The Journey of a Filmmaker | Jason Sherman

The first movie had a 50-person crew and cast, so it was pretty big. The second movie, just a smaller, it was a documentary, so smaller. I really like to be hands-on. I like to learn everything there is to know about doing things. If I ever do get my hands on a big-budget film through a big studio, I'll know how to do quite a bit, which should make the process a lot smoother.

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Welcome to another edition of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today is Jason Sherman of Vengo AI. Welcome, Jason.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

Okay. Uh, since this is an audio-only podcast, they can't see, uh, the, the wall behind you. So, but it is, it is. Glorious. Describe what I'm looking at.

So I call it the wall of historical technology. It's my, it's basically my whole life of, uh, every gadget, phone, camera, piece of electronics that I owned starting at like 8 years old. Um, and then of course you see a bunch of toys everywhere. Those are vintage figures. I, you know, action figures that I collected as a kid as well. And Um, now they're just, you know, historical, right? That all— everything here. And then you see my movie awards on this top shelf here for all 3 of my movies. So it's basically just something for me to enjoy every day at my desk and, uh, remember all the different moments in my life.

Well, I, I love it. I don't see the TRS-80. That would— that was my first experience with coding, but I don't see it up there. Is it hidden?

I don't see it. Potentially, it sounds familiar.

Yeah, okay.

It might be behind me or down this way.

So you have a very varied, very varied, that didn't, that's not good.

Very varied.

Very varied.

Say that 3 times fast.

Yes. History and experience. So give us the summary of what brought you here today.

Like you said, I mean, the various projects and companies I've worked on over the last 20 or even 30 years, uh, are very diverse. Um, everything from technology to film to music to writing and everything in between. Uh, there's so many projects that don't fit those categories. Um, and over the last several years, I've been really immersed in AI, as a lot of people have been. Uh, but I found a gap in the market for people like myself. Like, this was something that I needed, and what I needed was I needed my team to stop bothering me. They, they, they were consistently messaging me and, and asking me the same questions over and over again. And I, I said, I have to be able to give them an AI assistant that can answer these questions. So I worked on training one. Um, originally it was, let me train a GPT and see if I can get one that's good enough for them to use. And, and it was, but it was then closed sourced. It's stuck on GPT. They, they all have to own the Plus subscription. That can get expensive per month. So I said, let me build my own version of this on my own servers and see if I can do it. And I did. And then I got other business owners that said they wanted the same thing. They're like, well, we want that. So I said, ah, okay, well, it sounds like I got a business now. So I started building it for them and getting their feedback and iterating on that feedback. And now Vengo AI is coming out of beta or stealth over the next couple days, hopefully within the next week or two, and everybody can start using it except for, you know, besides just our 15 customers that we currently have.

Yeah, I think one of the most intriguing aspects of AI to me is the codifying, if you will, of your internal intellectual property. Like what, what you know and what your team knows specific to your business. Uh, not even— I mean, it certainly has external applications, uh, you know, customer service, whatever, but just being able to gather that data in a way that it's accessible seems to be a huge opportunity. And that sounds a little bit kind of like what, what, what you've done.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, the hardest part of running a business when you have services and products and whatnot is number one, answering all the questions. They're going to be very repetitive. Two is being able to gather all of the customer data, the sales leads, we'll call them, and being able to then zoom out and see at a larger, a higher level, like, here are all the customers that are interested in my service or my product. And now I can follow up with them with granular data and/or chat history from my AI that tells me what, you know, Dave and Mary and Bill and Jane all were looking for specifically in my products or my services. And that's kind of what we've been giving these business owners.

On the surface, when you describe your entrepreneurial journey, I don't see— well, most people would not see a common thread, right? I have an idea, but I want to hear what your thoughts are on what you think is the common thread through all those.

The common thread in my mind has always been creating. I am just in love with creating things, anything. It can be, like I mentioned, all those industries we talked about. It's, there's just something about having an idea in your mind, being passionate about that idea, and then going through the journey and the steps that it takes to see it come to, to life. Right. Um, I'm not really a big fan of then selling what I built and, and, and marketing what I've built. That's always been kind of a sore spot for me, although I've had to overcome that over decades and just figure it out and learn how to do it and push through. But creating is really the thread that weaves my story.

Well, that's what I was going to say.

Uh, so, okay, good.

I think one of the things that when, when I was writing, uh, Profit First for Creatives, and even from the very start when it was getting the title. So, you know, Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit First, he, he licenses the name to do derivative books. And so there were lots of them out there, more coming on every day, where it was for a specific industry, right? And when I, I said Profit First for Creatives, I'm like, well, what is that? And what industry is that actually describing, right? And is he even going to accept that as, as an option? And so then as I was progressing to writing the book, I'm like, okay, who am I writing this for? And so I had to define it just to narrow it down so it could be usable to traditionally creative industries. So things like videography, marketing agencies, interior design, etc. But what, what I realized was that One, all entrepreneurs are creative. They have to be. That's what being an entrepreneur is about, right? You're creating a new solution. You're creating a business around it. But two, creatives is anybody that self-identifies as a creative. And I, for the vast majority of my entrepreneurial journey, would never have described myself as a creative. I'm in a very analytical industry in accounting and financial services, and it's like, you know, what the hell is creative about that?

Well, you have to, you have to come up with creative solutions to problems as well, right?

True, true. I mean, yes, but it's not what most people would think of when they think of a creative industry or creative artistic.

Really is the word that comes up.

Exactly. But, but what, what I think is true is that one, all entrepreneurs are creatives, and that's where we need to start from and not focus so much on whatever skill set we have. So, you know, I thinking of myself as an entrepreneur with financial skills, and if I want to learn new skills and, and apply them to a different problem, I can, but being an entrepreneur first, and that looks like what you've done is you're an entrepreneur first, first, right?

Learning, learning all the business along the way. And a lot of, you know, a lot of people say that to me. They say that they're not used to seeing someone who is very artistic, but then also wears the business hat as well, was able to navigate both. And I admit that was, that was a challenge for me, but I was always a business owner. And, and being a business owner when the internet was invented and then going through the motions of learning the web and learning, you know, smartphones and learning everything about how to run a business. You have to, you have to learn how to become profitable. You have to learn how to market your ideas and your brand. Um, and you have to learn how to target your customers. I mean, these are all things that have nothing to do with being creative. These are things that have to do— these are all business-related things, but Unfortunately, as an entrepreneur or a business owner, you have to learn how to do the accounting, you know, how to do the ads and how to do the marketing, or else your creative juices don't matter.

I think the genius arrives when you combine those two, when either you yourself embody both of those mindsets of both. I'm just for simplicity's sake calling them creative and analytical, but that's, that's probably not great. Or you partner with somebody or you hire somebody that complements you. But to me, that's where the genius is, because you have to have both. You have to have both.

100%. Yeah. If you don't, then you can't have one without the other, right? It just doesn't work. You know, it's— we could say the same for NASA and their rockets. You know, you can have the creative team that comes up with the solutions, but then you have the engineers that actually implement them. Right, so there's those two different sides of the coin.

Well, and usually it's the creative, oftentimes they're the visionary of the organization, and they come up with this idea and then they drop it in the laps of the analytical side and they're like, we have no idea how you're gonna do that.

Yeah, or can this be done? Right. Can this be done, right?

I think of John Kennedy and Mission to the Moon, if it happened. We're not stipulating that we went to the moon, but if we did go to the moon, the idea that, hey, we're going to do this and bring somebody back by the end of the decade, and everybody at NASA's like scratching their head like, what's he talking about?

Like, how are we going to do this? Right, right. We'll send, we'll send the monkey up there first.

Yeah. Or another example I, I like to use is Walt Disney and Roy, his brother.— you know, I don't remember the specific project, and it was when they were developing Disney World, but Roy came in with this idea and he was ranting and raving about it. And Roy looked at him and he said, well, that'll cost over $1 million. And Walt's like, I don't care, figure it out.

I'm pretty sure it was the tram going through the Hotel of the Future.

Okay, well, there you go.

That was the one that they really battled on.

Thank you for filling in the context. I just knew part of the story. So You, you, you kind of alluded to it, the, the things that you've had to learn. What was that like to come to the decision that like, I, I, I can't ignore this stuff. I've got to learn it. You may have to reach back in your memory there a little bit.

Yeah. I mean, this, it's a very, actually not really, cause it's a very repetitive process that keeps coming back. It's cyclical and, you know, we can go back 30 years or we can go back to today where I'm on these calls with my team for Vengo, for example, sales calls. And it's really like, hey guys, the product is built, we have 15 customers, but in order to scale, we have to just sell, sell, sell. It's all about coming up with the right ads, the right content, the right press and media, the right investor relations, you know, the right outreach with distributors. Every single product I've ever had, whether it was a movie, a tech product, or a book, or anything at all, once you finish creating it, that's literally the beginning of the journey. Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Even, even after a whole year of working on something, a whole year, day in and day out, working nonstop on this project, whatever it might be, when I'm finished that product and I get that huge sigh of relief and my shoulders feel like the big weight was taken off. No, now I become Atlas and I have to hold the whole world up and really push this thing out there, you know? And that's when things really start. And most entrepreneurs don't know that. Most people think that, oh, I'll just build this app or I'll just write this book or I'll just do this thing and it's gonna take off and I'm gonna become a millionaire. And 99.999% of the time, that is not the case.

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Yeah, but that seems to be the story that they pitch us, right? The glamorous, the, you know, the glamorous unicorn startup. But, you know, I remember very much when my book came out this March, It was a couple of weeks before we published it, and I had this sinking feeling because I'm like, oh, now I've actually got to go use it. I've got to go promote it. I got to go sell it. Right. And but it was exactly what you're saying. Like, I put all this effort into getting it done. But so what?

Like, you know, you can make the best movie in the world. And if no one goes to the theater, then That's it. It's considered a flop. Look what happened to Joker 2. Everyone thought it was gonna blow up and it lost a dramatic amount of money and worst ratings ever. So just because you make something doesn't mean it's gonna sell.

And you know, I like the premise of that movie. I really wanted to like it, but it had such bad reviews I haven't seen it. I mean, like—

Sure. And we can say the same for different companies that came out that crashed and burned and companies spending hundreds and of millions of dollars on company. I mean, look at MySpace as a great example of a company that was just doing so well in the early aughts, and then they sold it for $500 million to News Corp, and Facebook just completely crushed them, and they just went out of business in like a year. So like, just because you have a product doesn't mean it's gonna succeed. You have to be able to sell the living crap out of it.

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Well, there's definitely the oversaturation that you have to figure out, right? If you're in a certain market, and right, right now we're in AI. AI, people are getting it crammed down their throats, right? It's AI this, AI that, and, and I totally get that. Uh, but at the same token, it's really not that ubiquitous with the world, right? People aren't using it.

Uh, they're just talking about it.

They're just talking about it, or they've heard about it, you know. And keep in mind, um, we've been hearing about AI since 2001: A Space Odyssey, you know, with HAL back in the '60s. So we've been hearing about AI, we've been seeing AI on IBM's Watson on Jeopardy, and like little inklings of AI have been sprinkled throughout history, but we've never really been able to use it the way we are today with the plethora of platforms and tools, whether it's AI image generation or chat or voice chat or videos. There's so many things, right? But now that people are actually getting their hands on it, and in terms of businesses, if you're not using AI, you're gonna be left behind. Just like, just like 20 years ago, if you didn't have a website for your business, you were being left behind. Just like nowadays, if you don't have an app for your platform and you're just a web platform, you're probably gonna be left behind, and so on and so forth. AI is that next hurdle that businesses are gonna have to jump over and we make it easy. That's the key, right? Is ChatGPT, Llama, Gemini, and all these other perplexities and, and, and, you know, Claude, they're not very easy to use, right? For, for the, for the everyday consumer. And you gotta have at least $100,000 in your bank account to customize it for your needs in the way that you need it. But we make it easy. So you just get a line of code and you put it on your website and now you're up and running. So that's kind of where we've— that's the gap we're filling.

Well, you, you bring up an interesting point and it kind of ties back into what I was saying about being an entrepreneur instead of focusing on your skills. That kind of translates to, you know, if I'm marketing AI, I don't really want to lead with AI because that doesn't solve the, the problem. And I, and I think one of the most key things any business can do is have a true understanding of the problem that they're solving. But especially with existing businesses, it gets real easy to focus on your features and benefits, what you do, right? I was having a conversation with a woman, uh, a few weeks ago that was starting a marketing agency. She'd already come up with her service offerings and her pricing and even had identified a target market, like, I'm going after financial coaches and I'm going to basically help them do lead generation on Meta. I'm like, great, those are all good things. Do you know what that lead is worth to the business coach? And she paused and she's like, No, but I really need to know that, don't I? I'm like, absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, the, this, this, what is it, the lifetime value of the customer, right? Exactly. What's that going to be? Yes. And because if she's spending, you know, $1,000 on that lead and she's only getting back $200, then she's—

it's not worth it. Exactly. And I was having it in the context of talking about pricing, like maybe, maybe your pricing needs to be tweaked, but she may not have a viable business model.

It's, that's, that's what beta testing is for. And that's what iterating with early customers is for, right? You shouldn't be going out, you know, crazy full speed ahead. You've really got to take your time.

Yeah. And, and, you know, you, you, you use those terms and, and I, I don't think most creative business owners are used to beta testing or iteration, but it's the same principle. I, I was. I was just listening to an episode that we'll post in the next week or so, and he was a— his business is filming high school football games with drones. And it wasn't like he got a drone, got his drone's license, and said, okay, I'm going to go film high school football games. It was, well, I, I've got, I've got a drone. I think I want to do search and rescue because that sounds like fun. And, oh well, I don't know how I can make any money at that. And, and, and, and iterated through, uh, just looking for problems to solve. And he landed on this one that was just completely untapped, could, could charge twice what the market was charging for standard videography. But it, it wasn't like he set out to build that build a drone business around high school football.

That, that, you know, that's generally how it works out, right? When you're beta testing and you're iterating, and I was a drone operator, FAA licensed when I made my second movie. Um, I kind of was forced into it. I had to create aerial photography and cinematography for my movie. So I did the same thing after the movie. I started looking into different markets. I was getting organizations, companies with factories, schools. Events and things like that. I left that market because it wasn't for me, but I remember doing the same thing and I even did some search and rescue. So like when it comes to any kind of idea that you have, no matter what it is, and Vengo is no different, by the way, we started out as a consumer web app for consumers.

Of course you did.

Yeah, we absolutely did. People, we have a consumer app called Spinner. It's a video friendship app. And the people on that app liked the AI that we built on there, but they wanted to customize it. So we built Vengo AI as a customizing tool for them. And they said, oh, well, we don't really have any content to train it because we're not really business owners. We're just people. So we realized it wasn't, it wasn't for them. So, uh, so that's kind of how we started pivoting towards, you know, I was like, well, I need one for myself. And then everyone else needed one for themselves. And I was like, now it's for business. You should never marry your idea. Be ready to adapt to the market. Be ready, be ready to pivot your complete concept to something else if you have to. And, uh, I think when you said no one knows what beta testing is, an iteration, I think really what beta testing is, an iteration, it's figuring out what it is your product is going to be before you launch while you're gaining customers.

Right. So you're not trying to build it all out at the beginning and then realize no one wants it.

That, that I couldn't have said it better myself. That's exactly what happens 9 times out of 10. You have to build something that you think people want, get their feedback first, then keep iterating towards what they actually do want. And then that's what you end up launching after you have 100 people using it.

And that's true for any business, technology, service, product. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. Don't, don't open a brick and mortar store until you've succeeded at Etsy first, you know?

Right. Right. So I want to ask some questions about the filmmaking. I apologize, I did not do my due diligence. Tell me about your films.

That's okay. I'm definitely more so inclined to enjoy filmmaking more than anything else, but it's not as profitable as everything else, so I have to kind of take it with a grain of salt. But my first movie was in 2010. It was a thriller horror flick called The Bucks County Massacre. Won an Audience Choice Award at a film festival, which garnered me an agent in California and distribution worldwide. 2016, I, I released The King's Highway, a historical documentary, um, that won a film festival, agent, distribution, and then WHYY and PBS wanted it on their TV stations for 2 years. Verizon Fios then picked it up. So that one was pretty big. And then my third movie, uh, I shot before the pandemic and during the pandemic, cuz I was shooting it during 2019 and 2020. 2020 and I had to stop production and then continue on when things kind of lifted a little bit. And I was able to finish that one. It's called Cutting Corners about the real estate industry. And that one also won 2 film festivals, Agent Distribution. And so all 3 of the movies are globally watched by people. And I, and then I, during the pandemic, after I released Cutting Corners and I always get that itch, right? Creative people generally get an itch to create something. And while I couldn't work on another movie, I just finished cutting corners and, and I'm working on all these apps, Spinner and Bango. I couldn't quite commit to a movie, but what I could do in my spare time was work on an idea I had in the back of my mind for years and years and years and years for a story, uh, which you see to my left, uh, Protocol 7. And Protocol 7 is a sci-fi thriller that takes place in the far, far future. And I wrote the screenplay 2022, used Midjourney to create the AI storyboard to kind of visualize what it would look like along with, you know, what's called a treatment. So you can kind of see what the story's about and follow along. And I even made that poster image using Midjourney as well, which is amazing 'cause I would've never been able to draw that. Submitted the screenplay to 3— well, actually more than 3 contests, but I placed as a finalist in 3 contests for this screenplay, which I've never done before. So I'm very proud of that. And maybe one day I'll be able to make it using AI. We'll see.

So, so what were the budgets of these films?

The first, the first movie was my— was probably around like $50,000. The second movie probably around the same, and probably all 3, 3 movies about the same, about $50,000. I'm not able to get large budgets, but they were all, like I said, they were all successful. They've all made more than they cost to make, and they've been seen by a lot of people. So, you know, as far as I'm concerned, those are probably my proudest achievements in my movies for sure.

What were you, director?

What role? Writer, director, producer, editor. Okay, you did it all. I had like, the first movie had a 50-person crew and cast, so it was pretty big. The second movie, just a smaller— it was a documentary, so smaller. I really like to be hands-on. I like to learn everything there is to know about doing things. If I ever do get my hands on a big-budget film through a big studio, I'll know how to do quite a bit, which should make the process a lot smoother.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Yeah, I've been tangential to that with, with some clients and learned more about the business of making movies. And it, it does fascinate me where you can take a a low-budget film and get distribu— if you make a good film, uh, you can get distribution where you can, you know, make some money at it. You don't have to have multi-million dollar budgets.

No, it would be nice.

Yeah, well, sure, sure, but we're scrappy entrepreneurs, right?

We, we are.

I, I, um, I'm gonna go ahead and put this out there. I, I have had this most of this year. I have a screenplay I want to write, uh, but I'm struggling with the screenplay. And so I thought about writing, uh, just a short story around it because that, that is easier for me. I mean, the whole structure of the screenplay is fundamentally different.

It's tough.

But I'll, I'll pitch you the idea, see what you think. It is—

I'd love to hear it.

The working title is Dancing Rabbit, and it is about the relocation of the Choctaw people from Mississippi to Oklahoma. And I'm Choctaw, my wife's Choctaw, and I've never— there's, there's no movie made about the Trail of Tears. There's documentaries, right?

Documentaries for sure. Ken Burns did a bunch of those, right?

But there's no movie. And this, this story centers around a young Choctaw man who is torn between his, his romantic love and his love for his home, and he actually stays behind in Mississippi. The, the Trail of Tears actually happened— the relocation happened over 3 years. And so she goes with the first group and he stays behind, and the— he finally gives up and, and realizes that home is, home is where the people he loves is. And, and so he, he follows her, uh, to Oklahoma only to find that she died on the way. So that's my, that's my story.

I— oh man, there's got to be a happy ending.

But that's the other thing, right? So I'm thinking, was that the right movie about the Trail of Tears?

It's not going to end well. Well, there's probably a reason. There's also a reason why there's never been a full-fledged movie about it, because I would, I would assume in, in American culture, they don't want us to know what happened because it's horrible, the, the genocide and decimation of, of the people that happened, um, because of what Andrew Jackson did, right? And I think at the end of the day, the movies that portray indigenous people, such as, um, Dances with Wolves or The Last of the Mohicans, which are, you know, Oscar-nominated or Oscar-winning movies, those really kind of portray them being pushed out as well, um, by the, the settlers and the wars. But in this particular instance, no, I haven't seen anything like that besides documentaries. What I would do is try your best to prolong, um, the, the separation of the two, because if you, if you, if you rip off that band-aid, then there's really no story. So if it's really more about their lives in Mississippi, and how it's established. And then, you know, maybe halfway through she goes, and then that's when things kind of start to— he starts to try to battle it out on the home front, right? Which is really what you're looking for. Try to stand his ground. But then he finally towards the end is when he kind of says, okay, I give up. And that's when he finds out the bad news, which is going to make everyone cry. Of course. So it's— look, anything is possible. There's plenty of indigenous peoples and tribes out there that are willing to be in these movies for sure. I had a bunch of them in my movie, the Lenape, for King's Highway. I had tons of indigenous people, so, that played parts in my movie. So you definitely find them out there. So look, write an outline, write a short story, get it all written out and learn how to write a screenplay. Try it, try your hand at it.

I did do a screenplay. I did do a screenplay this time last year, uh, for our firm retreat. We, uh, made a short film and I wrote the script for that. But then I started trying to do it as a feature film. I'm like, God, because I wasn't— I mean, I did a lot of research in preparing for, you know, the story, getting historical names and, and, uh, events to, to include in the movie. But when it came to writing a script, I, I didn't know well enough how to write a script. I just, I'd get started, write a couple of pages, and, and I, it wasn't, it wasn't coming together for me. So I, I've decided I'm just going to write a short story and then figure it out from there. Yeah, if, if it works.

I mean, there's definitely a structure you have to follow. Um, so I, I would tend to say read a bunch of screenplays, um, read a couple books on screenplays. One of the best ones that I read that helped me along, because I've been writing screenplays now for 17 years, and Protocol 7 is my 8th screenplay. 3 of the movies I made and 5 of them I did not. I'd like to one day. Save the Cat is the name of the book. It's really, really good. Some people argue that it's, you know, not— you shouldn't follow it to the T. I would say don't follow it to the T, but definitely Uh, look at the structure that it gives you, the beat sheet and the 40 scenes on the card. I like writing them down on index cards, putting them up on my whiteboard magnets. I can visualize the whole story, move things around. Um, and, and my advice would be, once you do that, once you have your 40 scenes written out on, on a board, a corkboard or whiteboard, whatever, write those scenes as simply and quickly as you possibly can get them out of your head. Don't worry about how good the dialogue is. Don't worry about how good the descriptions are. Don't worry about any of that. Just make it just bare minimum. What's called a spec script. Just write it outta your head, then put it away for a couple weeks. Come back, read it with fresh eyes, and now improve the dialogue, improve the descriptions. Do your research on all the scenes that you didn't do your research on because you have to do a— writing screenplay is 50% research, pretty much. You're just doing research all day long. Well, what did they wear? What did they dance? What foods did they eat? Where did they live? What was the weather like? You know, like it goes on and on and on and on and on, right? So don't do any of that. Just, just write, write, write, write. And if you get the tendency where, oh, I could make this better, don't. Just keep moving on because you'll always— you're gonna have to rewrite it anyway. You're gonna have to come back and rewrite it and rewrite it. So that's, that's my advice to you.

Okay. I, I will follow it because you have inspired me. It's one of those things that, you know, at, at my age, at 54, I have a lot of ideas and my filter of what I'm going to work on or not work on is, on my deathbed, am I going to regret doing it or not doing it? And this is one of those things that I would regret if I hadn't done it. So, it's going to happen.

Do it. Write 1 page every day for 90 days. That's it. 1 page a day for 90 days or 3 pages a day for 30 days. You can do it. I, I wrote Protocol 7 over the course of probably, uh, you know, a month or two, and then I let it go for a couple months. I came back and rewrote that sucker and rewrote it again and again and again. So I was really, really happy with it, and I had to rewrite the ending a couple times to get it just right. And that ending is really what struck a nerve with the contest. They really enjoyed the way that I twisted it. For them to— they had no idea what was going to happen.

Is it, uh, is it a sci-fi movie like Blade Runner or a sci-fi movie like Star Wars?

Um, it's not like Star Wars, not like Blade Runner. I would say it's more like Space Odyssey 2001 kind of, kind of style, um, but with some elements of— there's definitely elements of other Films that you— that we could mention that, like, Ex Machina, there's like elements of that, there's elements of that in there for sure. Interstellar, there's pieces of that in there as well. Um, there's definitely bits and pieces of, of things that inspired me over the years, but it's truly an original, uh, story that has never been told before. And that's why it was just nagging me, like, if you've never seen this movie before, then you have to write it.

It's, it's your responsibility.

Yes, it is.

What's your, what's your favorite sci-fi movie?

Interstellar, for sure. Really? Just, uh, it really is. It's, it's, it just has everything that you could want out of a movie. It's got far-reaching space travel, time travel, uh, you know, just that, that time dilation moment is probably my favorite scene of any movie where they go down to that planet of water for 10 minutes, come back up, and the guy was up there for 23 years by himself. Like It's, it's just like you don't get to see stuff like that very often. Um, and then how the story comes full circle, how he was— it was him the whole time trying to reach out to his daughter. It's just— and, and the space travel scenes were just so epic. I mean, yeah, I love Star Wars and, you know, Avatar and all the other stuff out there, but nothing really— and Interstellar soundtrack was great too.

I would say, I mean, I, I was 6 7, 7 when Star Wars came out, uh, and, and it was definitely impactful. But as an adult, I think Blade Runner, uh, is, is probably my favorite just because of the grittiness of it.

Yeah, it's a fantastic movie. I mean, I love it. I love all the Blade Runners that have come out too. They're just— I mean, it's just, it's so hard to always say your favorite, and one day I had to commit.

Fair enough. So you're stuck with it.

I'm stuck with it for now. We'll see. Maybe, maybe my movie will come out one day and then I can say Protocol 7 is better. So are, were your books fiction or were they, uh, the first book I found, it's funny. The first book I wrote was a sci-fi novel. Um, 2005, I wrote short stories before that. And then one of the short stories turned into that book. And then after that, I was writing autobiographies, um, helping people as a ghostwriter, uh, writing other types of books. And then I wrote my, um, startup guide, Strap On Your Boots. In the middle of, in between my second movie and like releasing it because I had, I kind of had a gap of time and everyone was bothering me for tech advice. And I was like, let me write this book and get my brain onto paper. And that was really the book that really has impacted the most people because it's been helping entrepreneurs, students, business owners. And so yeah, most of them I would say are definitely nonfiction, and then I wrote a couple autobiographies for people, so nonfiction, and then the sci-fi novel that I wrote.

What's the sci-fi novel? I'm gonna have to go pick it up now.

It's really old and it's probably not that great, uh, but it was called The Box. And, um, I mean, it's— I love the story. I think it's, um, it's kind of like an Independence Day meets Star Wars meets Fifth Element, kind of like— it's definitely the more um, interesting story in terms of entertainment. But, uh, I, I could call it something else because The Box probably wasn't the best title back then. Um, but there was a—

you could re-release it.

Um, you know, I might because it's, it's going to be 25, 20 years, um, in 2025. I released it in 2005, and at the time there was no really big internet presence. It was kind of just starting out. And so I was selling it in local bookstores, Borders, Barnes Noble, and they had me do book signings. I was in the newspaper for it. And there was a moment when enough people came to the store to buy my book that it outsold Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. And okay, a couple. Yeah. So that was like the kind of cool moment is when I outsold like the big authors.

Yeah.

At my event. But, um, yeah, I would love to read. I mean, I haven't, I'd have to rewrite that book and and re-release it.

Maybe a sequel.

Well, I had an outline already written out for it.

Are you married?

I'm partnered.

Okay, because I can imagine that your partner is like trying to keep up with you. Like what?

No, she's busy on her own.

Just like, what the hell is Jason up to today?

Nobody can ever keep up with me. So it's just a matter of just tolerating it.

Fair enough. Jason, how do we find out more about Vengo?

Uh, go to vengo.ai or Ven— actually, vengoai.com is more like it. Um, and there's, uh, jasonsherman.org is where you can find out more about me and all my links are on there, which is probably a lot easier.

Okay. Jasonsherman.org. I thoroughly enjoyed this interview. Thank you so much for your time.

Yeah, me too. It was a lot of fun.

Great. Listeners, if you liked Jason or me, whatever, any combination thereof, uh, subscribe to the podcast, leave us a rating, uh, share the podcast. Uh, if you don't like what you heard, uh, shoot us a message back and tell us what you'd like. Why? Yeah, please. This is great stuff. We had Blade Runner in here and— right?

Yeah, there's a lightsaber up there, for God's sake.

I mean, come on. Until later, ta-ta for now.

And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. Until next time, you money lovers. And don't forget, Profit First for Creatives is live via Amazon.

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