This is a transcript of SYS Podcast Episode 401 – Filmmaking, Money, Fascism and Some Sort of Acid.
Ashley: Welcome to Episode #401 of the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger over at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I’m interviewing Janek Ambros, who just did a really indie film called Mondo Hollywoodland. He’s a writer, director, producer with a number of indie credits. We talk through his career, how he got his start and how he was able to put his most recent film together, this Mondo Hollywood is what we’ll be talking about today. So stay tuned for that interview. If you find this episode valuable, please help me out by giving me a review in iTunes or leaving me a comment on YouTube or re-tweeting the podcast on Twitter or liking or sharing it on Facebook.
These social media shares really do help spread word about the podcast, so they’re very much appreciated. Any websites or links that I mention in the podcast can be found on my blog in the show notes. I also publish a transcript with every episode in case you’d rather read the show or look at something later on. You can find all the podcast show notes at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/podcast, and then just look for Episode Number #401. If you want my free guide, How to Sell a Screenplay In Five Weeks, you can pick that up by going to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. It’s completely free, you just put in your email address and I’ll send you a new lesson once per week for five weeks, along with a whole bunch of bonus lessons.
I teach the whole process of how to sell your screenplay in that guide. I’ll teach you how to write a professional logline and query letter, and how to find agents, managers and producers who are looking for material. Really, it’s everything you need to know to sell your screenplay, just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. So now let’s get into the main segment. Today I am interviewing writer, director, and also producer Janek Ambros. Here is the interview.
Ashley: Welcome Janek to the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Janek: Yeah Ashley. Thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Ashley: So to start out, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up and how did you get interested in the entertainment business?
Janek: Yeah, so I’ve been… I’m one of those kids I guess, who wanted to do films since I was really young. All the way back to, I was like making little homemade video movies and stuff when I was like six and seven and stuff like that. But ultimately I went to school for economics in Upstate New York. Though I still had the intention of eventually like somehow making movies, but I felt like well, movies are a business. I mean, I was kind of a film nerd with learning about how like the old studio system and the history behind it all. So yeah, so I kind of veered into producing more and kind of focused on producing for several years in my earlier years while simultaneously kind of writing on the side and not really trying to get it out too much, but just honing in on my craft and stuff like that.
Then eventually kind of the two would merge as I was like, “Okay, well I’ll produce, and then I’ll kind of produce something that I’ll direct.” You know what I mean? So that was kind of my way into the industry.
Ashley: Okay. So let’s talk about some of those early producing jobs. I noticed an IMDb you did a number of shorts, and maybe you can talk about those. How did you get those shorts off the ground? How did you get them financed?
Janek: Yeah, so the shorts are interesting because it’s, obviously shorts are really great to learn because there’s no external pressure. There’s no production companies, big investors on your back. It’s really just experimenting and trying to kind of find maybe your voice or it’s just like what you’re trying to say. So I did a lot of shorts as a director just to kind of… and I didn’t have very much money. At some point I think I had literally no money, so what I would do is I would do like more experimental films using terabytes of stock footage. I would create these shorts out of the, out of old propaganda stock footage reels from like The Cold War, World War II. Just various kind of propagandas, like factions throughout the world.
I would kind of to try to tell stories through that, and that was a really big editing experiment. So I really got into editing because I really just didn’t have the camera and the money to go shoot stuff. Eventually I would, I actually went to Europe, my sister was there abroad and I shot a film in Paris. Like very little films, but throughout all that time I was kind of honing in on what kind of stuff I was trying to say politically and what kind of messages I was trying to say through my films. That would ultimately be very similar to the features that I would make now and so on. So it was really, I would say important, and I was really lucky enough to have someone like Barbara De Fina, who’s Martin Scorsese’s longtime producer, who did Goodfellas and Casino and stuff.
She helped me with the one in Paris and kind of was an early kind of influence on some of them I work, with the shorts. Yeah. Then I eventually left that [inaudible 00:0502].
Ashley: Got you. Yeah. And I wanna just touch on some of that, because I think that’s fascinating. Number one, where did you get all this stock footage? And were you like a student so you could get it for free? Like what is the licensing on using that stock footage?
Janek: Yeah, I would just scour the internet. There was like internetarchives.org. There’s a lot of archival websites. Now you can really even just go on YouTube. I mean, this stuff isn’t copy written. These are like the Soviet Russia is not gonna come and… So like it really, you just got to get it where you can and make sure your quality is good and then do a lot of stuff with posts to kind of make sure it runs, it plays fluidly with the other stock footage. So very heavy on post-production, which was great because so much movies as you know, are rewritten, rewritten, made, but then in post-production they’re remade, and they’re really put together. So it was a really great way to learn post production and editing and sound design.
I mean, oh my God, I had so much fun. I’m a big fan of like Walter Murch and Dede Gardener and stuff like that, so sound design was another big thing that kind of gave me some skill sets that I couldn’t really get without money, because that could have been cameras and stuff like that and people to pay. So these were things, it was almost similar to writing where you can kind of just be on your computer and just get lost in it for a month.
Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. I’m curious, and we’re sort of jumping ahead, so we will get back to this in a second. But I noticed in some of your features you’ve also used stock footage. In fact you’ll have some famous people listed as appearing in the film and it will say “stock footage”. Was that an intentional thing? Like, it seemed to me as I was sort of researching this podcast, it was like, oh, it’s a way of getting a little bit of PR. It’s not exactly IP, but you’re sort of bringing in sort of another fold, some famous people that maybe could elevate the film a little bit. Was that sort of your intention or?
Janek: Yeah. Well, so it’s interesting. So like with, so the first feature… Oh, this will get into what you’re saying. The first feature I directed was Imminent Threat, which I did with James Cromwell. He produced, executive produced it, and that was a feature that was about the war on terror and the war in Afghanistan, all that, and how it impacted civil liberties at home and kind of like the foreign interventions we did abroad and how they were failures and all that stuff. And yeah, if you see that, you’ll see, I would obviously list that’s another situation where I didn’t have much money, so I did some interviews, but the rest was stock footage. So when I did the stock footage, I would just kind of for archival reasons or for just like due diligence, almost put who’s ever in the movie.
So it wasn’t really like, “Oh, this will get so-and-so,” and be like, “Oh, this person’s in it.” It was more to just kind of be accurate and be like, okay, so I… and that’s kind of a more documentarian approach is like, okay, this person’s in it, this person’s in it. It’s almost even good for me to see like, okay, from archival, what viewpoints am I getting? What politicians am I getting? What organizers am I getting, et cetera, et cetera. So later in, even in narrative films, even in Mondo, which we’ll get to, like there’s kind of, it’s more of a psychedelic comedy and there’s stock footage from like Edward R. Murrow and [inaudible 00:08:18] and John Wayne and stuff like that. But that’s just a way to kind of accurately depict what’s happening. You know what I mean?
Ashley: Got you. Okay. So back to the shorts, just for a quick second. How did these short films prepare you for features? Can you just tell us quickly, what are some of the lessons you learned doing these short films, and again, how did those sort of get you ready to do some of these features?
Janek: Yeah. So I’ll say that the, I mentioned a lot about editing, so I think I covered that. But one film, one short film I did was Son of Man. That was an adaptation of a Dostoevsky parable from The Brothers Karamazov, The Grand Inquisitor, where Jesus comes back to earth during The Spanish Inquisition, and the church is like, ”We don’t need you anymore. We got this,” right? So what I did was I delved really into World War II and kind of that whole area, and I adapted it into the Ustasha, which was a Nazi group that was very much more closely tied with like Catholicism, which is… So I kind of adapted it, so where Jesus comes back to that period of time.
That film wasn’t like, oh, I just cut stock footage and stuff like that. That one was actually something where I had a crew and I was at 22 or something. So it was really kind of like intimidating, because I had a set and the crews. It was like four-day shoot so it wasn’t a feature, it was a short. But that really helped me kind of realize, I mean, that having the experience of having people around you, looking to you for, okay, what do I do and what do you want, and stuff like that. And even just the money aspect of making sure that there’s a little bit of a budget for this or that, that really helped me kind of figure out how to do a more traditional film.
And then like I mentioned earlier, the other short films that were more avant-garde, more experimental, that really helped for later to figure out how to tell a story in the edit room. Like so much. Because it’s all, it’s like you have all this footage and trying to kind of do a beat by beat and have it so you can kind of engage an audience for more than 10, 20 minutes is obviously paramount. It’s the most important thing. So those shorts definitely, without question, obviously helped me really be able to kind of execute some of the things later I would do.
Ashley: Got you. So let’s dig into your latest film, Mondo Hollywoodland, a film that you wrote and directed. Maybe to start out, you can just give us a quick pitch or a logline. What is this film all about?
Janek: Yeah, so the film is a about a… It’s a psychedelic comedy about this groovy mushrooms dealer who traverses through Hollywood and all these different little factions to find the meaning of Mondo. So along the way, he kind of encounters like industry folks, psychedelic people, Antifa, like more fringe politics, kind of going back a little bit to an obsession of politics, or whatever. So, but there’s a little bit of that in there, like commentary, and yeah. So that’s the most recent film and I was really fortunate to make it with my producing partner, Chris Blim and writing it with my two writing partners with Chris Blim and Marcus Hart. Yeah.
Ashley: Got you. Got you. What was the genesis? You just mentioned Mondo. What is Mondo?
Janek: Well, that’s the whole movie, right? No, no. So what really… Where it came from is this, it’s kind of an homage to the ‘60s films. There was a whole genre called Mondo. So these Mondo films were like these kind of like crass, crazy, pho-documentaries, kind of like a mockumentary, but a little bit more like ‘60s and psychedelic. What happened was actually Paul Thomas Anderson, excuse me, presented Mondo Hollywood, which was a 1967 film at the AFI Film Festival, like 2014 and Marcus and I went to go see it, the co-writer, and I was like, “Oh, what if we did a VR version of this, of this kind of updated version of like looking at Hollywood through VR?”
So at first it was gonna be this like VR thing, but and then we kind of moved away from the VR thing and was like, “Well, I’m gonna just shoot it on a cell phone.” Then I met Chris Blim, who’s the star and the producer of the film, and he really had, we, me and him then really joined, all three of us joined forces and really made it into a narrative film. So it’s a very odd way to make a film. It was like… it’s because it has that mixture of documentary and narrative. I think it eventually swung way more in the narrative side, which is I think for the better. So, yeah, so that was what the genesis was, this old kind of a cult classic from the ‘60s called Mondo Hollywood, and we kind of were doing this like in the twin 2020 kind of like atmosphere instead.
Ashley: Got you. Got you. So let’s talk about the collaboration a little bit. You mentioned Chris Blim, and it looks like also Marcus Hart was one of the writers. Just talk about… I get a lot of emails, questions about how do co-partners write or how do you write with another person? Did you guys have some sort of an agreement, do you just bash out a first draft together in the same room? Do you come up with scenes and then divide up and write the scenes, bring them together? Maybe just talk through sort of your process with these other guys?
Janek: Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, so first it was more of just this basic narrator giving this whole story of Hollywood and it was obviously gonna go shoot stuff, but when we just made it more of a narrative film, it was used set basic structure where there’s the Hollywood’s broken up into the titans, weirdos and dreamers, just set that three. Okay, we’re gonna break it up into that. But once we made it narrative, Marcus wrote that kind of base point, and then when Blim came on board and we made it more narrative, me and him would just basically, it was like college writing. It was like writing comedy, or writing, like being in a writer’s room with a comedian because Chris is really funny.
So it would basically be us riffing and trying to find funny scenes and funny moments and bizarre and more like psychedelic stuff and kind of make these little vignettes. Me and Blim did that for months, while we were shooting too. So while we were writing and shooting, we would kind of send the pages over to Marcus and he would kind of organize them so structurally it made sense. Now, granted, the whole film is like very farcical and crazy, but there is structure buried underneath there, whether even some people are conscious of it or not. So Marcus did a really good job of kind of like making sure it was all organized in a formula of some kind where Blim and I would kind of really try to find the characters and what kind of crazy things they would do and kind of really go for the more psychedelic stuff.
So it was a really, it was really great working with both of them. It was just like a very odd team that was fun.
Ashley: Yeah. So describe your sort of production a little bit. It sounds like you guys went into production before the script was at least fully cemented, and so you guys were… Did you shoot it over the course of six months and go back, rewrite, go shoot stuff, or you shot over two weeks, but just kept hammering away at the script the whole time?
Janek: We were chewed basically over the whole sum. I think it was like on and off. It wasn’t like a traditional 28-day shoot, six days a week. It was like, we’re gonna shoot the whole summer, and then the script was changing all the way up into the end, with kind of the somewhat of an ending. I mean, even the ending was, yeah, it was very… it was writing as you shoot. So we took, I mean, like in a weird way, I don’t know, not saying this is totally intentional, but it kind of was. I mean, it was like, looking back at some of those films, like The Trip and some of those Corman films and stuff like that from the ‘60s, a lot of the times that’s how it went. So we kind of felt okay, I got… normally that would be something you don’t do, right? Ever.
But it was like, it was almost part of making the type of movie it is, is to kind of have these… Like one day we were, it was Blim’s birthday and we were at a bar and a car exploded on the street. I won’t give anything away, but that really changed the script, because I ran out with my camera because it was shot in a cell phone. And it’s almost like I always had a huge red with me, that would just have [inaudible 00:16:39]. So anywhere I’d go, we’d go out to a party, I’d say, “Hey, let’s do a scene.” I mean, so this is the type of stuff we were doing is that, we would, something would happen in real life and we’d shoot it and we’d say, “How can we work this in?” And that was just something you would never do.
I mean, like… So that’s kind of, I think some of the fun of this film is like, there’s no way to make this on a regular budget. It just wouldn’t make sense. It would just be like, I mean, you show this to… you show this script to an agency to do coverage or a production company through an agency or manager, they’d be like, “What the fuck is this?” [laughs] So that was fun. That was fun, there were no rules at all. It was just totally like… And like I say, I know a lot of people come here for like screenwriting advice and it’s not the way to do it. But in some ways, especially if you don’t have money and you don’t have traditional financing from a film company or whatever, one of these producers who were saying granting you with money or whatever, then you kind of have to make something weird and out there. So, yeah.
Ashley: I’m curious, you mentioned some of these other films from the ‘60s. Talk about that a little bit. Making a modern day sort of adaptation, where there is sort of a history of these types of films, what are some of the tropes that you decided to bring along? Did you try and subvert some of those tropes? Maybe talk about that. How do you add to a sort of canon of films, but also make it original, but still also sort of do homage to those films?
Janek: Yeah, that’s a really good question. So like, I think I just like… I can just speak for myself, obviously, not for Blim and Marcus. But for me, I just kind of had these, some of these films in the back of my head, right? I was kind of thinking, like I mentioned the trip and a lot of these, like Bob [inaudible 00:18:30] was another one, Hell’s Angels, Easy Rider. I had them in the back of my head and I’ve seen them so much. And I have a lot of… Actually other type of films that are influencing were really just the, almost the documentaries about even making them because they were sort of crazy. You know what I mean? Like Dennis Hopper running around on acid, like trying to show the producer he was able to get, make Easy Rider.
So there’s all this footage of him just like, yeah, New Orleans, trying to be like, “Oh, this is what it’s gonna be…” So even those were… But I think the big question you have is, how do you make it so it’s not just trying to do some throwback? Because that wouldn’t make sense with the culture we live in now, that’s just, we were totally… And that, I think that’s where some of the political zeitgeist and stuff that all three of us, Marcus, Blim, and I are really into, helped make it now. So there’s a lot of, like Antifa is a big part of this movie. And that’s obviously not, has nothing to do with the ‘60s, it’s about now. So I think the political knowledge of all three of us really helped, though it’s done through silly farcical comedy, buried underneath it gives it more of a modern touch.
I mean, I remember when we actually we were shooting this, because we shot this a couple of years ago. It was released obviously last week, but no one, I remember we were showing people the movie rough cuts and a lot of people didn’t even know what Antifa was. Now, of course that would be, everybody knows what it is. So it was interesting to see that kind of, how that happened. But so like Trump is obviously a part of this story, one of Trump’s allies, I won’t give it away, is actually one of the, not one of the characters, but yes, kind of a very important part of the plot twist. There’s this crazy plot twist where you kind of discover something that you didn’t know before and it has to do with one of Trump’s big allies.
So it definitely keeps the relevancy of now-ish and doesn’t go back to these kinds of like the politics of then, because it wouldn’t make sense. Another thing I would say, too, is we didn’t wanna go… Because here’s the other… sure, we speak some criticism of like this movie’s not ‘60s enough, but we didn’t, I personally didn’t wanna do this kind of like, maybe some of the more sexploitation stuff. I just was not interested in that as much. So some of the more like really crass stuff, I didn’t wanna do that. Maybe that does a disservice or something to the genre, but I’m not, I don’t care. I mean, I wanted to do something that was fun, psychedelic, silly, had a little bit of a political commentary. But I didn’t wanna go down the rabbit hole, they’d be going too far into like the crass and exploitation and shock factor stuff.
Because some of that stuff, I don’t think… I think a lot of it could be done without it, but that’s just me.
Ashley: So I’m curious, it sounds like you guys are all sort of on the same page politically. But it seems like in this day and age no matter which direction you lean, you’re either gonna, you’re going to cut off half the country, basically. You’re gonna annoy half the country if you lean in any particular direction. How did you approach that? Did that concern you? I mean, obviously it’s experimental, it’s low budget, so you’re not trying to create this four-quadrant movie, but you are creating a legacy for yourself. It could potentially impact other projects if you annoy the wrong people. How did you approach some of that stuff?
Janek: Well I mean, look, I think ultimately I don’t want… I almost want people to see it before I… but like, no, I ultimately don’t care. I don’t care. I’ll kind of stick to what I said. Because like my first film was a pretty biased look at the war on terror, what I think about some of these botched interventions and stuff like that. So I’ve never really shied away from… but like, you know, I’m definitely not the voice of this. It was a collaboration of many actors and writers. So like, I don’t think anyone, I don’t think the film speaks to any one person’s view. Definitely. I don’t believe in the kind of like, “Oh, I’m the director so it’s like it’s my view.” No, absolutely not.
It’s me, Blim, Marcus, all the actors are making this film together. Now what the audience wants to think is up to them, but ultimately I think when someone sees the movie they’ll know what, it’s pretty, to me at least pretty okay to be against what it is against. If it some people off on the right or whatever, I don’t give a shit.
Ashley: I’m curious what you had just crew-wise. It sounds like you were running the camera on your iPhone. Did you also have some external sound, were you’re running some sound? Did you have any lights or PAs, guys with bounce boards? Anything like that, was it all natural light? How did it actually go down to shoot it?
Janek: Yeah. So it was just me and Chris mostly. And it was also…
Ashley: Who was the actor, correct? So it was you as the director, cinematographer and then he’s the one acting.
Janek: Yeah, and then he’s, but then also… but like when we’re doing it with other people, because a lot of… he’s there with me producing. So he was the, a lot of the times production design, and our, he was our production designer and doing lighting and stuff while I was doing the camera and we would both do sound. So it was crazy. There was a few days where we had, we were like, okay, there’s six people, I’m in the scenes, because I’m also in movie. So like, they would just…. There are scenes where literally me and him are both in the scene. So we had to kind of, a few days had to get some crew members and basically just a few sound people, or a sound person. But ultimately it was not, we didn’t have a crew, which is very odd. Most features have a crew.
Ashley: Yeah, I’ll say. So just in terms of the equipment though, was there any ad-ons or apps or anything you’re using on your iPhone? If someone wants to go and shoot something like this on their own, do they got to get some special apps? Are there special lenses attachments, or was it just a stock iPhone?
Janek: A stock iPhone and then [inaudible 00:24:26] is like a 20-hour program. I didn’t use any other lenses. Like Tangerine’s known for being like the iPhone movie, and they use lenses. I just kind of figured it would just stick to this more like mock style thing. It’s really tricky shooting on a phone. I really, I would really… If people are looking into shooting on a phone, I obviously I’m gonna say, “Yeah, give it a shot.” I don’t know. But at the same time I would say, if you really need to, and if there’s a style, there’s a creative reason for it, go for it. But like an SLR, just having that lens capability is really helpful. So I don’t know. Maybe I just looked at the footage for so long and I was like, “Ugh,” but like, no, if you definitely have an intent and purpose of it.
Because it’s really cheap to shoot on SLR too. It’s not like a total game-changer going from a phone or an SLR or to a phone, it’s still cheap. So like, it’s obviously when you start getting into Reds and like Alexas and stuff, you have to really you have to pay rentals or have a camera. But, or befriend a DP.
Ashley: Yeah. Even smarter.
Janek: That’s what you should be doing. That’s what I probably should have sort done.
Ashley: So a couple of questions about James Cromwell. It sounds like he’s executive produced a number of your films. So number one, I’d like to just, how did you meet him? How did you kind of get him as an ally? Just take us back to whatever that first film was, or where did you meet him and how did you get him on board
Janek: James Cromwell’s awesome. So basically when I finished Imminent Threat it was, I think it was like 2014. That was the feature documentary I directed about the war on terror. I knew he, I knew where he stood politically. He’s a pretty out-there lefty anti-interventionalist pro-human rights guy, right So I sent the movie out to a lot of people who might be into this issue, this, the war on terror and how it impacts civil rights and civil liberties and stuff like that. I just reached out to people and seeing if anybody would stick their name on it. Then he watched it and he really liked it, and that was awesome. I mean, I felt like some validation. I’m like, “Oh, thank God. This person likes my movie.”
So then as that was really helpful to the film obviously, having someone like him, because he’s not obviously just a great actor who’s like nominated for an Oscar. And he’s like still, he’s in succession, he just got an Emmy a few years ago from American Horror Story. He’s also an incredible activist. And like, when I say activist, it’s not just he just goes on Twitter or whatever. He’s out there getting arrested for protesting and he’s not the youngest guy. So it’s like, I mean, he’s really doing work and I really admired him for that. So it was really cool, having his name on it really helped. Then for Mondo, it was, I didn’t even really, that was also later, I didn’t kind of come to him earlier.
I kind of wanted to make the film first and see if he was into it, and he was into it. He kind of understood the kind of… It’s an odd film. It’s not for everybody, right? But he understood that kind of like ‘60s, more avant-garde approach. And once again, obviously it really helps to film because it just kind of gives it a little bit of leg up to have somebody who’s well-liked in the industry and well-known in the industry to help propel the film out into the world, you know?
Ashley: So how do you do this research? Are you just, you’re into some certain political causes, so you just take note about what other actors are into some similar political causes and then at some point you just got his email, his agency email address on IMDb Pro and made a cold submission?
Janek: Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, pretty much. That’s like, it also challenges, I just also know who’s saying what too, it’s like, I have a pretty good gauge of like, oh, okay. These people are more of like this kind of camp of politics, a little bit more like left-leaning and pro-human rights and stuff like that, work with the ACLU. Because obviously with Imminent Threat, I literally worked with the ACLU on that. So like, they even have, it’s like, oh, this actor works with us. So yeah, there’s… I would say for people watching this, if they’re making their movie, if there’s any sort of like angle or niche to it, there probably that like, which I would argue, maybe there probably should be.
I mean, it’s like there probably should be some little something about it. There probably is a few people in the industry that say, “Hey, I like that.” Then maybe they would put their name on it and help get the film out there for a small film. So I really encourage people to try doing that. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people and seek their help or guidance, or maybe even like have them putting their name on something.
Ashley: Yeah, for sure. So I always like to just wrap up these interviews by asking the guests, if there’s anything they’ve seen recently that they thought was really great that maybe screenwriters could benefit from, especially if it’s something under the radar. Is there anything you’ve been watching that you thought maybe you could recommend to our listeners?
Janek: Oh man. That’s throwing me off guard. But… what was it? I just watched…. This is, is it okay if it’s an older movie?
Ashley: Yeah no, absolutely.
Janek: Yeah. Watch The Player. I love that movie.
Ashley: Okay, yeah. That’s a true classic. A true classic.
Janek: Then now I’m just like, yeah, it’s just great. It’s Robert Altman. It’s funny, but it’s also like really clever and it’s just really, really well-written and a fun movie, but also just like kind of pokes fun at the industry. So that’s always fun to watch.
Ashley: Yeah, for sure. How can people see Mondo, Hollywoodland? Do what the release schedule is gonna be like?
Janek: Yeah. So right now it’s on Amazon. It’s pretty consolidated just on Amazon, so you can rent it there. It’s a couple of bucks, and so it’s like spectrum and stuff like that. But Amazon’s pretty much the place to go to watch the film. Then I think it’ll be streaming in a few months in other places and stuff like that. So, but for now, yeah, it’s on SVOD on Amazon. And check out our, on our… We have a lot of extra, because we have shot so much, we have a lot of extra crazy cool content, a lot of trailer spots, teaser spots, character trailers, and you can find those on our Instagram @mondohollywoodland. Our Twitter is @Mondohollywood. You can look at our company is Assembly Line Entertainment and Good Hammer TV for more stuff on it as well.
Ashley: Okay. Perfect. Do you have any personal Twitter, Instagram that you wanna shout out here and people can follow you as well?
Janek: Yeah, it’s @janekambros88 is on Twitter and then Assembly Line Entertainment on YouTube. We have some, we’re starting to kind of put out some of our, like ancillary content on our YouTube page and stuff like that, so.
Ashley: Okay. Perfect. I’ll round all that stuff up for the show notes so people can click over to that. Well, Janek, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today. This was a fascinating interview. I wish you luck with this film.
Janek: Yeah, thanks so much. I appreciate it.
Ashley: Thank you. We’ll talk to you later.
Janek: All right, later. Bye.
Ashley: Bye.
I just wanna talk quickly about SYS Select. It’s a service for screenwriters to help them sell their screenplays and get writing assignments. The first part of the service is the SYS Select screenplay database. Screenwriters upload their screenplays along with a logline, synopsis and other pertinent information like budget and genre, and then producers search for and hopefully find screenplays they wanna produce. Dozens of producers are in the SYS tem looking for screenplays right now. There have been a number of success stories come out of this service, you can find out about all the SYS Select successes by gonnawww.sellingyourscreenplay.com/success. Also on SYS Podcast Episode #222, I talk with Steve Deering who was the first official success story to come out of the SYS Select database.
When you join SYS Select you get access to the screenplay database along with all the other services that we’re providing to SYS Select members. These services include the newsletter, the monthly newsletter goes out to a list of over 400 producers who are actively seeking writers and screenplays. Each SYS Select member can pitch one screenplay in this monthly newsletter. We also provide screenwriting leads, we have partnered with one of the premiere paid screenwriting leads services, so I can syndicate their leads to SYS Select members. There are lots of great paid leads coming in each week from our partner, recently we’ve been getting five to 10 high quality paid leads per week. These leads run the gamut.
There’s producers looking for a specific type of spec script to producers looking to hire a screenwriter to write up one of their ideas or properties. They are looking for shorts, features, TV and web series, pilots, all types of projects. If you sign up for SYS Select, you’ll get these leads emailed directly to you several times per week. Also, you get access to the SYS Select forum where we will help you with your logline and query letter and answer any screenwriting related questions that you might have. We also have a number of screenwriting classes that are recorded and available in the SYS Select forum. These are all the classes that I’ve done over the years, so you’ll have access to those whenever you want once you join.
The classes cover every part of writing your screenplay from concept to outlining, to the first act, second act, third act as well as other topics like writing short films and pitching your projects in person. Once again, if this sounds like something you’d like to learn more about, please go to www.sellingyourscreenplayselect.com. On the next episode of the podcast, I’m gonna be Joel Soisson, who wrote and directed a film called My Best Worst Adventure. He’s done a ton of producing as well, producing dozens and dozens of feature films over the last couple of decades. We talk through that part of his career as well, how he got his start in the business and how he got this most recent film, My Best Worst Adventure, how that all came together for him. So keep an eye out for that episode next week. That’s the show. Thank you for listening.