Not Just a Director – Julian Vilches is a Movement Behind the Camera

🎬 Not Just a Director – Julian Vilches Is a Movement Behind the Camera

 A powerful conversation with Mexican-American filmmaker Julian Vilches, whose work is redefining storytelling, identity, and Latino representation in modern media. 

🎥 From his early days navigating two cultures to becoming a respected Latino director and visual storyteller, Julian opens up about:

 ✔️ The mission behind his art
✔️ Challenges in the film industry as a first-gen creative
✔️ Why representation matters behind the lens
✔️ His purpose-driven projects that give voice to real stories 

🔊 This episode is for aspiring filmmakers, Latino creatives, and anyone chasing purpose through art. 

💥 Don't miss this deep dive into cinema, culture, and community — only on The Global Latin Factor Podcast. 

📲 Watch now on YouTube + Stream on Spotify & Apple Podcasts
👇 Like, comment, and subscribe for more untold Latino stories. 

#JulianVilches #LatinoDirector #MexicanAmerican #LatinoFilmmaker #LatinoStorytelling #RepresentationMatters #TheGlobalLatinFactor #BehindTheScenes #CreativeJourney #LatinoCinema #FilmTalk #IndieDirector #CulturaLatina 

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WEBSITE | https://thegloballatinfactor.com
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VIDEOGRAPHER AND EDIT BY | https://www.instagram.com/rebelmediahouse_/

Transcript

0:00 [Music] 0:20 welcome welcome you and all to another episode of the Global Latin Factor podcast where we talk about Latino 0:25 everything i'm your host Chris Valentine thank you so much for being here make sure you go and subscribe to the channel 0:31 why you have nothing to lose and lots to gain like this amazing story we're going to share with you julian Bilchz he is 0:38 the creator of Sugar City and the way that he put everything together was amazing and his take of how to create is 0:45 truly truly remarkable so now to the episode julian Bmanido thank you so much for being here i appreciate you thank 0:51 you for having me thank you so much for being here are you originally from the cliff Born and raised born and raised in the cliff that's awesome man uh some of 0:58 the movie we're going to talk about everything about your movie uh as far as everything that you got going on with the movie itself the premiere it was 1:05 amazing i was there to live it so nobody would have to tell me i know sometimes you kind of see social media and kind of 1:10 make it like what's going on but everything that was on it was pretty much accurate as far as what you had 1:16 rookie mistake feel like I haven't done it in four years or four years now wow 1:21 it happens right Trust me I forget a lot of things on set too you know what the beautiful thing about us is us is 1:28 Latinos at least or Mexicos is that we are really good at improv and make stuff up and make it work man cast hear you 1:35 that our brain works different than a lot of people cuz a lot of people be like "Oh my god cut." And like you said 1:41 cut it no we're going to go ahead and keep it rolling we're going to just mix them up as we wait for the tablet 1:47 all right man once again uh I'm going to do the introduction post but before we get to that we're going to do a segment 1:52 that I like to call preunt it is what it's called if you have not subscribed to the channel I don't know what you're 1:57 waiting for get to it you get nothing to lose but absolutely lots to gain so such 2:02 as this amazing stories that we have here with this famous director one of these days i'm pretty sure he's pretty 2:09 famous by the way a lot of people giving a lot of recognition right All right 2:14 tacos or tortas Tacos corn tortilla flour tortillas gordas or pooseas 2:22 Popus fibas ootos what flavor Uh the strawberry the 2:29 strawberry orchata or tamarindo awa orchata sala ver salsa roa ver that that 2:36 dark green one the dark dark green one you like fire super fire not so much i like a medium i I like to taste i like I 2:44 like the way everything tastes mixed in together i don't want something to be over yeah you don't appreciate the burning part i don't never got the 2:50 people that order wings like the the atomic massochist i don't get them i 2:55 like the taste of it too i like spice fire but not like extra fire my mouth's wire anytime you think of 3:01 like spicy like for me at least my mouth fire you know it's like a people I told 3:06 people that like pepper is addictive it really is but they don't they don't believe me cuz anytime you think about 3:12 it like the memory of it it's like all of a sudden like your mouth gets watery so there's something tied to that i don't know the whole science about it 3:19 but it is what it is po or mano 3:26 and chilas or chileenos Neither one really really None of them 3:32 draw your attention flan or tles cake Flan kumbia salsa mega bachata dancing 3:39 do you dance at all Oh yeah yeah i I used to be a cadet really That's super dope dark days oh yeah i think people 3:47 that get into entertainment at least in the DFW area at one point or another they were cadets they were cadets i 3:53 swear they were up and cominging artists or filmmakers anything you name it probably they were cadets at one time or 4:00 break dancing uh when you a conspiracy this is I think a filmmakers mind thinks 4:07 different because I think a lot of them think a possibility everything could be possible just like sometimes I think so 4:13 a conspiracy that when you heard one time when you heard it's like oh that that could be true that has to be true 4:20 who would that be I guess the world order the world order 4:26 do you feel some videos you've seen something that kind of tells like there's somebody else that is in charge 4:32 Uh I want to say videos is I mean in my opinion it's is just common sense if you 4:37 look back at human history we the reason we are where we are is because a lot of 4:42 people had to die yeah pretty pretty true and then you know what I had a it's 4:48 not a conspiracy i feel like because there's so many of us nowadays 4:54 like 8 billion of us like we don't really care when like you know people like "Oh my god I can't believe you do this i can't can't believe people are 5:00 just killing each other." Whatever like it's eight billion of us we kill seven of us it's like contrary to popular 5:06 belief crime overall on a global scale is down don't let the media fool you 5:11 yeah right it is it is uh we have security people want to say the police 5:18 but if there was no police like crime would be through the roof but overall on 5:24 a global scale crime is down there you go so you heard it here first if you 5:29 haven't heard when you say back in time in our beginnings how far are do you go 5:34 back as far as our human existence Nomads nomads nomads all the way since 5:39 then there's already been a All the way All the way back as far back as we can go like that makes sense nomads we had 5:47 to start somewhere we are curious by nature we like to explore even now the 5:52 biggest one of the biggest industry is travel in the world you know was like so if you go back all the way to our 5:59 nomadic ancestors like it it makes sense you know we've always been very tribal 6:04 yeah absolutely when you hear the word Latino Latina I don't know if you're familiar with the term Latinx what is 6:11 the first thing that comes to mind to you Just titles titles just titles for you 6:18 do you mind if anybody calls you Latino Do you prefer You got the Mexican flag the bandano Mexico or what do you prefer 6:25 My heritage is Mexican but I'm American you're American i'm not Mexican American because I wasn't born or raised in 6:32 Mexico i'm familiar with the culture because of my parents and that's my heritage and I educated myself in it but 6:38 I'm American first i'm Mexican by heritage but other than that it's like I 6:43 don't really look for titles you know I just I am who I am do you speak Spanish 6:48 Awesome i heard a video the other day not that long ago about like uh 6:54 Italian-Americans or no actually I was talking to a gentleman about Italians Italian-Americans and how they want to 7:01 get that title but like they don't know nothing about the culture in general you know they want to grasp that title of 7:06 like Italian-American but you don't know anything you never been to Italy you don't know anything about nothing the 7:12 language itself so you know I think it's pretty cool that you like to what why did you want to dive into know knowing 7:18 about your heritage knowing that your parents uh I don't know if you know anything any cool stories like like a good filmmaker loves to tell stories is 7:25 there a kind of cool story from your parents or grandparents how they made it to the US Uh for the most part you know 7:32 they had a pretty standard story you know they just wanted a better life and 7:38 uh I took advantage of that i took that to heart because it's like okay if they came here to give us a better life then 7:45 I might as well risk it and put it all on the table to to obtain the the wealth 7:50 like this is America is great absolutely as people always want to talk about it America is great the 7:56 opportunity the amount of opportunity and the possibility to achieve wealth is 8:01 you can't really find that in a vast majority of other countries some are but 8:07 let's let's you know everybody wants to come here for a reason yeah that's true uh so back to the other question that I 8:13 had so what made you want to dive into knowing about your heritage Uh why was it important for you to be educated in 8:19 that part Uh you know you already have the thing of your parents came here make sacrifices for a better opportunity so 8:26 now you want to learn about the culture but also excel in being selfrowth self-rowth yeah self-growth like if you 8:34 don't know where you come from you can't know where you're going you know Like part of understanding yourself is not 8:40 only just looking at the future but also understanding the past you know like where where you come from and a lot of 8:46 those memories are embedded in our DNA that's why like certain people are really good at certain things you know 8:53 Yeah like so that's why I I dove into that cuz I wanted to see like where where I come from you know like why they 9:00 said that I like nature so much that I connect to certain parts you know where you uh what area 9:08 Mitakan so both your mom and dad are from Mitan around that area yeah around that area that's pretty cool okay so 9:15 let's get started with the interview part i heard a birdie told me internet 9:22 very young age you started getting into you were really intrigued by film making by cinema why What did you see first 9:30 that you're like oh my goodness this is freaking amazing Just the ability to immortalize 9:37 like cinema goes back to before we even had a 9:42 camera lights and all of that we have cave drawings we have people took their 9:48 time to chisel things into you know into stone so it's like storytelling it's 9:55 part of our ancestral knowledge and we got to find an outlet for it and you can 10:01 make money a thousand ways in this world and I just wanted to make money doing something that it just felt felt right 10:09 but where does that come from Uh as far as was there a a history lesson that you 10:14 had that you realize oh my goodness we've been storytelling since forever ago or was it a particular movie that 10:20 said "Ooh I want this is what I want to do." Uh just growing up movies watching 10:26 movies um growing up in Oakliff you got two options go outside and get in 10:31 trouble or stay home and you know just distract yourself so for me that was an 10:37 outlet i did get in a lot of trouble but I was like you know I also took time to stay away i made those choices to 10:43 consciously stay away from trouble and a good thing I did but um yeah it was me 10:48 it was just an outlet you know and as I grew this outlet became a passion it's 10:54 like how does how do they do that the curiosity basically curiosity got the 11:00 got the best of me and um I'm very freespirited i I go with with with the 11:06 wind you know so uh life just led me to it really like that's awesome like I 11:12 can't say that it's something that I intentionally looked for i just you know what Let's go see where the wind goes 11:18 and I met people and they put a camera in my hand and from there I just kept 11:24 going and apparently I got good at it yeah kind of a little bit I guess yeah 11:32 when you was saying about getting in trouble was there something that happened to you particularly You were like I learned my lesson i'd rather not 11:38 and focus on something else yeah getting shot at several times you know 11:43 consistently kind of like hey you know what This might not be a good idea yeah so they kind of put you in the arrow 11:49 narrow the arrow straight way instead of like yeah let me focus on that who was the first person to put the camera in 11:54 your hands Was it the I know that you were part of like filming artists first 12:00 making music videos and stuff like that um Good Fellas if I'm not mistaken is one of the ones actually Spider that was 12:05 on the film so yeah yeah well I started with Good Fella a little bit earlier in my career but I firstly started with uh 12:11 Dustin Kavasos i don't know if you you've heard of him uh he produces now yeah yeah he he produces great great 12:18 artist it So you were his videographer for a while uh I met Dustin at Bishop 12:25 Arts he was at a bar his girlfriend at the time used to work there so he was at that bar and let me guess the bar 303 12:33 yeah man that place is is I've I got a lot of good memories in 303 it's a little It's still there little uh it's 12:39 still there yeah still the 303 I think it's called they renamed it a little yeah yeah I used to be across the street at a little while MCing Pier 247 he said 12:48 MC for a little bit yeah so I met him at Yeah i met him at 303 and uh found out 12:54 that he's a cyclist uh so I was like "Hey let's let's ride you know." So we 12:59 rode together and then we talked more about like what I wanted to do at that time I was uh doing construction kind of 13:05 like on the road remodeling hotels flooring you know the Mexican stuff yeah 13:11 and uh yeah I told him that I I like video and you know I was thinking about getting into it but you know at 13:18 priorities got to make money to survive and then uh yeah he called me a couple 13:26 of days later like his cameraman couldn't go for the tour that he had 13:31 they were just about to go and I was like I mean I don't know anything but 13:36 you know I got the time so like all right cool he's like "I'll teach you." 13:42 Pardon me so we hit the road we went on the I Love Texas tour and while I was 13:49 there he taught me how to do video photography uh the basics you know what he knew and 13:54 then from there I just started learning more and then I met uh Spider at 303 14:01 same thing yeah and then uh Spider was looking for a cameraman for his crew cuz uh I really 14:08 didn't like that whole like freelancer thing because like you got to go out there and you got to shoot a bunch of 14:14 footage and like it it sucks it sucks i I wanted to be more focused 14:21 on like building building like actually build something other than just randomly taking photos that's and videos that's 14:27 where a lot of in my opinion a lot of photographers and videographers is they must they mess up in that aspect yeah 14:33 was there anything at the time first of all great for you that you were able to jump on the opportunity I've been 14:39 pondering about doing it somebody's literally giving me the opportunity but when you actually had the camera in your hands you were learning was there 14:45 anything that was sparking up inside of you to be like "Man this is freaking dope." Yeah man like 14:53 shooting it and then seeing the process of how to it's edited and you know the 15:00 changing the colors and you know editing all of that it's it's interesting you 15:05 know it's it's fun and uh yeah that's that's pretty much it you know that's 15:11 pretty cool what was the very first camera that you ever were able to learn about it Because I think sometimes um 15:18 videographers up and coming guys they want the best freaking camera the money can buy but if you don't know the basics 15:24 of how to work your equipment it doesn't matter the greatest camera if you don't know all the little details and 15:29 everything else lighting specifically for a lot of the videographers and photographers what was the first camera 15:36 And were you like like super laser on learning everything there is about the particular camera Uh Canon Rebel T6i it 15:44 was my first camera it was a it was a good camera it was a good camera i started off wanting to be 15:50 a DP but then I got more into the technicalities of it my brain cannot 15:55 process it i too much uh yeah too much technical information i'm more of a 16:01 caveman i like being outdoors you know so I started off as a DP i was a a 16:07 shooter for weddings and stuff like that tell me DP what is that again Director of photography director of photography 16:13 okay yeah he's the one in a film set sometimes he doesn't really touch the 16:19 camera a a like a topline DP never touches the camera he just organizes 16:26 everything on the shot and tells people to to roll it you're like the manager of the videographers they kind of tell him 16:32 shoot this take pictures basically yeah yeah well the assistant cameras but then you move into what Because you like 16:38 outdoors more what did you move into again Uh I started off wanting to be a DP but I learned that I'm not good at 16:45 the technical aspects of it so props to you for that the high ISO shutter speed 16:50 brain prop yeah that's uh it's it's easy but my brain just won't register for 16:57 some reason so I found that my strengths are better at like organizing and uh 17:03 telling people what to do i am excellent at telling people what to do oh nice so it's a great skill to have where do you 17:09 think that comes from from your mom or your dad Did you learn that 17:15 Neither one of them they're they're good people but they're they're simple people was there anybody that influenced the 17:20 way that you kind of sort of be take the role of leader No not really i don't I'm very reserved 17:27 i keep to myself i don't really It's funny i don't really watch a lot of like 17:32 Now I do because I got more time for the most part i never really watch a lot of like television or or movies mhm uh if I 17:39 do watch something it's going to be more movies or an anime so I can't really say 17:44 that I have like influences like I said you know I'm very I'm very freeminded like I don't really focus on like 17:51 cultural icons fashion trends and you know and who's who celebrities and all 17:57 of that i don't I don't focus on any of that i just I live I live in my own head 18:03 do you think that helps you whenever you're creating especially movie making that you don't get influenced by other 18:09 things that are out and then you can be just you're not im imitating anybody you 18:14 just literally whatever you think you're figuring out in your mind that's what you want to shoot and that's what comes out on the big screen yeah i I said I 18:21 learned the basics that's uh how I was comfortable enough to go outside of of 18:26 those perimeters you know so I I was comfortable with the basics and then from there I was like you know what Okay 18:32 I can experiment i can there there there's no formula for this really 18:38 there's a standard but there's really no formula creativity artist objective you know yeah i was 18:45 talking to u before I was talking to you luckily I was yesterday talking to up and cominging director too and he was 18:51 telling me about you know the scripts and stuff like that like there's kind of like guidelines and things if you want to but to be honest is like wherever you 18:58 want to make of it yeah they suggest this but if you want to keep it like this then it's up to your discretion of 19:04 your mind of what what do you want to do Yeah I said there's there's really no guide it's it's really just up in the 19:10 air as long as the end result is something that people are going to enjoy but at the end of the day you got to 19:16 understand that not everybody's going to enjoy it like some people are just going to hate 19:22 on it without even seeing it so there's no winning you know True to that okay 19:27 let's go back to Spider so you you go back spider looking for a video videographer you know you partner up 19:33 does it hire you How how does it work with Y2 Well when I was with Dustin I was using Dustin's camera and then 19:41 Dustin transitioned to producing around at that time so there he drastically 19:47 stopped yeah he drastically stopped he was about he got signed as a writer if 19:52 I'm not mistaken but he's been working more like I guess I thought he was on his way out as far as like he had the 19:59 charisma he had the following following great talent he had great talent he just I guess he wasn't the spotlight wasn't 20:05 for him he just wanted to be in the back just writing and doing things like that which now he's all tatted up got a 20:10 family yeah family sometimes I see him on social media and stuff like that he's always been like I guess you could say 20:15 like the hippie spirit type of dude free spirit type of dude so I guess maybe he just he wasn't ready for that in general 20:22 but he writes and produces happy pee and I tap into him i know him i met him a 20:27 few times so it's pretty cool so he decides to go that route so there's no more in the road so Spider comes around 20:34 and there's another opportunity for you then yeah it's funny enough i met Spider at 303 like I was just chilling there 20:41 having a drink and he just happens to walk by and he started talking to me and then well we followed each other on 20:48 social media and then I seen that he's an artist i was like a cool i heard some of his music i like it's pretty good and 20:54 then I seen one of his posts that he was looking for a camera cameraman to join his group so I was like hey I got some 21:00 experience but I don't got no equipment so he's like I got I got some equipment you know I got a camera so I just need 21:07 somebody to come with and shoot he's like "And then you can just you keep the camera and you can practice." So that's 21:13 cool he was the second person to put a camera in my hand and from there I started uh teaching myself a little bit 21:18 more that's when I realized you know what I don't think I'm going to be that good on this part but I'm still going to 21:23 learn what I can so that I can find out where like I said just see where it goes 21:29 were you working on doing videos for him or just in the behind the scenes type of stuff or what were you working on for him Uh we shot a couple of music videos 21:36 but it was mostly like behind the scenes blog stuff you know go to the strip club 21:42 they're going to perform the the music and throw money at the strippers and I'm just there with trying not to get 21:48 distracted with the What a gig what a gig ah life is hard man it was tough you 21:55 coming up with the camera was hard i don't know how you did it so how does that after that I don't know how long 22:00 you worked together but what is the next opportunity that presents yourself as you continue to doing this Uh he got 22:07 into some troubles and uh I kind of like distanced myself essentially from it cuz 22:13 I was like I I know where this is going so I dist myself a little bit we still talked you know we were still cool he 22:20 but he was focused on other stuff too as well so he we weren't really shooting much but uh yeah after that I just uh 22:29 started working with other people and I I was shooting this blog for some chick 22:35 who's now I just talked to her the other day she's somewhere in China working for 22:42 like Timu you know those timu commercials Of course yeah she's out there doing that as an actor oh that's 22:47 cool yeah so I was like "Yeah that's pretty cool." She's doing like major corporate gigs out there in China so she 22:53 started as a blogger and then you filmed her somehow found an opportunity now she's in China yeah and uh so I work I 23:00 was working with her on one of her blogs and then I met this Indian guy who was a spokesman for Panasonic 23:07 uh he was looking for an assistant camera for a movie so I ended up going with him and then uh one of the actors 23:16 in the movie was also a owner co-owner of the company that the Indian guy that 23:23 I was working with for so man it was it was it was a huge it was a 23:30 huge mess so the guy that brought me on he ended up stealing some equipment oh 23:35 wow and uh it was like a whole FBI case involved and all of that here in the States or did you get to go out to No it 23:42 was here in the States and what was the company Uh East West Entertainment east West Entertainment so there was all kinds of stuff going on there yeah cuz 23:48 it was a lot of money for a lot of equipment yeah so I thought I was going to get the boot because you know that 23:55 happens cuz he's the one that brought me on so I was like "Hey I I got nothing to do with that." But uh now the guy that 24:02 was the actor he saw everything like he saw how everything played out like when we were shooting the movie he was 24:08 supposed to be the DP but he was like always on his phone or distracted with other things so you end 24:14 up taking that role i I ended up being the DP no idea what I'm doing first movie that I've ever worked on and I'm 24:21 just like pulling stuff out of my Where does that come from for you as 24:27 well as far as you even though you don't know what you're doing still like you're willing to jump in there and do it I 24:34 adapt quickly you adapt quickly i I adapt i adapt quickly and I I think quickly nice i I anticipate also uh I 24:43 see would you say a futurist Were you able to see scenarios played out three to four at a time Yeah I I can see I can 24:50 see people's behavior see the environment the energy in the environment i can see techni technical 24:56 stuff uh I can see all of that i can see all of that and then I calculate what's 25:03 going to happen so that allows me to be take take charge when I need to take charge so I I ended up doing that cuz 25:10 it's like well I'm getting paid so I might as well use this opportunity to learn yeah how long did that run for go 25:16 for about a month about a month then after you did do that then the next opportunity would present itself so 25:23 that's after that project we were working on another one that's when all of that started happening that he ended 25:30 up stealing some equipment he was planning on running away but uh they I 25:36 don't know i don't know what ended up happening like not my business i'm going stay out of it as long as I don't I 25:42 don't get I don't catch the the the [ __ ] when the [ __ ] hits the fan you don't know nothing i don't know nothing it 25:48 ain't it ain't none of my business so that company the actor being part owner 25:56 of the company he approached me he's like "Hey this is what happened like it ain't none of my problem like whatever 26:02 happened between y'all and him it ain't nothing to do with me my name's cleared." So he's like "No no like we 26:08 know we know like we want to offer you either a partnership or a job." Nice so 26:16 I was like "You know what I'd rather take the partnership." So I essentially got paid to go to film school cuz they 26:23 put me on like huge projects working with like a-listing directors from from 26:29 India so I got a chance to work along some badass director always here in the 26:34 States never in India yeah here in the States i was in New York in uh Salt Lake City uh LA 26:42 uh California just all over wow so what do you think they saw in you that they 26:50 know that you weren't the one that was doing the bad stuff and then were willing to spend the time the to put you 26:57 to school Not only that but you be the one to actually film the stuff uh 27:04 I didn't get angry i didn't get upset i I I do what I got to do and if an 27:11 problem comes up I don't get distraught i just look for a solution and keep on 27:18 keep on going that's great okay so after that how long do you you work with him before you start moving on to the next 27:24 thing I'm terrible with dates i am time was it like a few years that you were with them Probably a good I say I did 10 27:32 years 10 years that I've been here probably about two years two three years 27:39 solo then probably a good like five or six years with them oh wow and then uh 27:47 through three three years around three years now for since I started cuz I left and I started uh working on my own 27:54 project Sugar City yeah so was that did you part ways mutually you rather just 28:01 rather start focusing on you doing your thing Was there something that you just wanted to go ahead and leave or what 28:07 happened there Um yeah a conflict of interest i can't talk about that one but 28:15 um you know we parted on on mutual terms at least from from my standing like I I 28:21 got nothing against them uh but uh I kept the my end of the deal and 28:27 unfortunately you know some people don't so like I said I'm not going to argue 28:33 i'm not going to fight with anybody i'm just going to cut ties and tell you it's time for you to move on yeah it's time 28:39 for me to move on you told me you were open book you told me you was going to tell me for legal reasons i'm not gonna put you 28:44 in a compromised position so now where does the Sugar City idea come from First 28:51 of all tell me about the name why Sugar City What does it mean to you What does it stand What people are not missing out 28:57 is like as far as like why not Dtown City or because everything was pretty much basically Oak Cliff Dallas area 29:03 right Yeah so funny story right Uh I 29:09 started Sugar City kind of more like of a comedy it was more more of a romantic 29:18 dark comedy so Sugar City comes from the idea that the movie was supposed to be 29:24 about four friends and them being in the sugar baby sugar daddy sugar mama 29:32 lifestyle yeah so it was um it was going to be from that perspective uh I wanted 29:38 to make a movie about alternative relationships you know so that's what 29:44 the title comes from like Sugar City because it was like the main character is supposed to have like a sugar mama 29:50 and uh the sugar mama happens to be the ex-wife of this corrupt lawyer 29:57 politician that's not what I saw on screen bro not even close to what I saw on screen at all we had a lot of 30:04 problems why Why did you want to keep the name though Why didn't you want to change it It just sounds cool sounds 30:09 cool it just sounds cool and also uh it was catchy and it resonated really well 30:14 like from the moment I put it out people like yo that sounds really really cool some things that comes to mind when I 30:20 hear Sugar City is not the Sugar Mama thing it's more like drugs i get that a lot but that 30:27 that actually that was never like my intent intent uh yeah it but then the what I saw on screen I mean I'm not 30:32 trying to spoil it to y'all should have gone there but a little bit about that lifestyle it ended up working out that 30:38 way like I said the we the issue was that one we couldn't find the mature 30:44 women to play the roles that we needed because we needed a lot of fine cougars and unfortunately we couldn't get a lot 30:50 of fine cougars we got a lot of dudes so we just had to work with what we had 30:55 you know and uh so you have you you have the idea of doing it like this you can't 31:01 find the talent now you got to pivot when is the moment that you had to pivot to go and go the different route 31:07 So I knew that from my experience 31:14 just a random number but 99.99% of like scripts or movie ideas don't 31:21 make it past the writing stage like everybody has a great idea everybody can 31:26 be a great director everybody can write a great script funding it making it is 31:32 an entirely different beast yeah so I knew that that was going to be the the 31:39 biggest issue like I can sit down all year long 31:46 talking nonstop every day every hour every second about my movie and what I 31:51 want to do nobody gives a Nobody gives a flying f yeah nobody 31:57 Nobody cares you know Yeah nobody cares nobody cares what you want to do like I 32:02 feel kind of bad cuz I feel the same way sometimes with the pot nobody cares but at the same time you were given the 32:08 vision so irrelevant to what they care you wish they would jump on board but it's there was like a vision of you to 32:14 be that was given you know what I mean I mean in my opinion like you just not got 32:20 to not care like you got to understand at the end of the day nobody really cares what you want to do or how you want to do it i guess it was not not sad 32:27 but in general like the wish that everybody would join party will be like man I don't I don't really care no 32:33 that's what it is i don't really care like I do things because I want to do them because I like them if people don't like 32:41 it I even if they do like it honestly I don't I don't I don't I don't care you know what is your satisfaction um just 32:47 doing it doing it and having it done okay for me is uh 32:54 it's more of ego you know some people are not willing to admit that but that's the reality of people it's it's all 33:00 about ego like for example you when you do your podcast and you interview people when it's all said and done you feel 33:05 good right Yeah so that's that's why you like you do it for other reasons yes but at the end of the day you feel good so 33:13 that's for me is like I'm not afraid to admit that like I do things because they I'm we're selfish creatures and I am 33:20 open to admit that I am very selfish and I do it first and foremost for myself and my satisfaction and for to prove to 33:28 myself that I can mhm because I want to i think uh people don't realize that 33:34 sometimes you do have to be selfish in order for for you if you have a goal to be able to complete because otherwise if 33:40 you're not you're going to be dealing with everybody's needs and everything else and you're just going to be left 33:45 not doing anything so at the end of the day what are you going to accomplish if you're not willing to be somewhat 33:50 selfish If you have a project that you want to do something in your heart that you want to bring to life then you know 33:56 that's that's the way otherwise it would never happen okay so we continue moving forward now you pivot in and now how 34:02 what is the do did you write the whole script or did you co-wrote it with anybody else So there was really no 34:08 script improving a lot most of it I had a general story beginning to end mhm i 34:16 had a key points per scene and as long as my uh actor stayed within the 34:23 confines of those key points I was good like I did direct so like I'll more 34:29 angrier you know I want more emotion or like do this a little bit different here 34:35 and there like I switch things and change things but for the most part I let it I let it free flow like a river 34:42 you know if if a river is going this way you can't turn it around you can but 34:48 you're going to have to do a lot of work build a dam build the construct another 34:54 pathway for it's easier to construct another pathway for it yeah the D is going this way okay just go a little bit 35:00 more this way give us some more space over here it'll flow that way you know so it's to me that's how it is okay was 35:07 there an importance of you to be able to have it mostly done in Dallas A lot of 35:12 the scenes that I seen and was it very important for you to we have like a beautiful skyline award-winning skyline 35:19 was it beautiful because there's a lot of the scenes I'm not trying to say too much of the movie but you know some of 35:24 the scenes were amazing as far as like like the sun setting um just in general 35:30 the skyline some of them were freaking amazing uh was it important for you to be able to feature Oakliff specifically 35:36 cuz even some of the shirts and stuff like that were part of it and to highlight the skyline and just to be 35:42 super Dallas yeah why was that Um 35:48 I made a film that was commercially viable and relatable 35:54 and I wanted to represent the city that I'm from you know and uh the the 36:00 basically my my culture and you know the city that I love so yeah my biggest 36:06 point is like I wanted to make an independent film that highlights Dallas 36:13 but doesn't give you the stereotypical Dallas film like there is some aspects 36:18 of like Hood and all of that but the story is more centralized on like the character development and the character 36:25 is not like your typical oh bad bad guy or good guy you know He's he's just a guy he's just a guy just a guy just a 36:32 regular guy just a g regular guy maneuver through life with certain um things that are playing out in his life 36:38 and you just have to go with the flow okay the cast you know you went back to 36:45 Spider he was one of the ones that was one of the main characters but everybody else how was your process to the casting 36:51 part What were you looking for Or you like for example when I started the podcast I went to all the homies hey 36:58 like bro I have a podcast i think you're dope come through that's how I started every resource that I can grab as far as 37:04 people that I know and people that I thought it was super dope even if they had no film no camera experience I don't worry about it i just I think you're 37:11 dope you're doing an amazing job in the community let's do something that's how I had to relate on what was your take 37:17 Same really Same uh you know first time director first time producer first time 37:24 film everybody already thinks it's going to suck like off the rip like yeah for 37:30 me I had I I already acknowledged that so like I said instead of me trying to 37:37 convince people I just went ahead and you know what I just get it going and just roll with the punches the day of 37:44 the first day that we began filming overall ever period the first day two of 37:51 the supposedly lead actors no call no show which I anticipated 37:58 he's already seen it guys you already knew you was not going to show up i already I already knew it i already knew that I was going to have some gaps mhm 38:05 so I already had some viable options so as soon as I realized that I was right 38:11 of course I started making some calls i was like "Hey what are you doing today?" "Nothing you want to be in this?" "All 38:18 right all right come on." And then uh my uh my lead actor called one of his 38:24 homies he's like "Do do you know somebody who is not doing anything?" 38:30 He's like "Yeah well I know my homie he's He's a trapper." So I was like "I mean if he wants to come tell him to 38:36 come." So he called him he showed up first time ever meeting him and he and he's one of the lead actors the first 38:43 day i think I know who he is okay so literally already anticipated you 38:48 already put in resources is that why some of the reasons you didn't really necessarily have a script per se cuz you know because of the first time film 38:55 people might not believe what you're doing or the expectation that it's not going to be great all of a sudden now like if we can just free flow as long as 39:02 I have an idea I can put it together in editing uh it was also of like resources 39:09 I can't I can want to shoot a scene with 39:15 a bunch of police officers police cars red tape body bags ambulances i can want 39:20 to shoot it all day now can I That's a different thing you know So when I first 39:28 shot it I shot it more of like my script was just one page long it was a general 39:35 idea wow and uh I just shot what I could that day with what I had and then piece 39:41 it together see what it looks like put it out there and then from there it's like okay 39:48 okay people like it so that was a that was a pilot first that was a pilot the first the first uh the first trailer 39:56 yeah uh yeah we shot that with like a onepage script wow and uh just uh roll 40:04 the dice and see what we get so once gamble Yeah I see that very much so once 40:10 you uh do the trailer and kind of sort of are people getting excited about what they putting out and what you putting 40:16 out as far as like oh this is going what it's going to kind of look like a little bit and more people start calling you or 40:21 not necessarily No no uh the first one did help traction in terms of like 40:30 getting people interested so it did lead us to more sponsors and um 40:38 more people but the expensive stuff that one came out of pocket that one came out of pocket yeah yeah okay so there's 40:45 other actors in the movie that have been like Lette's been in quite a bit of movies and stuff like that so after the 40:51 trailer and more people start kind of engaging is that when more you started reaching out to different people They 40:56 kind of have done it before they started reaching out to me they start reaching out to you yeah cuz uh the first one I 41:01 reached out to a lot of people and tried to get them on board but you know no dice uh so uh I did what I could with 41:09 what I had put it out there and then from there's uh we got noticed we got we 41:15 got noticed and like I said it's easier for me to show you what I can do so it helped a lot cuz like now I can go out 41:22 there and be like "Hey this is what we're doing." and just showing people a 41:28 two minute a minute long trailer versus showing them a 120 page long 41:35 script it it works it works a lot better so why do you think it was better for you Is is that the way it goes nowadays 41:41 to try to pitch for investors and sponsors and actors these days So that 41:46 was your approach That was my approach that was your approach that was my approach because I seen it from experience like I I seen it firsthand i 41:54 know a lot of great the filmmakers but they're stuck in my opinion you know 42:00 not not to hurt anybody's feelings but they're stuck they're doing the same thing over and over again and uh don't 42:06 get me wrong you know there is money there but for me the name of the game is 42:11 longevity like why would I want to keep shooting videos over and over again when I can make one video and sell it all 42:18 over the world a million times H so that was literally your calling card your 42:24 your business card just showing them what you got and then Yeah no need for a pitch you can kind of see it with your 42:30 And then I can show you in two minutes or I could or you know the 15-minute elevator pitch i can show you in two two 42:37 just like that i don't got to tell you nothing i just got to show you and then from that time that trailer to now the 42:42 entire feature movie how long did that take for you to complete Three years three years so 2022 42:51 roughly roughly yeah wow so now you have the trailer now you had a one pager now 42:58 how does everything start building to be uh hour and what Hour five hour 10 hour 43:03 13 hour and 13 minutes film so that's the that's big that's a way bigger 43:08 project right So what what is your first things that you try to tackle whenever now you have an hour and 13 movie that 43:15 you you kind of sort of got people in line a little bit more traction more resources a little bit people want to be 43:22 part of it what is your first take on that What is how do you tackle it first now What do you mean like as far as the 43:28 project itself like just going into diving into the entire now hour and 13 minute film How did I make it happen 43:34 Yeah man you just have to talk 43:39 you just like you just have to talk and just that's it really you just talk you 43:47 just got to ask people you got to understand one thing about human psychology is that we have an inherent 43:54 need to want to be needed h so nine times out of 10 you can ask somebody for 44:01 something and if you ask nice enough and if you ask the right way they have no 44:06 issue giving it to you or assisting you you know it's it's just an inherent need that that we have so taking that into 44:14 consideration I like hey you know what The worst thing that somebody can tell me is no or [ __ ] off you know So 44:21 so I had to go out there and get a bunch of nos no no no hell no no no no no no 44:28 no no no no maybe no no no no no no no no no no yeah we can do that 44:35 you had a lot of um cuz when did the movie I saw somewhere where you were trying to just not create the movie 44:41 You're trying to create an ecosystem too not you know product placement different things different things one giant 44:48 commercial pretty much right it's just one giant commercial embedded yeah like 44:53 it is why did you want it to go that way Or was that the intention at all whatsoever Did it become that whenever 44:59 you started and you were continuing to film adding value to the project Cuz you 45:05 can make a movie like people make movies all the time but there's no value in 45:11 them you have a great story nobody cares there's no val what's the inherent value 45:16 for them For me like I understand that about people you know So how do I get people 45:23 to push the project How do I get people to want to be involved with the project I give them a reason to you know I give 45:30 them something that they want they have a brand they have a restaurant they want something that they want to put out 45:35 there find a way to work that into what I need to do so they get what they need and I get what I need it's a win-win 45:41 scenario it's a win-win scenario so how many all total partners do you have involved in the film Do you recall I 45:48 don't run into the credits by the way but still 13 clothing sponsors 45:54 15 restaurants and businesses and uh two liquor sponsors there was a few adult 46:01 entertainment spots too right They made the cut baby L's yeah 46:08 fun place yeah there was quite a bit of filming there too nice yeah like okay so now 46:14 that everything's filmed and now you have to go into editing how long did that take to to complete And was there 46:20 any re-shoots that you have to go and do Oh man that's the greatest part about being a director uhhuh i'm not an editor 46:27 oh you send it to That's somebody else's problem are you involved with all that whatsoever Uh 46:34 not necessarily like for me everybody I didn't do this 46:39 by myself you know I hired people to do certain things because I needed them to do certain things and I know that they 46:47 have the capacity to handle what I need them to do so I don't have to question it you know I'm I know who I got so I 46:55 just I give him what he needs he needs to know the story he needs to know how I 47:00 want it cut uh where I want audio music and all of that that's all he needs to 47:06 know i don't got to bother him he's he's the editor you know that's his job how 47:12 long does that take for to be completed Like an hour 13 minute film uh it can be 47:17 done with the right amount of money and about a month a month two months depending on 47:26 the amount of edits that require but overall I'd say it took two months two 47:31 months two months it wasn't bad now that everything's said and done you got the film the final cut let's say was there 47:39 anything that like you were like first of all congratulations you already 47:44 have it all done but was there anything you were like I'm going to have to I want to change this or I would have done 47:50 this different was there anything you were learning as you were watching the movie like yeah this on the next one or this and that or uh Sugar City for the 47:58 most part was just that for me it was an experiment it was an opportunity for me 48:04 to test my skills as a creator director and producer mhm like that's the whole 48:09 purpose of me doing it and designing it the way that I designed it i I think ahead so I designed it with that goal in 48:17 mind to get experience as a creator director and producer and understand the 48:24 logistics of not only the environment but also like the people 48:32 you know so it was just one giant experiment for me just 48:37 so is there any uh emotions at all Did you get emotion at all whatsoever at all once everything's said and done and 48:43 completed Uh a little bit a little bit yeah what was it like 48:53 It was it was that that that moment of like Yeah yeah you know like 49:01 I knew it was going to great be a great movie not to toot my own horn you know but like I knew it was going to be a 49:06 great movie and uh I just wanted to prove that to people and uh mostly I 49:14 wanted to prove it to myself that I know that I can make a good movie and I can make other people acknowledge that nice 49:21 we you had a premiere scheduled in February january january but there was a 49:26 little bit of a weather weather wasn't cooperating was that like a blessing in disguise that the weather didn't 49:31 cooperate Were y'all ready for that day to be featured or did it funny enough Absolutely not it it worked out 49:38 perfectly why is that Uh the edit wasn't done 49:43 wow it needed a little touches here and there but for the most part um it wasn't 49:49 like fully fully done we didn't have the music the right music um the music that 49:56 we had on there was all stock stock music um you you ended up going a 50:02 different route with looking uh using local talent right A lot of the local talent it's all original all original local talent oh made it my music studio 50:09 why did you want to make it Why did you want to have all that incorporated at one time It wasn't It wasn't a thing but 50:14 all of a sudden but that was the plan from the beginning that was the plan that was the plan from the beginning but how was stock sound in there but it 50:20 didn't make it into the Wasn't the music wasn't ready okay uh the music uh 50:26 started off a little bit behind Mhm the project so we just had stock music as a 50:34 filler kind of like to set the the ideal like a placeholder until 50:40 everything was ready yeah so it was a placeholder and uh while the all the music was getting done so by the time it 50:47 came around January 9th the film itself was pretty much done edited we just 50:53 didn't have all the right music because all the music was made from scratch at at uh Sugar City Records is my record 51:00 label nice and uh all the artists in the all the music from all the artists uh 51:06 they're all under contract for Sugar City Records oh nice and you have how many artists 15 15 15 artists damn who 51:14 all are they [ __ ] too many of them too many of them yeah 51:19 uh we have not all of them have produced music right now cuz we uh like I said 51:25 the the main focus was getting everything done for the for the movie 51:30 but uh yeah the main reason was that one it makes it cheaper for me to own all 51:38 the music yeah have to go the pay the royalties having to clear this and that 51:44 get get some of your cut to the record labels there's a bunch of stuff that you save yourself on i save I saved I save a 51:51 bunch of money by making all the music wow yeah i Well I have a I hired people 51:57 for that as well spider was actually the music director for the the Sugar City 52:02 Records he did all the music and then Adam my editor did all the score the 52:09 dump on the music the uh final uh as far as like mastering the dump anytime you 52:17 see a scene it was freaking nice i liked it i appreciate it you can feel it and then the way that you would transition 52:23 from one scene as the records playing maybe B-roll into the actual actor and 52:29 the song playing on the background i thought it was dope you there a few times i'm like "Oh that's neat i like 52:35 that." It's it's it's part of cinema so are do are you want to go ahead and like 52:40 of course you got the record lab and everything right So you going to be just focusing more on that now than filming 52:45 or are you doing both at the same time Uh overall I'm I'm doing both at the 52:51 same time uh I own the record label but I'm not really too involved in it i have 52:57 other people managing okay so you this is just you're the owner of the record record label that's why he might not 53:02 remember all y'all's name artist but heard that the owner doesn't know who you are they know they know they They 53:07 know who they're dealing with you know who you are so why did of course the 53:12 saving part is that pretty much the reason why you started the record label because you know it was going to be a cause that you'll save yourself on or it 53:19 was it important for you to have local independent artists in there For me it was one of two things uh one if I own 53:29 the music I don't have to ask anybody for clearance yep so I have I own the 53:35 music i have full clearance to utilize it however I need to it's in the contract so I can put the music anywhere 53:42 I want anytime I want and uh that's the biggest thing is business first um 53:50 it saves me all of that red tape you know uh secondly I wanted to give artist 53:59 a place where they can come create and not have to worry about expenses my 54:06 artists don't pay for studio time beats recording mixing mastering music videos 54:12 photography marketing promotion my artists don't pay for anything i take care of everything you signing people bro put a song out if you got talent man 54:19 I'm going tell you what is the uh how does the contract work at the end for them to get paid Uh how is that a split 54:26 whenever y'all release it Yeah uh I own 54:31 we own it equally 50/50 and well we got the producer involved in there as well 54:37 and also depends if there's like two artists so 33% a piece it say it all depends cuz some of them 54:43 songs feature two to three artists so all the artists involved own a portion of it so So the split could be different 54:49 depending on the royalties or how many people involved that's pretty cool are you going to be having more of that 54:57 artist and music going out uh here in the near future Uh the goal is to release we have at least about two to 55:04 three volumes worth of music already oh wow so we plan to put that one out and 55:11 uh utilize it for more films cuz I al got like five films that I have ready to 55:17 go how many artists made it for the music itself How many songs was there total 55:24 Sheesh and are you planning to do a soundtrack for I know it's kind of a little bit after but you plan to kind of 55:29 sort of do a soundtrack for it because you got enough music to kind of do a soundtrack yeah we have the official soundtrack and then whatever music 55:36 because we made a lot of music like what I told my artists is just make music and 55:42 if it fits it fits if it doesn't fit then you know it'll fit somewhere else so we made a bunch of music we got it 55:49 all stockpiled and uh from there we we made like 50 songs or more and we 55:55 probably picked eight of them and then we have the rest uh so we are going to release the official soundtrack and then 56:02 we're going to release all the other music that didn't get put on this like volume one volume two and and so forth 56:08 like that that's awesome being from Dallas the N word is very 56:15 typical it's like culture thing was it uh something that you thought about Am I 56:21 going to be able to Some people get iffy about it Especially if you're Latino 56:27 Mexico like why use a name You're not so and so i don't care didn't even dawn on you too even I mean it dawned on me like 56:34 I I did I did acknowledge it but it's not true to the culture though if you change it right exactly like it's they 56:40 can't be mad at me it's you're going to be mad at the at the whole Not even just Dallas like it's the whole community 56:46 it's the It's the whole culture like east coast to west coast like so you're going to be mad at everybody it's like 56:52 you can't pick and choose pick a struggle yeah because it will feel like something's missing cuz you know the homies be kicking with the homies just 56:59 talking that's the way they talk that's how they talk in the Dallas and it's not offensive anything we're not trying to none of that if you know if you know in 57:07 one what context is used you're not going to be offended i mean unless you're a liberal or a Democrat be 57:14 offended yeah literally dude comp 57:20 it as far as it's the culture it's the culture it is what it is you know i I It 57:26 doesn't Whether I put it on there or not it's not going to change what it is yeah okay so at the end of the movie there's 57:32 a little room for something that might be coming up here soon there's a opening for a sequel assigned to the future too 57:40 you know but uh before I get to that question like so February didn't work 57:47 out now the music's ready to go january I'm sorry january didn't work out why I keep saying February January didn't work 57:53 out uh music wasn't ready you still were like you know what It is what it is 57:59 we're going to have to put it out this way but fortunately the weather didn't cooperate then y move it to May april 58:05 10th april april april 10th my dates are all out of whack now so April now you have a new date you have time enough to 58:12 put the music in there are you feeling a whole lot better now that you get to put the music as well And it's time oh yeah it just the stock music was good don't 58:20 get me wrong even even if we put it out like that it was good but putting the 58:26 music that we had curated for it like it just it just felt better it just felt 58:31 sounded and it it just flowed everything was just so much did you ever look at both and be like "Yeah I would I would 58:38 have been okay putting it out but man the impact that he has whenever he has this talent it's just way different." 58:44 Yeah yeah it's I mean I I had it set from the beginning like I picked the 58:50 artist you know and uh I told him like how to make the music I produced it so 58:58 um I don't I won't say that I produced it spider handled most of that he would kill me if I said that you were kind of 59:04 sort of give him a little idea hey I would love it if you can do this to the song and then he'll he'll take it and 59:10 run with that that's nice all right so again now to the opening part at the end of the movie seemed like there might be 59:16 a continuation of the movie something else coming up in the works are you thinking about that far or you just 59:22 happy that you had some you got to premiere the movie I went to the 7:00 59:27 and it was packed there were so many people in there and at the nine o'clock people were already lined up on the 59:33 outside waiting for to to see their movie you kind of sort of want to take a break and just let it all in or are you 59:39 ready to start plotting on if there's going to be a sequel or not So 59:44 for me the biggest thing when I did Sugar City I wanted it to be 59:50 not your traditional film it it uh I wanted it to when you go to the movies 59:57 you already know what's going to happen you go to like the traditional go watch movies at the theater y you already know 1:00:03 what's going to happen they're very predictable like they follow the traditional three-act stanza and to me I 1:00:11 wanted to go outside of that what's a three-act stanza Um intro 1:00:18 climax finale that's it that's it mhm you know every movie you can you can 1:00:24 think of that's that's how it is that's how it happens so I wanted to go outside of that you know I still wanted to make 1:00:31 a good movie but I wanted to go out of that out of that perimeter i wanted to 1:00:37 go outside the box i wanted to that was my biggest thing is I wanted people to say that like oh man that's my favorite 1:00:44 thing that I hear people like oh man it's every time that I thought this was going to happen there's something else 1:00:50 happened it's like that's that's not how they do it like in you know in the movies like exact that's that that's my 1:00:56 I wanted that I wanted that I wanted you to be like 1:01:02 what what that makes that doesn't make any sense but as you watch it and you watch it again you're like oh okay That 1:01:08 that makes sense you know it's like you have to watch it a couple of times to understand that 1:01:13 the movie there is a main character but the movie is not about the main character the 1:01:19 movie's about everything else going on around the main character and at the end you see that 1:01:27 all of that was a cause of an effect and now you start to put everything together because like now you see the end you're 1:01:33 like you're given that part that's like oh that kind of fills in some of the holes that you were wondering about was 1:01:40 it cuz the beginning of the movie that's literally I think the trailer 1:01:45 right the fool just in the beginning where all the motion with the soldiers the the police part of it part of it why 1:01:52 do you want to start that way Of course not traditional right Literally like everything going on like everything 1:01:57 building up immediately all of a sudden it goes into like the character just chilling and doing whatever well you 1:02:02 have to understand human psychology we have especially nowadays in the gratification era people's time spam is 1:02:10 like very short so you have a very small window to capture them 3 seconds yeah if 1:02:16 you don't get them hooked they're gone you know so you did like the way that they do these videos now where they show 1:02:22 a little bit of the climax on it and then people are so intrigued and curious that they want to watch the whole video 1:02:28 to see what happened so you use a little bit of that technique human behavior if you understand that's like it that's 1:02:35 what it is that's what cinema is it's not just about the right cameras or the 1:02:41 the right script or the right lighting the biggest thing is psychology you have to understand psychology you have to 1:02:48 understand how people think what people want and what people do did you want it 1:02:53 more out of your actors as far as more emotion I know some of them were improv some of them were just you know you know 1:02:59 jumping in because you needed somebody to to do the role did you want it more out of the actors per se or you were 1:03:05 just satisfied with what the work they were do especially let's say they didn't have experience I try not to uh think of 1:03:13 them as actors because I know that they weren't actors so I let them experiment 1:03:20 gotcha like I let them have fun with it if I needed to rein it in I reigned it 1:03:26 in but if it was like if it was going then I just I just let it go nice it was 1:03:33 a whole experiment wasn't it It was a whole experiment there's going to be a sequel lord Eye uh 1:03:39 I don't know you don't know yet honestly Or you thought about it a few times 1:03:46 Uh being an experiment you learn a few things and there's just a few people 1:03:52 that I do not want to work with again uh not for any other reason i mean I don't 1:03:58 care if anybody gets offended you know they're very unpleasant people so I'm just a tool people i'm just a tool it's 1:04:03 not my fault what he's saying don't call that kid no uh it's up in the air but there's so many pe like No but honestly 1:04:10 right whenever you have a group of people a lot of people working together at the same time and you have a vision 1:04:15 that you want to do and things you can kind of sort of see how certain people just it just doesn't work out right Yeah 1:04:21 you know so you kind of learned it without you know once you did the m the movie and everything yeah it's a 1:04:26 definitely experience so to answer your question that day people you did mention 1:04:32 that day whenever everything was said y'all want a sequel or somebody said something like that people got hyped 1:04:38 everybody that was around so that's why I was wondering was it number two cuz there was a little opening I like [ __ ] with people 1:04:45 you be like a clout in case you didn't know troll yeah basically in case you 1:04:50 didn't know you you saw you saw the movie it's it's completely unpredictable you know like you don't know what's 1:04:56 going to happen So I'm the same way like I just say [ __ ] to [ __ ] with people like 1:05:04 if I'm if I want to do something I'm gonna do it but for the most part like people ask me there's a I just [ __ ] with 1:05:11 people like maybe maybe not yeah i don't know like you know like just was the 1:05:21 was the completed the movie maybe or not a sequel was the satisfaction big enough 1:05:29 for you to be like man I I want to make another movie let's say it's not Sugar City but I really want to go ahead and 1:05:35 get in another project and maybe the actual Sugar City that you wanted to originally do maybe a different name or 1:05:42 something else that you have written down to be you know I really want to make this happen bring it to life 1:05:47 i might make a part two um so Sugar City was an experiment mhm it was me 1:05:55 experimenting to get ready for another project that I had i already had a movie 1:06:02 it's called On the Other Side of Town mhm that's the one I originally wanted to shoot but I didn't have the resources 1:06:09 to manage or the capacity to manage that one and that one I want that one to be 1:06:15 my masterpiece like like I want that one to be a classic nice so that's why I did 1:06:22 an experiment first to get ready for that one but it turns out this experiment was a huge success so 1:06:29 maybe part two um possibly possibly i'm 1:06:35 leaning towards it but overall I do have other projects that I want to do so 1:06:41 maybe I'll revisit it your masterpiece was there anything that's already been done at all whatsoever Any shooting 1:06:47 anything like that Or did you literally you just know that this wouldn't be it's all right there It's all right there and 1:06:52 then you already know that this is going to be something that you really want to invest a lot of time yeah a lot more 1:06:58 that if you thought Sugar City was like what the hell on the other side of town 1:07:03 it it really does push like the boundaries like when it comes to like the 1:07:08 storytelling and the way that you would see you would see a movie on the other 1:07:13 side of town can we dive a little bit into that I know it's only in your mind but in your 1:07:18 head do you kind of sort of want to have it in envision as being in Dallas still 1:07:24 or maybe another setting for that one I want to do it in Dallas yeah I I want to 1:07:29 do it in Dallas that's cool i I when I first wrote it I wrote it with the concept of All right so we don't know if 1:07:37 he's going to be another sequel or not so you have to stay in tune to uh the Instagram make sure you follow him and 1:07:43 uh when you were driving over here was there any questions in your head you were like man I wish he really asked me 1:07:48 about this or I wish he really touched up on this is there anything that comes to mind 1:07:54 No not that I can think of what kind of research did you do on me bro What you know about me Uh you know I just uh 1:08:00 watch the the podcast see like the energy the the interview also the the 1:08:06 quality as you can tell I'm very picky so like I want to see the the quality 1:08:12 you know what we meet the standards uh you could use some improvement of 1:08:18 course we always we always getting there whatever tip you want to we always take it in but we ain't uh open for that you 1:08:26 know we still building it up uh previous before I had a different videographer she's amazing in doing it there so you 1:08:33 know there's been a few changes that happened that is not consistent but the podcast itself has been consistent 1:08:38 putting out as long as you're like always aiming to be better yeah because of like a lot lot of podcasts that I've 1:08:44 seen and that I try to like they wanted to interview me like I see there I I 1:08:51 look at them and I see that there's no progression they're still doing the same thing like 1:08:58 there's there's the point is to always get better absolutely like you don't want to be in the same spot like if 1:09:03 you're if you're not doing something to progress then you're really not doing it 1:09:09 you're just doing it because you need to not because you want to so that's what I 1:09:15 that's what I liked about yours is like I see the progression i see the the amount of time that you took to curate 1:09:22 you know like the setting and and also like the the interview and all of that so I was like you know what I I'll 1:09:27 definitely go he could have literally told me no no bro i'm good 1:09:32 be like "Hey I'll be okay." It's all good i hate interviews to be honest oh yeah cuz 1:09:38 Was it redundant though for you At least for me the things that were asking you it's like "Oh man everybody has the same thing questions." Like "Why are you 1:09:44 asking the same questions?" No no i mean that's part of the interview process 1:09:49 like I'm going to get asked the same question a lot but for the most part it's like "How are you presenting it?" 1:09:54 That's that's what it comes out to cool well I'm glad we made the cut thank you so much sir don't text me later said 1:10:00 "Don't put it up bro i'm just kidding uh before I let you go I have just a few more questions so 1:10:06 first of all uh is there any events or any music or anything else that you have going on that people need to be on the 1:10:12 lookout for here in the near future Uh we do have a lot of plans towards uh releasing all 1:10:20 the music but uh I can't say anything for sure right now is it going to be accompanied with videos or just the 1:10:27 audio or visuals or anything We're dropping the music along with music videos uh we're doing a tour uh going to 1:10:36 do a Texas tour and then uh hopefully we can take it uh nationally but uh for the 1:10:42 most part yeah everything's still pretty much um we just finished Sugar City so that left me broke we're right now in 1:10:49 the process of trying to get it uh distributed so uh we just been shopping around for distribution companies so 1:10:55 have you ever submitted to the Sunset Festival and any other festivals out there South by Southwest and all that 1:11:00 stuff i don't really care for festivals no they're a waste of time yeah what other ways is there to distribute besides that Cuz once they find it if 1:11:07 you know you get you buzz on it they uh for the most part you can streaming yeah 1:11:12 you can stream it uh you can reach out to distributors directly uh the film 1:11:18 festivals are more for like clout and notoriety uh some of them do have a few 1:11:24 benefits that they offer for the most part but like I said for the most part I don't really care what people say think 1:11:29 or do i just I just want to do me and um yeah so for me film festivals are a huge 1:11:36 waste of time it's like it's a popularity contest i don't I don't care kind of like the the Grammys and all 1:11:42 those yeah same thing it's a waste of time as long as the people acknowledge that it's great that's that's good for 1:11:47 you yeah it's a waste of time he said it know me but it is true though 1:11:52 bro it's all clout and it is they could be I'll say it it is true though i mean 1:11:57 I'm not afraid to say it it is what it is everybody even the actors involved with it they all know it too they just got to kind of showing like look at me 1:12:06 and that's it there's nothing like the ground up the the the dreams of you 1:12:11 fulfilling something to make it happen and the satisfaction that you got to do it however you want it and not how 1:12:16 people are used to accustomed to cookie cut way of doing it you know so there you go shout out saludos any saludo you 1:12:23 have anybody yeah shout out to bar li that's that's my spot is it your spot oh 1:12:29 nice yeah I have most of my shows that I've had for like my artists we had them at Bar Li uh they're one of the biggest 1:12:36 sponsors ers and supporters that we had we shot a scene yeah at at Bar Li and uh 1:12:42 the premiere all the liquor that we had was also sponsored by Bar Li nice so 1:12:47 yeah Bar Libé has been huge huge supporters so you know huge shout out to them and of course all our other 1:12:53 sponsors you know we have a lot of them not not even everybody but go look at the movie in the credits you'll be able 1:12:58 to see it yeah we have a whole list for you a whole list of them for And then that's awesome what is an important 1:13:04 lesson that you learned in film making that you would tell your younger self 1:13:10 that will help somebody else out What would that be 1:13:15 People are on your time you're not on their time that was one of my mistakes with Sugar City that I could have 1:13:22 finished it quicker but I had to work around everybody's schedule like no not 1:13:27 doing that again if going to if I'm going to do a movie I have the schedule set if you can't make it your cut 1:13:36 is professionalism very important to you now that you learn about after doing this Because I again you kind of sort of 1:13:43 not dealing with professionalists per se but at least you have to be about your word and show whatever they told you to 1:13:49 you know what I mean When it comes to business I do what needs to get done but at the end of the day I myself I'm not 1:13:56 going to dress to impress anybody i'm not going to go around kissing ass i 1:14:01 don't I don't care who they are what they do people are people the amount of 1:14:07 money you have the amount of titles you have none of that really matters at the end of the day you breathe deep [ __ ] 1:14:12 just like I do so so y know you better be professional be on time next time you 1:14:18 might not make the cut in the movie i'm just saying yeah no it's just you know as long as you need to do what what 1:14:25 needs to get done like you're your own person you know who am I to judge you Got it i said as long 1:14:32 as you're nice I reciprocate cool so for me professionalism is about balance 1:14:37 because I've almost fought a producer in this movie not in this one but 1:14:42 projects that I worked on yeah man that that deep of a disagreement you seem pretty chill uh it was more about 1:14:50 respect got you it was more about respect and uh he jumped the gun he 1:14:55 assumed that we were guilty and then when I tried to talk to him and like 1:15:01 "Hey this is what happened." He wasn't listening so I was like "If you want to get loud I can get loud and if you want 1:15:07 to keep disrespecting me like that then I'm going to have to knock you the [ __ ] out." I mean yeah don't the tolerance part you 1:15:16 know like for me like the physical part you know we can have a disagreement but get get all the story correct before you 1:15:22 come at me and attack me about anything yeah and a great conversation miscommunication happens all the time so 1:15:28 if you're literally making your mind about you already has something deep rooted that you got against me you just 1:15:33 making a reason for you to get loud to me without even having the story and talking to me about the whole situation 1:15:38 it's not it's not what you say it's how you say it yeah for sure cuz you can say you can say the most [ __ ] up thing but 1:15:45 if you say it to me in the wrong way like all right cool that's where we got a problem you know it's it's not what 1:15:52 you say it's how you say it yeah what is uh usually sometime during my day my 1:15:58 week I say something along the lines I'm not immortal i am mortal and I will die one day not to scare me terrify me or 1:16:03 anything i wish you very long prosperous life i'm the opposite okay i am immortal 1:16:08 you're immortal i am an immortal being you're immortal being so this one might not apply to you but after everything 1:16:14 said and done what do you want people to think and feel about your life that I lived that I lived unapologetically and 1:16:23 without restraint and without like influence or without pressure like I 1:16:28 lived I live life on my terms yeah i think uh at the end of the day is 1:16:35 a it's a great way to live to know that you were not you know live to impress people live to you know because they 1:16:42 their expectation of you was this and that and you had the liberty to live however you felt like and you felt more 1:16:49 free that you felt like you came to this earth to do this particular thing 1:16:54 whatever it was and then you got to do it however you felt like it you know I think that's you know if if anybody was 1:17:00 to call anything there would be like the freedom Freedom freedom everybody talks about freedom i literally had the 1:17:05 freedom to live however I wanted to to do whatever I wanted to and I'm good when it when everything's said and done 1:17:12 cuz I did it how I wanted so amazing julian thank you so much for being here again i was part of the the movie i 1:17:18 watched the movie i appreciate you that you were we were worthy enough to of your presence here you were able to do 1:17:24 continue to do good work for four years that you were able to come and share a little bit of your story uh as far as 1:17:30 you know just in general how you got started i know it's crazy cuz I probably saw you a few times cuz I've been around 1:17:37 what Dust Kabasa was performing like the Texas theater one time you probably one of the ones yeah so it's crazy that you 1:17:43 know I can't remember we didn't really talk to each other but now you know now we're here so it's pretty cool and 1:17:49 without a shadow of a doubt you a Global Latin Factor thank you so much for being here sir thank you for having me man appreciate it this was another episode 1:17:55 of the Global Latin Factor podcast remember to subscribe right now now you got great stories you're going to tap in 1:18:02 and remember we are just like you we are the spice in this melting pot so well till next time 1:18:11 [Music]