And they just make they make money and they help their audience. So it is a win win. It's a wonderful ecosystem. It truly is a wonderful ecosystem. And there's a

Adam Schomer 55:23
Yeah. And there's, there's a podcast now we did 38 episodes of the pocket. We did three summits and you know, and internationally, like, we push that summit out in Germany and France, and it's still going, you still go and we have great partners over there we work with and, and yeah, in a podcasts, what else did we do? Podcasts, we've we've, we have 38 episodes, we're going to start up again, probably in July, we've taken a little pause, and now we're developing series and going to end to go out with a series hopefully,

Alex Ferrari 55:55
Like a like a, like a, like a 10 episode series, or it's

Adam Schomer 55:59
Like a premium doc series. That's that's always been kind of in the back of our mind. It's just been again, like timing. And we think like now is is a good time.

Alex Ferrari 56:07
I'm just saying, Guys, this is I mean, it's everything I've been saying. For years, it's so really, I wouldn't be writing the book right now you'd be a case study. And maybe in the second edition, I'll put you guys in as a case study, because it's just, it's so brilliantly done. But this is the future for independent filmmakers. And in you've I mean, you've been down the road so much already. You've done I've done a ton of work, you know how hard it is to sell a movie? And how to make it to make money with a movie. Yeah. And the future is I keep saying is you have to be that entrepreneurial filmmaker that takes control, creates other products, creates other services creates other revenue streams off of the film you're doing, and you can't do it with a narrative. I've seen it I have many examples of it. But Doc seems to be so much easier. Because the audience is right. Like they just want it it's a different audience,

Adam Schomer 56:57
Then then that makes sense if the audience the niche and also usually the passion behind the doc, somebody that's doing it has some expertise in that topic or passion. And I mean, you gotta have that right. If you're gonna stick with something and make it big and brand like you have to be in to cycling. If you're going to do a cycling movie or right we're the road to dharma, like motorcycling in the Himalayas, I'm into yogic thought, I'm into freedom. Freedom is important to me. And wisdom is important. I can't write a course on freedom to go along with that. If I'm not into you know,

Alex Ferrari 57:28
You're like this Yo, he's out of his mind. He's trying to kill me like if you wouldn't have been in the vibe with the story. You can't so you have to be something that's true to you as a filmmaker or that interest you as a filmmaker because you're gonna be with this for a while

Adam Schomer 57:45
For a while you know, we can't Americanize everything be like, Hey, let's market the Hell, if you don't have any passion for it, you absolutely won't happen or won't work. Like, I'm looking at some other films and like, like the polygon that we did, like, there's not much we could have. I mean, that's about nuclear testing in Kazakhstan, and

Alex Ferrari 58:02
Very small niche.

Adam Schomer 58:06
It's still a film, you need to get women another way, Buffalo we just released Tuesday, which is about Native American women and the history of Native Americans and, and really the wisdom of the matriarch that's coming through. Now. Could there be some other ancillary products or maybe a summit? Yeah, maybe the main pushes, like, let's just get some awareness of this thing going. But Deborah, who directed it, she's been working her butt off for years. And her ancillary thing to be honest, is photographs. Because she's a photographer, she has some amazing photographs of this. She sells for, you know, big pieces and big money. So, you know, that's her passion. That's what she's good at. That's what she's going to do along with the film.

Alex Ferrari 58:46
Yeah. And, and I imagine that with that, if I was gonna ask you about that film, because I know it just came out this week. Women are the white buffalo. That is, you know, talking on a market research, audience base, there is an audience for this film. In Native Native Americans, many Native American Americans around the country would be very interested in probably some in in overseas, you know, people who are interested in in some, but this is your, this is your market. So, could you do a summit with interviewing? Join the full interviews? Absolutely. You know, is it as big of an audience as he'll probably not know, but it's still an audience. And it's bigger than nuclear testing. Like that's, that's a passion project. That's I want to get this get this out there. And that's fine too. But when you make a movie like he'll or other projects, they give you the freedom to do whatever you want. So if you want to make a small little movie that's really just about getting it out there for people and doing the bet that's fine, too. Is every everyone always filmmakers? I always find the thing that like you got to make $100 million to be a success. No No, not at all. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. It's most, most movies, most filmmakers 99.9% of filmmakers don't make $100 million. You know, I always tell people if you made a movie for $50,000 And you made $100,000 Man, you are success. You know, if you happen to make a quarter million dollars, fantastic. Now you can go finance another movie, live for a little while while you keep going. Doing it

Adam Schomer 1:00:36
And redefine success a little. Now we all have to as you interviewed a non nones in both worlds, right. He studied economics at university and he's a guru, right? I studied with Masters in the Himalayas boasts, we have to be able to survive, you can't deny the fact that we need money and we need we're in this society and we need to play in this society. It's not time to go in the caves. But but at the same time, we want to do something that's meaningful. You know, we're gonna do something like if we can redefine success, meaning okay, yes, we have to be sports I was but how about a teacher that had a few students like learn and grow out of their shell that year? And like, What a success, they had a few kids really get something from that teacher and go on, and it really inspired their lives. Okay, do people watch women in the white buffalo or watch Rhoda Dharma, a lot of people watch rode the Dharma or do the course. And they're like, I'm going to India man. It's like, cool. Now is it reached 3 million people? No, but like, 1500 people have taken the course and, you know, have 100 or 200 of those said, I'm going to India now sweet, like, I'm going to change somebody's life. And that's successful. Like, I got to share my story and push somebody else to do the same. But to me, it's like, a success.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:47
Exactly. So you and you have to define success for yourself. And I know for a long time I define success. As you know, I have to be the biggest director in the world to find success. And I was very angry for such a long time about that, and very depressed. And I think a lot of filmmakers and screenwriters and actors, all of them go through the same process, because they all like we all got to be Spielberg or Nolan, or Fincher or James Cameron and like, two, there's only there's only one of those. And there are anomalies. They are masters, they are.

Adam Schomer 1:02:16
Yeah, it's not gonna be for psychosis. It's a recipe for sadness and pain.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:20
Exactly. So I when I started this show, seven years ago, I started to redefine what success was to me, I'm like, Oh, I get to do what I do. Every day, I get to talk to people like yourself and share this information and help other people and be of service to my community. And I'm like, that makes that makes me happy. And like, and then I can go off and make my little movies when I want to go make them with that really caring if they make a tremendous amount of money, though they all have been very profitable. And they all done well. That's not my concern, per se. You know, it's not like I need to make money on this film in order to eat. Now I've built another inference infrastructure that allows me to go off and do whatever I want.

Adam Schomer 1:02:58
That's all for your identity. Like your identity is not so wrapped in

Alex Ferrari 1:03:01
It's not anymore. Absolutely not. Yeah. It's so that's what I try to teach here at the show on the show, and try to really have people understand what success is for them and really define it for themselves. Because if not, you will, you will go mad. And you will absolutely go man, and this business is tough enough. It's just his brutal enough without without you having to do like, Oh, God, I'm 23 I didn't make Citizen Kane yet, like Orson Welles. Oh, I'm 27 I haven't made Jaws yet. Like Spielberg, I'm like, Are you out of your mind?

Adam Schomer 1:03:37
Yeah, I stopped, I stopped watching reading a lot of the trades or, you know, like, I don't read them, but and watching a lot of award shows, because it's like, it can't be the focus. It can't be like I have to, you know, it has to be like, No, how do we define ourselves as success? And how do we have this internal dialogue of gratitude and what we're doing in our life, and, you know, America tries to really throw other ideas down your throat. I mean, that's part I think, why why we're both here, Alex is because changing that culture, in some ways of saying, let's give meaning in a different way to our lives and to media, and maybe not keep throwing the same stories of success down people's throat, like once you get this and the girl on that, then you're happy. No, you know, it sounds cliche now, but it's really still out there. You know, and it's really still a story motif all the time.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:28
I mean, because like I tell people all the time, Hollywood is fantastic about selling the sizzle, but they suck at selling the steak. And that's what that's all about. And I always and I've said this a ton of times in the show, so everyone please forgive me, but I'll say it again. Adam hasn't heard this. The greatest analogy for Hollywood is going down to Hollywood Boulevard. And I don't know if you've been down to Hollywood Boulevard. I'm sure you have. It is a cesspool. But on Oscar night, it looks like oh my god. It's Hollywood glitz and glamour and look at the staircase and look at this Look at the stars. But the second, the award shows over, they take up the red carpet, and the drug needles are still down in the alley. So it's just, but that is the perfect analogy of well, Hollywood is because they show something. But what's really going on behind the scenes is probably not what they're showing. And that's what they built that they've done since they started the industry. So but people get caught up in that in that mentality of sizzle, sizzle sizzle, and I need this, this, this and this, and I'll be happy when this happens. You can't be happy when this happen, because life is not a destination. It is a journey. And I've talked to Oscar winners. And I've talked to Emmy winners, I've talked to very successful people who've reached the top of that quote, unquote, mountaintop, and then they go now what? And a lot of them get depressed because they've been working all their life to disaster and they get the ask them to like, I don't know what to do now. Like, where do I go from here? Because they haven't enjoyed the journey up to the top highest pass the highest pass and then just like, I don't write, I don't understand what I do it.

Adam Schomer 1:06:02
That's why I did that movie first. Oh, I see it's the journey. Okay.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:08
It's all part of the plan. It was all part of the plan the entire time, I'm sure.

Adam Schomer 1:06:13
Gonna do that. I'm gonna do the hardest question, you know, hardest job I could possibly do first that would teach me everything so that I can then have a sane career making,

Alex Ferrari 1:06:23
Because I'm assuming he'll not so difficult, comparatively?

Adam Schomer 1:06:27
No, comparatively, no, you know, no, no, no life threatening moments.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:33
You know, you just we go to a house we go to myself, we should staff.

Adam Schomer 1:06:37
But I'll tell you, you know, the adventure is like, oh, what's the adventure of the people that are going through the healing art? Yeah. You know, I could not be as a filmmaker but all we're watching them and like it is everything when you're sick. It's every Oh, so does you know as much as I love adventure, it has a little bit out in the film. But no, for me as a filmmaker, not as not as crazy wrote a Dharma. Yeah, I'm still at risk again, even though I know how to ride a motorcycle.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:02
And this is the insanity of filmmakers. You're still thinking about trying to do a second third season one day of growth? Because you're insane. We all are. Because normal human beings wouldn't do that twice. Film it twice. And then go, you know, I think I could do this two or three more times.

Adam Schomer 1:07:22
I was just in India with a non right. And I was like, Well, are you open to? Because it always starts from Are you open to letting us walk film? Because he's gonna do this no matter what with people. It's authentic. It's not for the show. Can I come along and film the next one? And he said, Yes. So where do you know we're talking? When in 2023? We can do it again. And then I have the filmmaker crazy madness. Like, like I said earlier, you know, once we've done season two and three, then Netflix will wake up and go, Okay, we'll take off. That's still a little psychosis illusion.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:51
This is the delusion, filmmakers were actually delusional. Because it's so funny that you're like, you're not a newbie at this dude. This is like I hear that kind of talk from like, someone who just like, you know, I'm just gonna do this and this and then Hollywood will notice me or Netflix will notice. You still have that mentality, even after over a decade. And just like, you know, I think if I do three more, four more seasons, I think Netflix will finally take notice.

Adam Schomer 1:08:16
And I do believe it. I absolutely in my heart believe it because like, oh, no, this spiritual audience is growing. And it'll have and if not, you know, so I got me to go keep doing it. Absolutely. And, you know, I just love I, it's my baby, you wrote it down was

Alex Ferrari 1:08:31
Like, Oh, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. I tell everybody. Yeah, no, and, of course,

Adam Schomer 1:08:37
Somebody else will pay the bills. You know, somebody else would be and I'll just keep doing that because

Alex Ferrari 1:08:40
We're carnies. We're carnism we're all we are is carnies. And we just are insane. We're, we're so we're circus folk. We're so we're circus folk. That's basically what we are. I've said that so many times. It's so true. We are so Casper, we put up a tent, we put on a show, and then we leave the town and we go on to the next town. It's the same thing if a film sets the exact same thing, and the people on the crew, very entertaining people. Very, very entertaining very unique people that you meet along along your journey. But it is a I call it the beautiful sickness. That's what it is being a filmmaker being a creative it is a beautiful sickness, because it's a sickness you can't get rid of he can't so fun.

Adam Schomer 1:09:23
Quantity, you know, it's the want to teach you share and maybe, yeah, for you as a documentary. As a documentary, there's no I noticed a little bit me that's that, like my own subconscious that wants to be heard. You know, that maybe it wasn't heard enough as a kid. Okay, I see that part and let's not operate from that part. And then the other part is like the natural teacher, I've taught soccer forever. And you know, the natural teacher that has found a format to do that is called film and entertainment adventure. And I get to hopefully share in that way too, and I don't stop teaching like I teach yoga on the beach to my friends. stuff. So like, that's not

Alex Ferrari 1:10:01
That stretch. It's all about stretching that really.

Adam Schomer 1:10:05
And like, you know, I often remind myself in terms of life skills, like if I had the Oscar and a million dollars, would I still be here at the beach doing yoga with my friend? Absolutely. Would I still be eating here? Absolutely. Will I still be, you know,

Alex Ferrari 1:10:19
Would you go back on the road to dharma,

Adam Schomer 1:10:23
I would, I would still be doing everything I'm doing. So like, I better not wait to be happy because it's going to be the same. Actually, there's just going to be in maybe a couple more projects going or more money or blah, blah, in so you just you have to kind of wipe away the Bs in the mind. You have to?

Alex Ferrari 1:10:39
Absolutely. Listen, I'm gonna ask you a few questions asked on the guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today?

Adam Schomer 1:10:48
You know, I'm, I don't. Because I don't see it is a breaking into the business.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:56
Largely. It's larceny. It's larceny. Sir. It's larceny. This business is larceny, we have to break our way in, or make it or make it.

Adam Schomer 1:11:06
I just, here's what I did when I first got to LA and this might work for people and might not I, I went to things and did things that I like to do so that I made friends with people that I liked, so that I didn't network for the sake of networking, so that the people I'm close with, I'm actually close with. And there had a core and still do now have a core group of people that I actually trust. And maybe it's a little different, because it's the dark world consciousness world. But the consciousness world can be as crazy as Hollywood, you know,

Alex Ferrari 1:11:36
I mean, it's your first movie, I need any full credit as a director.

Adam Schomer 1:11:42
Right! Exactly, exactly. The gun and there's plenty of stuff. So maybe that's my advice is to be yourself in the in the lifestyle way. And then that way, you you have a core group of people support system as you're going through hard things that you actually call friends. And that way, you're not pushing so hard to network, you know, and if you're going to something like an event, it's something you might actually connect with someone with you. So that's my only bit of advice, because the way I did is so strange and absurd. I'm not going to go to India, find a guru and make a move, like best I can to work. It's been done.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:22
It's been done already. It's been done. Now it's totally. Now what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film industry or in life?

Adam Schomer 1:12:31
Yeah, let's let's talk about recent Ben, what happened going on my, in my head is, is that, you know, these, this propensity for us to look back at a conversation, I want to redo it right down, we'll call that doubt, to change the way what I said what I did, or this the thoughts that projecting the future, I'm going to do this and that still, even my last time in India was just looking at where that's all coming from. And I decided just to re engineer all that. So that lesson was, if I'm engineering the future, or engineering, what I should have said in the past, what needs to be re engineered is right now. So let's flip the engineering on now and say, Okay, what is it? I'm feeling that's making me have those thoughts? Oh, I'm feeling some lack or something. So let's use that engineering mind of redoing future paths, and look at an engineer that feeling and say, what's going on in there? And can I shift my perspective to, to break it open now, rather than this false story making the past and future and, of course, I've known that through awareness and meditation for years, but to really use the wording of engineering and just say, I'm going to engineer the moment and look deeply at the feeling when those thoughts come up. It's just really hitting hard right now. And I think that's super super helpful to not get lost in our minds.

Alex Ferrari 1:13:56
And three of your favorite songs of all time.

Adam Schomer 1:13:59
Yeah, I saw your ask this and I have to at least that I logged in life was beautiful because I just because of that ability to help someone else right. And that to bring us out of our own suffering in some ways really, it can speak to us all when you heal other people or help other people does lift you up. The Princess Bride because it got me through college, you know, just memorizing

Alex Ferrari 1:14:25
My name is Andrea Montoya my father prepare to die.

Adam Schomer 1:14:31
And then my third eye hadn't figured it out. So let's just see what comes into my consciousness right now. What? Yeah, okay, well, I guess Star Wars would have to be in there because it pushed me to want a Yoda in my life. And as you know, I'm not my guru. I think we all growing up want it? I think I even say that in the highest pass like,

Alex Ferrari 1:14:55
we I think we all look guilty. I mean, I just I have lifesize Yoda right there he was on my show. I have lifesize Yoda right there. I have a little Yoda right here. So I have a baby Yoda right here. The bobble head. If people are just have a bobble head, a bobble head, baby Yoda over there in a full size, maybe you're above me. So I am a Yoda fan. But you're right, we all want someone wise to guide us through this insanity that we call life. Because it is we're all trying to figure it out from the moment we come out and we're slapped in the butt and we start crying. You know, we're just like trying to figure this out and having someone who can answer questions for you, someone who's maybe been understands things that you don't understand, or maybe a much deeper level that you don't understand, is something I think we all long for, in one way, shape or form, whether that be your parents, whether that be a guru, whether that'd be a you know, a friend, whoever, we're all looking for that in one way, shape, or form. And some of us have the ability to do it ourselves to be our own internal gurus, and learn just by life and life is the guru that teaches you, unfortunately, for better and worse. But right. But listen Annabelle, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, man, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to my audience. Man, I, I truly appreciate it. And I recommend everybody watch all of your films, even polygon.

Adam Schomer 1:16:28
It's not as depressing as it sounds, but it needs to be seen. No, thank Thank you, man. Thanks for this podcast for having a Nanda and sharing the soul that you're sharing on the next level. So just sharing your heart on this podcast. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. It's such a cool journey. And the next one I'm working on. I can't talk about this doc, but it has a built in audience. And of course, I'm giving it a consciousness and a meaning to it. So like, you know what we're starting to find how to do this, how to sneak in the good messages into something that's commercially viable. And I'm excited to talk about that once it comes out. But again, thank you so much. This is awesome.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:06
Thank you, my friend.