From Soap Star to Production Guru - Atlanta's Chris DeBlasio Talks Entertainment Entrepreneurship 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.

Today on the podcast, I've got actor, producer, director Chris DeBlasio. A New Jersey native – don't mess with those guys – DeBlasio is a real creative force in today's entertainment business. You’ve seen Chris's handsome mug on daytime TV and soaps like All My Children, The Guiding Light, and One Life to Live. Chris’s goal now? To make Florida's Emerald Coast the next Hollywood – but better.

DeBlasio traces his love for production and all things movies back to his childhood, where he bonded with his dad over their love for horror movies. Let's hear what Chris has to say about his company, 850 Entertainment, his latest production, Government Records – which is about two guys in the FBI who have to go undercover in the world of hip-hop and start a record label – and how entrepreneurship and entertainment meld creativity, drive, and financial risk.

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Ryan: Welcome to the Blackhall Studios Podcast. Today we have Chris DeBlasio with us. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris: Hey, Ryan. Thanks, man.

Ryan: Glad you're here. So, I learned a few things from the notes that the producers gave me. Like, you're from New Jersey.

Chris: Oh, yeah.

Ryan: What exit did you grow up on?

Chris: Oh, gosh. I'm from Bloomfield, and yeah – it's interesting. The Parkway, and everything like that. So, here in Georgia – which is nice – we don't have to pay tolls every single exit that we get on, unlike Jersey. But yeah.

Ryan: How did you get started in the film business?

Chris: Well, I actually started in advertising. I sold Yellow Pages, believe it or not. It's like being an old-timer in the field. But I always had a passion for movies and TV shows. Being in Jersey, being so close to New York, I went to school for film and television in Manhattan; studied with a whole bunch of private coaches. I actually got my start in front of the camera on a soap opera called One Life to Live, for a little bit. I bounced around on soap operas.

Ryan: What was the role? What did you do?

Chris: I actually played the role of a boxer, and so I actually had to train, which was interesting. And to this day, I still kind of stay a little bit active in it. It’s a great workout. But yeah; I worked on a couple of the shows there, and then I bounced around a little bit to some of the shows that came into New York. And I got the bug.

I didn't want to be pigeonholed as a soap actor, and I always wanted to do more movies. So, in 2007, I moved out to LA and continued to work out there. And actually, in 2007, if you remember, it was during the writers’ strike. So a lot of shows just kind of stopped. Even though I had a couple of credits under my belt, it was difficult to get work.

I've always been an entrepreneur. I've always kind of just figured out how to make a buck. So, in 2007, when smartphones were becoming pretty popular, I noticed that there was another need – websites weren't fitting on smartphones. So, what I did was, I hired a bunch of developers to create these mobilized websites. I actually had to do that ‘pick and zoom’ thing. I sold it to a lot of people in the entertainment business.

And that's actually how our marketing company started. I started doing some marketing for people out in LA. That that business took off. Then I started learning production. So I EP’d a bunch of films, and put stuff in festivals, and learned the business side of the entertainment business. I continued to do that. Fast forward to today: I moved back to the East Coast for family. This was in northwest Florida, and with everything obviously blowing up in in Atlanta, Georgia, I was like, “Man, I gotta check that out.”

So, in ’17, or actually in ‘16, I started coming up and seeing what it was like. And I noticed that this industry was morphing into something. And so, ’17, we moved up here, with my executive staff up here. And I’ve been here ever since; rocking and rolling.

Ryan: Well, it's exciting to see, because we need more and more real development producers in Atlanta. And you're one of the few guys that's actually developing the stuff from the ground up. I know you've been developing this really cool show, Government Records. Tell everybody a little bit about that.

Chris: Yeah. Government Records – actually, it's based on a true story. They actually tried to do this in DC. It's two ATF agents partnered with the Atlanta PD and the FBI, and they had this crazy idea to infiltrate the hip-hop community by creating a fake record label to bring down a drug boss named Sugar Key.

And so, it's entitled Government Records. This was based on a true story that they actually did try to do out in DC. And it came to me as a feature script. When Taryn Parsons, who's the writer, came to me, I said, “Let me read through this.” I was hooked immediately. I was like, “This concept is amazing. This is going to work.” Of course, being here in Georgia, I wanted to bring Georgia projects. So we adapted it to be made out of Atlanta. The characters were just... there's just so much going on. There's such a depth to these characters, that I didn't feel that it would do it justice, just being a one-off movie. I think there's so much more to it.

Plus, the entrepreneur producer side of me wanted to get recurring work out of out of Georgia. So we adapted it into a ten-episode season, for our season one – and we've got a story arc for season two. And season three, preferably.

Ryan: How's it looking on the funding side?

Chris: Good. So, in the beginning, I showed it to some investor friends of mine, and we actually did get commitments for financial – which is actually weird, which I'm finding out. Usually, that doesn't happen in the TV world. It's a little bit different with movies and TV. So, we actually secured a little bit of money up front. And what I did was, I financed a proof of concept early on in the year. We shot this proof of concept. And then I started shopping it around town.

Ryan: I saw it, and I thought it looked fantastic.

Chris: Thank you. Yeah. So, I took it to some close friends of mine, and there's a lot of people in the hip-hop community here. We started showing it to people. Big Boi from Outkast – he was one of one of our early ones; one of the artists that was early on that saw it, and he loved it. Now he's one of my co-EPs, and he's helping me package. I've got a list of about 22 LOIs and verbal commitments from a lot of people in the hip-hop community.

And so, the structure of the show is... because I look at things on two different sides: one creatively, and one from a business aspect. The one on the business side asks, “Well, what is another show kind of like this?” I was thinking about different shows like The Entourage, right? Mark Wahlberg, Entourage; that type of stuff. They had these cameos of people in LA; in Hollywood. They would show up as characters of themselves.

And this thing happened when that show came out. It was like, if you weren't in an episode of Entourage, you weren't a part of Hollywood. Right? And so, having a show that... if you're not in an episode of Government Records, you’re not in the hip-hop industry. That started catching on like wildfire. A lot of these guys, a lot of people in the hip-hop community, were like, “Oh, I want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of it.”

So, what we're doing is, we're creatively figuring out how to enter them in episodes, and all of these different roles. And it's going to be exciting to see – once we once we get the final package together – exactly who's all involved.

Ryan: What do you think the budget is for the first season?

Chris: We came in at a $20 million budget – so, roughly, around $2 million an episode, which is much on the low side. We wanted to do that for several reasons: because I see this as an anchor show for any network. I really do. I think the concept is really, really strong; that the premise is. And we already have ideas for season two and season three, of where we're going to go with this thing. I think that's going to be really, really important.

So, the way we are now – and the way the world is now – a lot of these networks are looking for really good content. They're starving for content. And some of these newer platforms that are popping up are willing to grab a hold of something that could be their anchor content to either get more viewers or get more subscribers. I do believe that Government Records is that show for them?

Ryan: I think so. I mean, from what I've seen, I think you're absolutely right – that it could be an anchor for somebody, or a reach into a new genre. I mean, this kind of show could go all the way to HBO, depending on the quality level you want to push it to. Quality of acting, quality of cinematography, etc. And you could bring it all the way down to something really inexpensive, but the storyline could support a lot of different budgets.

Chris: Right. And I think a lot of that also will be dictated by the network – because we even talked some of these smaller platforms. Because of the type of show it is, they might want to focus more on putting more money behind the marketing behind it. For the eyeballs; the attention, to get more people to their platform, or get more viewership. So, at this point, we're in a stage now where we’re interviewing a lot of different showrunners for the project – finding that right person that's going to be part of the team, and then seeing what potential deals they have, or networks that kind of jive with the person that we pick.

Ryan: I've got a guy that you should meet at some point, but we'll talk about that offline. I think he could be a really good fit as a showrunner for a show like this. He's pretty connected in the hip-hop world. He actually was one of the showrunners for Narcos.

Chris: Okay. Is he an Atlanta guy?

Ryan: He's not. He's an LA guy, but he spends a lot of time in New York, and he has a lot of friends in in Atlanta. I think he'd love being here. But when I think of the handful of people that would be perfect for a show like that, he'd at least be worth talking to.

Tell me a little bit about where your imagination is over the next kind of five years; what you're imagining for your company, what you're hoping to achieve, what you're imagining and hoping to see happen in Atlanta.

Chris: Early in this podcast, you even mentioned being a creative, and I think that's one of the things that we really need here: Atlanta-based, Georgia creatives. And so, that's one of the big things that I'm going to be focusing on over the next five, ten years: getting more content developed here. I think that's the biggest piece that we need: the content developed here, the content financed here, the content shot here.

Those are some of the things that I'm focusing on. Obviously, not every show has to be Georgia-based. But being shot here, and leveraging some of the resources that we have here, is something that has been on my radar since I moved here. And what I'm finding is, there's a lot of undiscovered talent here. And so, me – I'm very passionate about giving people their start. They might have not had that, right? Opening up the doors to having the creatives; the writers’ rooms; that type of thing – but having it here in Georgia.

Ryan: What shows... have you seen anything come out of Atlanta that you just love so far?

Chris: There's a lot of shows that are shot here, as you know.

Ryan: Well, shot here, versus born here. Have you seen anything born here yet that you just love?

Chris: I mean, you've got shows like Atlanta, and stuff like that, that are very deliberate. They don't necessarily have to be Atlanta-based, as the content I'm looking for. It doesn't necessarily have to be. I did that with Government Records because of the content that we're developing. This is our launching pad, right? It's something to show, “Hey, we can get something, completely from the ground up, made from Atlanta.” And that's essentially what Government Records is, on the business side.

The other shows – the other content following after that – doesn't necessarily have to be in Atlanta, as long as it's originating from here. We have our writers’ rooms here. We have all our people collaborating here. And then, we're taking that content and creating an ecosystem, if you will. Creating that ecosystem, so we're constantly creating movies and shows, and it's all coming out of Georgia.

Ryan: Yeah. I mean, the reason I'm asking is because the ecosystem is so early. It's hard to identify. Even with the show Atlanta – okay. It was born by guys in Atlanta, but now it's in LA. And they don't even film it here. And the money all comes from California.

What I'm hoping to be able to tell the story of, in the coming years, is shows that were born out of developers in Georgia partnering with money that was funded by Georgians – resulting in successful shows that make money for investors and developers in Georgia. That's what drives the ecosystem. Because right now, if you're a entertainment entrepreneur like yourself, and you're trying to gather funds to fund something like Government Records, you oftentimes have to leave the state.

Now, in a very intelligent way, you're creating a show that already has social ties to Georgia – which is the hip-hop community. So now you have a good pitch to money that's in Georgia, about why they would want to make a television show. But if you didn't have that hook into the hip-hop industry, where would you even go to pitch people? Because there's nobody on scale that really understands how to make money in movies and television, particularly – because Turner no longer has the kind of presence that it did here, from a greenlighting standpoint. Once Turner sold, all that green-light capability really left the state, and we were left with just production capabilities; manufacturing capabilities.

Chris: We were the farm, right?

Ryan: ‘The farm,’ which is what we are largely in Georgia, is the place where movies and television are made. But it's not the place where movies and television are conceived. Or the place where the funding is coming from.

Chris: Correct.

Ryan: So, what's exciting for me about hearing what you're doing is, I think you're one of the early pioneers in Georgia development. We're going to set Tyler Perry aside, because he's a world unto himself. But, apart from Tyler, there aren't a lot of guys actually dreaming it up, getting it funded, making it here, and having the profits all roll back to Georgia as well. So that's, I think, incredibly exciting.

Chris: Yeah. I think a lot of people are still trying to figure it out here. But for me, as an entrepreneur, Georgia is its own thing. The entrepreneurial spirit is great. People think outside the box. New York has its own thing; LA has its own thing. I've been in both markets, and I understand it. But, with Georgia... because somebody even came to me. A writer was like, “You actually have money for your TV pitch? That's not normal, you know?” And I was like, “Well, what's wrong with that?”

I think we have more and more people that are open to start thinking outside the box – that it doesn't always have to be the traditional way. I mean, look – I started our entertainment marketing company out of sheer frustration of not being able to raise funding traditionally, from investors, by utilizing product placement and advertising dollars to fund projects; those types of things.

I think we're going to start seeing some of these other businesses start spawning up around the entertainment business. Because, like you mentioned – it's all about the ecosystem around here. How do we get the money to be invested here – but then, also, the profits investing back into the ecosystem, so we can keep expanding. That is something that I'm very passionate about, that I'm continuing to work on.

Ryan: I have this thesis: inside every entrepreneur is someone who has either anger or frustration. I heard a little bit of that, where you said, “I just did it because I was frustrated. I just did it because I wanted to see something happen that didn't exist.” Where do you think that your entrepreneurial spirit... like, psychologically, how do you trace the roots of your entrepreneurial spirit?

Chris: I'll never forget: my mother used to tell me stories. Like, I would try to sell my finger paints on the street corners when I was seven years old. So, it's just been something that has been in me since, since I was a kid. And it's funny – finger paints, right? Because it's both the creative and the business guy, all in one. And I'm like this really strange hybrid, to where I've studied acting. I've got that side. And then, out of that, I've created companies to support my acting career; support my producing career.

So, it's just been with me my whole life. And I think I'm a very... I don't get stuck in the planning phase. When I start a company, or I start something like that, I just go. I just go and do. And I think that is something that, when I learn... because I always believe in winning and learning. When you're constantly learning, you're constantly developing, and making yourself better, I think the problem is, a lot of people are scared to just even do anything. So they just kind of stay in this ‘analysis paralysis’ type thing. I just go, and I'll continue to keep doing it and learn from it.

Ryan: But what do you think the life experiences – maybe positive – or the traumas, because oftentimes it's childhood traumas that lead to a place where you say, “I don't wait, I just go.” But that's a mantra that was oftentimes born out of some sort of life experience that was difficult.

Chris: Yeah. I definitely can answer that one. I do not come from a family of wealth. My mother and my father separated when I was very, very young. My dad moved to Florida. And so, it was it was tough. I was raised by my mom, and times were tough. Even as a young child, you can kind of sense that.

And so, for me, it's like, “Well, I gotta go out, and I gotta go do something. I gotta go make it happen.” Right? And nobody's going to just do it for me. So let me figure out a way to make finances. And I just come up with these ideas. It's funny, because I have this book. I'll wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, and I'll write an idea down. And I'll just keep writing these down. Not every idea is great. But when you start recording all that stuff, and you take a look at, “Hey, one of these things is going to be a winner,” right?

And so, to your question, I think what comes out of that is... I don't want to go back to that. You get to a point in your life where you can give back. And I'm at that stage now where I've got some success in my career, and I really like helping. I find that there's so many other people – so many kids out there in college, and stuff like that, that just don't have direction. So I do a lot of speaking at colleges, and to film students – just trying to guide them in their career. And a lot of that comes from... because I didn't have that growing up.

Ryan: Who are some of the people that had the most influence on your self-belief?

Chris: Well, self-belief took years. I've had a lot of different people in different areas of my life. I've had really good friends. When I was selling Yellow Pages, a very good close colleague of mine that speaks into business kind of gave me that business mindset. He was a manager over there. And I think that self-belief comes from a deep-rooted faith. I say this: whatever it is that’s going to keep you going has got to be bigger than yourself. I think that's what pulls you through a lot of situations – because let's face it: life is hard. It's not easy. It's hard. So whatever it is that you're doing – whether it's a business that you're starting, or a movie project that you're trying to launch – deep-rooted, if there's a bigger meaning behind what you're doing, it's going to get you through those difficult times.

Ryan: What's the bigger meaning for you?

Chris: Oh, gosh. For me, it's showing people that it can be done. It's showing people that maybe you're going through a situation, or struggling, that if you're dedicated, and you continue to push forward, you can achieve your dreams. Right? Never giving up, and continuing to go after what you truly believe.

Another part of that, too, is my father. The reason why I left LA is because my dad wasn't in the best of health, and I moved to be closer with him. I got one year with my dad before he passed. And a lot of people don't know this. When I was a young kid, my mom and my dad were separated. He moved to Florida. And so, I would only see him on spring break or summers. That one year that I left LA, and I spent time with him, we got to celebrate our birthdays; every holiday; everything together. And that was the best decision I made.

It wasn't until he passed that a close friend of mine said, “Do you realize why you've been in the entertainment business this whole time, or why you always pursued acting?” I said I’d never really thought about it. He goes, “It’s your dad. Your dad always used to document and record.” We used to write. I used to write little scripts, and we would shoot these little movies with his shoulder-mount camera. And I realized: that's how I got back into the entertainment business. That's why. It’s so deeply rooted in my childhood. And so, that allows me to keep him alive; keep that memory going.

I was on another podcast, and they were asking me some questions about this. My dad always said how proud he was of me, and I'll never forget that. For a father to give that to a son is amazing, right? It's a really good thing. And so, I still hear that voice echo in everything I do. To your point, that's another big reason why I continue to go on and do what I do.

Ryan: I think there's motivators that are the positive motivators. I think there are the motivators that are in the negative. And I think of it as ‘the things we're running towards’ and ‘the things we're running away from.’ I hear you talking about running towards the approval of your father. The pride of your father; having him be proud of you.

What other things do you think you're running towards – like, psychologically? What are you running towards? Creativity; it sounds like you're motivated by creativity. Imagination. Expression. And then, what do you think the things are that you're running away from? Sounds like one of them might be that you felt uncertainty, financial uncertainty, in your youth. But talk about some of those things that you think you're running towards, and some of the things you think you're running away from.

Chris: Well, the things that I'm running towards... Obviously, I'm a creative. And so, creating things is something that I really do enjoy. Obviously, it makes sense for me to be in development and packaging – and being an entrepreneur, and just creating things. Also, with that, I'm an investor by heart as well. Whether it's a movie project, or whether it's a business venture, or something, being able to help that person achieve their goals or their dreams – whether it's greenlighting a project, or whether it's launching a successful business that then helps a lot of other people. So there's that.

And then, the other component of ‘running away from’ is the whole financial thing. Like, it's difficult, but one of the things that I'm learning is that, if you if you are... again, going back to ‘it's bigger than yourself,’ and you realize that, you know what? You can get through this, no matter how difficult the situation is. And you stay focused. And there's a lot of people hurting out there right now. So, I think, always looking towards the brighter days ahead – if you're in a financially difficult situation, just keep pushing through it.

So, yes – I'm running away from that piece of it. And what I'm learning through the process is to just enjoy the road; enjoy the journey. I talk a lot about this, whether it's on stage or in other podcasts. There's people that get out of school, right? Or, there's a career path that they're going after. Their journey may not go the way that they think it's going to go. I started out as an actor. I never knew I'd be an entrepreneur. I never knew that I would be able to create things, and create businesses. I never even thought I'd be on this side of the camera – but my career path took me that way. Learn to enjoy the ride. Life is a journey.

Ryan: So, I've been divorced about seven years. I actually just got engaged.

Chris: Congratulations.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s awesome. But my children grew up with divorced parents. So I always like to ask people who come from families where their parents are divorced – what were the things that were the hardest about that? And what are the things that you think were actually benefits?

Chris: That's a great question. My parents divorced when I was about two years old. So, I was in a position where I couldn't remember all of the things before that. But I will say... one of the things... I have a stepfather. My mom remarried. My dad married, got divorced, and then was actually with his first girlfriend after he left my mom, which is interesting. Wonderful woman, by the way. But anyway, he found happiness; they found happiness.

For me, it was difficult, because me and my stepdad never really saw eye to eye – until later on in life. Like, we're best of friends now. He literally helped me through some pretty dark situations in my life. And so, I'm very thankful. He's also a cancer survivor. So, the fact that he's still in my life – it's a blessing. It really is.

But, growing up, that was very difficult for me. You know; it's like, “Who is this other man in my life? What's going on?” And I was a teenager. I know I was probably a pain in the butt. It probably wasn't very easy to deal with me, either. That was difficult. But I will say, I did have two father figures kind of speaking into my life. And I was able to kind of form my own opinions – take a little bit from here, take a little bit from there. And so, that actually was a benefit in my life – because both guys, both men, are amazing in their own way. And I think that that right there was a blessing, to have that.

So, listen: my mother and my father's marriage didn't work out. It's not a big deal. I mean, some people are just different that way, right? So, for me, I look at... again, I try to always look at the positive outcome. And if I didn't have that experience, who knows? I might not be where I am today, because I would have never had that advice and those tools to get here.

Ryan: You didn't grow up in an opinion bubble. You were getting different perspectives in a way that... and no disparagement to families that stay together. You just oftentimes, in those families, sometimes live inside of a contained unit that doesn't allow for as much diversity of conversation.

Chris: Right.

Ryan: Now, on the other side, you grow up oftentimes with maybe more stability, on some level. And so, you're making those trades, and navigating. Now, I look at, like, when you talk about the uncertainties in your youth that led you to be a doer. A survivor, on many levels. You took responsibility to chart your own course, and then make sure you were committed to getting there – which is fundamentally what entrepreneurship is: imagination and determination. So, you not only imagine it, but then you go for it. You had the benefit of being in an environment where you were forced to go for it.

Chris: Right.

Ryan: That took whatever innate entrepreneurship that lived inside of you, and lit a fire under it.

Chris: Oh, yeah. And also, what I've learned about myself is, not only am I a visionary, but I'm also a strategies guy. When you're a visionary and a strategies person, not only are you able to see the final product, but you're also able to see how to get there. There's a lot of young entrepreneurs that I mentor that, they've got great ideas – but they're only ideas until they put a process behind it. You've got to know how you're going to get from here to here. And so, a lot of times, when I come up with a business idea, or I come up with some sort of concept... how do I get there? I enjoy putting those steps in place, and then following those steps to completion.

Ryan: What are the areas that you see in yourself that are weaknesses, where you have to find other people to come around you to fill in those gaps?

Chris: That's a great question. To that point, any leader needs to surround themselves with strengths that they're not so strong at. There's a few different ones. So, I am the visionary. I am always coming up with ideas. And so, instead of me just spinning out of control with ideas, I have people in my organization that are like, “Okay, let me run this by you, all right?” “Maybe this would work. Maybe this won't work. Let's figure this out.”

Having that sounding board – I've got a very busy schedule, so I'm very happy to have somebody that takes care of my scheduling and my booking and stuff like that, too, where I can just kind of keep staying focused and grinding ahead. So, for anybody out there – if you're in a leadership position, make sure you surround yourself with people that are going to offset your strengths.

Ryan: It sounds to me like you would not consider yourself to be a linear person. So then, do you have more linear people around you?

Chris: Give me the definition here.

Ryan: So, imagine – when you come up with a creative idea, and you then say, “These are the steps we're going to have to do to get here.” The actual doing of the steps oftentimes requires an A to B to C kind of path.

Chris: Day to day?

Ryan: Yeah. Oftentimes, that entrepreneurial personality will go A to C to F, right? And there will be gaps. You get to F. You get to get to the destination, whatever the destination is. But then, over time, you start to learn, “I need to bring people in who will make sure all these things get completed.” They're not essential to getting there, but they just make getting there better.

Chris: Yes. Well, it's all about being conscious of your time. Where is your time best spent? The thing about time is, it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter if you're a billionaire, a trillionaire; it doesn't matter. We all have the same amount of time. Nobody's figured out how to make more of it. You can't buy more of it, right? We all have the same amount. So, the way you spend your time dictates how successful you're going to be.

When you are an entrepreneur... let's say you're a visionary. Pretty much everything I've created, I've done all of it in the beginning by myself, so I can understand every single job in whatever entity I'm doing. Then I hire people, and put them in a position where they excel. It's natural for them. So, the day-to-day tasks, or account management, or all this other stuff – any of these other things that is not my complete strength? I'm going to put somebody in place. And because it's something that comes naturally to them, they're going to actually enjoy what they do.

Whereas, there's a lot of entrepreneurs or business owners out there that try to hold on to everything. It's fear that grips them, and they don't get to that next level. They never break that ceiling. And so, when you can hire the right individuals for the job to free your time up to be better spent, that's how you grow as an organization.

Ryan: Yeah, I agree with that. If you don't know your weaknesses, then you can't hire to fill those gaps. Yep. Now, Sarah, the producer here, told me that you and your dad loved to watch horror movies together.

Chris: Haha, yeah. It’s kind of crazy.

Ryan: How old were you when you discovered that? I was frightened. Horror movies for me, as a kid, were just absolute death. They haunted me for years.

Chris: Yeah, it probably wasn't the healthiest thing. But, for some reason, vampire movies – or anything that had to do with vampires – was always attractive. Of course, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13^th, and all this other stuff. Halloween. And I’m trying to think of all them; Michael Myers, and all that stuff.

I mean, that was pretty much it. I think my dad generally really liked horror movies. And so, I was just there, and I would watch them. And yeah – I’d probably have, some nights, a little difficulty sleeping. But then, some nights, I just went right to bed. So, I don't know; maybe there's something twisted with me.

Ryan: How old do you think you were when you started watching horror movies with your dad?

Chris: Oh, gosh. Hope my mom's not going to listen to this podcast. No, I was pretty young. Because I look back on IMDb, on some of the dates of these things, and it’s like, “I was five years old? What was I doing watching this movie at five years old?” I was pretty young. Yeah.

Ryan: And so, when do you think you made the transition from, “I'm watching this because my dad wants to,” to “I really like horror movies?”

Chris: I don't know if it was a genre. I don't know. I think some of the long series – like Freddy Krueger, and all this other stuff – you kind of get attached, because you want to see what's going to happen next. When Nightmare on Elm Street came out... it's long. I don't know how many there are. Like, 13, or something like that? There's a lot. You're spanning across several years. And so, you kind of follow this character, and you follow the storyline. Maybe that's why I like series; because it was a movie. But essentially, what are series now? They're mini-movies. So, I think it's kind of like following the story where it goes.

Ryan: Are you still a horror fan?

Chris: Horror movies are cool. I like them. I think a lot of them are cheaper to make. So, I think the business side of me is like, “Oh, I like horror movies because they make money if they're done well.” So, yeah – I don't think there's a specific genre of movie. I think if you're talking to me as an EP, as a producer, I'm going to say “the one that makes money,” because that's the biggest thing. “What does the market want?”

Which does bring up another point. I do get a lot of filmmakers that have a passion project. I'm like, “Dude, there's no market for this. There's no market for your passion project. I mean, it's great; you can do that at some point. But if you're just new in your career, and you're trying to make an investor money, know what your market is – because that's what their goal is. It’s to make their money. So, figure out what the market wants, and then go make that.”

Ryan: So, give me the... not an elevator pitch; that's too short. But give me the pitch on, financially, how you imagine Government Records makes money. Like, “This is how much money we're going to spend,” to “This is how much money we think we can make.” These are just general numbers. I'm not asking for a spreadsheet. I'm just saying – one of the things that people who listen to this podcast... There's a lot of Georgians who listen to this podcast, and Georgians are, for the first time, thinking through how to make money in film and television. So, I say to you: teach a Georgian how you’d make money if you invested in Government Records.

Chris: Right. It’s interesting, because this could be several different models. We're talking about a TV show, not a movie.

Ryan: Do the TV model.

Chris: Yeah. So, a TV show – a network can come... and sometimes networks don't want you to have money, which is interesting. They'd rather just come in and just get the whole thing. So, in that sense, it's a little bit difficult. But there could be... like, let's take Netflix, or something, for that reason. A company – a streaming platform – could essentially make.... So, say you have your budget. They could essentially make an offer. So your budget, say, is $20 million, right? They can come in and say, “Okay, we'll give you 25 million or 30 million or 40; whatever. All in. And we'll take that.” And you're done. You're just paid out.

Sometimes, there's platforms that say, “Okay, we’ll fund your project. We'll backstop it. We'll fund your project. But you need to go find that $20 million. We'll give you 30 for it. But you need to go fund it. You need to go find the investor and fund it.” So, in that case, it becomes a little bit easier – because now you find somebody that's going to front the money. You do the production, but they already have their baked-in profit – which, again, a lot of the stuff I say is not necessarily always traditional, because I'm an out-of-the-box thinker. But these are some of the things that I'm exploring.

Ryan: Yeah. So, in the second version, you'd go pitch Netflix, or Apple TV, or Amazon, or somebody that's doing... I would think of that as, like, a negative pickup.

Chris: Yeah. Exactly.

Ryan: So, they say, “If you actually get this thing made, we'll buy it for 30.”

Chris: Yep.

Ryan: “But we're going to put the onus on you to actually get it made for 20.” How much flexibility do they have if you make it for 20 and they hate it?

Chris: How good is your contract? I mean, that's really what it comes down to. I mean, at the end of the day, it goes both ways – because you make it, and it's amazing. And then you start showing other networks. Now it's a bidding war. So, it's a two-way street.

Ryan: No, that’s exactly it. That's what they're buying; they're buying an option. Like, a capped option. Coca-Cola, in a parallel universe – after VitaminWater sold for 4 billion – Coca-Cola decided that that was never going to happen again. And what they started doing is, they started investing in early start-ups of beverages. And they would embed in those early investments options to buy more as there was success. So that, by the time something got to the size of VitaminWater, they would have already owned 80% of it at a $500 million valuation. And they buy the whole thing for a $1 billion valuation, and they never give it the opportunity to become worth 4 billion. And so, they can do that with a lot more companies, and never allow for something to get so big that they have to go buy it for 4 billion.

In a similar way, entertainment companies – that's what they like to do with negative pickup dollars. They like to say, “If you can get it made, we will buy it for X,” when they know that if you already had it made, it might cost them ‘2X.’ But by giving you that negative pickup guarantee, at 30, then you can go to the investors and say, “If we get this done for 20, we're making 30.” And so, the investors are then buying into more certainty – which is nice, too. It's harder to raise money with uncertainty. And in the entertainment industry, when you're raising money, you're raising money for something that's yet to be produced.

Chris: Right.

Ryan: Not totally dissimilar to when you're raising money for a real estate development. It's yet to be created.

Chris: Yeah. You're entrusting that production. You're entrusting those people to actually get it made. That’s where the risk is.

Ryan: And the same is true in development. The difference is, in development, you still have land, right? At the end of the day, you're going to have land. And you might have totally botched what you put on the land, but you still have land – maybe, if you don't have too much debt, and it gets taken away.

But, on the entertainment side, when you take that money and turn it into some product, that product is kind of ones and zeros. It's either good or it's not. It either makes money, or it doesn't. And you can't go back, really, and fix it, very often. It's really hard to do anything with any of that footage.

Chris: And that's what's trying to educate and explain IP. That's what investors are buying. They're buying IP. And so, sometimes... there's many different deal structures. Obviously, there's slates, right? So, there's different ways you can mitigate risks. And, for the audience that doesn't know what a slate is, it's different types of movies and different genres to mitigate the risk.

So, you're doing a drama, a horror, and a comedy... I shouldn't say a comedy. But a horror and a drama – it's mitigating risk. So, let's say next year, a drama is not doing that well, but a lower-budget horror is. You're covering the risk that your drama's going to bomb. And so, these are other avenues that investors can look at. Like, “Oh, let me look at slates as opposed to just one-offs.”

Ryan: I've heard some funny stories about slates over the years, where investors show up to be a part of a slate. And somebody like... let's say Warner Brothers is going to let you in on a slate, and you don't know exactly everything that's in that slate. And toward the end of the deal, suddenly, things start disappearing and coming in. And the reality is that Warner Brothers doesn't necessarily know what's going to work or not work. They're guessing too.

I remember hearing a story about a slate that a guy bought into, and the entire thing bombed except for Guardians of the Galaxy. And they made two times the number.

Chris: Haha, yeah.

Ryan: And the funniest part about Guardians is that Guardians was shoved into the slate at the last second, because somebody inside of wherever freaked out and said, “This is not going to work. We got talking trees, and...” Right? They started to second guess themselves, because it hadn't been proven. And they said, “We're going to sell a piece of that, and try to hedge our bets,” and whatever.

The difficult part inside of Hollywood is that there is no pure math as to what's going to work, why it's going to work, what actors. Every actor has bad films. Every actor signs up for films that have bad scripts. I mean, you can’t predict everything, right? Sometimes, scripts that you think are bad turn out to be cult classics. And you can't predict that. So, it's not an easy industry to get rolling. But once the capital starts rolling, and having success, then it can really explode.

Chris: Yeah. I think people actually see how it works. And that's one of the big things – just talking to our Georgia audience. There's a lot of investors that have invested in real estate for so long, and stuff like that. It's kind of hard for them to understand. But once you can catch a return on it, then it becomes something real.

I was thinking, when you were talking about the slate – I was thinking about REITs, right? I mean, not too much different. Your money is distributed amongst a whole bunch of real estate, and sometimes you don't know exactly what's in your portfolio. You should. But sometimes you don't.

Ryan: You definitely probably don't, if you’re buying REITs.

Chris: Yeah. And so, you’ve just gotta look at this as another thing to add to your portfolio. Right? And, come on – I mean, it's the movie business. It's fun. You can get access to things that you normally wouldn't get access to if you were just investing in multifamily units.

Ryan: That's true. There's a high happiness factor in this industry. People from top to bottom, I think, really enjoy what they do. Being around the industry is invigorating. There is so much creativity. There is so much uncertainty, and people solving problems that haven't been solved before, because every movie is unique to itself. It does have a real warm characteristic of joy that kind of permeates everything here.

Chris: And also, too – I mean, even the projects that are being produced. How awesome would it be to be like, “You know what? I was the financier behind that project that changed the world, or changed people's emotions on this topic,” or whatever, right? I mean, there's just something about that. You can't really do that in any other investment vehicle.

Ryan: I agree. We are out of time, but this has been fantastic. Thank you for taking the time to come by Blackhall today.

Chris: Yeah, Ryan. Thanks so much. I had a blast.

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

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