The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture

Speaker 1 I'm just into what interests other people. And that's what I think a good story is.

Speaker 1 I think far too often things are a little too artsy, you know, and I think that artsy really is nothing more than saying it's just so niche.

Speaker 2 Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement, leadership, and relentless growth.

Speaker 2 No fluff, no filters, just hard-hitting truths, unstoppable strategies, and the mindset shifts that separate the best from the rest. Ready to break limits? Let's go.

Speaker 3 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged, and we have an award-winning everything.

Speaker 3 When I talk about filmmaking, directing, producing, He just told me he is T-Mac New Jersey's finest.

Speaker 3 My guy.

Speaker 1 Unofficially. There we go.

Speaker 3 Jason, how are you doing today?

Speaker 1 Good. How are you, McMan? It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 3 Man, like, I am honored to have you here. I don't get to talk to award-winning people all the time.
Wow, okay. Right.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 there's so many questions I want to ask. There's so many places I want to go, man.
But let's just talk about you and what got you into this world of entertainment and filmmaking, directing, producing.

Speaker 3 Like, what got you here?

Speaker 1 Heavily by accident, to be honest.

Speaker 1 My college degree is in criminal justice. I did nothing with it.

Speaker 1 I was going to go to law school.

Speaker 1 Dropped out three months before I was going to start and was just

Speaker 1 lost. You know, 22 years old,

Speaker 1 a degree in something I wasn't going to use. What do I do?

Speaker 1 I had a little bit of a cushion just to hang out for a little bit.

Speaker 1 My dad had a sales business and You know, I was always creative. I was always into Photoshop.
And in college, I was that guy sitting editing music. And I was a DJ in college for a while.
Okay. And

Speaker 1 that kind of pushed me somehow into like web design and graphic design. This is the

Speaker 1 early 2000s. Okay.
And I was an okay graphic designer. I was okay.
I was all right. You know, I could still, I could still work my way around Illustrator and Photoshop.

Speaker 1 But that allowed me a platform to, you know, this is still the early, this is before Canva, right? This is before everyone could do it themselves.

Speaker 1 So as long as you could do something, you can make some money.

Speaker 1 And I was designing a bunch of logos for people and doing, you know, business development in the graphic design space.

Speaker 1 Nothing major. And through that, I'll never forget the day a family friend who had an insurance business said, do you do video? And I said, yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 But no, I'd never done a single video in my entire life.

Speaker 1 And that was it. That was the genesis of the whole thing.
I went out. He wanted a website and a video for the website.

Speaker 1 The irony is he ended up hating how he looked on camera, which was probably my fault.

Speaker 1 He decided after we shot the video that I went out and bought the camera and did the whole thing.

Speaker 1 He decided that we were just going to do a stock video, like stock footage video,

Speaker 1 which I made for him. But I didn't even need the camera.
That was the whole point. But that was it.
Once I had that, started doing corporate video.

Speaker 1 And I think the good thing is that I didn't know what I wanted to do, which allowed me to do a lot of different things.

Speaker 1 And, you know, the first television pilot that I shot, which I still think would be a good show that never went anywhere, was a show called Music School.

Speaker 1 We went to different college music festivals, like, you know, their spring festivals. We shot our pilot at Rutgers Fest, which was My Alma Mater.

Speaker 1 That was N-ERD played, like, shot Pharrell. Like, first thing I ever shot was like Pharrell.
It's like, oh, okay. There you go.
And it was a cool show. We had a Z100 DJ.
His name was Nico.

Speaker 1 He like hosted the show. I still think that's a cool show and would sell.

Speaker 1 Shot a couple of pilots, but along the way, just started making money.

Speaker 1 The corporate video stuff that like everybody does, you know, dentist's office or like whatever. And then 2012 was my big break when I had the wild idea to make a documentary about Back to the Future.

Speaker 3 There we go. And so I want to go there next, man.
So

Speaker 3 actually, before I go there,

Speaker 3 let me pause for a second and give you some appreciation. Because

Speaker 3 what you do, and I don't think a lot of people, the average person like myself, don't understand storytelling through film, right? It's not just, hey, we're going to go record something.

Speaker 3 There's still a story that has to be told that's deeper than the story that's telling, right? Like, how did that become a thing for you? And how, to me, I call it creative genius.

Speaker 3 Genius that I don't have, but definitely through your work is there. Like, how important is that for you when you're like, before you take on a project? Like, what's the story?

Speaker 3 And then how do you take that story and like truly tell it?

Speaker 1 I think one of the interesting gifts, and I'll use that word that I have, is

Speaker 1 that what interests me, I think, interests a lot of people.

Speaker 1 It's a weird gift, but I I think over the course of the last 15, 20 years, I've kind of figured that out.

Speaker 1 I'm into some obscure stuff, and I think you have to be, and I think you have to be a little nuts, and I think you have to be willing to work 22 hours a day sometimes.

Speaker 1 You need all that, but I think as we're going to get into kind of that back to the future doc,

Speaker 1 I'm just into what interests other people. And that's what I think a good story is.

Speaker 1 I think far too often things are a little too artsy, you know, and I think that artsy really is nothing more than saying it's just so niche. Yeah.
You know, and there's nothing wrong with it.

Speaker 1 It interests you and maybe it interests 10 other people. But I find that the stuff that I'm interested in is what interests a million other people or 10 million other people.

Speaker 1 And it's weird to say this, but I think I'm just an average guy, right? Like I'm just

Speaker 3 not letting you get away with that, Jason.

Speaker 1 I think, you know, I like to watch sports and I like to watch movies.

Speaker 1 And I, I, you know, the, the entertainment that's supposed to appeal to the masses appeals to me and in turn I could take that and turn it around and and the things that become interesting to me become interesting to other people the documentary I'm working on now it's about eating healthy

Speaker 1 and you know I thought I hit a big cultural moment hitting the 30th anniversary of back to the future which was huge and we'll get into it yeah but now I'm doing a documentary about eating healthy I mean everybody eats literally There are so little things that as human beings, we all have in common.

Speaker 1 We don't all have the same political beliefs. We don't all, you know, have the same religion.
We don't all have the same, uh, wear the same clothing, but we all eat.

Speaker 1 We all, we all eat, we all breathe. I don't know that a documentary on breathing would be interesting.
Maybe it would be, um, but outside of that, what do we really all have in common?

Speaker 1 And that wasn't something that I was thinking about when I had the idea for this. Yeah.
But over the course of a year producing this documentary, and people would say, hey, what are you working on?

Speaker 1 And I'd say, oh, a documentary about eating healthy. 100% of the people I've talked to have been interested in it or want to strike up a conversation about it or want to know what the angle is.

Speaker 1 And that's even, to me, that's like mind-blowing because that's a hundred layers beyond Back to the Future. Yeah.
I have way too many friends in their 20s that have never even seen Back to the Future.

Speaker 1 And it's like, oh my God, you know. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So let's go Back to the Future first. Let's go.

Speaker 1 Perfect segue. Because

Speaker 1 one,

Speaker 3 for you to do a documentary on that was amazing, and it's one of my favorite ones, by the way. So definitely go check it out.
Love that. But then two,

Speaker 1 it's hard for films, a classic like back to the future one

Speaker 3 to have three to have a trilogy is hard and then to say not only was there a trilogy you know we're gonna do a documentary about it like so so walk us through that whole

Speaker 1 it was uh the year was 2012. yeah and the genesis story is amazing because i was still working in event film production so i kind of gotten to that point where i was shooting a lot of weddings um

Speaker 1 bar mitzvahs, whatever. Yeah.
And this was sort of the odd phone call.

Speaker 1 Somebody who was having a bar mitzvah for their son wanted me to make a short film that they were going to play at the bar mitzvah. And the guy sold insurance.

Speaker 1 I don't know why I've earned my life sold insurance, but the guy sold insurance. And, but, but his calling in life was to be a film producer.
Okay. You know,

Speaker 1 he wanted it so badly. He loved that world.
And so this was his opportunity to write a script and act and produce something.

Speaker 1 And it was a little hokey.

Speaker 1 But basically, he takes his son, who's now 13, takes him back to when he was 13 and then to when his grandfather was 13. And they do this through a DeLorean time machine.

Speaker 1 And they go and they see their grandfathers. And everybody in the family got to be in the film.
And it was fun. Well, he rented a DeLorean, and this is out in Long Island.

Speaker 1 And the day that we were filming, everybody who passed by stopped at cars, dead in the street, got out, took pictures of this DeLorean. And I was like, wait a second.

Speaker 1 It's like, I love Back to the Future. I guess a lot of other people love Back to the Future.

Speaker 1 But, you know, this is a fairly affluent area of Long Island where, you know, a DeLorean at the time, you could buy a perfect condition DeLorean for like 30 grand.

Speaker 1 And people are pulling over their $100,000 cars to take a picture of this relic from the early 1980s.

Speaker 1 And that was it. That's all it took.
And I was like, wow, this is incredible.

Speaker 1 I should make a documentary about how the DeLorean affects so many people all these years later, you know, from Back to the Future. And that was it.
That's all it took.

Speaker 1 And then I just had.

Speaker 1 I had the ability because I had the equipment to go out.

Speaker 1 I found the guy up in Massachusetts who was a huge collector of Back to the Future stuff, went up there for for a day shot a pitch trailer put it on kickstarter raised 45 000 on the first kickstarter and

Speaker 1 that was i think we had 600 backers for the first one wow but that's all it took to know okay this project is viable they want it to be made i thought 45 000 was like a million dollars to make a film okay because to me it's i'm doing it it's all my equipment like that's just so much money i burned through that money in like three months it was gone

Speaker 1 because our first couple shoots were in vegas law and it was just the travel that just ate through ate through the money

Speaker 1 Ultimately, we had another producer who came on board and he invested in the film to become a producer because we had already sort of kicked the ball down the hill a little bit.

Speaker 1 So that brought in more money. And then we always knew we would do a second Kickstarter where we raised $150,000, which to me was $10 million.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I feel like some of that money was already also spent before we even got it. But again, it was enough to finish the film.
So we basically had zero. out-of-pocket cost.

Speaker 1 You know, we just had fan investors, essentially, who got paid back in t-shirts and Blu-rays and license plates. So

Speaker 1 all it took was just that spark and knowing that, hey, the public wants to make this film. It's clear.
The media attention we got was unbelievable.

Speaker 1 I say we were in every publication from National Geographic to Playboy, and that is with no exaggeration.

Speaker 1 We were in both of those publications and everything, you know, the Hollywood Reporter and all that stuff, you know, all the stuff you'd expect.

Speaker 1 But just everyone picked it up and they were sending cars to my house to take me to Dirty Rock to go on MSNBC.

Speaker 1 I'll never forget my second appearance on MSNBC was right before the dock came out and I'm on, I don't even remember what the show was, I'm on the show talking to the host and they're like, we have to break Bernie Sanders has just announced his run for presidency.

Speaker 1 I'm like, okay,

Speaker 1 I guess Bernie Sanders is booing me. Right.
And it was just moments like that. It kept happening over and over and over.
We were. We promoted the film at like seven Comic-Cons.
We went to London

Speaker 1 where we were the opening panel on the main stage of the London Film and Comic-Con. And the panel after us was 15 members from the original cast of Back to the Future.

Speaker 1 It was the largest assembly of that.

Speaker 1 And we were their opening act. And it's just like,

Speaker 1 how? How does this happen? Amazing. All because I just sat there and said, oh, I should make a Dr.
Mary about DeLorean.

Speaker 1 And oh, three years from now, there's this big 30th anniversary of Back to the Future. And it's the date in the film, October 21st, 2015, when they go into the future.

Speaker 1 That would be a good date to release a film. Yeah.
That was it. That's all it took.

Speaker 3 Crazy outside of the box, but almost simplistic in your thinking, right?

Speaker 1 To the point that you get scared because I had the thought, well, who am I? I'm just some, you know, filmmaker from Long Island. Yeah.
Universal Studios is going to want to do this.

Speaker 1 Like, I can't do this because, you know, they're, nope, you know?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 you gain a lot of confidence through an experience like that, where you just go, no, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do it first, and I'm going to do it better.

Speaker 1 And I think that once everybody realized how big this anniversary was, I'm sure Universal would have loved to do it, but I was way ahead of them.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, I beat a big studio to the punch, which is, yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy to think about.

Speaker 3 And you got to meet, obviously, and talk and films some of the casts, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, almost

Speaker 1 everyone who's in the film, I mean,

Speaker 1 Steven Spielberg is the only one. He was busy on post-production and film.
So he did our interview. His team basically said, okay, what cameras do you want to filmed on? What's your framing?

Speaker 1 What microphone are you using? How do you want it shot? Send us the questions. We'll ask for you.

Speaker 1 I try to fight back, but I lost that battle. But everyone, you know, to sit this close to Robert Zemekis and talk to him about a film that he made is like, is mind-blowing.

Speaker 1 Michael J. Fox, who lives pretty close to where we are right now, I mean, we just sat and talked about hockey.
Like we're both like hockey guys.

Speaker 1 It was weird. It was weird.

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Speaker 3 So, so what was it like, man? And

Speaker 3 I'm going to call him Fox because, you know, there's two Fox, or there's three. Red Fox, Michael J.
Fox, and Jamie Fox, right?

Speaker 1 Like, all of them, you can just call them Fox.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Vivica Fox. Vivica A.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's true. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Vivica A. Fox.

Speaker 1 Can't forget her. Yes.

Speaker 3 So the four Foxes, right? You can just call them Fox.

Speaker 3 So when you met Michael J, like, what was that really like? Because I could only imagine me sitting here. It's like, holy crap.

Speaker 1 It's so surreal.

Speaker 1 Oddly, I think the date was January 7th, 2015. I don't know why I remember that.

Speaker 1 And there was a snowstorm here in New York. Yeah.
He has his house and office are combined

Speaker 1 uptown. Not going going to give out his address.

Speaker 3 Of course.

Speaker 1 Nor do I remember it. But just the date.

Speaker 1 So there's a lot going on, right? Commuting into. So one of the things about this documentary is we did very little filming in New York.
Most of the filming, Adam F.

Speaker 1 Goldberg, who is the writer and creator of the show, The Goldbergs on ABC, he was an executive producer, which is a story in and of itself.

Speaker 1 But he had come on and he basically gave us carte blanche access to the Sony lot in L.A.

Speaker 1 to film as many interviews as we needed on the set of the Goldbergs, which was was perfect because that show was set in the 80s. Okay.
So the set looked like the 80s. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So we've, we had filmed Dean Cundy over there,

Speaker 1 Leah Thompson, we did on that set. We, I, I finally convinced Adam to get in the documentary.
I'm like, you are a part of this. Right.

Speaker 1 Uh, you know, because the show had done an episode on the Goldbergs, which I filmed BTS of them filming their episode, which is also like another out like out-of-body experience.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Michael J. Fox was one of the rare interviews that we did in New York.
Wow. I mean, almost,

Speaker 1 off the top of my head, I can't even think of another one.

Speaker 1 So the weird part of that is, it's not weird for me to wake up in my own bed and go to work.

Speaker 1 I mean, I do it all the time, but for this documentary to wake up in my own bed, get up, go into, you know, come into the city and film an interview, that was very different than almost everything else on this project.

Speaker 1 So the buildup wasn't there. Like, I didn't get on a plane.
I didn't go somewhere. I didn't have to go to a movie studio that day.

Speaker 1 I just got up and went. And then, and it was snowing.

Speaker 1 So there's like the snow, which is like, you know, how it is here. It's just a pain.
Yeah. So now you're dealing with all that.
We're unloading a grip truck in the street in the snow.

Speaker 1 And like, we had to hand carry everything into his house and make sure that we didn't get snow everywhere because it's this guy's house. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the next thing you know, and then we're setting up an interview. It's like, okay, I've done this 10,000 times.
And then Michael J. Fox walks in.
Walks in.

Speaker 1 And it's like, damn, like, if nine-year-old me could see this right now,

Speaker 1 like, this is crazy. Yeah.
And that's, that was,

Speaker 1 it's so out of body. And then afterwards, like I said, we're just talking about hockey.
Like my team's breaking down. And we're just, oh yeah, I go to the Ranger games all the time.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Where do you sit? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I'm friends with Cam Neely. You know,

Speaker 1 and he's, he's Canadian. And,

Speaker 1 you know, he's a Bruins guy and a Rangers guy. And it's just so weird.
And then I saw him again. A few times.
London Film and Comic-Con was one of them.

Speaker 1 And, you know, we got like the semi-VIP treatment at all these things. And like, we would just like kind of hang out backstage and just talk.
And

Speaker 1 it's weird to be,

Speaker 1 you end up on the same level as these people that like you watch on TV. And, you know, when you're a kid, like, these people are heroes.
Yeah. Athletes and actors and whatever.

Speaker 1 And then, and then they just become a part of your life. It's, it's, it's a weird place to be.

Speaker 3 What's something cool that most people don't know about Michael J.

Speaker 1 Fox? Oh, I think now when you see him with the disease, everyone's like, oh, is he okay? You know, like,

Speaker 1 how was it?

Speaker 1 His mind, he is sharp as attack. Like, you know, he has a physical

Speaker 1 air. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But,

Speaker 1 you know, when you see the tremors and you see the shaking, I think to a viewer, it makes you uncomfortable. But when you're kind of a foot away from him and talking, he's just, he's that guy.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's still that guy. And I know he's in a lot of pain.
And obviously, he's basically given up on acting, except for sort of weird, either commercial things or one-off appearances. But

Speaker 1 it's, it's sad. I, I, I liken him to, I think, this is

Speaker 1 crazy opinion here. I think that Michael J.
Fox would have had about 50% of the roles that Jason Bateman's had in the last 10 years.

Speaker 3 Can totally see that. Can totally see that.

Speaker 1 I don't know why, but that came to me one day, and I'm like, I'm positive. I feel like they're in the same lane.

Speaker 1 And, you know, Michael J. Fox, Michael J.
Fox. I feel like he would have had so many of those roles.
Agree.

Speaker 1 And Jason Bateman tries hard to kind of be the bad guy, too. I think he wants that for himself.

Speaker 1 Even like a role like he had an Ozark, let's say.

Speaker 1 He's good, but he's bad.

Speaker 1 I don't know that Michael J. Fox fits into those roles, but I feel like so many parts I've seen Jason Bateman have, and he's blown up.
He's huge. Of course.
That would have been Michael J.

Speaker 3 Fox. I could see that.
I could see that. And so, like, right after that,

Speaker 3 I shouldn't say right after, but sometime after that, right? You also had

Speaker 3 to work with probably the most

Speaker 3 tantalizing sports event ever, at least at that time. And I'd say still probably ever.

Speaker 1 It's probably ever. Yeah, yeah, ever.

Speaker 3 And for those that don't know, we're talking Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor, Jason.

Speaker 1 How did that come about? You know what? That's another one. That's no, no planning, right place, right time.

Speaker 1 What's fun about my career is that I did not stay in one lane. I know that's my brain that just fires in a million different directions all the time.

Speaker 1 It's funny. I'll run into somebody on a pickleball court and they say, oh, what do you do? Like totally out of context.
And I just say video production. Cause I don't even, that's,

Speaker 1 what do you say?

Speaker 1 And they're like, oh, that's cool. They're like, yeah, it's fine.
Let's just end it.

Speaker 3 I've got a trophy back home, though. You can see my awards.

Speaker 1 But yeah, no, so we

Speaker 1 I had gotten into a lot of live production after the documentary. Just because it was, again, a natural progression of my career.
I was doing live production when I was shooting weddings still.

Speaker 1 I would get the weird phone call, like, Hey, I know you do like some live stream stuff. And this is before live streams, live stream.

Speaker 1 Um, my grandma can't make it up from Florida for the wedding. Could we live stream the wedding for her?

Speaker 1 And that got me in, like, really at the ground stages of the prosumer live stream world and equipment and how-to, and figuring all this stuff out.

Speaker 1 Believe me, when we got to COVID, it was a great skill to have. Um, I was one of the busiest men on earth during COVID,

Speaker 1 um, and I truly believe that. But

Speaker 1 I,

Speaker 1 one of our clients at the time was Showtime. I was working full-time at an agency, and we were just following their boxing weeks and making like little video clips like for social media.

Speaker 1 And that grew, that relationship grew. And said, hey, you know, we have these press conferences like after fights, and some guy's like throwing it up on Facebook Live on his iPad.

Speaker 1 Do you guys think you could do something a little better? And we're like, yeah, we can definitely do something a little better.

Speaker 1 So ultimately, what happened is the agency that I was at, we became Showtime's digital arm for all the ancillary events that were not the fight during the fight week.

Speaker 1 So that was press conferences, weigh-ins,

Speaker 1 that grew into doing a lot of these pre-shows. So we would do some of the fights.
So if, let's say, you know, for those that don't know,

Speaker 1 if you ever watch boxing on TV, you see usually four fights, maybe five. Right.

Speaker 1 But when you go to the stadium, there are 12 fights that happen or 10 fights.

Speaker 1 It's a long day.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Long night.

Speaker 1 This is a long night. I mean, it's crazy because, you know, that when you turn on that pay-per-view at nine o'clock, they've usually been fighting since like four or five o'clock.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And at four or five o'clock, they're fighting for nobody because the stands are empty.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You hear like the fighter's mom like, like, go, Mike!

Speaker 1 Like, that's, that's, that's what it is. Yeah.
And, um,

Speaker 1 so we started, not those fights, but basically like seven to nine, that was us. Yeah.
And then, you know, the truck production would take over.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 we started doing all that for Showtime. And it became very cost-effective for them to use a smaller digital crew that didn't have the expense of two trucks and union labor and all this stuff.

Speaker 3 20 people. Right.

Speaker 1 And so we would do, a lot of times they would do a kickoff press conference for a fight that, let's just call it a pay-per-view that kind of knew would have legs.

Speaker 1 Instead of just doing a press conference four days before the fight, they would do a press conference right after they announced it, like anything else in sports, right?

Speaker 1 You sign a player for a seven-year contract, do a press conference. So same deal.
They sign up a big fight. We would do the press conference.

Speaker 1 And that was flying all over the place and, you know, doing these things. And I mean, again, I'm underselling underselling it.

Speaker 1 It became very turnkey and it was a very repeatable process and it was great. Well, 2017, Floyd Mayweather has come to the end of his career and decides he's going to fight Conor McGregor.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 anytime

Speaker 1 Floyd Mayweather was boxing, Floyd Mayweather still boxes these stupid exhibition fights and people still watch and he gets paid a fortune to do it.

Speaker 1 At the time, this was going to be his last professional fight. This was fight number 50.
And he was fighting, at the time, by far, the most polarizing, exciting fighter in the UFC,

Speaker 1 Conor McGregor.

Speaker 1 And they decided to do a press tour, which not unheard of. It was going to be a four-city press tour.

Speaker 1 L.A.,

Speaker 1 New York, London, and Toronto was the fourth location. London was last, the other three first.
We started west and moved east.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Floyd had done, I think Floyd had done like 10 city press tours when he fought like McDonough and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Shout out to Kelly Swanson, who put all those things together for all these years. And we were doing this thing.

Speaker 1 And they asked us the digital team to come in and just stream these press conferences because you know

Speaker 1 they weren't going to bring in the whole truck production for this like it was it was too much and not only that there needed to be some level of being nimble because we were in LA on Monday and Toronto on Tuesday you can't move trucks that fast yeah it's impossible And Showtime had their own truck that, you know, they own their truck

Speaker 1 for their fight production. So I don't know if that was part of the equation.
Like, well, we can't even physically do this. We'd have to rent broadcast trucks in in different cities.

Speaker 1 So let's just use the guys to do digital stuff.

Speaker 1 Mick, I was in so far over my head on this.

Speaker 1 First of all, this was going out to linear television. It was my first experience doing that.

Speaker 1 We were in these.

Speaker 1 I say, oh, we were in LA and New York. We were at the Staples Center and the Barclay Center.
Okay, those are the locations.

Speaker 1 And in Toronto, we were at a 10,000-seat amphitheater

Speaker 1 that, you know, it was outdoors. They did a lot of music stuff there and whatever.

Speaker 1 And I'll tell you a great story from Toronto. But now I'm dealing, like, I'm playing with the big boys now.
Yes, sir. And we're doing these shows.

Speaker 1 And I think what Showtime didn't have the forethought to realize, I don't know that anybody did, was this was going to be the biggest thing ever. Not in sports, in pop culture.
Like, ever. Yes.

Speaker 1 You could not,

Speaker 1 you know, fast forward to the fight, which happened over that summer.

Speaker 1 I remember walking in and we're just on the floor. And I did the post-fight.
So during the fight, I was just walking around.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 we were kind of on the floor level, the VIP level. And and Roger Clemens walks in with the owner of the Astros.
Oh, okay. And then I hear somebody behind me, yo, Tob, Tob.

Speaker 1 And I turn out it's like Toby McGuire. It's like, all right, Spider-Man's here.
Then like A-Ron's over there. J-Lo's right there.

Speaker 1 Jamie Foxx, the other Fox we mentioned earlier, he's three feet away from me to my right. It was, Shaq was there, of course.
This was the biggest cross-section of

Speaker 1 entertainment people that I had ever seen.

Speaker 1 And I've been to some major boxing events. I've been to the Super Bowl.
Like, I've never been at an event where you would just have this feeling: if you're not here here tonight, you're nowhere.

Speaker 1 Cause this is it.

Speaker 1 This is, this is the mecca. That's it.
You know, this is the Coliseum in Rome, you know, like, you know, 500 years ago. This is,

Speaker 1 this is where it was at. Yeah.
And we,

Speaker 1 that event was just so big. And we ended up streaming like 10 streams for that fight because we did, we did the four, then we did five fight week.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I'll tell you the great Toronto story. I'll never forget.

Speaker 1 There was nowhere, there was no like backstage area for us to set up. So it was a very big stage in this amphitheater.

Speaker 1 They had the press conference in the middle of the stage, and we're just off on the side of the stage, like just behind where the curtains would be, but on the stage.

Speaker 1 So I'm here, and there's the press conference happening right in front of me. So my whole setup,

Speaker 1 it's portable. We're on a couple tables, and I'm just sitting there.
And also, you wouldn't believe how small of a crew we did this with. We had a camera operator on every camera.
Yeah. It was me,

Speaker 1 my guy, Shai, who ran all the audio stuff.

Speaker 1 And then I had

Speaker 1 another technician from our company who didn't really have much live experience but was like an extra set of hands for me to like cut cameras so i'll tell him like all right just press you know camera two camera three camera four yeah that's all he knew just to press one two three four five or whatever it was yeah and that was the whole production crew that was it wow and then it and then a camera operator on every camera and it was like you're telling me you did that with for that yeah that's all that's all it was um and it was everywhere dude watching that doc i would not have thought that at all it was

Speaker 1 everywhere.

Speaker 1 You know, and of course there was so much media there and they were doing behind, you know, behind the fight and all that stuff. But we were just, like I said, we were,

Speaker 1 the production crew to actually make that live production was nothing. And

Speaker 1 even still, those videos on YouTube, millions of views. But that doesn't even count.
All the television stations that picked it up all over the world, you know, and their views and whatever.

Speaker 1 It was just, it was wild. So I'm sitting in Toronto.
I'm on the stage. I'm at the computer.

Speaker 1 And like, you know, when you feel somebody coming up on you, like, you know, you kind of have that, I look over my shoulder and I'm like,

Speaker 1 Drake standing over my shoulder, staring at my computer, just watching me like cut the shell out. I'm just like,

Speaker 1 oh, hey, he's like, he's like, hey, I'm like,

Speaker 1 and it's like, what?

Speaker 1 That was that press tour.

Speaker 1 Just certain things in life that you work on, they just become so much bigger than you could ever imagine.

Speaker 6 Hi, Morgan Freeman here.

Speaker 9 I want to talk to you about a serious rare heart condition called ATTR cardiac amyloidosis or ATTR-CM.

Speaker 5 Now, I don't have the condition myself, but if you're living with ATTR-CM, it's important to know about treatment options like Atruvi, also known as Acoramidis, because you have the power of choice when it comes to treatment.

Speaker 13 Atruvi is an old medicine used to treat adults with ATTR-CM to reduce death and hospitalization due to heart issues.

Speaker 4 Tell your doctor if you're pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or are breastfeeding and about the medications you take.

Speaker 16 The most common side effects were mild and included diarrhea and abdominal pain.

Speaker 19 If you have ATTRCM, talk to your cardiologist about Atruvia or visit atrubia.com.

Speaker 20 That's ATT-R-U-B-Y.com to learn more.

Speaker 4 It's time to get busy living.

Speaker 3 You didn't think that was going to be big when you started it?

Speaker 3 As I grabbed you just sipwater.

Speaker 1 It's interesting because we got to, you know, I've gotten to work on some really big fights. And,

Speaker 1 you know, Jerante Davis now is one of the biggest fighters in boxing, done a ton of his fights.

Speaker 1 The magnitude's just not there. And you hear the stories.
You hear the stories of like Floyd in his prime and what those fight weeks were like or Tyson back in the 90s.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I worked the Andre Berto fight that Floyd may ever fought, which was Fight 49. Yeah.
That was kind of once we had made our segue into Showtime.

Speaker 1 And like,

Speaker 1 same guy, right? It's Floyd Mayweather. And that fight was basically a dud.
He just danced around.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he just danced around for most of it, threw a couple punches, got the win.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 no, you can't imagine that. I mean,

Speaker 1 that fight was, and I've talked to so many people. I've become friendly with a lot of people who work in media and

Speaker 1 combat sports. That fight was just the perfect soup of

Speaker 1 just bringing two sports together,

Speaker 1 selling us on the idea that Connor McGregor had a chance of winning that fight. Floyd might get knocked out, which

Speaker 1 there was no chance.

Speaker 3 He wasn't going to get touched.

Speaker 1 There was no chance. And the people that really knew knew.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I think even me, who had been covering boxing for a couple of years at that point, like, I believed because Connor made you believe because he was one of the best salesmen

Speaker 1 out there. And yeah, I mean, that fight was great until the fight started.
You know, everything about the promotion was great until the fight started. And then you're like, wait,

Speaker 1 what? A little different. Like, Connor was here.
Connor looked awkward throwing punches.

Speaker 1 Foot speech. And that's what boxing has become now.
I mean, the fights that sell are these celebrity fights. You know, it's Jake Paul, Mike Tyson.
Like, that fight did incredibly well for Netflix.

Speaker 1 Also, great business model. Same, had some of the same elements.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But, you know,

Speaker 1 you can't fake Floyd Mayweather, who's still active at the time. He was older, but still active, and Conor McGregor, who's at the peak of his prime.

Speaker 1 You can't fake that with a boxer who's a celebrity boxer who nobody's ever thought was really all that good in Jake Paul

Speaker 1 and Mike Tyson, who's 56.

Speaker 1 But it had a lot of those elements, like, oh, this guy can knock out Mike Tyson, or, oh, Mike Tyson's going to finally knock him out. I mean, everyone's still waiting for Jake Paul to get knocked out.

Speaker 1 And it hasn't happened. And it won't happen because the people making his fights won't put him against somebody who can knock him out.
And there are,

Speaker 1 I mean, there's two dozen boxers out there that can knock out Jake Paul in two routes.

Speaker 1 There are.

Speaker 3 But then the show stops, right? Then the story ends.

Speaker 1 And the money runs out.

Speaker 3 And exactly. So why would they do that? Right.
Right. Like, totally get it, guys.
It's a business story.

Speaker 1 And most of those boxers that could knock Jake Paul out won't sell tickets because you don't even know who they are. Right.
And it's sad that you have to, you know, I mean,

Speaker 1 I hate to say it, but

Speaker 1 I worked on the Evander Holyfield fight.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is a career moment. Donald Trump called that fight.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 This is down in Florida. It's in between presidencies.

Speaker 1 He was, I guess, hanging out in Mar-a-Lago. Didn't have much to do.
Triller puts on this fight. It's Oscar De La Hoya fighting Vitor Belfort.

Speaker 1 Again, like this boxing crossover with an active MMA fighter, like right at the end. And Oscar was certainly big enough to carry this fight.
And then he got COVID.

Speaker 1 I think it was two weeks before the fight. He gets COVID.

Speaker 1 Triller spent all the money. What do we do?

Speaker 1 They call Evander Holyfield sitting on the couch, also in his 50s.

Speaker 1 Now, the thing with Evander is, again, Evander could sell fights. He had enough of a name to salvage this thing.
Vander's in shape all the time.

Speaker 1 He looks like he could fight right now. But looks like he could fight and can fight are two totally different things.

Speaker 3 The bill goes off and you got to shuffle.

Speaker 1 It's like, oh, wait, wait a second. And he's a 58-year-old hips.
Yep. And I remember his media workout because they did a media workout and it just, everything looks slow.
And I did that production.

Speaker 1 And I remember telling my camera operator shoot really tight

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 really tight like slow doesn't look that slow yeah

Speaker 1 and wide slow looks really slow

Speaker 1 and I remember watching that and I go I think Saturday night's gonna be ugly and it was I mean he got knocked out like it was that was the one time I ever worked a fight that I think everybody working the fight felt dirty

Speaker 1 like why why are we doing this why is this right why is this happening but Trump called that fight it was that was crazy.

Speaker 1 You know, I'm just, I have a picture of like me in a, in a suit standing there. I'm like, I can just put his earpiece in.
Cause again, tiny crew. So I'm also the guy doing that, right?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the day before the shoot, they're like, oh, your entire crew has to go through secret service,

Speaker 1 like background checks. And almost everyone made it through.
And I was like, oh, God. Then we had to like negotiate deals.
Like, okay, can we sit in the hallway? They won't be in the room with him.

Speaker 1 Like, all this. Like, this is the only time I've ever had a deal with this on a production.
And I just have a picture of me standing over him and Donald Jr. and he's like looking up at me like this.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I was telling him, you know. Yeah.
But it's just a funny picture. It's crazy.
It's just a weird time.

Speaker 3 That's crazy. Another weird time.
Good stuff, man. So now we're going to fast forward to

Speaker 3 the new documentary, right? Netflix.

Speaker 3 But before we go there, I want to ask you a question that probably is going to lead to this. On Make and Flow, we talk about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why, right?

Speaker 3 Like for me, why is superficial.

Speaker 3 your because is what holds you accountable to getting things done so if i were to say jason man what's your because like like what's deeper than your why that's like making you do the things you do i have a burning desire to create

Speaker 1 if if i don't you know

Speaker 1 There are days that go by where there's no shoot, right? I don't have a shoot every day. I wish I did, I guess.
But, you know, there are just days that you don't.

Speaker 1 And if there's a day and you're sitting around the house and,

Speaker 1 you know, you're watching TV and like you just get to the end of the day, like it feels so unproductive.

Speaker 1 And it's almost a double negative, but I don't know how to not create and I don't feel right when I don't. And that could be TikToks.

Speaker 1 Like that could, that could just be making a five-second TikTok and putting it out there.

Speaker 1 But you're creating, then you're putting something out in the world and then you're watching to see if people watch it. I mean, the instant gratification that you get from, you know, social media is

Speaker 1 a drug. Love it.

Speaker 1 The irony is the one platform I've never tried to

Speaker 1 kind of grow is my own Instagram. That's the one that I've never,

Speaker 1 you know, it's just like people that I know, that's it.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, but I mean, my TikTok, I've grown like way bigger than Instagram because I'm doing that more as a creative outlet to put videos out there and see if I can hit the algorithm and like all this stuff.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 I need that because the double negative there is if I don't have it, I feel incomplete and unwhole. And that's what's cool about doing a big documentary project that

Speaker 1 unlike doing contract work and doing shows, you know, there's a date of that show, there's a meeting for the show, there's a pre-pro and then a setup, and then you do the show.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then it's over.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 With a documentary, especially something that I'm writing and directing, there's this sense of like it's there. Like for the entire duration of the project, it's going on.
It's happening.

Speaker 1 And my brain's always working. You know, right now we're getting towards the end of production, this dock, I haven't even turned on a television.
I haven't watched since the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't think I've turned on a television. Okay.
And by the way, I was working during the Super Bowl also.

Speaker 1 I was directing a concert, and then there was like a screen with the Super Bowl on. First time that's ever happened in my life.
Wow. Because I am a big sports fan.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I haven't watched TV at all because my mind is so in like create mode.

Speaker 1 And I think that is deeper than the why because you could think about the why. I think the because is innately buried inside of you.
Exactly.

Speaker 3 Exactly. I love that, dude.
Like, my thing is my because is the promise that I keep, right? So the promise that I made to my mom when I was 10 years old, I'm keeping that promise.

Speaker 3 The promise that I make to my kids, I keep that promise. And that's what's deeper, right?

Speaker 1 Like, my why are my kids?

Speaker 3 My why are my family, but it's because I make all of them a promise and I fulfill that promise every day, or at least I try to fulfill that promise every day. But it's the promise that's my because

Speaker 1 I love that. And I think the people that are closest to me in my life, it's hard for them to necessarily understand the hours that I put in or the fact that like there's no five o'clock bell.
Right.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that when my phone rings at 10 o'clock at night for work, I don't think twice about answering it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Um, because that's how it's been for the last literally 20 years. Like that does, that doesn't stop.

Speaker 1 And I'm sure plenty of people would tell me how unhealthy that is, um, that there's no work-life balance, but like work is life. And not that it should be, but it's my life.

Speaker 1 And that's because I don't have a job, you know, I'm not doing a job that I hate.

Speaker 1 It's so cliche to say, oh, you know, do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life. But it's true.
Find anybody who does what they love and they'll agree.

Speaker 1 You know, cliches are cliches for a reason. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I live that dream every day.

Speaker 1 I love what I do. Right.
So I never feel like I'm working. I never have a problem being on a laptop.

Speaker 1 And yeah, you need to make time for yourself and you need to get away and you need to unplug and you need to go on vacation you need to do all those things because you know mental health is a thing but yeah but i am programmed to just constantly be thinking about creating and working and you know that next success um

Speaker 1 money's never been a driver for me ever i like it i mean who you know

Speaker 1 tell me somebody with money who doesn't like it but

Speaker 1 um That's never been a driver for me. It's never about like making the next dollar.
It's about doing the next thing, you know, creating the next thing, being successful at the next thing.

Speaker 1 That's the driver.

Speaker 1 And that is, I feel so deeply inside of me that I don't have to think about it. Yeah.
I don't have to make it a part of what I do. It is me.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So let's get healthy for a moment.
Yeah. Right.
So, so I love when we started and you said you thought about commonalities and people and everybody breathes and everybody eats.

Speaker 3 The fact that you could just do that that simply, bro. Like I'm seeing the story of Jason a little bit, right? It's the simplicity of things that you can make creative and go.

Speaker 3 So, talk to us about the documentary. How did it start? Where is it going? All of that.

Speaker 1 Same genesis. I sat, I was having a conversation.
I think it was with my girlfriend. And

Speaker 1 I said,

Speaker 1 you know, the price of healthy food is expensive, but I don't know. I feel like it's overblown.
Like, it doesn't have to be that expensive. And that was it.

Speaker 1 That was all it took to get the wheels in motion. And

Speaker 1 so I was traveling a lot back and forth to Raleigh at the time.

Speaker 1 And I was coming home. And I kind of had this idea.
I think it was over like the Christmas season 2023.

Speaker 3 And you're talking in Raleigh, North Carolina? Yes.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's where I just moved from. Oh, nice.
Yeah. Spent a lot of time down there.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 I go to the airport and I'm sitting in the Delta Lounge at the airport and literally... In like 20 minutes,

Speaker 1 I did

Speaker 1 basically the entire research, this entire documentary. Wow.

Speaker 1 Came up with a name, The Price of Health.

Speaker 1 Again, simple.

Speaker 1 I mean, the Back to Future documentary is called Back in Time. It is, you know, play on the song, you know.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I researched who I would want in it, what, like, kind of what we could touch on.

Speaker 1 Finding out that nobody ever did it, obviously, that's that's the big piece of it because there have been a gazillion documentaries on food. I mean, that's not new.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But just finding the unique angle of, you know, essentially what this documentary became is the inverse supersize me

Speaker 1 to the point that it was so obvious that I was uploading transcripts into ChatGPT to organize them. And I asked ChatGPT, do you understand what this trend is?

Speaker 1 And they said, yes, this project is like the opposite of supersize me. I was like,

Speaker 1 okay, I'm done with the machines.

Speaker 1 But that's what it is. And I think the benefit of what I'm doing over

Speaker 1 supersize me, super seismic is entertainment, right? So this guy went to McDonald's, ate McDonald's every day. But what do you learn? Not to eat McDonald's?

Speaker 1 I mean, I think that's fairly common sense at this point.

Speaker 1 You know, nobody's going to tell you, what do you mean McDonald's isn't healthy? Right. Every day.
Right, right. You may want it.

Speaker 1 You may eat it, but I don't think anyone's going to be pitching how healthy it is. Right.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 what I want to do with this project is start at the top. Look at healthy food.

Speaker 1 You know, my document is called The Price of Health, and we're looking at how much does it cost to eat healthy? Well, the problem with that question is there are two variables.

Speaker 1 If you go back back to high school math, there's two variables in that that need to be defined. One is what's healthy and the other one is what's expensive.

Speaker 1 One of those answers cannot be answered, which is what's expensive because expensive is going to be different to every person. Every person.

Speaker 1 What is healthy, I think, can largely be answered. And then there's room for exploration on certain other things.

Speaker 1 I think as I've done this, the biggest problem with the healthy food conversation is that people get so caught up in trying to be perfect that they do nothing.

Speaker 1 Because you can start talking about oils and then, oh, but this oil, but then that, and then it's not 100%. And, oh, there's this chemical and that, and that's an additive.

Speaker 1 That doesn't mean you can't just be better. Right.
And I think that even outside of food, just be a little bit better every day. And you know, that's that's a great way to live your life.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of how I look at food. And I didn't, I wasn't extreme in this project in any way.
It wasn't.

Speaker 6 Hi, Morgan Freeman here.

Speaker 9 I want to talk to you about a serious rare heart condition called ATTR cardiac amyloidosis or ATTR-CM.

Speaker 5 Now, I don't have the condition myself, but if you're living with ATTR-CM, it's important to know about treatment options like Atruvi, also known as Acoramidis, because you have the power of choice when it comes to treatment.

Speaker 4 Atruvi is an old medicine used to treat adults with ATTR-CM to reduce death and hospitalization due to heart issues.

Speaker 4 Tell Tell your doctor if you're pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or are breastfeeding and about the medications you take.

Speaker 16 The most common side effects were mild and included diarrhea and abdominal pain.

Speaker 15 If you have ATTRCM, talk to your cardiologist about Natruvia or visit atrubia.com.

Speaker 20 That's ATT-R-U-B-Y.com to learn more.

Speaker 13 It's time to get busy living.

Speaker 1 You know, ultimately, I did a 30-day experiment where I ate healthy for 30 days. It was like, whoa, whoa, what to find healthy.
There were no extreme guardrails on it, but it was eat whole foods.

Speaker 1 Don't eat things that, you know, have a million ingredients in them or that are cooked in a ton of oil or that are fried.

Speaker 1 I think largely we know, or with a little, a teeny tiny bit of research, you know what's kind of healthy. I had no macro counts.
I wasn't counting calories.

Speaker 1 And in 30 days,

Speaker 1 you know, we added up the number. And that's a secret for the end.
And

Speaker 1 even the health results, and I'll give away some of them. I mean, I lost 10 pounds and 10% of body fat in 30 days.

Speaker 1 How?

Speaker 1 Just by eating healthy. There was no exercise involved.
I play pickleball, so because I played before, I continued to play because I didn't change any variables.

Speaker 1 The only variable that changed was just eating. There was no working out, there's no exercise, no gym.

Speaker 1 Just ate healthy. And

Speaker 3 when you define healthy,

Speaker 3 what is that for you?

Speaker 1 So it it was a lot of

Speaker 1 eating chicken, eating fish, eating steak, although I had to cut that out because I took blood tests before and after as well and found, oh, my cholesterol is really high.

Speaker 1 So we cut out a lot of the red meat stuff.

Speaker 1 It was eating quinoa and eating frozen vegetables.

Speaker 1 Frozen vegetables are, I found this out during the project, just as healthy, if not healthier, than fresh because they're flash frozen as soon as they're picked. So

Speaker 1 frozen vegetables get a bad rap. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like you're eating at a gourmet restaurant when you have peas and carrots on your plate.

Speaker 1 But they're just as good for you, if not better. And a serving of frozen vegetables at a big box store is about 45 cents.

Speaker 1 A serving quinoa is 45 cents. You can buy salmon, even

Speaker 1 frozen, pre-packaged pieces about $4 a piece.

Speaker 1 That's a meal for $5.

Speaker 1 Those are the changes that you start making.

Speaker 1 The snack stuff, I use Thrive Market, the CEO of Thrive Markets in the documentary. I use them just to order a bunch of snacks.
See how it is. I did some meal prep with a company called eCleanbro.

Speaker 1 They've been around for a while. They kind of started servicing like the finance guy and then the gym world.

Speaker 1 And is that something I would regularly do? Their meals are about $12 each if you, you know, if you order for a week and

Speaker 1 do the pricing. Is that something I would regularly do? Probably not, but you know, gave me a little bit of variables in there, some sauce on stuff.
You know, because we stay away from sauce.

Speaker 1 But at the same time,

Speaker 1 met what most people's calorie goals, three meals, about 1800 calories, you know, three of those meals a day, and then filled in with some snacks and cut out the snacks.

Speaker 1 There were no potato chips. There was no Doritos.
There was no chocolate.

Speaker 1 You know, I make ice cream at home in a ninja creamy, so it's relatively inexpensive and it's super healthy. I'm loaded with protein.

Speaker 1 You know, watching that, watching protein every day, making sure you're having protein at every meal.

Speaker 1 I didn't want this to be a film about a specific diet. And that's absolutely not what it is.

Speaker 1 It's about being mindful of what you're eating, eating, being mindful that, hey, you know, having protein, fat, and carbs at every meal is important. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And showing that you can lose weight, lose body fat without counting a single calorie, almost doing it by accident, because that's just what's going to happen.

Speaker 1 And mindfulness. Mindfulness is probably the one thing that comes out of this documentary the most.

Speaker 1 We're all busy. I mean, I just talked about working 22-hour days.
We're all busy.

Speaker 1 But, you know, I think when you do anything for yourself, when you go to the spot and get a massage, you get satisfaction out of that, out of taking that time and doing something for yourself.

Speaker 1 And these meals that I was making, these are not gourmet meals. Like, this is stuff that, like, open a package, pour some rub on it, put it in the oven.
Like, this, this is not complicated.

Speaker 1 The frozen vegetable stuff, like broccoli, bag, microwave, five minutes. And sure, you can get to, what do you mean, the microwave? And you can't microwave food and it's not good.

Speaker 1 Yes, I understand that I do. I wasn't trying to reach this 100% pinnacle pinnacle right of how to be it was just being healthier and making the right choices and absolutely

Speaker 1 sadly there are people in this country that don't know that like fried chicken is bad for you because they think it's chicken and but it's fried

Speaker 1 and that that's that's a real thing right and you know

Speaker 3 No, I have friends that are Presbyterians that love fried fish and I'm like, whoa, okay.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And

Speaker 1 I found for myself, because fat's not an issue. I didn't know this, but I could drink olive oil out of a bottle and get only benefits from it.

Speaker 1 There are so many health benefits to olive oil, as long as it's olive oil, not canola oil, not God knows what they're frying stuff with at some of these restaurants.

Speaker 1 But if you're not worried about fat intake, then yeah, drink olive oil till the cows come home.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I could douse stuff, but then you go to the restaurant and you get those vegetables and they're nice and soft. I mean, they're soft because they're drenched in oil, but like, what is it?

Speaker 3 What oil?

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Probably not that extra virgin olive oil. Right.
So things like that. And I think this project is going to help a lot of people.

Speaker 1 So many health documentaries that I had seen, they're just so specific. Don't touch meat and you could do this.
Don't touch this or you can't eat anything out of the ocean. We're killing the oceans.

Speaker 1 And these are great documentaries and they're based in research and science and that's fine. But going back to the beginning, do they reach the masses?

Speaker 1 Does it hit that 80% of people who are not the 10% extreme, not the 10% at the other end,

Speaker 1 80% in the middle and speak to them in different ways. Like, oh, I could do this.
Oh, I could exercise. I could change my diet a little bit.
Oh, if I just stopped doing that. And, you know,

Speaker 1 eating doesn't have to be restrictive. It certainly wasn't for me.
There are things that I did not eat, but if I was hungry, I ate. It wasn't like I didn't intermittent fast.

Speaker 1 I mean, and there are benefits to all these things, but I think I stayed away from the extremes and just

Speaker 1 ate and had a good time. I love it.

Speaker 1 So when is the documentary documentary coming out and where although i said it earlier but for the listeners and viewers this is a big deal so we are we are looking we are looking at netflix there are some other players uh involved i actually had a great talk with uh our sales agent this week and um you know the documentary space is weird right now uh just in terms of who's spending money and who's not in studios but um When is a little easier?

Speaker 1 We're going into post right now.

Speaker 1 Aside from the interview that I'm shooting in an hour, we're basically wrapped on all the interviews. I already did the 30-day challenge.

Speaker 1 There's going to be a little bonus at the end where I work out for 30 days and see kind of what that does to my body.

Speaker 1 You know, that was one of the recommendations I got from a doctor in the documentary early on was you need to be strength training.

Speaker 1 You're at that age where you don't use it and train and build muscle, you lose it.

Speaker 1 So that's going to kind of be the footnote to the documentary that, you know, health is not, it's not just about eating. Eating is definitely the most important piece.

Speaker 1 your own life's journey through health can have different twists and turns. We'll see what that does over the course of a month.
I think it'll be positive.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to do that, but we're going to go into post at the same time because, again, I know where that's going to fit into the film. So I don't need to wait a month to shoot it.

Speaker 1 And then from there, we

Speaker 1 probably 60 to 90 days in post.

Speaker 1 And then one thing we're looking at is a big film festival release. So don't know where that would be.

Speaker 1 If you kind of know what film festivals are going to be in early 2026, you can figure out what we're targeting. Yep.
And

Speaker 1 then from there, the, you know, the streaming release. So

Speaker 1 that's the plan. But I mean, super exciting.

Speaker 1 It's crazy to think that Back in Time came out 10 years ago this year.

Speaker 1 10 years flies.

Speaker 1 I've been in contact with Bob Gale, who's the writer of Back to the Future, and I know that they're planning some stuff this year because now it's the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future. Correct.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 It just kind of creeps up on you. So amazing.
To think, I worked out another feature-length talk about travel in the middle

Speaker 1 that is still,

Speaker 1 it needs some refinement.

Speaker 1 Gotcha. Never got to the fit.
COVID kind of killed that as we were sort of getting to the finish line.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'll pick that back up. Maybe I won't.
Who knows? But to think it's been, you know, 10 years

Speaker 1 since the last release. I mean, I could not be looking forward to that more because the only thing more fun than working on a long-term project is releasing the long-term project.

Speaker 3 There you go. There you go.
So, two questions. I'm going to get you out of here.
I know you're busy. You've been gracious with your time.

Speaker 1 So here we go.

Speaker 3 Rapid fire, two questions.

Speaker 1 when are you gonna do the podcast documentary on the world of podcasts and how that came and then part two of that question do i get to be the superstar well since it was your idea definitely yes to the second question thank you and the first question i like that i like that idea i would i would definitely be ready to do that all right you know we get we get we get some of the big names at the top some of the small names at the bottom that's a good idea i'll go to the bottom i'm good no i i mean you know i'm thinking rogan's got to be in there of course but then yeah, I think this is

Speaker 1 that could that could be next. I had another, I had another good idea, too, the other day, which I already, I forgot.
Uh-oh. But yeah, you got to write it.
It was podcasting. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 The world of podcasting. You got to write these things down.
There you go.

Speaker 1 You know.

Speaker 3 There you go. And then the last question: where can people find and follow you? Where do you want them to know?

Speaker 1 So Instagram, the one that I don't optimize is

Speaker 1 Jason underscore Aaron. It's one A A R O N.
And

Speaker 1 that's the best place. Okay.
And of course, shout out to Youngry, which is the agency that we just started.

Speaker 1 Young and Hungry. So Youngry.
I love that. Yeah.
It was Anker's name. Shout out to Anker Karg, who came up with that.
But

Speaker 1 started that early this year. That's kind of where we're

Speaker 1 taking all our talents on the sort of corporate and production side.

Speaker 1 Youngry is a full-service marketing agency.

Speaker 1 I had a video in Creative there. So

Speaker 1 all of Youngry's socials are another good place because

Speaker 1 he does a much better job of promoting us than I do.

Speaker 3 There we go. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been my guy, Jason, Aaron, Jaron.
Thank you. Jason, thank you so much for

Speaker 3 breaking bread with us today, man.

Speaker 1 Anytime. You got it.
No bread, though. We're staying off the carbs.
There we go.

Speaker 3 Because you told me to. For all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower.
Go unleash it.

Speaker 1 You're awesome, brother.

Speaker 1 That was great.

Speaker 2 Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Nick Unplugged. If today hits you hard, then imagine what's next.
Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this with someone who needs it.

Speaker 2 And most of all, make a plan and take action because the next level is already waiting for you. Have a question or insight to share? Send us an email to hello at mickunplugged.com.

Speaker 2 Until next time, ask yourself how you can step up.