Building a Media Empire: Strategies for Success with Brian Sebastian

Welcome to the Amberly Lago Show, stories of true grit and grace. Hey there. Thank you for tuning in to the Amberly Lago Show. Today we are recording virtually because my friend is in Atlanta. I'm here in Dallas, and I could not wait to have Brian Sebastian on the show, y'all. He is a dynamic media personality and the creative creator, if I can talk, of movie reviews and more. He's got— with an impressive platform that garners millions of views daily, Brian has carved out a unique space where entertainment, technology, and storytelling converge. I had the honor of being on his show. He's amazing. He's known for his engaging interviews, and his magnetic personality, might I add, with influential personalities across industries, from film critics and tech innovators to artists and fitness icons. Through his work, Brian not only reviews the latest in entertainment, but also highlights inspiring stories, groundbreaking innovations. And now let's dive into the world of media and movies and more with the man himself, Brian Sebastian, welcome to the show.

Thank you. And I just love your accent. Well, I've tried.

I tried to lose it. Now I'm like, well, I'm back in Texas, so I guess it's, it's gotten thicker since I've been here.

It happens.

I'm just like, you blow me away with all the interviews that you have. And you don't just do one interview at a time. You're doing many. Like when I was on your show, there were 2 other ladies on the show with me. How did you get into doing all these interviews? And I think we originally met through Greg Reed, wasn't it?

Was it?

Yeah, was Greg Reed, who I just love. But how did you get into creating Movie Reviews and More?

Oh, well, I started it in October of 1993. I just knew that there was going to be more than movie reviews, which is why I called it that. I didn't know what the more was going to be in the future, but I'm like, let me just call it this because it's going to be less about movie reviews. And I was right, but I didn't know it was going to be all of this. Now, how many people could have seen podcasts, you know, streaming services on companies, the changing of Paramount, Walt Disney, you know, Disney buying Fox, you know, Warner Brothers being Warner Brothers Discovery, all of these things. Well, I was in the thick of a lot of these things as I, as I saw a lot of these things changes. So I was doing a lot of interviews. They called them junkets back that time where a movie, you know, right before a movie opened, you get a chance to see the movie, you know, a week or two, sometimes a month or 2 months prior. And then you interview all the people in the movie. So I, if you're doing this every single day and you're doing all the bigger films every weekend, you learn a lot if you're paying attention.

Yeah.

Now I was the smallest guy. You were supposed to be syndicated. I was not, but I was good at watching movies cuz I was in video stores. So to be in video stores, I had to watch every single movie and see and buy those films. At that point, when you went into a video store, you made your money back 6 weeks later if you're lucky. It's in reverse. So at $3.25 a rental and people being— bringing them back late, you know, that same rental fee, that's how you would make money. So you learn a lot of things if you're paying attention. And the strangest thing was people were not paying attention. Everybody was out having fun. I I was just looking at people like, how do they do this? Why aren't they doing this? Oh, all of this alcohol is free? Well, what's the name of the company? No one was really talking to a lot of those sponsors. So I said, let me take all of these things that they're not utilizing and put them all together. And that's what Movie Reviews and More is. So if I'm talking to you about your book, Joy, or True Grit and Grace, I can go to Tennessee because my Southern mom, Edie Hand, is about women of true grit and grace. And you know, you know, I may be in the dirt, but I'm going to wear my pearl necklace. You know, the southern traditional way. And so I learned a lot by all of my female friends, what they weren't doing. And then the last thing was, I saw what women in the world of fitness and the world of dressage—they would go out and spend a lot of money on horse saddles, boots, bikinis, and getting tans—but they got no recognition. And I thought it was a travesty. I said, "Well, if they're winning." And they're not getting any exposure and there's no cameras there. There's no media there. And they might, if you're lucky, you might have a few guys there. Where is everybody? So I said, let me do something. I don't know this world, but I'm going to learn it. I didn't know I was going to be on a horse ranch in the world of dressage. I know everything about that stuff now. I didn't know I was going to enter the world of fitness and not be in the world of fitness, but I'm there. I know a lot of the people, some of the world's best people in the world of fitness. They become my friends. So you start putting all this stuff together, and this is the more.

Yeah, that's so interesting, though. You're so— you've— you're so diverse in all the different arenas that you're in. And you're so right that I think that in the fitness industry, because I was in the fitness industry for 26 years, I never competed. I never had a desire to, to wear a bikini on stage. But those bikinis are very expensive. And not only that, the amount of time that they put into their, their eating, their routines. I mean, they eat, live, breathe all for that competition. There's so much. And actually, one of my best friends is Corey Everson. She's 6 times— Oh, yeah.

I knew Corey.

Yeah, you knew? Oh, yeah. She's—

Yeah, I would, I would interview Corey because on the home video side of workouts, she was the god.

She was. Yeah, she was. She was. In fact, my dad came to see me, and I think he was more excited about meeting Corey than he was seeing me.

Of course he was.

Oh my gosh. Yes. So now she's so sweet. She will comment on some of his posts on Facebook and stuff like that. So that makes his day. But and then my daughter being a horseback rider, It is a lot. The horse world is a lot, and I don't ever see media there interviewing.

You won't. You won't. I learned that from Hilda Gurney. Hilda Gurney got a bronze medal in the Olympics when the world dressage was first invited in. She was one of our trainers. Very tough woman, fair, very nice, and I learned a lot by watching how she trained. how determined she was. But what I would see a lot of these people perform, there was no guys there. And you're lucky if you saw someone from Horse and Buggy magazine, if you were lucky. And I thought that was a travesty, and it still is. Uh, I'm like, what? You spend all— you spent thousands of dollars on your horse, on your, your whole getup, or what you— whether it's your boots, your saddle, you know, every—

even it can be over $1,000 just for the boots. Like, people have a lot of—

That's right.

People have no idea just how crazy it is in the horse world. Yeah, but yeah. And so do you still do interviews for—

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

For— I mean, for interviews at like for dressage and fitness as well?

Oh, yeah. I'm still in contact with everybody. I always say this. If it weren't for the women that I was paying attention to and I was helping, I was that one guy. I was that one Black guy out there. I was a single guy. I saw no guys out there helping all these women. I said, where's all the guys? And then I realized what guy wants to give up their weekend when they can watch baseball during the summers or hang out with the guys, go to the bars, but they're not helping their wives or their girlfriends. And I thought that was something wrong. Yeah. Is it a lot of work? Yeah, it is. But I learned from that and I said, oh, let me take this and turn it around. Let me see how I can help them in a different way.

Wow. You started, you must've started when you were really young. If you started in 2003, you were like, 7 years old.

Well, no, I started in October of 1993 for Movie Reviews and More. But the thing about that is— but the thing about that, that's because I've never been married, don't have any kids. And you as a mom, you know what I'm talking about. I helped all my friends who were married going through divorces and had kids. I still do that.

Yeah, yeah. I know you're getting ready to go to North Carolina to go help one of your friends with her kids. So exactly.

They can't wait. They're like, you're supposed to be here last week. I'm like, no, I wasn't.

Oh, well, that's— well, how do you see the role of media evolving in the digital age? And how do you stay ahead of that curve?

I— we started— we started— Montague Pope LeBeau, my colleague and my very, very good friend. We started seeing things change in 2017. And I started noticing it in 2014, 2015 when I was working with the Hollywood Film Festival. Now I still pick a lot of movies. I'm still watching about 2 and a half movies a day. That's, that's an average, but it used to be more. I used to watch 6 movies a day on home video, and then I'd see 1 or 2 on the big screen, meaning going to the theaters, because I'd have to go to a private screening or I'd go to pay to see something. Now let me ask you something.

When you're watching these movies, are you sitting there taking notes?

No. What I'm doing is I have a very, very good memory. What I'm doing is I'm analyzing things, but thoughts are coming to me at the same time. So for me to relax, I don't drink coffee. I just get up and start doing things. But for me, when I go to the movie theater, that's my way to relax. I know for at least 2 hours I can at least turn my phone on. It may be ringing, it may be people texting me from around the world, but at least for 2 hours I can watch a movie and get into it. If it's a bad movie, I'm thinking, okay, I might not like this movie, but someone else may like it. And then if I'm watching the credits, because you got to watch the credits too, oh, so who did this? Where was it shot? You know, if it says Georgia and the Peach at the end of credits, you know it's shot at Tyler Perry Studios. Well, I know Tyler. Well, he's got one of the world's best facilities there in Atlanta, Georgia, outside of the Hollywood system. It's really good. So when you see these things, you understand, and that's minority Black-owned. He created it. He went from being homeless to being a billionaire. So when you see these things and you watch those people like that, even on your story, you pay attention. What did these people go through? Everybody has gone through trials and tribulations. Everybody. Nothing is easy, but you have to learn how to work smart.

Yes, definitely working smarter than harder. So I'm sorry I interrupted you. How do you stay ahead of that curve?

By being able to adapt and adjust to the new new. So in 2015, when I saw things being done wrong with Hollywood film festivals and investors, got tired of waiting for money that never came to our festival. We put on— we had a really good team of like 7 people and maybe 16 volunteers just for the festival. So really, there was only 5 of us running a film festival. It takes hundreds to run a film festival. Great name internationally. People love the world, the world of Hollywood and the name. Terrible film festival. So I learned what not to do, never to rely on investors. And then if investors come in, they own you, and then they can take it back anytime. So I said, oh, I'm never going to do that. So till this day, we've never done anything when it comes to investing. It's always about people sponsoring or donating.

Wow, there's— that's, that's Huge right there. The difference between an investor and a sponsor.

Absolutely. Yeah. A sponsor can't take anything back. They could just not sponsor the next year or whatever. But investors always want to take something back. I always watched, um, I can't remember his name right now. He was a corporate raider. He always wanted to buy in, uh, in entertainment companies and break them up and split them. And I would see these things and I said, why is this person doing it if it's running well? Because they always wanted more, more and more and more. And I'm like, how— when is enough? When is more too much? So I said, I never want to do that. I never want to be a greedy person. And I'm not. So that's why companies started to falter. And, you know, if 3 movies or 5 movies didn't do good, they automatically— the bigger company wanted to come in and break that small company up that had been doing well for so many years. Just because you have 3 bad films It's like a sports team and I'm not even into sports, but if you have, if you can keep a good team together for 3 or 4 years, that's pretty much tops. Whether it's Chicago Bulls, what's Dallas Cowboys, it doesn't matter what the team is. That's hard to keep that team together. And you gotta bring a new person in, trade somebody else out. Yeah. And that's when it comes, when our, when we have a co-host, why I have 12 girls and myself and Howard Wiggins, we're the only 2 guys. And Howard, who you met, is because he's royalty. His dad created the Grand Ole Opry with how— with Eddie Arnold. Um, so when you bring these people together like this, you start to see what's the strength, what's the weaknesses. Are they getting any publicity? Why not? Well, I can help them. Why isn't anybody else helping them? So I see things differently than other people, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Well, how did you meet Greg Reed?

I've seen Greg through the years. People had talked about him. And I'm like, okay, Secret Knock. Okay, let me go to Secret Knock one day. Now, I've never paid to go to Secret Knock. I've always been invited, and I've always looked at this way: what I— why should I pay you if I have bigger numbers than you have? I'm not a celebrity. I don't have a book, and I don't have my website. So I learned how to do things differently. How many people tell you that? And the answer is nobody, because you're supposed to have a book. be famous or become famous and have a website. No, I don't have any of those. I learned how to do it the hard way by always having subscribers— I mean, not subscribers, having the views and having the sponsors.

Yeah, so people donating and people donating, that's huge. Okay, think of PBS.

What does PBS rely on? Donations. That's true. Sea Shepherd, they— it's about donating, get— getting people to believe in that cause. So I said, if that always works, no matter what administration comes in, you still need those donations. What is today? Giving Tuesday.

Yeah.

I don't just give a Giving Tuesday on one day of the year. Every Tuesday on my show is Giving Tuesday to your favorite charities. Why should it just be one year, one day out of the year? Why can't it be every Tuesday? Because I do it. Nobody else does.

Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I, uh, had, uh, a friend of mine's, he talks about give big to go big and talks about, you know, um, like when I had my first book, every dollar from my book went to Habitat of Humanity. I donated a dollar per each book. that was sold. Um, and I, and he said, well, you can use that to leverage it to get people to stand behind your cause, your book, your launch, your whatever. You know, I was like, oh, wow. I didn't even think of it that way. I just was thinking of it as I'm donating a dollar per book. You know what I mean? He goes, no, you could have leveraged that. I'm like, wow. Mind blown. Didn't even think of that. I was just thinking, okay, I'm going to give. And so I love that you give every Tuesday and you have that a part of your show. And I love when you talk about the donations and the sponsorship. And a question that I get a lot from my mastermind members is, how do you start making money on your podcast? Now, I knew for me when I started, I did not want, I didn't even care about sponsors. I was like, for the first 2 years, I am just going to do my show.

Yeah.

Consistently every single week. I'm never going to miss a week. I'm not going to have a bunch of ads that people get annoyed with. I'm just going to do the show. And you know what? It paid off because it actually got me to top 1% podcast. But people are like, but I need to make money because it costs a lot to rent the studio and to do this or to fly this person in or to do that. And so what would you say to someone who's like, well, I have a show, I'm ready to get sponsors. How do they reach out to somebody if they want a sponsorship?

Well, here's what you have to do, because I talk to a lot of the presidents and CEOs and founders, and I'm sure you talk to a lot of these people also. They want to know what's your viewership. They want to know what they're going to get in return. They want to know how consistent you may be and what are they getting for their buck. So I always say this. I'm gonna take you to an event that you're not invited to. We already have the viewership. You know, October 6th of this year, I beat Joe Rogan by 20, almost 21, uh, 21 million views right now because our numbers go up consistently because I focused for 6 years just strictly on the views. Now that I have the views, I can work on my followers on Instagram, which I didn't care about, or I can work on my subscribers on YouTube, which normally just go up. People just like our stuff. They just Well, I've never— I was, I was always afraid to ask people, will you follow me? Will you subscribe? I didn't— I never felt comfortable doing that.

Why not?

That wasn't me. It wasn't me. That was almost like begging. I didn't want to do that. Let me just go here, put these things together how I know I can do it. Let me show you what I do and put the stuff up. Because no matter what, it's about content and being consistent. That's how we were able to do the stuff. We never have a taped show on Tuesday. Today's show will be 129 live shows in a row. Season 5, episode 3. Wow. We go straight, we go straight through the year.

I have to say, I understand you not wanting to ask. It was really hard for me to ask. So for my new book, I've given praise for so many people for their books. I've written testimonials for people, no problem. I've written Forwards for I can't tell you how many books. But when it came asking for someone to write praise for my book, I was like, oh gosh, this was so hard for me to do. I'll never forget when I wrote my first book, True Grit and Grace. There was one guest I had on the podcast, and her book was out at the same time that my book was released. And I thought, I asked her, I said, oh my goodness, you have so many reviews. Do you mind me? How, how did you get so many reviews? And she said, I asked for them. And I'm like, oh, novel idea. You asked for them. So I started doing something recently in the past year for my podcast. When I say thank you to people, I put in there, and if you don't mind, Could you write a review for the show? Because it really helps the show and it helps your episode get in front of more eyeballs. And I can't tell you since I started asking how many people have done it and it actually makes them happy to spend— what does it take, you know, 30 seconds to write even a one-liner review? It has made all the difference. I started getting so many more reviews because I just asked for it. But I was like you. I was like, that's not me. I don't want to ask for it. But now I'm just like, you know what? I happily give testimonials and reviews and share things in my story on social media. I'm going to start asking. And Brian, I think you should start asking. I wait. My friend Brian Bogert told me, don't ever use the word should. So I take that back. He said that's a shame word. You can, you can ask people. What do you need, Brian? You want me to write you a review or something afterwards? Let me know.

Well, now I started asking as of this past weekend because I accomplished my goal. Well, yeah, because I accomplished my goals of the views because they just continue to go up. My question is, do I— I'm gonna always say always and counting. So now, you know, we hit 1,000 followers. For me, it was always about people could always unfollow. They can always unsubscribe. They can always unlike, but you can't unview a view. Views always go up. So that was my thinking. Now that I've achieved that goal, now I'm going and asking, asking, because now I have the power behind me. They can actually see that I have 2 shows at 2 million views and counting, still not on YouTube. They can go to my YouTube channel.

So where are the— so to get super clear for the audience, where are these views?

Sorry, so we have over 21,000, um, over 21 million views on iTube247 out of Franklin, Tennessee and around the world. And the reason we have such a good, uh, viewership, because Don King was there. What did Don King do? He was a boxing promoter. Who did he promote? Every single famous boxer that he took around the world. Jimmy Adams, who created the site, was Don King's bodyguard. So whenever he went anywhere around the world since 1982, he was there with him. He has a billion email list. Imagine that, a billion person's email list. If you've never heard of that before, how did he get it? I've never heard of that.

Like, I have never heard of a billion—

I mean, email list, one of my— from the world of boxing. So when you travel the world And you have all these people following Don King and the boxers, and he creates a site for that that goes up against YouTube called i247. And you bring country stars on that aren't getting the recognition, or, you know, a couple boxers that now they, they haven't, uh, every, every twice a month, every Tuesday, uh, every other Tuesday in, in, um, Nashville, Tennessee. You put those words together, country and music, boxing, you're gonna get a big draw. And you put that on your site, and we happen to be the only person of movie reviews on the site. So imagine how many people around the world go to that site. Wow. That's how—

Let me ask you something. What about YouTube? Are you against YouTube?

No, no, I love YouTube. I'm a YouTuber, not a TikToker. So we have 2.1 million views on our TikTok and counting in our Shorts. If you go into the Shorts section, Our biggest one is 88,000 views.

Okay, so tell the listeners where they can find you on TikTok.

Oh, no, not on TikTok, on YouTube.

Oh, okay, because I thought you said TikTok.

You aren't? Oh, no, no, I'm a YouTuber, not a TikToker.

Okay, so they can find you on YouTube and tell them what your handle is on YouTube or your name is.

Movie Reviews, the letter like Nancy Moore. Movie Reviews and More. There's a picture of me and George Easy to find. Okay. You'll see our radio section. You'll see our TV section. You'll see our TV interviews for all the new and returning TV shows. And you'll see fitness section.

Okay. Awesome. So I want people to be able to head over there now and just go check you out. So that, that's why I asked that. But yes, it is so important when you're pitching anyone. All you podcasters out there, when you're pitching somebody, uh, that even I've actually had people that before— this is when I actually first started my show— before they would say yes to the show, they wanted to know how many subscribers, how many downloads, um, how do I advertise the show, all the things. And I've actually only had one person say no to being on the show. This so far. And I was like, oh, well, okay, awesome. Thank you for adding that to me— for me. So out of all the people that you've interviewed, is there someone that you're like, that really touched you, that was so interesting that you're like, oh my gosh, I am so glad I got to interview that person?

Yeah, there's a bunch of them. Martin Sheen was the only— well, Martin Sheen and Tom Cruise were the only ones that would walk into a room, a radio roundtable rooms, were basically between 3, an average of 7. On a big huge movie junket, depending on how many they would invite, there'd be 23. That's a huge one. But the average was always between 3 and 5, 7 people, our same ones. We were called junketeers because we all were there every single day at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, every single weekend there at the Hilton, uh, the Regency, uh, the Huntington in Pasadena. We would be doing interviews. All the bigger films always done on weekends. The smaller ones like Miramax or Orion Pictures and stuff like that would be done during the week. So, I'm finding Martin Sheen and Tom Cruise. Yes, they were the only ones who would get up and go to each person and shake their hand and introduce themselves. Really? Imagine that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the best marketer. Still to this day, he is the best marketer. Think of his thing when you get a chance to watch Arnold on Netflix. Watch his.

I've watched it. I've watched it. And can I— let me just tell you a quick story really quick, Brian, about Arnold, because I was a huge fan, am a huge fan of Arnold, especially because of being in the fitness industry. So my husband wins or is awarded— I say wins. I'm still thinking about fitness. My husband is awarded a Medal of Valor. He was a lieutenant commander with a highway patrol.

Wow.

And so they were flying us down to Sacramento. And Arnold, when he was the governor, was presenting, and he would put the medal over my husband's neck, you know, over his head. And so I am like dying. I'm like, my husband and Arnold, like, together. And so I had my phone out taking video, and I was so excited that my hands were shaking. I got no video.

Oh, no.

So afterwards, my husband comes down. I'm like, honey, I'm sorry, I got no video. I got nothing because I was just so excited. My hands were shaking. But it was so cool. And Arnold was really, was really a cool, cool guy.

Well, you think about this. So just take a regular small little round table. Every person that walked in the room, they always sat next to me. We, we know I would always be the first one there if I was invited to that junket. Always got there. I wanted to be prepared because I don't drink coffee. In my mind, I've seen the movie, I know what I'm going to ask them, but I'm going by energy. Because if you have a bad movie, you can't, you can't pretend that this movie's not bad because we've all seen it. Even that celebrity knows if it's a bad movie. They don't always know what's going to hit. And then the publisher's job is to make sure, hey, you've seen this movie. They might say you can't ask them a question or something like this because they may be going through something. Nick Cage was a perfect example. It was for The Bad Lieutenant, and he's about ready to come in. I just remember it was at 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning. Nick is about ready to come in. He goes, do not ask him about his uncle. His uncle had just passed away. And do not ask him about his taxes. He was just being audited by the IRS.

Oh wow.

Now Nick has known us for years, so he recognizes the face. Some people he knows. So he always, you know, my name is Sebastian, so I always say this. Always remember the Radio Roundtable room. You always sat next to me. I could tell you what film it was, and if you didn't know who I was, oh, I'm just a black guy. You know, because I was the only person of color in the room for all the.

That's awesome. That is awesome.

So there was always three ways you're gonna remember me. You sat next to me always. Last name Sebastian. If you ever seen the movie Little Mermaid, Mario, Sebastian are in that. Hey, I'm the guy that sit there, and if I was lucky, I would do TV interviews with you. So Arnold was the best marketer still to this day. The person that no matter if it was you know twins, he knew how to market a movie. So you learn from watching these things, and if you got this presence walking into the room, a Sidney Poitier walking in, who's the guy that's saying "Hey, do deal"? I can't remember his name right now. It'll come to me. Brad Pitt, George Clooney. Wait, wait, wait.

Let's go back here. You met Brad Pitt.

Oh yeah, I have a great picture with me and Brad. He's was for Ocean's Eleven.

He's my crush. My husband knows he's the only person that I would ever leave him for is Brad Pitt. I'm kidding, honey.

If you're listening to this, good for you.

Good for you. Yeah. Yeah, Brian, can you? Can you hook a girl up? You know, I mean, well, yeah, it should be on the Amberly Lago Show. I mean, come on.

But as they're growing, you start to watch what they're doing. Brad is one of the best producers. And you know, when he had his Plan B, so a lot of the last couple movies that were Oscar winners were from Plan B, his production company.

Wow. So you're very observant. You pay attention to— I think you think a lot different than most people do.

I always do. I've always said, you know, you're thinking outside the box, I'm hovering above the box.

Well, what are your future projects?

Our Dreamweaver Arts and our Dreamweaver Artist Ranch, which is helping things like what we're talking about— those inventors, those artists, those authors— help to get their word out, get their books out, get their, their artwork out in a different way. Because there's less media, which is what you were talking about earlier. There's less people on the red carpets. A lot of those Those outlets have been bought up. Think of Disney. There is no more Fox Studios. There's a Fox Searchlight, which is like hidden in the corner. They still make small little films, but Disney owns them. You know, you still have a New Line still, which is hidden in the room, but Warner Brothers owns them. They're like the bastard child, which is strange.

Yeah.

On their own, they did well. But when you start gobbling up all these companies, you leave less jobs and less chances of people being able to speak freely, to coming up with great ideas. That's why you see so many remakes. They go back in, they do a prequel, they do a sequel, because people can't take chances or else they lose their jobs because it's corporate.

Mm-hmm.

I never was the corporate guy. I was always the person fighting against the corporate guy to get in. I learned this when I was in video stores going up against Blockbusters. Well, Blockbuster's idea was to have a Blockbuster on every corner. Remember that? If you remember, that was their whole idea. I said, that's not possible, that won't work. So when you have a small independent store and you're surviving, you know, fighting to stay alive, you have to get creative. So we did a thing called quarter days. I knew they couldn't drop their prices because of corporate, but we could. So when you got a quarter day, you can come in and you can rent as many as 10 movies. Now remember, I watch 2.5, 6 movies a day. There's no way you're gonna watch 3 movies unless you're really movie person and that's on a Saturday. Well, we did it either on a Tuesday or Thursday on purpose. So you got creative. That's true. We do business with them.

Magic is getting creative no matter what industry that you're in. And while you're telling me this, I'm like, my husband won't even take me to the movies because I can't sit. I don't like to sit through a movie, to be honest with you. Like, it's hard for me. And actually, by the time I finally get to a movie theater, which is once in a blue moon I go to the movies. I sit in there and it's all dark and cozy and you can prop your feet up. And he's like, I just paid $25 for you to see this movie and you fell asleep. And I'm like, well, I finally sat still and it was dark. And, and when we're home, I'm up and down, up and down. And he's like, do you want me to pause this? I'm like, oh, no, no, no. I'm just— it's hard for me to sit still. So. I really admire that you can sit through that many movies. That's— you've got a lot of it. You've got like laser focus.

Oh, I keep track of every single movie, every single— my numbers each day. Uh, where's my notebook? My notebook is here, matter of fact. Um, when I go through one notebook, I'm doing— I don't know if you can see this, but these are numbers. This, just this one page. Is the numbers from the last 9 days.

Wow. And you know what? I love that you do that in a notebook, by the way. I love that because everything that I do is through— I've got stacks of notebooks. I love writing it. Do you ever—

It's good for your brain. Okay. It forces you to be good.

I remember it more if it's written down.

Yes, because it forces you to keep your brain going. So when I'm watching every single movie since, um, 1992— and the reason why I've been keeping track of every single movie, TV show since 1992, because in 1991, I don't know how many movies I watched. Remember VHS tapes? I had a stack of tapes that would go up the wall.

Oh my goodness.

I would get— they used to send them in the mail. I would get an average of 23 tapes a week from the companies and from the distributors because I had to know what to order. Marketing. We have 3 different stores in 3 different territories. In San Fernando Valley, we had a Latino area. That community, they like comedies, they were family-friendly, and they like action movies. They didn't like horror. They didn't like— they didn't like, um, Uh, foreign films, and there was, you know, they liked adult films, so I knew what to order there. Yeah, in UCLA area, they were more tech, you know, they like foreign films, suspense thrillers. They hated comedy, they hated family because they were more kids. And then in Brentwood, about a mile away, they were more sophisticated— foreign thriller comedies.

Huh. And now, did you live in the San Fernando Valley, or where did you live?

No, I lived in UCLA, in that area. I got stuck there. I was gonna go up to— when I left Connecticut, I was gonna move up to San Francisco. I wanted to be next to my favorite drum corps, Santa Clara Vanguard, up in Santa Clara. I never made it there because I ended up being in Los Angeles. I wanted to go up and then come back. I didn't know—

What year was that that you were in?

1987.

Till when?

Until last year. Yeah, yeah, because I've been on the road technically, like this, this, this last year was on the road for 10 months.

Yeah, I was like, everything's all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. But I can't believe we lived in the same area. Because I moved there in 1990 and just moved 3 years ago.

Oh, yeah. If you think about it, I was doing every single film junket, almost invited to everything there.

I'm surprised. When did you go to Secret Knock?

Uh, '22.

I was there.

Well, here's the thing. I didn't go to the Secret Knock. I was actually there for their opening party. That was enough for me. So I went to that. I'm like, oh, this is interesting. Wow. And I just remember the prices going up. I'm like, the good thing about Greg and how he does it, he will always sell that out. Good for him. What was the secret? So I was learning what did they like. Now those guests that he gets, that's easy because I know all those people, so I can have them on my show. So I don't have to pay to go do that because I have access to them because I deal with the world's best publicists from doing all the junkets. They got to know me when I still know them. So speaking of Robinson, think about this. Arnold Robinson had Quincy Jones, who just passed away about a month or so ago. He had Farrah Fawcett. He had Michael Jackson. He had Billy Bob Thornton. Who else did he have? He had— oh, Nick Nolte. Just— that's Arnold Robinson. He's the only Black publicist of Rogers and Cowans. You know, Stan Rosenfeld, Robert De Niro, George Clooney, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Danny DeVito, Gene Simmons. He had Charlie Sheen and he had Brad Pitt. Yeah, no, he didn't have Brad Pitt. He had Will Smith. Just those.

These are all Publicist?

One. Yeah, just those, just those 2 publicists had those, those were their clients.

You know, it's really hard to find a good publicist that's honest. It's, you got to find a good one. And I'm sure that they're pretty pricey. Um, I've heard—

Yes and no. It depends who you get and what you need for. So for authors, I know what the authors need. I also know whether authors need to be invited to to meet those right people to make their future books into something. Hence the events.

Well, share, please.

I have something for you. I have an idea for you.

I'm like, share, please. I'll have to tell you a little story.

I was just waiting to do your show. I was just waiting to do this. And then I already, I already knew once you were on the show what I was going to do with you. I knew when I met you, I knew what I was going to do. If you remember, I typed in I know what to do with you, remember?

Yeah. Yeah. And you've been amazing and you've been patient because I lost my voice and I had to change our, our interview time. So thank you for giving me some grace. I've got my voice back. And I was telling you now, Johnny and Ruby are sick. Sorry. Sorry, family. Got y'all sick. What? What? We're about out of time, and I feel like I could just talk to you forever. What is the legacy that you want to leave?

I told you what I was gonna do and I did it, but you didn't believe I was gonna do it.

Oh, I love that.

Because people said, you're not really gonna do this. I always tell people what I'm gonna do. If you don't tell the universe, how's the universe gonna respond to what you want? If you don't say your prayers out loud and meaning with intention and be specific, how's anything gonna come to you? And I believe in cause and effect.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, what is something— if you could give somebody one piece of advice that wants to start their own podcast or interviewing people or just start anything in media, what's one piece of advice you would give them?

Be consistent. Pick a good name, pick a good date and time, and go for it. And don't worry about the money. Everybody wants that. That's not how it works. You've got to have that viewership first, or those subscribers, or those followers. If you don't have one of those 3, it's not going to work. But here's the thing. The reason why I went after viewers is because if the NFL was doing it, World Cup was doing it, the Oscars were doing it, then I was going to do that because it's based on viewership. NFL does not go by subscribers. They're not going by followers. It's viewerships.

Mm-hmm.

Duh. So don't listen to what everybody thinks what it should be. Oh, you need to be on TikTok. No, I don't. I'm on other outlets that people never thought of. If you're an influencer and I, I have 197 million followers in my network— not me as— not me, Brian Sebastian— in my network because they're following what they're doing. When I walk into an event and I invite some of my influencers, they're underneath me. See how it works?

Mm-hmm.

When I went into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that I was invited to 2019, I walked in with 55 million of my followers. I didn't have any millions of views then. I watched them. They were a family. That's the Collins family. I'm one of the few people that they— that those kids and their mom and dad trust in the world. John and Stacy Collins. Yeah, I take care of their kids. I watched how they get them. He was known as Weekly Chris, started when he's 12. Chris now, you know, or Christian is what, 26 now? I met him when he was 19. When he was 21, he had 32 to 35 million followers.

Wow.

Strong on all platforms. He was one of the few that I knew in the world that was— I watched him, still 21-year-old kid, but what they know when it comes to the world of social media and grabbing followers, subscribers, how do you think I learned this? I learned it from them. Now I surpassed them, and I joke to them now. I tell them now, you—I learned from you guys. I just took it further because all the algorithms have changed.

Those—and they constantly change. It's wild.

They don't want you guys to make money. I was never relying on that again. That's why I went by the viewerships. Remember, as long as I can get my views up, I wasn't being controlled by subscribers, likes, the followers.

Yeah, that's huge. That's huge. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's what I tell people. Is it too late to start a podcast? Yes. Is it ever too late to start a podcast? No. Can you do it? Yes. Do you want to work hard enough? That's the question. Most people don't want to work hard.

That's exactly what it is. In fact, I just messaged one of my clients yesterday and she's like, well, I want to, you know, I want to be in a studio and I want to do this.

You don't need a studio. I had a studio during—

Why?

You don't need a studio. I had a studio during COVID We were one of the few in the world. We might have been the only ones during COVID because it was built up during COVID because I saw COVID coming before there was a name. I saw it coming. They built it up specifically for me. I would come down from Vegas. I would take the Megabus down. I had my Segway, so I wasn't around anybody. There's only 3 or 4 people on the bus. I'd sleep on the way down, do my show at 10 o'clock in the morning. I'd do 4 shows, and I had these celebrities coming in, and they would— they were in the corner. It was a 2-story building. on Cahuenga in Hollywood, and they were like— nobody knew what to do, but I knew what to do. I had my purifiers in there, EnviroCleanse purifiers. So everything still too I do is always being sanitized and being cleaned off, even my engineer. Everything still to this day when I'm flying, I have these devices that people don't think of. It's still about safety. That's why I don't get sick. I've still never had COVID. They call us no-vit people. Stupid name. We have never had no COVID.

I like that. You know, I never heard that. I never heard that. So yeah.

Yeah, we don't— I don't get sick because I found these devices at the Consumer Electronics Show. We're the only ones that broadcast live on the Tuesday media day. Nobody else does it in the press room. We've done it the last 4 years. We'll do it January 7th. So that's what I say to the advice to anybody who wants to start a podcast. You don't need a studio. It's going to cost you money. Do it virtually until you find the right studio.

It is, it is going to cost you money. And it is. And I, my advice to her, I said, hey, look, doing a podcast is a marathon, not a sprint. Absolutely. And it's, it takes time, but it's slow and steady. And then before you know it, all of a sudden you have stayed consistent. Then you're getting the views, whether you're whatever platform that you're posting on. You're getting the views, but you're getting the downloads. And that's when things start to really take off. So, Brian, it has just been such a pleasure to talk. It's— well, it's always good to talk with you. Tell us the best way that people can find you, listen to you, watch your interviews so you get even more views. Tell us where the best way to do that.

I always say, if you want to reach out to me, you can go to LinkedIn. We're popular on LinkedIn. We're in the top 15%, almost 10% now on LinkedIn. My Facebook, Brian Sebastian 169, Brian Sebastian 169 on Facebook. And you can find us on Instagram @MovieReviewsAndMore.

Awesome.

And then if you, you know, anytime you have these events or anything like that, I'm easy to find. You have to be invited to them, but that's how we work to get to that. And I'm always open to inviting things to certain events so they can see in real time how things are being done. Yeah, yeah.

Well, if you're— next time you're in Dallas, you'll have to let me know.

I'll be there for, um, one of the toy conventions in June.

Oh, well, I hope to see you.

I'll come by and see you, and I'll invite you to a world that no one— they don't get publicity. There might be 3 media people there. That's it. And how do I know? Because I know the publicist on tonight's show Carrie Scandalin from Toy Fest, which is the number 2 toy festival in the in the world. Wow! It's huge. Wow! When I walked into that, I said, "Oh, this is a gold mine." Where do you think Barbie came from last year? One of last year's big films, G.I. Joe, all these things, these characters, wicked. You know, where do you think these these you know figurines come from? They come from the toy world. I have access to all these toys and these inventors and these companies.

That's amazing. You are like king connector for sure. But anyway, thank you so much for being on. And y'all, thank you so much for tuning in. I really appreciate you tuning in each week. It's because of you that we have become a top 1% podcast. And I say we because I couldn't do this without you. I appreciate you tuning in each week, and we will see you next week. Thank you.

Thank you.