Going The Distance - Jim Toscano Interview.mp3
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so there we go all right so we're officially recording okay so
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so
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so
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all right welcome everyone to the rocky series podcast go in the distance you know i always say
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that i can't remember is it go in the distance the rocky series podcast or podcast i don't know
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well i always forget the order that i put it in today we have an awesome special guest his name
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is jim toscano tell me where you're from jim i i know you're east coast but where are you from
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yeah i'm um i'm from we always say uh in this area we're from detroit but i'm from right outside of
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i live right outside of detroit and our production studio is actually in the city of detroit michigan
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all right so this is the first time that jim and i have talked in person but we've chit-chatted and
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talked uh via the interwebs uh throughout the months in fact jim has he contacted me i say you
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contacted me about six eight months ago saying that you were working on something standby to standby and
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today we're going to talk about that project that you messaged me on that you wanted to talk about
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but before we do uh you're from detroit what do you do for work out there so i have a production company
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within detroit uh we do some documentary film work but mostly we do a lot of commercial work
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for the automotive industry so oh so you work basically you you work in film like so this is
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something you kind of do already is you you're behind the camera in production studio type stuff i didn't
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know that yeah we're uh behind the camera it's called free age it started about four years ago yeah you
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know we're in detroit there is a ton of you know automakers here right so we do a lot of social
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media work for chrysler and and ford and chevrolet gm and we do some some smaller documentary work out
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here okay so you do commercials yeah we do we do some commercials mostly web work a lot of social videos
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okay yeah i always love the driving commercials where they have the guy and i'll fly through the
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beach or through the woods in his car and it says this is uh this is not how you're supposed to drive
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this is a stunt driver right right yeah yeah we hire those stunt drivers okay i just love that whoever
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goes off the lot thinking hey where's the nearest beach i can drive my car through right although we do
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a lot of jeep stuff in moab it doesn't get more treacherous than that so oh wow okay yeah yeah so you
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contacted me now may i ask how did you find me did you find the show before you contacted me or how did
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that work on your end yeah it was the show and it was from mike kunda you know we were i think when i
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contacted you i must have been talking to to mike i must have been talking to mike and i think he had an
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interview with you that night so i tuned into the podcast okay yeah and then and then i reached out
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okay so that's that's the lead folks so jim here you are friends with mike and mike kunda is who you're
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referring to mike kunda for probably a lot of our listeners know mike kunda has uh been on a few podcasts
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already he was on the slycast he's been on our podcast and he's been in the rocky community of course for
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many years you were friends with him before or how did you meet him i met mike on the set of rocky
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balboa oh wow so what was that 10 years ago maybe yeah i think it was 2006 already if you can believe
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it because rambo 4 was 2008 right right yeah so i just i met mike on the street uh on the set of rocky
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balboa i was working in advertising then i had a down weekend i was in philadelphia working i had a down
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weekend you know i am a rocky fan so i headed downtown saw all the trucks there was mike you know standing on
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the corner with a giant painting that he painted uh he looked like sly he sounded like sly and there
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was a ton of people already gravitating toward him okay so we're gonna get to that okay so before we
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get to the mic meeting why don't we get into your love of rocky i assume since you went to philly to
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see the filming or some part of rocky balboa how did you get into rocky what was your first earliest
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memories or something like that yeah i gotta you know i've been thinking a lot about this because
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people have been asking me and and i almost can't remember not being a rocky fan but the first
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memory i do have is watching uh rocky three on probably like the usa network with my older brothers
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and it was kind of like they were almost like jim meet rocky you know this is uh gonna be a part of
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your life kind of thing you know it's like right i say it's almost like a religion here for our family
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but yeah it's a big tradition you know and it's uh it's a genuine tradition in our family and i
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but that was i think that was my first uh my first memory of it was watching that with my brothers
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that's awesome yeah yeah it starts with a family and i'm trying to do it with my family my kids
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uh my before i married my wife she had to watch the rocky series with me right and if she didn't like
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them i would have uh broken off the engagement simple as that yeah it'd be tough it'd be tough
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well i've always said jim and i tell me if i'm wrong but people that don't like rocky they're just not
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my type of people i mean it's true i you know it's it's there's so much that you know you kind of
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identify with or love about it it's hard to imagine uh somebody that that wouldn't you know you'd you'd
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second guess well why what's wrong yeah well yeah and people often say oh you're adrian and they always
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do like anyone that says that's what rocky is doesn't know the films hasn't watched them
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and i'm always surprised what how many actually how many people actually haven't seen the films i work
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with a lot of guys in the navy here and i'm actually continuously surprised how many people
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like males i'm not trying to be sexist here misogynistic but just how many guys uh haven't seen this film
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it's it's amazing to me no i i agree you know first of all like you said you know everyone's like
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oh yo adrian what a cheesy thing i just tell them just watch the first movie it's the perfect
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independent film to me it's a perfect film to me you know i was just telling someone the other day
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it's got everything it's got a mafia element to it a boxing element gazo it's a love story and to me i
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always say it's like it's the first independent film to me like it's like the original independent film
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right uh that's that's how it feels and uh it's a serious movie you know like you said everyone
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they think of rocky three and four and you know the circus and all that stuff but uh it's a it's a
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pretty deep movie and i am surprised that people that haven't seen it you know we had you know some
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people help with the film you know like we had uh you know a guy to do the audio mix and uh you know we
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had someone doing color color correction for us and color grade they hadn't seen the movie and you
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know i had like a couple copies of the dvd at the studio and just said like all right you know you
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got to go home and watch this and you know and then we'll you know we'll make sure your heart's in this
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no that's interesting uh well i might as well talk about that little part now because i find that a
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little bit fascinating that somebody would work on a documentary i guess treat it like a job sure but
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if i was doing a documentary on killer whales but i hated the animal or never knew anything about them
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i would find it odd to work on a project that you knew nothing about so someone can like a color grader
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can be a little bit removed from it you could show them you know stills from the original rocky and
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say like oh you know we kind of want it to look like this you know or give them something to go to
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and they they could kind of work in a silo and do that and same with sound design to some degree the
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cool thing was that these couple guys that helped us out they hadn't seen the movie but they loved the
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doc that we that we were working on and they're like wow this you know this guy this and and now i'm
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starting to feel like this towards the movie and it was cool to to there's not many people i know that
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haven't seen rocky so for them to have this fresh eye on it i said okay one guy we said kind of maybe
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you should hold off and watch the movie when you're done and then tell us if what you think then just to
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have that like fresh eye on it see it is strange to me like whenever someone says they haven't seen it
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it's pretty unbelievable but it was cool to get their perspective and and have them kind of digging the
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documentary even without seeing the movie now did they say what their thoughts were of the film after they
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watched it oh they loved it they totally everyone's so surprised back to that thing where they think it's
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it's clever lang and the russian and and right once you you get them to calm down and take the time to just
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watch the movie one night they love it they can't believe they haven't seen it i almost envy people who get
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to watch it for the first time as an adult oh i know i know i i want to watch it with them i uh clay is our audio
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guy and i said man i almost want to go home with you and watch it with you just to you know see it
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through your eyes a little bit right it's a pretty cool thing to do and that was the experience i had
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with i have five sons and one daughter my three oldest boys they've all watched the series with me
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and that's kind of my thing as a father i get to do with them is is to watch these movies through their
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eyes and if any of them don't like it i just disown them as simple as that just cut off their food supply
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that's right but they're three for three so far so the three younger ones are too young right now
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they're six and three-year-old twins but we'll get there about five or six years very cool you have
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you ever been to philadelphia before because you went there to watch rocky balboa the film being filmed
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had you been there before or was this a first time trip but no i have been there before and the funny
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thing is maybe my very first uh out of state road trip me and a buddy of mine dan uh we were 18 and we
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drove to philly and back within like two days it was like a weekend road trip then we just took off
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yeah we you know we didn't tell our parents we just went on this little adventure and it was it was to
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run the rocky step it was like let's go to philly man let's check it out i mean we we stopped in uh
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atlantic city on the way home and and did a bunch of things but the main objective was to get to
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philadelphia and run up those steps so that was when i was 18 that was my first oh man what was that like
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what was that like to run up those steps as an 18 year old it was unbelievable it was like we walked
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into the movie the film became real it blew me away it was so cool i haven't had a chance my brother
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ruben oh really my brother ruben has been there he went there he went on a cross-country road trip with
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his wife 10 years ago when they first got married kind of a honeymoon trip and that was one of their
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stops yeah to this day i envy and i'm jealous of him and i wouldn't say jealous because jealous would
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mean i don't want him to have the experience so i want him to have the experience but i want it too
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so i just haven't had a chance to make my own road trip out there and one day i will even if i'm 90
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years old i'm gonna you know i don't care if i'm crawling up on my last dying breath in fact i would
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love to die on the steps go up there and die of a heart attack the best way i'll be so happy 95 year
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old ryan oh yeah it was cool man it was it was unbelievable and then the next time i went i think
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actually probably was for the the rocky balboa filming that was even weirder i mean because to see like mixed gym i
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actually saw stallone dressed as rocky outside of the bar wow uh and i i actually i kind of snuck i was
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really close on on set and i was standing right there when he'd take breaks and i always tell everybody
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you know when this happened i was always telling everybody i actually said to him hey sly this is a
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really really cool you're doing this movie again and reprising the character and he like talked to me as
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rocky i mean he didn't say much but he did like a little uh oh yeah thank you you know i appreciate that
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he was dressed in rocky clothes oh in kensington to me and i was like oh my god this is so crazy
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that's crazy so you you have actually in that moment he was focused on you and you on him yeah yeah for one
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second one you know he was he he leaned up against the bar to like you know the lucky seven bar yep yeah
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he leaned up against the bar to just to take a break in between takes and he was bouncing the ball and i just
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kind of leaned up on the wall by the wall next to him and acted like he was supposed to be there and
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just said you know hey sly this is really cool yeah so we talked to each other for one minute one you
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know that's amazing but it was really cool it was funny of course this is crazy the fact that you can
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you kept your cool enough to even say those words i i don't know i like to think that i would be smart and i
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know he doesn't want us to be blubbering idiots but i just and i'm sure he gets old type of fans when
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they run into him but ah i i probably will live and die and never interact with them so the fact that
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you've done that that's pretty incredible it was pretty cool so this was the same trip that you ran
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into mike right right yeah okay so let's get into this so you you run into mike you see who he is and we
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we all know that he's the the impersonal rocky impersonator he does the yo the yo rocky film
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turn philadelphia so i'll give him a plug for that so you guys are if any of you fans rocky fans are in
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philadelphia and you just want to see the sites of where rocky was filmed my understanding of course is
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mike kunda does an amazing job of that in character talks about behind the scenes stuff and you name it so
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it's quite the interactive and informative tour is my understanding absolutely he's he is the best and
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that it's funny because i wanted to ask you you know what did you think of him and uh and i think the
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way you just described him is is perfect i mean that all right good well he was kind enough to come on our
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show when we were just nine episodes in the fact when we interviewed him probably we probably only had
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four or five episodes out and he took a leap of faith to give a couple of ham and eggers who have no
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idea what we're doing and to be fair i still don't know what i'm doing but he he came on the
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show and was gracious with his time and gave us some incredible stories and shared stories from his
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novel uh or not his novel sorry his book his account of his life called uh cue the rocky music
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he's awesome he's just amazing so you ran into him and you did you know who he was before you ran into
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him no i i had no idea and i don't i don't think he was who we know him to be today back then exactly
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yeah i ran into him like i said he was standing on the corner people were starting to gravitate toward
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him and he was just a really nice guy you know so i i started uh a conversation with him and we hung out
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for a couple hours there on the street and i obviously picked up on his knowledge of the movies
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and he was a perfect guy to be with there in the streets of philadelphia while they're filming rocky
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balboa that when i was walking away you know all right good to see you good to meet you he said you
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know check me out uh i'm on the stallone zone and so i said oh and i thought i thought i'll have to
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check that out someday but the thing was i i worked in philly the rest of that week and i swear he was
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on the local news every single night i was in town it was like that you were downtown in kensington
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pennsylvania with uh rocky superfan mike kunday and it was like every night i thought wow i gotta i gotta
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keep track of this guy this is really something so when i went home back to detroit every once in a while i
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maybe once a month or something just kind of check in and oh there he was always checking in and
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offering some some kind of insight in the rocky films and i thought wow this guy's really really
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dedicated to it you saw this part of him being a big in the news big in the local area but where is you as
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a filmmaker or this is your first this success this is your first attempt at a documentary outside of the
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car industry or yeah okay yeah this is you know i've worked on some other docs that uh part of other docs
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um and we're working on some things now but no back back then i was just getting into filmmaking and
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and video production when i went home after after a while i started thinking i want to get into filmmaking
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and i thought god maybe i'll i'll go down to to philly and interview this guy and do like a little a little
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five minute piece just to show that you know how to operate a camera that kind of sure your first
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approach wasn't a full odd documentary was just no yeah absolutely not yeah because i had no idea how to
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do that what i did was uh i kind of kept in contact with him i kept thinking about this let's go do this
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five minute thing and then um he wrote the book and i read the book right away and i thought okay this guy
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is really this is serious you know this is a a serious thing so i uh i bought a camera and i actually drove
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down there from detroit me and one other guy and the intention was to do like a little five minute film
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but as soon as i got down there i have to say the first thing that i knew i was in for a lot more was uh
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interviewing his parents oh wow and yeah i uh you know i actually didn't even interview mike at first we
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did uh an interview with larry holmes actually the uh heavyweight former heavy heavyweight champ yeah
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it's awesome when i met his parents and i filmed them they poured their hearts out on camera and you know they were
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i was you know really impressed with you know how how serious they took it uh how serious they took mike
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in general how supportive they were also how over the years they were worried about him he mike has truly
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dedicated his life to Rocky related, to being an impersonator, to working these tours. They poured
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their hearts out. Eventually so did Mike and so did his wife. I'll tell you, as soon as I was just
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telling Mike's dad this the other day, when I was leaving his house, they let us spend the night at
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the house and everything like that. When I was leaving his house, he kind of slapped me on the
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back and said, this is a great thing you're doing, Jim. We really appreciate this and went on and on.
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I told him the other day, I said, Mr. Kunda, Mike Sr., I only thought I was doing a five-minute
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thing. The way you looked at me and the way you thanked me, I knew we were going to be able to
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just stop with a little five-minute piece. That was the genesis of it. You had more than you bargained
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for, but you were happy to take that on. Absolutely. What point did you say to yourself,
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okay, we've got more than a five-minute video here. How do you approach Mike on this? Dude,
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I came here to give a five-minute fluff piece on your life. It turns out there's more here.
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How much did you... I guess the question I have, I don't know how to make a documentary,
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but I've seen them, right? I know there's stuff that people put in documentaries from the past,
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the future, the present. You were filming the present at this time with his parents and him,
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but I should also say for full disclosure, I haven't had an opportunity to see the film,
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and we'll talk about that. I want to see the film, so maybe you can talk at the end how
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that may or may not occur for people like me. Sure. So I haven't seen the film, but I've seen
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documentaries, and I know that now you've... How much access does Mike give you? How does this work?
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Does he say, hey, here's my diary, here's all my home footage? How does this work?
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The cool thing is, what we kind of did was we interviewed Mike and several members of his family,
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and they gave us a lot about his past. We talked a lot in past tense. When Mike was nine years old,
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he did this, so we did that, and at the same time, we were covering the present. We were covering current events that Mike might have a gig,
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or Mike was going on this... They went to Philadelphia with a big group of people,
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so Mike would tip us off on... Just keep us updated on things he was doing,
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and we would kind of go out there when we could, capture those present moments while still picking up whatever interviews we could
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with people that knew him. Yeah, we were lucky to get a little bit of both, you know, to get Mike's current story,
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what I've recently been referring to as the hero's origin story.
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Right.
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It was a very minimal crew. It was usually me and one or two other people. It was all self-funded.
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We would just choose times when we thought we can get a... We can go down there for a weekend and get a lot out of it,
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that kind of thing.
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And how many days was your principal filming?
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Well, it was shot over... It was over a span of five years, but we probably... We'd go down there for like a long weekend one year,
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and then maybe not do anything again for a whole other year.
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Okay.
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So I think we made roughly half a dozen trips out to see him for at least a long weekend each time.
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I was just going to say, when we got a lot out of those long weekends, now that we're finally finished with this thing,
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we've been talking about it and thinking like, we only went down there X amount of times,
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but we sure have a lot of footage to work with and to choose from, for sure.
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Was there ever a point where you're like, this isn't going to happen?
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Not really. No, not really.
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But when we made this last stride to finish this thing, I think if we didn't finish it now,
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then maybe it would get a little bit dicey.
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But no, there was never... There was too much invested in it time-wise,
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and everyone knew we were working on it.
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And Mike and his family, we couldn't let them down.
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And the other thing that we talk about, Danny Giannino, the editor on this,
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we talk about is we're both huge Rocky fans,
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and it would have spoiled Rocky in general if we wouldn't have got this thing done.
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Yeah, you've got to go to the distance.
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You have to.
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It would have been just such a bummer not to finish it.
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But honestly, we always knew we'd finish it.
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We had to.
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That's kind of how I feel like with my podcast,
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even if I have one listener, by the time I'm done the Rocky series,
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I've got to go the distance.
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I can't stop, and I've got to stop at Cree 2 now, you know what I mean?
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Because we're breaking down the films one by one.
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We're on Rocky 4 right now.
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Yeah, I have the same idea.
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It would be kind of like a bummer just to quit halfway through,
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like round 7 or something like that.
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You've got to go all the way.
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Yeah, that's it. That's it for sure, man.
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It would have hurt to not finish it.
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So what was the runtime of your film?
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It's about 55 minutes.
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Okay.
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When you were done, how do you get a distributor?
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Who do you call?
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Who do you talk to?
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How does that work?
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We were really close to being finished,
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and we gave ourselves a deadline that was earlier this month.
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We had this, what we call the special screening here in Detroit,
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and it was kind of number one to set this deadline.
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Like, let's get this thing tightened up and ready for people to start seeing.
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So we had this special screening,
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and it was a lot of friends and family and local fans and people that helped work on it,
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and people that we've been telling about the film to for years.
22:18 --> 22:21
It was just to kind of celebrate the finish of it.
22:21 --> 22:23
So now, you asked about distributors.
22:23 --> 22:27
So now what we're going to do is start submitting this to film festivals.
22:27 --> 22:32
And I think like the special screening we had did a lot to give us a little buzz,
22:32 --> 22:34
a little media buzz.
22:34 --> 22:37
We got a lot of great feedback about the film.
22:37 --> 22:41
I think that will help us go into the submissions for the film festivals.
22:41 --> 22:42
Okay.
22:42 --> 22:44
I wanted to ask you how that premiere went.
22:44 --> 22:45
Oh, it was awesome.
22:45 --> 22:46
It was so cool.
22:46 --> 22:49
I mean, everyone really seemed to love it.
22:49 --> 22:51
It exceeded expectations.
22:51 --> 22:53
We were super excited, going into it, a little bit nervous.
22:54 --> 22:54
Sure.
22:54 --> 22:59
I said to myself, you know, and to the other guys, like, man, I hope when we have this Q&A,
22:59 --> 23:03
people are interested in it enough to ask questions.
23:03 --> 23:10
I'm happy to say, like, we basically got kicked out of the theater because people were asking so many questions.
23:10 --> 23:12
I mean, it went for about an hour solid.
23:13 --> 23:14
They had to move us out into the lobby.
23:15 --> 23:20
And then once we got into the lobby, we stood around for another hour talking about the film.
23:21 --> 23:21
That's awesome.
23:21 --> 23:22
Yeah.
23:22 --> 23:23
Was it a good turnout?
23:24 --> 23:24
Yeah.
23:24 --> 23:26
There were about 300 people there.
23:26 --> 23:26
Oh, wow.
23:27 --> 23:27
Yeah.
23:27 --> 23:28
It was great, man.
23:28 --> 23:34
And there were some people there that had been on Mike's tour that drove in to check out the film.
23:34 --> 23:37
We had a local news reporter.
23:37 --> 23:39
We gave him a screener to the film.
23:39 --> 23:41
And so he did a nice piece on it.
23:42 --> 23:44
And local paper did a nice piece on the film.
23:44 --> 23:45
And it was awesome.
23:45 --> 23:49
It was so cool to see and hear people really enjoy the film.
23:49 --> 23:56
One of the best parts about it, the most interesting parts about it is people were getting different things out of it.
23:56 --> 23:59
And this went along with the review process when we were showing it to friends.
24:00 --> 24:05
Some people obviously identified with Mike and what he's doing and how he's followed his dreams.
24:05 --> 24:09
Then people were coming up with their own theme.
24:09 --> 24:10
It's about Mike and his father.
24:10 --> 24:12
They'd come up to us and say, I get it.
24:12 --> 24:12
I get it.
24:12 --> 24:13
It's about Mike and his father.
24:14 --> 24:15
And you're like, oh, it is.
24:16 --> 24:18
And then other people come up and say, you know what?
24:18 --> 24:19
It's about Mike and his wife.
24:19 --> 24:24
It's about having that one person in your life that really supports you no matter what.
24:24 --> 24:29
And so that was really exciting to have people really take away different things from it.
24:29 --> 24:32
That is really cool because that's a sign of a good documentary.
24:32 --> 24:34
It's anything that gets somebody thinking.
24:34 --> 24:38
You know, often the story you start off with isn't necessarily the one that you end with.
24:39 --> 24:39
Right.
24:39 --> 24:39
Right.
24:39 --> 24:40
Yeah.
24:40 --> 24:44
And one of the other things, too, I've talked about this a little bit, is that I've never done this before.
24:44 --> 24:48
And we've done films, short films and other mini documentaries.
24:49 --> 24:57
But to do it on one person and get that deep into their life and into their mind, it's a lot of pressure.
24:57 --> 24:58
It's a lot of responsibility.
24:58 --> 25:01
This is not the most ordinary lifestyle either.
25:01 --> 25:05
The lifestyle of a Rocky fanatic or impersonator.
25:05 --> 25:07
No, it's actually crazy.
25:08 --> 25:08
Yeah.
25:08 --> 25:12
I mean crazy because it's just like I couldn't imagine doing it.
25:12 --> 25:16
I don't have the personality type or the ability.
25:16 --> 25:17
I'm not brave enough.
25:18 --> 25:18
Yeah.
25:18 --> 25:19
I'm not brave enough.
25:19 --> 25:25
I admire Mike for his bravery to put himself out there like that daily and to be so passionate about something.
25:26 --> 25:32
It is really cool because you have no problem speaking in public or hosting a podcast.
25:32 --> 25:33
It's not about the people.
25:33 --> 25:37
It's just to be able to put yourself out there to something that's so unique.
25:37 --> 25:37
Yeah.
25:37 --> 25:40
To say, hey, I impersonated a character.
25:40 --> 25:42
And I liken it to when you go to Disneyland, right?
25:42 --> 25:45
I used to think, you know, how do people get wrapped up in this?
25:45 --> 25:50
Well, it's actually kind of easy because when I go to Disneyland, I get a kick out of Mickey Mouse or Goofy.
25:51 --> 25:52
And I know it's somebody under a suit.
25:53 --> 25:55
But I still get wrapped up in the character.
25:56 --> 25:58
So I think that's what probably happens on his tour.
25:58 --> 26:00
It's like we know it's my Kunda.
26:00 --> 26:05
But if you allow yourself to be part of the Rocky magic, then I think that's what makes it enjoyable.
26:05 --> 26:09
I think that's the kind of joy that he brings to people is this live experience that people have from the film.
26:09 --> 26:11
It comes through in the tour.
26:11 --> 26:12
It would be my understanding.
26:13 --> 26:13
Oh, yeah.
26:13 --> 26:14
Absolutely.
26:14 --> 26:22
That pressure to do this on Mike was like talk to another friend of mine that has directed a couple documentaries.
26:23 --> 26:25
And I said, you know, this is maybe two years ago.
26:25 --> 26:27
But I called him and I said, I'm getting kind of nervous.
26:28 --> 26:31
What if I put this thing out there and people take it the wrong way?
26:31 --> 26:32
People take Mike.
26:32 --> 26:35
They think, you know, we're making fun of him or something.
26:35 --> 26:35
Right.
26:35 --> 26:43
And he told me, Jim, if you have the best intentions and you tell the truth, you can't control what people think.
26:43 --> 26:46
And he related it to like a Rorschach test.
26:47 --> 26:50
And people are going to see what they want to see or what's inside them.
26:50 --> 26:53
And once he told me that, I said, I felt great.
26:54 --> 26:55
I felt like, OK, well, that makes sense.
26:55 --> 26:58
I can't control something I can't control.
26:58 --> 26:59
And he was so right.
26:59 --> 27:06
Early on when we'd show this to people or we're working with client and we'd step into the other room and see we're working on this, the pretender movie.
27:07 --> 27:11
They'd see a clip and it told a lot about them, how they reacted.
27:11 --> 27:15
Some of them would say like, wow, he's really doing what he loves, man.
27:15 --> 27:16
That's great.
27:16 --> 27:21
And then another person might see the exact same clip and come out and say, wow, that is insane.
27:22 --> 27:22
Right.
27:22 --> 27:23
Ha ha ha.
27:23 --> 27:24
How crazy.
27:25 --> 27:28
And it didn't match up with their personality because we knew these people.
27:28 --> 27:31
And it truly is like a Rorschach test.
27:31 --> 27:34
Well, and it's like the film and the character himself.
27:34 --> 27:41
So I know Mike would know this or understand what I'm about to say here, that there's not everyone looks at Rocky the film with a character the same way.
27:42 --> 27:46
And so if you have an impersonator of this character, it's going to be the same the same reaction.
27:46 --> 27:50
You're going to have a spectrum of reactions to living a life that way.
27:50 --> 27:58
And that's what makes, I guess, Mike brave is he's willing to put himself out there into something that's very unique and different, but brings a lot of joy to a lot of people.
27:59 --> 28:03
I've known and talked to people that have gone on the tour and I've heard nothing but good things.
28:03 --> 28:04
It's amazing.
28:04 --> 28:05
The amount of joy he's given to people.
28:06 --> 28:06
It's amazing.
28:07 --> 28:08
Now, how do people see this?
28:08 --> 28:09
I want to see your film.
28:09 --> 28:10
I'm frustrated.
28:10 --> 28:11
I want to watch this thing.
28:11 --> 28:11
How do I do it?
28:12 --> 28:12
Good.
28:13 --> 28:13
Good.
28:14 --> 28:17
Well, see, that's the, we're trying to get it in these festivals.
28:17 --> 28:32
And I think that that is our first, that's our, our first avenue that we want to take is get this thing into the festivals and get, get a good buzz going and hopefully attract a distributor so that everyone can, can see this film.
28:32 --> 28:33
Okay.
28:33 --> 28:35
Let's pretend no distributor happens.
28:36 --> 28:36
How do I see this film?
28:37 --> 28:40
If no distributor ever happens, I don't know what we'll do.
28:40 --> 28:46
We'll, we'll definitely do something in Philly or Scranton around Mike's, Mike's hometown.
28:46 --> 28:53
And then if everything failed and nothing, we get no distribution, no festivals.
28:53 --> 28:58
I think we could put it on iTunes or put it online at least so, so all the fans can see it.
28:59 --> 29:01
One day, definitely there's, the film is done.
29:02 --> 29:04
So people will be able to see it.
29:04 --> 29:04
All right.
29:04 --> 29:11
I'm just asking the question that some of our listeners might be asking, because I want to, I want to see this thing and people are going to want to know how to see this.
29:11 --> 29:13
So we're going to have to stand by to stand by, as they say.
29:13 --> 29:14
Exactly.
29:14 --> 29:15
I know for, for right now.
29:16 --> 29:17
We're super excited.
29:17 --> 29:18
We worked so hard on this thing.
29:18 --> 29:23
I would say Danny and I, there's not a frame in this movie that we don't know about.
29:23 --> 29:26
Every frame was analyzed and thought over.
29:27 --> 29:31
We really want to hit this festival circuit and really just have fun with it.
29:31 --> 29:32
I mean, we, we love the movie.
29:32 --> 29:40
We love Mike and we just want to, we just want to talk about it and travel and, and, and have some fun with fans.
29:40 --> 29:43
That's, that's our main objective here right now.
29:43 --> 29:46
We want to thank you for coming on our show.
29:46 --> 29:50
And I hope the listeners that we have will go to, where can they go?
29:50 --> 29:51
That's the question I said.
29:51 --> 29:57
Where can they go to share this on their Facebook page, bug you in person about getting this film distributed?
29:58 --> 29:59
Yeah, please do.
29:59 --> 30:00
I love being, being bugged about it.
30:00 --> 30:02
I love talking about this thing.
30:02 --> 30:06
But no, people can go to, go to our website, thepretendermovie.com.
30:07 --> 30:08
There's a link to our Facebook page there.
30:08 --> 30:10
There's a link to our Instagram there.
30:10 --> 30:17
We will be continually updating it with screenings and any news that might pop up.
30:17 --> 30:18
Anything that we have.
30:18 --> 30:23
We're kind of, we're kind of, we have a bunch of footage and we want to put up some fun clips that we didn't use.
30:23 --> 30:25
And we'll have a trailer.
30:25 --> 30:27
We're working on a trailer now.
30:27 --> 30:30
It just needs to be kind of smoothed out a little bit.
30:30 --> 30:30
But go there.
30:30 --> 30:32
Go to thepretendermovie.com.
30:32 --> 30:34
And there'll be a link to the Facebook page.
30:34 --> 30:35
Perfect.
30:35 --> 30:37
So yeah, everyone go to thepretendermovie.com.
30:37 --> 30:40
And then from there, they can get all the information they need.
30:40 --> 30:43
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all that good stuff.
30:43 --> 30:44
Are you on Twitter as well?
30:44 --> 30:46
I'm not, but I'm going to.
30:46 --> 30:48
I was on Twitter personally a long time ago.
30:48 --> 30:49
I stopped.
30:49 --> 30:52
But people have been asking for the film purposes.
30:53 --> 30:55
So I think I'll set up a pretender Twitter.
30:55 --> 30:56
I know people have mixed feelings on Twitter.
30:57 --> 30:58
I recommend it.
30:58 --> 30:58
Put it this way.
30:59 --> 31:01
The more platforms you're on, that's just better.
31:01 --> 31:02
Yeah.
31:02 --> 31:03
Yeah, I agree.
31:03 --> 31:04
I can't wait to see this thing, Jim.
31:04 --> 31:05
I really can't.
31:05 --> 31:05
Cool, man.
31:05 --> 31:08
I know you don't want to give too much away about the film.
31:08 --> 31:12
And I purposely haven't asked too much about what goes on in the film.
31:12 --> 31:14
Because I want people to want to see this thing.
31:14 --> 31:16
I don't want to know what goes on in the film, to be honest with you.
31:17 --> 31:18
Like, I know Mike a little bit.
31:18 --> 31:21
I have interviewed him and been on podcasts with him.
31:21 --> 31:25
And obviously talking to him online through a variety of Rocky material type stuff.
31:25 --> 31:26
But I just don't.
31:26 --> 31:28
I want to see this film raw.
31:28 --> 31:30
I hate trailers in general in some ways.
31:30 --> 31:32
I don't need to see a trailer for me personally.
31:33 --> 31:33
Yeah.
31:33 --> 31:35
Because I hate being spoiled on movies.
31:35 --> 31:38
But if people want to see trailers, of course, you're working on that.
31:38 --> 31:38
That's good.
31:39 --> 31:42
I'm sure you wouldn't mind if people contact you directly on Facebook either.
31:42 --> 31:43
Anytime.
31:43 --> 31:43
Anytime.
31:44 --> 31:45
That's the thing with the trailer.
31:46 --> 31:47
I feel the same way.
31:47 --> 31:49
Like, I don't know what to give away.
31:49 --> 31:50
I don't want to give away anything.
31:50 --> 31:51
Right.
31:51 --> 31:51
Of course.
31:51 --> 31:52
But I know people want to see them.
31:52 --> 31:55
But that's why we're having such a hard time cutting the trailers.
31:55 --> 31:57
We're just like, oh, that's going to give away too much.
31:57 --> 31:58
Yeah.
31:58 --> 31:58
Yeah.
31:58 --> 31:59
You want to entice.
31:59 --> 32:00
I get it.
32:00 --> 32:02
You want to entice without delivering the whole meal.
32:02 --> 32:03
Yeah.
32:03 --> 32:04
And that's why I sent you the news clip.
32:04 --> 32:05
That's perfect.
32:05 --> 32:08
Because I thought there's a couple clips in there and you can kind of see Mike.
32:09 --> 32:11
I think the news clip is actually pretty good.
32:11 --> 32:11
Yeah.
32:12 --> 32:12
For that.
32:12 --> 32:13
It doesn't reveal too much.
32:14 --> 32:18
The last thing I wanted to ask you was who came up with the title, The Pretender?
32:18 --> 32:19
That was me, actually.
32:20 --> 32:25
I thought it was going to be the most fun and simplest part of this was coming up with
32:25 --> 32:26
the title.
32:26 --> 32:31
And I kept telling the editor, Danny, like, oh, there's going to be some line in there that
32:31 --> 32:33
we're just going to love and that's going to be the title.
32:33 --> 32:35
But it took right almost to the end.
32:35 --> 32:37
I mean, maybe six months ago we got it.
32:37 --> 32:41
But we went through a bunch of different titles and none of them were good enough.
32:41 --> 32:44
But I really love the title now, The Pretender.
32:44 --> 32:49
It means a lot because he is pretending, right?
32:49 --> 32:50
He is pretending to be somebody.
32:51 --> 32:55
It's a play on words with The Contender because it is, you know, boxing themed.
32:55 --> 33:01
But when we added The Pretender, the dream is real because it is a real story.
33:02 --> 33:06
And I think once, now that the film is done and it's out there, it's like The Pretender
33:06 --> 33:10
is pretty far from being just a pretender.
33:10 --> 33:12
That's kind of the message.
33:12 --> 33:17
When you get to the end of this movie, you will take, hopefully you'll take no negative
33:17 --> 33:19
from that word, The Pretender.
33:19 --> 33:21
He's the real deal.
33:21 --> 33:22
He's the real deal.
33:23 --> 33:27
That's what I like about the title because, like again, I don't want to get any spoilers
33:27 --> 33:28
about the movie.
33:28 --> 33:28
No, it's okay.
33:28 --> 33:31
It's a great, it's, yeah, it's an interesting title.
33:31 --> 33:33
I was curious why you came up with it.
33:34 --> 33:36
I mean, I know what you're doing and why you came up with it.
33:36 --> 33:40
But it's very catchy, very, draws you in.
33:40 --> 33:41
I like that.
33:41 --> 33:42
Yeah.
33:42 --> 33:45
Because I would imagine, I don't want to spoil the documentary because I haven't seen it,
33:46 --> 33:50
but I would imagine everything about him is authentic and everything about him.
33:50 --> 33:51
That's my guess.
33:51 --> 33:52
No one would want to know about Mike.
33:52 --> 33:56
He's got a heart of gold and everything about him is authentic and that's what makes the
33:56 --> 33:58
title very poignant, I think.
33:59 --> 33:59
Yes.
33:59 --> 34:00
Very well said, Ryan.
34:00 --> 34:02
You hit the nail on the head.
34:02 --> 34:04
Boy, that's pretty good for not seeing the film, eh?
34:04 --> 34:04
I know.
34:05 --> 34:05
I know.
34:06 --> 34:07
Unless you couldn't have showed it to you.
34:07 --> 34:10
We showed Mike a week before the screening.
34:10 --> 34:11
I was so nervous.
34:12 --> 34:18
I was kidding myself, thinking, you know what, Mike and his wife and his parents, they'll fly
34:18 --> 34:22
in and we'll watch the movie with everybody and everyone will love it.
34:23 --> 34:29
And I got so nervous and I finally, I talked to Mike and he said, Jim, I'm okay, but my wife's
34:29 --> 34:30
pretty nervous.
34:30 --> 34:32
And I said, you know what, let's just solve this.
34:32 --> 34:38
And I actually had a, we were shooting something for Ram trucks out in Seattle and I flew
34:38 --> 34:43
from Seattle to Philly to show them the dock and then flew back home to Detroit.
34:43 --> 34:47
And it was the best thing I could have done because we just, the night of the screening,
34:47 --> 34:49
we all, they loved it.
34:49 --> 34:53
So the night of the screening, we're all happy and just having fun rather than nervous.
34:54 --> 34:55
Oh, good.
34:55 --> 34:56
So everyone was happy on their end?
34:57 --> 34:57
Family was happy?
34:57 --> 34:57
Oh, yeah.
34:58 --> 34:58
It was great.
34:58 --> 34:59
Yeah.
34:59 --> 35:03
His, his dad, he showed his parents the night before they came to Detroit and I didn't
35:03 --> 35:04
know that.
35:04 --> 35:05
So we all went to dinner.
35:05 --> 35:06
So I was still a little bit nervous.
35:06 --> 35:09
Like, you know, I got to get his parents to sign off on this thing.
35:09 --> 35:14
And, uh, we sat down for dinner and his, and his dad leaned over the table, very emotional
35:14 --> 35:16
and said, you guys nailed it.
35:16 --> 35:17
You guys nailed it.
35:17 --> 35:18
That's awesome.
35:18 --> 35:19
Wait, you didn't see it.
35:19 --> 35:20
He said, I saw it last night, Jimmy.
35:21 --> 35:21
We love it.
35:21 --> 35:22
Night.
35:22 --> 35:26
So we drank some four roses at dinner at this Italian restaurant.
35:27 --> 35:31
And, uh, and it was a, it was a really great night, a great weekend for sure.
35:31 --> 35:32
Oh, that is so cool.
35:32 --> 35:33
Well, there you go.
35:33 --> 35:38
Well, congratulations to you on doing this just to put a film together and congratulations
35:38 --> 35:40
to Mike to have a life that's worth filming.
35:40 --> 35:43
I mean, so congratulations to you both.
35:43 --> 35:47
And, uh, thank you so much for spending some time with us on the show.
35:47 --> 35:50
And, and I really hope we get this word out and get that film out.
35:50 --> 35:54
And when it does come out, I'm going to, I'm going to plug the crap out of it to get people
35:54 --> 35:56
to buy it and download it wherever they can do that.
35:56 --> 35:57
So awesome.
35:57 --> 35:58
Thanks, Ryan.
35:58 --> 35:59
It's fun to talk to you, man.
35:59 --> 36:00
Yeah, you bet, Jim.
36:00 --> 36:01
And, uh, have a good night.
36:01 --> 36:02
All right.
36:02 --> 36:02
You too.
36:02 --> 36:02
Thank you.
36:02 --> 36:03
We'll talk to you soon.
36:03 --> 36:33
Thank you.
36:33 --> 36:34
Thank you.
36:34 --> 36:35
Thank you.
36:35 --> 36:37
Thank you.
36:37 --> 36:38
Thank you.
00:00 --> 00:04
so there we go all right so we're officially recording okay so
00:04 --> 00:16
so
00:16 --> 00:28
so
00:28 --> 00:54
all right welcome everyone to the rocky series podcast go in the distance you know i always say
00:54 --> 00:58
that i can't remember is it go in the distance the rocky series podcast or podcast i don't know
00:58 --> 01:03
well i always forget the order that i put it in today we have an awesome special guest his name
01:03 --> 01:07
is jim toscano tell me where you're from jim i i know you're east coast but where are you from
01:07 --> 01:14
yeah i'm um i'm from we always say uh in this area we're from detroit but i'm from right outside of
01:14 --> 01:19
i live right outside of detroit and our production studio is actually in the city of detroit michigan
01:19 --> 01:23
all right so this is the first time that jim and i have talked in person but we've chit-chatted and
01:23 --> 01:29
talked uh via the interwebs uh throughout the months in fact jim has he contacted me i say you
01:29 --> 01:36
contacted me about six eight months ago saying that you were working on something standby to standby and
01:36 --> 01:41
today we're going to talk about that project that you messaged me on that you wanted to talk about
01:41 --> 01:47
but before we do uh you're from detroit what do you do for work out there so i have a production company
01:47 --> 01:54
within detroit uh we do some documentary film work but mostly we do a lot of commercial work
01:54 --> 02:00
for the automotive industry so oh so you work basically you you work in film like so this is
02:00 --> 02:05
something you kind of do already is you you're behind the camera in production studio type stuff i didn't
02:05 --> 02:12
know that yeah we're uh behind the camera it's called free age it started about four years ago yeah you
02:12 --> 02:17
know we're in detroit there is a ton of you know automakers here right so we do a lot of social
02:17 --> 02:26
media work for chrysler and and ford and chevrolet gm and we do some some smaller documentary work out
02:26 --> 02:32
here okay so you do commercials yeah we do we do some commercials mostly web work a lot of social videos
02:32 --> 02:37
okay yeah i always love the driving commercials where they have the guy and i'll fly through the
02:37 --> 02:43
beach or through the woods in his car and it says this is uh this is not how you're supposed to drive
02:43 --> 02:50
this is a stunt driver right right yeah yeah we hire those stunt drivers okay i just love that whoever
02:50 --> 02:54
goes off the lot thinking hey where's the nearest beach i can drive my car through right although we do
02:54 --> 03:01
a lot of jeep stuff in moab it doesn't get more treacherous than that so oh wow okay yeah yeah so you
03:01 --> 03:07
contacted me now may i ask how did you find me did you find the show before you contacted me or how did
03:07 --> 03:13
that work on your end yeah it was the show and it was from mike kunda you know we were i think when i
03:13 --> 03:21
contacted you i must have been talking to to mike i must have been talking to mike and i think he had an
03:21 --> 03:27
interview with you that night so i tuned into the podcast okay yeah and then and then i reached out
03:27 --> 03:33
okay so that's that's the lead folks so jim here you are friends with mike and mike kunda is who you're
03:33 --> 03:39
referring to mike kunda for probably a lot of our listeners know mike kunda has uh been on a few podcasts
03:39 --> 03:45
already he was on the slycast he's been on our podcast and he's been in the rocky community of course for
03:45 --> 03:51
many years you were friends with him before or how did you meet him i met mike on the set of rocky
03:51 --> 03:56
balboa oh wow so what was that 10 years ago maybe yeah i think it was 2006 already if you can believe
03:56 --> 04:04
it because rambo 4 was 2008 right right yeah so i just i met mike on the street uh on the set of rocky
04:04 --> 04:09
balboa i was working in advertising then i had a down weekend i was in philadelphia working i had a down
04:09 --> 04:15
weekend you know i am a rocky fan so i headed downtown saw all the trucks there was mike you know standing on
04:15 --> 04:22
the corner with a giant painting that he painted uh he looked like sly he sounded like sly and there
04:22 --> 04:27
was a ton of people already gravitating toward him okay so we're gonna get to that okay so before we
04:27 --> 04:32
get to the mic meeting why don't we get into your love of rocky i assume since you went to philly to
04:32 --> 04:38
see the filming or some part of rocky balboa how did you get into rocky what was your first earliest
04:38 --> 04:43
memories or something like that yeah i gotta you know i've been thinking a lot about this because
04:43 --> 04:49
people have been asking me and and i almost can't remember not being a rocky fan but the first
04:49 --> 04:57
memory i do have is watching uh rocky three on probably like the usa network with my older brothers
04:57 --> 05:03
and it was kind of like they were almost like jim meet rocky you know this is uh gonna be a part of
05:03 --> 05:07
your life kind of thing you know it's like right i say it's almost like a religion here for our family
05:07 --> 05:12
but yeah it's a big tradition you know and it's uh it's a genuine tradition in our family and i
05:12 --> 05:17
but that was i think that was my first uh my first memory of it was watching that with my brothers
05:17 --> 05:23
that's awesome yeah yeah it starts with a family and i'm trying to do it with my family my kids
05:23 --> 05:29
uh my before i married my wife she had to watch the rocky series with me right and if she didn't like
05:29 --> 05:35
them i would have uh broken off the engagement simple as that yeah it'd be tough it'd be tough
05:35 --> 05:40
well i've always said jim and i tell me if i'm wrong but people that don't like rocky they're just not
05:40 --> 05:46
my type of people i mean it's true i you know it's it's there's so much that you know you kind of
05:46 --> 05:52
identify with or love about it it's hard to imagine uh somebody that that wouldn't you know you'd you'd
05:52 --> 05:59
second guess well why what's wrong yeah well yeah and people often say oh you're adrian and they always
05:59 --> 06:04
do like anyone that says that's what rocky is doesn't know the films hasn't watched them
06:04 --> 06:09
and i'm always surprised what how many actually how many people actually haven't seen the films i work
06:09 --> 06:13
with a lot of guys in the navy here and i'm actually continuously surprised how many people
06:13 --> 06:19
like males i'm not trying to be sexist here misogynistic but just how many guys uh haven't seen this film
06:19 --> 06:24
it's it's amazing to me no i i agree you know first of all like you said you know everyone's like
06:24 --> 06:30
oh yo adrian what a cheesy thing i just tell them just watch the first movie it's the perfect
06:30 --> 06:34
independent film to me it's a perfect film to me you know i was just telling someone the other day
06:34 --> 06:41
it's got everything it's got a mafia element to it a boxing element gazo it's a love story and to me i
06:41 --> 06:47
always say it's like it's the first independent film to me like it's like the original independent film
06:47 --> 06:51
right uh that's that's how it feels and uh it's a serious movie you know like you said everyone
06:51 --> 06:57
they think of rocky three and four and you know the circus and all that stuff but uh it's a it's a
06:57 --> 07:02
pretty deep movie and i am surprised that people that haven't seen it you know we had you know some
07:02 --> 07:07
people help with the film you know like we had uh you know a guy to do the audio mix and uh you know we
07:07 --> 07:13
had someone doing color color correction for us and color grade they hadn't seen the movie and you
07:13 --> 07:17
know i had like a couple copies of the dvd at the studio and just said like all right you know you
07:17 --> 07:21
got to go home and watch this and you know and then we'll you know we'll make sure your heart's in this
07:21 --> 07:26
no that's interesting uh well i might as well talk about that little part now because i find that a
07:26 --> 07:31
little bit fascinating that somebody would work on a documentary i guess treat it like a job sure but
07:31 --> 07:37
if i was doing a documentary on killer whales but i hated the animal or never knew anything about them
07:37 --> 07:43
i would find it odd to work on a project that you knew nothing about so someone can like a color grader
07:43 --> 07:49
can be a little bit removed from it you could show them you know stills from the original rocky and
07:49 --> 07:53
say like oh you know we kind of want it to look like this you know or give them something to go to
07:53 --> 07:59
and they they could kind of work in a silo and do that and same with sound design to some degree the
07:59 --> 08:04
cool thing was that these couple guys that helped us out they hadn't seen the movie but they loved the
08:04 --> 08:09
doc that we that we were working on and they're like wow this you know this guy this and and now i'm
08:09 --> 08:15
starting to feel like this towards the movie and it was cool to to there's not many people i know that
08:15 --> 08:21
haven't seen rocky so for them to have this fresh eye on it i said okay one guy we said kind of maybe
08:21 --> 08:26
you should hold off and watch the movie when you're done and then tell us if what you think then just to
08:26 --> 08:31
have that like fresh eye on it see it is strange to me like whenever someone says they haven't seen it
08:31 --> 08:37
it's pretty unbelievable but it was cool to get their perspective and and have them kind of digging the
08:37 --> 08:41
documentary even without seeing the movie now did they say what their thoughts were of the film after they
08:41 --> 08:47
watched it oh they loved it they totally everyone's so surprised back to that thing where they think it's
08:47 --> 08:53
it's clever lang and the russian and and right once you you get them to calm down and take the time to just
08:53 --> 08:58
watch the movie one night they love it they can't believe they haven't seen it i almost envy people who get
08:58 --> 09:04
to watch it for the first time as an adult oh i know i know i i want to watch it with them i uh clay is our audio
09:04 --> 09:08
guy and i said man i almost want to go home with you and watch it with you just to you know see it
09:08 --> 09:13
through your eyes a little bit right it's a pretty cool thing to do and that was the experience i had
09:13 --> 09:18
with i have five sons and one daughter my three oldest boys they've all watched the series with me
09:18 --> 09:22
and that's kind of my thing as a father i get to do with them is is to watch these movies through their
09:22 --> 09:28
eyes and if any of them don't like it i just disown them as simple as that just cut off their food supply
09:28 --> 09:32
that's right but they're three for three so far so the three younger ones are too young right now
09:32 --> 09:37
they're six and three-year-old twins but we'll get there about five or six years very cool you have
09:37 --> 09:41
you ever been to philadelphia before because you went there to watch rocky balboa the film being filmed
09:41 --> 09:45
had you been there before or was this a first time trip but no i have been there before and the funny
09:45 --> 09:54
thing is maybe my very first uh out of state road trip me and a buddy of mine dan uh we were 18 and we
09:54 --> 10:01
drove to philly and back within like two days it was like a weekend road trip then we just took off
10:01 --> 10:06
yeah we you know we didn't tell our parents we just went on this little adventure and it was it was to
10:06 --> 10:11
run the rocky step it was like let's go to philly man let's check it out i mean we we stopped in uh
10:11 --> 10:16
atlantic city on the way home and and did a bunch of things but the main objective was to get to
10:16 --> 10:21
philadelphia and run up those steps so that was when i was 18 that was my first oh man what was that like
10:21 --> 10:27
what was that like to run up those steps as an 18 year old it was unbelievable it was like we walked
10:27 --> 10:32
into the movie the film became real it blew me away it was so cool i haven't had a chance my brother
10:32 --> 10:37
ruben oh really my brother ruben has been there he went there he went on a cross-country road trip with
10:37 --> 10:42
his wife 10 years ago when they first got married kind of a honeymoon trip and that was one of their
10:42 --> 10:47
stops yeah to this day i envy and i'm jealous of him and i wouldn't say jealous because jealous would
10:47 --> 10:51
mean i don't want him to have the experience so i want him to have the experience but i want it too
10:51 --> 10:55
so i just haven't had a chance to make my own road trip out there and one day i will even if i'm 90
10:55 --> 11:00
years old i'm gonna you know i don't care if i'm crawling up on my last dying breath in fact i would
11:00 --> 11:07
love to die on the steps go up there and die of a heart attack the best way i'll be so happy 95 year
11:07 --> 11:13
old ryan oh yeah it was cool man it was it was unbelievable and then the next time i went i think
11:13 --> 11:20
actually probably was for the the rocky balboa filming that was even weirder i mean because to see like mixed gym i
11:20 --> 11:29
actually saw stallone dressed as rocky outside of the bar wow uh and i i actually i kind of snuck i was
11:29 --> 11:33
really close on on set and i was standing right there when he'd take breaks and i always tell everybody
11:33 --> 11:38
you know when this happened i was always telling everybody i actually said to him hey sly this is a
11:38 --> 11:43
really really cool you're doing this movie again and reprising the character and he like talked to me as
11:43 --> 11:49
rocky i mean he didn't say much but he did like a little uh oh yeah thank you you know i appreciate that
11:49 --> 11:56
he was dressed in rocky clothes oh in kensington to me and i was like oh my god this is so crazy
11:56 --> 12:03
that's crazy so you you have actually in that moment he was focused on you and you on him yeah yeah for one
12:03 --> 12:09
second one you know he was he he leaned up against the bar to like you know the lucky seven bar yep yeah
12:09 --> 12:15
he leaned up against the bar to just to take a break in between takes and he was bouncing the ball and i just
12:15 --> 12:19
kind of leaned up on the wall by the wall next to him and acted like he was supposed to be there and
12:19 --> 12:24
just said you know hey sly this is really cool yeah so we talked to each other for one minute one you
12:24 --> 12:30
know that's amazing but it was really cool it was funny of course this is crazy the fact that you can
12:30 --> 12:37
you kept your cool enough to even say those words i i don't know i like to think that i would be smart and i
12:37 --> 12:43
know he doesn't want us to be blubbering idiots but i just and i'm sure he gets old type of fans when
12:43 --> 12:49
they run into him but ah i i probably will live and die and never interact with them so the fact that
12:49 --> 12:54
you've done that that's pretty incredible it was pretty cool so this was the same trip that you ran
12:54 --> 13:00
into mike right right yeah okay so let's get into this so you you run into mike you see who he is and we
13:00 --> 13:06
we all know that he's the the impersonal rocky impersonator he does the yo the yo rocky film
13:06 --> 13:11
turn philadelphia so i'll give him a plug for that so you guys are if any of you fans rocky fans are in
13:11 --> 13:17
philadelphia and you just want to see the sites of where rocky was filmed my understanding of course is
13:17 --> 13:23
mike kunda does an amazing job of that in character talks about behind the scenes stuff and you name it so
13:23 --> 13:28
it's quite the interactive and informative tour is my understanding absolutely he's he is the best and
13:28 --> 13:34
that it's funny because i wanted to ask you you know what did you think of him and uh and i think the
13:34 --> 13:38
way you just described him is is perfect i mean that all right good well he was kind enough to come on our
13:38 --> 13:43
show when we were just nine episodes in the fact when we interviewed him probably we probably only had
13:43 --> 13:49
four or five episodes out and he took a leap of faith to give a couple of ham and eggers who have no
13:49 --> 13:53
idea what we're doing and to be fair i still don't know what i'm doing but he he came on the
13:53 --> 13:57
show and was gracious with his time and gave us some incredible stories and shared stories from his
13:57 --> 14:03
novel uh or not his novel sorry his book his account of his life called uh cue the rocky music
14:03 --> 14:09
he's awesome he's just amazing so you ran into him and you did you know who he was before you ran into
14:09 --> 14:15
him no i i had no idea and i don't i don't think he was who we know him to be today back then exactly
14:15 --> 14:20
yeah i ran into him like i said he was standing on the corner people were starting to gravitate toward
14:20 --> 14:26
him and he was just a really nice guy you know so i i started uh a conversation with him and we hung out
14:26 --> 14:31
for a couple hours there on the street and i obviously picked up on his knowledge of the movies
14:31 --> 14:35
and he was a perfect guy to be with there in the streets of philadelphia while they're filming rocky
14:35 --> 14:40
balboa that when i was walking away you know all right good to see you good to meet you he said you
14:40 --> 14:44
know check me out uh i'm on the stallone zone and so i said oh and i thought i thought i'll have to
14:44 --> 14:51
check that out someday but the thing was i i worked in philly the rest of that week and i swear he was
14:51 --> 14:58
on the local news every single night i was in town it was like that you were downtown in kensington
14:58 --> 15:04
pennsylvania with uh rocky superfan mike kunday and it was like every night i thought wow i gotta i gotta
15:04 --> 15:09
keep track of this guy this is really something so when i went home back to detroit every once in a while i
15:09 --> 15:14
maybe once a month or something just kind of check in and oh there he was always checking in and
15:14 --> 15:19
offering some some kind of insight in the rocky films and i thought wow this guy's really really
15:19 --> 15:25
dedicated to it you saw this part of him being a big in the news big in the local area but where is you as
15:25 --> 15:31
a filmmaker or this is your first this success this is your first attempt at a documentary outside of the
15:31 --> 15:37
car industry or yeah okay yeah this is you know i've worked on some other docs that uh part of other docs
15:38 --> 15:44
um and we're working on some things now but no back back then i was just getting into filmmaking and
15:44 --> 15:49
and video production when i went home after after a while i started thinking i want to get into filmmaking
15:49 --> 15:55
and i thought god maybe i'll i'll go down to to philly and interview this guy and do like a little a little
15:55 --> 16:01
five minute piece just to show that you know how to operate a camera that kind of sure your first
16:01 --> 16:07
approach wasn't a full odd documentary was just no yeah absolutely not yeah because i had no idea how to
16:07 --> 16:12
do that what i did was uh i kind of kept in contact with him i kept thinking about this let's go do this
16:12 --> 16:18
five minute thing and then um he wrote the book and i read the book right away and i thought okay this guy
16:18 --> 16:26
is really this is serious you know this is a a serious thing so i uh i bought a camera and i actually drove
16:26 --> 16:32
down there from detroit me and one other guy and the intention was to do like a little five minute film
16:32 --> 16:38
but as soon as i got down there i have to say the first thing that i knew i was in for a lot more was uh
16:38 --> 16:45
interviewing his parents oh wow and yeah i uh you know i actually didn't even interview mike at first we
16:45 --> 16:49
did uh an interview with larry holmes actually the uh heavyweight former heavy heavyweight champ yeah
16:49 --> 16:56
it's awesome when i met his parents and i filmed them they poured their hearts out on camera and you know they were
16:56 --> 17:03
i was you know really impressed with you know how how serious they took it uh how serious they took mike
17:03 --> 17:10
in general how supportive they were also how over the years they were worried about him he mike has truly
17:10 --> 17:17
dedicated his life to Rocky related, to being an impersonator, to working these tours. They poured
17:17 --> 17:23
their hearts out. Eventually so did Mike and so did his wife. I'll tell you, as soon as I was just
17:23 --> 17:28
telling Mike's dad this the other day, when I was leaving his house, they let us spend the night at
17:28 --> 17:31
the house and everything like that. When I was leaving his house, he kind of slapped me on the
17:31 --> 17:37
back and said, this is a great thing you're doing, Jim. We really appreciate this and went on and on.
17:37 --> 17:42
I told him the other day, I said, Mr. Kunda, Mike Sr., I only thought I was doing a five-minute
17:42 --> 17:47
thing. The way you looked at me and the way you thanked me, I knew we were going to be able to
17:47 --> 17:53
just stop with a little five-minute piece. That was the genesis of it. You had more than you bargained
17:53 --> 17:59
for, but you were happy to take that on. Absolutely. What point did you say to yourself,
17:59 --> 18:03
okay, we've got more than a five-minute video here. How do you approach Mike on this? Dude,
18:03 --> 18:08
I came here to give a five-minute fluff piece on your life. It turns out there's more here.
18:09 --> 18:13
How much did you... I guess the question I have, I don't know how to make a documentary,
18:13 --> 18:17
but I've seen them, right? I know there's stuff that people put in documentaries from the past,
18:17 --> 18:21
the future, the present. You were filming the present at this time with his parents and him,
18:22 --> 18:26
but I should also say for full disclosure, I haven't had an opportunity to see the film,
18:26 --> 18:30
and we'll talk about that. I want to see the film, so maybe you can talk at the end how
18:30 --> 18:34
that may or may not occur for people like me. Sure. So I haven't seen the film, but I've seen
18:34 --> 18:39
documentaries, and I know that now you've... How much access does Mike give you? How does this work?
18:40 --> 18:43
Does he say, hey, here's my diary, here's all my home footage? How does this work?
18:43 --> 18:49
The cool thing is, what we kind of did was we interviewed Mike and several members of his family,
18:49 --> 18:54
and they gave us a lot about his past. We talked a lot in past tense. When Mike was nine years old,
18:54 --> 19:01
he did this, so we did that, and at the same time, we were covering the present. We were covering current events that Mike might have a gig,
19:02 --> 19:06
or Mike was going on this... They went to Philadelphia with a big group of people,
19:06 --> 19:11
so Mike would tip us off on... Just keep us updated on things he was doing,
19:11 --> 19:19
and we would kind of go out there when we could, capture those present moments while still picking up whatever interviews we could
19:19 --> 19:24
with people that knew him. Yeah, we were lucky to get a little bit of both, you know, to get Mike's current story,
19:25 --> 19:29
what I've recently been referring to as the hero's origin story.
19:29 --> 19:30
Right.
19:30 --> 19:35
It was a very minimal crew. It was usually me and one or two other people. It was all self-funded.
19:36 --> 19:41
We would just choose times when we thought we can get a... We can go down there for a weekend and get a lot out of it,
19:41 --> 19:42
that kind of thing.
19:42 --> 19:45
And how many days was your principal filming?
19:46 --> 19:55
Well, it was shot over... It was over a span of five years, but we probably... We'd go down there for like a long weekend one year,
19:55 --> 19:57
and then maybe not do anything again for a whole other year.
19:58 --> 19:58
Okay.
19:58 --> 20:05
So I think we made roughly half a dozen trips out to see him for at least a long weekend each time.
20:05 --> 20:11
I was just going to say, when we got a lot out of those long weekends, now that we're finally finished with this thing,
20:11 --> 20:15
we've been talking about it and thinking like, we only went down there X amount of times,
20:15 --> 20:20
but we sure have a lot of footage to work with and to choose from, for sure.
20:20 --> 20:23
Was there ever a point where you're like, this isn't going to happen?
20:23 --> 20:25
Not really. No, not really.
20:25 --> 20:34
But when we made this last stride to finish this thing, I think if we didn't finish it now,
20:34 --> 20:36
then maybe it would get a little bit dicey.
20:36 --> 20:42
But no, there was never... There was too much invested in it time-wise,
20:42 --> 20:44
and everyone knew we were working on it.
20:45 --> 20:49
And Mike and his family, we couldn't let them down.
20:50 --> 20:54
And the other thing that we talk about, Danny Giannino, the editor on this,
20:55 --> 20:57
we talk about is we're both huge Rocky fans,
20:57 --> 21:03
and it would have spoiled Rocky in general if we wouldn't have got this thing done.
21:03 --> 21:04
Yeah, you've got to go to the distance.
21:05 --> 21:05
You have to.
21:06 --> 21:10
It would have been just such a bummer not to finish it.
21:10 --> 21:12
But honestly, we always knew we'd finish it.
21:12 --> 21:13
We had to.
21:13 --> 21:14
That's kind of how I feel like with my podcast,
21:15 --> 21:18
even if I have one listener, by the time I'm done the Rocky series,
21:19 --> 21:19
I've got to go the distance.
21:19 --> 21:22
I can't stop, and I've got to stop at Cree 2 now, you know what I mean?
21:23 --> 21:26
Because we're breaking down the films one by one.
21:26 --> 21:27
We're on Rocky 4 right now.
21:27 --> 21:28
Yeah, I have the same idea.
21:29 --> 21:31
It would be kind of like a bummer just to quit halfway through,
21:31 --> 21:32
like round 7 or something like that.
21:32 --> 21:33
You've got to go all the way.
21:33 --> 21:35
Yeah, that's it. That's it for sure, man.
21:35 --> 21:37
It would have hurt to not finish it.
21:38 --> 21:41
So what was the runtime of your film?
21:41 --> 21:43
It's about 55 minutes.
21:44 --> 21:44
Okay.
21:44 --> 21:47
When you were done, how do you get a distributor?
21:47 --> 21:48
Who do you call?
21:49 --> 21:49
Who do you talk to?
21:49 --> 21:50
How does that work?
21:50 --> 21:51
We were really close to being finished,
21:51 --> 21:56
and we gave ourselves a deadline that was earlier this month.
21:56 --> 21:59
We had this, what we call the special screening here in Detroit,
21:59 --> 22:01
and it was kind of number one to set this deadline.
22:02 --> 22:07
Like, let's get this thing tightened up and ready for people to start seeing.
22:07 --> 22:08
So we had this special screening,
22:08 --> 22:13
and it was a lot of friends and family and local fans and people that helped work on it,
22:13 --> 22:18
and people that we've been telling about the film to for years.
22:18 --> 22:21
It was just to kind of celebrate the finish of it.
22:21 --> 22:23
So now, you asked about distributors.
22:23 --> 22:27
So now what we're going to do is start submitting this to film festivals.
22:27 --> 22:32
And I think like the special screening we had did a lot to give us a little buzz,
22:32 --> 22:34
a little media buzz.
22:34 --> 22:37
We got a lot of great feedback about the film.
22:37 --> 22:41
I think that will help us go into the submissions for the film festivals.
22:41 --> 22:42
Okay.
22:42 --> 22:44
I wanted to ask you how that premiere went.
22:44 --> 22:45
Oh, it was awesome.
22:45 --> 22:46
It was so cool.
22:46 --> 22:49
I mean, everyone really seemed to love it.
22:49 --> 22:51
It exceeded expectations.
22:51 --> 22:53
We were super excited, going into it, a little bit nervous.
22:54 --> 22:54
Sure.
22:54 --> 22:59
I said to myself, you know, and to the other guys, like, man, I hope when we have this Q&A,
22:59 --> 23:03
people are interested in it enough to ask questions.
23:03 --> 23:10
I'm happy to say, like, we basically got kicked out of the theater because people were asking so many questions.
23:10 --> 23:12
I mean, it went for about an hour solid.
23:13 --> 23:14
They had to move us out into the lobby.
23:15 --> 23:20
And then once we got into the lobby, we stood around for another hour talking about the film.
23:21 --> 23:21
That's awesome.
23:21 --> 23:22
Yeah.
23:22 --> 23:23
Was it a good turnout?
23:24 --> 23:24
Yeah.
23:24 --> 23:26
There were about 300 people there.
23:26 --> 23:26
Oh, wow.
23:27 --> 23:27
Yeah.
23:27 --> 23:28
It was great, man.
23:28 --> 23:34
And there were some people there that had been on Mike's tour that drove in to check out the film.
23:34 --> 23:37
We had a local news reporter.
23:37 --> 23:39
We gave him a screener to the film.
23:39 --> 23:41
And so he did a nice piece on it.
23:42 --> 23:44
And local paper did a nice piece on the film.
23:44 --> 23:45
And it was awesome.
23:45 --> 23:49
It was so cool to see and hear people really enjoy the film.
23:49 --> 23:56
One of the best parts about it, the most interesting parts about it is people were getting different things out of it.
23:56 --> 23:59
And this went along with the review process when we were showing it to friends.
24:00 --> 24:05
Some people obviously identified with Mike and what he's doing and how he's followed his dreams.
24:05 --> 24:09
Then people were coming up with their own theme.
24:09 --> 24:10
It's about Mike and his father.
24:10 --> 24:12
They'd come up to us and say, I get it.
24:12 --> 24:12
I get it.
24:12 --> 24:13
It's about Mike and his father.
24:14 --> 24:15
And you're like, oh, it is.
24:16 --> 24:18
And then other people come up and say, you know what?
24:18 --> 24:19
It's about Mike and his wife.
24:19 --> 24:24
It's about having that one person in your life that really supports you no matter what.
24:24 --> 24:29
And so that was really exciting to have people really take away different things from it.
24:29 --> 24:32
That is really cool because that's a sign of a good documentary.
24:32 --> 24:34
It's anything that gets somebody thinking.
24:34 --> 24:38
You know, often the story you start off with isn't necessarily the one that you end with.
24:39 --> 24:39
Right.
24:39 --> 24:39
Right.
24:39 --> 24:40
Yeah.
24:40 --> 24:44
And one of the other things, too, I've talked about this a little bit, is that I've never done this before.
24:44 --> 24:48
And we've done films, short films and other mini documentaries.
24:49 --> 24:57
But to do it on one person and get that deep into their life and into their mind, it's a lot of pressure.
24:57 --> 24:58
It's a lot of responsibility.
24:58 --> 25:01
This is not the most ordinary lifestyle either.
25:01 --> 25:05
The lifestyle of a Rocky fanatic or impersonator.
25:05 --> 25:07
No, it's actually crazy.
25:08 --> 25:08
Yeah.
25:08 --> 25:12
I mean crazy because it's just like I couldn't imagine doing it.
25:12 --> 25:16
I don't have the personality type or the ability.
25:16 --> 25:17
I'm not brave enough.
25:18 --> 25:18
Yeah.
25:18 --> 25:19
I'm not brave enough.
25:19 --> 25:25
I admire Mike for his bravery to put himself out there like that daily and to be so passionate about something.
25:26 --> 25:32
It is really cool because you have no problem speaking in public or hosting a podcast.
25:32 --> 25:33
It's not about the people.
25:33 --> 25:37
It's just to be able to put yourself out there to something that's so unique.
25:37 --> 25:37
Yeah.
25:37 --> 25:40
To say, hey, I impersonated a character.
25:40 --> 25:42
And I liken it to when you go to Disneyland, right?
25:42 --> 25:45
I used to think, you know, how do people get wrapped up in this?
25:45 --> 25:50
Well, it's actually kind of easy because when I go to Disneyland, I get a kick out of Mickey Mouse or Goofy.
25:51 --> 25:52
And I know it's somebody under a suit.
25:53 --> 25:55
But I still get wrapped up in the character.
25:56 --> 25:58
So I think that's what probably happens on his tour.
25:58 --> 26:00
It's like we know it's my Kunda.
26:00 --> 26:05
But if you allow yourself to be part of the Rocky magic, then I think that's what makes it enjoyable.
26:05 --> 26:09
I think that's the kind of joy that he brings to people is this live experience that people have from the film.
26:09 --> 26:11
It comes through in the tour.
26:11 --> 26:12
It would be my understanding.
26:13 --> 26:13
Oh, yeah.
26:13 --> 26:14
Absolutely.
26:14 --> 26:22
That pressure to do this on Mike was like talk to another friend of mine that has directed a couple documentaries.
26:23 --> 26:25
And I said, you know, this is maybe two years ago.
26:25 --> 26:27
But I called him and I said, I'm getting kind of nervous.
26:28 --> 26:31
What if I put this thing out there and people take it the wrong way?
26:31 --> 26:32
People take Mike.
26:32 --> 26:35
They think, you know, we're making fun of him or something.
26:35 --> 26:35
Right.
26:35 --> 26:43
And he told me, Jim, if you have the best intentions and you tell the truth, you can't control what people think.
26:43 --> 26:46
And he related it to like a Rorschach test.
26:47 --> 26:50
And people are going to see what they want to see or what's inside them.
26:50 --> 26:53
And once he told me that, I said, I felt great.
26:54 --> 26:55
I felt like, OK, well, that makes sense.
26:55 --> 26:58
I can't control something I can't control.
26:58 --> 26:59
And he was so right.
26:59 --> 27:06
Early on when we'd show this to people or we're working with client and we'd step into the other room and see we're working on this, the pretender movie.
27:07 --> 27:11
They'd see a clip and it told a lot about them, how they reacted.
27:11 --> 27:15
Some of them would say like, wow, he's really doing what he loves, man.
27:15 --> 27:16
That's great.
27:16 --> 27:21
And then another person might see the exact same clip and come out and say, wow, that is insane.
27:22 --> 27:22
Right.
27:22 --> 27:23
Ha ha ha.
27:23 --> 27:24
How crazy.
27:25 --> 27:28
And it didn't match up with their personality because we knew these people.
27:28 --> 27:31
And it truly is like a Rorschach test.
27:31 --> 27:34
Well, and it's like the film and the character himself.
27:34 --> 27:41
So I know Mike would know this or understand what I'm about to say here, that there's not everyone looks at Rocky the film with a character the same way.
27:42 --> 27:46
And so if you have an impersonator of this character, it's going to be the same the same reaction.
27:46 --> 27:50
You're going to have a spectrum of reactions to living a life that way.
27:50 --> 27:58
And that's what makes, I guess, Mike brave is he's willing to put himself out there into something that's very unique and different, but brings a lot of joy to a lot of people.
27:59 --> 28:03
I've known and talked to people that have gone on the tour and I've heard nothing but good things.
28:03 --> 28:04
It's amazing.
28:04 --> 28:05
The amount of joy he's given to people.
28:06 --> 28:06
It's amazing.
28:07 --> 28:08
Now, how do people see this?
28:08 --> 28:09
I want to see your film.
28:09 --> 28:10
I'm frustrated.
28:10 --> 28:11
I want to watch this thing.
28:11 --> 28:11
How do I do it?
28:12 --> 28:12
Good.
28:13 --> 28:13
Good.
28:14 --> 28:17
Well, see, that's the, we're trying to get it in these festivals.
28:17 --> 28:32
And I think that that is our first, that's our, our first avenue that we want to take is get this thing into the festivals and get, get a good buzz going and hopefully attract a distributor so that everyone can, can see this film.
28:32 --> 28:33
Okay.
28:33 --> 28:35
Let's pretend no distributor happens.
28:36 --> 28:36
How do I see this film?
28:37 --> 28:40
If no distributor ever happens, I don't know what we'll do.
28:40 --> 28:46
We'll, we'll definitely do something in Philly or Scranton around Mike's, Mike's hometown.
28:46 --> 28:53
And then if everything failed and nothing, we get no distribution, no festivals.
28:53 --> 28:58
I think we could put it on iTunes or put it online at least so, so all the fans can see it.
28:59 --> 29:01
One day, definitely there's, the film is done.
29:02 --> 29:04
So people will be able to see it.
29:04 --> 29:04
All right.
29:04 --> 29:11
I'm just asking the question that some of our listeners might be asking, because I want to, I want to see this thing and people are going to want to know how to see this.
29:11 --> 29:13
So we're going to have to stand by to stand by, as they say.
29:13 --> 29:14
Exactly.
29:14 --> 29:15
I know for, for right now.
29:16 --> 29:17
We're super excited.
29:17 --> 29:18
We worked so hard on this thing.
29:18 --> 29:23
I would say Danny and I, there's not a frame in this movie that we don't know about.
29:23 --> 29:26
Every frame was analyzed and thought over.
29:27 --> 29:31
We really want to hit this festival circuit and really just have fun with it.
29:31 --> 29:32
I mean, we, we love the movie.
29:32 --> 29:40
We love Mike and we just want to, we just want to talk about it and travel and, and, and have some fun with fans.
29:40 --> 29:43
That's, that's our main objective here right now.
29:43 --> 29:46
We want to thank you for coming on our show.
29:46 --> 29:50
And I hope the listeners that we have will go to, where can they go?
29:50 --> 29:51
That's the question I said.
29:51 --> 29:57
Where can they go to share this on their Facebook page, bug you in person about getting this film distributed?
29:58 --> 29:59
Yeah, please do.
29:59 --> 30:00
I love being, being bugged about it.
30:00 --> 30:02
I love talking about this thing.
30:02 --> 30:06
But no, people can go to, go to our website, thepretendermovie.com.
30:07 --> 30:08
There's a link to our Facebook page there.
30:08 --> 30:10
There's a link to our Instagram there.
30:10 --> 30:17
We will be continually updating it with screenings and any news that might pop up.
30:17 --> 30:18
Anything that we have.
30:18 --> 30:23
We're kind of, we're kind of, we have a bunch of footage and we want to put up some fun clips that we didn't use.
30:23 --> 30:25
And we'll have a trailer.
30:25 --> 30:27
We're working on a trailer now.
30:27 --> 30:30
It just needs to be kind of smoothed out a little bit.
30:30 --> 30:30
But go there.
30:30 --> 30:32
Go to thepretendermovie.com.
30:32 --> 30:34
And there'll be a link to the Facebook page.
30:34 --> 30:35
Perfect.
30:35 --> 30:37
So yeah, everyone go to thepretendermovie.com.
30:37 --> 30:40
And then from there, they can get all the information they need.
30:40 --> 30:43
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all that good stuff.
30:43 --> 30:44
Are you on Twitter as well?
30:44 --> 30:46
I'm not, but I'm going to.
30:46 --> 30:48
I was on Twitter personally a long time ago.
30:48 --> 30:49
I stopped.
30:49 --> 30:52
But people have been asking for the film purposes.
30:53 --> 30:55
So I think I'll set up a pretender Twitter.
30:55 --> 30:56
I know people have mixed feelings on Twitter.
30:57 --> 30:58
I recommend it.
30:58 --> 30:58
Put it this way.
30:59 --> 31:01
The more platforms you're on, that's just better.
31:01 --> 31:02
Yeah.
31:02 --> 31:03
Yeah, I agree.
31:03 --> 31:04
I can't wait to see this thing, Jim.
31:04 --> 31:05
I really can't.
31:05 --> 31:05
Cool, man.
31:05 --> 31:08
I know you don't want to give too much away about the film.
31:08 --> 31:12
And I purposely haven't asked too much about what goes on in the film.
31:12 --> 31:14
Because I want people to want to see this thing.
31:14 --> 31:16
I don't want to know what goes on in the film, to be honest with you.
31:17 --> 31:18
Like, I know Mike a little bit.
31:18 --> 31:21
I have interviewed him and been on podcasts with him.
31:21 --> 31:25
And obviously talking to him online through a variety of Rocky material type stuff.
31:25 --> 31:26
But I just don't.
31:26 --> 31:28
I want to see this film raw.
31:28 --> 31:30
I hate trailers in general in some ways.
31:30 --> 31:32
I don't need to see a trailer for me personally.
31:33 --> 31:33
Yeah.
31:33 --> 31:35
Because I hate being spoiled on movies.
31:35 --> 31:38
But if people want to see trailers, of course, you're working on that.
31:38 --> 31:38
That's good.
31:39 --> 31:42
I'm sure you wouldn't mind if people contact you directly on Facebook either.
31:42 --> 31:43
Anytime.
31:43 --> 31:43
Anytime.
31:44 --> 31:45
That's the thing with the trailer.
31:46 --> 31:47
I feel the same way.
31:47 --> 31:49
Like, I don't know what to give away.
31:49 --> 31:50
I don't want to give away anything.
31:50 --> 31:51
Right.
31:51 --> 31:51
Of course.
31:51 --> 31:52
But I know people want to see them.
31:52 --> 31:55
But that's why we're having such a hard time cutting the trailers.
31:55 --> 31:57
We're just like, oh, that's going to give away too much.
31:57 --> 31:58
Yeah.
31:58 --> 31:58
Yeah.
31:58 --> 31:59
You want to entice.
31:59 --> 32:00
I get it.
32:00 --> 32:02
You want to entice without delivering the whole meal.
32:02 --> 32:03
Yeah.
32:03 --> 32:04
And that's why I sent you the news clip.
32:04 --> 32:05
That's perfect.
32:05 --> 32:08
Because I thought there's a couple clips in there and you can kind of see Mike.
32:09 --> 32:11
I think the news clip is actually pretty good.
32:11 --> 32:11
Yeah.
32:12 --> 32:12
For that.
32:12 --> 32:13
It doesn't reveal too much.
32:14 --> 32:18
The last thing I wanted to ask you was who came up with the title, The Pretender?
32:18 --> 32:19
That was me, actually.
32:20 --> 32:25
I thought it was going to be the most fun and simplest part of this was coming up with
32:25 --> 32:26
the title.
32:26 --> 32:31
And I kept telling the editor, Danny, like, oh, there's going to be some line in there that
32:31 --> 32:33
we're just going to love and that's going to be the title.
32:33 --> 32:35
But it took right almost to the end.
32:35 --> 32:37
I mean, maybe six months ago we got it.
32:37 --> 32:41
But we went through a bunch of different titles and none of them were good enough.
32:41 --> 32:44
But I really love the title now, The Pretender.
32:44 --> 32:49
It means a lot because he is pretending, right?
32:49 --> 32:50
He is pretending to be somebody.
32:51 --> 32:55
It's a play on words with The Contender because it is, you know, boxing themed.
32:55 --> 33:01
But when we added The Pretender, the dream is real because it is a real story.
33:02 --> 33:06
And I think once, now that the film is done and it's out there, it's like The Pretender
33:06 --> 33:10
is pretty far from being just a pretender.
33:10 --> 33:12
That's kind of the message.
33:12 --> 33:17
When you get to the end of this movie, you will take, hopefully you'll take no negative
33:17 --> 33:19
from that word, The Pretender.
33:19 --> 33:21
He's the real deal.
33:21 --> 33:22
He's the real deal.
33:23 --> 33:27
That's what I like about the title because, like again, I don't want to get any spoilers
33:27 --> 33:28
about the movie.
33:28 --> 33:28
No, it's okay.
33:28 --> 33:31
It's a great, it's, yeah, it's an interesting title.
33:31 --> 33:33
I was curious why you came up with it.
33:34 --> 33:36
I mean, I know what you're doing and why you came up with it.
33:36 --> 33:40
But it's very catchy, very, draws you in.
33:40 --> 33:41
I like that.
33:41 --> 33:42
Yeah.
33:42 --> 33:45
Because I would imagine, I don't want to spoil the documentary because I haven't seen it,
33:46 --> 33:50
but I would imagine everything about him is authentic and everything about him.
33:50 --> 33:51
That's my guess.
33:51 --> 33:52
No one would want to know about Mike.
33:52 --> 33:56
He's got a heart of gold and everything about him is authentic and that's what makes the
33:56 --> 33:58
title very poignant, I think.
33:59 --> 33:59
Yes.
33:59 --> 34:00
Very well said, Ryan.
34:00 --> 34:02
You hit the nail on the head.
34:02 --> 34:04
Boy, that's pretty good for not seeing the film, eh?
34:04 --> 34:04
I know.
34:05 --> 34:05
I know.
34:06 --> 34:07
Unless you couldn't have showed it to you.
34:07 --> 34:10
We showed Mike a week before the screening.
34:10 --> 34:11
I was so nervous.
34:12 --> 34:18
I was kidding myself, thinking, you know what, Mike and his wife and his parents, they'll fly
34:18 --> 34:22
in and we'll watch the movie with everybody and everyone will love it.
34:23 --> 34:29
And I got so nervous and I finally, I talked to Mike and he said, Jim, I'm okay, but my wife's
34:29 --> 34:30
pretty nervous.
34:30 --> 34:32
And I said, you know what, let's just solve this.
34:32 --> 34:38
And I actually had a, we were shooting something for Ram trucks out in Seattle and I flew
34:38 --> 34:43
from Seattle to Philly to show them the dock and then flew back home to Detroit.
34:43 --> 34:47
And it was the best thing I could have done because we just, the night of the screening,
34:47 --> 34:49
we all, they loved it.
34:49 --> 34:53
So the night of the screening, we're all happy and just having fun rather than nervous.
34:54 --> 34:55
Oh, good.
34:55 --> 34:56
So everyone was happy on their end?
34:57 --> 34:57
Family was happy?
34:57 --> 34:57
Oh, yeah.
34:58 --> 34:58
It was great.
34:58 --> 34:59
Yeah.
34:59 --> 35:03
His, his dad, he showed his parents the night before they came to Detroit and I didn't
35:03 --> 35:04
know that.
35:04 --> 35:05
So we all went to dinner.
35:05 --> 35:06
So I was still a little bit nervous.
35:06 --> 35:09
Like, you know, I got to get his parents to sign off on this thing.
35:09 --> 35:14
And, uh, we sat down for dinner and his, and his dad leaned over the table, very emotional
35:14 --> 35:16
and said, you guys nailed it.
35:16 --> 35:17
You guys nailed it.
35:17 --> 35:18
That's awesome.
35:18 --> 35:19
Wait, you didn't see it.
35:19 --> 35:20
He said, I saw it last night, Jimmy.
35:21 --> 35:21
We love it.
35:21 --> 35:22
Night.
35:22 --> 35:26
So we drank some four roses at dinner at this Italian restaurant.
35:27 --> 35:31
And, uh, and it was a, it was a really great night, a great weekend for sure.
35:31 --> 35:32
Oh, that is so cool.
35:32 --> 35:33
Well, there you go.
35:33 --> 35:38
Well, congratulations to you on doing this just to put a film together and congratulations
35:38 --> 35:40
to Mike to have a life that's worth filming.
35:40 --> 35:43
I mean, so congratulations to you both.
35:43 --> 35:47
And, uh, thank you so much for spending some time with us on the show.
35:47 --> 35:50
And, and I really hope we get this word out and get that film out.
35:50 --> 35:54
And when it does come out, I'm going to, I'm going to plug the crap out of it to get people
35:54 --> 35:56
to buy it and download it wherever they can do that.
35:56 --> 35:57
So awesome.
35:57 --> 35:58
Thanks, Ryan.
35:58 --> 35:59
It's fun to talk to you, man.
35:59 --> 36:00
Yeah, you bet, Jim.
36:00 --> 36:01
And, uh, have a good night.
36:01 --> 36:02
All right.
36:02 --> 36:02
You too.
36:02 --> 36:02
Thank you.
36:02 --> 36:03
We'll talk to you soon.
36:03 --> 36:33
Thank you.
36:33 --> 36:34
Thank you.
36:34 --> 36:35
Thank you.
36:35 --> 36:37
Thank you.
36:37 --> 36:38
Thank you.
