Darwin's Got Nothing on Crafty Apes Founder Chris LeDoux - With Ryan Millsap

Ryan Millsap, Chairman & CEO of Atlanta-based Blackhall Studios, is one of today’s top entertainment executives! With a vision for Blackhall that’s ambitious, energizing, and boundless, Millsap is blazing a trail through the heart of the South – and setting his sights on the future of entertainment. Listen and learn as Ryan Millsap journeys through the myriad industries, people, and landscapes that traverse the complex and dynamic world of film production.

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Ryan: I'm Ryan Millsap, CEO of Blackhall Studios in Atlanta, and this is the Blackhall Studios Podcast. Why does a busy Hollywood studio do a podcast, you might ask? Blackhall is the home of great movies like Jumanji: The Next Level and fan-favorite series like HBO's Lovecraft Country. But for me, hosting a podcast is an amazing way to meet people and to connect to the community. I learn from each interview and from each person. My roots are actually in America's heartland. My mother's from Nebraska. My father's from Missouri. And though some folks might think I've ‘gone Hollywood,’ I'm now just an Atlanta boy who loves to meet new and interesting people. And yes, some of them will just happen to be famous Hollywood types.

I'm a dad; a businessman. I live on a farm out in Social Circle, and I love the peace and quiet there. But I also love to learn about the philosophy of human nature. So why a podcast? That's why. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I appreciate you.

Chris Ledoux is what some people describe as a marvel at his craft, with director and producer credits under his belt. Check him out on IMDb. Chris Ledoux is a digital artist – or, as the mainstream would say, a visual effects supervisor in film and television. We tracked down some of Chris's peers, and this is just a tiny sample of the accolades we came across.

“Chris is a man of many skills, and is as hard-working as they come. He has the ability to make miracles happen.” That was the Chief Technology Officer at Magnopus. “He did the design and work of a whole team in a matter of days, not weeks.” That was the VFX supervisor at A52. “If Chris leaped over a building in a single bound, I wouldn't be surprised.” That was the CEO at Furious Designs. “There are compositors, and then there's Chris Ledoux. To say he's a one-man wrecking crew would be putting it lightly.” That was the senior light designer at Luma Pictures.

Chris Ledoux, founder of Crafty Apes VFX, is described as smart, damn funny and determined to thrive. I welcome to the Blackhall Studios Podcast Chris Ledoux.

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Ryan: Welcome to the Blackhall Studios Podcast. Today we have, back on the podcast, Chris Ledoux. Welcome to the program, Chris.

Chris: Hey, how's it going?

Ryan: I just learned the most interesting thing when we were talking ahead of time – that you grew up in Alaska in a Pentecostal family.

Chris: Yeah. Assembly of God church in Kodiak Island.

Ryan: My mom grew up in the Assembly of God church in Nebraska.

Chris: Really?

Ryan: She could tell you all kinds of things that were good and bad about that experience. Tell me some of the things that were good, and tell me some of the things that were traumatizing.

Chris: Well, luckily, Alaska has a very low biodiversity, so there's no snakes there. No snake handling. There's plenty of halibut handling. And I'm pretty sure when the Holy Spirit spoke in tongues, it was in Tagalog. My hometown was half Filipino, half, Caucasian. And so, to me, it was interesting. Growing up, it was normal. I'm talking to my friends. I'm like, “You don't go to a place every Sunday where people chant and dance?” And they're like, “No.”

It was fascinating. I mean, it gave me a strong base, I suppose. But I've seen people passed out. I’ve seen people touched. Or, at one point – I think I was in eighth grade. There was my first experience with what you might call a tent revival, but there was no tent, because it's windy up there. Everyone in the church just broke out laughing hysterically, except for me. And it was like watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which I didn't think was funny. I didn't understand why anyone thought it was funny. And it was like this uncontrollable, primal groupthink. I'd never seen anything like it before. And at that point in your life... it was fascinating.

Ryan: “What just happened? Am I missing out on the voice of God?”

Chris: Yeah. It's like when I go to a concert, and I see everyone getting into it, and I'm not able to, for some reason. And I'm like, “Maybe if I drink enough, or I...” But I'm never able to. I can't let go for some reason. I have to seriously override my prefrontal cortex to feel much. So I'm like, “Am I a sociopath?  I wonder. Let me see. Let me kill this bug. Yeah, now I feel bad. Sorry, bug.”

But, no – it was it was interesting, because we all are products of our environment. So to us, everything – that's normal. We assume everyone has that, to some degree. And then I realized one day that this isn't how most of my friends that would go to the normal church... They’re like, “No, no; we don't do that.” And then I started reading some of the background on the Assembly of God rising out of the very impoverished South, and traveling, and making its way to Alaska. And, yeah, it was fascinating. It's one of the most more interesting things that I didn't realize I had in my life until I was older; that it wasn't something most people experienced.

Ryan: Yeah. You grew up in the fringe of the fringe of Protestantism.

Chris: Yeah.

Ryan: Right? Protestantism is a breakout group from Catholicism, and inside of Protestantism today, I think there's three 30,000 different denominations.

Chris: 30,000?

Ryan: I believe so.

Chris: Wow.

Ryan: Splinters of splinters of splinters.

Chris: Yeah. That's got to be quite the tree.

Ryan: It's amazing. It's an amazing tree.

Chris: That's fascinating, to know that.

Ryan: So, then – where did that leave you in trying to develop spirituality, if your early experiences of things that were labeled spiritual felt confusing?

Chris: I mean, I think it developed a natural curiosity. My father's foundation of theology was that indoctrination was not a good thing. That, if there was a God, and he created people that were forced to worship him, it would be proof of nothing. And so, ultimately, the gift that God gave everyone was free will. Without choosing someone through free will, it's not proof of anything. My dad's a big C.S. Lewis guy, so with that, he developed a natural curiosity and questioning.

So, as I work on my own ideas – really, what it led to is, I just have to tell you – I don't know anything. That's where I’m at. I don't know much. I have gut feelings about things. But, like we talked about before, I'm leaning towards Carl Jung meets quantum physics, and some sort of holistic connection in the universe that's more apparent than we realize.

Ryan: I think it's fascinating to think of your dad being a big C.S. Lewis fan and being in the Assembly of God church.

Chris: Yeah. No, it wasn't... I think, in terms of the pure philosophy of the Assembly of God, he wasn't necessarily into that. Because we eventually switched in high school to a Baptist church. But he liked the energy and the spirit.

Ryan: The passion.

Chris: Yeah. There was a certain... My dad grew up extremely poor. And he moved, migrated, from Minnesota to Seattle to Alaska. And the Assembly of God was not a church where people put on airs, so to speak. Most groups of humans – you put them together, they form their own taxonomy, and their own stratification, to where there's a pecking order. And it becomes more about the actual grouping of the humans versus the actual idea of the church in the first place.

And so, I think he liked the idea that the church really serviced some of the poorer people – what you might call the lower end; the lower classes of the community. We’d go there – and my dad was a community pillar; a white collar guy – but a lot of people who’d go to the church were like, “Oh, that's the kid that wears a Metallica shirt and smokes behind the school.” My dad's like, “Yeah. Jesus hung out with prostitutes. You're not supposed to go hang out with people that are driving Range Rovers.”

I think my dad was attracted to the church because it didn't put on a lot of heirs. It wasn't subject to the normal sort of human interference for spirituality, where people have to worry about who's wearing what, or who's in charge of the Sunday school or the PTA group, or whatever. It felt, I think, to him, like a closer connection to what the whole point of church was – because we would debate it. Someone came up with a bright idea to schedule church during Seahawks games, which was a terrible idea.

Ryan: Terrible idea.

Chris: Especially in Alaska, given the time-zone change, when the Seahawks actually play – church is right there. And the Assembly of God – they don't know about schedules. They might go for one hour; they might go for five hours. You never know. And that's the problem. So, we would debate a lot. “Why are we going here? What are we doing here? I have two days a week for a weekend, and I want three hours to listen to the Seahawks,” because I've been a fan since I was four.

Ryan: I was going to ask. How did you become a fan at four years old?

Chris: That's weird. We were talking about music and concerts. For me, football is the one thing where I can primally let go. I can yell at strangers, throw bottles at them, and threaten to kill their cousins. And I feel something. It breaks down the barriers of my intellectualism right away. I go into full caveman mode. It feels great.

Ryan: Did you play football as well?

Chris: No, we didn't have a football team in my high school. We had basketball. I played a lot of sports. But I love the game. It's one of the few things where I can just primally let go.

Ryan: When you're watching the game, do you feel more like a quarterback or a linebacker?

Chris: I would love to go 50 years ago and play both ways – a safety, and a quarterback.

Ryan: Quarterback and safety.

Chris: Safety – you're reading the quarterback's eyes, and you're sneaking up, and then...

Ryan: You know, I was a quarterback and a safety.

Chris: Really? Free safety, strong safety?

Ryan: I played strong safety in high school, but I played free safety in college.

Chris: Oh, really? You played college ball?

Ryan: Not at Biola. I played baseball at Biola.

Chris: Ah, I played first. I just camped my big butt there, and had my giant ten-foot glove. And then, occasionally – if they wanted to bean someone, I'd go on the mound for a bit.

Ryan: My football was a really funny story, because I played football at Oxford in England.

Chris: Okay. Yeah. Right.

Ryan: And the way it happened was, I was on the rowing team of my college at Oxford – Keble College. I was in the quad. And some guys – two guys – came up to me, and they just said, “Hey, you're an American, right?” I said, “Yeah, I'm an American.” They said, “Do you play football?” And I said, “Soccer? Nah, I don't really play soccer.” They said, “No, no; American football.” I said, “Yeah, I love American football.”

They said, “Well we have a team.” And I said, “Like, with pads?” They said, “Oh yeah, full kit.” And I said, “Oh, that's interesting.” They said, “Would you be interested in coming in to play with us?” And I said, “Sure, I'll check it out.” I went out – and, I mean, it was like playing football in America at Yale in the 1950s.

Chris: Wow, that's awesome.

Ryan: It was incredible.

Chris: Running plays and running plays...

Ryan: Running plays and running plays. The first half of the first game, I came in at halftime, and I said to the coach – he hadn't called one pass play. And I said to the coach, “You know we can throw the ball, right?” And he said, “Well, we've never had a quarterback who could throw.” And I said, “All right, all right. Listen.” And I call this guy Brad over, who was on our team.

The way it worked in this league is, because Oxford and Cambridge had so many Americans, the other universities didn't. And so, these teams were really made up of all rugby players who wanted to play American football, the way that American football players like to play rugby in college; just mixing it up. So they made this rule, because of Oxford and Cambridge, that only three Americans from either team could be on the field at any one time. All the Americans had to wear these big white A's on their jerseys, so they could count and say, “Well, you can only have three Americans.”

So anyway, one of our Americans was a guy named Brad – and Brad had been an All-American cornerback at Stanford. But he was doing his PhD at Oxford in history. And in this league – it wasn't like the NCAA. You didn't have five years to play four. If you were matriculated, you were eligible. So, I had a 28-year-old fullback who'd played fullback at Pitt, and he was working on a PhD. And so, it was just this ragtag crew.

But we come over at halftime. I say to the coach, and Brad here; I say, “Brad, can you beat the guy who's covering you?” He said, “Oh, all day long.” I said, “So, coach, on the first play of the second half, when we have the ball, we're going to score a touchdown.” He said, “How are you going to score a touchdown?” I said, “Well, Brad is going to run a post and go, and he's going to leave his guys fast. He knows how to run a route. I'm going to throw the ball up, and Brad's going to run under it, and we're going to score.” And that's what we did.

And so, after that first game, I had to go back and make up a whole bunch of passing plays under the offense that the coach had been running for years: the Wing-T. Remember the Wing-T from the 50s? I had actually... When we were in high school, we ran the Wing-T. And so I knew tons about the offense. But then I went back to the coach, and I said, “Hey, coach – I think you're missing a whole set of plays that are run out of the Wing-T that are all passing.” He said, “What are you talking about?” I just started laying them out for him – and they were all made-up, but we incorporated them all into the offense. And actually, then, it got a lot more interesting.

Chris: That's awesome.

Ryan: It was not any high level of football, but it was a lot of fun. I played quarterback and free safety, only for the first 3 or 4 games. And then the coach banned me from playing defense, because I like to hit people too hard, and he didn't want me to get hurt.

Chris: That's awesome. Bet it was a blast.

Ryan: It was a blast. Anyway, you became a Seahawks fan at a really young age. Today, what does a Sunday look like for you, watching the Seahawks?

Chris: Well, it was really depressing this last Sunday. I mean, losing to the Giants is embarrassing.

Ryan: They did not look good.

Chris: They looked terrible. Luckily, the Steelers looked terrible, too – losing to the Washington Football Team. So, it was just a bad week for teams that were undefeated at home. But trap games are our curse. We get a couple every year.

Ryan: But do you plan your Sunday around the Seahawks?

Chris: During the season. I mean, I'm working so much, and doing family stuff every other time. That's the one... I tell my kids, “Look, I just went three hours. Just go away.” They're like, “Can I watch?” I'm like, “No, because you want me to put on YouTube the entire game to watch your kid videos.” So I'm like, “No, go watch Minecraft somewhere else. And whatever that Roblox crap is.” No – my wife's into it. At least, she pretends. So, it's enough.

Ryan: Where is she from?

Chris: Los Angeles. Woodland Hills.

Ryan: So, did she grow up as an NFL fan, or did she become one?

Chris: No. She grew up as a Rams fan. Her dad used to... So, the Cowboys train around Ventura, for summer training. And her dad was buddies with Tom Landry, and designed some of their trophies and stuff. So, she grew up sort of a pseudo Cowboys, Rams, Raiders... She’s not a proper football fan.

Ryan: She's a fan of the game.

Chris: Yeah. She does it for me, which I appreciate.

Ryan: How about your kids? Are they growing up proper Seahawks fans?

Chris: Yeah. My oldest went, the year we won the Super Bowl. He went to every playoff game in the Super Bowl, and he came with me to the first game. We beat the Saints in Seattle. And we had first-row seats right behind the Seahawks. I mean – same thing. I could tell he really doesn't love it like I do, because he's a dork, but he humors me.

Ryan: Okay. So, let's take a step back away from football. Talk about... how do you make the transition from growing up in Alaska to doing VFX on major motion pictures?

Chris: So, I was basically... well, there's no better way to put this. I was in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I was what you call ‘king shit of turd mountain,’ and I was making local commercials and market 2038 of 206 in the Nielsens, working for the local television stations. This was in, like, 2004.

And I also had this little crappy little business. Final Cut Pro, digital cameras, had just come out a couple years ago. Doing my own cutting; doing corporate video for Department of Defense, oil companies; making local, like, “Welcome to Fairbanks, monster trucks, brrr.” You know. And I had a friend who had whose job I had taken up there. He had made his way down to L.A. a couple years before that, and called me up one day in summer of ’04 and said, “Hey, do you want to go work on movies?” I'm like, “Sure, where?”

He goes, “San Francisco. There's this movie called Sin City.” I’m like, “Never heard of it.” And he says, “You're going to be a compositor.” Like, “What's that?” It was hard, actually. It seems weird in retrospect, but there was a debate, because right then, I was about 26, and my shitty little company had exploded. That month, I’d made 30 grand – which, at 26 in Fairbanks, I'm like, “This great.” I mean, within a few months, you could buy a house.

But then it was like, I did the classic thing. I like to do this thing when it comes to those decisions. I was going to have to throw the business away to do this. And I imagined myself at 36, then, looking back – going both paths. I imagined myself still in Alaska at 36 years old, making the same thing, and always wondering ‘what if?’ And I imagined myself the other way, and I didn't know what would happen.

So, when you don't know what's going to happen, that's a lot more interesting. So I threw everything in my truck, drove down the Al-Can Highway to San Francisco, and had a bit of a culture shock at first. And my brother – one of my brothers came with me, and our second night there, we managed to buy a bag of oregano in the Haight-Ashbury for about 60 bucks for an eighth. It was like, “Hm. This isn't... I don't think there's THC in this, David.” He goes, “It’s oregano.” And I’m like, “You bastard.”

But it was a bit of a culture shock. And I'd gone to college in Oregon for a couple of years. The lower 48 wasn't completely unfamiliar, but Oregon State is in Corvallis, Oregon, and San Francisco is shocking. But I loved it. It was an adventure. And the best part about it is, in Fairbanks, what I was doing wasn't great work. It was better than what everybody else was doing. But I wasn't being challenged. And when I went to San Francisco, I was at this company called The Orphanage. It was the most humbling experience ever. There were probably 107 people there, and I was the dumbest one, and the least skilled, and I had no business being there.

I kind of, deep down, knew that's what I was doing. And it was a good thing. I mean, to go into rooms to present your work, and you're embarrassed. You're like, “Crap, I don't know what I'm doing.” So I ended up just... I’d clock in for eight hours a day, and then I’d live there. I’d open up other people's work, and see how they did stuff. I got some crappy apartment off Craigslist with some really crazy people – who were really crazy, but I liked them. They were just... they discovered mushrooms at a later age, which was very strange for people. They were a classic San Francisco story.

So, I learned everything. And then, within a few months, we finished it, and they re-upped me for the next one. And a year later, I went to L.A. and did a job there, and moved to L.A. Then I ended up at a crossroads early in my career – I’m about a year in now, with this big choice. At the time, I didn't realize it was a big choice – which was, go back to San Francisco to work on Bryan Singer’s Superman. Or work on this – go to the Central Coast of California, a little town called San Maria, where there was a random company working on this thing called Pan's Labyrinth, and it sounded cooler to me.

I’m just like, “Oh, this sounds more interesting. I'm not a comic book guy. Superman doesn't...” You know. So I went there, and it was one of the best choices I made. I made lifelong friends. There's something about being in small towns which bonds people. And that was weird. I mean, I lived at the Holiday Inn for year. They put me up at the Holiday Inn, so I lived at this sort of lower-middle-tier hotel for a year – seeing the same people come through every couple of months. Private investigators; because they hang out at the bar. And it was a strange place, because San Maria is about 100,000. Fairbanks is about 100,000. In the area, Fairbanks had 100 bars. San Maria had three bars.

Californians don't party like Alaskans do. And so, a lot of the community was just bizarre. A lot of this weird new housing; take the same two designs and stamp them out 500 times. And then, a lot of undocumented immigrants that weren't allowed to, like, get caught by the cops. It was a weird, bizarre place. But it's one of the best times I ever had. And some of the coolest artists – who, a lot of them... because that company went under, they now work for us. I mean, all I've ever really wanted is a life of adventure. So I've had it.

Ryan: You've had it for sure. So, how did you end up in Atlanta?

Chris: So, we started our VFX company in 2011, in Culver City. Technically, we started off Washington Boulevard in Venice Marina; Mar Vista, I guess some call it. And our first client was Tyler Perry.

Ryan: Is that right?

Chris: For Lionsgate. And so, I started flying out to Atlanta to help film some of his movies. And then, one day, he decided he was not going to make movies for a while. He was going to do some television. And it was Saturday morning, 2013, in the summer. I get this call my cell phone, and it's Tyler. He asked if I'd come to Atlanta to do some VFX work on his TV show.

So, we came out here, and I immediately started looking at the landscape. I was here for three months straight, filming the show, and I realized there were really no VFX companies out here. But this credit was very attractive. There was some tension; I looked at what happened in Michigan when their credit went away. But your subconscious intuition background-processes and spits you out an answer, and you go, “There's something here.”

And so, I went back to – my brother's one of my partners, and my partner Jason. I was like, “I think we should expand to Atlanta. I think there's something here. And especially, if we're doing Tyler's work, they get a tax credit if we do it there. And I really think this place is going to blow up.” Usually I'm not great at betting, but this time the bet paid off. And so, a few of us came out here and started a beachhead with four people. And now we're up to 70 at our peak here.

So I told my wife, basically – I got back. I'm like, “Hey.” She'd been in L.A. her entire life. After 39 years in L.A., I'm like, “Have you thought about Atlanta?” And she's like, “Oh, yeah, I've been there plenty of times. It’s great.” She's a natural adventurer. She was totally down to check it out. And now we love it.

Ryan: What are some of the things that you, being from Alaska, and then living in LA – and she, growing up in LA and now living in Atlanta – what do you guys love about Atlanta?

Chris: For me? I like the trees, to be honest. I grew up in the woods. My dad built a house next to a state park in probably the northernmost rainforest. The Kodiak sits in southern Alaska, so it’s similar to Seattle, and it's a rainforest. So I was a I didn't know a lot about Atlanta, really. Just like every West Coaster, I was like, “Oh, the Confederacy; that's where they hand out second-place trophies.” And so, it just wasn't on my radar. I just never thought of the South, really.

Just like all stereotypes, I got here, and coming from a small town, I met a lot of people that were similar. Not the meth-smoking, get pregnant at 16 similar. But sort of a calmer way of looking at the world. So, the trees and then the people. The shooting out here versus in LA – I mean, because I'm a kid who grew up watching video tapes in “Nowhere, Alaska,” going to the video store. So I'm enamored by movies. I'm so lucky, because I work on movies.

I film in LA, because I direct small things out there. I'd be on set out there. And you would think these people were 1905 coal miners in West Virginia. Like, “Oh, I gotta shoot today.” And I'm like, “Yeah, this is...” I mean, I hate using that word ‘blessing’ because it makes me sound like a bumpkin, but this is a blessing. You get to work on movies. And they're like, “Oh, I had to take the 105 down to the 110.” And I'm like, “Yeah, you live in L.A. That's what happens here. Like. Like you're working on movies.” Like, “Ugh, catering today didn't have the right vegan food.” And I'm like, “Oh, dude.”

So, I got out here, and people were excited to work on movies. They still are. You go to locations. And I remember... I was in Savannah one time, when I was directing as second-unit for Tyler. I had to go get background plates for all the greenscreen. My location scout took me to all these places. I'm like, “Okay, the street looks fine.” We start shooting these plates, because we had this sort of carte blanche location permit.

And these people all came out, within minutes. These people had nothing. I'm talking, like, there were ten people in the house. One of them worked, and she was the greeter at Walmart – which, you don't have to do the math too hard to figure it out. You can look around, and any time the power lines aren't buried, you know you're in a poor neighborhood. And I was just looking around. But they were like, “What are you filming for?” I'm like, “Tyler Perry.”

And they were like... You would have thought I was the spokesman for Jesus. They were like, “What? You've actually talked to him?” Like, “Yeah. He's a person. Of course I've talked to him.” I had to check myself and remember that, after being in LA for so long – coming from a small town, you could get a D-list celebrity to show up to Alaska, and they'd be like, “Oh my goodness. You know who showed up? It was that woman from Buck Rogers.” You know. “Who, Erin Gray?”

And so it struck me – well, in Tyler's case, how crucial he was to that community. Just random people he didn’t even know. I mean, it was so different. I was outside of Hollywood, and these people were so, like... “Wow, you work on movies. You're something.” I mean, the mayor even came out to me. I'm like, “No, I'm just a guy, you know?” And so, there's something about the culture here. It has a sense of community. And you get that word ‘commune’ from ‘community.’ And it really is about helping each other out – which is ironic, because so many of them are right wing. But still. We won’t talk about the juxtaposition there.

Ryan: The right-wing communes? I thought they were left-wing – communes.

Chris: I know; that's the thing. That's the problem – the people that are all about community and small town values are really preaching communism. But they hate it.

Ryan: They want the freedom to share.

Chris: I want the freedom to shoot my community. And so, I've fallen in love with the people here; the work ethic. I mean, if you look at what you've done here – it's an opportunity. I didn't grow up wealthy. I don't know if you did. It's like, this is a place where, when it's Boomtown – you hear the stories about Fairbanks, Alaska, 100 years ago, when they found gold. Or the pipeline in Alaska, in the 70s. And it sounds so cool. And that's kind of what this is. It’s a place where, if you're ambitious...

I mean, look at the mini-economies that are being spun. I mean, we're here in a room with you, doing a podcast. You have a producer for a podcast – that's a mini economy. That's a result of this industry, you know? All these things spin off. And so, watching this whole thing develop, and watching storytellers come up, or people... I never thought of Atlanta, but I talk to independent filmmakers who tell me these stories that I could never have related to growing up in Alaska.

This happened to me in College Park. Or, like those poor kids in Savannah I was talking to. And so... I think it's funny, because ‘Southern Gothic’ almost feels like a genre now. But yeah. I'm not articulating it very well, but there's some things I can't put into words properly. There's something about the culture here, and the people, and everyone I've met, that's very ambitious – and it doesn't feel like there's time to complain.

Ryan: Yeah. I think of Atlanta specifically as this really beautiful combination of New York drive and L.A. vision with Southern soul.

Chris: That’s great. It’s a much more concise way of putting it.

Ryan: Because, oftentimes, New York and L.A. can feel soulless. And I’ve never experienced soullessness in Atlanta.

Chris: No, that's a good way to put it. It's interesting, because in a lot of ways, it's a transient city – which means that, in some ways, it feels like a city that's still trying to figure out its identity. And so, if I got a little five points, I'm like, “Oh, I'm in Seattle.” I'm like, “Oh, there's a heroin kid over there.” But then I go to these other parts, and I'm like, “What is Atlanta's identity?” And it's hard, because LA's movies, New York's economy... and then I look at Atlanta. The Braves lost again in the playoffs.

So it's cool to see it actually start to find this identity. We’re a tech powerhouse. And then, the black community – this is where you can really succeed in business. And this is where I've succeeded in business; you’ve succeeded in business. And so, it needs a different marketing department – because I think a lot of people don't think of it that way. But when you actually look at the stats, the upward mobility here is great. The tech investment – there's this whole gaming industry that's rising up right now, that's huge.

Ryan: Massive gaming industry.

Chris: And now we have this gigantic film industry, which people are aware of. But it's hard. Maybe it just takes time. I mean, some people still aren't aware that Vancouver is, like, the king of the world for TV shows. So it takes time, I guess, for Hollywood to sort of not have a complete stranglehold on ‘we own movies.’ But I think, once we close that final part of the ecosystem – which is, I guess, the first part; the financing, to the distribution – and really start making our own stories here? I think, for us, the marketing will come along with it.

But there's so many other things here. The tech stuff coming out of here is pretty amazing. You see there's a reason why Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Google – the big four – they're coming here. And I think there’s something pleasant about it. There's something about trees that are just... it's wonderful.

Ryan: Well, there's no doubt about that – especially when I grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona, where there are no trees. It's just desert. And then we moved to California, which is really a desert that people figured out how to funnel water around to have ‘fake civilization.’ And then you come to Atlanta, and it's a rainforest. Fundamentally, I think we get as much rain as Seattle.

Chris: More rain, actually. Just not as many rain days – but more inches.

Ryan: I didn't know that. But I knew that we got just as much in inches.

Chris: Yeah. I think it's more inches, but less rain days. At least, when I read Wikipedia when I was drinking, so I can't... I'm not going to 100% back that up.

Ryan: Well, from a lifestyle standpoint, it feels like it's sunny here all the time. And so, we don't get those Seattle days that are just gray on gray for weeks and weeks, where you don't see the sun – the way you would in Michigan. Michigan winters are death.

Chris: Oh, no. Yeah. This is pleasant. I mean, even the last couple days – it's cold. I’ve filmed in -60 in Fairbanks. This is fine. It's completely livable. Actually, the summers get too hot for me, because I'm very Northern. The humidity – I just can't deal with it. But I'm slowly acclimating. Yeah, it's pleasant here.

Ryan: I think that that the big piece in the ecosystem that will transform is when we get more Tylers. Right? Tyler, obviously, is the only entertainment billionaire in Atlanta, if you don't count Ted Turner. Ted did it. And so, Atlanta's already experienced an entertainment billionaire. We have our second one in Tyler. And as this industry evolves, and more and more money funds content in Georgia, and that funding makes a lot of money – then you'll start getting people that became rich in entertainment in Georgia. And that's when people start really paying attention.

Chris: I think they'll become rich, and they'll be confident in investing in entertainment – which is one of the biggest things I've seen. People here are comfortable investing in real estate; agriculture. These are knowns. When you start throwing the entertainment model in front of them, they start backing off – smartly. So, I think you need that example. We're all lemmings. Tyler's the best example. If we had more Tylers... Especially because he owns his own content. He hasn't done it, but he's fully capable of his own distribution at this point. He's a mini empire. You start building more of those? At that point...

It's just like we're seeing right now with COVID. We're examining our existing paradigms. At that point, you're like, “Well, what do I need LA for? What do they do that we don't?” And it's like, “Wait, nothing. It's just a network. What if I'm my own network? What if I'm the connection? Wait a second. I have the whole ecosystem here.” And that's what I love about COVID, in the sense that it's forcing us to examine a ton of paradigms, and realize that a lot of this stuff's made up – from currency, to how we work.

All of a sudden, we can work from home. Everyone's like, “How come no one thought of this before?” They did think of it; it's just that there were a lot of people that were benefiting from the existing structure. Oil companies that wanted people commuting every day. And in our thing, we're all work-from-home now – until the vaccine rush is pushed through, and provable, and they figure out if everyone's going to have to get the mark of the beast to see if they had it, or whatever. Once all that's through, maybe some people will come back, because some people like to socialize at work. But it does force us to examine a lot of stuff about how our society evolved, and then tweak it.

So, for what we're talking about – what's amazing about Tyler is, he didn't grow up rich at all. He just one day said, “I'm going to do it.” And he did it. He realized you can do this. You’ve invested in a couple of indie films. It's all it's going to take. You'll build a library, you'll hit on one, and boom – all of a sudden, Ryan Millsap is the distribution. He's the funding. He's the production. Like, “Wait. What do I need? Why do I need... I can just hire my own P&A people,” you know? Especially with theaters now taking a hit, the day and day release – I mean, who knows where it’ll go? We're about to see a massive paradigm shift, which I think is going to open it up for a lot of people to be able to do this.

Ryan: Well, you've taken all the skills, and then started making your own movies. You've been traveling the world making movies, I know – in Eastern Europe.

Chris: A TV show. Yeah.

Ryan: What were you doing over there?

Chris: We have a low-budget sci fi show on the CW. It's a negative pick-up TV show. So, the CW – the budget's not huge, but it's a blast. And so, to make it work, we film in Bulgaria. That's where we filmed that, because the dollar goes a lot farther there. And they're about to do tax credits – which is mind-boggling, how cheap it's going to be in comparison. The crews are experienced; they're good. And you have access to British actors, which are, in my mind the creme de la creme of actors. And so, yeah – we're able to get a show on the air for a much cheaper price than normal. Really, it’s a blast. It's one of the funnest things.

Ryan: What's a low-budget, per-episode television show cost to make in Bulgaria?

Chris: I have an NDA for that. I can't say.

Ryan: Well, give me a range of, like... if we were spitballing something.

Chris: I think the average TV show nowadays... I mean, Game of Thrones, by the end, was spending 15 to 20 an episode.

Ryan: An episode?

Chris: An episode. I think your average broadcast drama is probably spending 2 to 3 an episode, depending on cast. So, I think your average cable – depending on the quality – sub-million.

Ryan: So, you might be able to do it for half a million in Bulgaria?

Chris: Maybe, yeah.

Ryan: That'd be amazing. Then you could bang out a whole show for 5 million bucks for ten episodes.

Chris: Yeah. And if you were able to... although, unfortunately, the syndication model is now broken. If you could have done this 20 years ago, you'd be sitting really pretty. But television, I think, is still worth more than film by a lot.

Ryan: Well, the negative pickup, then – you're selling all the rights to whomever.

Chris: Well, yeah. When you made your movie, you sold to Amazon, right?

Ryan: Yeah. Well, we first sold it to Redbox. And then we sold it to Amazon.

Chris: So, I think TV's similar. You'd get Sony to sell it, distribute internationally, sell the territories, or whomever. It could be Netflix buying it out. You know, you get your agent. And so, it's very similar. What's nice about television is, I think that paradigm is about to change – because you get the concept of a season. Well, what is that based on? It’s based on a broadcast cycle, and a production cycle. If you're streaming now, why are we still stuck in that paradigm?

I mean, sort of, we conditioned ourselves to do that. But I think you could actually... if you view these things as mini-movies, which is what they are... I think what I'm getting at is, there's some stuff that's going to change. I don't know what it is yet, but that's going to change. Our viewing habits are changing.

Ryan: Well, the nice thing about seasons – even on the streaming – is that they get filmed in a bundle.

Chris: In a block.

Ryan: And then they get released, and people get to binge for whatever a week, or however fast they watch it. For some people, it’ll be in two days. But they get to binge-watch that, and then they wait for the next bundle. So, it's not necessarily about...

Chris: Soap operas don't follow that model. They’re shooting daily.

Ryan: No. That's right.

Chris: Yeah. So, there is... I think there's...

Ryan: I see what you're saying. You think there might be a paradigm shift to where some of these shows could become perennial?

Chris: Oh, I think there might be a different ground. So, you get Netflix and Disney. They're now releasing stuff weekly again. The Mandalorian comes out weekly – because Netflix was finding out is, when they were letting stuff all out at once and bingeing it? You'd spend a crap ton of money on this big, expensive show. It would be the buzziest thing for about three days, and then your next one would come out and torpedo your last one. So, your long tail of investment was not being hit.

And so, they've now started shifting a lot of their stuff to weekly. And Mandalorian does it with Disney. So, it's funny. We're now going back to when we used to wait for the next Seinfeld episode to come out, or whatever. There might be something in between. I mean, it was interesting. I was sad to see the Quibi experiment get hit. I think a lot of that was COVID. Or maybe we’re just not ready for it. But there's a lot of viewing habits that are different.

You know, I watch my kids watch YouTube videos, and I study them while they watch them. I see what they find interesting. Of course, there's the confirmation that, yes – their attention spans are terrible, and hopefully they develop. But I wonder, 20 years from now, if my children will actually be able to watch The Last Emperor or Doctor Zhivago or Barry Lyndon. Will they actually be able to sit through it and pay attention? It's hard to say. If that mechanism isn't beneficial to survive in their environment, probably not. Why would that evolve?

But if you think of it that way, then I think there's a lot that's going to... even platforms. What's going to stop people from popping up their own mini-platforms? There's too many platforms right now. You’ve got to go get signed up for Peacock, Netflix, Amazon, Disney. But, if there's this niche sort of broadcasting now – you're seeing these YouTube people with massive channels; millions and millions of views that are beating out shows that cost millions of dollars and are filmed for, like, $3 in someone's basement.

What does that tell us? I don't know. I just know that things are changing, in that we're sort of all going to become stars. Sort of this Warhol-esque prediction: we're all going to become stars of our own show. And ultimately, it's going to dilute things. So, I don't have any answers. I just know it's a fascinating time to observe it.

Ryan: Do you think that Google YouTube is financially reaping all the benefits of all these kids watching YouTube so much? Does it feel like they are actually monetizing all that?

Chris: I would have to look it. I remember when they first got YouTube, their biggest critic was Mark Cuban, who called it “GooTube.” He hated the idea. Now, he was an expert in HD broadcast – of course, where he made his money. I haven't looked at their financials. I mean, they got YouTube in 2006. So, 15 years later... I would think that.

Ryan: Didn’t they buy YouTube for, like, 300 million?

Chris: Something like that.

Ryan: It was low.

Chris: Yeah. It was a lot better than the Myspace deal. It was not much – even though, ‘05 or ‘06, I think they sold. And I think owning that kind of platform that's so integrated... I mean, I've switched my television. I use YouTube TV now. I don't have Comcast, or anything like that. I like streaming on my phone. And so, I think they were forward-thinking. Much how Amazon – just like any business – didn't make money for a long time, but was getting a stranglehold on the market; playing the long game.

So, I would think YouTube's a smart one, because it's so integrated. At the end of the day, you have to have hardware to actually watch these things. And so, by integrating it so well into the TVs and the phones – like, I'm so impressed with Netflix. You can't go buy a TV now that doesn't literally have a Netflix button on your remote.

Ryan: How did they pull that off? That’s amazing.

Chris: I mean, that's amazing. They're built in. How do you lose when you're actually built in?

Ryan: To the culture.

Chris: You know, at some point, there'll be some antitrust thing or something. Because it seems like... I mean, now, my latest TV also has an Amazon button.

Ryan: I was just going to say – I think there's an Amazon button, too. So now they're safe. Two options.

Chris: Yeah. Is the Disney Plus button going to come out?

Ryan: On the Disney Plus TV, yes.

Chris: And then, on top of that, we saw the Paramount decrees. They're going away. So, Disney, Amazon, Netflix – are they going to come bail out some of these theater chains? Are you going to go to... Are they going to complete their ecosystem circle? Because the decrees are going away. So, what does that mean? Some people think it'll destroy independent theaters. Or maybe it actually creates a whole different niche, that they're able to survive; that you know what experience you're going for.

“Okay, if I'm going to go watch The Avengers, I'm going to go to this Disney-branded chain, etc. and go through that whole process.” But maybe... So, Amazon has rights to Lord of the Rings, which is episodic – but maybe we go watch it in the theater. Maybe it's an event. Say Amazon buys AMC; bails them out. Now you go to the Amazon experience – if you're a Prime member, of course. And Netflix has theirs. But maybe if I want an independent – you know, two French people talking in a room about how their dad didn't hug them – I can go to an independent theater.

Ryan: Smoking, of course.

Chris: Yes, of course. “Ugh, it's so hard after the war.” That's just how I think of independent film – I love it, by the way. But that's another facet. I mean, the Paramount decree has been on since, like, what, 1951? I mean, that's seventy years. That changes everything now. If you can shove your one good movie, and your ten bad movies, down the throat of people – which is why they got rid of it initially – what does that mean?

But to me, I don't know what that is. I just know that one thing matters – which is what Tyler is really good at. Content is still king. And if you can produce content that people want to see? Blumhouse is brilliant at this. If you own the content, they're going to come to you, because people have to want to watch it. Whether it's a kid in his basement, “Ryan's Toys,” selling YouTube stuff, or it's Scorsese, or Fincher making Mank – whoever owns the content and is creating the content is going to be very well treated.

Ryan: What do you think about this idea? I think that the production companies are missing a huge opportunity to distribute movies directly to consumers and charge them, like pay per view – like, 50 bucks. You want to watch Jungle Cruise, which is right now sitting on a shelf, rotting. It was supposed to come out in the summer of 2020. It's now going to come out God-knows-when. I think they could roll that movie out on Disney Plus and partner with Apple; partner with Amazon; whatever – and say, “You want to watch Jungle Cruise, with the Rock, Emily Blunt? 50 bucks.”

Chris: Well, they already did it with Mulan.

Ryan: How much do they charge there? $20?

Chris: 30 bucks.

Ryan: 30 bucks?

Chris: Yeah. We did a lot of work on Mulan, and they did it a couple of months ago. And it was semi-successful, I think. And Universal did it with Trolls 2.

Ryan: I remember that.

Chris: And they did, actually, a lot better than people thought. They made a few hundred million, from one of the numbers I was reading. So, that's what a lot of people... And Warner Brothers just announced that everything in 2021 is going to HBO Max.

Ryan: But that’s coming right onto HBO Max without an extra cost, right?

Chris: I'm not exactly sure on that. So, Disney's already established that there is premium pay per view. If you wanted Mulan, if you have Disney Plus, it's an extra 30 bucks – so they've already tried that. And I'm not internal at Disney. I don't know how they view it, as successful or not. But that's a potential new model.

Ryan: It seems like there's a model for it – or there's a market that people are sitting at home on a Friday night, Saturday night, and they would get up and take their family to the movie theater if they could go. But they can't. And so, to pay $40, $50, whatever – $50, to me, psychologically feels like the ceiling.

Chris: If it's not a Tyson fight, at $50, it's feeling... Families get weird. 30 even felt a little steep, because you're paying 10 to 15 bucks a month, and for a one-time event, you're going to go double on one thing. Well, if it's premium... Yeah. I mean, people did.

Ryan: If you can wait four weeks, it's free.

Chris: Yeah. But there is something. I think it's funny, because I was talking about this the other day. There's something about the theater that's still significant, because... And I know it's a tangent, but – Friday night. You want to go hang out with your girlfriend. Literally, what is there to do? There’s restaurants, bars, and movie theaters. There's a play. Or there's those awkward groups where strangers get together and do artwork, or something – you know what I mean? Or there's people that ride bikes around.

When you actually think of human activities, throughout our history of humans, we have never had much leisure time. Dating is a 19th century invention. You know, there was courtship for the aristocracy. The idea that the average middle-class person had time to go court someone for pleasure? Come on. You had to wait for the rise of agriculture to no longer be the predominant work field. So what do you actually do? In modern American history, if you want to go take someone out... A theater. It’s a classic thing. Because ultimately, people run out of stuff to say to each other, so you might as well listen to what someone else has to say.

So, there isn't... Even in the premium experience with your television, you're still stuck at your house. It's not a changing environment. So, I'm still bullish on the theater. I think it's going to transform. I think it'll be smaller than it was, but I don't think it's dead.

Ryan: Although, I'm actually of the opinion that, post-COVID, you're going to have an entire generation of young people that treats going to the movies and going to concerts and going out the way that the Depression-era people treated food.

Chris: They’re going to hoard it?

Ryan: Yeah. Well, they're going to savor it. And they're going to always look for opportunities to go and be in groups and do all the things that they couldn't do during COVID.

Chris: I mean, yeah; it's fascinating. Who knows what the long term effects will be? Will it affect a generation, or will they bounce back quickly, and it'll just be sort of forgotten about – the way we forgot about 9/11.

Ryan: Think about pre-COVID. If you were somebody that had friends, who were going to a concert, and you weren't totally up for it, and they said, “Hey, do you want to go to this concert?” You’re like, “I don't want to go.” But then, after living through a year of being stuck in your house, the next time somebody says to you, “Hey, do you want to go to a concert?” you think, “I don't know if I really want to go. But man, I remember COVID. That was so terrible. I should go to that concert.”

Chris: Live every day like it's your last.

Ryan: Right.

Chris: No, it's possible. I was reading something – one of the things psychologists are worried about is that people are actually going to get addicted to solitude.

Ryan: Addicted to solitude?

Chris: Yeah. There's a certain percentage of people that will realize that they're their own best company. And I don't necessarily disagree with that – because from the day we're born, we are hammered with external stimuli. Commercials. We're told – which is wrong, in my opinion – that happiness is an external thing; an energy coming into you.

Ryan: Yeah, I agree; that's wrong.

Chris: And so, if you look at the average amount of advertisements you see in a day – I mean, since we're sitting here, I’ve felt my phone buzz at least 100 times. From Telegram, text messages, email, and God knows – Facebook Messenger, probably WhatsApp from Europe. I can feel it. And so, these external stimuli are hitting us so hard.

Now, what happens when you take a lot of that away? A certain percentage of people are forced to look within – introspect – and realize that perhaps they were looking for satisfaction in the wrong place. We're taught that being alone is a weird thing. “That's what the weird kids do,” you know? And it turns out that anyone who studied a moment of Hindu philosophy is like, “Oh, that's the path to Nirvana. Nirvana is that way.” “Oh, shit.”

And so, there is a certain percentage of people that are going to realize that the amount of socialization they were doing before, to distract themselves from having to stare at their Jungian shadow, or whatever, or their fear of a chaotic universe – all of a sudden, they're going to figure it out. Now, I think a lot of people will go your way, too – like Independence Day. Like, “Fuck it, let's get wasted.”

Ryan: “We’re going to the bars! If there are any left.”

Chris: Exactly. Like, screw it. And of course, nothing's ever homogenous. There's going to be both ways. But I think, as the end result – society is changing. It's interesting. Suicide rates are up since the mid 2000s, especially among young women – which coincides with the invention of the smartphone. Celibacy is hugely up, which our generation... I'll be 42 tomorrow, actually. And you're about my age.

Ryan: I am, I turn 46 on December 19th.

Chris: Okay. Yeah. December 19^th.

Ryan: Good Sagittarius to Sagittarius conversation here.

Chris: Yeah. You Californians and your horoscopes. So, our generation, I think – maybe the one right before us, the Dazed and Confused – they were listening to Skynyrd and banging pickup trucks. And now people are like... It's different.

If you look at social media, there's a lot less need for actual human interaction. It's a different form of communication. But what we're doing right now – looking at each other across a desk – is not necessary in this modern environment. Therefore, that mechanism is never developed by a lot of people. If I can chat you over Instagram, or whatever, and I can have a relationship that way, and that's accomplishing some need, why would I ever develop this other mechanism?

Ryan: So, how are they defining celibacy?

Chris: Not having sex.

Ryan: But are people having sex over Zoom or FaceTime?

Chris: No, no, not at all.

Ryan: Is that celibate?

Chris: Yeah; I mean, there's no penetration; no intercourse. So, the actual birth rates are falling.

Ryan: The birth rates. But, do you think... I guess, when you said that, are you reading that it's celibacy by choice or celibacy by isolation?

Chris: That's where it gets interesting. With less actual physical social interaction that's been going on, there's less of that already. Now, how much of that is by choice? Well, you get the ‘incel’ group; it's not their choice. But maybe it is, on some secondary level – like, if you just actually talked to women nice... Have you tried actually being a good person? Like, shut up.

Ryan: Girls like it when you're nice to them.

Chris: It's like, “No, that's crazy. Haven’t you read that book ‘The Game?’ Throw in some ‘negs.’” Like, it doesn't really work.

Ryan: How's that working for you?

Chris: So, I think this has been going on in Japan for a while. Their culture is obviously very different than ours, but they're in negative population growth, and have been. I mean, all this to say I'm really excited to be alive. We're in a crazy time of change.

Ryan: It is a crazy time of change. I'm fascinated. I do have this psychological sense that people are going to come out of COVID kind of like the end of a war. When I think of the end of COVID, I think of the parties in the streets post-World War II, and the...

Chris: Baby boom?

Ryan: And the baby boom, and the people kissing in the streets – that kind of thing.

Chris: I think it's different, because in war... when you come out of a war, you always have a clear enemy. Beat the Germans; do this. This is different. This is a war of attrition. We can't go shoot a virus with our Glock. And as Americans, it shakes us. Like, “What do you mean I can't shoot it?” So, it's a very different sort of war.

Ryan: What’s a vaccine, then? Isn’t a vaccine kind of taking it to the enemy?

Chris: Well, it is, except for when you’ve got half the population saying they're not going to take it.

Ryan: I mean, how is that going to affect... So, the people who take it – they're going to be fine. They're not affected by the people who don't take it. well. It’s only the people who don't take it who would be affecting each other.

Chris: Well, they don't know how long they'll have protection for, because there's been no time to do a longitudinal study.

Ryan: Right. So, you're saying, if the vaccine isn't actually effective...

Chris: Well, it's going to be effective, but for how long? And that's going to be different from person to person. Fauci's come out and said it. He goes, “This could help you for a year. It could help you for 20 years. We don't know.” And it requires two shots, one month apart. They say the first one is going to make you sick – like a lot of flu does for people. So they're worried about a lot of people not coming back for the second one. It's a double thing. Now what happens... Have you seen the movie Contagion?

Ryan: I have not watched it. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, I’ve heard everybody in America has watched it during COVID.

Chris: Yeah. It’s a great Soderbergh film. But I mean, what happens if you end up with a society where, if I want to get on an airplane, I have to have a card that says, “I'm clean.” How do you enforce that? If half your population won't do it, the airlines are going to be like, “Wait, we can't have half the country as our customers. That’s screwy. We can't.” What are they going to do?

Now, there is precedent. To go to schools, you have to have a certain amount of vaccinations, and we're fine with that – unless you're from LA or something. We're all pretty much fine with it; we accept that.

Ryan: You think the home of anti-vaxxing is LA?

Chris: Oh, yeah. I lived there for ten years. All these people are my friends. And I'm like, “You can't possibly believe that.” Then they start talking about horoscopes right after. I’m like, “Listen.” Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen, because people have verified concern. They're like, “Wait, you guys just rushed this. The previous record for a vaccine was like, three years. You just rushed this through in under a year?”

Now, granted, the mRNA approach is very different – but what does that do to society if there's this ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots?’ I mean, this starts to feel a bit 1940s Germany. Like, “Wait, where's your papers?” And you're like, “No, I'm clean. I just want to go to the Seahawks game.” Like, “You don't have the vaccination.” “No, I do, I just forgot my thing.” “Well, let me see your digital ID.”

Ryan: It's in your wrist; your digital ID. It came with the vaccination.

Chris: As a tech guy, I'd be great with that. As a reader of the Book of Revelations? Eh.

Ryan: It freaks you out a little bit.

Chris: What's the number there? 662? Okay. That's cool.

Ryan: All right, listen; we could do this for hours and hours and hours. And we should, actually, because this is so much fun. But we're out of time today. You and I should start thinking about how we do this more often.

Chris: Yeah. For sure.

Ryan: But, for today, let's wrap it up. Thanks for being here today.

Chris: No, I really appreciate you having me. Thank you.

Ryan: What a pleasure. I'm Ryan Millsap, and this is the Blackhall Studios Podcast.

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