We are in an age of rapid content creation. Unfortunately, the speed with which things are produced, it has become more about quantity than quality. The true good stories get lost. Mark M. Smeltzer has observed this, calling for more quality content that brings value. He is a writer, actor, producer, and director strictly focused on producing his own content, working with fellow entertainment professionals, and helping others achieve their dreams. In this episode, he joins Andy McDowell and Zach Levy to take us behind the scenes of Hollywood and share how leadership and culture show up in the entertainment industry. Mark highlights the importance of storytelling, especially in creating authentic and valuable content. Much like in any business, if people don’t trust you, it doesn’t matter how good of a story, product, or service you have. It’s not going anywhere, nor is it going to be heard.
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Leadership, Culture, And Storytelling In The Entertainment Industry With Mark M. Smeltzer
QUALITY TAKES TIME EVEN IN HOLLYWOOD
I have a terrific guest with us in this episode. I can’t wait for you to meet him and something tells me that a lot of laughs are going to be involved in this conversation just based on the conversations I’ve had with him so far. Our guest is Mark M. Smeltzer. He’s a writer, actor, producer, and director. Mark grew up with a love for performing theater and music in his hometown. After tending a bar in the tropics, he lived in the mountains and studied entertainment.
This led Mark to Los Angeles to perform on and off-screen, projects as well as write and produce his own. Mark is strictly focused on producing his own content, working with fellow entertainment professionals, and helping others achieve their dreams, which I can resonate with. Mark, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us.
This is going to be good.
I love storytelling. A story has to start so let’s start at the beginning. How did you get involved in entertainment, comedy writing, and everything that I listed at the beginning of your bio? Did you find yourself naturally funny or have a desire for that? Was it something that you grew into as you became an adult?
I don’t think I’m naturally funny at all. I think that it takes a lot of work. Sometimes it comes naturally, sometimes it doesn’t. How did I get into it? I just tried. I always wanted to be in entertainment. There were four influences of mine. One of my favorite movies growing up was RocketMan, the Harland Williams film. I loved that film. He was pretty inspirational. I don’t know why, but there’s something quirky, it’s like, “I’m a quirky dude. If somebody’s doing a character like that, then I’m sure I’ll be just fine.”
George Carlin, obviously getting older. Robin Williams before that and then Jim Carrey, of course. When I saw the Grinch in 2000 at the theaters, I would imitate his voice and be like, “This is amazing. What is this?” I learned a lot from those materials. I was more of an impersonator and snarky. I wouldn’t say a copycat, but if I heard something, I would try and it stuck into my mind for some reason because I process sounds differently. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the artistic trait in me. I don’t know, but I enjoy either impersonating it or trying to find out how to make whatever I’m hearing better. That’s how I got into it. At a young age, I was like, “Let’s go for it. Let’s see what happens.”
I have a love for this. I’m going to drop the fear and put one foot in front of the other and see what happens.
No, because I don’t think I even had the fear back in the day. I probably have more fear now than I did when I was younger because of the stakes and how they’re higher. If you look at it from a story perspective, the beginning was easy. I was clueless. I didn’t know what I was doing. I only wanted to have fun. If I can make you laugh or feel something, that’s the whole point of entertainment. It is to capture the attention and to take them through an experience or a ride, whether it be dramatic, comedic, suspense, or thrilling.
The whole point of entertainment is to capture attention and take people through an experience or a ride.
It’s about an experience.
I’ll give you an example. I started back up at the LA Film School for writing for film and television. It’s funny. I already do that professionally, but I thought I’d at least have a piece of paper to show for it. You can tell that I have no hard feelings about college. I started back up and I had to watch Gravity. That was one of the movies that I had to do a breakdown for. I started realizing, “I should have done this a long time ago of breaking down and analyzing projects.” I know that I was doing that on my own anyway. I just wasn’t getting any credit for it.
I had the same sense when I put on my Christmas list, a series of business books that I wanted and Simon Sinek came out with his famous Start with Why book. I started reading it and looking at it. Eventually, I went to my life plan that I had written for myself. It was all based on the why, how, and what, just like his golden circle is. I didn’t get to it first. It was a validation for me that my thinking was along the right lines in my own leadership development but sometimes you’re like, “He beat me to it.” I should have been doing this all along. I know what you’re saying.
Sometimes you just got to try it out and see what happens and what sticks.
Wouldn’t you say it’s better late than never to have found that for yourself and to be doing it?
Absolutely. As I said, I already do it professionally, but, “We’re just making fun of you.”
I enjoy it. I feel like there are so many things that are too structural or it’s not entertaining enough especially if people know you. Let’s say for example like Andy and Zach, people know you from a personal standpoint or professional and then they see stuff like this and it’s like, “What is this? This is cool. This is fun. I’m glad that you can ride the wave and have a good time.”
Any time that anytime somebody’s saying they’re about to get married, my first comments are always, “You’re probably worried that mistakes or issues are going to come up, but trust me, 10, 15, or 30 years after the wedding, that’s what you’re talking and laughing about. Just roll with the punches and don’t worry about it. It helps to make your experience unique as opposed to having that cookie-cutter, white picket fence so-called wedding event or experience.
I wanted to ask this question when I was thinking about our conversation. When I talk with my clients who are doctors, lawyers, and chiropractors, people that go through training and experience, that’s where their focus is. That’s where they want to add value to their clients but the reality is they have all these back office things that they have to do for their business to thrive. Counting stuff, legal stuff, appointment stuff, and things of that nature that support, but are not the main thing.
The main thing is providing the value of legal advice, health services, or whatever it may be in their business. That’s what makes them truly an entrepreneur, even though they don’t want to use that title. They are an entrepreneur. They’re out there throwing their shingle out and creating a business from that perspective. In the entertainment film industry, how much of that feeling or sense is there as well? We want to be creative and bring this content, but it is a business. We’ve got to do all these things on the backside and is that easily forgotten?
It sounds like your question is, “People in the industry want to be creative, but there’s too much or you’re inferring that there’s too much on the backend that gets in the way of creativity.”
It’s more of an afterthought like, “We got to do all this stuff to make our creativity, our value, and what we’re trying to do show up and be realized.
I’ll use Nascence as an example. Nascence is the animated crime drama that I came up with in November of 2017. For the past few odd years, I’ve been getting it produced. That has been the key. The only thing that bothers me sometimes is that it’s called show business for a reason. You already asked this question in what you sent me and I’ve already answered this. There’s so much crap that’s being produced. People don’t take enough time. It’s a referral-based business and I’m guilty of this too. They’re not going deeper into their contexts. They’re not going deeper into the project itself.
I look at some of the content that’s being produced and I said to myself, “How in the world did that get funded? Why did that get funded? What idiot investor saw that and thought, ‘That’s going to make me money. That’s going to make people that are going to make this world a better place?’” I’m flabbergasted with a lot of the content that’s coming out.
Netflix is feeling that pain right now.
Frankly, I believe there could have been somebody at the helm there that may have made some wrong decisions and they’ve got to sleep in the bed they made but I could be wrong. Maybe they’re making a fantastic decision. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on with Netflix. I don’t know the people at the head of Netflix. I’m not talking to them on a regular basis. I don’t know what’s happening inside those private rooms as most people shouldn’t because it’s a business.
They’re going to try and find out how we make a profit. How do we get people to continue watching? At $15 a month, it’s all about subscriptions. It’s all about content. It’s all about quality but it seems to me that a majority of the stuff that’s coming out nowadays is quantity. It’s all the shorts and I get that. I understand why, but there are not a lot of true good stories that are coming out. Set up conflict and resolution, not necessarily in that order.
Something that makes you feel because I believe that a lot of the people at the top don’t want you to think. I don’t think that a lot of people want you to think about, “If I watch this material, what is the benefit for me? What is the benefit for the audience to watch this?” With Nascence, if you go to the movie theater and watch Nascence, my expectation is that as soon as the movie’s done, you go buy another ticket because that’s how good I want it to be. That’s the type of material I want to create.
If you create something suspenseful, dramatic, funny, and throw you for a loop, it’s so simple. The idea in and of itself is so simplistic, yet the way that it’s told makes it so intriguing for you. At the end of the movie, you go, “I need to see that again,” not because of what I missed, but what I can learn from that movie. This movie makes me feel and think about what I’m doing. The main thing about Nascence is that you cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that caused it. You don’t see a lot of that type of material as in like, “Stop being a victim.” You do not see that type of actual movie come out.
I’ll give you an example. 13 Reasons Why is all about blaming other people for your problems. That’s a reason why I thought it was a good film up until I realize it’s a dramatic tale, but at the same time, stop blaming people for your problems. If you’re born into this world, you’re the victim. It’s that simple. Everybody was born. Everybody’s a victim. It all depends on how you choose to move forward and circumstances, universal laws, and all this other crap, some things are going to be good for people and some things are going to be bad for people. I believe a part of it is also your decision as well. If you want things to be bad, the universe will listen and it will be bad for you.
If you do want things to be better, you sit through the struggle sometimes and I haven’t struggled as much as other people. I get that. I’m not a single White mom or a single Black mom or a single Chinese mom or a single Japanese mom that has 1, 2, or 3 kids with 2 or 3 jobs. I am not that but I would love to see a story of how that person decided to be better. I feel like we don’t see that stuff. I feel like we always see stuff that’s all about blaming other people for your problems without, at the end of the story learning, “It’s up to me. It’s me. I got to be the one to take charge.” Did that answer your question?
We need more stories of people deciding to be better. We always see stuff that’s all about blaming others for your problems.
Absolutely. We could mic drop right there, stop, hit pause, and that could be the whole premise. Also, preaching to the choir because I feel the same exact way. There’s a lot on Netflix that I don’t watch because of that. Mark, for you, how does leadership show up as an executive producer? Can you hit on more of exactly what an executive producer is and what that looks like for you as a leadership position now?
I feel like that is a huge multifaceted question. There are a lot of different ways you could go at it.
Let’s unpack it.
An executive producer could mean anything. It could mean that you are strictly the money guy, gal, they, he, she, creature, it, or whatever term you want to give to somebody. I don’t care because I’m not you. Do whatever makes you happy. Find your own business. Stop putting it on people. Chill out. We’re okay. If you’re alive, I’m alive. We’re breathing. We’re humans. We both have bones. We both got blood. You call yourself a cat. Okay.
You can’t joke about that stuff these days because they’re like, “I’m going to cancel you.” I’m sorry, I cancel your cancel. This bothers me. If you think you have that much power. That’s why Dave Chappelle is a winner. Dave Chappelle continues to go and he’s like, “And? Yeah, I said it because it’s an idea,” but you can’t say that these days because then you can get in trouble with the social keyboard warriors. As an executive producer, you could strictly be the money person or you could strictly be the creative person who’s heading the project.
You could be the liaison or the link between the financer and the creative person. You could strictly have been good at negotiating your contract and said, “Put a little executive in there, a little sprinkle,” but then I have a, “A little more, a little more, good flavor,” that sort of executive producer. You could be an executive producer strictly that oversees all the other producers or you could be the one who puts the team together.
It all depends on what the actual role is. There are so many different roles that come with a project. I was watching a movie. One that was not too great came out that I was like, “I’d give it a 4 or 5.” It’s The New Mutants. I don’t know if it came out in 2020 or something like that. Good on you for making a movie. I just didn’t enjoy it that much. It felt campy. It felt like it was rushed. They should have taken a little bit more time on the acting as well. It seemed lazy. There were some lazy bits and some pretty good shots though and some good CGI but for the most part, I was like, “This is lackluster, in my opinion.”
At the end of those credits, like X-Men stuff, The New Mutants, it said or even the Wolverine in 2013, I believe it said, “This movie has helped with more than 15,000 jobs,” or something like that. You look through the credits and you see visual effects, effects supervisor, executive producer, producer, assistant director, and director. You got to find those people and they’re out there. When you find the people, what’s your title going to be? What job are you doing? I hope that answers your question. It’s not even tapping into the leadership side, it’s just a label.
For Nascence, for me, I came up with the dancing. I’ve been working on it since November 2017. I wrote it. I created the team. I even helped and I split it with my fiancée. Shelby and I have been together since April 16th, 2020. We’ve been working on it. I pitched her the idea. For a few years, I worked on this outline like crazy. Some of it made sense. A lot of it still needed work. The script that we have even after writing thirteen drafts or whatever still needs work but at least what we did was we worked on it and we pitched it.
At the time, we didn’t know what we were doing, but we knew how we felt when we read that story. When we got coverage from ScreenCraft or whomever we used. I know we used ScreenCraft at one point. That’s the thing, the leadership aspect of heading a project. If I have a particular vision, I’ll tell you what grinds my gears. If I have a specific vision of a project and I work with somebody and I meet somebody who is either a producer or whoever and they say, “I know somebody who can get this thing money and I will not charge you,” which I feel like is a normal thing. You make a contract of, “If you get this thing funded, you’re going to get a certain percentage on the front end because you know the investors. I don’t know investors.”
I know that I have a good product. I have a vision for this thing. Here is my vision and I’m going to tell you this vision. If you aligned with this vision and do what I am asking you to do and are honest with me and you say, “This is what’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen,” and you deliver on those specific timelines, then we are not going to have a problem. I will be very grateful and appreciative. I will tell you that you’re doing a good job.
If I tell you the vision and you say, “I’ve got a guy who can fund this thing. We got a verbal hard yes from these folks. The LOI will be in your inbox by next month, in 30 days.” Thirty days come along, “By the way the LOI, they haven’t even started it.” “I am confused now. You said that you were going to do this and you didn’t do this.” “That’s just business.” “No. That’s a lie.” “Sorry.” “That’s not how that works.” “If I’m an investor of a product or if I am the head of a product and you pull shit like that, I don’t want to work with you. I don’t trust you. I don’t understand why you did that. Please help me understand.” You give excuses, reasons, and objections.
That still doesn’t matter. It’s not business. That’s bad business. It may be business, but it’s bad business so don’t do that thing. I have done this before in my life, which is I’m trying to do it less, which I believe a lot of people are trying to do less from a leadership standpoint. If I say I am going to do something and you say you are going to do something and we agree on something and then you do not deliver or the people that you said we’re going to deliver, do not deliver, I do not want to work with you. I do not care if I have to start over or go find other money elsewhere. I do not want to offer that opportunity to that person anymore.
It’s not vengeance. That’s just business. That’s good business. If somebody does it, that’s bad business. That doesn’t make sense to me. From a leadership standpoint, keep people accountable especially if they call you names like, “You’re being ungrateful. You’re being rude.” It’s like, “I’m asking questions. You said you were going to do this and they’re not doing this. It’s my problem because I was banking on the trust that I had with this person and now I got screwed because I trusted this person.” From a leadership standpoint, it’s my responsibility. That’s why big money moves like that, but it doesn’t at the same time. It’s an instant. That signing of the check, the transfers of the funds, but leading up to that, it takes some balls. That takes a while and some hefty leadership. I hope I answered your question.
It all stems from a branding experience, trust, confidence, and all the things that we talk about in relationships and life. It’s the same thing from a business relationship and why we talk a lot on this podcast about the overlap of life and businesses. If somebody’s doing bad business per se, as a friend, as a spouse, or somebody that’s in a key relationship in your life, you don’t want any part of that.
It’s the same thing on the business side. If you’ve got somebody that’s saying they’re going to do things and then they don’t do it or they delay or somehow their actions are not matching their words, then you don’t want to do business with them just like you don’t want to have them in your village or in your life. It’s no different.
Also, it’s a matter of, “How many times am I going to allow that? Is it going to be one time and then I sit back and observe or is it going to be constantly testing it to be like, ‘I am going to make sure that this person proves themselves to me consistently to never ever work with this person again.’”
It’s the same thing in life, once again.
Let’s say, for example, you and I have a call. “That works great.” “Something came up. I’m sorry. I apologize. I would like to reschedule.” Now, that’s fine. I get that but if that happens 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 times, I don’t want to talk to you anymore.
Now, it’s a habit.
I don’t care if you have what I need. I know that you are not the only person that has what I need. “Bye. See you.” I know there’s somebody else out there and if not, I will wait as long as I have to and work on my products as long as I have to, to make them as good as I can until the timing is right. I believe that you can work as hard as you want and you can work as fast as you want but if it’s not cosmically right with the timing of the universe, it’s never going to happen until God, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, or whomever you believe in, the Ultimate Goodness, let’s say, the powers that may or may not be.
You can work as hard and as fast as you want. But if it’s not cosmically in time with the universe, it’s never going to happen.
I believe that nothing will happen unless it is the timing of, “This is good,” but that’s not up to you. I believe that’s up to a higher power. I believe that if you don’t believe in a higher power, something bigger than you, I feel like you need to check your ego at the door, my friend. Sometimes the most powerful phrase is, “I don’t know because sometimes I don’t.”
Let’s talk about storytelling.
Thanks for letting me go onto this huge harang about leadership.
People hear Zach and me enough. This is all about our wonderful guests coming on, telling their stories and talking about these topics.
On that note, Andy, how many times have we talked about ego?
We talk about ego a lot. One of my favorite books is Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. If you haven’t read it, go read it. Storytelling, we’ve touched on it a little bit, but Zach and I are big proponents of the skill of storytelling for leaders, business owners, and so forth. You, of all people, storytelling is a huge thing from your standpoint of being a leader, executive, producer, writer, producer, and all those titles in the industry. Plus, you’re creating content. As you said, that’s telling a story from that perspective. Can you talk a little bit about that dynamic for you in your life?
What do you mean? Storytelling in me?
The art of it. The importance of it in life and business.
I believe that if people don’t trust you, then it doesn’t matter how good of a story you have, it’s not going anywhere or it’s not going to be heard. Chris Voss is another huge inspiration of mine when it comes to negotiation, empathy, and all that of going deeper. Even Michael Hauge with going deep with why. When in doubt, go deep. He helped us a lot with Nascence and I hope he continues to do so. How do you build that trust with somebody else you’ve never met? Most people have not met the people who either write movies or perform.
If people don’t trust you, then it doesn’t matter how good of a story you have. It’s not going anywhere, or it’s not going to be heard.
I’d say maybe 5% of the entire planet has met all the people in that industry. Otherwise, they’re only watching the content they produce. They’re watching the interviews. Maybe they see them on a reel or something, but how do you build that trust within a very short amount of time so that somebody does hear that story? I was walking my dog. I talk to myself sometimes because I’m normal. Talk to yourself more guys. If you hear it, maybe that’s what you need.
In your head and out loud. A lot of people do it in their heads and not a lot of people do it out loud. Why wouldn’t you want to talk to yourself out loud?
I’m sure I can come up with several reasons why. Somebody went, “I’ll kill the next person that comes in here.” That should have been a thought you could just keep to yourself but I am just a random lonely guy sitting at the bar. I was walking my dogs and I thought to myself, “What is the essence of like storytelling and building trust? What would make something interesting? They don’t even have to trust me. They just have to find it interesting.”
“There once was a guy who had no head and then he met a girl and then, she found out he was dead.” When you say that thing, like, “How could he meet a girl? How could she meet him if he had no head? Wouldn’t he already be dead?” I know that’s a stupid very not thought-out example of a short little story or a question but that’s what most stories are. What’s the lesson? What’s the story? What about this will make my life better?
Stories have been around for thousands and thousands of years. Whether or not it bugs telling each other stories or the sounds of birds, you don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe this is a simulation and this is all made up and at the end of my life I’ll find out that I was the one that created it all. I don’t know but that’s an interesting story. Building trust, if you don’t build trust with somebody, they’re not going to care about the story that you tell.
You have to seem trustworthy, but at the same time though, people enjoy that. They don’t like being lied to but they do like being tricked not in a malicious way but, “They got me. That was a surprise. That was tasty. Yummy. I liked that. That was nice.” From a story perspective, if we could find a way to find a lot of the old texts and compile them, it seems like every religion is, “Don’t kill people,” unless they serve a different God than you.
That’s a tough question because it does deal with so many. I wouldn’t even know where to begin, honestly, to answer. If you had a very specific question about what is storytelling and then I might be able to answer it. Sometimes the world isn’t ready for certain stories because cosmically, there is not a level of trust amongst everybody or again, timing. Maybe sometimes the story could have worked later and maybe it came out but sometimes the universe could be wrong too. You never know.
Sometimes people are not in an emotional state or a point in their life where they’re ready for that story because it hits the ego or it triggers them in some way because they haven’t dealt with the traumas in their past life or whatever. They’re not ready to hear that story from that perspective. Sometimes timing is everything in certain people’s lives.
That’s the thing about stories. If it’s good, you need to make sure that within the story in and of itself, it’s not just the story. There are stories that exist but people aren’t reading them when they do read them, it changes their life, whether it be a comedy, drama, tragedy, or something. It all depends. “That’s a good story.” It depends.
Mark, how does culture show up in entertainment, on set, etc.?
A film’s set is a different beast entirely. It’s also different for animation. Strictly right now, I was in LA from 2019 until late 2020 but when COVID hit, everybody got screwed. The universe was like, “Slow down. Time out,” and all the big people at the top were like, “We can control people now.” “No, sorry.” It’s true though. Take a look. Turn off the TV and start thinking for yourself. I’m in the industry, but it’s called programming for a reason. From 2019 to 2020, I met Tom Cruise on the set of Top Gun: Maverick. It was a blast. It was a lot of fun.
He was hardworking. I was watching not only him, but I was watching everybody on the set. There’s this guy that was in like The Americans or something like that, who was sitting next to Peter. I don’t remember his name but I remember asking him questions. I probably shouldn’t have because we were working. He’s got lines. It was a somber moment in the movie. It was not a cut scene but the scene in and of itself that we were filming that day was not in the movie. It may be in a deleted scene or something because there were like 250 people in the shot. That’s a lot of money.
I had $120, $174, or whatever for the union-backed extras back in the day. I did a lot of extra work. I barely had any principal work or anything like that. I did a Manscaped commercial. That was a blast. That was a lot of fun. I was shaving myself on camera and doing fake stupid stuff. That was enjoyable. That was a good time.
For the audience, you’ve done a lot of voiceovers too.
I have. I’ve done a lot of audiobooks but not nearly as much as the actual pro-pros in voiceover because I didn’t want to be stuck behind a microphone my entire life. For example, I am starting up a podcast in 2023. We’re in the planning stage right now and there’s not going to be more than a potential of fewer than 60,000 guests that can even be on the show because of the target market that I’m going for. The people whom I want to speak with. Johnny Carson is one of my favorites when it comes to hosting. Thirty years sitting at the helm, the King of Late Night.
That’s insane. That’s awesome. You can learn a lot by watching that man. That’s what my media coach Hank Norman taught me. Sit back and watch. Sit back and observe. Get on camera and try stuff out. Press record. Watch yourself when you’re done with it. Spew whatever you got to spew. Talk whatever you got to talk. Get it done then watch it back then restructure. Formulate your methodology. Formulate how you help people. Start coaching people on camera and you’ll figure out what you want to do in life.
I never wanted to be behind the camera. I enjoy being the center of attention, but I also enjoy locking myself in my closet for several hours and working on a face, reading books, watching other people’s stories, or writing a ton of my own stuff. I came out with something called Weed Sex and Decaf and Other Sober Shit back at the end of 2019. It deals with a lot of controversial subjects. Think of George Carlin’s Napalm and Silly Putty. That was the direction of where I wanted to head with it but I wanted to do my own spin on certain things.
I never wanted to be always behind a microphone. I wanted to be in front of people whom I wanted to be in front of. If you know me from a personal perspective, you know that if you’re sitting with me, I love sitting by a fire and having either water, a healthy soda, or something not-so-healthy drink like a beer. Just sitting, talking, listening, and going deep with trauma. I know it sounds like, “I’m a therapist. I’m not going deep,” and hearing stories of other people. I believe most people go through life without being heard. If I can give them an opportunity to be heard. For example, using Nascence to connect that a-ha moment with the people that are watching. They’re like, “I feel heard because he says and it’s exactly what I’m thinking or he’s dealing with the product that is exactly how I’m feeling right now.”
As you said, the timing is. If somebody comes across and sees, “I’m about to kill myself,” and then they go watch Nascence, and then they choose not to kill themselves. I’ve done a good thing. I’m not going to stop somebody if they want to kill themselves. If you want to kill yourself, go for it. Do you want to know why? It’s because that’s not my life. I pray that you don’t, but if you hate your life that much, it hurts me but it doesn’t hurt me.
It hurts that you did it. It hurts that you didn’t want to find out what else this life had to offer, but at the same time, I understand why because sometimes life sucks. I get it. I understand it. I feel that if people talked more and shared their story, even if it was to a camera, talk to themselves, listen to themselves, and work themselves out if they start trusting themselves, just maybe, they could start telling other people their story too. That’s my storytelling. That’s my culture.
That last statement about people talking to themselves and trusting in themselves, that’s what we lack. People are so beat down.
That goes back to the culture of a set. With the question, I went in and took it somewhere else entirely. I’ve never seen any other type of gig than a film set. In the film, if you get the chance, make sure that you’re quiet. Make sure you take a couple of chances here and there but make sure you know what you’re doing. Make sure you learn and I learned by doing. I was like, “I want to be an extra. I want to be in film and movies. Learn how to make them, do them all myself, meet with the people, and fast track.
People are like, “Stop looking for shortcuts.” I’m like, “That’s the only thing I should be looking for,” because I’m going to do the hard work, but if I find a shortcut and it works, I cut years away from the thing and I’m going to go find out how to do it even better. That’s culture. I’m guessing that I’ll be on your show within the next and we can be like, “Let’s pick up where we left off.”
In 2023, it’ll be a different story. It may be a right or wrong time for that story for certain people. Everything that we talked about in this episode is still relevant from that perspective.
That’s another thing about the story is finding out what’s relevant genuinely because what’s relevant sells. What matters is what is cosmically the universal laws. I’ll give you one final thing. I met the guy over the phone a couple of times. He read my script and he liked it, but he was a little busy to work on it so we went with somebody else. This guy is named Adam Skelter. If you look up online, he has so many good videos and breakdowns of storytelling like universal laws, plot points, and structure.
I would recommend that if you want to start somewhere, go check out some of his stuff. Also check out Michael Hauge, John Truby, and even Quentin Tarantino. Watch his movies. I care about people changing for the better through entertainment. That’s what I care about. If people want to work with me, I will charge them a lot on the backend. I’m looking forward to whomever I’m supposed to work with next. If you have a story out there and you need help, call me.
If I don’t like it, I’ll tell you, “I don’t like this story,” because I don’t care about your feelings. I’m sorry but I care about how does this story make me feel? If I’m bored and if I’m unhappy about this thing, then I’ll say, “I’m sorry, but you need to work on it. This needs to be something that can resonate with people and at this current moment, it’s not.” I’ve already done that with somebody in a group that I’m in. They sent me their material and I gave them a 25-minute video of like, “Here’s what needs to happen.” It’s got an okay bonus. “Good luck. If you want to work with me, you hire me. If not, don’t. I’m happy to help people.” I am genuinely but people got to eat too.
In the business world, how many times have we sat through business meetings in the conference room where leaders are trying to influence people or get them engaged or whatever and they’re not telling a good story? People are noodling and doodling on their papers. They’re thinking about, “Where am I going to go for lunch?” and those types of things because you haven’t taken the time to build that quality story for the meeting that’s going to get them engaged. It sees how they’re involved inside that story and you get a much better result. Kudos to you for wanting high-quality stuff that’s going to tell a good story, that’s going to get people engaged and make a difference and deliver value in the world.
How many hours have we got left? I’m going to find this out. Who’s got a calculator? Let’s say I’ve got 70 years left. That’s a long time. 70 years times 365. I’ve got 25,550 days left if I live for another 70 years. If I’m 31 years old, it’ll be 101 years old. With those, how many hours of those are going to be dedicated to you? What’s 25,000 by 24? That’s a good question. 25,550 times 24 hours is 613,200. That’s not a lot of time when you think about it. I don’t want to be spending my time watching bad stuff. I want to be improving my life and having quality hours.
However, my responsibility is to weed through the bad stuff, whether it be in development or what have you. The max I’ll take is 10% off of any deal because if I take more than 10%, I’m greedy. That’s the backend. If I take 5% of whatever your budget is, let’s say you’re able to get $1 million on this budget and you want to hire me, it’s 5%? I don’t think that’s a bad deal. 5% and you get me for anything. You get my name and you get me to work on your project. I don’t think that sucks. I think that’s pretty kind because then you know, what I’ll do is I will take my time and I will be honest with you. I will tell you exactly how I feel about this project.
If you don’t like it, that’s on the both of us and we’ll figure out, “Why don’t you like this?” We have to make sure that whatever story we come up with works. If it doesn’t work, don’t put it in there. Trim the fat and spend more time with the script. Just when you think it’s about ready for shooting, take it back off one more time and say, “Could this be any better? Does this make sense? Have we gone deep enough? Can this resonate more? Are you sure this page has enough conflict in it? Does it have a good conflict overall? How is the audience going to view this? What other stuff is coming out with it? Does this word make more sense than this other word?”
I understand that’s mundane work. I know that that’s annoying as hell but that’s the stuff that you got to do in order to make it truly great like The Godfather. Spend time with it. Star Wars even could have been better. Star Wars was okay. It could be better. Watch it from an analytical standpoint, it could have been way better. That’s me.
Mark, we greatly appreciate you coming to the show. We’re running out of time here with our audience. Zach and I always finish up our conversation with a guest with one question. That question doesn’t have a right or wrong answer. It’s about what’s in your heart. What are the words that generate your value mean to you?
The first question that comes to mind is, “How am I supposed to generate the value? What does value mean to me? What is value? What type of value are we talking about?” What I was saying was if it’s my responsibility to sit back and listen to people’s ideas and hear them out. Genuinely sit, listen, and not talk. Take some time, read the material, and read the content. I can give them something that will propel them into either the stardom that they’re looking for, the good story that they’re trying to achieve, or the idea that may have been missing. You come to me. I’m the ideas guy. I’m the problem guy. I could be so negative specifically in order to make you positive.
Also, find the stuff that sucks. Being honest with people generates value. I believe that not holding back with how I truly feel because that’s what it is if somebody’s asking that. Let’s say he comes to me and says, “Mark, here’s how you could generate value for me. I want you to read my script or I want you to read my material and tell me how you truly feel. Tell me what you believe I could do to make this better. Tell me what you believe in and which direction this could go.” I want to hear your thoughts. I may not agree with all of them, but if we work as a team, and if you do see something because you could see something and you may know something that I don’t.
That’s how to integrate value. What matters is to ask them, “How do I generate value for you?” Focus on your strengths. Stop focusing on your weaknesses. People will tell you your weaknesses for you. How many people tell you your strengths? You got to find those out for yourself. Generate your own value and find your strengths.
People will tell you your weaknesses. How many people will tell you your strengths? You have to find those out for yourself.
Mark, we appreciate you being on and to our audience, thanks for spending time with us. I hope Mark and all of the deep diving generate plenty of value for you as well. As always, if something stood out to you in this episode and something else you read, help us grow. Hit the subscribe button. Follow us on our journey to continue to generate value in this world and possibly the next. If anybody comes to mind that needs to hear this message, send them a link, share, and have them go through our library of episodes to continue to compound that value. With that, thank you again for spending time with us and we will see you back here next week.
For those that don’t know, I’ve become an Executive Contributor with Brainz Magazine. I came out with an article that you can find out there. Google Andy McDowell Brainz Magazine. That article is about a subject we talked about in our conversation with Mark and that is self-trust in trusting others, how self-trust is the foundation of the ability to trust others in your relationships. From that perspective, thank you so much for joining us. We’ll be back next with another amazing guest like Mark on the episode. I hope you tune in and have a great week and a great day and generate your value in this world. Take care.
IMPORTANT LINKS
- Mark M. Smeltzer
- Start with Why
- Ego is the Enemy
- Napalm and Silly Putty
- Adam Skelter
- Michael Hauge
- John Truby
- Quentin Tarantino
- Brainz Magazine
ABOUT MARK M. SMELTZER
