THE PRODUCER BEHIND THE SMASH HITS PINKS AND GRUDGE RACE! | Stephen Pullin!

Jeff Sterns  0:00  
Let's be honest, the girls fallen all over email. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  0:02  
it was, it was a thing of being a track star. You know, I was like, he was hard. You know, I didn't know what to do with women. It was a really big success at the time, you know, we were on for like six or seven years, Primetime every Thursday nights and then repeats. And we then was so big that we wish everybody wanted more. So we created live events that was the pixel of our events. And we packed grandstands around the country everywhere we went was like, broke the records in every possible drag racing facility in the United States. I got them to sign over the bill of sale of their car, on the hood in front of cameras, that they had to sign off their cars to me the producer. So pulling media, on the cars in suspension while they raced, and you heard 23andme And you can elect to share your DNA with that entire group. And she has 51.9% of my DNA. So she's my daughter. What is this? Your algorithm must be wrong. My mother just died a year and a half ago. So I don't know anything about my mom's previous life. I'm 34. Her mother's name is in the diary. I show up and here I am. I'm available. Dad. I ran 100 100 yards in 9.4 seconds. We have a high school which I flunked.

Jeff Sterns  1:34  
Well, I thought you were gonna say because you finally made it to the Jeff Sterns pod

Unknown Speaker  1:39  
that to

Unknown Speaker  1:43  
Jeff Sterns connected through cause if they're big wigs, we'll have him on the show. And yes, we'll talk about cars and everything else. Here he is now, Jeff Sterns.

Jeff Sterns  1:59  
Where's your accent? You're recruited from Australia for track.

Unknown Speaker  2:03  
Born and raised in the outback of Australia?

Jeff Sterns  2:07  
Did you go to like finishing school or speech lessons? Or I mean, we're, where is it

Unknown Speaker  2:12  
been living here since 1969. So, and a lot of it. In Texas, actually, I graduated from University of Texas, and film school and stuck around and just like that, you know, I took my Australian accent and kind of twisted it around a bit, you know?

Jeff Sterns  2:31  
Okay, there. Okay. And when do you still talk to family back home

Unknown Speaker  2:35  
all the time? Yeah. Now it's really easy to do you know, on things like this. We do.

Jeff Sterns  2:42  
And as the accent come out when you're talking to them, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  2:45  
Yeah, I just switched channels.

Jeff Sterns  2:49  
Oh, that's great. That's great. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, I know Australia isn't exactly New Zealand. But for someone like me, I can't pick the dialect or accent apart. And I have a dear friend that we just lost he he just died named Gavin riches who was a Porsche 911 rally driver in New Zealand. He lived in Fort Myers, Florida, but every year went back to race. And I just got I love when he would call me I would just put it on speaker and sit back and listen to him talk I did he get his read me the Yellow Pages. I would love it.

Unknown Speaker  3:23  
Well, my accents, not what it used to be I kind of have blended in now. It helps, because people don't stop me and ask you all about Australia anymore. You know, they just say where are you from? Again?

Jeff Sterns  3:36  
I'd rather talk did you have that accent? So I mean, I don't want to get into I don't have to have you disclose your age. But you moved here when you're 69 I'm gonna assume pretty young if not a baby or a kid. So did you even ever really have an accent? Because you really grew up here?

Unknown Speaker  3:53  
No, I really had an accent when I started out in Australia when I was, you know, born born and bred down there. You know, in the in the outside of Melbourne, which was like, living in the country down there. You know, kangaroos guy.

Jeff Sterns  4:06  
Well, I just was trying to do the math and how good you look. And I'm thinking he couldn't have been that old and 69. So I'm assuming then meeting like when were you a teenager when you came? Or did you spend your teen years here? That's a better question.

Unknown Speaker  4:21  
I came when I was 20.

Jeff Sterns  4:25  
Okay, well, you look frickin unbelievable. Let's just say that.

Unknown Speaker  4:29  
Thanks.

Jeff Sterns  4:31  
And bye. I'm assuming at that age coming here with that accent. Let's be honest, the girls fallen all over, you

Unknown Speaker  4:37  
know? Yeah, it was. It was a thing of being a track star. You know, I was like, it was hard. You know, I didn't know what to do with women. You know, it's like, we're everywhere.

Jeff Sterns  4:50  
Every time you didn't know what to do, because you didn't know what to do with the access. Jeff Sterns connected through cars with my good friend introduced by another good friend, Steven Polen, whose most famous for pinks, lose the race and lose your ride and other Pink's franchises. I can't believe how excited I am to have you on here. I told you, when we were talking a little bit before we started recording here, that I told a couple of buddies in a business meeting that I was going to be doing a show with you. And I mean, it was, well, I It wasn't almost like, Can I get an autograph, but I'm gonna have to get your autograph for a couple people

Unknown Speaker  5:28  
flat to send one over.

Jeff Sterns  5:30  
Thank you for that. So thank you very, very much for joining us. My pleasure. Great to be here. So your most famous this paint and I'm going to look at the notes. So lose the race, lose your ride, Pink's all out all outtakes? And there was a total of 129 episodes? And is Is this what you're most famous for? Or? Well, it was the biggest

Unknown Speaker  5:52  
Yeah, it was a really big success at the time, you know, we were on for like six or seven years, Primetime every Thursday nights and then repeats. And we then was so big that we wish everybody wanted more. So we created live events, that was the pixel of our events. And we packed grandstands around the country, everywhere we went was like, broke the records in every possible drag racing facility in the United States, been down to Florida several times, and broke the records there, it was a great time was a good rush, you know, and fund a fund to be doing that, for so long, you know, you get used to build a whole crew of people about 60 people, and we traveled around the country and, you know, made some money, it was good, and made a lot of a lot of people good in their careers too. They, I got people who have elevated themselves up to producers and directors out of the ranks of the crew. So it was just a wonderful time. And that was, you know, you catch on to something like that. And it just takes off like a rocket and you you sort of go with go with the flow. And what happened was, the network ended, we could have kept going for years, actually, you know, because we have such a brand, but the network, you know, Fox had speed channel, and they weren't making hundreds of millions, you know, they're making 10s of millions. And so that wasn't enough for them. And streaming was about to take place and break up of cable with about to take place. And they just said, you know, we love you your your TV show is making us, you know, I kept that network alive, they say, I mean, I wasn't privy to all of their accounting, but I know we did well, and they actually grossed two fucks, about $100 million over the course of that series. So they did

Jeff Sterns  7:53  
drill, whether you are the one keeping them alive or not, it didn't hurt.

Unknown Speaker  7:58  
So they did well with it. And I did well, career wise, you know, as here we are, you know, you've heard about me, so

Jeff Sterns  8:08  
Well, I thought you were gonna say because you finally made it to the Jeff Sterns pod that to the pinnacle. So I'm curious, because so speed channel ceased

Unknown Speaker  8:18  
to be they switched it off.

Jeff Sterns  8:22  
And pinks was a definite well known franchise. I mean, here it is, how long has it been 10 years? Yeah. And it's still like, you could have told me three, four years ago, and I would have believed it didn't feel like it's that far gone. I'm surprised someone else didn't pick you up, or was that a good segue for you to end it? What was?

Unknown Speaker  8:43  
Well, you know, the way it works is that other networks like Discovery Channel, decided that that's actually a good idea. Why don't we do that, you know, and they came up with this thing called St. Outlaws, which was a different twist, Oklahoma, very familiar. And they flew with that, and they didn't need me to produce that for them. They have lots of producers, and a lot of other networks do too. So. And I was kind of glad I wanted to change. I want to do some different things anyway, you know, I'm a producer first car guy second, but producers, you know, and I wanted to do some more. And so graduates came up. A lot of people who wanted me to do something else. I couldn't do physics because I did not own the underlying copyright to pics Fox, okay. You can't trail on their thing. In fact, I was just amazed that they didn't read run all of those episodes. They never did. And they had I had all of those episodes in my garage and they never asked before. So just completely died, which, you know, the audience I had people campaigning to keep it on the air and that it didn't do any good stuff. That's big network. You know, big corporations need hundreds of millions, they don't need to be millions.

Jeff Sterns  10:04  
And I just heard your accent Steve and it just died. It died. I heard you're not fully polished out

Unknown Speaker  10:12  
Polish though, in every way from one colony

Jeff Sterns  10:15  
to another colony, you just can't stay off the column. Right. So it's interesting. You're right. So when you were doing the show Pink's, and didn't get picked up by another network, or the I think discovery, right? Hang on. Did Street Outlaws, right? Yeah. And Street Outlaws? Are the fellows in Oklahoma, if I'm not mistaken. Are you familiar? Or do you try to block it out?

Unknown Speaker  10:40  
No, that's it. I know. Okay.

Jeff Sterns  10:43  
I like the show. Not as much as yours. Let's be honest. I think it could use a little better production. Yeah. So you could just tell it's an amateur. But really, I mean, unless you patent it or copy written which How could you the concept of street racing? They did something called r&d. on you, which is rip and distribute, distribute, they did. They took your idea. And it makes sense and this stuff works. Now. Was there an inspiration be honest here? Was there an inspirational show that you got the idea from on pinks,

Unknown Speaker  11:19  
well Coronavirus? I mean grudge race is a drag racing show. And it's two guys come to a track and they have a grudge between each other. And they raced the best two out of three. And the loser, he gets his car all beat up and has things taken out of the car and parts removed and things like that. So we took a lot of the similar things about Pink's except lose the race lose your car, you know? So that went

Jeff Sterns  11:49  
okay, right. But gradual race was subsequent to pink, it was after pink. Yes. Right. Did you were you inspired by any show to come up with

Unknown Speaker  11:59  
pinks? No, you know, that's a good question. Um, thanks was like one of about 20 ideas of shows that we had at the time. And I had a friend of mine, working with me in an agency, and he was doing the same thing coming up with ideas. And it was a one line idea, you know, race for pink slips, you know, which is, which is the title to your car. Right? Right, we'll call it. Tanks, lose the race lose your right. You know, that was it. That was the one that stuck. And so the story on that is that the network's thought I would never be able to produce a show like that. That wasn't possible to make a TV show. Because I couldn't get people to actually lose their cars and to be on network, you had to have that app you have. So how are you going to do this? You know, I said, Well, I know how to do that. I couldn't figure that out. And so just give me some money. And I'll go away and show you. So they gave me $100,000. Here's $100,000 Go away and make four episodes. And we'll believe you if you can do it. And that was

Jeff Sterns  13:14  
that. What was that a reasonable budget,

Unknown Speaker  13:18  
then? Oh, that's, that's okay. Okay.

Jeff Sterns  13:22  
Okay. 25

Unknown Speaker  13:24  
showed up, you know, I finished the shows. And but it was good that they said that, you know, and they would write a little letter and say, if you if we like it, we'll keep going with it. But we have to know that you can do it. And so the the trick that I did is that I got them to sign over the bill of sale of their car, on the hood in front of cameras, that they had to sign off their cars to me the producer. So pulling media, on the cars in suspension while they raced. And then after, you know, I had two of those to the winner. And they draw took the guy's car that way.

Jeff Sterns  14:07  
Okay, so let's talk about the realities of somebody losing their car in a race because racing for pinks is a big posturing thing, but very few people show up to do it to do that. It's like bumping chests in the schoolyard is a lot different than just getting punched, right. So how many people that showed up to do it really did it or didn't do it? I don't know what the minority is. And what there had to be some emotional fallout after over someone saying I didn't mean it. Or there's got to be something behind that. Or what would motivate someone to do it. What do you what did you discover was the motivation that someone actually would show up to sign the titles over to your production company and suspension for you to hand book titles to the winner?

Unknown Speaker  14:55  
Yeah, they want they want to be on TV. I mean that I said, being on TV or being famous, almost famous was a bigger thing than having a car. And then many guys on shops, so we would source all these episodes out of shops, you know, go into a town, and you find an automotive shop where a bunch of guys are working on cars. And those guys can put together a car, you know, it kind of works, and go fast, and race that. And I say, okay, you know, if you want to give that up, you could assign it over to me, that's all you know. And we got a lot of a lot of them that way, we've got a lot of good cars, too, that we've signed over, but it was legit had to be legit, I had to show the network that the documents were there. So that's, that's the way it happened, then it just got bigger and bigger. But then we got tired of tracking those things down, frankly, you know, we did about 60 episodes or something of 50 that way, and then we convert it over to take it all out, which is kind of like, takes on steroids. So you didn't have to lose your car and takes all out, you just have to show up and win a slot in the final or final round. So we had hundreds of cars show up in the morning, at those events, like 100 200 500 cars would show up at the in the morning at those events, we would show up and fill the grandstands. And we select them, according to that they would just do runs to time themselves out gives you best rap best time. So it'd be 10, five cars, 1010, nine cars, you know, 12 second cars, and we put them into groups. And we pick a group randomly, we would pick a group and say, okay, the nine five cars if you had that many are the ones who are going to race for the winning trophy in this event today. And people love that. You know that it really can.

Jeff Sterns  16:53  
And none of this resulted in anyone losing their car, their car at all, it was just an elimination champion. Okay, I'm gonna try to back you up a little bit. Is there any story, Steven, that you could share with us? About the original pinks? lose the race lose your ride where emotions flared? Because they were losing their car? Like they showed up? I'm all in on that. Or was everyone a big boy about it every time?

Unknown Speaker  17:21  
No, there was a lot of people who flinched. You know, and they didn't want to be called out on live television, you know, and so you really put it to them. They like they didn't want to see this happen, because they put so much love into these cars. And it was their baby. And then here you are, you know, you're the other guy drove it away. And it was that was but that's the show, you know, it's like, it's the show, right there.

Jeff Sterns  17:49  
Were there any physical altercations or anything where you had to get security involved in pulling guys? I

Unknown Speaker  17:55  
don't think so. But it was. I mean, they would talk about cheating, and you were jumping the gun, you were doing this. And I said, we have to prove it out. And that'd be part of the show to you know, having to prove those things out to make it as legit as possible. But without all kinds of stuff happened on people had a flat tire, I had to change the tire. Alright, well give them you know, we had a system where we would give the car lengths. And so you you sort of negotiate, you know, car lengths, you know, my hands up. So the Bacca Bacca a bit back to length, or back three legs or whatever it was. I mean, if it gets to be eight legs, it's too much, you know, and a quarter mile. So we have to calibrate that a lot to get to get to play out. But that's just producing, you know, figure out, you got everybody there and you got your your yours cast is there, and people are waiting, you're gonna figure out something

Jeff Sterns  18:53  
very interesting. I see that, looking at my notes that you're currently developing formats in the area of DNA. That's right. And also space exploration. But can we talk about the DNA piece a little? Sure.

Unknown Speaker  19:05  
Well, something really wonderful happened to me a couple of years ago. You've heard of 23andme, which is genealogy genealogy. My wife gave me a subscription to 23andme and you get your saliva and you spit into it to you send it off in the mail. And then they sequenced your DNA, and they match that up against 20 million other people they have in the database, right? And I didn't you know, I got it for Christmas present, and I didn't expect anything out of it. And then you can inside that application, you can when they give you your your DNA, you become part of the entire 20 million universe that they have, and others have given more. And you can elect to share your DNA with that entire We're 20 million people. So you can push a button and slide it over. And now you're into into the entire database.

Jeff Sterns  20:09  
Now, does this mean that they're allowed to know about you and vice versa? Or what does that mean? Be in the database?

Unknown Speaker  20:16  
Well, yeah, you give them a lot of details about your personal who you are. But I mean,

Jeff Sterns  20:21  
does that mean that another 23andme subscriber or member can now know that they're related to Stephen Poland? Here's his email and phone number.

Unknown Speaker  20:30  
No, not email and phone number. Yeah, but that, yeah, that that's the idea of this. When you elect and you agree that you've shared, you know, this under some requirements, you share your DNA in this database, and up pops all of your suspected relatives. Okay. So I have a currently about 1800 relatives, people who have my DNA, and they're all over the world. Now, at the top of the list, most DNA is one girl, her name is dove. And she has thickets 51.9% of my DNA. So she's my daughter.

Jeff Sterns  21:12  
Actually, I don't I wouldn't know the percentage of DNA that makes

Unknown Speaker  21:16  
Yeah, that makes her my daughter.

Jeff Sterns  21:20  
Okay, so tricky. thing. I want more story. Well told here. Yeah. Pick yourself up from the floor. You go.

Unknown Speaker  21:25  
What? Is you kidding me? I said, I don't have a daughter, you know? Yes, you do. And I checked, I called 23. Being I said, What is this? Your algorithm must be wrong. Something went wrong with this whole thing? It's another guy. No, she's definitely your daughter. And so we began began communicating inside a text app, just like you have on your computer here, right? texting back and forth. And you know, asking each other questions, hey, they say that we're, you know, father and daughter here. And so I've had this happen. Do you believe it? She said, No, you know, I had a daddy died two years ago, and my mother just died a year and a half ago. So I don't know anything about my mom's previous life. And I'm 34 is 34 years ago. So

Jeff Sterns  22:20  
long story short, your mother at a Rolling Stones concert? I

Unknown Speaker  22:23  
go ahead. Yeah, well, so go back to the 80s. So wherever Steve in the 80s. Steve was in Dallas, Texas, her mom was in Dallas, Texas at the same time. And I go, Well, let's narrows it down a little bit. So I get Okay, well, I better do some more research on this. So in my garage, I have every a diary. I have a diary like this. I'm holding up here. This is my diary for 2021. Right. And every day I write a note in the diary about what happened, what happens to me, right? So I have every dime, every diary for like 30 years or something like that. So I went in the garage when we can route around and found 1984 1985 Diaries. And sure enough, her mother's name is in the diary. Oh, my God. And I go, well, well, okay,

Jeff Sterns  23:19  
good chance now.

Unknown Speaker  23:22  
Now, we should get into this a bit, you know, so it's turned out that yeah, she. We had an affair and it went on for about three or four months. And the result is this beautiful girl named dove and got two grandsons. So now I have two grandsons, and my my son who's 29. He's got a sister. And surreal. And have you met? We met she she lived in Long Beach. Oh, perfect for years. And so we it was easy for us to hook up and spend a lot of time together and sugar a great little family. But they just moved to Texas, because they want to buy a house buy houses for nothing over there. And then they moved to Texas and raising their family up north of Austin country. So it's been an interesting, interesting situation.

Jeff Sterns  24:20  
Um, so as far as you developing formats in that area, this is this come out of your 23andme experience, which is amazing, by the way, like amazing. Yeah. How's your wife by the way? How is your wife? With you having a daughter? Yeah. Oh,

Unknown Speaker  24:39  
you know, we've been married about 10 years and so it's like a straight arrow anyway, so she could appreciate it. You know, tracks are from Australia. Loose in those days, the 80s you know, kind of get away with it. I mean, it's she doesn't really care. Yeah, I mean, she, she's fine. They've met and they're great friends now. Yeah. So that's the way it is. It's like this, this these things happen. People have

Jeff Sterns  25:10  
an amazing, amazing story. That's honestly and I'm, like, sincerely for you, personally very happy for you very happy for dove, especially losing her parents that she knew. Yeah. Oh, it's good to be able to have you show up like that

Unknown Speaker  25:24  
I show up. And here I am. I'm available, dad. So I'm not going to tell you the name of the of the series, I've got develop. And I've made a sizzle for this already. And it'll blow your socks off. I mean, it's, I've got it with my Hollywood agent right now. And he's, he's so excited about it. They, they gonna shop it around for me. And I think it's, I mean, I get moved every time I see that sizzle, because I did it about okay, about our first meeting when we first met up, as it'll just blow you away. So I figured I can do that 100 times.

Jeff Sterns  26:05  
Got it? What can you talk about related to the space exploration project that you're working? Well, that

Unknown Speaker  26:11  
one is, I'm excited about that. I've done a lot of research on space. I'm a big fan of Elon Musk and what he's doing. And the idea is go to corporations shouldn't even say this too far out loud, because other people will shine beat me to it.

Jeff Sterns  26:27  
But well, don't. I mean, don't you know, you don't want

Unknown Speaker  26:30  
this thing? I mean, there is there are now hundreds of companies in the space economy, lots of companies. It's not just Elon Musk, he's just building the rockets that go up mostly capsules, but the satellite companies are doing earth sciences. And on the space station, what do you think all those experiments are on the space station, they're all individual companies advice, a slot to get, you know, to grow rare, stashed, or to find a different way of making cotton or something like that, you know, they're doing those kinds of experiments, and hundreds and hundreds of companies that have come alive. I want to make a video about every one of them and make them short, so they're easy to watch. You can make a series of like 20 things, and there are only six minutes about the company and what they're doing. Its face snackable snackable CS Yes. So I'm working by

Jeff Sterns  27:29  
the way, I heard that term. I didn't coined that term. Someone use it. Yes, I

Unknown Speaker  27:33  
steal it. I stole it. Why not? Okay.

Jeff Sterns  27:37  
I actually heard that from Tim Sabian. Who was Howard Stern's VP of content for like, 30 some odd years. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  27:45  
snackable. Yeah, washed away. I mean, if the human mind today is limited to what they can handle is so much content. You know, to watch something from six minutes, a story that begins and ends in six minutes is a big deal. Because you can get them to go for 20 minutes. That's unbelievable. You know, get

Jeff Sterns  28:03  
right.

Unknown Speaker  28:04  
It's it's an hour, it's a whole movie. You know?

Jeff Sterns  28:07  
That's, that's exactly right now, looking at your website, and can I share pulling media in the shownotes? Is it okay to share this? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  28:16  
sure. That's why it's public. Okay.

Jeff Sterns  28:20  
Well, I just didn't know is just for those big shot Hollywood types like us

Unknown Speaker  28:23  
for everybody. It's

Jeff Sterns  28:27  
so folks, we'll put on the site, pulling media.com But I love the headliner at the, at the top of the word before the fold of the page, great stories. Well told. That's it. So unbelievable background now I'm curious. I'll see if I can get a scoop here. What do you wish people knew about you?

Unknown Speaker  28:48  
Well, I worked so hard to be a producer, and a director. And that's my craft. I mean, it's, you get these projects that take off and people say oh, that's what you do. But you can put me on any project. I don't care really what it is. I'm not really attached to anything. And I've worked on a lot of other people's projects. But my what I'm most proud of is being on time and under budget all the time and doing it

Jeff Sterns  29:22  
on time and under budget Yeah. All the time. Right well that makes you rare in only two categories

Unknown Speaker  29:31  
yeah, like I was ready for you you know today I was ready half an hour beforehand

Jeff Sterns  29:37  
to push then who was not on time well you're never producer your talent but you got to deal with me You're excused

Unknown Speaker  29:45  
you know in the media. That's no excuse you got to have if you're a producer you got to be you'd be out the door in a flash if you're not on time and under budget. Wow.

Jeff Sterns  29:54  
No, no and all respect. You deserve the respect forget about the title. That's not like me at all. And I really do apologize. I

Unknown Speaker  30:03  
know, I know, I know, I know that you've done great stuff. I've already checked you out, too. It's wonderful. What you've done. Oh, thank you another way. You know,

Jeff Sterns  30:12  
so what's something that we would be shocked to know about you?

Unknown Speaker  30:19  
I'm blown away. And you

Jeff Sterns  30:21  
can't have ever told anyone else. And folks, there was no setup on these questions beforehand. Am I right, Steven,

Unknown Speaker  30:27  
you're right. shocked to know about me, I don't know. I ran 100 100 yards in 9.4 seconds.

Jeff Sterns  30:39  
That's shocking. But it'd be even more shocking. If you said you did it in the last month. I can barely work this. Okay, so your track star background, I mean, here we are with your 9.4 Second time, which is amazing. I, there's no time in my life that I could have done that. So what leads you from athletic, centric life. To art, like, you're obviously so proficient in know, well,

Unknown Speaker  31:13  
somebody coming out of high school, which I flunked in Australia, by,

Jeff Sterns  31:19  
let's go, you are a stone athlete.

Unknown Speaker  31:22  
I wish I had to do the final year of high school twice. So I'm not real smart. I'm self taught about everything. And even college, I flew through college on a scholarship. And so you get a lot of breaks as an athlete, they want you to run more than they want you to do the book. So that's changed now. And all I could do coming out of Australia, two really good things that I could do really, really well. And one of them was draw, and the other one was run fast. That's all I could really do that my claim to fame was that I was really good artist. And I was a really fast runner. That was all I had. And so I started with that. And but unlike television, you know, I grew up watching American television, we didn't have a straight A television so much it was American television. And I loved it. Couldn't get enough of it. Watch that every day, as many shows as I could digest. And I just always said to myself, I want to be doing that. I get some way. I want to be a television producer in America and make TV shows. That's what I always said,

Jeff Sterns  32:34  
Do you have any aspirations to act? Or was it No? Or did it were you drawn?

Unknown Speaker  32:39  
I can't act to save myself, you know.

Jeff Sterns  32:44  
But I should got it. Okay. But I because I don't know. Like if I would have eaten, like, you know, I would see at the end of the show executive producer, this director that key grip, whatever. I never knew what any of the roles were. Well, a

Unknown Speaker  32:59  
lot of actors get put their names on things. And they say they're executive producers, but they don't actually produce anything, you know, they show up and their name gets, you know, a few million dollars from a network or whatever, you know, that's the money, what is

Jeff Sterns  33:17  
a producer? What is what is a producer producer tell us for those of us that see that title on the screen and doesn't know exactly what he what he or she does.

Unknown Speaker  33:27  
Alright, so you have an idea, someone you can adapt from a book, or you can look at something like DNA. But if you look at the space world where you can look at, you know, what we're talking about here, racing or cars, and a producer, a good producer, creative producer will take a look at that. And they'll say, what's the story in that? There's got to be some story, some, something that's going to get eyeballs. And I say the thing that I wrote up, that you kind of find something of visceral feeling about stuff. I mean, is there something but you get people in their gut when they see it? You know, just connect on a different level. And you can do that with home video cameras and connect. Right. Where do you see the sizzle reel I have for my DNA show?

Jeff Sterns  34:24  
I can't wait. So But how about into the nuts and bolts? I mean, is it when you say executive producer? Is it something to do with the choosing of the team and budget and yeah, low key I mean,

Unknown Speaker  34:38  
yeah, what do you do hire me or does a producer do? The CEO of that production? You hire everybody. Everybody works as a producer, Executive Producer, if you're executive producer, you can also hire the producer and he's gonna run around and hire the cameras camera crew and hire the assistants and The directors and all the other people. So editors get to find the right editor for every show all that kind of stuff, not just anybody, it's got to be people have specialties, and they've had experience in different areas. And you'd have to look and find those guys and what their experience levels and you find them and you put them in into slots, that's a producer, and you build out a team that will work together really, really well. Because everybody by that time, knows what to do. They know, they look at the guy across the desk that they've been hired, that never met each other before. But they've seen his resume, and they know, okay, I know that he can do it. So I'm gonna trust him. It's all about trust in this business, it's you've got to trust, you know, the, the network was trusting me to deliver what I say I can deliver. And, in fact, I just went through this with my agent, you know, pitching this, this project about DNA. And my tendency is to make a deck, which is long, 1620 pages and explain everything. And it's this is going to be this, it's going to be that and saw this thing happening, this is connected over here, and all that, you know, and you get to the end of that, and you're either really unsure and thrilled, or you're exhausted. And he says, fuck that, get rid of all that stuff. You know, you've got one thing, he said, when I saw your sizzle reel, that blew me away. You don't need anything else, because you're a journeyman experienced seasoned producers got hundreds of credits, but well, many years, and you've made a lot of money for a lot of people. That's all you need to say. Then I don't need anything else. You know, it's like, you don't explain yourself. And I was just gonna do that too much, I guess a little insecurity, I want to tell my whole story to everybody. But you don't have to do that.

Jeff Sterns  36:59  
No. And that's the beautiful thing about being sage in season. Sometimes we wonder as we age are we as relevant as when we were young. But really what you bring to the table is your hundreds of credits and your reputation and the ROI that you've provided on it, you know what you're looking at, and you know what you're talking about, and you made a phenomenal sizzle, which I can't wait to see.

Unknown Speaker  37:22  
Yeah, I mean, if I say I can do something, and I'm excited about it, you better believe I'll get it done. I'll figure it out. It's like an execute key to this as well as figuring it out. I always say those, those three words, because nobody knows what it is in a creative project. It's like, it's not just, Oh, we're gonna take some cameras and crew out and shoot a bunch of stuff. You know? Now, it's not that at all, it's like, where's the heartbeat of this thing was that visceral feeling, you know, when I see it, it's going to hit me in the gut and make me you know, want to go to the bathroom or something, you know, that's what it is. It's like, you've got to be have the experience to know, that's where the story is. It's that, you know, and that will make the thing go, and people will tap into that. And that's what I'm good at. That's what I've learned how to do

Jeff Sterns  38:13  
another question, and only if you're comfortable answering and you may not even have the answer. But you're closer to show business than I am. The recent news with Alec Baldwin and the tragedy. Do you have any professional opinion? I mean, like, my opinion without being in show business at all, is that he can't be at all at fault. How could he know it's a prop props are used all day long. There's experts that are hired. He's handled it. That's my opinion. But it's God. There's a lot of controversy out there right now.

Unknown Speaker  38:54  
Well, it's a no brainer for me. That assistant director had no business being on that set. And he'd already been fired from another production for similar things as an assistant. And if he said that it was unloaded and didn't have real bullets at it. You know, I mean, that's, it's his, it's on him. He did that. And they're shooting a scene where the where the camera is looking down the barrel from for distance of that gun. And the star, the mean, the camera girl, the cinematographer was running the camera. So he just pulled that trigger, and the bullet probably went right through her camera and hit her. Okay, and so, that's on him. This should never be on a movie set that should never, ever be live ammo on a movie set. For a lot of reasons. That's just the biggest reason that'll change the business a lot. Insurance on its own is going to cost that production company a huge amount of money. And that'll shut everybody up and start looking harder at the credentials of the people they hire. That's what I feel. Like, I need to see that one guy made that mistake once he's gone. He's never been on my shoot of any description.

Jeff Sterns  40:24  
Right? And there's, I'm assuming there's plenty out there that yeah, you can trust dime

Unknown Speaker  40:29  
a dozen.

Jeff Sterns  40:30  
Okay. So back to pinks. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm so okay. You didn't you thought you were gonna get this CO celebrity podcast interviewing? For God's sake? I do have 1200 subscribers. Yeah. But yeah, I'm just a fan. So sorry.

Unknown Speaker  40:51  
Firewall,

Jeff Sterns  40:52  
you mentioned that coming out of that show, launched a lot of careers for a lot of your people. That's true. So here's my question. Do you think it had something to do with your hiring and vetting and choosing practices who you had? Or do you think it was just the profile of the show that would get open a door for anyone?

Unknown Speaker  41:16  
No, I mean, the people I heard from are all top line people of the time. And they've gone on to do more work, that's been great for them. Because this credit, I'm sure has helped him. But it's not the only credit. And before and after, they've had a lot of credits on different categories. But many of them, you know, contact me, you know, even to this day and appreciate it, but some for their career, you know, spending 10 years with me, you know, good, better indifferent. You know, I mean, we had our ups and downs on graduates, we ran out of money, the network screwed me out of money, like, several $100,000. And so, you know, pledged to pay some people back, which they will, but nobody is beating me up over that. It's like, I gave them great opportunities, you know, and, and stay with them. And I care about the people that I work with, no matter what level, I care a lot, and it's forever with me, you know, if I hire you, and we do good work together. That's a forever commitment. Well,

Jeff Sterns  42:27  
integrity, good for you. Yeah. It's like, you'd have to have that at the end. Well, it's it seems like a bare minimum cost of admission to be a good man or a good human being right. But it's, fortunately, it's not so

Unknown Speaker  42:39  
hard to know that different people referring people and stuff like that, but you got to do your own work as the producer. You've got to get out there and find out who you're talking to who those people are.

Jeff Sterns  42:52  
I've enjoyed every minute with you. By the way. I don't think you could have said anything wrong with me.

Unknown Speaker  42:57  
Though. I liked it. I enjoyed it soon. You're asking questions about pinks was just wonderful. I haven't had anybody asked me these questions before, which is strange.

Jeff Sterns  43:08  
Look, I'm like Barbara Walters. What can I do? If I'll have all of my cred as an interviewer if I can get you to cry, but I don't.

Unknown Speaker  43:21  
This has been Jeff Sterns connected through cars.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai