The Art of Film Funding

Preserve Your Legacy: How Chance McClain Turns Family Stories into Hollywood-Style Films

• The Art of Film Funding

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Chance McClain is a creative powerhouse, blending a rich background in filmmaking, radio, and theater with a passion for storytelling. As the founder of Heritage Films, Chance has created more than 800 feature-length documentaries, celebrating family stories and life legacies. His work has connected generations, preserving the essence of individuals and families through visually stunning films.

A proud Army veteran and a pioneer in narrative innovation, Chance’s career spans sports radio, Broadway musicals, and entrepreneurial filmmaking. From directing a Streamy-nominated film to writing and producing an off-Broadway musical while running a sports station, his versatility and dedication shine through.

Today, Chance leads his team at Heritage Films with a heartfelt commitment to authenticity, merging technical expertise with an artistic touch. Whether inspiring others to embrace their past or discussing the art of storytelling, he captivates audiences and helps them see the value in preserving their own legacies.

Claire:

What if your life story was worthy of the big screen? Not a slideshow, not a selfie reel, but a full-length, beautifully shot documentary that your grandkids will treasure like gold? Today we're diving into the heart of legacy with a man who's made over 800 cinematic life stories. Chance McClain is a creative powerhouse, blending a rich background in filmmaking, radio and theater with a passion for storytelling. As the founder of Heritage Films, chance has created more than 800 feature-length documentaries celebrating family stories and life legacies. His work has connected generations, preserving the essence of individuals and families through visually stunning films. A proud Army veteran and a pioneer in narrative innovation, chance's career spans sports, radio, broadway, musicals and entrepreneurial filmmaking. From directing a streamy nominated film to writing and producing an off-Broadway musical while running a sports station, his versatility and dedication shine through. And, carol, this must be a record number of documentaries for one person.

Carole:

Absolutely. That's why we're so excited to have you with us today, Chance. Thank you for joining.

Chance:

Carol, thank you so much. It is so gosh. I feel like I'm sitting in someone else's skin as you read the intro. It's just you kind of stumble along, don't you?

Carole:

Yes, well, you've done a good job stumbling along. You've made over 800 documentaries, so tell us how you started this journey.

Chance:

Sure, well, I had already had a pretty diverse creative background radio, the off-Broadway show, a narrative musical film and several other little offshoots, music songs. I got into the creative space from writing a song that went viral about Yao Ming the basketball player, and that's what set me off on this journey. And then, a little over a decade ago, a friend of mine basically said hey, can you film my dad? He's turning 75. And I want to make sure my kids know who their football is. And I had no skill or prep, but I'm like sure, I'll sit down and visit with your dad. And and that turned into the first film.

Chance:

About about a year later, my stepdad told us at Thanksgiving that he had stage four pancreatic cancer and he and my mom had been married for a while and very close with them. He was my father for all intents and purposes, just a great, great guy. But I certainly didn't know a lot about his background and I had done, by this point, a handful of these little life story shows. I didn't even know what to call them at the time, but I asked if he would sit down and do the film and I had a friend do the interview and he talked to him on a Tuesday and he passed away on Sunday.

Chance:

So he was told he had a year to 18 months to live, and it ended up only being about two months, and it was only after that that my wife and I recognized that this is something that's beyond just another project or a gig, but it's something that people need. So we started what does this look like? How do we do it? And now, here now, I'm visiting with you, carol. We are still figuring it out, but we definitely have a system that works and, thank God, there are enough people out there that love their families and feel like a film is a way to lock down the stories and the values and the principles. It's just, it's a good medium for it.

Carole:

It's an excellent medium. So tell us how you approach the story development when you're working with families who've never been in front of a camera.

Chance:

You nailed it. My goal number one. You certainly hit it exactly right. They've never been in front of a camera. We swoop in with lights and cameras and microphones and clappers and all the all the fun toys of our trade, but we want them to forget any of that crap. Is there we? I just want to talk to you, I want to visit with you and make you forget all that's there.

Chance:

Um, the way we approach the story is we have the subject, the key subject, or as well as the people that care most about them fill out some forms or have some conversations with me ahead of time. So I know, I know just enough to be dangerous about them. I have a. I have a going back to 2014. I wrote up like generic questions that I would want to ask my great grandma or my grandma, and so I have this raw starting place. But then, when I start getting feedback from their children, from their siblings, from their high school friends, college roommates, anybody, anybody that cares about them, you start to develop a composite of who they are as a person, and my goal as a filmmaker is to present who they authentically are as a person, and that's where the story comes from.

Chance:

You start to see patterns, trends Like, for example, if four or five people want some lady to talk about her high school years or being on the drill team or whatever it may be.

Chance:

Well, I realized that was important to her and it's important to her family. So I need to linger on that a little bit while we're visiting. As far as creating an actual narrative story, which is what we do, using all of the tools of all of the Robert McKee and Joseph Campbell, all of those stuff of what is the Robert McKee and Joseph Campbell, all of those stuff of what is a movie, what is a story, we want to stick with that. At beginning, middle and end, payoffs, emotional swings we want all of that in there. That all happens in post. We have the long conversation and I have an idea of where it's going. I take notes while I'm visiting with a subject or subjects, and then we have a post-production meeting of you know, here's the, here's the film we thought we were making, here's what actually happened in the interview, and then here's the story that is.

Carole:

Wow, so it really comes to life in post, like everybody says, that's where the film was born. That's great to know. So what you're doing is you're blending high-end film equipment with deeply personal stories. So, uh, can you tell us more of what the production is like behind the scenes, when you come in with all your equipment, etc.

Chance:

yeah, absolutely yeah, so we'll show.

Chance:

Well, I, I can use it and I so when we started, like I make, I've made films, I've made movies, I've made, I like, I like production, I like gear, I like, I like the whole scene of showing up. I've worked on big movie sets. I know that jam and I like it. So when I started I wanted to bring that to the families. So we would roll in with five or six people in a crew and set up and boom mics and all you know it was just this big old calamity in their living room. And in fact when we first started we would go to a soundstage in Bel Air and then you hit a few breaks and you realize you don't know what to do, kind of like the Ron Burgundy I don't know what to do with my hands. The person would be sitting there on a break and it was awkward. So then we started going to people's homes. But yeah, so as the company has evolved, we've made it less intimidating. We still have all the same equipment, but rather than having five or six lights, we've got three really, really good ones. The right equipment, the right tool. And then we used to have cameramen behind every camera. Well, now technology has made it so that we can build my little.

Chance:

I'm doing the interview and I've got monitors from each of the cameras two, three, four, however many it is. Where I can, I'm watching autofocus and if they drift out, I can make the changes with technology so that there's not so that I'm talking to you, you're not performing to me, and three cameramen, we're just talking and um. But we come in, we show up on site while the crew, which may be two or three people tops um, is setting up. I'm in a different room with our key subject or subjects and we're just chit-chatting. I've read all about them. I know that she was in drill team, I know that he got into the oil business or whatever they did. We're just kind of loosely talking, talking, chit-chatting, and then eventually we carry that very casual conversation into where all the equipment is. We don't make a big deal about it, we plop down and I said, okay, we, and now we're. Now we're making a movie as opposed to having coffee in the kitchen.

Carole:

Wonderful. You've got them all relaxed and and they will allow you to work in one room while they're in another. That's perfect. That's when they're comfortable with you.

Chance:

Yes, ma'am.

Carole:

Well, tell us one of the most unexpected or touching moments that you've captured in a heritage film.

Chance:

Boy. There's 800 of them, everyone, every. I'm telling you. It's so trite to say everyone has a story to tell, but I'm telling you they do. You just got to get authentic, get real. Real, I didn't prepare one, but when you said it, the first one that came to my mind was I was doing a film for a gentleman who's a in his early 80s.

Chance:

He had two sons. The youngest son is the one that that wanted the film of dad. Well, the two boys, when they were young like 16 and 18, got into some big pissing match about something, got in a fight and they literally hadn't talked for 35 years. It was a true fracture in the family. Now dad got along with both boys, but they don't. And I don't mean grandma died and they said hello at the funeral. The men had never talked. Well, dad mentioned this rift in the show we call it a show in the interview and so I kind of just stored that there.

Chance:

And then we get done and I'm talking to my client, the son, after and I told him it went really well. I said you know he had a lot of good things to say about you and your brother and I know you guys went really well, I said you know he had a lot of good things to say about you and your brother, and I know you guys don't talk and he's like, yeah, expletive, expletive, that guy. And, by the way, the fight, the fight was literally over a car and a girl, a car and a girl. When they were teenagers they just took different paths in life and hated each other. Well, what makes it touching is when the film was done, my client sent it to his father, who sent it to the other son and the other son watched it and about a month after we had wrapped and it was all not wrapped the film was done.

Chance:

I get a text from my client, one of these texts you ever get, these that are this long and long story. Short, long text, short. His brother reached out to him and they had reconnected and their families were together. He was te makes me more cry that he texted me from the family being together and it was. And it was because it wasn't me, it was because dad told his whole story and buried in his dad's story was some tension between his dad and his brother that they solved anyway. So that's, that's one, that's just some. Some guy down the street from from you. Right now, those types of stories are sitting right there.

Carole:

That's terrific. And they got together again because they were missing. What a deal they missed all that time in life together. So your background includes sports, radio, broadway and filmmaking. So how do all these inform your storytelling process?

Chance:

Yeah, gosh Well, sports. I think it goes further than that. You touched on some of the creative endeavors I worked in, but I also I was in the army for four years. I had several different sales jobs. I worked in the oil patch selling downhole drilling tools. For a couple of years I worked in industrial sales in uniform business. I worked in restaurants.

Chance:

I have this crazy, crazy background where none of it seems to click together the Legos that God dumped in my lap. I did not build one set. I made something really weird and it never made sense until I had been doing my Heritage Films for a couple years, where I basically have the ability to find some common ground with about anybody. Have the ability to find some common ground with about anybody. You know in Dale Carnegie how to Win Friends and Influence People. There's two key things that come out of that book. Number one is find common ground with somebody. Now you've got something to hook into and then ask short questions with long answers. Well, that's my company. I want to ask short questions with long answers. I want to find common ground so that you'll open up to me, and all of that disparate background is what allowed to do it. You know I've got Broadway chops. I lived in New York for a while while my show was failing. That put me super attenuated with a high, high, high arts community. Very, very and I love these people, the artsy, fartsy people. They're great, the people that their emotion is right on the. It's right there. Oil and gas background Well, heck, I'm in Texas. About a third of my films I speak oil and gas right. Ranches, farms. I've got background there. I'm comfortable there.

Chance:

Sports radio what I think sports radio did because I didn't just work in sports radio, I also worked for the've done have been with famous people politicians, celebrities, athletes. Well, you don't wanna walk in there or just like crazy rich people that have their own way of going about life. You can't be starstruck or you lose credibility. Well, I had my exposure. I got to meet Kobe. I got to meet Shaquille O'Neal. I got to all these people. Um, help me in in that regard. The internet component I got into video. Um, I got when technology kind of allowed it, when you could afford it. I sold my four, I cashed in my 401k to buy a bunch of equipment because I had to make this crazy musical movie that we were going to release online. That was kind of the beginning of my. I've always liked technology, but that that's when the wave started where I've tried to stay on top of technology the whole time and through it, all through, through all of the creative endeavors.

Chance:

At the root of it is that story structure. I mentioned Joseph Campbell, robert McKee, the best book in the world on it. To me it's the simplest. Okay, it's like coloring book level, simple, but it's called Invisible Ink by Brian McDonald and it's just another way to break down what a story is. You know the save the cat, those types of things to break down what a story is. You know the save the cat, those type of things. What a story is? What are the beats of a story? And and whether whether it's a joke, like a joke is a story or it's a. It's Game of Thrones, eight seasons, multi arc. At the root of it is what a story is and and we take all of that into I'm talking to grandma and grandpa for a day or two and we're going to stuff that into the Invisible Inc story or we're going to stuff it into Joseph Campbell, or we're going to stuff it because it's there. It's there and the proper story format is what makes it accessible to people now and future generations.

Carole:

Wow, that's wonderful. What I like best is that you've had all the sales jobs, because filmmakers have to be paralegals, they have to know law, they have to be able to do their accounting, they almost have to be a bookkeeper, and sales is the one thing they don't want to have anything to do with it oh gosh. Without sales.

Chance:

Don't, I know it. So the first thing I ever did that I could say that made me want to get into this. It was about 2000,. I'm going to say three or four. I went to one of those Dove Simmons two-day seminars. Remember Dove? Yes, and I was a fish out of water. Okay, I'm walking in there and there's people in their berets and super like, these people are artists and I'm not, but I take things like that very seriously. So I took obsessively, took notes and he he touched on what you just said, Carol. He was like look, to get started in this business, it takes money and your number one job you got the next blockbuster. That's great. If you don't have money, you don't have nothing. And so he went into that about there's some salesmanship Getting a check from somebody. You are selling yourself and you're selling your vision.

Carole:

I haven't thought about that in 20 years, but he absolutely talked about that dove was so great at that because he I was selling shorthands of film at that time. So always invite me to uh his events and say if you really want good film cheap, talk to geraldine. Oh my my.

Chance:

God. So you knew Dove, or know Dove? Oh, my gosh, yeah, oh, you were royalty to me then Because he had this like you know, once you get into the business, people look at it almost like a cheesy introduction, kind of like filmmakers with Roger Corman, they kind of, oh, he makes B-movies, but they all watched them and they all liked them, like, right. So I, because I wasn't in the industry, I held onto his every word. I still, I still do dude things I learned in that class. I apply on every single film. Like he's like, look, you're overthinking your. Shot it in frame, is it in focus? Hit record that's great.

Carole:

Now we sold to corman. I loved corman because, of course, he uh what they call the b movies spielberg took a b movie, uh, with jaws and this and corman had to rethink how he was going to survive because all of the real movie makers, all the studios, then jumped on to Corman for his ideas.

Chance:

Yes, oh, and his back. I mean my gosh with, with Jim Cameron's background in his in his scene shop. I, uh, oh, you just made me so. And, by the way, just to mention Jaws to me, you just mentioned to me like the greatest movie ever made, I think. I just think it's perfect, I think it's a perfect movie.

Carole:

Yes, it truly is. Well, that brings me to funding. So let's talk funding. How do you usually finance heritage films and how has your business moved since then, and did your sales ability help you with your financing?

Chance:

I uh to answer your question yes, yes and yes, the I it's. I have been in sales and I was good at sales, but I was never comfortable in sales. I had that terrible imposter syndrome and I was so excited to visit with you because the the the niche topic that you're covering, is something that I feel I feel on the outside of our industry, because you could call these vanity pieces almost, but they're not. But, but we're making films that the families are funding them. What we create is we don't have this giant audience. When you make a movie, when Steven Spielberg makes a movie, he wants a billion people to watch it. And even when Ken Burns make a documentary, he his goal is how broad can I be so that there's a wide audience for it? Well, my goal is very, very. It's the family and the people they love the most. It's a very small audience and so the funding out of the gate was done by. People would find out about me, and I would. I would tell them here's how much it costs and then they would pay for it. I have never had to go out and seek outside funding for the productions the family funding themselves. As the business has developed, it's definitely been systemized and I have a sales guy now. So when people call he handles a lot of that. I still do some If still, I still stay, if I, if, if a lead comes in and I see something that's very, very germane to my life, I I'm like, if they say they love Dr Pepper, I'm calling them because I love Dr Pepper.

Chance:

Um, but the business itself has been it's you could say it's funded by the audience. You could say it looks a lot like a Kickstarter, because the creation that they're making they're funding and so even in our credits, when the executive producer line comes up, it is my client. Because what do we know in the film world? I learned this from Dove Executive producer does two things he pays for it, he gets the money together and and he signs off on, signs off on it. Well, that is what my client does. They're going to pay for the movie and then when we get to where it's review time and they're ready to do a client review, they watch it and we have an online tool that they use to give us feedback. You know we'll misspell someone's name. I might spell your name one of the other ways to spell, carol and you're like, hey, that's not how I spell my name, so I think I answered your question. I hope, yes, you did.

Carole:

That's really great. You had a great idea and it funded itself. But you had to do the work and get the referrals, because Texas is really big on referrals. It's who you know and people talk to each other.

Chance:

Absolutely. I have no business without referrals and, oddly enough, we lump our referrals into repeats. Also, we've had families that we've done four and five different films. We I'm a Walt Disney devotee, the man I love. I love what he did with the parks, I love what he did in animation, I love what he did narrative work, documentary work. I just think. I just think he was a one of a kind guy and he believed very deeply in not just quality of execution so quality of your product, your film but also in quality of experience.

Chance:

And we have brought that into our business, where when we show up, we want not before we show up we want you to have fun. Look, we're about to go down memory lane with your family and you got photo albums. You got all this crap that's been sitting on shelves gathering dust. We'll get them out and have some fun looking through it. You're going to be stirring dad's memories, which is going to be good for the production, but you need to enjoy that. You need to watch your dad have these memories too and, oh my gosh, I remember that so that when we come in they're bright eyed and bushy tailed because they've had this little trip down memory lane where they've had fun, and then we just do it again over the course of a day, two or more.

Carole:

Oh, this is wonderful.

Chance:

Well, tell us how people can reach you heritage films. Sure, yourheritagefilmcom, and we also have um farmandranchfilmscom, so many of our films, like you mentioned, we go, we're all over the country but we started in texas and a lot of our productions have been out out on the ranches or out in the farms and they were different enough of a production that we started a dedicated. Basically it's the same as a heritage film, but the land is one of the characters is the way I explain it. But yourheritagefilmcom gets to us.

Carole:

Okay, that's great. So do clients ever license their fees for public use or festivals, or are they purely private?

Chance:

they. Thusly they've been purely private. So part of part of what I mentioned before is the, the intimacy. Yes, they get very intimate. They get we I I have cried more than most people you've talked to. We have. Five to ten percent of our films are people at the level of hospice. Now, 90% are just regular folks, perfectly normal, great. But given the nature of what we do, there are certain people that get really really bad news and they know they can call us so. Because we get so intimate, they keep them personal. They really do this is communicating with the key person and the family. I can tell you this we've done some that should.

Chance:

We did a film for this fella. He was telling me a story. I could talk about him forever, but the culmination of this one story was when he was about 40 years old. He had a backpack and satchels with a million dollars and he was jumping out of an airplane into Colombia to go rescue a kidnapped engineer in the oil world. And, mind you, when he's telling me this story, I'm thinking this is a fishing story, this is a lie. He's full of it, he's totally full of it. He's living this story. He wants to be the cool grandpa.

Chance:

Well, we get done with the filming, we're going through looking at pictures and then, sure enough, there's a picture of him with skydiving goggles on and a backpack and I'm like, wow, that's boy, he's really, really, really going, he's going far on this one. Well, we get into post-production where we're doing research and stuff. And I'll be damned if there isn't a 1983 New York Times story about the director of security for xyz oil company who made a daring jump into colombia and I'm like, holy crap, made me want to go back and get deeper into the story because I just kind of let him tell his I thought he was lying. Well, there's been time. His life could be a story. There's so many that that would be. And the lessons and stuff that are coming out of the again, the, the guy down the street, they should, they should all be silver screen stories oh wow, that sounds so good.

Carole:

Well um, have you ever thought of turning heritage films into a franchise model?

Chance:

a hundred percent. Yes, there are other people that do things similar to to. I would argue and maybe it's my own hubris, but that we do it better, at a higher level and more of them. But there are people that are doing fantastic work in this space and we have a system Now. You asked me the question half an hour ago about my background. Well, the Army part of it. That is where I learned discipline. That is where I learned processes. That is where I learned processes. That is where I learned systems. We use things literally from my time in the 90s in the Army. Right now, in 2025, we use SOPs, standard operating procedures. We have manuals for stuff. We PMCS our equipment, primary maintenance, checks and services. Our cameras damn, it are in good shape, right, things like that and I believe that the system itself, as far as a business, beyond just filmmaking, that the system that we've created is scalable and is franchisable. So that is, you're reading into my future. So yes, ma'am.

Carole:

That sounds fantastic. So when you handle sensitive stories of family drama on camera, do you have any boundaries you set?

Chance:

I don't, but the families do. So I mentioned the forms that they fill out. Every form has a behind the scenes. We call them landmines, but within, within the families, it's because of Vietnam there's so many people of the of the Vietnam War generation that you know I did a few films where I walked, I stepped on landmines and realized that I triggered some guy that really had some tough stuff in his background. So we included on every form anything we shouldn't discuss, and so I know, I know where and how to avoid those type of things. Now, most of the time and I do mean most of the time they will write that down and then, once we are talking, I'll give you a perfect story, if I may.

Chance:

We are filming a Vietnam era guy. His name's Bruce, and he wrote on there absolutely will not discuss the Vietnam conflict. I said, done so while I was visiting with him. I, uh, I talked up till he got drafted and I said then, you know, you got a crappy letter in the mail and and then you had a couple of years of madness and then, but you got, you got back home and this girl that you had met, I mean clearly she's in the other room. It worked out well, so. So, and this girl that you had met, I mean, clearly she's in the other room. It worked out well, so tell me about how things picked up when you got home and he goes. Yeah, she was what he goes. Let me tell you why. I don't talk about Vietnam.

Chance:

And then he spends an hour giving the most horrible. That involved taking human life with knives in cars, in trucks. It was absolutely horrible. He cried his eyes out. He got mad. He got mad at me, he got mad at the world, calmed down, went through it all, laughed. I thanked him for his service, told him I loved him, told him the world loves you. And when he got done, he said I said well, bruce, you literally said you didn't want to talk about that. So I'm going to honor what you said and we won't include that in the film. Um, but thank you, thank you for that honesty and thank you for and he said I, I, that was the first time in his entire life that he had ever talked about it and he goes. No, I think it's time. By the way, he, he, he was one of those hospice guys. He was, he was, uh, he was on his way out, um, but he said I think it's time and I'd like for you to include it, and so so we did.

Chance:

So that happens more often than you'd care to believe that the loss of children is horrible. These are the most uplifting, fun films, but their life throws us all types of crap right. Life does we try to find the silver linings around things and talk through the tough stuff. And then how did we get stronger from it? And, and it works. But yeah, the sensitive stuff, it's all it's in all of our lives. Ex-spouses is tough. The alcoholic parents abuse, abuse, everything you can fathom. Something happens in that room where they do forget. The cameras are there and they open up to me, to us, to my team, and we defer to that, to the subject and to the executive producer. Anytime something is too over the top, we defer to that, to to the subject and to the executive producer. Anything, anytime something is is too, too over the top, we defer to them and, uh, and it works and it works.

Carole:

But they must be comfortable for you to get to really punch that button where they open up. They have to be in a comfortable place and they have to trust you and like you. Those are the two things they have to get over to give you their heart.

Chance:

Yeah, I try to let them know that I am the surrogate for people with your last name that haven't been born yet. You wish you had this of your great-grandfather, right? He grew up in the let's see 1900, right at the turn of the century. Probably he had a life that is so foreign to you. He might as well be out of a movie. Well, your childhood, mr So-and-so that grew up in the 50s or the 40s, your childhood is going to be just as insane to your great grandkids. Don't you want to tell them what it was like ma'am with your poodle, with your crazy poodle skirts, or or ma'am with your go-go boots and you're 17, looking like that? Don't you want to share that with your kids, great greats that ain't been born? And eventually it clicks in their head that I'm doing an act of service that I wish I had, and I think that's why the barriers go down. I don't think I'm magic.

Carole:

I had, and I think that's why the barriers go down. I don't think I'm magic. Well, you do create a comfortable place for sure. So tell us what advice you have for indie filmmakers who want to create sustainable careers telling meaningful stories without waiting for permission from Hollywood.

Chance:

Number one. It's the same, as I'm sure you've heard a lot Just do it. It's like a Nike commercial Just do it. Chase your dream, use what you have, use what you have and do it. The story, the story has to dominate and rule all. Write your story first and then pick the medium. That's from Dove. Yeah, write the story first and maybe it's a movie, but maybe it's a book, maybe it's and this is from Invisible Ink. Also, maybe it's a painting. You know we're audio only, but the painting behind me it's a digital painting. It's a buddy of mine, it's an artist. That is how he told that story.

Chance:

Embrace failure as learning opportunities. Failure is just. It's a stepping stone to something else. Create more than you consume. That's so huge. It's something I'm 52. Carol, I'm struggling with it now. I love. There's so much wonderful stuff out there and I just want to gobble it all up, but I want to be somebody that makes things more than somebody that consumes things. There's a saying at my company. It's simplify and solve problems. That should be your goal as a filmmaker, whether you're a producer, whether you're a director, whether you're a performer. Simplify and solve problems are the only two things, are two key things that you, I could talk to you for. Okay, most important thing, discipline is more important than motivation. Yes, back to the army. You're gonna. Motivation wanes, but if you're disciplined, you repackage that motivation over and, over and over and over, make it turn it wrote. And if you still love it, if you've done something 150 times in a row and you still want to get it right, you're probably in the right place.

Carole:

This is very true, very true, exactly.

Chance:

Yeah.

Carole:

Thank you so much for the guidance and the information, and we all love your passion. You're doing what you love to do.

Chance:

Yeah, yeah, the whole. You know a lot of time. Advice sounds like do what you want to do and I think that that's close. But if I could use my own life and I am happy, I'm lovely wife, great kids, my daughter works with me, graduated from school and now she works with I love, I love what's happened. But I would say, rather than do what you want, do what comes natural. I think is better, and it may drive you crazy that you're really good at whatever the hell it is, but you're going to. There's something better than joy and happiness. Better than joy and happiness. There's something it's more like satisfaction is actually more rewarding than joy, and that might be the worst advice ever, but it's true for me. There are things that I do that I'm good at, but I'm that are maddening, but they're so satisfying when they're done.

Carole:

Yes, yes and 800 films quite an achievement in one lifetime.

Chance:

I feel like Carol, I swear to you, I don't even think we've got started. You know you're on the right path when you've done it 800 plus times and I'm like, guys, we can be so much better, the families can be so much happier. I think we're on the right path.

Carole:

You're on the right path. Thank you very much, Chance. We really appreciate it, Claire. Thank you.

Claire:

Yes, and Carol, I have to say you took the words right out of my mouth. It's his passion. That passion is what drives this whole thing that he's doing and it's just amazing. I'm so grateful you're doing this work, chance.

Chance:

Thank you so much, claire and Carol. And it's not just me, I know for real. I have a team of people here, although we work under the higher character first and then skills later. One of the films one of the early films a guy told me that people are just we're just really smart monkeys and we can learn to do about anything, but you can't teach trust and you can't teach character. It's either there or it's not so um, so yeah, I've surrounded myself with really great people, one of which is my daughter, so I had a large hand in that one good for you, that's's great.

Carole:

And you know story and you know like Save the Cat or the sequel, any of these books. You read them and you're like, yeah, that was cool.

Chance:

I picked up some good stuff. Read the good ones. Read the greats as if they're holy scripture. Take them so damn seriously. Take notes. They should be highlighted, sharpened. You should try to memorize things from them and then be like I'm gonna get my own uh cynicism out of the way and think, yeah, I know that sounds good, but I can do it this way because I'm special. You're not. Do what the greats say. Do your best. Don't. Don't read for entertainment, read, read to get better. There you you go. More advice. You didn't ask for that's very true, learn your craft.

Chance:

Yes, oh, yes, I love it. Learn while you earn.

Carole:

Learn while you earn Good job. Okay, thank you very much.

Claire:

Thank you, Carol. Okay, Be well everyone. Thanks, Claire.

People on this episode

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Carole Dean

Host
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Heather Lenz

Co-host
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Claire Papin

Producer