Don’t give away all your rights to a film distributor.
This week, Anthony Hackett, Director & Actor, shares his experience of getting burned in his first distribution contract. In this episode, he talks about the contract process, what to avoid in contracts, and working with investors.
Watch to avoid giving away your film rights to a distributor.
Key Points:
1:28 – Journey into filmmaking
8:20 – Becoming a niche filmmaker
14:48 – What to avoid in a contract
18:32 – Budgeting for indie films
33:40 – Directing and acting
38:05 – What role did you need help with
39:47 – Favorite Gear
42:25 – What went wrong
Links
Transcript
Anthony Hackett (00:00):
So my first film, this guy let us borrow his equipment. One of the camera people knocked over his camera and it fell and, boom, cracked and bent one of the lens hoods on it, and I was like, “Oh, shoot.” We got 5,000, Tanya. What am I going to do with this freaking $10,000… So that was a big-
Tanya Musgrave (00:21):
Oh, no.
Anthony Hackett (00:22):
… “oh no” moment for me at the time, but it ended up being not so big because the person who let us borrow, he was so cool about everything.
Tanya Musgrave (00:30):
Welcome to The Practical Filmmaker, an educational podcast brought to you by the Filmmaker Institute and Sunscreen Film Festival, where industry professionals talk nuts and bolts and the steps they took to find their success today. On today’s show, we chat with faith-based writer, director, and actor Anthony Hackett on funding, distribution, and how he navigates investors for his feature films.
Find the full transcripts and more at thepracticalfilmmaker.com. I’m your host, Tanya Musgrave, and today we’re joined by writer, director, and actor Anthony Hackett of indie company SONset Friday Entertainment, where he writes, produces, and directs feature films with an intent to share positive messages. Films include Love Different and Hope Lives. Welcome to the show.
Anthony Hackett (01:08):
Thank you, Tanya, and thank you, The Practical Filmmaker. I love the name too. The Practical. Come on now. You got to be practical with this thing. You know what I’m saying? Some people just try to just do too much. No. Relax. Be practical. I love it.
Tanya Musgrave (01:23):
Yes. So yeah, there are going to be some practical questions thrown at you, but we’ll start off with how you got here. That’s a lot of hats that I rattled off. What’s your journey been?
Anthony Hackett (01:33):
Well, the indie filmmaker life, you got to wear as many hats as needed until you can afford to not need them.
Tanya Musgrave (01:39):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (01:40):
So you keep moving. And then sometimes, even when you can afford to not need them, you still like wearing them. You like certain things, whether it’s directing, writing, acting, producing, editing, all those things. So I started off as an actor. I started theater and then I transitioned to film, doing some behind-the-scenes stuff, background work, and stand in on big sets, and then I moved on to doing commercials and acting in those films and shows, et cetera, et cetera.
But then, one day, God just gave me this buzz, jumping to the filmmaking side of things, behind the camera. I got inspired to do that and I loved it ever since. And when you work at a level with a smaller budget, you kind of have to fill holes that you can’t afford other people to do for you.
Tanya Musgrave (02:23):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (02:23):
So I just started learning the craft, the different aspects of filmmaking, and that’s the general gist of how it began.
Tanya Musgrave (02:31):
You’ve worked with studios before now. Take me back to that day where you landed that first big contract where that was the case. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation where they’re just like, “Hey, you’re going to get paid for this.” How did that go?
Anthony Hackett (02:45):
The acting side and filmmaking sides are a little different. Actually, it’s a lot different.
Tanya Musgrave (02:48):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (02:48):
It’s not a little. It’s a lot different. So it was about starting small and building a foundation of supporters of people who enjoyed your work. So I just started off doing little short films, almost like short video skits, and I dropped them on YouTube. A lot of them were comedy-based. A lot of them were Christian-based to fit the audience. And I developed an audience on YouTube. I just wanted to produce stuff and I’m good with comedy, so I did that.
Tanya Musgrave (03:17):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (03:17):
And so, I built this audience, and as I built the audience, when you have an audience, things come a little easier and faster with regard to getting the attention of maybe bigger platforms or distributors or other filmmakers with regard to getting funding.
Tanya Musgrave (03:34):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (03:35):
All those things help when you have a little bit of an audience. And I don’t have a huge audience, but I do have people who support me because I spent time to give them content for free, and that just kind of boomed.
Tanya Musgrave (03:47):
Are you talking subscribers?
Anthony Hackett (03:48):
Both subscribers and just followers just all over social media. It was Facebook or Instagram, YouTube, whatever, just that little buzz of a following, but that’s all it takes is a little buzz. It just takes a little bit of support. When I say a little bit, Tanya, I’m talking about me and you right now and The Practical Filmmaker squad. We could get together right now and make a little short film something and then these however many people can make this thing grow because each person knows 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 100 other people.
Tanya Musgrave (04:22):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (04:23):
And so, as long as you’re producing something good, whether it’s content, quality of it, et cetera, then people will talk about it and then they will share it and then it just grows. So it doesn’t take a lot of people. Literally, me and you together right now could be the next freaking whoever, the biggest, bestest female-male tag team in filmmaking ever. So it really can happen that way, but it takes a lot of pieces to fit, but it doesn’t take a lot of people to start to build that following.
Tanya Musgrave (04:53):
All right. So a couple of questions. One, when you say, “Yeah, it doesn’t take a lot of people to build a following,” but when you’re saying, “It doesn’t take a lot of people to spread that,” how many are you thinking? I mean, there are people who are just like, “Oh yeah, it doesn’t take a lot. Maybe just one or two million instead of…” And you’re just like, “Come on. Come on.”
Anthony Hackett (05:17):
Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (05:17):
So, I mean, how small of a following,-
Anthony Hackett (05:17):
Practically.
Tanya Musgrave (05:17):
… yeah, did you have?
Anthony Hackett (05:19):
I got you. Well, so here’s the thing. It’s not always about quantity. It’s about quality.
Tanya Musgrave (05:26):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (05:26):
What I mean by that is, it’s not always about how many people are seeing your stuff. It’s about who sees your stuff.
Tanya Musgrave (05:33):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (05:33):
I’ll give you an example.
Tanya Musgrave (05:34):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (05:35):
So I actually did my very first, first, first, first feature film ever. It’s called Crisis Call. We did it a long time ago, like 2014 or something, but my first feature film ever.
Tanya Musgrave (05:46):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (05:46):
That happened immediately after I was doing the video skits and stuff. But the reason why we were able to do that is not because we had a huge following. It’s because the people that were watching me do those short films and things on YouTube, a couple of them, literally just a couple, a few people, wanted to invest and support into that in a big way.
Tanya Musgrave (06:07):
Interesting.
Anthony Hackett (06:07):
So for that first film, we had one person who watched our stuff who said, “You know what? I want to give you guys the equipment to do it. I got cameras. I got equipment.” He came down from New York, Tanya,-
Tanya Musgrave (06:18):
Wow.
Anthony Hackett (06:18):
… brought all his equipment down. We shot on Panasonic GH4s at the time, but a bunch of other equipment. He brought all that stuff down, multiple cameras, everything. He brought it down. He let us use it for free.
Tanya Musgrave (06:28):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (06:28):
No nothing,-
Tanya Musgrave (06:29):
Yeah. Dang.
Anthony Hackett (06:30):
… because he enjoyed what we did.
Tanya Musgrave (06:31):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (06:32):
We had another person who was watching us and said, “You know what? I have a catering company. I’ll cater your whole set-“
Tanya Musgrave (06:37):
Stop.
Anthony Hackett (06:38):
“… for free.”
Tanya Musgrave (06:38):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (06:38):
I said, “Oh, snap.”
Tanya Musgrave (06:42):
And that’s the best part. It’s the food.
Anthony Hackett (06:42):
That’s all you need on a good set, some decent food. So all of these things started coming together just because not a whole bunch of people, but the right people was watching and saw. And what some people don’t get, some filmmakers, when you begin this process is, we’re in an age of numbers. We’re in an age of, “We got to get 100,000 views.” If it’s not getting a certain amount of views or attention, it’s not… No, that’s not how it works.
Tanya Musgrave (07:09):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (07:09):
You just have the right people watching, and you never know who’s watching your stuff.
Tanya Musgrave (07:14):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (07:15):
You never know. So for me, it’s just about, yeah, you want to continue to build on the quantity as much as possible. Just build, build, build. But remember, it’s not about how many. It’s about who.
Tanya Musgrave (07:25):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (07:26):
And that’s my thing. I want to be able to put what I’m doing in the eyes of the right people. I’d rather one executive from a nice place see my stuff than a million people, because that one executive can get it to five million people.
Tanya Musgrave (07:40):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (07:41):
So it’s about who. And that’s what I was referring to. That’s how it kind of… I had a following, but the right people were watching at the right time to help me grow.
Tanya Musgrave (07:50):
When you’re talking about who and the right people, that also means that you have a very specific audience in mind, and I know that everybody’s just like, “Specialize, specialize, and get that niche audience,” which kind of sucks sometimes as an artist. But again, it is also a business. And I wanted to talk to you about that business side and creating something for a specific audience. Right now, you have landed pretty squarely in the faith-based market. Have you worked with Pure Flix from the get-go or did you make it and then go to the studio for distribution?
Anthony Hackett (08:25):
First of all, I like that you brought up the point of being niche. I do think that that does play a huge part in helping to develop your following as well as the people who are going to see your stuff. The more niche you are, depending on who that niche audience is, the better, because you have an audience and you know who to target, and marketing is a huge piece too. I don’t know if you want to touch on that, but marketing is a huge piece in what you’re doing.
Tanya Musgrave (08:47):
Absolutely. Yes.
Anthony Hackett (08:49):
But with that being said, the niche audience is great. I personally pursued the faith-based niche. That’s just where my calling is. I enjoy the opportunity to produce great content that also has a message and able to share my faith, so we produce content directed towards that audience. I can’t let you guys underestimate the value of film festivals.
Tanya Musgrave (09:08):
Mm.
Anthony Hackett (09:09):
First, we put the Love Different in film festivals, and we worked the film festival circuit in our niche audience, so we targeted faith-based film festivals. We got accepted to one of them, the largest Christian film festival in the world, in Orlando, Florida, the International Christian Film Festival.
Tanya Musgrave (09:23):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (09:24):
The film got selected there, and when it got selected there, we strategically planned our release date of the movie around the time that it was going to screen at that festival, because we realized that maximized our exposure.
Tanya Musgrave (09:40):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (09:40):
So we did that and it released the day it screened at the festival, and it was available on a place called Christian Cinema, where you can actually purchase or rent Christian films.
Tanya Musgrave (09:52):
Uh-huh.
Anthony Hackett (09:52):
Well, we became the number one purchased/rented comedy at the time in the history of Christian Cinema.
Tanya Musgrave (10:01):
Wow, interesting.
Anthony Hackett (10:02):
We were able to reach out to Pure Flix, having some ammunition to show them, “Hey, this is what our film is doing. It won this award. It screened here, and we’re trending number one on Christian Cinema.” And so, Pure Flix at that time was interested, and then we were able to strike a deal with them at that time because we were able to come to them with value behind our film.
Tanya Musgrave (10:23):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (10:23):
The small hint to that, we actually reached out to Pure Flix before any of that happened. Before we got in the film festivals, we had a finished movie. We was like, “Oh, let’s just contact Pure Flix to see if we get it there.”
Tanya Musgrave (10:33):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (10:34):
And they didn’t want it at the time.
Tanya Musgrave (10:36):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (10:36):
But it didn’t have any ammunition behind it. It was just-
Tanya Musgrave (10:38):
Interesting.
Anthony Hackett (10:39):
… a movie.
Tanya Musgrave (10:39):
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (10:40):
And sometimes as filmmakers, we get so excited about our film and we think it’s the dopest thing ever, and it could very well be. But it may not be a good fit for a distributor because the various reasons, even though maybe good or not good. When you have ammunition behind your film to make them interested, then that helps a lot. If your film can bring an audience to that distributor, they’ll want it.
Tanya Musgrave (11:04):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (11:05):
And you have to be able to prove that.
Tanya Musgrave (11:07):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (11:07):
Not just be a good film. You have to prove that people are going to go watch it on their platform. And so, we were able to do that with Love Different, and that’s how it started. And then once you start a relationship, moving forward, you already have the relationship and you can always now reach out and keep it going.
Tanya Musgrave (11:23):
I would love to talk about the contracting process because I feel like that is the… It’s shrouded in mystery everywhere. A lot of people have gotten burned by these contracts. And I’m curious, that bad contract versus this one, I’m guessing, was better. What was the difference?
Anthony Hackett (11:45):
So the first time around with a film that I was producing, I went with the distributor. And going with the distributor, meaning that this person or company goes out and gets deals for you, whatever the case is. They’ll even help market or package your product. So I went with them.
Tanya Musgrave (12:02):
A distributor, not a sales agent?
Anthony Hackett (12:04):
It’s a distributor.
Tanya Musgrave (12:04):
Okay.
Anthony Hackett (12:05):
It’s a distributor. It’s the company’s distributor, but the distributor distributes them to different places, because they kind of do the same thing, but they also distributed. So anyway, so we did that and I didn’t know anything, Tanya, about… It was my first time ever. I ain’t know nothing. I was like, “Oh, you want to sign our movie? Oh, something, something.” So I think I was, “Send me that thing.” So I took it, I signed it. I mean, I scanned over and I ain’t really read it. I ain’t have nobody else read it. I just kind of like looked at it and I was like, “Oh, this looks good. Cool. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
Tanya Musgrave (12:32):
Oh, no.
Anthony Hackett (12:32):
Boom!
Tanya Musgrave (12:32):
Oh, no.
Anthony Hackett (12:35):
Did not know that I signed over my whole life, my whole film.
Tanya Musgrave (12:41):
No.
Anthony Hackett (12:42):
They had the licensing rights to everything worldwide for multiple years. Once those years were over, they could automatically re-up on those years. The money, they’re supposed to pay out a certain amount each month once they get a deal. Basically, once I signed that deal, I never heard from them again for years.
Tanya Musgrave (13:06):
Oh my gosh.
Anthony Hackett (13:06):
I haven’t heard from them for years.
Tanya Musgrave (13:08):
Still not?
Anthony Hackett (13:09):
And I recently heard from them literally recently. This past year, I’ve heard from them back. But I didn’t hear from them for years. They took the film. But here’s the… So here’s the good thing. They got the movie in Walmart. It was in Target, Best Buy. It was available all over. They rebranded the whole movie. They did a great job at all of that. I just ain’t see none of the money.
Tanya Musgrave (13:31):
Oh my stars. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (13:33):
Not a dime, Tanya. Not a dime.
Tanya Musgrave (13:34):
Ugh.
Anthony Hackett (13:34):
They didn’t even contact me to say what they did, how much they made, all this stuff. So long story short, that’s what happened, really, really bad. But I learned a huge lesson about how important contracts are and how important it is to be heavily involved in understanding your contract, even if you’re working with an attorney, which of course I highly recommend, but not everyone can afford that. So if you can or can’t, you just need to be highly involved in understanding every single thing, because if you don’t understand it, it could be a problem.
So anyway, I learned that lesson and it’s never happened again, ever. Every deal after that has been awesome by the grace of God. But I learned a valuable lesson there and I encourage people, there’s ways to get important contracts looked at and stuff for very inexpensive. You can go online and find people inexpensively if you don’t know anyone personally, but definitely see if you can get people for big deals like that. You definitely want to do that. But there’s a bunch of details in the contract phase that are important to know about a good contract which you should or shouldn’t do.
Tanya Musgrave (14:44):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (14:44):
That’s a whole nother process of a conversation, but…
Tanya Musgrave (14:47):
Well, what’s one line?
Anthony Hackett (14:48):
Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (14:48):
What’s one line that you would look for that you would say, “Absolutely not”?
Anthony Hackett (14:52):
There’s a bunch I’d say “absolutely not” to. One would be, “We want all licensing rights to your film, worldwide, every territory, everything. We want it all.” Right?
Tanya Musgrave (15:02):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (15:02):
In most situations, not everything. Depends. If you’re signing a deal with Sony Records or something, “All right. Sure, Sony.” But for these other smaller distributors and stuff, if they want the rights to everything, to your film, that means you will not have any opportunity to sell or do anything with your film anywhere in the entire world. They have complete ownership rights to license your movie and you can’t do anything with it, meaning you’re putting all of your eggs in one basket with that one distributor where they could… And then they could shelve it. They could not even do anything with the daggone film and you can’t either, and now the film’s just sitting there, because nobody’s selling it to nobody.
Tanya Musgrave (15:45):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (15:46):
So that’s a huge hitting for me. Also, exclusivity, non-exclusive versus exclusive. Never do exclusive deals unless it’s worth it. So exclusive, for those who are watching who may not know the difference between the two, is, exclusive means you’re exclusively working with that particular distributor.
Tanya Musgrave (16:05):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (16:05):
Non-exclusive means you can work with that distributor, and then that one and then that one. You could work with whoever.
Tanya Musgrave (16:12):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (16:12):
You want to keep your options open always, because some people may have connections that that distributor may not have, and now you’re stuck because you signed an exclusive deal and nobody else can deal with it. So those would be just a couple things. There’s a zillion, but those are a couple things that I’d red-flag.
Tanya Musgrave (16:29):
Okay. Anything that you would see, one line that you would see in a contract that you would say automatically, “Yes, 100%”?
Anthony Hackett (16:37):
No. There’s nothing I would automatically say yes, because there has to be a lot of lines that make you say automatically yes.
Tanya Musgrave (16:44):
This is true. This is true. This is true.
Anthony Hackett (16:46):
There’s a lot of lines. There’s not one. You can say one line that I would definitely say no, but there’s not one line that I would definitely say yes.
Tanya Musgrave (16:53):
Yeah. I think I remember seeing this other thing. It basically says, “Yeah. You’re going to get X amount of dollars, but after we do a marketing run,” kind of a thing. But the thing is, if there’s no cap to the marketing, they could attribute 100 grand to marketing, so you would put a 25K cap on, or whatever.
Anthony Hackett (17:13):
Yeah. I mean, one way to tackle that is to make sure that in that agreement, you say zero marketing dollars is put into it without written consent from the filmmaker. So the filmmaker has to approve every marketing dollar that is put into it.
Tanya Musgrave (17:29):
Interesting.
Anthony Hackett (17:30):
That way, they know for sure how much is being spent and they can’t do it without you. That’s one way to make sure they don’t screw you on that.
Tanya Musgrave (17:38):
When you talked with this particular studio or distributor, Pure Flix, did you work with them again starting your next project or was that something that came separately?
Anthony Hackett (17:50):
Got you. So, no, I didn’t work with them. What we did is, we produce our own project and then we reach out to them once it’s done to see if they want it or not. We’re currently seeking an opportunity to actually produce something specifically for them. Normally, it’s just, we do a project and then non-exclusively, we’ll get it out there and see what we can do with various different places and platforms.
Tanya Musgrave (18:13):
All right. So the next thing I wanted to ask you was about budget levels. So indie can be a range of, from the lowest of the low, $0, don’t pay for anything kind of thing, and then like, Lord of the Rings. Where were you in this realm of budgets?
Anthony Hackett (18:35):
Yeah. So our first film we ever did, it was a feature film we did for $5,000 and a lot of volunteer people, a lot of people who were like, “You know what? Let’s ride. We’re going to do this together.” But again, it’s the first film I ever did, and I just wanted to do something. A lot of times, we just feel like it can’t be done. A lot of filmmakers are holding on from their features because they feel they don’t have enough money or whatever. Nah. Look, you just got to get it done. And if you have something special for that feature, then just hold that one and do a different one. The way I normally do stuff, until you don’t really have to do that anymore, is I produce backwards.
Tanya Musgrave (19:14):
Hmm.
Anthony Hackett (19:15):
So a lot of times, filmmakers, they have a script or they’ll get their script. They’ll write their script or they have it written, whatever the case is, and then they go out looking for everything they need to accomplish that particular script.
Tanya Musgrave (19:27):
Right.
Anthony Hackett (19:27):
I reverse it.
Tanya Musgrave (19:28):
Hmm.
Anthony Hackett (19:29):
I don’t write nothing. I try to raise as much money as I can.
Tanya Musgrave (19:32):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (19:34):
I look at different locations. I talk to different people. I get all of the resources I can possibly get upfront, and then I write a story based around the resources that I have.
Tanya Musgrave (19:46):
Interesting.
Anthony Hackett (19:47):
That way, once I’m done writing the script, it’s guaranteed that the movie will get done because I already have everything in place for it. I have this much money. I have this house that I can film at because they said I could film there. I can film it at this business because I already talked to them. I can use these actors because we’ve already had a communication. I get all that together. So with the first film, we were able to do it for $5,000 because before I even wrote the script, 85% of that first film was done inside of one house.
Tanya Musgrave (20:15):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (20:16):
So I had a friend who had a really big house and I asked him, “Yo, would you let us film here for like a week?” He was like, “Yeah, sure. Here are the keys. I’ll be gone. I’m going on vacation.” I’m like, “Oh, snap. All right. Cool.”
Tanya Musgrave (20:27):
That’s amazing.
Anthony Hackett (20:30):
Wrote an entire movie where most of it was based around that one house, because that’s what we had.
Tanya Musgrave (20:35):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (20:36):
So that’s what worked and still works even to this day, is producing backwards. Forget the script. Now, you can have an idea for a story. It’s not like you don’t have the idea.
Tanya Musgrave (20:46):
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (20:47):
But don’t write details yet until you know what details you have. So that’s what I did, and I still do that even to this day to an extent. So that first one was 5,000 because we produced it backwards. The Love Different. Love Different was $50,000. We produced that entire feature film for 50K, and the majority of that was produced backwards too. I didn’t really fully have the script until I knew some resources, like this business I could film at, reached out to these people.
The only time where you really, really needed the script is when you reach out to actors, like main actors or celebrity actors or actors that are a little more high-profile. They obviously need to see the script. So before you reach out to them, you have… Basically, before you reach out to them, you should already have everything anyway.
Tanya Musgrave (21:34):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (21:34):
You should already have your script.
Tanya Musgrave (21:34):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (21:36):
You should have your money. You should have your reach. You should have everything before you reach out to those people, because you never want to reach out to them and then now, all of a sudden, you can’t do the dang movie because you don’t have everything. So that was 50K. And then my last film that we just did, the feature film, was Hope Lives. We did that for $100,000. It was our total production budget for that film. Again, these are very, very, very inexpensive prices for an entire feature film.
Tanya Musgrave (22:01):
Yes.
Anthony Hackett (22:02):
When I say very expensive, for those who are watching, who may not know, low-budget feature films are $2 million.
Tanya Musgrave (22:09):
3 to $5 million.
Anthony Hackett (22:11):
Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (22:11):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (22:12):
That’s low-budget. And then even ultra-low-budget comes in at 200,000 to 500,000, that’s $800,000. We did it for 100K. And again, you mentioned at the very start of this thing the different hats that I had, that I wear. Well, a lot of the reason why we were able to produce at such a low budget is because of those hats that I wear.
Tanya Musgrave (22:33):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (22:33):
I’m able to act, I’m able to direct, I’m able to produce, I’m able to edit, I’m able to cast, all of these things. You just do what you got to do so you can get it done. So those are the budgets for those particular films, very low. But if you notice, it grew each time.
Tanya Musgrave (22:52):
Yes. Yes.
Anthony Hackett (22:52):
And so, each time, we’re able to be blessed to go more and more because we produce something of best quality we could. It did well. And the next thing, you just keep growing. You keep growing in your resources, your networks, and then your talent evolves, and then money is just going to come from that. So our next one, Lord willing, beyond, well beyond 100K. So that’s the process of how I did it.
Tanya Musgrave (23:20):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we kind of glazed over the money part, as in like, “Yeah, the money’s going to come.” How did the money come to you?
Anthony Hackett (23:27):
Absolutely. So that first film, we just did a crowdfund and we were able to raise 5,000, and then from that, we volunteered. People volunteered for that one as well. For Love Different, it was a combination of investors. We had two investors and then some crowdfunding. Specifically, the investors came from my beginnings of what I was doing by just building an audience.
And then Hope Lives, it just continued evolving. So, now, Hope Lives was actually produced 75, 80% of my wife and I being able to come together. It was a God-blessed event. So this was just God-blessed, because the funds came through an opportunity that my wife and I had, and we were able to get a large majority of those funds just from what God blessed us with personally. So it was a risky play.
Tanya Musgrave (24:21):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (24:21):
Very risky play. And then we didn’t have enough though, so then we had to go to a couple investors which, in this case, were a couple more, two people that I knew, who knew work that I’ve done. One of them was the same investor from Love Different, and the other one was a new investor who’ve seen Love Different, who watched it and said, “We want to invest in a future project of yours.”
Tanya Musgrave (24:44):
Wow.
Anthony Hackett (24:44):
So that’s kind of how the funds came together in those situations.
Tanya Musgrave (24:48):
I know they always say like, “Never put your own money in.” I’m just kind of curious, is it job in the meantime? Yes, no? Or is this your full-
Anthony Hackett (24:56):
That is all I do.
Tanya Musgrave (24:57):
This is your full bread and butter?
Anthony Hackett (25:00):
Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (25:00):
So it’s, you do-
Anthony Hackett (25:00):
Well, this and acting. I still do acting, SON Entertainment, SONset Friday, and I dabble in investing a little bit, but-
Tanya Musgrave (25:06):
Ooh, okay.
Anthony Hackett (25:06):
… who doesn’t these days?
Tanya Musgrave (25:08):
All right. All right. Yes. I mean, you did mention acting and directing, and if I’m not mistaken on the last one, you did both. You acted and directed. Was that right? Is that correct?
Anthony Hackett (25:18):
Every feature I’ve done, I’ve acted and directed.
Tanya Musgrave (25:21):
Okay. All right. So what is that experience like? Because there are plenty of examples out there where a director decided to be the main actor and everybody around them was like, “No. No, bro, don’t do this to yourself.” And sure enough, it is kind of detrimental to the whole process. So what is that experience like for you? How do you make sure that you’re not one of those in the statistics?
Anthony Hackett (25:49):
Got you. So, real quick, before I just address that, I just want to address this real quick. You mentioned the “don’t put your own money in” thing-
Tanya Musgrave (25:56):
Oh, yeah.
Anthony Hackett (25:57):
… that people say sometimes.
Tanya Musgrave (25:59):
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (25:59):
I just totally disagree with that so wholeheartedly-
Tanya Musgrave (26:01):
Really? Really? Really?
Anthony Hackett (26:03):
… when people say that, because it’s almost like having debt. If you get money from someone, you kind of owe them, but you kind of don’t. It’s their investment, so it’s like, you don’t necessarily have to… It’s not something you have to pay them back per se.
Tanya Musgrave (26:20):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (26:21):
But you feel obligated to pay them back, because you’re basically borrowing their money. But for them, it’s an investment saying, “You know what? I know the risk. I could invest in this. I could lose it or not.”
Tanya Musgrave (26:33):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (26:34):
But at the same time, it’s like, it’s always going to be on you like, “Man, this person trusted me so much that they put X amount of dollars into this,” and you feel obligated that you need to get them their money back and it’s just, there’s a weight of that, and I don’t like the idea of that. I don’t like the idea of debt. I love the idea of, if you believe in yourself, put… If you have it. Obviously, if you don’t have it, it’s something totally different.
Tanya Musgrave (27:00):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (27:00):
But if you have it, go ahead and put the risk up yourself, invest in yourself, put the risk up because, guess what, at the end of the day, you’re going to feel great because you don’t owe anybody. You’re like, “Hey, I ride or die with this, but my conscience is clear. I feel good.” It’s such a good feeling to know that you don’t owe anyone, even though you kind of don’t anyway. It’s weird.
Tanya Musgrave (27:19):
Wait, wait, wait. So this sounds like you’re speaking from experience. So you’ve been able to pay back all of your investors?
Anthony Hackett (27:25):
For the most part. Not everyone, no. Absolutely not. But again, you don’t have any control over that. At the end of the day, it’s like, that’s why I’m speaking from experience of the feeling of knowing that you owe these people, kind of, and you can’t pay them back. It’s just that simple. You don’t pay them back. And that’s the part of it. That’s what’s important to know. If you borrow money from someone or people or whatever the case is, it’s just going to weigh on you. Even though it’s an investment, even though you don’t technically owe them, but it’s still there.
And sometimes, in some cases, it hasn’t really been in my cases, but in some cases, it can hurt that relationship. It can hurt a relationship. It can mess up friendships or whatever the case is. It’s just, it gets messy. Put the money in between two people? It can get messy. So stay away from that mess. If I’m able to, I want to put in my own or I encourage people to really put their own. No, I’m not talking about go into debt, like get you put on some credit cards and stuff. That’s still debt too. Now you just owe a bank. But it’s just the idea of investing in yourself, believing in yourself, and whether it goes up or down, you know it’d go…
And on the plus side of things, 100% of that profit goes directly to you first, 100%. You don’t owe anybody. When your movie starts making money, now you don’t have to put out the first, to pay them off first and now you still don’t see no dollar, no.
Tanya Musgrave (28:52):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (28:53):
You pocket it all because you put it in. So, anyway, I just wanted say that, address that real quick. I knew it was off-topic for me personally.
Tanya Musgrave (28:59):
No, no, no, no. I’m just curious, what’s the biggest amount that you’ve paid back to an investor?
Anthony Hackett (29:04):
It wasn’t a lot, man. Maybe 5, $10,000.
Tanya Musgrave (29:08):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (29:08):
But I haven’t borrowed a lot. And that’s the thing.
Tanya Musgrave (29:10):
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (29:11):
I don’t borrow a lot.
Tanya Musgrave (29:12):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (29:13):
Again, some of these people were borrowing hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars from people. And so, it’s kind of ridiculous. If you’re going to spend even 100,000, if someone invests $100,000 in you, you’re going to owe them that money or your film owes them that money.
Tanya Musgrave (29:32):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (29:32):
I’ve never borrowed that much from any investor at all, ever, and never would. I never would. I just can’t do it. Yeah. Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (29:40):
Okay.
Anthony Hackett (29:41):
I would definitely suggest people go in if they can theirself.
Tanya Musgrave (29:44):
I remember somebody saying like, “Hey, when you have a lot of investors, that could actually be detrimental to a studio looking at something, wanting to bring something on, because they’re just like, ‘Oh man, that’s so complicated.'” There are so many people that like waterfall contracts and like, “Oh, these people need to get their money back, and all of our profits are going to get eaten into by all these other contracts.” And a lot of investors might not look great going into a studio situation, but my question for you is, is that even in the cards of what you want to do? Do you want to go into a studio situation where you don’t have necessarily that creative control and that kind of a thing?
Anthony Hackett (30:27):
I guess it will kind of depend on the deals you have with these previous investors, what that looks like in detail. I think it’s about the big picture. The big picture is, not how many investors do you have involved, but how much money do you owe people? All right. Let’s say you have 10 investors, but total, between all these 10 investors, you owe them $100,000.
Tanya Musgrave (30:49):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (30:49):
Well, I mean the big picture is, the studio would just be like, “Look, all right, so it’s going to cost us $100,000 to get these investors off our hand and we can take over,” or whatever the case is. That’s just depending on the details of… Because maybe one contract with one investor you have says, “Yo, 10% in perpetuity, forever.” I was like, “What the freak?” That’s the kind of stuff where, when we go back to those contracts and I was like, “It makes sense.”
Tanya Musgrave (31:16):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (31:16):
But with that being said, I’ve never worked more than two investors, ever, and I never would. Well, I don’t see myself ever doing that. You are right, what you’re hitting at, with regard to less investors, the better.
Tanya Musgrave (31:31):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (31:31):
I wouldn’t want to work with more than three max.
Tanya Musgrave (31:32):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (31:33):
Max. And each one of them would have similar deals that I would have. It would be too crazy. Yeah. It is important, I think, to minimize how many people you’re borrowing money from. If you need more money from a lot of people, that’s called donations. You go ahead and you ask for donations from as many people as you want. But when you have to pay people back, that gets complicated. So keep it very minimal because now you have to pay them back. You got to keep track of all of those people and what are their percentages and all that crap. Nah.
Yeah. Definitely minimize how many people you’re borrowing money from or investors you have invested in, in my opinion, especially on an independent level at least, and then as many donations as you want. But with regard to the distributor aspect of it, and I know you mentioned about relinquishing control or being in some sort of agreement where you have less control, I think that’s totally fine if you’re going into it knowing that.
Tanya Musgrave (32:30):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (32:32):
If you’re going into it with a desire to have creative control over a project you’re doing and the distributor’s like, “No, we want to have control,” then, I mean, don’t do it because you’re going into it knowing that this is what they want.
Tanya Musgrave (32:44):
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (32:45):
But if you go into it saying to yourself, “You know what? I’m not producing my own project anymore,” they’re basically hiring me to produce their project. So if you want to go into a situation where you’re producing someone else’s project, mentally, you’re already in that mindset and you’re fine. That’s totally good. You’re getting paid. You’re producing their project. It’s their rules. Cool.
Otherwise, you don’t, and you say no and you say, “This is what I’m willing to do,” and people respect that. You go into any negotiation with anyone in life, period. But specifically in filmmaking, you go into a negotiation, you say, “This is my standard. This is where I’m at. I can be flexible here,” but people respect that. People will respect when you know what you want and what you’re willing and not willing to do.
Tanya Musgrave (33:33):
Nice. Nice. Okay. So now, we are going to go back to the acting and the directing question.
Anthony Hackett (33:38):
Yeah, and we’re back!
Tanya Musgrave (33:39):
And we’re back! Oh. So yeah, what was that experience like? And what is it that gives you that self-awareness to make sure that you aren’t one of those director-actors that falls through the cracks?
Anthony Hackett (33:53):
Yeah. Acting and directing, Tanya, is not for everyone. However, it can be for anyone, if that makes sense. For me, it’s really just a process of having the gift, number one. I think you do have to have a level of a gift or talent to be able to do both, and then it’s a matter of the team you have around you to be able to accomplish that, specifically with me having a good DP, a good director of photography.
If you’re going to be directing and acting, a very good director of photography and/or a specific person, you can call him or her an AD, an assistant director. You can call them that, for just purposes of what I’m talking about. But when you switch from director to actor, you have to have… And when I’m actor, you have to have someone on the other side who can take over in a directing mode.
Tanya Musgrave (34:51):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (34:51):
You have to have someone to be able to say, “All right,” and “I need to do this, that,” or “That wouldn’t look good. That would look shaky,” whatever the case is. So the team you have around you that… And not a whole thing, but just that one other person who can step into your role as director in a sense during the scenes that you’re in while you’re actually acting, while at the same time… Here’s another big piece. While at the same time, being able to respect their role, because their role is not director.
Tanya Musgrave (35:20):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (35:22):
And sometimes, you can work with someone and if you’re a director and actor and then you switch from directing to acting, now this other person steps in, sometimes you can get a person who gets this mindset of, “Now, I’m the director,” and-
Tanya Musgrave (35:35):
“I’m the captain now.”
Anthony Hackett (35:36):
“I’m the captain.” And then not only that, but they overstep their boundaries on what they’re able to do. So that’s why I said, you have to find the perfect fit, a really good DP, who has the ability to be able to step into a director role and be able to guide the director-actor and all that stuff while, at the same time, being respectful of their role and being a great person. That’s why… For example, Nathan. I think Nathan fits well with me in that respect because I know he can direct.
Tanya Musgrave (36:05):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (36:05):
I know he can DP. I know he can do multiple things. But when he knows he’s in a position that we were in where he’s the DP, I’m the director-actor, but he can step in and take on some responsibilities, but at the same time, respect the role and everything else, it’s a perfect fit. That’s how it works for me, is having a good teammate with your DP and/or an assistant director, and then having some dang skill. Look, you can’t do anything professionally if you suck. All right? You got to get some talent. You got to get good, and then you can step into that. You have to be very comfortable.
You can’t go from a director to an actor and then you’re leaving one of those things behind because you’re so focused on one or the other that the other one falls behind. Either your performance and acting is going to be pretty wack or your team is going to not like you because you’re not good at directing the team.
Tanya Musgrave (37:02):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (37:03):
Yeah. You got to be pretty good and then have a good teammate.
Tanya Musgrave (37:07):
So you’re talking about the roles that you found that were really important, whether or not that was an AD or a good DP. What is the role that’s surprising that you found that you needed? I’ll give you an example, like coming straight from college and doing indie projects and still at the level of producing independent, low-budget films. Again, we were talking about wearing all the hats, but getting to that next level. I remember somebody coming and talking at one of our film and media events and he was an accountant, and it made perfect sense to me, but he’s just like, “When you are in a bigger studio film, that is one of the first things that they look for, is, ‘Do you have an accountant?'”
And it makes perfect sense because they’re looking for somebody to protect their investment. They have big money into you or what have you. Now, obviously, you have talked about your investors and they’re looking at you and investing in you as an artist, but what is a role that you were surprised that came alongside you that you didn’t know that you needed?
Anthony Hackett (38:10):
A script supervisor.
Tanya Musgrave (38:12):
Ah.
Anthony Hackett (38:12):
A script supervisor on set is… My first couple films, I didn’t have one, but my recent film, I had one. She was amazing. And I’ll tell you, it was like, a script supervisor can almost make or break your movie.
Tanya Musgrave (38:27):
Really?
Anthony Hackett (38:29):
Their sole job is to keep everything right and tight. The continuity, making sure you… Because, however, you have a bunch of people on set, but you… I’m sure you may have seen a movie or a show or something where you’re like, “How did they not see that her hair was dripping on the side, when on the other side, it wasn’t?”
Tanya Musgrave (38:53):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anthony Hackett (38:54):
That stuff happens often, but a script supervisor’s sole job is to help those things from happening. And some of the worst things in movies is when you’re distracted by something that could have just not been a distraction just because somebody caught it.
Tanya Musgrave (39:07):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Anthony Hackett (39:07):
And so, a good script supervisor is one that I never really appreciated or whatever, because, I mean, again, when you’re talking… You mentioned accountant, leads me to think about budgeting. A lot of times, you may not be able to afford that extra person who could be a script supervisor. You kind of have to select your crew based off of how much money you got, and you may not have the money for that.
Tanya Musgrave (39:31):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (39:31):
And so, as our budget increased, we were able to continue to increase on multiple people, that we could add different pieces. So definitely, for me, a script supervisor is one, just one, that I undervalued.
Tanya Musgrave (39:44):
Okay. So now I’m going to ask you about some tools of your trade. A gear or gadget that is an old reliable or a resource.
Anthony Hackett (39:53):
I mean, good DP. That’s my resource that I feel is old reliable, because a good DP knows all of that stuff. Once again, I’m not a DP. I’m a director. I’m a writer. I’m an actor and producer. I wear many hats, but DP ain’t one of them. So I’m not the most technically savvy. I got some skill, but I’m not a DP. I don’t know all these things. I can do some lighting, but a good DP can do some lighting. It’s like, a good DP is that Swiss Army knife that complements another director who has a good vision, a good visionary director, and a good DP with their technicals can just make magic. So that would be my… I know that’s a different answer maybe than what you’re looking for.
Tanya Musgrave (40:41):
No. No, no, no. That’s a good one too.
Anthony Hackett (40:43):
But a good DP would be my resource that’s old reliable. You can’t beat a good DP because they know it all, and I need that.
Tanya Musgrave (40:51):
Okay. All right. Well, what about your favorite new resource that revolutionizes how you work?
Anthony Hackett (40:59):
Oh, okay. Again, another different kind of answer that you probably would not be expecting. A new resource that revolutionizes the way I work is money, the money that I did not have before. And that’s why I call it new because the more money you get, the more you’re able to accomp… It revolutionizes what you can do. When I look back at my first movie, we did for $5,000. And the last movie, we did for 100,000.
Tanya Musgrave (41:28):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (41:29):
Oh my gosh. It’s a stark difference because of how much more we were able to accomplish, more people on set, more crew, more actors, different name actors, more food, better food, better locations, more locations, better equipment, lighting. Everything just drastically revolutionized the difference in the filming and money, and we’ll call it new money because that new money is that money that’s more than what you had before.
Tanya Musgrave (42:01):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (42:02):
And with each dollar, each $100, each $10,000 more, you’re able to do more and it helps to revolutionize what you’re doing. So I would say that new money-
Tanya Musgrave (42:10):
Nice.
Anthony Hackett (42:10):
… is that new thing-
Tanya Musgrave (42:11):
Nice.
Anthony Hackett (42:11):
… for me.
Tanya Musgrave (42:11):
Nice, nice. So, I mean, all right, obviously, film is film and Murphy’s Law, totally in effect. Things go wrong. I love asking a significant “oh no” moment, something that went wrong.
Anthony Hackett (42:28):
So my first film, this guy let us borrow his equipment, and the “oh no” moment was when one of the camera people knocked over his camera and it fell and, boom, cracked and bent one of the lens hoods on it, and I was like, “Oh, shoot.” We got five 5,000, Tanya. What am I going to do with this freaking 10,000… So that was a big-
Tanya Musgrave (42:52):
Oh, no.
Anthony Hackett (42:52):
… “oh no” moment for me at the time, but it ended up being not so big because the person who let us borrow, he was so cool about everything. But it was big for me at the moment because it was my first film. Someone would let us borrow their equipment. This dude, freaking clumsy, behind dropped it, bent the dang thing. I was like, “Oh, crap. We’re in trouble.”
Tanya Musgrave (43:12):
Oh my gosh.
Anthony Hackett (43:13):
That was one though.
Tanya Musgrave (43:15):
No, no, no. I can totally relate because when I was in college, we were filming my senior project and we were shooting with the RED One.
Anthony Hackett (43:24):
Mm-mm.
Tanya Musgrave (43:24):
And that one was… It was set up on a tripod on a dolly in the other room and, all of a sudden, we heard this massive crash and we were just like, “No, it’s the camera.” And of course, we go in there and it hadn’t been tightened on the fluid head.
Anthony Hackett (43:43):
Aw, man.
Tanya Musgrave (43:45):
And so, it had slipped forward and it wasn’t sandbagged. Yay, students.
Anthony Hackett (43:49):
Aw, crap.
Tanya Musgrave (43:51):
And yeah, it fell probably about the height of six feet, crashed. Yeah. So that was…
Anthony Hackett (43:56):
Wait, was it okay? What happened?
Tanya Musgrave (43:59):
I mean, okay. So, I mean, there were some things that busted on it, and of course RED liked to have all of their specialty screws that you could only get from RED and that kind of stuff. And we did have to pay, I think, the deposit on it on the insurance part of it.
Anthony Hackett (44:12):
Mm.
Tanya Musgrave (44:13):
So there was that. But it was insured, thank goodness, because it was equipment from the university. But yeah, it was a dark day on set. Everybody at school the next day… I mean, everybody was just walking around like this for a while. And when they approached us the next day, everyone was… They were so reverent, just like, “Are you okay?”
Anthony Hackett (44:37):
That was nice. You can tell you went to a Christian school for that mess right there. For instance, “Are you okay?” Nah. Heck nah. You went to a secular school and they were like, “What happened?”
Tanya Musgrave (44:47):
“What’d you do?”
Anthony Hackett (44:51):
Right? “Coming out y’all tuition.” Dang. That’s cool though. That’s cool though. Good. Praise God you were okay.
Tanya Musgrave (44:58):
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So you did hint at a more significant “oh no”. You said the small one or the big or the significant one. Which one did you mention first?
Anthony Hackett (45:05):
Oh, no, no. I was just referring to that. It was big. That same one was big for me at the time,-
Tanya Musgrave (45:10):
Oh. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Okay.
Anthony Hackett (45:11):
… but it ended up not being too bad.
Tanya Musgrave (45:12):
Okay. All right. All right. Because I thought you were mentioning two. It’d just be like, “Oh, well, there’s a-“
Anthony Hackett (45:14):
Nah.
Tanya Musgrave (45:16):
“… small one and a significant one.” It was just… Okay.
Anthony Hackett (45:19):
So I will say this. We’ve been actually very blessed with the projects that I’ve done to really not have any significant issues. We really haven’t. We were really, really blessed. One thing that… And this is for your Christian audience, anyone in your audience who may come from the Christian faith. I would say this. That prayer before, during, and after your projects weighs a lot in my opinion because-
Tanya Musgrave (45:45):
Interesting.
Anthony Hackett (45:45):
… we’ve done that and we’ve been very blessed to really not have any significant issues. Every film that I’ve done has been very smooth and really good, even the issues that we’ve come across like that. It ended up not being big. Another issue was, on my last film, we… Oh gosh. So my last film, Tanya, we had an actor, he was a day player, and he contacted me the night before he’s about to show up. Contacted me, mind you. I mean, the director of the movie. This is something maybe you should talk to somebody else about.
Tanya Musgrave (46:21):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (46:21):
He contacted me via email, I think, via email at that. Who tells you I’m going to look at that? And said the next day, he was like, “Can someone pick me up from the train station?” I said, “What the freak? Who?” No. Can’t nobody pick you up from the train station. You’re supposed to get to set. So I wrote him back.
Tanya Musgrave (46:39):
Self-report.
Anthony Hackett (46:39):
I was like, “Unfortunately, no, I can’t. I don’t know anybody who could pick you up. I apologize.” He’s supposed to find his own way.
Tanya Musgrave (46:48):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (46:48):
Right?
Tanya Musgrave (46:49):
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (46:49):
Come the next day, we’re filming, Tanya. He ain’t even show up.
Tanya Musgrave (46:55):
Oh my gosh.
Anthony Hackett (46:55):
The dude didn’t show up. And he’s a role. He’s a day player. We need the dude.
Tanya Musgrave (47:01):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (47:01):
So even that, having an actor just not show up the day you’re supposed to film is a big deal.
Tanya Musgrave (47:08):
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (47:09):
But by the grace of God, one of our extras, who was dynamic, was able to step in, was upgraded to a day player role and fill that role, and killed it.
Tanya Musgrave (47:20):
Ah.
Anthony Hackett (47:21):
So, again, prayer plays a big part in things, in my opinion, from my faith and perspective.
Tanya Musgrave (47:27):
Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Interesting. At the very least, it will put you in a mindset that can roll with the punches. Maybe I should revisit you after you’ve had a set completely fall apart, and I want to know what your perspective is after that as well.
Anthony Hackett (47:42):
That’s a good point. You’re exactly right, because that prayer or that time just with God, it puts you in a peace, a peaceful place where you’re able to go ahead and tackle whatever you need. And whatever comes your way, you’re at a peaceful place where you’ll be able to address it.
Tanya Musgrave (48:00):
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m wanting to wrap up with a question that I always ask. What question should I have asked you?
Anthony Hackett (48:07):
Maybe it’s something you would’ve gotten to, but just maybe like, “What would be your advice to filmmakers, potential filmmakers, or people who are interested in the craft?” The first thing I would say, this is only again for the Christian audience, is to just stay prayed up. It’s very, very important, because from my perspective, God is all things and he will help you do whatever you need. Aside from that, practically, and I know it’s kind of cliché, but I’ma put it in a way that is maybe something different you’ve heard before, and that’s to not give up.
Tanya Musgrave (48:39):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (48:40):
Right? So the reason why I say that and… Because someone once told me, “As long as you’re prayerfully going after something, the only way you’ll never get there or the only way people never get there is because at some point in their life, they gave up.”
Tanya Musgrave (48:54):
Mm. Yes. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (48:56):
They just gave up. At some point in their life, they quit, and that’s their guaranteed way of not making it. And as long as you don’t quit, you always have hope.
Tanya Musgrave (49:05):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (49:05):
You always have hope. You always have an opportunity because you haven’t quit. And I said, there’s only going to be two ways that I’ll stop doing what I’m doing, filmmaking, acting, et cetera. There’s only two things that can happen. One is, I die, and two is, God changes my heart. Sometimes, you may have a passion for filmmaking or acting or whatever the case is, and then you start to feel that passion for what you’re doing fade.
Tanya Musgrave (49:36):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (49:36):
But it doesn’t just fade. Passion for something else starts to creep in. If that happens, that’s okay.
Tanya Musgrave (49:44):
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (49:45):
That means that it’s okay. You can let go of what you thought you’ve always wanted to do and you can follow where that passion is leading you next, and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Tanya Musgrave (49:55):
Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (49:55):
But if that passion has never left you, that means you’re doing a disservice by not going after it and you’re quitting.
Tanya Musgrave (50:03):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Hackett (50:03):
And so, as neither of those things happened for me, I ain’t dead, and my passion for what I want to do hasn’t left me yet, so I’m still going forward. But I would encourage people the same thing. Never quit, unless there’s just no hope left for you, meaning you ain’t here no more or, two, that the passion you have has transitioned to something else, not just left you. That’s a big thing.
Tanya Musgrave (50:26):
Mm-hmm.
Anthony Hackett (50:27):
If your passion just left you but nothing has replaced it, that means it’s still there. You’re just disheartened. You’re just frustrated. You’re just upset. But true passion is going to follow something.
Tanya Musgrave (50:40):
Nice.
Anthony Hackett (50:41):
And so, it has to transition to something else, and that’s what I would say.
Tanya Musgrave (50:43):
Nice.
Anthony Hackett (50:46):
Don’t quit.
Tanya Musgrave (50:46):
Nice. How do people find you or follow your work?
Anthony Hackett (50:51):
Sonsetfriday.com, S-O-N-S-E-T Friday dot com. If you just go to our website, you can figure everything else out, our social media and our films we’ve done, and you can contact me through there as well. So sonsetfriday.com.
Tanya Musgrave (51:04):
Nice. Nice, nice. Anthony, this has been the most enjoyable conversation. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences as an indie filmmaker. We really appreciate it.
Anthony Hackett (51:13):
Appreciate you. And listen, don’t just say that. You better mean that, because if I watched another daggone video that you interview and you said to somebody else, “Oh, this has been the most enjoyable,” I know that she was lying. She was lying.
Tanya Musgrave (51:24):
I have actually not said that. Well, I don’t think I have. I’ve said fascinating before.
Anthony Hackett (51:32):
Hey, whether you have or haven’t, as of this date, it has become the most enjoyable, so I’ll take that.
Tanya Musgrave (51:38):
If you enjoyed this interview, follow us right here and on Instagram. Ask us questions and check out more episodes at thepracticalfilmmaker.com. Be well and God bless. We’ll see you next time on The Practical Filmmaker.