Muslim Money Talk
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Muslim Money Talk
What It’s REALLY Like Being Muslim in Hollywood (Disney/Pixar Insider) | MMT Ep 56 - Nabil Kazi
In this episode, Nabil Kazi shares his journey from working at Disney and Pixar to paving the way for Muslims in Hollywood, highlighting both the challenges and opportunities of representation in entertainment. Alongside his career insights, he reflects on personal experiences, global travels, and how storytelling can reshape narratives about Muslims worldwide.
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Show Notes:
00:00 – Early days at Disney, challenges of openly being Muslim in Hollywood.
00:34 – Toy Story, Pixar collaboration, and creative branding work.
01:08 – Introduction of guest Nabil Kazi and his Hollywood background.
02:11 – Marathons, Ironmans, and athletic pursuits.
04:42 – World travel goal: visiting all 197 countries, inspired by his late father.
06:36 – Highlights and misconceptions about Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Afghanistan.
12:23 – Growing up near Disneyland, passion for entertainment.
13:48 – Breaking into Pixar and the Toy Story franchise.
20:00 – Marketing, branding, and franchise-building strategies at Disney.
29:35 – Stories about working with celebrities like Tom Hanks and Miley Cyrus.
32:07 – Being Muslim in Hollywood: challenges, perceptions, and representation.
38:53 – Rise of Muslim creatives: Riz Ahmed, Rami Youssef, Moe, and others.
46:19 – Advice on authentic Muslim storytelling without labelling.
50:25 – New Muslim-led studios and changing confidence in Hollywood.
56:06 – Advice for aspiring Muslim filmmakers and writers.
58:21 – Streaming vs theatrical release, marketing strategies, and building franchises.
1:07:03 – Inspiring more Muslims to enter entertainment.
working at Disney and we were in a meeting and it was Eid and I remember I was like hey, eid Mubarak. And he's like shh what, why? And I was like what? Those were the times where you just kind of like, not that you were embarrassed to be Muslim, but you just never vocalized that you were Muslim, right For your own career, so it would hurt your career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could.
Speaker 1:Why? Because you're Muslim. Because you're Muslim, entertainment is the most powerful source of education and communicating to a global audience. So think about it. So if no Muslims are working in Hollywood, they can do whatever they want.
Speaker 2:When you think Toy Story, you think about those clouds, but you were behind that, so I worked with John for about 15 years from Toy Story onwards.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of work that we still have to do and we have to work more as an ummah, and what we want to showcase with Muslims coming into Hollywood is that we've just got some really great creative heads. I think if we're just really smart about how we're doing it, then we're showing the human and positive side of what Islam is, which is a peaceful religion. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:In today's episode, muslim Money Talk is going Hollywood. I'm joined today by Nabil Qazi, who's come all the way from LA, california. He's a senior global entertainment marketing head and animation producer, having worked for the likes of Disney, fox, illumination Studios and the like. Today, we're going to be talking about Muslims in Hollywood, what his experience has been like, working for a few decades within the space on some of the biggest shows and movies that you've definitely heard of, and what Muslims are actually doing today to stand out and create a voice of their own within this very important space. As always, I'm your host, harib Siddiqui, and this is Muslim Money Talk. Before we begin, we notice only about 20% of you are subscribed to the podcast, so if you like what you're listening to and you want to hear more from us, then please consider subscribing, liking, sharing or leaving us a comment or a review wherever you are listening to this, because it really does help people to find us.
Speaker 1:thank you, and back to the show 18 marathons, two, two, two ironmans and um, and I'm trying to climb the seven summits.
Speaker 2:Are your knees okay? No, have you had any surgery or anything Not?
Speaker 1:yet, but I have a compressed nerve, oh man. And they're like you're too young to have surgery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I've got friends who did like two marathons and that was it. Their knees just gave out. I mean it's easier doing an Ironman than it is a marathon, believe it or not. Like when did you do? Was this recently, during your round the world excursions? What my marathon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the marathons are over time. The last one I did was uh, it was the day before the city shut la shut down for covid.
Speaker 2:I did the la marathon in 2019 was my last one I always ask this to people who do marathons why, like what? What motivates you to do that? Not just once to say you've done it, but it seems like you're addicted to it.
Speaker 1:I was addicted to it. I mean, it's just, I've always been athletic. I mean when I was young I was doing it. I was like, I think in grade school, like the 100-mile club, so running is therapy for me. Okay, so after I finished work I would go and I lived in santa monica so I would just go run on the boardwalk and release the stress. Amazing, this kind of thing and doing an iron man was like started doing short triathlons. I ran, I started and ran the tri uh, the disney triathlon team, okay, which raised money for the malibu triathlon which we had bob eiger as our team captain.
Speaker 1:I asked him to be our team captain, uh so, and we had a lot of celebrities do that, and we we started the whole entertainment challenge. So disney started it and then got all the other studios to do it and we created an entertainment challenge and it's really cool, so going, yeah, wow armor.
Speaker 2:Let's keep that part in the episode.
Speaker 3:I don't know how we work it in but we'll keep it there for sure.
Speaker 2:Nabil, welcome to the show. Thank you, we met a few months ago now, a few months ago. I remember it was in that Kuwaiti restaurant. Yeah, it was good. No-transcript me. And I understand this is like a quick stopover in one of your many round the world excursions. So you're doing a you want to visit every single country on the planet.
Speaker 1:That's correct. So more people have gone to outer space than to every country in the world. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's just been a goal of mine and the UN recognizes 193 countries, I'm going to 197. So we include Palestine, kosovo, the Holy See, as we call it, and Taiwan. What about North Korea? North Korea is considered a country, so you're going to go. Yeah, I mean, as an American, right now, we are not allowed to go to North Korea unless we have a second passport. Fine, so unless that is lifted, I have to figure out a way to get a second passport.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, pakistan, if anyone from the embassy is listening Exactly.
Speaker 1:That would be helpful, but until then, yeah, we have to wait until the US lifts the sanction.
Speaker 2:What motivated you to do that?
Speaker 1:Back in 2020, my dad passed away and he was a world traveler. He went to probably almost 90 countries and we were planning a trip to South Africa at the time and obviously that didn't happen. And a couple of months before he passed away he said to me he goes whatever you do in life, make sure you go and see the world. And so when he passed away and it was during was during covid I had a lot of obviously we all had a lot of time to think about our life and I decided I was basically going to make a 180 in my life and change it up a bit from working at a big studio to kind of taking things more on my own and working from the road and trying to attempt to go to every country. I had followed a couple of people on Instagram and saw that they were able to do it and it inspired me to do it 197 countries and you've been to nearly 150 of them.
Speaker 2:That's correct so far. Any highlights, any scary moments, anything you want to Sure.
Speaker 1:You know, first of all, what we tried to do is at least what I tried to do is show the positive and human side of every country, because the Western media will go out of their way to show the negative side and it isn't always, and what we say most of the time isn't true. I was just recently in Yemen, two months ago, yeah, and it could be the complete opposite. There's obviously fighting happening in Sana'a and the north. We were in central Yemen and south and the people could have not been nicer. It was peaceful extraordinary history and flew the local airline from Cairo. Oh, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to be honest, it was nicer than some Western airlines. Yes, the planes are old, but it got us there safely and back and without any problems. So you really start to see the difference. I was in Somalia and Libya late last year. Same thing you go to Somalia and people are like Mogadishu. Why are you going there? It's one of the most dangerous places and just hanging out with my fixer in his local neighborhood and just with locals and we just sat around for three, four hours having chai and imams and sheikhs coming by and just local families and sitting and getting to know me and I'm getting to know them and it was really nice.
Speaker 2:I do recommend that everyone follows nabil on his instagram because it's uh, he documents his journeys very nicely, thank you, so do, uh, do check that out. And I guess, coming from a society as insular as america, have any of your friends kind of seen what you're doing and just being like, oh, you know what, I never knew. I never knew that. That's changed my perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, quite a few actually. You know, when you follow someone on Instagram and they're showing you a different side of a country. I went to Afghanistan and we were one of the first groups to go there after the Americans left.
Speaker 1:In fact, our group was the first one to go to Kandahar, which is the home of the Taliban, and you just have a very different perspective because the road going from Kabul to Kandahar, I think it's about an eight or ten hour drive and it was considered to be incredibly dangerous when the Americans were there and you know there's checkpoints everywhere, but very peaceful, no problems at all. Kandahar in some places beautiful mansions, but very peaceful, no problems at all. Kandahar, in some places, beautiful mansions, you would think it's, you know, Beverly Hills light in terms of like the architecture and stuff.
Speaker 1:And you know I had one incident in Afghanistan and you know when you land they give you very certain rules. You can't. Obviously, in many places, not only in Afghanistan but even in Africa, you're not allowed to take any photographs or video of women, regardless if you're Muslim or not. I think it's either cultural or it's religious, and I accidentally had taken a video of two local women coming into a shot of actually there was a girl with us in our group of her near a minaret and that caused a little bit of turbulence within the CIA of the Taliban.
Speaker 2:Oh, really yeah. Were they playing clothes undercover?
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, and so that was an incident for about 20, 30 minutes and it was a little scary.
Speaker 2:Okay, they didn't detain you, didn't take you away anywhere, they did not Just said delete.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a weapon that came out.
Speaker 2:Okay, and in response your American passport came out.
Speaker 1:But most of the time, what I found about Afghanistan is they live off of. There's very tight sanctions in that country. Poverty levels are very high. They live off of a dollar or less in terms of income coming in, and kids will come to you asking for water and you just want to help everyone. You asking for water and you just want to help everyone, and I think that was kind of one of the main things as you start to travel is the stitching of what, the consistency of what you see. 75% of this world, you know, um don't actually get a proper meal, and for me, my heartstrings are with kids and not to see a kid being able to get water or a meal a day. Um is it is solvable. Um, and I'll can talk a little later about one of the projects we're working on to bring some awareness to that.
Speaker 1:But it's, it's, it's. You see it everywhere and there's no reason why any child should not get any food. And that happened in sierra leone as well. We were at the beach and there was a coconut in front of us that we were drinking the coconut water from, and these two kids came and they kind of pointed at the coconut and I was like no, we don't need another coconut water. And I thought they were asking me. And what they were really asking for is can we have?
Speaker 1:your coconut, because that was their food for the day. And it's just, those are the moments that kind of just shock you. You're like I'm looking at this beautiful sunset on this beach, and looking at this beautiful sunset on this beach and when I'm not actually paying attention to my surroundings, of all these kids around me who aren't fed, human suffering exactly. So then we got them french fries and chicken and things like that to feed them for the day.
Speaker 2:So gosh, okay. Well, it sounds like a really eye-opening experience, and we wish you well and thank you the remainder of your 47 or so or 50 countries. Thank, you as a remaining um, especially north korea I think we should bring you back on the podcast or we should uh school, uh, you know, skype you in or zoom you in and into one of our future episodes. Um, but, going back to your background, you grew up in california, in and around la. Yes, so I was I was born in kuwait.
Speaker 1:I was born in Kuwait. And. I was born in Kuwait. We moved to Lebanon a couple of years after I was born and then, I think from basically the age of five, I was living in Southern California.
Speaker 2:Was working in and around Hollywood always the plan, or is that something you fell into?
Speaker 1:It was Our house growing up, uh, we lived about 15 minutes away from disneyland, okay, and so uh frequently visited uh the theme park quite a bit, and I think it was always in the back of my mind to work at disney, uh growing up around it. And so even when I went to college, even in my marketing classes, when they ask you what you want to do, I said in a year I want to work for Disney and five years I want to be a VP. You know so it was always in my head, laser focused, to go work at Disney.
Speaker 2:And you did it. You pulled it off. I mean, just looking at your CV, some of the things you worked on you worked on Toy Story, the Incredibles Cars as part of the branding and merchandising team so you were responsible for. For me this is like my childhood right, so I get very giddy thinking about it. But the, the clouds in toy story on the blue background which is andy's uh wall in his room, which all the toys and that was kind of like it kind of became the signature view and when you think Toy Story you think about those clouds. But you were behind that.
Speaker 1:You came up with that? Yeah, the team. I mean it's in the movie itself, so you actually take references from the film itself. And I mean I will take a step back into how I got into that, which was basically when I graduated from college there was an opportunity to move to Hong Kong to work for Disney and I had no idea what my job would be, and it was actually to help open the first office in India and also to look at the business in Pakistan.
Speaker 1:Oh, really yeah, and so, which was really interesting, and the only reason I got it is because I could speak Urdu and Hindi are very switchable and so, in some ways, because we had a joint venture in India, it was a way for Disney to just make sure that someone who's staffed by Disney is there with the joint venture to make sure things are. It's a checks and balance, and so I was young, I didn't really know what I was doing. It was a lot of copyright and trademarks and working with the US ambassador, and I was young, I didn't really know what I was doing. It was a lot of copyright and trademarks and working with the US ambassador, and I was always the youngest person, and it was in some ways, getting my MBA of being around and surrounded by people who were a lot more experienced from other big American brands. And then Disney was just entering into Asia and into the subcontinent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds like a real trial by fire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I was in the right place at the right time and I was living in Hong Kong. I lived there for three years and I was kind of homesick and ready to come back. And when I was, I told the president of Disney in Asia Pacific I'd really like to go back home, and he was able to get one position that was available. And they were like well, there's a new relationship that we have. It's with a company called Pixar, and so you would be working on a feature film and some of the new content, and at that time nobody really knew how big Pixar was going to be.
Speaker 2:And Steve Jobs was part of Pixar. Big Pixar was going to be, and Steve Jobs was part of Pixar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Steve Jobs, steve Jobs, ed Catmull and John Lasseter. John Lasseter was the head of creative and Toy Story was directed by him. It was also his idea. He's a big toy fan, and so I worked with John for about 15 years, from Toy Story onwards, and that's how it all came about. And again, right place, right time, there was a void. Nobody wanted to work on this stuff, and so I came back to the us and, um, we started basically mapping out.
Speaker 1:Pixar had a very small team. They were not really a studio, they were uh, you know, it was uh 3d technology and animation that was being tested in a and it was patented of what they had created and they had this great idea. So Buzz and Woody were key characters, and those were obviously original characters that were created. But Toy Story, as everyone has watched, has third-party characters.
Speaker 1:Mr Potato Head is owned by Hasbro, you have Slinky, which is owned by a very small company, you have the Army Men and so forth, and so we had to deal with third parties as well as our own original characters, especially as it dealt with merchandise, and everyone sort of said, oh, this is a really cute movie, but nobody had any expectations it would become what it was. So when we saw the success of the box office and that was it's, I think, the 30th anniversary of it it was Thanksgiving 1995 is when it came out we quickly knew at the time of when Toy Story came out, there were, I think, less than 15 licensees, and when at that time it was home entertainment there wasn't streaming we were getting ready for the home entertainment title to come out. We had, I think, close to 150 licensees.
Speaker 1:And so you saw obviously the box office and the phenomenon around the movie, and so we had to build the brand and the franchise completely from scratch. At that point we knew there would be a sequel, we didn't know when. At that time Disney had a contract for an extended period of time of a deal with Pixar, but they didn't own Pixar. So there was an understanding that there would be future films, but there was no timeline. So there was a lot of unknowns. But what we did know is that there was a franchise in the making, which was Toy Story, and so our team worked on that, which was creating the logo itself, but also the branding. If anybody goes back and looks at Google's original poster, the key art it says Walt Disney Pictures Presents. Now, with that movie, Pixar is slowly becoming a studio.
Speaker 2:Because I always remember it as WaltDisneyPixar.
Speaker 1:So our team came up with that, and that happened for the second film, which was A Bug's Life. So after Toy Story came out, pixar knew that they had obviously a brand that they were building, and so we had to be very smart about how we take Disney as a primary brand that the world knows and a second brand, which is Pixar, and how we're building it to be another powerful brand. And so we went through 50 or 60 different creatives figuring out what would be good, and I know it looks very simple. That says Disney Pixar, which is still used. Good, and I know it looks very simple, that says disneypixar, which is still used. Um, but that was kind of like our band-aid for a bug's life and, uh, and our solution to making sure we could get both brands in.
Speaker 2:Um, it didn't look clunky and it and you still had the power of the movie title yeah but then represented by the two studios that were bringing it there's so much you're saying that I think have carryovers to other forms of business in what I do in day-to-day with FinTech and in digital banking or some of my friends who are in like the restaurant business and franchising. But I think we're hearing a lot of things because I think almost calling you a marketing head or even entertainment marketing is kind of reductive because you're doing so many things. Head or even entertainment marketing is kind of reductive because you're doing so many things. You're dealing with legals, you're dealing with business plans for the future, franchising plans. Can you kind of sum up what it is you do exactly or define it as a little bit more, because it's almost like everything under the sun, yeah I mean, you know what it's is it, what do you?
Speaker 2:call it creative yeah, marketing creative.
Speaker 1:So there are three, I guess, clean buckets of what I work on. So marketing strategy, brand development and then franchise development. So franchising in the restaurant business is a little different than franchising in entertainment. Entertainment franchising only becomes a reality when you have something that's successful. So, whether it's a TV show like the Simpsons, or a film property like Toy Story, you can build those extensions out into licensing and merchandising, location-based entertainment, et cetera, and you can really theme park activations. You can really start to build a proper business around it and you can build a global business. Branding itself is your company right.
Speaker 1:So how do you take that and you expand that out? One of our learnings at Disney has always been you have a primary audience, but your audience is the world. How do you create a four quadrant strategy for anything that you work on? And you can always squeeze out more people if you have different type of strategy that hits those four boxes. What was the four? And? And so the four is like you can say um, in, in, for, for, for, um for an animated film. So your primary audience will be families and kids. So if, if it's a princess movie, it's going to be girls and that secondary market will be boys. So, for example, I worked on a movie called Tangled. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Tangled the movie before. It's a princess movie, right, it's a movie about Rapunzel. The actual name of the movie was Rapunzel and we did this whole focus group and research around how do we modernize it and change it so it becomes more attractive. And because she has a lot, a lot of hair, we went through like I don't know a hundred names that people came up with, and tangled was one that really stuck with all of us. That's like hey, that's really cool and we'll and we'll sneak her eyes in the.
Speaker 2:So you didn't want it to just be like a typical princess movie, which would just pigeonhole you to a female audience.
Speaker 1:So we use the hair, but we also use different creative. So for the movie that came out before, which was Princess and the Frog at the box office, box office drives everything right and it drives if you have a successful movie or not. And usually in the first two weeks you have to be successful at the box office and within four weeks to really hit your money, to hit your numbers of what you're spending plus plus, to be able to say, okay, we can build a franchise out of it. And Princess and the Frog had a 6% boy box office and so when we started to look at the media plan for it, we were like tangled, we've got this really great male character flynn, we've got this horse and we've got this chameleon. And what we can do is start to create different types of trailers and key art, and we can also start to plant them in places where boys and um, fathers and sons are watching TV and looking at content. So in the United States, thanksgiving is also around the time of the NBA playoffs, and so we created different trailers that were more action and less about the princess side of it, and we started to feed them into these outlets. And so what we saw with the box office for Tangled was we went from Princess of the Frog at 6% to Tangled, which I think 21% or 23% male or boy box office. So a significant change.
Speaker 1:And we also changed the creative. So if you look at any previous Disney animated movie, you would see key art to be more about group shots of the characters. It's always like princesses and you know, very, very female-oriented. And we went very much a different route of the curiosity with just showing eyes and then also focusing very differently boy characters from the female characters in Europe. For example, we did leave the name Rapunzel because Rapunzel was a stronger title than Tangled would ever have been. But places like Germany, we focused on animals because we know just from previous research is that animals drive box office versus humans. Wow, okay, so it's very data-driven. It is very data-driven and it's also you have to sort of keep up with the trends and you have to. Really, you have a global plan and so when you're talking about franchise or branding or a marketing strategy, you have to be able to have the creative to look the same, but then you have to give the regional offices the flexibility of localizing it and for the taste of their consumers.
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Speaker 2:So, just so I understand it, it seems like everything stems from the characters themselves, but the way in which you fit them together and you do things can really vary depending on region and who you're trying to target. And then you've got these three heads marketing, branding and franchising. Franchising kind of comes separately. If you've got the marketing and branding right, is marketing kind of the distribution and how you get the message out, and branding is how you're selling the character. What's the difference between those two? Branding is the company it comes out and branding is how you're sounding the character. What's the difference between?
Speaker 1:those two. Branding is the company it comes from. The branding is the stamp of approval. So when people see disney or pixar, they know that's quality animation that's coming out right versus and not to say an independent can't do the same thing. But they sometimes just don't have the budgets or they don't have the technology. So a a lot of times, even now with AI, right, you ask chat GPT to create you a Pixar type character, and so there's a look and feel that comes from Pixar, right, and it's kind of that. It's that parents trust the brand and so if they trust the brand, they don't necessarily care what the movie is. They're going to take their kids to it, and disney has that. Do they still have power? Yeah, they do. They do people.
Speaker 1:I think disney time and time again, um, I think parents over over decades have always trusted the disney brand for family entertainment. Yeah, when you look at universal, um, and when I worked at illumination, universal has a. I mean illumination is a very powerful brand as well through their main franchise, which are the Minions or Despicable Me, right, but they also have Secret Life of Pets, sing the Grinch, and then they recently released Mario Brothers, right, super Mario, and so their portfolio is also pretty deep, but tends to be. If you think of illumination, I think of illumination being close to pixar and not disney, and it's more a little older audience that will go see it, because the humor tends to be a little bit older yeah for sure yeah what about sony the sony?
Speaker 1:I feel like killing it these days with the spider-verse movies and yeah, sony has just a very different look, right, um, I mean, sony released, uh, the k-pop defenders?
Speaker 3:right, that's a sony animation demon hunters right so that's that is I only know that because my wife's a big fan, so people who are watching it's an okay movie, yeah but I mean sony.
Speaker 1:Sony animation has a very distinct look to what it does as well. It tends to be a little older as well, but in family entertainment for decades I think Disney is by far well ahead of all the other studios.
Speaker 2:And warner brothers tends to have you know they focus on dc comics and so that has a very distinct audience as well I mean we'd be remiss if we didn't mention dreamworks. I think some of my dreamworks, yeah. So dreamworks.
Speaker 1:You know, dreamworks is part of universal, and so universal has illumination and oh, I see okay so they have shrek and they have okay, you know kung fu, panda and so forth. Again it's they've got their look and feel and they've got a little older audience. The only studio that really has the I would say, the girl princess locked down is Disney.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. When you look at boys They've got decades of that history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you look at boys and sort of the age groups of boys and the other studios, all sort of have a piece of that pie.
Speaker 2:So I want to move on to Muslims in Hollywood and your experience yourself, but before I do that, you've worked with some pretty, pretty well-known people. Do you have any stories you could share? Sure.
Speaker 1:I mean anyone who was really cool to work with or less good to work with. Yeah, I think one of the nicest people in Hollywood is the voice of Woody and that's Tom Hanks. So I worked very closely with him, always a gentleman, both him and his wife, rita Wilson Anytime they ever needed anything their kids were young at the time and they always would ask sometimes for merchandise for their kids' schools and things like that. The next day there would always be a note personalized to me or a phone call and thank you for sending that over and you just really don't get that a lot in. Uh from talent.
Speaker 1:Um miley cyrus, really she's incredible talent. Um really what you saw on Hannah Montana to tenfold in terms of talent, in terms of just voice and acting and the full package, and she's really able to take that wholesome Disney look of Hannah Montana and then build a brand of who she is today. And um always a delight to work with. Um any times we needed promos for uh anything we were doing, she had no problems doing it. I worked with the cast of Modern Family. We launched that show on the local network in the US ABC. They were all delightful Sofia Vergara and Ty Burrell and Jesse Ferguson, tyler and so forth, and so just a really good group of people.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, lots of good stories, no bad stories you want to share.
Speaker 1:I mean, look, there's always challenging actors, you know, I think the more successful you get, sometimes they make you wait. I worked on Armageddon, which is a Jerry Bruckheimer film.
Speaker 1:I remember having to wait for hours on set once from the main actors, bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, to get approval for doing their action figures. And we waited like five hours one night. And then it was kind of like, oh, come back tomorrow and it literally would have taken like a minute. So you know, you sometimes have that frustration, but you also don't know what their stress level is or what, what they're going through in terms of, uh, what they're filming that day.
Speaker 2:So I wouldn't come to the crux of the topic, which is being a muslim or being a pakistani within hollywood, because I think a lot of us have this idea that being a muslim isn't compatible with doing anything in entertainment, um, rightly or wrongly, and I think certain things have come along to start to change that. What has your experience been? How did your family react to it? Did you find you could find a place for yourself as a Muslim in Hollywood?
Speaker 1:That's a really good question. So I think a lot of people say, like I'm probably part of the OG of Muslims working in Hollywood, and I think we have. I think our community has a perception of Hollywood being X-rated. It's like a very general like oh, you're working in Hollywood, everything you're doing is haram because it's Hollywood. And I never could understand that. And it was even past the point of like, okay, well, you didn't become a doctor or you didn't become a lawyer or you're not an engineer, which is typically in our Desi culture.
Speaker 1:But like, if I wanted to go and work in marketing and I have a passion like every other person in the world watches TV or movies or listens to music. I don't know anybody who doesn't do any of that watches TV or movies or listens to music. I don't know anybody who doesn't do any of that. And I can make an impact in the narrative of how it's shown to the world. Why wouldn't I want to do that? And that's I think. I remember my parents would sometimes just tell their friends that, oh, he works at Disneyland. Like you know, like I work on some ride or something like that. And I would always correct them don't work at the theme park. I work at the Walt Disney Company and you know it's a very different distinction between working at the theme park. Nothing wrong with working at the theme park, but it's a very different thing.
Speaker 1:It's a very. I'm working on movies and films, I'm not working on rides, and I think that within our Muslim community took a long time for people to understand, like, what I was doing and how I was doing it and why I was interested in doing it. And then, when I started to show them like one, I'm working on family entertainment and what's better than to see, you know, going through an airport and seeing kids holding a Buzz or Woody or a Rapunzel doll or being on a plane and someone's watching the content that you worked on that is family-friendly and they're laughing, and to me that brings me joy and that should bring our community joy, that we had something to do with that.
Speaker 2:To push back against that a little bit, though I think it's not always that it's about it being X-rated. I think, certainly in a post-9-11 world, some of us began to notice or some of us, as we got older, noticed that there was a certain narrative being pushed and we had sort of lost control of the narrative, or we never had control of the narrative at all of Homeland, which was this show which followed a CIA agent and a veteran who had returned from Iraq, who had secretly become Muslim. And I remember watching it when I was much younger and thinking, oh, this is interesting. And then re-watching it and thinking this is some of the most Islamophobic things I've ever seen portrayed on TV. But it was like you. You say it's in everyone's households, people are watching it. It's not necessarily x-rated, but it changes people's mindset and, like we were talking about, you're visiting certain countries that people may have an idea about, because that's the land hollywood has put on it.
Speaker 1:So think about it. So if no muslims are working in hollywood, they can do whatever they want. Sure, it will still come back to the studio, it will come back to the network. It still needs approval by them and it gets approval through the FCC in the US and obviously through the system of editing, obviously through the system of editing. But with all that said, yes, you know episodes like that, or the narrative in Homeland and others.
Speaker 2:Lost, for example. Yeah, you know there were.
Speaker 1:but I also have to say, like me being there, we were able to do those checks and balances. And now, with more Muslims in Hollywood, there are a number of people and there's actually a group that actually looks at it and are able to do way more than I have been doing, and we're able to bring those type of episodes down quite a bit. You can't control 100%, but you can control at least 80%.
Speaker 2:So you're saying you would be a check or balance to kind of try and stem that I will say I know you worked on Lost.
Speaker 2:I really liked the character of saeed in lost in that I know the actor wasn't muslim and I know he was a south indian guy playing an iraqi, uh soldier who was very much, um, not a nice guy before before he got to the island. But I hadn't seen in any kind of other media at that time a positive representation of like a brown person and that he was kind of the hero of the group. He was very action oriented. He wasn't like a jokey character he got he was paired up with a conventionally attractive, uh, white woman as like his romantic interest which had never been seen before.
Speaker 2:I'm saying this because I got into lost relatively recently when it's a great show, yeah so, yeah, it's a great show until you get to the the final episode yeah, yeah um so yeah, just just saying that is something you worked on. It wasn't all negative um it isn't.
Speaker 1:I mean, I that show, like, I actually didn't look at the scripts on that show, but, um, there were plenty of episodes of other shows that, um, that were developed. And you also have to understand like a lot of times, if Netflix is showing a show, it's not necessarily done by Netflix. Yeah, Right.
Speaker 1:So there are so many studios and production companies that actually create the show and then that goes through the pipeline and, yes, if it's a show that's created by Netflix or in partnership with them, they're partners in it. But, for example, like Modern Family was actually done by Fox Studios and it was aired on ABC in the US and then now it's licensed and distributed out through the system. But there are so many different ways of who's creating it and how it's created and who's involved in it, and so it's sometimes hard to get that checks and balance in place. So a lot of the big studios and things that are more highlighted. We can at least make a difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you mentioned you were one of the OGs of Muslims in Hollywood. How is that changing today? Because now we're seeing shows like Rami or Rami Yusuf or Mo Riz Ahmed is like a relatively household name, I'd say now. So there are some like larger Muslim entertainers, but there must be lots of people in the background as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm really proud of the community Like we've got. You know, there's a South Asian in Hollywood community and we've got an entire Muslim community of writers, producers, directors, actors, lawyers, the head, the president of marketing at Disney good friend of mine is a Pakistani Muslim, so you see it spread out through the system now. And my nephew is a writer. He wrote on Ms Marvel and Moon Knight, so he does a ton of Marvel stuff and he's writing on a show called FBI and then has his own original stuff that he does. And then my niece's husband is a filmmaker. He has a movie called Mustache and he's an editor.
Speaker 1:So you're starting to see and they're just a couple of examples yes, riz Ahmed Rami, they are more, you would say, mainstream Hasan Minhaj they're really doing good stuff. Now what I will say is that they are in the system and they are making a difference, but they're um, they also still have challenges, like rizam had a first look deal at amazon, right, how much of his content that he pitched was actually accepted by amazon. So there's a lot of work that we still have to do and we have to work more as an OMA and help each other out, because if we do that we can control our distribution and you now have, since October 7th, you have a distribution arm of feature films, watermelon pitchers, which people are like, oh that's all new. And it's actually not new. Their parent company had been around from the 70s and it's their father and it's two brothers, palestinian brothers, who created Watermelon Pictures to pitchers, to promote impact, creative content, to promote the other side of the Palestine story versus and that's been around since the 70s.
Speaker 1:Their parent company, but Watermelon Pitchers was started after October 7th to show documentaries because the Western media was showing very one-sided what kind of documentaries have they produced? They've produced. They've had Michael Moore, and actually what they've tried to produce and promote are that Muslims and Jews are working together. So this isn't about religion at all.
Speaker 2:No, it's not.
Speaker 1:It's about great creatives working together. It doesn't have to be what your religion is or what your culture is, and so they've had a number of movies the Encampment, which was a documentary about the protesting on colleges. The most recent protest on colleges.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in. The.
Speaker 1:United States yeah exactly, and so it documents that They've had a number of. I mean, they've started a streaming network called Watermelon Plus.
Speaker 2:Oh, really yeah.
Speaker 1:And so they're just starting, you know, to populate it with creative, and you know they've done such a great job of really showcasing the other side right, which is, you know, both like pre-1948, what Palestine looked like, and present day and everything in between.
Speaker 2:But there's a debate sort of like build versus like build your own thing or try and make a change from the inside. What side of that debate do you fall onto? Because I guess it's like okay, you have complete control if you create your own studio, like Watermelon Studios, for example. However, the distribution mechanism is maybe not there. It's not going to be as mainstream. If the main goal is impact, perhaps it's better to make a change from the inside, but then the downside is it's harder and it takes a long time. And there's, you know you're never going to be owning.
Speaker 1:There's a difference, right? So their purpose was to just show impact movies.
Speaker 2:Documentaries about palestine to show you know sort of yeah, as people say, october 7th was the middle of the book.
Speaker 1:It wasn't, you know, it wasn't where it started, right. And so they're really trying to educate and show, but with factual information and also supported by everyone that you know, the step-by-step sort of like what has happened and trying to be very partial in it. Put that aside when you talk about general entertainment. So you do have the Rizamas and the Rami Youssefs and the Moes, who are creating great content. They're creating it with a general audience. If you look at Moe and you look at the narrative of what they're showing, he did a brilliant job showing how he is Palestinian, but if you see it, how he generalized that for general audience was that his girlfriend was Mexican. Right, yes, to a larger audience and educate them by still putting in the storylines of your own childhood and also living in the United States as an immigrant and potentially ICE taking you away.
Speaker 2:I think that's the challenge with Muslims and our ummah is that we always have something to say, often not positive, and sometimes, when you're looking at something that's made for the mainstream, like Rami or like Mo, someone says like oh, you know, there's still elements within this or it's showcasing this. Do you get frustrated by?
Speaker 1:that I do get frustrated by that, because I think we're very fast to judge yeah, instead of let me take a step back and see that they're actually making a difference. Because if we're not, entertainment is the most powerful source of education and communicating to a global audience, and if we are going to take and not be involved in that, then we're just letting everyone else control the narrative. But if we can create general content, that is just really cool. And I've been looking at scripts recently and helping develop a few projects and sometimes I get these from Muslim writers and pitch decks that come through and they're highlighting the character to be Muslim character, islamic this, or from Pakistan, and what I say to them is you don't need to put that in there. Do you think that a Christian is putting Christian character or Jewish character or, you know, hindu character? No, why is that?
Speaker 2:the leading part of the Redemption.
Speaker 1:Why do you have to say that. Why don't you just let the storyline tell itself? So, for example, if there's a scene and you hear the azan or you see someone praying, automatically they know they're Muslim. Right, so it's not like we don't have a mainstream religion, we have the most powerful religion in the world, right? So we should show it in the manner that we want to communicate that, right? And you don't have to always, in black and white, say this is islamic, this is muslim.
Speaker 1:Let that be in the backdrop and let the characters and let the storylines kind of lead the way good stories with characters who happen to be muslim exactly and and it's, or let it be very organic, let it just kind of naturally be in the setting, and I think those are the most powerful ways of showcasing um the storytelling, as we would say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely Gosh there's. So I feel so like sort of conflicted on that, on that point though because I feel like yes, we absolutely do need to do that.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, there's such an uphill battle of reclaiming our narrative and putting it out there that we're Muslim. Perhaps Mo does it quite well because him being Palestinian, and the jokes being made about hummus and I think some lady thought it was Mexican or something or it was like guacamole-flavored hummus or something it really sticks out in my mind as one of the main trailers I saw for it and I wouldn't say it's reclaiming.
Speaker 1:It's about Moving forward and as we have more Muslims working behind the scenes, they're able to storytell that for future audiences and the creative that we and the TV shows and the films that we're creating, that I think if we're just really smart about how we're doing it, then we're showing the human and positive side of what Islam is is, which is a peaceful religion yeah, for sure right and that we're just like anybody else, like any other human being in the world, and what we want to showcase with muslims coming into hollywood is that we've just got some really great creative heads.
Speaker 1:Um, we've got great ideas, whether it be in animation or in live action, whether it be adventure, or it is a rom-com, or it's a we call it, you know YA young adult. Whatever it is, we can create that narrative.
Speaker 2:What's Muslim? Ya, I'm really interested now. Yeah, I know Like a Muslim version of Twilight.
Speaker 1:No, so this is really interesting. So I'm working with a writer right now, yeah, and she's got a bunch of shows, uh on on different streamers and she wanted to kind of tell her own autobiographical story and she, uh, you know, she wears a hijab, and so now this is just about a young adult going to high school and you know what a high school kid would do, right? So the whole pilot and stuff is really, I mean, everybody loves it, but it suddenly becomes a niche audience because she has a hijab on. Now, if she didn't have a hijab on in this young adult show, it becomes mainstream. Why? So? This is what I love, because these are the solutions that we can overcome, yeah, and we can find the right narrative to show. But doesn't that feel like-?
Speaker 1:Keeping the hijab on.
Speaker 2:Okay fine.
Speaker 1:But being able to tell that and I think in a young adult there are so many PG ways of actually doing that that parents would find it to be more acceptable and want their kids to watch than you know. Hey, it's always they're going out on a date or they're going to prom, which is inevitably how it always seems to end up.
Speaker 2:And then the girl in the hijab takes her hijab off and and all of that that's the netflix trope, uh, of a hijabi there, but I I like what you said, that you know it's. It's about working it into the story rather than making it her identity. Um, I think that's really, really important because, as a parent, I think your kids are going to be watching this stuff at some point, right, whether you like it or not, whether you can control it or not, so it's important to represent the other side of it, or your side of it too. What else are you excited about within the space? Um, any other muslim creators, writers, shows, new studios that are coming up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we are looking at a concept right now of building a studio for our community, and it's really a way of encouraging and supporting creating general content, that if it's a good idea, it's a good idea, and sometimes you can have this great idea, but you just need a support system, and so we want to be able to do that. We also want to be able to encourage more Muslims to come into Hollywood and be that incubator of sorts, and so we're trying to build something that can help do that. We've got a bunch of ideas, um, we have a number of investors that are ready to um be part of it, which is really exciting, and I'm really excited about it, cause for me being in the industry for so long, and you know, there were times where, like you know, we don't we don't get off on Eid and Ramadan. You're still fasting while going to work and all of that we all do right.
Speaker 1:But you know, I remember once and I was with another Muslim working at Disney and we were in a meeting and it was Eid and I remember I was like hey, eid Mubarak. And he's like shh. What and I?
Speaker 1:was like shh what why? And I was like what you know? And like those were the times where you just kind of like, not that you were embarrassed to be Muslim, but you just never vocalized that you were Muslim, right For your own career, and everyone knew I was Muslim because I would be fasting and people would be interested in the education of it, but so it would hurt your career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could.
Speaker 1:Why of it? But so it would hurt your career? Yeah, it could. Why? Because you're muslim. Okay, I mean it's you know, um, we work in an industry where other religions are, you know, and it's not really about the religion, but it's you know, it could yeah whether it be your name or whatever. Yeah, it can sometimes be a negative.
Speaker 2:But that seems to be changing now.
Speaker 1:It is changing quite a bit. I think. There are so many rules in place by HR. There's also a lot more confidence, and especially kids now I call them kids in their 20s and 30s that are starting to come into the industry there. Even Netflix, andney now have um, a celebration for eid. So they'll do that once a year and it's it's funded by them, so there's a budget for it, but there are muslims that actually run it and it's by invite, only for muslims, and so at least you're starting to see that um being celebrated. You you have more, I think, muslims represented behind the scenes than in front of the scenes.
Speaker 2:You mentioned Disney's global head of marketing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I will say, like you know, there's so many great actors Maz Ali, who's a friend of our family, my nephew's roommate. He was in American Horror Story and he's done a bunch of stuff. He was a voice, he was a voiceover in a Mel Gibson movie, the latest Mel Gibson movie. So you're starting to see that in that, actors are starting to really showcase themselves, and I would these. I would say these actors are very proud of being Muslim and so when you follow them on Instagram like they showcase all of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We didn't have that, I think. I mean, I didn't have social media growing up?
Speaker 2:No, of course, and I think October 7th was a watershed moment within Hollywood as well, because you really knew where different people stood, and you have now people boycotting certain movies because an actor represents or stood on one side of that argument versus the other.
Speaker 2:Right remembering, um, I don't know if it was disney, but snow white yeah with gal gadot in it and a lot of people just didn't want to see it right. But it was a weird situation where you have one of the leads staunchly on one side and the other the other lead very much on pro-Palestine. So it just kind of annoyed everyone. So no one saw it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's very black and white, but you do find, I think, that most people agree with what most people would agree with, and whether it be behind closed doors that they tell you that and not so publicly or whatever.
Speaker 1:I think the heart of most people are in the right place. But you know, we aren't the best and I would say our community isn't the best in PR. And you know, I think, as I pay it forward in my career, is to be able to inspire and motivate more Muslims to follow their dreams and if they do have a passion for content creation outside of being an influencer and more creating a film or a pilot and getting whatever you want to communicate out there, just go out there and try it.
Speaker 2:How would they do that? What advice would you give to a young person listening? Maybe they've got an idea, for it could be a book, TV show, movie, documentary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the first thing to do is to I always say this take a step back and think through what your idea is, look at what your comparables are. So what has inspired you to do this? So, for example, I'm working on a feature film that's written by a Muslim who's a writer for Daredevil Marvel's Daredevil and he and I have been working on this for a long time, but it's inspired by Indian mythology and it's like Pirates of the Caribbean meets National Treasure meets you know it's in that sort of genre.
Speaker 1:It's a movie. It's like Pirates of the Caribbean meets National Treasure meets. You know it's in that sort of genre, it's a movie. It's a feature film yeah, live action. And you know, we looked at all of our, we watched all the movies in that genre. We looked at all the comparables and then how am I going to be different? What is going to create my film or my TV show to be popular with an audience? And you have to really think through that, because a lot of times people are like, oh okay, modern Family, oh, that was a show about these three families. I can do that.
Speaker 2:I can do it again.
Speaker 1:And it's not that, because a lot of times people actually don't understand how much work it is. Behind the scenes there's a whole writer's room. There's writers that write just for one character. There are writers who just write the storylines right, so you can have the most incredible pilot. And then what happens after that? Like I'm working on my first AI animated series, which is a preschool series, and the team that I'm working with, like you know, they're like okay, we've got these first five episodes outlined. And I was like okay, so what are we communicating after the first five episodes? What is our message? How are we making sure that whatever we're putting up is going to be good as the pilot, right? So you always have to make sure that you're bookending and starting to think about how you see it.
Speaker 1:Lost is a really good example. Lost, the creators came in JJ Abrams and Carlton Cuse. They came in and they pitched six seasons, bookended it. They said Lost is a six-season show and that was it. And they were like oh, okay, we get it. Now. This is what season one, season two, season three, season four, season five and this is what season six will be. So, with whatever you work on, just make sure you sometimes have an idea, and a concept is not just enough, but actually how you're storytelling it. A feature film, you know for us, our feature film. We know it's going to be a trilogy, so we know in the script of the first film how it ends. That's going to lead to the second film, to the third okay now.
Speaker 1:Obviously some of it depends if you you have to have success at the box office right for the first one to go. But you have to be prepared for all of that.
Speaker 2:How do you feel about streaming services? Do you think it's either, or like you can do, a feature film release in cinema and streaming, or it has to be one or the other?
Speaker 1:I think a lot of it has to do with budgets and you know, when you have like, animated films are really hard when they come from a big studio. So walt disney animation is a union uh studio, pixar is not a union studio and so the price tags for making a feature film can be very feature animated film can be very different. Um, a live action film that has a lot of visual effects is probably you, but you have a better chance of it going through the traditional system of a uh theatrical release and then pay-per-view and then you know, other ways of revenue streams before it eventually gets to the streamer.
Speaker 1:Now we call it windowing. The windowing of those have shortened quite a bit. So once a movie is out theatrically before, it could be three or six months before you start to see those extensions out eventually onto a streamer. Now I mean during COVID I think it was isolated, it was either day or date or it was within seven days. You know that model has changed. I mean it's tightened within 30 days. So you know you really have 30 days to make all that money and if you don't, then your movie, even if it's depreciated over 10 years, is never going to make that money back, because it's not just the cost of a movie. If a movie cost $150 million, remember, there's probably another 20 to $40 million that goes into marketing. Yeah, of course Right, and that's just the United States.
Speaker 2:And then you have all the other regions right and there are.
Speaker 1:There's earned media which are promotions and PR and so forth, that kind of help with all of that. But you know you asked the question about awareness and like for a theatrical release. You know we go through a whole system. You have to build awareness before you get the intent to watch right. You have to, and it's usually something like seven to 10 times.
Speaker 1:You have to see a trailer or something about that film before you're curious and interested to go see that movie, outside of it being something established like a marvel film yeah, yeah right, but that is a long time, and so that's why a lot of studios will, you know, a debut, a movie on big sporting events that have an eyeball of 100 million or more olympics. You know the, a debut, a movie on big sporting events that have an eyeball of a hundred million or more Olympics.
Speaker 2:You know the Superbowl things like that, but should that be their first introduction? No Like you want to get as many eyeballs as possible? Then and then.
Speaker 1:No, so I'm working on. I'll just I'll give you an example I'm working on a Halloween special and I have Pixar quality characters and I'm working with actually with a Muslim art director in Toronto. We have these incredible characters and I'm working actually with a Muslim art director in Toronto. We have these incredible characters. I have potentially two Disney writers on it and I know I have something very special right, I want to release it in Halloween 2026. So October 2026, probably September 2026 is my deadline for it. So this October I'm going to start to build a digital campaign that starts to introduce the characters and just start to tease it.
Speaker 1:And potentially I might even have merchandise out Now. I've already locked in a promotion for it, potentially two promotions. I've already started to do all of the work and I don't even have this special created yet, or even the money for it. Gosh, that's so interesting and that in it and that to me what I'm. That strategy for me is I'm building a franchise. Yeah, I'm looking at looking at it as a halloween franchise, because halloween has become a global phenomenon, it's not just something in the us. So when you start to put mummies and bats and but you, we've made them cute. They're very like kid and family friendly. Um, but we've taken like that toy story model of first family and kids but then date night, so adults will be as excited about it yeah young adults as little kids will be you mentioned that four quadrants, sorry, just to return to it.
Speaker 2:So what are the four quadrants?
Speaker 1:um, it depends on who what the film is. So, for a family film, your primary audience will be kids and family sure you have um college students, you have young adults, you have grandparents, so they're meant to be like the four main target, yeah, areas that you want to do and you kind of want to lean more heavily into one of the quadrants yeah, you, you know who your primary audience will be for an animated film it's gonna be parents and it's going to be. They're the ticket, they're the purse, right for the kids.
Speaker 1:But you also want the kids to be the nagging factor to the parents to go see it.
Speaker 1:Right, you have kids. They're gonna say I wanna go see Zootopia 2, right, and they've already started the marketing for that, right. So it's that nagging factor that eventually you're going to spend the money to go see it. But then we also know that that film could be really popular with college students. So, for example, I created at Disney, I created a whole college campus ambassador program where at universities, within a marketing course, you could get credit and be, basically it's an internship, but you're getting credit instead of paying them.
Speaker 1:You're getting credit at the school and we would have I would have, like, somebody from my team work with the colleges and these kids that would be doing it and we'd say, okay, we need you to, on your campus, do X, y and Z, and we're sharing our plan with you. How is this? How are you going to help us?
Speaker 1:you know, uh, drive box office or go watch the show or whatever it is for sure okay you know, uh, mommy bloggers, mommy bloggers are a big thing, right, you can have a mommy blogger, um, that has five million followers. Go show them the movie. They suddenly promote it. I saw this movie, I it. It's great for your kids, blah, blah, blah I think it's my favorite characters done Grandparents, they're the babysitters, right For their kids also, very, very important. So you start to then carve out what that is and then, even within the four quadrant, you start to look at in the United States, we'd look at Hispanics, we'd look at Asian, and there's a different marketing. Hispanics actually drive one of the highest box office demographics, really, yeah, and so they're very family oriented, right, yeah, it's their culture, and so there's a different marketing for that. You also have to do it in Spanish. You also have to do like there's a different marketing. For that you also have to do it.
Speaker 1:In spanish, you also have to do like there's just different it's so it when you start to really map it out. Yeah, it takes months and months and it's a lot of fun like you're making a whole business plan based on building a business.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting because there's so. Many people are probably wondering why am I asking about this? But there's a lot of overlap with a very different industry in financial services and banking. One of the reason we started this podcast, muslim money talk, is that we were trying to get people more familiar with our brand without hitting them really hard with download, download, download, try this bank, try this bank. It's that? Oh no, we're kestrel. We talk about all things but muslim and money related, and now we're actually pushing the digital bank part.
Speaker 2:I'm saying this in the last five minutes of the episode, so if you really care, you'll be listening to this part. But now we've started pushing the marketing a bit more. We've done live events. We did Muslim Tech Fest, where we unveiled the debit card and the usage. So the idea is that we spent 52 weeks hopefully getting into our households and having people watch us and hearing about us, getting people to know us as founders as well, and now it's like okay, take the next step with us, try us out, put your money with us, let's see where it goes.
Speaker 1:I think with any industry, you just have to be smart about it. I always say take that step back. Understand who your audience is, but also understand how you can tap into new audiences. Audiences, but also understand how you can tap into new audiences. And one of the key phrases we always used at Disney is test and adjust.
Speaker 1:With anything we did, it would always be something that was done soft, and then we test and adjust to make sure that when we are going out big with it, we understand how to troubleshoot to get to that point, and it's something that a lot of people don't do and I think it's very, very effective in whatever industry you're in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, they've taken that Silicon Valley idea and they've applied it to businesses around the world. Now it's the two-week sprint adjustments, right? So like let's test the hypothesis, let's see if it works, let's change it if it doesn't.
Speaker 1:I mean like, let's test the hypothesis, let's see if it works, let's change it if it doesn't. I mean we do it in film, like when we're building out a film, we are doing um focus groups and we're showing them films that are not finished and adjusting there's not enough humor, oh, there's not enough action, oh, that character really isn't hitting. We need to add this always gotcha.
Speaker 2:yeah, okay, naville, we are completely out of time, but thank you so much. I think this is really interesting for a lot of reasons. I hope you had fun as well.
Speaker 1:I did Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Thank you, as-salamu alaykum Wa-alaykum as-salam. Thank you for listening to the Muslim Money Talk podcast. If you like what you heard, then please subscribe to Muslim Money Talk. Wherever you might have been listening to this, give us a like and share it with someone who you think might be interested. It really, really helps us out. Thank you, as-salamu alaykum, and see you next time.