making your own work + using new tech to your advantage, and surviving the pivot with Brendan Bradley

Summary

One Broke Actress Podcast: “Making Your Own Work + Using New Tech to Your Advantage, and Surviving the Pivot with Brendan Bradley”

Release Date: April 10, 2025
Host: Sam Valentine
Guest: Brendan Bradley

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Introduction and Podcast Updates

In this episode of the One Broke Actress Podcast, host Sam Valentine welcomes back Brendan Bradley, a familiar voice from episode 208 where they discussed post-strike insights with strike captains. Sam begins by sharing personal updates, including her upcoming play in Los Angeles and her pivot towards diversifying her content platforms. With over 302 episodes already available, Sam hints at revisiting archival episodes while also expanding her presence on YouTube to cater to broader actor needs.

Notable Quote:
Sam Valentine (00:00): “I am pivoting where I'm putting my money, time, energy, et cetera. There is not going to be as many consistent public podcasts for a bit of time.”

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Embracing Vertical Shorts and New Media Formats

Brendan Bradley dives into the burgeoning trend of vertical shorts, emphasizing their strategic advantage in today’s digital landscape. He advocates for actors to leverage vertical formats using high-resolution DSLR cameras, allowing content to be versatile for both horizontal and vertical viewing.

Notable Quote:
Brendan Bradley (05:12): “If you're already inclined this way, I would shoot a bunch of content super wide in 6k, then format it at 4k bumped in so you could sell it horizontal like a typical web series, typical movie, and then slice out that 6K in that vertical format a little bit wide and just see what happens.”

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From Spec Commercials to Feature Films

Brendan recounts his journey from creating spec commercials during a challenging period in Hollywood to producing his first feature film under a new media agreement. He highlights the importance of retaining creative control and the financial viability of self-produced projects, which allowed him to recoup his investment by selling the film in 14 countries.

Notable Quote:
Brendan Bradley (07:17): “My first feature was under the new media agreement and we released it primarily digitally before we then sold it in 14 countries and made the budget back. What? What? It can be done.”

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Navigating Personal and Professional Challenges

The conversation takes a poignant turn as Brendan shares his personal ordeal during the Eaton fires in Altadena, detailing how his home was destroyed while he was temporarily housed with friends. Despite the devastation, Brendan reflects on the silver linings, such as gratitude for not owning property and the strength drawn from community support.

Notable Quotes:
Brendan Bradley (10:49): “February 27th, my partner and I are safely in temporary housing in Hollywood. ... it's all open. But a bedroom is sealed. ... we have a bathroom and a kitchen sealed.”

Sam Valentine (13:18): “Only you could make this so nice. That is incredible. You literally. Your whole home burned down.”

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Overcoming Fear in Creating Original Content

Sam expresses her fears about transitioning from acting to producing her own projects, specifically citing the challenges of budgeting, securing funding, and managing the overwhelming logistics. Brendan offers practical advice, encouraging her to assess her commitment level based on the response her project receives and to embrace the collaborative nature of filmmaking.

Notable Quote:
Brendan Bradley (14:12): “Filmmaking, capital F, is not the end commercial product of a film. ... Filmmaking is a collaborative art form. It's one of the most collaborative art forms because of all the different departments and all the different stages.”

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Strategic Financial Planning for Creative Projects

Brendan emphasizes the importance of financial discipline when investing in creative endeavors. He advises setting up separate bank accounts to manage savings and project funds effectively, ensuring that investments are made strategically without jeopardizing personal finances.

Notable Quote:
Brendan Bradley (28:08): “The greatest gift is I cannot be more of an advocate for giving yourself different bank accounts. ... You have to save. ... You have to choose how to most strategically spend that money.”

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The Power of Community and Collaboration

The episode culminates with a heartfelt discussion on the significance of community support in the acting and filmmaking industries. Brendan underscores the value of mutual assistance among peers, whether it's through sharing resources, offering feedback, or collaborating on projects. This collective effort not only fosters creativity but also builds a resilient network capable of overcoming industry challenges.

Notable Quote:
Brendan Bradley (32:17): “Being in that community with each other means it just takes one person to say, I need help, and the community descends and helps. ... The audience is tired. They want relationship, they want connection, they want quirk, they want something new.”

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Conclusion

Sam and Brendan wrap up their insightful conversation by reiterating the importance of adaptability, financial savvy, and community in navigating the often tumultuous waters of the acting industry. Brendan’s experiences serve as a testament to the power of taking initiative and leveraging new technologies to create meaningful, sustainable work. Listeners are encouraged to embrace their creative impulses, seek out collaborative opportunities, and remain resilient in the face of unexpected challenges.

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If you’re inspired by Brendan’s journey and eager to create your own projects, consider exploring the various strategies discussed in this episode. For more behind-the-scenes content and updates, follow Sam Valentine on Instagram and subscribe to her bonus podcasts and YouTube channel.

Transcript

[Sam Valentine]

Fast Forward Productions. The women are speaking. What's up guys? Welcome back to another episode of the One Broke Actress podcast. An honest account of actor life plus a few lessons I learned in the process. I am your host, Sam Valentine and today we have a return guest, Brendan Bradley, who was originally here for episode 208, which was when we checked in with all of the strike captains post strike. So if you want a first taste of Brendan and the pineapple hat, go, go ahead and go back to that episode because it's going to lay the groundwork for what we are talking about today and it's also linked below in the show notes. Before we get into the topics we cover with Brenden, I want to do a little paperwork to start us off, guys. I'm about to do a play in Los Angeles and by about I mean in June, which means everything's a little chaos around here and I'm excited and nervous and keep an eye on my Instagram. If you want more information about what's going on but. Or if you want the real behind the scenes stuff, go ahead and subscribe to the bonus podcast wherever you get your podcast. That means that I am pivoting where I'm putting my money, time, energy, et cetera. There is not going to be as many consistent public podcasts for a bit of time. I am however, going to mix it up inside of here a little bit. At the time of this recording, we have 302 episodes sitting inside of the podcast feed. That's. That's insane, yo. I can't even, I can't think that hard about that. And a lot of them I think hold up really well. Regardless of the changes that have happened in the industry, I want to go back into the archives and dig up some old episodes and repost them here for you so you can enjoy them in between the stints and sparks where I'm going to be able to do more consistent episodes. Also, I am doing a lot of YouTube content in the coming months. There is a big ask inside of the messages I get in YouTube of do more content for newer actors. And most of you guys who listen to this are not newer actors. So while you might not need that content, if you want a new version of some thoughts, ideas, maybe you're the choir who wants to be preached to. I don't know, go to the YouTube because I'm gonna be putting out some more stuff there that's not necessarily going to be on the podC feed. It has been quite a ride getting the next couple of episodes together and we've had tons of audio snafus, which we will get to in this episode. We've had ups and downs. My business Fast Forward has had a lot of changes go on in the last couple of months and like I said, if you really want the details on that, check out the bonus podcasts. But at the same time I want to make sure you're getting good content and to me that is worth not showing up every single week in your feed in order to have better episodes. I know some of you are really vibing with what I'm saying, but that's your caveat. I'm pivoting the energy a little bit and if you've been around long enough on these podcasts, you've probably heard me say, I don't think that a balanced life is truly possible. I think you have to take energy from something and give it to another thing in order to do your best work in any capacity. In the meantime, I hope you stick around and or come hang out at the YouTube. Speaking of audio snafus, Brendan and I recorded a great conversation. We started off right from the top talking about vertical shorts, which have big piece of context that we're talking about a lot in all of the groups I'm in, online, in the membership with my agents and managers. And then we delved into a great conversation talking about performance and production and how he made money making his own commercials and how he got projects funded and a little bit about why I'm so scared to do my own project. We talk about what it is like to get work done in this current climate because right before our podcast I watched one of his most recent movies and we talk about the pivot when plans don't go as you saw them and not getting creative burnout in the process. And then we talked about a whole bunch of other shit and my microphone came unplugged. This is a podcaster's worst nightmare. This episode is still really good. It was so good, in fact, I sent it to Brendan and I said, do you think we should still try and put this out there? And he sent me back an edit of the episode. That is the type of person that he is. He is so about taking shit into his own hands, getting it done and getting it delivered. And we decided there's enough in this to give you a solid episode and we'll just have to meet again. And if you are listening on Spotify and you want us to talk about something specific next time, drop it in that fancy new comment section. I would Love to hear it. So all business paperwork aside, if there's a weird ending of this podcast we feel like comes out of nowhere, it probably does because that's when my microphone came apart. Just living the dream, you guys. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy Brendan Bradley.

[Brendan Bradley]

For being in our 20s and being broke, we made a lot of money, but we made very reasonable money, frankly, better money than influencers get paid today to make content. And so when I look at the short form vertical thing, I just go, there's a calculated reason it is so genre. I won't say bad, because who am I to say? They have sales, they know what they're doing. They wouldn't make this many of them in that format if it wasn't working. But how many people do we know that are writing, producing, directing, creating their own stuff, Start making some vertical shorts? Like why not have that format available to you? Especially now that we have DSLR cameras that shoot 6K. So my pitch to you is that if you're already inclined this way, I would shoot a bunch of content super wide in 6k, then what I would do is I would format it at 4k bumped in so you could sell it horizontal like as a typical web series, typical movie, and then slice out that 6K in that vertical format a little bit wide and just see what happens. Who knows?

[Sam Valentine]

This is how you know it's going to be a good podcast is because we already have something to talk about.

[Brendan Bradley]

Vertical shorts. I think I look at them the way when, when YouTube first started, there was no monetization and brands would hold contests for commercials to go on the front page. So and it was open to anybody and the breakdowns were flooded with these non union commercials for no money, very predatory. But some friends of mine and I realized, wait, we're going to audition for a spec commercial that they're going to make and sell that we're not going to get paid on. Why don't we just make the commercial?

[Sam Valentine]

Yes, I had an actress named Jen Ponton on the podcast and she made her own entire feature film and put it out as individual shorts on TikTok. And it was great and she did an amazing job. And I don't believe there's anything in SAG contracts about the way the camera is formatted. So why can't it be a feature? Why can't it be a real project? Why can't you do something cool with it?

[Brendan Bradley]

My first feature was under the new media agreement and we released it primarily digitally before we then sold it in 14 countries and made the budget back. What? What? It can be done. But we get into this with auditioning all the time. Right? It. It's not my job to have a judgment against the writing. This script is getting made. So if I would like to be a part of this universe and a part of this opportunity, what can I bring to that opportunity and to that script and to that character? And if this stuff isn't your genre, isn't your tone, that's fine. Maybe that's a challenge for you to move into that melodrama space. But also what I think it's doing is we killed ourselves in YouTube 1.0 in the fact that we taught the entire audience that this stuff is free, that this costs no money to make, that you, Sam, should just make endless podcasting content for all of us for no money.

[Sam Valentine]

This is how a lot of people treated me too.

[Brendan Bradley]

Yes, but how remarkable these short form verticals. People are paying per swipe to keep watching the next scene. And if we're undergoing a revolution where the audience is learning to pay for the content. Again, I don't care what the content is. I have no job. If it's onlyfans, bring it on. Like whatever slowly teaches the audience that this has value and worth and that we can then have a diversity of content and genre. Beautiful.

[Sam Valentine]

I'm such a big fan of this. I just got off the phone with Audrey Moore. Everyone loves Audrey. Helps actors.

[Brendan Bradley]

Everyone loves.

[Sam Valentine]

And she and I were talking about the way the business is going and using your money wisely and 10,000 other things. But we also talked about investing wisely in things. And instead of auditioning for a bunch of stuff you don't like, if you have the money, can you make something? And I was so excited that I was going to transition to this conversation with you because I just got done watching your movie before we got on this call. Which was perfect.

[Brendan Bradley]

Which one?

[Sam Valentine]

I watched the Devil in the Day Long Brothers that I purchased on Apple. It's my thank you. It's so cool to be able to buy a friend's movie on Apple. That just feels so next level.

[Brendan Bradley]

Yes.

[Sam Valentine]

But you've done a lot of your own work.

[Brendan Bradley]

It's true. How? I've mostly done my own stuff.

[Sam Valentine]

That's. And okay. And remind everyone. We'll link it below. But Brendan was also on our strike. Captains. What are they doing now? Episode post strike. Because you were so well known for all of the content you made during the strike every day at Paramount. Too much content. Is there such a thing? Though in that pineapple hat, what is.

[Brendan Bradley]

Painful is of all the things I have created, it is the content that was the most successful on the Internet.

[Sam Valentine]

This is called taking advantage of a moment, and I'm a big fan of it. But you hit on something that everyone wanted to know about, which is what's going on with this thing I keep hearing about in Hollywood. And so you informed people and you did it in a way that was digestible. So I'm sure you learned more in that process. But beyond that, you started out by saying that you and your friends got together and made spec commercials. I feel like you've always been making things. When we had planned to do this episode, our plan was this was back in January to talk about the SAG Awards, which were last week. And we were going to talk about SAG Awards and trying to get your own film into the SAG Awards. And then the world turned upside down and you got caught in the fires. Will you set the lay of the landscape so everyone knows where you're coming from? At this moment, at this precise moment.

[Brendan Bradley]

February 27th, my partner and I are safely in temporary housing in Hollywood. Smack dab in the middle of Hollywood, lovely friends of ours are renovating a condo. It's been under renovations for several months and so they're letting us essentially squat legally in their condo. There's whole, like, walls are missing. Like, there's whole sections of this thing that don't exist. If you see any of my content right now, I'm opening up like donations that people are very generously giving us to kind of say thank you. And you can see the staircase when you first walk into the place. There's. There's no walls, there's no insulation, there's wires. It is all open. But a bedroom is sealed. This little, what was a former nursery is sealed. And it's where I'm doing, have my self tape set up and then we have a bathroom and a kitchen sealed. And so we're good. We were in Altadena in the Eaton fires. I was actually volunteering for SAG AFTRA at the labor summit in Las Vegas when the fire started. So it took me three days to get back. So it means that I did not get to evacuate or take anything. And it's been a. It's been a journey ever since. We consider ourselves so lucky in the sense that we have family, we have friends, we have community. We both had decent years last year, so we had some savings to like fall back on. We had those emergency funds to like, not Immediately panic. We had friends that would let us crash the first couple of weeks. So we've been navigating the mess of this that is impacting everybody. And everybody's story is so different. But what I will say is I have never owned real estate in my life. I've just never been in that position financially. And all of my friends that have taken that, that big swing to put that money, that investment in property in Altadena especially, they still have to pay their mortgages even though they lost everything. And it is this moment of me checking in as an adult that some of the things that I thought were deficits of mine or negative self talk of me going, like, oh, I'm not a real boy. I'm not a real adult because I don't have a house or whatever. I could not be more grateful that I don't have to pay a mortgage on a place that is no longer there, that I can no longer live and have to navigate that. And so I am, for one of the first times in my adult life, so grateful to be a renter. And it's just one of those perspective shifts of you going, everything that you think is a hardship of yours today might actually be your opportunity and just always kind of keep that optimism and keep that gratitude.

[Sam Valentine]

Only you could make this so nice. That is incredible. You literally. Your whole home burned down.

[Brendan Bradley]

Well, we'll stop recording and I'll scream and cry.

[Sam Valentine]

And your home burned down while you weren't even there. And you're like, wow, you know, everything's really amazing. But I, I do understand what you're saying about. I've been thinking that the whole time because I think we're in a different world than we used to be in on so many levels. But also the, the homeownership being the, the thing that makes you an adult and the thing that does the thing, uh, for a lot of the people listening to this podcast too, that's not really in our wheelhouse and especially a lot of us who live in Los Angeles, I don't have a liquid like 1.2 to put down on a two bedroom.

[Brendan Bradley]

I don't have liquid. What would get me the, like, borrowing ability of like. That just seems so foreign to me. And I consider myself very lucky.

[Sam Valentine]

Yes.

[Brendan Bradley]

Like in my career and in life.

[Sam Valentine]

Yeah. Some of that, it seems, is you making your own luck.

[Brendan Bradley]

I think we all do.

[Sam Valentine]

Talk to me about going from making your own commercials with friends to doing other things, because there's a leap there of I want to be the actor To I'm going to make the thing that a lot of us raise his hand are afraid to take because we don't even know where to start.

[Brendan Bradley]

Do you mind unpacking that with me?

[Sam Valentine]

Oh, yeah.

[Brendan Bradley]

What is your fear?

[Sam Valentine]

Okay. This is so fun. Okay. My husband and I wrote a Christmas movie together.

[Brendan Bradley]

They do very well.

[Sam Valentine]

And it's Christmas movies do great. One, the choice to not sell it, but actually make it is a whole conversation. But two, I don't know where to even begin the process and do I need to find money? There's a lot of. There's a lot of dogs in this movie. So I know it's expensive. Do. How do I go about putting it together? And that gets so overwhelming to me that my day to day life is so full that I don't even touch that process.

[Brendan Bradley]

Cool. So I would start by saying that the first question of, do I sell it? Do I make it myself? In some ways, that question will be answered for you. Someone will either buy it from you or they will not. And you will then be forced to decide how badly do I really want to make this thing? The other thing is that anytime that I've so. Because I've sold scripts and I've made scripts, if I've sold a project, it's now out of my hands. I'm not actually making it anymore. My art, my craft, my artistry was in the writing of it. So you've already done that part. You've already made a movie, Sam.

[Sam Valentine]

Oh, wow. Thanks.

[Brendan Bradley]

You've made a wonderful Christmas movie that you're in love with. That's fantastic. And. And that can go all the way through. Think about someone wrote the script for Batgirl. They produced it, they made it as a huge Warner Brothers tentpole movie. And then at the last minute, they didn't release it in the canvas. So once you engage in that process, I think you've got to make peace with the fact that the making of it is no longer your responsibility or your journey. Not that there is an integrity in doing that. I have sold some scripts and that has been a great thing to do for those scripts. One script I have sold got made, but the other scripts that I have sold never got made. But even the script that I sold that got made, it was a very difficult process because they then made that movie in a way that I would have not made that movie. And I had to really let go of my. There are whole scenes. Some of my favorite scenes that I ever wrote are completely lifted and cut because of production demands or where they shot it or how they shot it and decisions they made in post. And as a writer, I had to accept that, like some of my best material didn't even make it to the screen. If you choose to make it though, that decision is somewhat made for you. Then when it comes to. So then how do I make it? You know, if there's a lot of dogs in it or we need these types of locations, I think one of the greatest limiting factors that I get caught up in all the time. I like to say, if you'd like someone to micromanage, I'll do it. I am the world's worst. I will take on everything person. But that isn't the craft of filmmaking. And this is my beef with AI Bros as well. Filmmaking, capital F is not the end commercial product of a film. That is not the craft of filmmaking. That's a commercial product in the marketplace of film and cinema. But that isn't filmmaking. Filmmaking is a collaborative art form. It's one of the most collaborative art forms because of all the different departments and all the different stages. Which means that making this movie, if you and your husband decide to do this, that involves finding the experts that you want to play with, the creators that you want them to bring their craft. Whenever I direct, I don't have monitor on set. First of all, I can't afford it. So there's no video village. I work with my DP beforehand and we build our visual vocabulary and I stage the scene. We've talked out every single shot, every single moment, and then I trust them. I don't know how to operate camera. I'm garbage at that. So why would I want to oversee or disrupt or second guess this person whose very craft, their very art form is the cinematography. That's. That's what they're bringing to the soup.

[Sam Valentine]

Yeah.

[Brendan Bradley]

So I've got to stand out of the way and let them bring that to the soup. So there will be a dog wrangler who is going to help you make this movie. And the beauty will be you getting to let them collaborate and let them participate, rather than you trying to figure out how do you deal with all these animals.

[Sam Valentine]

I think the thing that scares me is the space between right now and when I know who that person is because I know what on set looks like. I'm very comfortable with that one. It's my favorite, you know, and I would love to see post. I haven't done that process yet.

[Brendan Bradley]

It's terrible.

[Sam Valentine]

Oh, God.

[Brendan Bradley]

I've everything about post production.

[Sam Valentine]

I don't even know how you watch the same thing over and over. I have so such little, little energy for even listening to my own podcast back. I don't know how people do this, but the pre production process of how much money do I need, who do I need, what do I do? How much time do I take away from my day job so that I can do this is. Is so vast to me.

[Brendan Bradley]

Okay. Do you want to unpack that?

[Sam Valentine]

Yeah, yeah. This is Sam's film therapy session now. Thanks so much.

[Brendan Bradley]

No, I love it. It's. It's the. It's an easier way for me to approach all these different weird. Because my projects haven't been some sort of formula or some sort of strategy. It's the needs of each project have I've learned. I feel like every project I've done has been grad school. I've like, taken out this long chunk of time and unhealthy amount of money and made this thing with. With my friends, with my peers. I like to say that money isn't the thing. Money is the thing that buys the thing. And so very often you don't need to raise the full budget. You need to figure out the access points for the things that you would have bought with the money. Okay, so if that's equipment, if that's locations, if that's dogs, you know, what is it that you're actually trying to achieve? And then sometimes that can actually be gained without money exchanging hands. There are other things that can happen. We are in Los Angeles. We are in the Olympics of entertainment. We are surrounded by musicians and actors and dancers and directors and writers, and they all want their shot. How many composers right now want or have been, you know, not even listed on the credits because they're making temp music that is part of the editing session for a TV show that they don't get the credit on because they're working under the composer. Yada, yada, yada. You're giving them a chance to be the composer of a feature film and put that on their resume. An editor, you're giving them the shot. They're sitting there, an assistant editor, putting together dailies for producers every day. And this is their chance to show what their style is, how they cut, what they would do if they were in charge of the edit. And so I think there's a lot of ways that by finding good collaborators and good collaboration, you can actually secure even better partnerships that would stretch that dollar far than you would ever take it. Now when it comes to just the manufact of what those assets are that you need. If you use like Final Cut Pro, there's software that will just take your screenplay and kind of guesstimate what all the like, number of days, locations, characters.

[Sam Valentine]

Stuff like that interesting.

[Brendan Bradley]

And turn that into kind of like the first worst spreadsheet or like napkin, like if you were at a bar being like, we need this and a car. And so that'll do the first step of that for you. And then that I look at that as just a list of like, I'm going to cold call prop houses, you know, rental houses, location houses, and I'm just going to put down the number they give me. I'm not going to negotiate, I'm not going to fight, I'm not going to try to find the best deal. Because in some ways what you want to understand is what is the value of the movie you're making. I think producers get stuck in a trap of just trying to do the lowest number, of just trying to spend the least amount of money. But that is at the diminishment of a product, at the end of the day, it's going to cost something to make it. So you should figure out, am I making a half a million dollar movie? Am I making a $2 million movie? Am I making a $20 million movie? And then within that understanding, okay, well, obviously I don't have $20 million, so what are the things that I can give up? Or what are the things I can get creative about? Or what are the things that I can take on deferment? Or what are the things that I can do some sort of back end deal with people or some sort of product placement? There's a lot of ways that then you can figure out how you want to attach that together. So my first feature film that I ever made, I'm skipping ahead a little bit from my how I went from commercials to this. But I wrote a romantic comedy that I almost sold to Paramount. And we went back and forth for a year with rewrites. Ultimately, they decided it was not for them. They said it would never happen, it was too unrealistic. And then it happened in real life two years later.

[Sam Valentine]

Shut up.

[Brendan Bradley]

So a guy got broken up with by his girlfriend and he had a vacation package that was in both of their names. And so he went on Reddit and he said, hey, it's your lucky day if your name is Elizabeth, whatever, because I need you to redeem this trip. And if you have a Canadian passport, the trip is yours. And they went on this platonic trip Together. And of course, the media frenzy around it was adorable. But he is extremely introverted, and he didn't want all the media attention and he didn't want to sell his life rights and he didn't want to sensationalize the story, so he refused to do a movie about it. But I had already written the script and copywritten the idea before it happened, so I had the rights to make it. So then there was this renewed interest in what are you doing with that script? I couldn't get the money that I wanted, but I had just done a movie, a Bruce Willis movie, that the funding wasn't really all there, and it fell apart at the last minute. We all got sent home and it was devastating.

[Sam Valentine]

You were acting in it?

[Brendan Bradley]

Yes, I was acting in this movie. And the financing fell through, checks started bouncing. They sent us all home. And I was devastated because I thought it was going to be my break. But they started cutting the dailies up into little sizzle reels to shop around and find financing. And I got very excited and mad about this because I was like, oh, I can make part of a movie. I didn't realize you didn't have to make the whole thing. I got together with my friends and we shot act one of this movie. Then any scenes that overlapped throughout the film with those locations, and we basically made a short. And then it was a travel movie. So we needed to be on planes and in hotels and have like a yacht and, like, extraordinary stuff. So what I did was I threw this sizzle reel together and I cold called tourism boards all over the world, and I said, we can take off in a plane and we can go anywhere. And I can rewrite Act 2 to be in your country and show off your landmarks and show off your travel brands. Tell me what we're doing. And I contacted about 15 different countries or tourism boards. Four of them were interested, two of them gave me permits, and one of them had a national airline. And so we went to Turkey and we made a movie. Wow. And I didn't pay a dollar. Seven friends and I went across the Mediterranean, filming across three continents, and I never saw an invoice. I came home with a movie. They got product placement, they got social media content. Everybody was happy.

[Sam Valentine]

I'm sorry, excuse me. Like what? That's crazy, because all I feel like I hear about is, is how much this process cost. There's an unspoken factor here, which is your time of creating something without an instant feedback. Were you able to. To do this while still paying your rent back in LA so I had.

[Brendan Bradley]

Produced a little micro like web series and the spec commercials and shorts and plays and stuff like that throughout all my 20s. I won the lottery. As I entered my 30s. I booked a Staples campaign. I became the Staples guy. I was like their flow for three years. They got me on a deal because I had an agent that will remain nameless that I had to eventually sue later. It was very complicated. They did not do a very good job for me. But for me, for theater boy baby Brendan ACTOR this was life changing because it's the first time I could quit my day jobs. I no longer needed to have three little side hustles, part time jobs, you know, stitching together the catering and the waiting job and the website design and all these little things to make my rent. I had had a running list like, like a vision board of if I ever won the lottery, this is what I would do. And I like to say I won the lottery. I did not win the lottery in the way that we think about the mega millions, but I won it in the way that I could leave my day job, I could pay my bills, I could buy them. I called them the nice groceries. I could get the nice groceries.

[Sam Valentine]

Yeah.

[Brendan Bradley]

And I was able to focus entirely on what I wanted to creatively make, what I wanted to creatively do. And so that's why I was able to do that full transparency. I did have that in my back pocket and that's what allowed me to film the, the sizzle reel that got us the meetings that was able to then get the rest of the budget.

[Sam Valentine]

I love that process of utilizing your actor income to create the project lifestyle. There's a world in which people would take that money and they would buy a condo or buy a good, get a lease or something like that and get your bag, everybody like whatever you do with your ulcerative colitis pharmaceutical commercial, that's on you. Enjoy it, take it. But take to have something, a plan first of all, which is I'm such a big advocate for of like if you make big bucks, figure out what you might do with it. Because it is very overwhelming when it does happen and it goes very quickly if you're not paying attention.

[Brendan Bradley]

Yes. And, but also I think the greatest gift is I cannot be more of an advocate for giving yourself different bank accounts. Because what I was able to do was I had never had a savings account before this happened and I was able to immediately go, you have to save. You've never not known where the next check was coming from. You've never not been month to month. You're going to open a savings account and you're going to know that you've got that three to six months that everybody always talks about. Do that then choosing an amount of money that is an integer that you're going to invest in your creative project, and when it's done, it's done. You have spent the money. You can't dip into more and put yourself in an irresponsible way. But then you get to choose how to most strategically spend that money. And I remember my partner, when I first got the Staples job, I was telling her about this animated short film of this children's story that I'd always wanted to make because it's my favorite children's story growing up. And she was, like, so uncomfortable when I first told her I was going to take five grand and make an animated short. And she was like, I don't. I don't know why, like, what. What if you never get that money back? And I was like, I'm not going to get the money back. It's. It's a piece of art that I want to make. I've always wanted to make this story. And then within 48 hours, she came back to me and she said, I don't know why I said that to you. If you had said you were going to go buy a car, I wouldn't have blinked an eye. But for some reason, my own scarcity of investing in my own art got in my way of understanding that you want to take advantage of this moment. And I'm. I so support what you're doing, and I'm so excited for what you're doing. But we're all so geared to be like, no, no, don't invest in the very thing you love. Which is so strange that we're wired that way.

[Sam Valentine]

There's something about the term too, of investment that it almost comes with acquired expectation of, oh, that means if I invest in something, it means I should monetarily achieve back. But if we've learned anything in art, that is not how it happens.

[Brendan Bradley]

Well, not just in art. I think this is, honestly, this is the problem with capitalism right now, globally, in our society, is they like to say capitalism is the worst system, except for all the other ones. The thing that's happening right now is that shareholders, for some reason have been convinced that their investment should always go up and up and up and up and up and up and up. But that isn't actually what investment means. Investment is speculative. It is a risk. There's an ebb and flow. The stock market should go up and down. It's a pendulum. And there's an old adage about a Sony executive who is showing a slate of films to investors and describing the 10 films that they're going to take out and saying, now one of these is going to be highly successful, the rest will not. But that one is going to cover all of the investment of the other films. And one of the investors raises their hand and they say, I'm sorry, so why don't we just do the one? And the executive says, great, which one is it? That's the point. We're all investing and that's the point of. I feel like it. At a macro level, you went back to like your greatest investment is time. You could never afford to pay yourself what you have put into your own acting career. Whoever is listening to this right now, what you have invested into your acting career, if your day job had to pay you for those hours, you wouldn't be here. You would have quit a long time ago. Because it's a non monetary compensation. There's something else you're getting for that investment. It's not always monetary.

[Sam Valentine]

I mean, I know there's people who are listening to this right now who are like, I've never been more poor. I'm not ready to do this. In which case I say, great, like bank your ideas. You can. Writing is free. You don't need final cut, you don't need all those things. Like making and playing with your friends, for lack of better terms, is also free. It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be a feature film. It doesn't have to be something that anybody even sees. But there's something about that energy that builds. What were you going to say to that?

[Brendan Bradley]

Well, first, Pixar is notorious for saying writing is the cheapest part of the process. So they spend the most amount of time in development before they ever commit to 3D animation. And they are known for transforming 3D animation. But really what they transformed was the workflow to get to animation. What we're really getting around here is the essence of, I didn't wait until the Staples job to start making things, and I made a lot of things. The way the Duplass brothers talk about where they take like a hundred dollars in a weekend and make a very bad thing, and then they take 500 hours in another weekend and make another very bad thing. And slowly over time it gets a little bit less bad and you start proving the ability to access more Capital and more resources. But again, money isn't the thing. Money is the thing that buys the thing. And you might be able to trade the thing. And if you don't consider yourself a writer, I think we shame actors about this, and I don't like it. We go, you should just write your own thing. You should just make your own thing. Not everybody's a writer. Not everybody's a director. Not everybody's a dp. So. But there are in your community, in your backyard, there are writers, there are directors, there are cinematographers, there are editors who are equally hungry and who equally haven't gotten their fair shot. They've been equally disadvantaged and equally undermined. And they are waiting for their moment. And you could all give each other that moment. But I think that every time one of your friends says, hey, I wrote this thing, I want to hear it out loud, or, hey, I'm about to do stand up, or, hey, my film is in a short film festival that's in Burbank. Go. Just show up and help. The amount of people that I've held a boom for or that I've let borrow equipment or that I've just gone to their screenings and helped vote for the audience award, or even just watched an early cut of something or read an early draft of something. Being in that community with each other means it just takes one person to say, I need help, and the community descends and helps. And then someone else says, I need help, and the community descends. And then it's your turn to go, I need help, and the people are there for you. But there will ultimately need to be somebody who is leading that charge, because they are the ones who have a vision in that moment or have a need in that moment that then that community can serve. And over time, you're gonna understand who are the helpers who keep showing up. If we've learned anything in this moment, $200 million movies, big superhero action, Marvel stuff that we've seen a million times. The audience is tired. They want relationship, they want connection, they want quirk, they want something new. They want dogs, thousands of dolls, Ra.