Speaker 1: Tommy Jacket, Welcome to the Bloody You Project.
Speaker 2: Hi, thanks for having me. Craig go oh god.
Speaker 1: I've missed you. You and I have not spoken as
Speaker 1: in a conversation. We had a sixty seconds one a
Speaker 1: sixty second one earlier today, which wasn't It was like
Speaker 1: quick catch up and do you want to do a
Speaker 1: potty and tell me what you've been up to? And
Speaker 1: you went, nah, can't, it's a secret. Then you went nah,
Speaker 1: I can, and then you went nah, I can't. I can,
Speaker 1: uh some of it, not all of it. So I'm curious.
Speaker 1: But in general terms, Hi, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm great mate. This is a great time of year.
Speaker 2: Do you like? Do you like like the lead up
Speaker 2: to Chrissy New Year's I do?
Speaker 1: I do? I generally, I generally do, and I won't
Speaker 1: go into great detail. A bit sad this year because
Speaker 1: a family friend is very very unwell, someone very close
Speaker 1: to our family and my family, so it's a bit sad.
Speaker 1: But in general terms, yeah, Christy is good. It's like
Speaker 1: everyone like the mood lightens and people take the foot
Speaker 1: off the gas a little bit. But it's an interesting
Speaker 1: time because for some people, isn't it interesting that for
Speaker 1: some people it's a time of connection and fun and
Speaker 1: joy and love and giving and getting, and for some
Speaker 1: people it's a time of isolation and loneliness. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, without being a downer, yeah, it's it's an
Speaker 1: interesting time of the year because either way it's going
Speaker 1: to evoke certain feelings and emotions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I kind of do have that love
Speaker 2: hate with it because I enjoy the time and the
Speaker 2: sort of vibe of Australia around the Christmas you know,
Speaker 2: that end of December jan break. But then I also
Speaker 2: lose all momentum I've gathered from the year, and by
Speaker 2: the time I come back into work, I feel like
Speaker 2: I've you know, got no steam or I find that
Speaker 2: I find it hard to pick it back up, even
Speaker 2: though I have a bit of clarity around, you know,
Speaker 2: what I'm doing. But I also find momentum is so
Speaker 2: powerful from you know, midway through the year to the
Speaker 2: back end. And then yeah, it is quite disruptive in
Speaker 2: that way. So love hate, but more love than hate.
Speaker 1: Do you think you are? Like how old are you now?
Speaker 1: I'm twenty two, you know, I forgot so you're thirty
Speaker 1: five or thirty six? Yeah, And I've known you since
Speaker 1: literally since you're a teenager, and you remind me of
Speaker 1: me in that you're better looking than me, and smarter
Speaker 1: than me and more creative than me. But other than that,
Speaker 1: other than that, you remind me of me in that
Speaker 1: it's like you never really wanted a real job. Like
Speaker 1: it's not that you didn't want to work. You wanted
Speaker 1: to work, but you didn't want a traditional Nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with traditional jobs or roles, but you know that nine
Speaker 1: to five, put on a suit, drive somewhere, do a job,
Speaker 1: leave that place, drive home. That's not really for you,
Speaker 1: and that's not really for me. But I feel like
Speaker 1: watching you over the years where this passion and creativity
Speaker 1: has intersected with making money and supporting your family and
Speaker 1: meeting people and travel, it's like this synergy now of
Speaker 1: a bunch of different things that just happens to make money.
Speaker 1: Does it feel like a job?
Speaker 2: Yeah, not really, because if it felt like a job,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be doing it. I'd be doing something else.
Speaker 2: But in saying that, even though my life doesn't always
Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't necessarily feel like a job. And
Speaker 2: to be clear, that's probably what I've always had as
Speaker 2: a driver to work away from So that's been sort
Speaker 2: of anchored in wanting to find those things that don't
Speaker 2: feel like work or that aligns so much with the
Speaker 2: things that I'm passionate about so that they don't feel
Speaker 2: like that. But there's been a long time that I
Speaker 2: made no money, very little, not making you know, millions now,
Speaker 2: But I'm just I'm making more than I was when
Speaker 2: I first started out. And that's probably the challenges though.
Speaker 2: When people try and do things that are a passion
Speaker 2: you know that they really truly love, Converting it to
Speaker 2: some kind of monetary reward is tricky, but they still
Speaker 2: stick at it because it's so rewarding from a you know,
Speaker 2: values perspective.
Speaker 1: Could you give There'll be people listening today who've never
Speaker 1: met you because you haven't been on for a little while,
Speaker 1: and there'll be lots of people who know you a bit,
Speaker 1: and there'll be a few people who know you really well.
Speaker 1: But could you just tell people what you do? Like,
Speaker 1: give us a snapshot, Like you and I meet in
Speaker 1: a bar and I go mate sixty seconds or whatever.
Speaker 1: Tell me how you make money, what you do and
Speaker 1: how it works.
Speaker 2: Well, if I met you in a bar, I'd say, firstly,
Speaker 2: what are you doing in about? And secondly, you're my father?
Speaker 2: How do you not know this stuff exactly exactly?
Speaker 1: I'm Tommy's cyber dad. Sorry, good dad, pseudo dad. But
Speaker 1: all right, pretend I'm a stranger.
Speaker 2: I mean, I struggled to say that, but if I
Speaker 2: was to sort of lean into that, because I would
Speaker 2: probably ask questions about them first before me. But what
Speaker 2: I do for a job is video production and podcast production.
Speaker 2: And I got into that through sort of being passionately
Speaker 2: into creating myself. So you know, I started out as
Speaker 2: a personal trainer. I didn't like that. I wanted to
Speaker 2: move towards something that I was more passionate about, which
Speaker 2: was media, the creation of content. And I ended up
Speaker 2: working in radio for two years, hosting a breakfast radio show,
Speaker 2: which then led to creating video content, which then led
Speaker 2: to creating my own video production and podcast production business.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, ankor In that has been always centered
Speaker 2: around that personal creation and then helping other people do
Speaker 2: that for them their brand.
Speaker 1: When you like, you've just been working on what is
Speaker 1: for you and would be for anyone in your line.
Speaker 1: Quite a big project which we'll talk about. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how much we'll talk about it, but we'll talk
Speaker 1: about it at the end of it. When you do
Speaker 1: something really good, I feel like for you, of course,
Speaker 1: you've got to make money, pay the bills, you've got kids,
Speaker 1: you've got a family, you've got responsibilities, all that normal
Speaker 1: grown up stuff. So proud of you, but I feel
Speaker 1: like you're more interested in how good it is than
Speaker 1: how much it's going to make.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I guess hopefully you can convert that to
Speaker 2: making you some money and it also being how good
Speaker 2: is this? It can be both, yes, and I think
Speaker 2: you should. It's hard because then it's just a hobby
Speaker 2: if you can't get it to convert into some kind
Speaker 2: of financial award.
Speaker 1: But what about what about the eye around like and
Speaker 1: this is you know, I coach a lot of would
Speaker 1: be speakers and people who are speakers and want to
Speaker 1: be speakers, And I guess Tiff is in that. Tiff
Speaker 1: who works with me who you know, well, she's in that,
Speaker 1: and we're always you know, for the last few years
Speaker 1: I've been coaching her in terms of opening the door
Speaker 1: to professional speaking and coaching and running groups and mentoring
Speaker 1: and how that works. And we talk a lot about
Speaker 1: the perception of value and the psychology of value. And
Speaker 1: there was a time when you would make a video
Speaker 1: for someone to promote their business, and you would charge X,
Speaker 1: and then a while later you would charge five X.
Speaker 1: And now these days, I don't know what you charge,
Speaker 1: but maybe fifteen or twenty X, and which is understandable.
Speaker 1: Like there was a time when I was doing talks
Speaker 1: for fifty bucks, you know, and now it's up to
Speaker 1: sixty bucks, so I'm killing.
Speaker 2: It, you know.
Speaker 1: But that that kind of evolution of not only your
Speaker 1: own development and creative potential and you know, business acumen,
Speaker 1: but being confident enough to charge people a lot to
Speaker 1: do something and when they could get someone in inverted
Speaker 1: commas cheaper, how did you go with all of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such an evolution. You know, if you don't
Speaker 2: believe it at the start, you're not going. As in,
Speaker 2: if you don't believe you're worth more than what someone's
Speaker 2: willing to pay you, you're definitely not worth anymore. So
Speaker 2: you are worth fifty bucks to talk. But I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: over time, the experience, you know, runs on the board
Speaker 2: confidence in your own abilities. Half the time, I think
Speaker 2: creative industry and you know, these sort of self taught pursuits.
Speaker 2: A lot of people are self taught now, photographers, videographers,
Speaker 2: you know, podcasters. There is that level of confidence in
Speaker 2: what you do that sort of comes over time, so
Speaker 2: once you have done it for other people. But I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe you probably know me in a perspective
Speaker 2: that I don't even know me seeing my level of
Speaker 2: confidence in what I'm doing, which I don't think I
Speaker 2: did have that early days. But I had the ability
Speaker 2: to push through that uncomfortable feeling of unsure and don't
Speaker 2: know my worth to where to being able to charge
Speaker 2: today good money for what I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for me it's like seeing you from
Speaker 1: the clumsy clearly talented and likable and charismatic and all
Speaker 1: of those things which you were. But it's kind of
Speaker 1: like reminds me of being at lots of sporting teams
Speaker 1: that I've worked with, AFL clubs, VFL clubs, National level
Speaker 1: Netball League clubs, where some somebody comes in and you're like,
Speaker 1: are this girl or this guy? They've got good genetics.
Speaker 1: They've got good genetics. They can run, fast, jump high,
Speaker 1: they can catch, they can throw, they can kick, they
Speaker 1: can handle, they've got good durance, they've got but they're
Speaker 1: a fair way away from being an elite player, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's kind of where you were, Like you had
Speaker 1: all the ingredients and all the potential and all the possibilities,
Speaker 1: But there are so many people that have that, but
Speaker 1: they don't then do the required work to turn that
Speaker 1: potential into a real world thing that is now valuable,
Speaker 1: that is now sought after, that is now in demand,
Speaker 1: that is now at a very high level. Like I
Speaker 1: always had the potential to be a reasonably good corporate
Speaker 1: slash professional speaker rights or whatever, but there was a
Speaker 1: lot of time where I didn't have the experience, I
Speaker 1: didn't have the skill, I didn't have the confidence, I
Speaker 1: didn't have the knowledge. Like the potential was there, but
Speaker 1: potential is really just the stepping off point. Like for me,
Speaker 1: you're especially in the last I reckon four years, it
Speaker 1: seems like you've matured ten years. It's like you're a
Speaker 1: much more grown up. Like you were like a fucking
Speaker 1: twelve year old too, you're about thirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, go on, now I feel like an old
Speaker 2: thirty six year old.
Speaker 1: Yeah if you're like a fun twelve, but you were
Speaker 1: like a big kid. I'm still like that big kid.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I still have to rain my shit in and
Speaker 1: go all right, well, you know you're actually doing a
Speaker 1: big gig and you're talking at the wherever.
Speaker 2: You know, I want to always have like this huge
Speaker 2: leap in what they do. So it's like you obviously
Speaker 2: get runs on the board from doing the thing that
Speaker 2: you do and you slowly chip away. And maybe maybe
Speaker 2: not everyone actually has that progression when they are having
Speaker 2: just chipping away and having run the because things come
Speaker 2: into play, like self esteem or self worth or just
Speaker 2: not being able to view themselves in a way that
Speaker 2: increases their value. So I get that that is also
Speaker 2: a reality, but I kind of always have just chipped away.
Speaker 2: So you know, the video projects or the podcast projects
Speaker 2: I work on today are quite they feel much easier
Speaker 2: than they would have five years ago because my skill
Speaker 2: my skill level has caught up. And then the belief
Speaker 2: is sort of in myself and being able to do
Speaker 2: these kind of projects or work with big clients has
Speaker 2: also strengthened. And so it's it can only happen over time.
Speaker 2: It's unless you unless you have a big opportunity that
Speaker 2: allows you to take a huge leap. And for me,
Speaker 2: it was like doing the radio thing. I'd never done
Speaker 2: any kind of real tangible project or you know, being
Speaker 2: employed by somebody who was other than just making my
Speaker 2: own content, which is a very low barrier. Anyone can
Speaker 2: do it. But then when you you know, quotation marks
Speaker 2: get picked by somebody and they say, we think you're
Speaker 2: good enough. I'm on board, like you know, that is
Speaker 2: one way to sort of level up and feel really
Speaker 2: sort of insecure about it, but then be able to say, oh,
Speaker 2: they must think I'm good enough. They gave me a job,
Speaker 2: and then and then, but then that was just that
Speaker 2: job was you know, two years of every day doing
Speaker 2: the thing, and so then you get just I got
Speaker 2: the opportunity to be able to hone my skill in
Speaker 2: this area, which yeah, that that helps you then progress,
Speaker 2: that's that that generates that momentum in your value.
Speaker 1: I think also you don't realize because you're you, and
Speaker 1: because you're with you every minute of every day, you
Speaker 1: don't see your own progression because it's like if I
Speaker 1: don't see you for a while, like I don't think
Speaker 1: you and I have sat down and had a coffee
Speaker 1: for months, four or five months, maybe.
Speaker 2: No, no, just before I left three it could be
Speaker 2: three months, Jesus away for seven weeks, was it?
Speaker 1: I okay? But when I don't see you for an installment,
Speaker 1: like three months, four months, I noticed change. I noticed development,
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't notice it because you're you, right. And
Speaker 1: it's like the other day somebody was asking me about
Speaker 1: somebody wants to as does everyone start a podcast? And
Speaker 1: they're like, can you give me a three minute workshop
Speaker 1: on podcasting? And I just gave them literally that like
Speaker 1: pros cons, what to do, what not to do, what
Speaker 1: my thoughts, my peaks and trots, what I did well,
Speaker 1: what I did terrible, blah blah blah blah, and I finished,
Speaker 1: and they're like, one, I never thought there was so
Speaker 1: much to it, and two like, oh my god, you
Speaker 1: know so much. And I'm like, I still feel clumsy
Speaker 1: on a podcast at times. And then I think, well,
Speaker 1: like when I think about all the stuff I did
Speaker 1: with you before the new project, the stuff we did,
Speaker 1: the stuff I did with Bianca and Francis, the stuff
Speaker 1: I did with the Australian Fitness podcast which was mine
Speaker 1: that I gave to Russell, blah blah blah. I've done,
Speaker 1: you know, just in my own I've done over two
Speaker 1: thousand shows, and then when you're all the other shows
Speaker 1: I've been on or episodes, I would say at least
Speaker 1: another five hundred, so that's two and I think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm probably good at this, or I'm probably I've got
Speaker 1: some skill and some knowledge and some understanding of the
Speaker 1: you know, the science for one of the better term,
Speaker 1: the science of it all. But you never I never
Speaker 1: stop and think, shit, I'm good at this, and then
Speaker 1: somebody points out that you're actually fucking good at it,
Speaker 1: and you go, oh, am I here.
Speaker 2: Well, all the beauty of time allows you to then
Speaker 2: have sort of that tangible evidence to pull on that yeah,
Speaker 2: I have done this. And so the project that I've
Speaker 2: just been working on, a documentary traveling across America, where
Speaker 2: I was hosting it with my mate Josh, who I
Speaker 2: had the Daily talk show with which you were on
Speaker 2: many times, and we've both been on here. We hadn't
Speaker 2: been in front of camera together or doing anything podcast
Speaker 2: related in years, but not even thinking can we do
Speaker 2: that or not, we just stepped into the project knowing
Speaker 2: and for me, I'm only talking for me here, but
Speaker 2: I knew that we've done this so many times, thousands
Speaker 2: we've been. You know, I've done thousands of episodes of
Speaker 2: podcasts in my time, including the radio stuff. It's like, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: and so. But if that was fifteen years ago, I
Speaker 2: would have been shitting myself, not knowing if I could
Speaker 2: do it. Do I have the skill set to be
Speaker 2: able to.
Speaker 1: Do I want to talk about your docco in a moment,
Speaker 1: But I remember years ago, early early days of Harper's
Speaker 1: and that's my gym's everyone and I got interviewed for
Speaker 1: a few things. I got interviewed on radio sporadically, like
Speaker 1: four or five times a year, and I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I got interviewed for a few mags and for the
Speaker 1: Herald Sun that I ended up writing for, and the
Speaker 1: radio stuff I really liked. And I thought, how do
Speaker 1: I get into radio? Not that I want to be
Speaker 1: a radio person, but and then a friend of mine said,
Speaker 1: why don't you do some community radio? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is. And basically, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a volunteer as you know exactly. It's
Speaker 1: everything's the same except no one listens. So you know,
Speaker 1: you might have fifty or one hundred listeners and it's
Speaker 1: not commercial and it's not paid, and there are they're
Speaker 1: not advertisers.
Speaker 2: What are they called sponsors?
Speaker 1: Its sponsors, Thank you sponsors. And but I did I
Speaker 1: did four years of a show by myself that fucking
Speaker 1: thirteen people listened to. But I got four years of training,
Speaker 1: like literally playing music, taking calls, you know, time checks,
Speaker 1: station id, weather checks, having conversations in and off of mic.
Speaker 1: But and so by the time I got to work
Speaker 1: at SCN, which was a few years later, I'd already
Speaker 1: done hundreds of hours of radio without the pressure. So
Speaker 1: so not all of it, but a lot of the development,
Speaker 1: the learning, the fuck ups, the understanding, you know that
Speaker 1: the miles on the clock, I'd already got under my
Speaker 1: belt before I sat down in a proper studio where
Speaker 1: it really fucking matters, you know. So I'd played one
Speaker 1: hundred games before I played my first game, so to speak.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and there not everyone's willing to do that though,
Speaker 2: as in putting the time without any reward, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the trouble. That's a challenge with people who want
Speaker 2: to get into doing podcasting nowadays is there's would they
Speaker 2: do it if someone said, Okay, here's money for you
Speaker 2: to show up and do this thing. But that's why, really,
Speaker 2: I think that's why there are so many great standout ones,
Speaker 2: because it's all off the back of someone having so
Speaker 2: that real drive to do it themselves.
Speaker 1: I think also, you know, the willingness to do something
Speaker 1: that you know you're not going to be good at
Speaker 1: initially and being okay with that and recognizing that the
Speaker 1: only way I get good at podcasting is by podcasting,
Speaker 1: just like I can't get good at running by not running. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't get strong without lifting, you know. And so
Speaker 1: you go, all right, well, I'm going to start a
Speaker 1: podcast and there's probably going to be somewhere between one
Speaker 1: and five people listening, and it's every chance it's going
Speaker 1: to be shit. Yeah, and it might be shitited somewhere
Speaker 1: between shits and average for a long time. But the
Speaker 1: only way I can get through the shit an average
Speaker 1: phase is to do that. You know, This is how
Speaker 1: I get good is by acknowledging and being bad or
Speaker 1: not skilled or not competent at the start and then
Speaker 1: doing the work to get good. But people don't want
Speaker 1: that painful start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's painful, I get it.
Speaker 1: What's the average number of episodes that podcasters do, isn't
Speaker 1: It isn't the average podcast loves last seven or something episodes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, seven or eleven? I think the number. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: because I like seven eleven as a shop. That may
Speaker 2: be just coming to mind.
Speaker 1: I do remember, we'll talk about your doco in a minute.
Speaker 1: And I know you don't have too much time. Do
Speaker 1: you have tool? It's twelve twenty one. Now have you
Speaker 1: got to forty five or no?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 1: I remember you did tell us there's so many cool
Speaker 1: things that you've done over the years that our listeners
Speaker 1: would know of. But remember you did the coffee the
Speaker 1: blind coffee test where I think that was you where
Speaker 1: you've got a seven eleven coffee and actual some Barista
Speaker 1: made coffees, like some five six dollar coffees and one
Speaker 1: dollar coffees.
Speaker 2: Or seven eleven coffees mainstream. Now, if you're not drinking it,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? It's no, but it's seen now
Speaker 2: as like it's just a part of you know, everyone.
Speaker 2: If you're running late or just need a quick hit,
Speaker 2: you go to seven eleven. This is not a sponsorship deal,
Speaker 2: But I've been drinking seven eleven coffees from day one,
Speaker 2: And my point was in this test was that when
Speaker 2: it's a long black, Sure, there are some cafes that
Speaker 2: do like an exceptional tasting long black that do stand
Speaker 2: out amongst other long blacks, But when you are just
Speaker 2: having black coffee, can you really tell the difference between
Speaker 2: something that's just shot out of a machine for a
Speaker 2: dollar inflation now two bucks? Can you tell the difference
Speaker 2: between that and a barista made coffee? But that was
Speaker 2: on the that was on the podcast with Pete Sheppard.
Speaker 2: I got him to taste test the barista coffee from
Speaker 2: the cafe downstairs of the studio and the seven to
Speaker 2: eleven coffee that I ran and got, and he chose
Speaker 2: the seven eleven coffee as the tasty one, which really,
Speaker 2: which is yeah, I mean, it's it's that is hard,
Speaker 2: but yeah, that's it. I think it just shows that
Speaker 2: it really is just.
Speaker 1: I mean, taste is taste is subjective, of course, But
Speaker 1: every like most days, I train at four and then
Speaker 1: on my way home at five point fifteen, there's a
Speaker 1: seven eleven fifty meters from the gym, which you know,
Speaker 1: and most days, especially if I've got to work, especially
Speaker 1: if I've got a six pm podcast, especially if I
Speaker 1: need to be a little bit of a stim on board.
Speaker 1: I get a seven eleven coffee and I have a
Speaker 1: fancy coffee every morning at the Hampton's and it's good.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if the seven eleven is as good,
Speaker 1: but to me, it's very much in the It's not
Speaker 1: like I'm drinking, you know, ness cafe out of a
Speaker 1: jar from the pantry. It's to me, it's it does
Speaker 1: the same job.
Speaker 2: Which one do you pick? Which coffee?
Speaker 1: Which coffee? I have a medium which is three bucks now,
Speaker 1: and I have a skinny flat white, which is it's
Speaker 1: a double shot.
Speaker 2: I think, Okay, I like, what do you do? I've
Speaker 2: gone the piccolo now some of the machines are they're
Speaker 2: you know, they've upgraded.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know you could do a pick. So
Speaker 1: piccolo is like just a small amount of water and
Speaker 1: a single or a double shot.
Speaker 2: So it's just a shot of coffee and a little
Speaker 2: bit of milk. So it's like the cup it becomes
Speaker 2: half full, so it's just like a taste stronger, so.
Speaker 1: It's like half the milk but the same cough caffeine.
Speaker 2: Yes, do you remember when I did that video going
Speaker 2: down the rabbit hole of seven to eleven, the where
Speaker 2: I worked out that a large would fit into a medium. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, it was a bit of an expose or
Speaker 2: as a medium fits into a small, and so there
Speaker 2: was just something there which, in fairness, I can't even
Speaker 2: remember what I did, but I'd worked out that one
Speaker 2: of the bigger cups fits into a smaller cup and
Speaker 2: it's like the same amount of coffee, so you're basically
Speaker 2: better off just getting the small. But then I was
Speaker 2: on the project talking about that just being an absolute
Speaker 2: scally wag. But I looked into like where the coffee
Speaker 2: was roasted, found out it was out like out past
Speaker 2: Alfington area. So I went out to the plate like
Speaker 2: just the Yeah, it was a real time in a
Speaker 2: moment in time when that was just sort of coming
Speaker 2: becoming mainstream.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's it's still ground coffee beans, right,
Speaker 1: it's And it's like the thing about seven eleven, like
Speaker 1: it or not, is that it's consistent, Like there's zero
Speaker 1: variation in my coffee. I know exactly what it's going
Speaker 1: to taste like, exactly how hot it'll be and exactly
Speaker 1: how full the cup's going to be, no matter where
Speaker 1: I get it from or when it's exactly the same.
Speaker 1: Every time.
Speaker 2: I paid six dollars yesterday in Brighton for a piccolo
Speaker 2: coffee and that's suck. I could not believe it. And
Speaker 2: at that point, like you just it was. I was
Speaker 2: having a meeting. I was like, oh, but I still
Speaker 2: got it. But it really annoyed me that I had
Speaker 2: to pay six dollars for something that's a dollar fifty
Speaker 2: and it definitely wasn't any better than a piccolo from
Speaker 2: seven to eleven.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but
Speaker 1: fuck it. Live on the edge, jumbo. Have you been
Speaker 1: to Ing?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Have you had coffee in England?
Speaker 2: I was twenty eleven. Was it was trash when I
Speaker 2: was there, But I.
Speaker 1: Was there about six years ago. I guess I did
Speaker 1: some work there and I've been there a few times.
Speaker 1: But last time I was there, the coffee was like
Speaker 1: four pounds, so like eight bucks, and it was it
Speaker 1: was lukewarm, it was weak, it was fucking terrible.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the coffee around the world I think
Speaker 2: has got better. There has been this time. So I
Speaker 2: was in America for seven weeks recently, and America is
Speaker 2: always slammed for having shitty coffee. Well they do it differently.
Speaker 2: It's all the just percolated, just coffee on black coffee.
Speaker 2: It's like closer to something like tea. You can drink
Speaker 2: like four cups of it without your head blowing up.
Speaker 2: Versus if you had four long blacks in Australia in
Speaker 2: a row, you'd be ye, you'd have a.
Speaker 1: You'd have chest pain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, and so but across across America the coffee
Speaker 2: is so much better now, and so there is I
Speaker 2: think there has been a catch up in the last
Speaker 2: ten yeah, ten years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, tell us about whatever you can. So
Speaker 1: you just got back from the States. You were doing
Speaker 1: a doco, correct what I get wrong? But you were
Speaker 1: making a doco for someone else, your production company, but
Speaker 1: someone was paying you to be there, so you weren't
Speaker 1: funding it. You were doing it for someone else with
Speaker 1: a view to potentially this being streamed on a big
Speaker 1: platform internationally. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, to create anything, there's no linear path these days.
Speaker 2: Back in the day, you know, you'd get picked by
Speaker 2: a network or you know, you'd have an agent, and
Speaker 2: then you'd someone's creating something and it's usually a work
Speaker 2: that are funding it and then so there's you know,
Speaker 2: lots of sort of red tape and then the thing
Speaker 2: gets created and distributed. Now you can there's a million
Speaker 2: ways to fund something. You can create it, you know bootstrapped,
Speaker 2: you know, just with your time and then hopefully it
Speaker 2: gets picked up. So a lot of documentaries come out
Speaker 2: that way or a network, you know, the old traditional path,
Speaker 2: or private equity, which is what we had funding a
Speaker 2: film that will then go on to a streaming platform.
Speaker 2: So you then sell it onto a streaming platform. So
Speaker 2: that's just the way we got to this project. But yeah,
Speaker 2: seven of us went to America to you know, seven
Speaker 2: Ossie Ossies went over to America and we spent a
Speaker 2: month driving across the country learning about gun culture within
Speaker 2: America through the lens of Australians. You know, it's very
Speaker 2: different in this country. I mean, have you ever seen
Speaker 2: have you ever seen a gun? I mean, you've got
Speaker 2: a shady pass, but have you ever seen like a
Speaker 2: gun with a criminal or something like that isn't on
Speaker 2: the hip of a police officer in your time? Have
Speaker 2: you seen?
Speaker 1: Have you only when I'm in the States, so I mean,
Speaker 1: but well, no, that's not true. I mean I grew up.
Speaker 1: I've shot guns, you know, because I grew up in
Speaker 1: the country. But back in the day, when you know,
Speaker 1: you would you would go, you know, rabbiting and all
Speaker 1: of that hunting. And I don't do it anymore. Everyone
Speaker 1: don't get mad at me. But back in the day.
Speaker 1: But that was a very long time ago, Like that
Speaker 1: was forty forty five years ago. That was pre port
Speaker 1: Arthur and all of those things. And it was it
Speaker 1: was less of a you know, like a talking point
Speaker 1: like it wasn't but generally you know, no, no, but
Speaker 1: in America. Yeah, like I've been in Texas and Mississippi
Speaker 1: and Louisiana, and like Texas is open carry as you
Speaker 1: know better than me, I'm sure, but but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's so, how was it? How was the trip? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Unbelievable. So, I mean it was just the fact of
Speaker 2: having sort of a like that small team. It's quite
Speaker 2: a big team, but it's a small in the scale
Speaker 2: of documentaries or Hollywood fild or anything. But yeah, so
Speaker 2: we started in.
Speaker 1: So just tell us what the seven were. So you
Speaker 1: and Joshua John camera, but it also as a creatives
Speaker 1: and producers and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had two producers with us two camera guys,
Speaker 2: a dop and an assistant cinematographer, and then we had
Speaker 2: a soundo who was managing all the microphones and labs.
Speaker 2: And so we started the trip in Los Angeles and
Speaker 2: we had this massive Ram twenty five hundred. We wanted
Speaker 2: to sort of lean into that American experience of having
Speaker 2: a big truck and you blend in quite well because
Speaker 2: everyone else has got them, and so.
Speaker 1: We got that's a great for my listeners, that's a great, gigantic,
Speaker 1: big ut Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it's a pickup truck. It's it can bloody
Speaker 2: transport a crane if you had to like this thing.
Speaker 2: We because the challenge with getting any kind of higher
Speaker 2: car is you know how they say it's going to
Speaker 2: be a Subaru or similar, and so we picked the
Speaker 2: biggest cars that would be like an f f F
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred, F one fifty sorry or similar, and somehow
Speaker 2: we lucked out. We got a Ram twenty five hundred.
Speaker 2: This thing is I'm six foot two, it's it's you know,
Speaker 2: standing at seven foot at the cabin. It's ginormous. And
Speaker 2: so we were so pumped that we got to have
Speaker 2: this thing for the full four weeks of driving and
Speaker 2: where it was next level. So we started in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: In prior to going, we we had a bunch of
Speaker 2: sort of destinations or people we wanted to speak to,
Speaker 2: and then we spent a couple of weeks in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles working out who we could talk to, connecting up
Speaker 2: with people, and planning probably two weeks ahead on the
Speaker 2: road trip. So yeah, we got, you know, as sort
Speaker 2: of bright eyed Aussie guys trying to understand what the
Speaker 2: gun cultures like. It's you're already thrust into it. Even
Speaker 2: in some way like Los Angeles that's very liberal and
Speaker 2: you know it's I guess, very strict on guns, but
Speaker 2: in respect to the other parts of the world, it's
Speaker 2: very you know, las in comparison. So you still can
Speaker 2: own a handgun, you still can own an ar fifth day,
Speaker 2: and there's you know, still so many of these things
Speaker 2: that to us is so foreign. And so within California
Speaker 2: before we even left, we'd met someone who had been
Speaker 2: shot at a mass shooting, one of the biggest mass
Speaker 2: shootings in American history. We did a Hollywood experience where
Speaker 2: I got shot with this blood exploding out the back,
Speaker 2: you know, like a Hollywood scene that we did and
Speaker 2: then and then yeah, we moved on to Vegas, Utah, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Chicago,
Speaker 2: like and so we worked our way across the country.
Speaker 2: But it's a very eye opening coming from this country
Speaker 2: and just.
Speaker 1: Did you I bet you met like did you meet
Speaker 1: any meet any characters where you're like, how does this
Speaker 1: person even exist? Like is like this guy's like something
Speaker 1: from a film?
Speaker 2: It is. The thing about America is there's so many
Speaker 2: of those types of people, and they absolutely love talking
Speaker 2: about what they're into. And so the fact that we
Speaker 2: were Rossie's, the fact that it was about guns, the
Speaker 2: Second Amendment and the culture that exists in America around
Speaker 2: guns just meant that we were sort of drawn to
Speaker 2: these people. But the reality is, I think people could
Speaker 2: watch the documentary and think that we've you know, picked
Speaker 2: out only the people that said that they had a
Speaker 2: gun or said that they had a story, But genuinely,
Speaker 2: it was all the people we spoke to. There really
Speaker 2: wasn't many people that didn't have an experience around guns,
Speaker 2: didn't have a thought on it, a belief about it,
Speaker 2: or you know, had had a story from growing up
Speaker 2: and so you know, We went to New Orleans and
Speaker 2: we spoke to three people. They all had a story.
Speaker 2: One guy had a gun in his bag, pulls out
Speaker 2: his handgun just in the main street, just unloads it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: give it here it is holding it. You know. We
Speaker 2: what was there?
Speaker 1: Sorry? What was their attitude around you? Because it's not
Speaker 1: like most Americans will never meet, especially a Tommy Jacket,
Speaker 1: They're never going to meet seven Australians just on the
Speaker 1: other side of the world doing that. Were they receptive?
Speaker 2: Oh so receptive? So we discovered, you know that we
Speaker 2: just from a timing perspective, we had all of our
Speaker 2: dates were moving about because we hadn't started the trip yet,
Speaker 2: and it just so happened. We'd booked our accommodation in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas, and we'd planned to sort of have our
Speaker 2: first experience shooting a gun as Australians in America. In
Speaker 2: someway like Las Vegas, there's a machine gun experiences. It's
Speaker 2: like a gun tourism within that state of Nevada, and
Speaker 2: it just so happened we had the date booked at
Speaker 2: a machine gun experience was the same date of the
Speaker 2: biggest mass shooting in American history, which was the Route
Speaker 2: ninety one country music festival where yeah, there was fifty
Speaker 2: something people killed by a guy who was up in
Speaker 2: a hotel room shooting down the crowd.
Speaker 1: I remember that. I remember that.
Speaker 2: And I found a woman online who lived in California,
Speaker 2: but she was there and she was shot three times
Speaker 2: in the face, in the back, in the arm, and
Speaker 2: she was a mother of two. And I connected with
Speaker 2: her and told her who we are, what we're doing,
Speaker 2: what we'd planned on doing, and how it's you know,
Speaker 2: our plans were changing based on understanding this, and we
Speaker 2: wanted to understand her story. And yeah, she just so
Speaker 2: she wrote back to me straight away and she was
Speaker 2: so open and we went and had the producer and
Speaker 2: I went and had coffee with her in California, and
Speaker 2: that before we even started filming with her. But just
Speaker 2: she just wanted to meet us and make sure that
Speaker 2: we were legit. And she was the most beautiful person,
Speaker 2: just and ended up having a perspective that I didn't
Speaker 2: think one would have after being involved in something like that.
Speaker 2: So as Australian, you'd think she'd be anti gun, she
Speaker 2: would be very much against it, and that wasn't her situation.
Speaker 2: She you know, grew up with guns in her family,
Speaker 2: police officers. She understood, she knows how to use guns,
Speaker 2: but she she doesn't. She understands people's rights and you know,
Speaker 2: beliefs around own gun ownership, which is obviously tied to
Speaker 2: the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: she she you know, gave us this perspective that once
Speaker 2: she was shot, she felt like she was asked, oh,
Speaker 2: you're going to be that the now face of anti
Speaker 2: gun you know, you're going to be coming to the rallies.
Speaker 2: And she want nothing to do with that, you know.
Speaker 2: And so this is the nuance of the gun conversation
Speaker 2: in America is going in and as Australian with a
Speaker 2: perspective that we have just from the reality of what
Speaker 2: we face here or don't face because it's not something
Speaker 2: that's on our mind. It just sort of opened the
Speaker 2: door to so many of those perspectives that were surprising
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 1: Is there one thing and I mean, obviously we've all
Speaker 1: got our own I guess probably a lot of our
Speaker 1: listeners don't really think too much about guns, although some may.
Speaker 1: But what might we as Aussies find surprising, Like what
Speaker 1: you just said, that's surprising, But in terms of what
Speaker 1: you saw or what you became aware of or experienced,
Speaker 1: what would the average Australian find quite surprising in terms
Speaker 1: of what you know?
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, I mean from my experience speaking to people,
Speaker 2: they're more on the side, not even on the side,
Speaker 2: they're more in the middle that they understand the rights.
Speaker 2: Americans have their belief on freedom and there's more people
Speaker 2: that see eye to eye on the subject. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of gun owners don't agree with any of
Speaker 2: this pain that's been caused by them, and it's a
Speaker 2: very small minority that are actually doing those heinous things.
Speaker 2: But I mean, once you start understanding some of the statistics,
Speaker 2: like suicide from firearm is one of the biggest causes
Speaker 2: of death from firearms, so it's sixty percent makes up
Speaker 2: almost sixty percent of the gun deaths each year come
Speaker 2: from suicide. And so it's interesting when you hear about
Speaker 2: some of these statistics, how you understand the media portrays
Speaker 2: things in a certain way. And that's not to reduce
Speaker 2: the reality of mass shootings, school shootings, but they are
Speaker 2: such a small minority, small number within the number of
Speaker 2: these deaths per year. But obviously it's so triggering, and
Speaker 2: you know, there's within the documentary we're at a school
Speaker 2: learning about a whiteboard on a wall that folds out
Speaker 2: into a safe room for kids. And I've got kids.
Speaker 2: I'm crying the doco talking to this guy trying to
Speaker 2: understand this. And so we learned about this firsthand. You know,
Speaker 2: this thistle room that can hold up to sixty elementary
Speaker 2: school children. It's just heartbreaking, and so you know this
Speaker 2: there is the stark reality of what can happen with them,
Speaker 2: and then you sort of you know, so it's it
Speaker 2: is very nuanced, and this is what we're putting forward.
Speaker 2: It's not a hit piece on America. It's not pro gun,
Speaker 2: anti gun. We're trying to sort of tell this story,
Speaker 2: one that the media doesn't communicate and one that is
Speaker 2: very much the people being able to share their beliefs,
Speaker 2: their experience as Americans.
Speaker 1: Do you know who Tim Kennedy is? Yeah? You do,
Speaker 1: don't you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Tim Kennedy, for those who don't know, is
Speaker 1: an ex soldier, Special Forces Soldier, UFC fighter, you know,
Speaker 1: fill in the blank, imny things. But I heard somebody
Speaker 1: I can't remember who it was, but the context of
Speaker 1: the conversation was they were talking about banning guns and
Speaker 1: getting guns out of hands and all of that, and
Speaker 1: he teaches people how to shoot and he's a you know,
Speaker 1: sniper and all of that stuff, and was he essentially said, yeah,
Speaker 1: the problem with that is that the bad guys are
Speaker 1: not handing their guns in. You know. That's the thing is,
Speaker 1: like even if you say like it feels like to
Speaker 1: me in America, like if you could remove all guns,
Speaker 1: if there was zero guns in America, then there could
Speaker 1: be zero deaths by gun, right, But you can't do that,
Speaker 1: Like it's past the point of no return, it seems,
Speaker 1: because even if they went right, it's illegal to have
Speaker 1: a gun. Well as if the bad guys in inverted
Speaker 1: commas are going to be given their guns, So what
Speaker 1: then you're doing is you're keeping all the bad guys
Speaker 1: armed and all the people, all the civilians who aren't
Speaker 1: bad guys, and they now can't protect themselves. And I'm
Speaker 1: with you. I'm deaf, not not pro gun, and i
Speaker 1: know people are going to go well, if there were
Speaker 1: no fucking guns, there'd be I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: I'm with you. And in an ideal world that we
Speaker 1: do not live in there would be zero guns. But
Speaker 1: that's not the world we live in. But Australia has
Speaker 1: done a good job though, I mean, I mean.
Speaker 2: If that's so, the reality is that I get to
Speaker 2: come home and live in a place like this. But
Speaker 2: when you when you go over there and you realize, okay,
Speaker 2: there's they're never going away, and you start to understand
Speaker 2: the belief system of a lot of Americans. You know,
Speaker 2: kids are brought up understanding the Second Amendment, how the
Speaker 2: country was founded, what firearms mean to you know, the
Speaker 2: history of America. It makes more sense of where they
Speaker 2: are at today. When you try and place the Australian
Speaker 2: lens on America's challenge or situation, it just it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: And so that's where my mind before going over there,
Speaker 2: I was, you know, very much of that understanding, just
Speaker 2: because I was coming from this place where you don't
Speaker 2: ever see guns. I mean sometimes, yeah, sure there are
Speaker 2: guns in this country. There's probably more than you think,
Speaker 2: but it's really not like to own one in this country,
Speaker 2: you need a license, it's registered, the cops know where
Speaker 2: it's registered too. Like that's not the reality in America.
Speaker 2: So it, yeah, it's very confusing to Australians and so
Speaker 2: hopefully the documentary allows people to have a greater insight
Speaker 2: into what it means to Americans.
Speaker 1: We're gonna let you go soon, just quickly. I've got
Speaker 1: a couple of practical questions. So give or take? How
Speaker 1: much footage did you shoot? How many hours of film
Speaker 1: do you have from that trip?
Speaker 2: Do you reckon over one hundred hours? Over one hundred
Speaker 2: hours for sure?
Speaker 1: So out of that over one hundred hours of film
Speaker 1: that's got to be condensed into what length? Ninety Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you've got to give or take give or take
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of what you filmed you won't use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you do?
Speaker 1: You just look at I'm going to give you two options,
Speaker 1: and you tell me if one of these is right
Speaker 1: or there's a third option. But to me, it seems
Speaker 1: like option A. We filmed all this, let's get all
Speaker 1: the amazing shit that we like, the this bit was amazing.
Speaker 1: This has got to be in. That lady was incredible,
Speaker 1: she's got to be in and then you fit a
Speaker 1: narrative around that, or do you have a narrative and
Speaker 1: then just pick and choose the film you know, like
Speaker 1: without I don't mean like trying to be disingenuous, But
Speaker 1: how on earth do you figure out the storyline and
Speaker 1: what will be in and what won't be in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there was a plan before we went away,
Speaker 2: and then there's the plan that sort of had opening
Speaker 2: along the way with the director's vision, and then you
Speaker 2: start to see that come together in an edit, and
Speaker 2: then that's where you can start shifting at a bunch
Speaker 2: so you can see what actually works. So there's the
Speaker 2: theoretical version of it, and then there's bring it together
Speaker 2: and seeing what's really strong, what isn't, what's a motive?
Speaker 2: You know, how you're balancing it out so it's not
Speaker 2: feeling like it's one side or the other. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: it is a it's an absolute puzzle that you're trying
Speaker 2: to work to and amplify the bits, you know, just
Speaker 2: amplify the story through different bits. But you start to
Speaker 2: see what sort of comes out from the themes, you know,
Speaker 2: what the big question is that's being answered. All these
Speaker 2: kind of things start to come out within the process.
Speaker 2: But it's like anything, it is a process, and it
Speaker 2: is there are challenging bits.
Speaker 1: And I guess, yes, like I'm even thinking down to
Speaker 1: smaller than that, I bet you've already thought about what's
Speaker 1: going to be in the trailer or the trailers, because
Speaker 1: apart from the fact that you want to do it
Speaker 1: with integrity and you want to do something creative and
Speaker 1: insightful and real, you also want to get bums on seats.
Speaker 1: You also want to be back to our discussion earlier
Speaker 1: about Korea. You also want to produce something that's commercially successful, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's trying to bring all those elements together. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the old school approach to these
Speaker 2: kind of things, there would be a lot that you'd
Speaker 2: never see the light, that would never see the light.
Speaker 2: So I think, I don't know. Hopefully, at the end,
Speaker 2: you know, say gets onto one of the big streaming platforms,
Speaker 2: there is a way that you can utilize a lot
Speaker 2: of the content that we did actually film. Think about
Speaker 2: gaining extra access by some kind of premium access to
Speaker 2: a documentary like think about all the docos you love,
Speaker 2: Think about how long the interviews would have been and
Speaker 2: how good it would have been to listen to the
Speaker 2: whole interview, and so that would be amazing. That's what
Speaker 2: I think. As content like this evolves and streaming platforms.
Speaker 2: Hopefully people can sort of pay a premium to get
Speaker 2: deeper into the stuff that never went to air because
Speaker 2: there's a lot. There will be so much out there
Speaker 2: in great docos.
Speaker 1: Mate, you're a gun, You're an inspiration. The student has
Speaker 1: become the teacher. Look at you to fucking grown up,
Speaker 1: So proud of you. How do people I don't even know?
Speaker 1: Do you want people to find you and connect with
Speaker 1: you these days? Do we still do that? Do you
Speaker 1: still do that?
Speaker 2: Well? You can follow me on Instagram then maybe you'll
Speaker 2: see when the doco comes out. Tommy Jackett that's my
Speaker 2: handle t J.
Speaker 1: Right mate, we'll say goodbye affair, but thanks for having
Speaker 1: the chat. It's been nice to catch up. When are
Speaker 1: we Are we going to see each other in in
Speaker 1: the three D version soon?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Mate? Next week?
Speaker 1: Ah love your love you