474 - The Obstacle is the SwagWAY, with Julian Glander

31:06Nobody's making you do this. It's very weird, right? It's very easy to forget why you're doing something. It's true. Or to just be like confused. Yeah. massive you know props to the people that are in uh creative folks life who have to watch our little things all the time um at least mine like the dumb things that i show my wife at least yours was an actual movie that you're sharing oh come on now well i mean look i'm proud of a lot of the stuff i make but they're so most days the things i'm showing are like look at that And it's so funny, too. It's like I always feel like I'm a kid. Like I and I always say this because I show my kids stuff, too.

31:52I'm like, look, I made that today. And they're like, cool. That's I mean, a little bit harder. That's a tougher audience because they don't. But I mean, when you love someone, I know that it's like I'm sure that when your kids draw something, you love it. Yeah, because when you love someone, you love everything they make. And so when you have someone like that in your life, it's not someone that you can use as a brutal critical focus group, but it's someone you can always go to for support. Yeah. And it's – and the other – to your point, it sounds like what you were saying is as you're saying these things, it's almost that you recognize that this isn't your voice.

32:30Like what you're saying, like, wait, I don't think that. Yeah, it's classic talk therapy where the other person doesn't have to say anything. you just reveal it by talking yeah it's good that's that makes tons of sense um so i i have uh the other thing i wanted i'll just real quick because i just think it's too good when i called you a hack and i was not uh was i love that we talk a lot about on the show like plotter versus pants or improv versus stand-up and all that kind of stuff it sounds like you had a good mix of those things, but I love the way that you mixed it is truly a really great creative hack because there are so many books and I really mean this so many books that I have not made because in my mind they're done.

33:21Right. And we, I think we've even talked about this before, this concept of a booger, which is this, I have these ideas all the time where it's so done that you don't have to do it exactly it's it's the it writes itself it's the oh it's x meets y it's right it's the stuff where it's so done in your head that it would be so unenjoyable yeah it's called and what is it why is it called a book it's called a booger because it's like you pick it yeah out of your nose and then you flick it away like it's there in your brain but it's too done yeah dude i and How did you – did you – was it an intuitive thing that you did that?

34:01Like were you just like, oh, okay, I'm going to leave a blank here. I'm going to leave like – it's literally like your inner child is that playful, creative part. It's literally like setting up games for yourself throughout the classes. Yeah, I think what it was was more – when things started really moving was after I had written the first draft and we started setting up the recording sessions. Yeah. Then we had a hard date to move towards. And then what happened was it was time to prioritize what we needed in the sessions with the actors. And so we were up against the – this movie took three to four years to make.

34:40And we were really up against the clock at every stage. We recorded with our actors as the strike was starting last summer. I think we got our last session the day before the strike was going to start at midnight. So we were powering through that. And so what it was was we're looking at the script and saying, OK, I just need to get the dialogue. And then if there's an action sequence or a musical sequence, it's triaged for now. So part of it is just necessity because the other option would have been, hey, the strike is coming. Maybe that's a sign to wait until next year. And I think just knowing myself and how much focus I can put into something, that would have probably killed the project.

35:19Yeah, that's a tricky tightrope right there because I constantly am constantly trying to find the line between, you know, pushing myself and not biting off more than I can chew because I am, I think there's, I think a lot of people would push you to be like, believe in yourself, shoot big. But there is a side of me where I'm like, you know, when I do that too much, I end up doing nothing. And that, that is, that's a tricky thing. Um, but okay. So, uh, I wanted to just get you to talk a little bit about how do you, maybe like the, the main story beats of how someone who 10 years ago, uh, I, uh, nudged you to do a collaboration for a random client project for Facebook, um, like making gifts for social that's right and then now you have a film like what what are the how do how do what are the pieces of that story i think it is well it's crazy because it feels like it's happened very fast it feels like 10 years has gone by really quickly but obviously that's a really long time uh and i think if you had told me in 2014 oh you'll have a feature film out in 10 years i'd be like no i'm going to have a feature film out in three years you know i like i was so impatient yeah and it's but exactly it's to your point it's it's trying to jump from whatever you know how to do which is drawings to like something much bigger is impossible it uh so basically you know how it worked for me is it was one little step at a time uh right when we met there was that craze around gifts where it was every brand needed to be posting gifts every day and so they were commissioning a lot of art yeah um and that's what that's kind of how i entered into the whatever you would call it the commercial creative field uh it's just like a moment when there was a lot of demand and not a lot of people doing it uh and then from doing gifs it was just stepping a little bigger each time um you know after a gif would be a 15 second animation with some music and after that would be maybe a one minute thing a bumper after that a three minute short film that goes to festivals uh you know and each of these steps is taking a year at a time which in the life of a 23 year old is like infinite time you know um and then it's like okay from the three minute shorts i worked on some tv shows and then i directed a 10 minute episode of this show called summer camp island on HBO max.

37:59Uh, and I think my feeling after that was, well, if I did 10 minutes, this is probably the biggest leap there is, is to go from 10 to 90 and there's nothing in the middle, you know, there's not really like a 40 minute thing that makes any sense, you know? Like, so I just, I said, let me try to make a, make a episode of TV 10 times in a row. And in some ways it was actually easier. A lot of parts of it were easier than than just 9x and then some things were infinitely harder you know i think creating a story that holds together for 90 minutes is a lot harder than creating a story that holds for 10 minutes you know because within the beginning middle and end you just have so many little pieces and things that need to things that go up that need to come down and things need to be satisfied and things that can't be too open-ended and things have to be a little open-ended and And, you know, yeah, I spent I spent forever writing this.

38:57I spent like more than half the time writing the script in terms of the whole timeline of the movie, like probably two years writing it and then a little less than two years producing it. Yeah. And, you know, and it's hard because there's there's also all these all these things about how pacing. I think a lot about how when we watch TV, watch movies, listen to a podcast versus audio book, you know, we approach it with a bias that there's a there's a degree in which you can't escape that. There's a it we it needs to play by some of those rules for it to feel right. So there's there's all kinds of things there.

39:35But I was going to say, I love what you said about taking these little steps. The exact same thing happened to me in a smaller way to making books. Like I remember when I was 18, I couldn't imagine having the creative stamina to create a book. And some people think like that's ridiculous. Like it's not a huge feat. But for me, I just knew like, man, like 50 pages, like holy shit. That's so much. Well, it is actually so much. I mean it feels like a lot to me. But I think that – I think you're – one of the things I see going back and I see in that is this idea of like the thing that gets thrown around that I don't think there's – I think it's just kind of an abstract idea.

40:26But the 10 ,000 hours thing and if you really like break down 10 ,000 hours, it's a ton of time. It's way more time than you think it would be. and I think if you said to childhood you or childhood me, like these things that you're going to go do, you're going to take 10 ,000 hours to get there. You'd be like, okay, I can't do that. If it's going to make - You'd be like, I'm not doing that. I got, I'm going to play video games for 10 ,000 hours. I'm going to - Yeah, exactly. I think the implication in a theory like that is that those 10 ,000 hours are going to be brutal and unenjoyable and a slog and like exercise.

41:00And you'd have nothing to show for it. Exactly. It's just 10 ,000 hours of practice. And then you hit that hour and you're a genius. yeah but it's quite the opposite yeah and i think what you know to your point of your story you might take 10 000 hours to make a movie um that but it takes a fraction of that to make a gif and if you can break down that race into little tiny sprints and then they start compounding over time and you get to these really interesting places and i think that that's the that's what's So that's been so powerful to me to break down my journey into little projects. And they compounded where back when I started, like doing a character every day that took me 30 minutes to two hours was like, I'll never do this.

41:50I don't have the stamina and mental endurance to do that. And now the podcast is like 10 different habits. And I've been doing that for 10 years. And so I think that – yeah, I feel like that – I love your story because I think it's a testament to breaking it down into chunks, doing projects, having something to show for it, and shows how far you can go if you keep doing that. Well, it is – yeah, I think it's true. I think almost everybody is capable of more than they think. You know, I think I think people are closer to doing what they want to do than they realize a lot of times. I think for everyone, breakthroughs are right around the corner.

42:35And a lot of it is about digging around. I also I was not moving in a straight line towards this by any means. You know, I was not on a calculated path to have a movie at Tribeca. This is just like it's very much been one step at a time. And there's also been a lot of sort of tangents and offshoots that felt like they weren't going anywhere that have come back into this. You know, being in a band is a perfect example. I started a band with my friend Payson. We played a number of shows around Brooklyn. It really didn't take. It really was not something anyone wanted. And so, you know, it was 10 years ago.

43:13Put that aside. now she's the producer on my movie because we learned how to work together back then loading in drum kits and stuff and yeah i got my music in the movie because i learned how to play instruments uh and it's like and and you know every little piece of this movie and every little piece of whatever i do next is going to be culminating on that on that stuff that felt like a waste of time or just fun

43:56the other thing that comes to mind is as you're working through the script it got me thinking around how intimidating writing is for a lot of people, a lot of creative people, especially a lot of visual art people, or even actors like writing. And yet to me, I wish I would have got into writing much earlier because that substance ends up emanating into so much more interesting things like style and all the, everything ends up coming from that. And then even the opportunities that you didn't write come from those writings and like, and it's just the, like the generation generating stuff like that is such a huge, um, it's just, it's so gratifying in the process.

44:45Was the script, did it feel like that? Were you having like these moments with it? I mean, I'm sure it wasn't all gravy, but it was pretty gravy actually. I think I maybe, I think I liked it too much. Um, I think This is where I think I'm very different from every other illustrator I know, which is actually don't like drawing and doodling. And it's like, you know, in a lot of ways, what I do in 3D is really not like drawing at all. You know, it's a lot more like construction or playing with Legos or architecture or something else. So my background is in creative writing. I went to school for it.

45:23I started out my career working at an ad agency. I wanted to be a copywriter. So yeah, I like words. And yeah, I think like I liked writing the script too much. I could have just done it forever because part of it is it feels very safe and intimate because you kind of know that unlike a novel or even a blog post, no one's ever actually going to see the script. Like it's just the under skeleton for something else. And so you can put ideas in there. you can honestly you can spell stuff wrong you can get stuff wrong you know um and it feels very free uh it's also compared to writing prose it's easy to feel productive because a page of a script does not actually have that much on it what a point that's it's like it's like 10 lines of dialogue and a couple descriptions and you've done a page and that's encouraging um yeah for me it's like what I think about is like, uh, I read some statistic, I'll get the number wrong, but it's like the amount of texts that you write in emails every month, it obviously varies from person to person.

46:32But I think we have all probably written a novel's worth of emails at this point. Yeah. You know, we all have the practice. That's really encouraging and super depressing at the same time. It is, but it's like, you know, you have the muscle memory. Everyone could type pretty fast. Um, and you know, um. It also it's like if you can think of it that way as just generation, it doesn't have to be perfect. Yeah. But no, I love this. I would have I would write the script forever because it's also like it's the most perfect version of the movie where you can just write, you know, you can write whatever you want and you can write out the most expensive scene ever.

47:13And it doesn't cost you anything. And then you've handed you hand that problem off to to either yourself later. Unfortunately, in this case, to you later. And again, I think this is where you have to treat each project separate, where you say that person will figure it out. And because we didn't do everything that we had in the script. We can talk about that a little bit. But yeah, once the script is done, then it gets handed off. Okay. There were some other threads that I wanted to pick up on. But tell me about that first, because what didn't you do in the script? Well, we've talked about shortcuts before.

47:50Yeah. And I think like one of the big ones in this movie now that you've seen it, I wonder if you notice this. A lot of this is the thing you told me to look out for, which I never would have seen if you hadn't highlighted. So, yeah, I'm excited to get into this. I've several hundred people have seen the movie so far. One person who's an animator pointed out, they said, I love how nobody walks in the movie. uh and basically it's like you know in animation the walk cycle is historically a very time and labor intensive part of animation because there are a lot of bones at work and everyone knows exactly what walking looks like so yeah to look at a big animation studio they're spending millions of dollars just making sure everyone's walking right uh and because we didn't have that the The options were either do a bad version or find something else.

48:46So in this movie, the main character is on a swag way, which I really like because it kind of sets up the time the movie is taking place. It sets up where he is in terms of culture and class. And then it also I think it sells his character because it's this sort of ghostly floating motion that kind of undersell or, you know, kind of sells the way he's floating through life. Um, and it's, I think it's funny, but it was the easiest thing ever to animate. Uh, and you know, we have characters skateboarding. We have one character that's in this sort of robot suit. We have characters popping up from behind a fence, like the neighbor from home improvement characters that never get out of their car or, you know, um, one of Julio's characters is just a door.

49:31It's like a face in a door. I love those too. I love that. And the, and the character in the car and I love, and then you have just like, if I, if you hadn't have highlighted that to me and I would see the only one, one of the only characters that like kind of walks is just a quirky farmer. And you just think, Oh, that's like his weird quirky walk. Like he like shuffles over the ground. And I was like, yeah, okay. But I was like, I knew to look for it. I was like, Oh, that's good. That's funny. And it's also just funny. Like it's, and it makes it, it's an interesting choice. Well, there's a, you know, those are the best creative things you can have.

50:06I'm sure you've experienced these moments where it's like, Oh, something wasn't working for me and at 11 59 before it was before time i had the i had the easiest shortcut ever that actually was better was funny yes um i spent an entire day trying to get two characters to walk down a flight of stairs and instead uh they just take a little elevator instead and it's like fine yes how did you think what so were you aware of that this like obstacle of like characters walk cycles how expensive and how um impossible that was going to be were you aware of that going into this and you thought how did you come up with the idea of getting around it that way no i think it was it was more real-time problem solving it was more i wanted them in character on a bicycle and i was just you know i mean i think it's like it's one of the recalibrations you have to do is say i'm having a really bad time doing this animation you know i'm really not enjoying it i'm trying for an hour and then i'm stopping and going and getting a snack and it's like this isn't how it's supposed to be uh and it was you know i mean again we're on a really tight schedule uh there's like 90 scenes in the movie and for the rough animation stage we did a scene a day so you know there's really not a lot of time to dilly dally and get super technical and if something's not working again what i like to do is just try something as placeholder and there's a lot of stuff in the movie that was placeholder that's good enough some of it's not some of it wasn't you know some of it we went back to but a lot of it is like what if i do something cheap and silly instead and what if what if instead of trying to cover something up on a technical side i i zoom in on it and sell it as a comedy yeah i love that because i it reminds me of two things i love the idea of this is a whole this maybe this will be our cta for the the show we always end with like homework basically like things you can do with the stuff that we talked about and i think um do a project where your whole mentality is placeholder it's just like well just this placeholder placeholder yeah and because it it reminds me of two things.

52:26Reminds me of like, um, this, all of the hit songs that were written with someone just saying, all right, it's kind of like Sue, Sue, studio kind of thing. And then like, and that, Oh, well, why don't we just keep that? Like, I kind of like that, you know, these, there's tons of stories you hear of like musicians off the cuff, just randomly like, all right, placeholder there. Or Judd Apatow talks about it. Like script one rough draft is putting sand into the sandbox, not building a castle. Yeah. That's such a good, yeah. Yeah, placeholder, and again, placeholder, I think, is something that has a bad rap.

53:00Yeah. I think we all know if you see placeholder, if you spot placeholder in a finished project, it's ugly and lazy and bad. But it's a fictional designation. You know, something that might be placeholder to you might be someone's favorite thing ever. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I mean, first of all, I just have to say, I don't know if I told you this, but, um, you know, I really want to get, I've had some opportunities that haven't been fully materialized. And I've, I've always want, like when I first started doing, um, the characters that became invisible things, like I was inspired primarily by TV, like Fragment Rock, like that was my main thing.

53:43Oh, I got to say. Yes. Before we get completely off the topic. Yes. Is when I was talking about the characters walking or not walking. Yeah. The biggest inspiration there was this YouTube video I saw about the Muppets. Yes. Because that is something they did so well is you watch the Muppets. It never crosses your mind that none of their legs are moving and that they are all – that they all have a hand up inside them. You know? And it's always – they're sitting on a lily pad. You could have chose any other way to talk about that. Exactly. They're so real to us. Yeah. And they've done so many clever concealments.

54:21So, yeah, I was definitely in a what would Jim Henson do mindset for a lot of that. Yes. And that's, yeah, I mean, it's even down to, I mean, yes, like they're hiding their legs 90 % of the time. Most people never even think about that, really. Not to mention that if you're telling the story right or your characters are compelling or whatever, like, I mean, maybe it takes a certain type of person like me to think. I rarely think about the fact that, like you said, there's a hand up inside of this cloth. I'm thinking – I'm not thinking that. So think about that level of logic leap. And then you're all you're asking to not think much about the fact that these characters are all on devices riding around like that's so much smaller of a thing to sell.

55:17And yet that's the reason why so many people didn't make a movie. well because right because they there is this person out there at some point someone's going to see this movie and they will understand every technical flaw and every shortcut it's like yeah you can't make a movie for that person because they are the grinch you know they're like they're that little one percent of one percent of the audience who's just kind of doesn't know how to watch a movie but when you're making the stuff and you see the behind the scenes you become that person. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I don't know. I actually, I don't even have a, I don't have anything to say to get out of it because it's like, I do it all the time.

55:56Still, I still watch the movie and I cringe at parts of it that no one else notices. Sure. And, uh, and it's, and again, that's that, that voice that, you know, like, okay, some critic for whatever reason is going to do that. And that's the client voice. That's the ego voice. And getting around that person is, is really key to getting something on the page. I'm glad you brought that back up because I wanted to say one more element because I know we talked about this last time we chatted about getting around walk cycles. And I started thinking about how it's, I do this a lot and it's very like business bro talks a lot about 80-20 rule, but I think it's actually good.

56:38I think this is a good thought. And when you look at the animation budget of a film and you think 80 % roughly spent on the walk cycles, getting them right, but they're not only contributing to 20 % of the vibe or 20 % of the payoff. Like if you can look at those projects and you can say, what are the projects you really, really want to do? What's the thing that's like standing in the way? Like, is that a huge contributing factor to the quality of the thing? Or is it the part that matters to you? There are some people who they got into animation because of walks, walk cycles. That's true. Like, and they're all about that.

57:18So they can't skip that, but there could be writing songs that they don't do. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I think that it's just a real – oh, and the other thing I thought was, did you – is Swagway your thing or is that a thing? I think people were saying it – people were calling it that when the hoverboards were really popular. Okay. But yeah, it's not a – somebody was like, are you going to get sued for using the word Swagway? I was like, come on. It's not a real thing. I don't think so. I think it was like a colloquial term. Yeah. I love it. I thought everyone – I don't know if I'd heard it and I was cracking up at it.

57:56And I thought maybe I was like, it's kind of vaguely familiar, but still in any context. Well, they came and went. I mean, you don't really see those things anymore. Those little hoverboards. I think they all exploded. uh and i and i thought this was my addition because this this notion of um getting around the obstacle uh ryan holiday calls the obstacle is the way and then i thought i could title the episode obstacle is the swag oh that's so good right yes uh so yeah i think and uh but i think that uh there was there's another piece i wanted to talk about um unless you had something i don't Well, I kind of do have something here, but it's mostly just a rephrasing of what you said, but I think it's true.

58:42I mean, I think coming really coming from DIY and doing shows and that kind of stuff. I think one of the kind of core values you have there is right. There's always another way. And there's always a free way, like whatever you want, there's a way to get it. That's free. Like, or there's a solution that's free, like for us. And it's like, again, writing is free. um a good voice performance is not free but you know it costs the same as a bad voice performance yeah and again i think like i don't know how much time we even have to talk about this but it's like my voice actors on this movie completely save the day because the way the reason you can sit there and watch my animation for 90 minutes is because they are so every single one of them is just like so captivating.

59:30They were great. And not to, I mean, don't sell yourself short. Yes, you do like a lo-fi kind of 3D thing. Like it's always been kind of your thing, but it's gorgeous too. Like I really do feel like there were tons of times where like, cause I went into it thinking, I mean, I always love, I love the aesthetic of your style. Your taste is great. You make great art. And, but I also expected like it to be a little bit, I don't know, more lo-fi in a way when really it's like, there were tons of times where I was like, dude, the colors and the lighting and the way that it's working is just like gorgeous.

1:00:12I got really, there were several moments where I was like, dude, this is like, there's like, especially the, like, these are probably the part of the script that were like beautiful thing here like those moments were doing the trick so it worked the script worked i'm glad to hear you say that yeah yeah but i i do think the cast is like what makes it oh and they're great i mean it's like such a beautiful layer on top of it yeah and is it is it chris fleming the hot dog guy is the hot dog guy yeah That whole scene is hilarious. It's so good. If people don't know Chris Fleming's work, I feel like at this point everyone's probably seen him on Instagram or TikTok.

1:00:52But he does these just so – there's such intense monologues in his car where he's just talking a mile a minute. And every word he says is hysterical. And he's like – he'll cram like three or four brilliant insights into one sentence. So when he came in, we had him for an hour. And I was like – I was pretty nervous. I was like, what if he is a dud? Like, what if, what if that, what if everything we've seen is like, actually takes a lot of practice and like, is, or is like really, you never, you never know with it. But he came in and it was like, I was dying. He was, he had his script in front of him.

1:01:30We read through it one time as written. And then past that, he was just like improv-ing. So I think everything, everything, his character, he plays a, yeah, he plays a man who lives inside the world's largest hot dog. And it's like, it's very much a philosophical kind of Richard Linklater-y character. Who's just like musing about the world while, while the main character is waiting for his hot dogs. But yeah, he was a beast. I mean, he was, and I was just dying. Like, and you can hear, you can hear me laughing in a lot of the takes, like from the other side of the recording booth, you can just hear like a little, like high pitch laughing where I'm like going to pass out.

1:02:09That is incredible. And I had two thoughts. One, but right before I jumped on here, I thought about what if I did a bit where all the way through this whole thing, I'm like doing my questions in different silly voices. Oh, you're auditioning. for the next movie uh and then i thought um that uh oh man i lost it but i was oh i know i was just thinking as you were as we were talking about oh the hot dog guy yeah i was thinking um we could also record another interview sometime where it's just performance art and there is no movie because right now no one's seen this that's literally just do a whole be doing that anyway you're like wait until you say it's going to be at the festivals, like streaming like way in the future, but you know, and the hot dog and the catfish guy.

1:03:02And we're just making stuff up the whole time. That's really good. Yeah. It's real. It does. It does kind of feel like that. It does a little bit. There's so many funny, and we didn't even get into so much. I mean, it's way weirder than what we're even saying. It is, isn't it? Yeah. That's kind of good though. I think people kind of just need to see it before, you know. Yeah. It's very, it's very my taste. Um, and, and I had such a great time. The, uh, last thing I wanted to talk to you about was, uh, did you tell me that, did, I really can't remember if you said that you legitimately have a pet duck.

1:03:40I have two pet ducks. Okay. So you really, I didn't misremember that. I knew you were talking about ducks to me, but I was like, I was talking to my wife. Did he say he had a pet duck? And she's like, yeah, he has a pet duck. And I was like, okay, so you have a pet duck. Yeah. I have two pet ducks, Sleepy and Sneezy. Nice. They're awesome. They're great pets. I think more people should get ducks. So you're going to get the rest of the whole crew? If you get Sleepy and Sneezy, you have to get dopey and ducks. Exactly. There's room for five more. And what I want to do is get all five of those, and then I want a sheep, and the sheep is Snow White.

1:04:14So how do you have that? That's great. How do you have these ducks? Well, it's basically the same as. Okay. It's the same as backyard chickens. You have a little coop in your backyard and they just live there and they lay eggs every morning. Nice. That's kind of it. They're very sweet and social and extremely funny. Oh, I love it. I love ducks. And the reason I think it came up last time, you said something about how you were just like thinking about how ducks come out knowing how to duck and humans don't. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I mean, it was something that was on my mind a lot when I was raising them is they, yeah, they're perfect.

1:04:57They come out of the egg and they're like little, they're just machines. Like they just will live their entire life following these perfect impulses that tell them exactly what to do. And it's like the other day there was a neighborhood cat in the yard. And it's like, even though they had never seen a cat before, they knew what to do. Like their instincts to run away from the cat were exactly right. Right. And right. As people, we are born pretty much useless and we have to learn everything and it takes a really long time. And then it's also like, well, aren't you glad it's that way? Like, aren't you glad that like 10 years ago you didn't know you'd be doing this?

1:05:37Or like if you woke up and you were doing the exact life that you had planned out for yourself, that would be really unsatisfying or that would be not the reason to become a creative person. so yeah i guess my my insight there would be to leave yourself open to learn and grow uh not just not just in like a macho way of just like i'm gonna get better at drawing or writing or whatever but like to grow in ways that you didn't even expect basically as you're writing the script of your life make sure you have big swaths for pages that just say beautiful stuff there. Wow. Right now, Andy, that was good.

1:06:20That was good. It's true, man. Now I honestly, you touched me. Like I was thinking like I do such a shitty job of doing what you just described. And there are so many like twists and turns that happened in my life that I couldn't have seen coming that are the literally the best juiciest parts. And it's just like, just like what you said. Well, I don't think you do that shitty of a job. I do a shitty job of over planning. That's what I'm saying. I got, I think, oh, okay. You know, I've got, and it's an anxiety thing, you know? And I, like I said, I like the, the plotter thing was a learned behavior and it served me well.

1:07:01Like I'm proud and that I learned how to, you know, start with the end in mind, both in career stuff and story stuff and all that. Like, but it can become a crutch and a complete anxiety. I think it's a grass is always greener thing. I think you have to pick a way that you're going to be. And then I think obviously think you should look around and I see I'm looking at you and you're surrounded by like your books and your art and your creations and stuff. I definitely think you should take a moment to not be so hard on yourself and be grateful for the person that you are than the brain that you have that got you where you are because it's an awesome place.

1:07:39And I, you know, I, I really appreciate that. And I also think, um, but the, the points taken, I think you're, I creating those spaces to be surprised as so, as so, uh, huge. And I, and I feel like that's what I need right now too, because this is in some ways, some of the things that I have done are either what I planned, didn't go to plan or it went exactly to plan, but the plan's over um and now it's yeah it's the next things that's where you are no this did not at all i'm still very much in the middle of kind of dealing with this movie you know distributing it and going to festivals um and but i i don't at all feel like oh that went exactly how i planned oh basically at no stage you know it doesn't the movie doesn't look or feel like i thought it would you know it didn't i didn't think it would premiere at tribeca i didn't think it would go to play at an airport in japan uh and yeah i i have at this point i'm completely lost i have no be hilarious if that was on your vision board though just like oh this movie to be at an airport in japan in 2025 um that would be something um i dude i literally could talk to you forever.

1:08:56I am so grateful to be able to chat with you because it's honestly, it's so fun and it's all the kind of stuff that I just love thinking about and talking about. So thank you. And hopefully you come back another time. Thank you. I'll come back tomorrow if you want. Anytime. Yeah. Just start a whole other podcast. Yeah. This was great. Thanks, man. Yeah.

1:09:36so

1:09:46massive thanks to julian glander for taking so much time to chat with me i honestly i haven't had such a good time. So long. I was just through the roof and you've got to check out Julian's work. Go follow him on Instagram, Glander Co over there. Check out his website, just search Julian Glander and it'll come up. So much inspiring goodness. And it really helped me tap back into my creative side instead of getting so locked into the business and the practice of it all, but really remember why I do this in the first place and how fun it can be to make stuff up, which is creative writing at its core.

1:10:31I told you I'd be back with a creative call to adventure. This is the obstacle is the swag way. This is find a swag way, call to adventure. The idea here is just essentially realizing that just like in every story, the conflict is essential, not because we just need tension in our stories because I don't need tension in my life, but because the tension in your life, in your story, isn't there to make it juicy. It's there to teach you a lesson that the conflict is the way in which you don't get what you want. It blocks what you want, but it gives you what you need. And the only way for you to find that lesson from the conflict is by embracing the conflict is saying, okay, I don't live in New York city.

1:11:30I don't live in LA. And for whatever reason, my circumstance means I can't, but I want to make a film or I want to be an actor or I want to be in television. Don't ignore that fact. Don't try to hide that fact, but instead start thinking about what does it mean that I am going to make a movie from Ohio? What does it mean to embrace that limitation? For me personally, this has happened over and over again, where when I went to go make a podcast, instead of thinking, all right, I'm going to go interview people. I knew that the internet connection I had at home wasn't going to be good enough to do interviews.

1:12:15I didn't really understand how to do that. I had all of these obstacles. And for the longest time, it just meant that I didn't make a podcast. And then eventually I realized like, oh, I could record on my iPhone, like the microphone on the phone even 10 years ago was pretty good, was good enough to get started. And that was one of the reasons why I started the show as a monologue show. And that became its calling card for a long time. And the same goes for my creative practice at the start. When I first started, I wanted to make band posters, but I couldn't get anybody to teach me in a place where my college was to screen print on paper.

1:12:55And I didn't know anything about it. So instead I made an indie rock coloring book. And it ended up being this obstacle, this reason why I didn't belong, this reason why I couldn't participate became the reason, became the creative fodder for how I created something that busted through the pack, that stood out from everybody else. And so my encouragement to you is don't pretend like that obstacle, that thing that counts you out, the thing that stops you from doing what you're trying to do. Don't pretend like it doesn't exist. Don't write it off as nothing. Get really real about what are the things that are really holding me back from what I want as a creative person and how can they be the delivery method?

1:13:45How can they be the swag way? How can they be the thing that makes my creative project unique and different? and the only way you can do that is by embracing it instead of ignoring it.

1:14:03Creative Pep Talk is a weekly podcast designed to help you build a thriving creative practice but that's the thing. It only works if it's an actual practice. It has to become a habit. We make this show every single week so that your creativity can go from being a thing that you do sometimes to a creative discipline. To immerse you in a world of creatives that are doing the same where those kind of behaviors are normal. One way we help you stick to this is by sending you the new episodes via email to your inbox every single week so that you never miss a week. And we often add bonus content like pictures and links and extra related stuff to the episode that you're not gonna get just from the apps.

1:14:57Go to andyjpizza.substack.com to sign up to the free email newsletter and I'll have the accountability to stay on the creative path and keep this streak going. And hopefully it will inspire you to do the same. And if you sign up right now, you'll get immediate free access to our e-booklet, The Creative Career Path. It's a step-by-step roadmap for creating a project that is designed to unlock your dream creative clients and opportunities. Sign up at andyjpizza.substack.com. And let's keep this creative habit together. Creative Pep Talk is part of the Podglomerate Network. You can learn more about Podglomerate at www.podglomerate.com.

1:15:49This has been another episode of Creative Pep Talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. Hey, it's dangerous to go alone. Take this podcast with you week in and week out by subscribing to the show. to keep you company and keep the best creative practices top of mind so that little by little, week in and week out, you can make progress in your own creative practice. I'm your host, AJ Pizza. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. And I make this show not because I have it all figured out, but because as a squishy, creative artist type that's prone to big emotions, it takes a whole lot of creativity to just get out of bed sometimes.

1:16:32So every week I put out the ideas that are helping me stay disciplined and stay excited and have helped me stay on this creative path for the past 15 years plus in hopes that it might help someone else or at the very least help them feel less alone on their own creative journey. Massive thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for our theme music. thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for editing and sound design thanks to Sophie Miller for podcast assistance of all sorts and most importantly thanks to you for listening and until we speak again stay pepped up

1:17:36Hello, this is Jack Wilson, the host of the History of Literature podcast. For the past 10 years, I've been talking to novelists, biographers, and scholars about the greatest books in the history of the world and the men and women who wrote them. Like our recent episodes on Dante and Love, a starter pack of 10 Indian classics, the pop culture that influenced Sylvia Plath, and a talk with scientist and novelist Alan Lightman about the wonders of nature. Join us at the History of Literature podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, the podcast is over, so I don't know why you're still listening, but I am glad that you enjoyed it enough to stick to the end.

1:18:19I have one more thing for you. If you're in a place where you're feeling a lack of clarity and you want to figure out your industry market and niche and find the perfect strategic side project to do next, go sign up to our newsletter at andyjpizza.substack .com and you will get a confirmation email that will give you the download of our Creative Career Path hand booklet. and the whole process is in there and you might also get a few bonuses in there depending on when you sign up. But again, thanks for listening. Glad you enjoyed the episode and stay pepped up, y 'all.