Jason Waggenspack: Building The Ranch

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Welcome to NOLA Film Scene with TJ Play-Doh. I'm TJ. And as always, I'm Play-Doh. All right, we are live with our 99th episode, TJ. Can you believe it? I can't believe it. Welcome back to NOLA Film Scene. And with us is our very special guest, Jason Waggenspeck. And if you could tell our folks what you're known for, what you're famous for.

Uh sure. I try to keep it short. Let's see. I'm uh I'm the founder and CEO, also known as the head of possibilities here at the Ranch Film Studios in Chalmette, Louisiana. Uh, I'm also the president of Film Louisiana. Um, and I also have two production companies. I have a development company called Neutral Ground Films, and I have a production company that I have partners with um called uh Full Armor Productions.

Bill And Ted At The Ranch

That's incredible. Uh I worked at the ranch once, and TJ I have to drop it now, is when I was in Bill and Ted Face the Music because why I talk about that all the time.

I forgot. What did you do in that?

I I was Death's photo double. You had to pull it out of me, TJ. It's not like I mentioned it every episode. Jason, when when we filmed uh like the last week there, your parking lot turned into a freeway and it was amazing.

And did you notice that they left one of the buildings in the background of the freeway shot in the movie? So you can see Imagination Station in the background of the California freeway, mind you, uh in the movie, which I thought was really great. So I appreciate them leaving that in there for me.

It was awesome. They had that, what is that, a story tall green screen behind us?

Oh, yeah, that was uh it was massive. That had to be 30 feet tall. You're a green. It was huge green screen behind you all.

One day it was raining, and because I had the makeup on, they had me kind of tucked away, and I was just standing while people were scrambling. And the princesses, Aaron and Gemma, walked by and I wasn't, you know, doing anything. And one of them turned back to talk to one of my and saw me, so it was like, oh. So I scared the hell out of them. Very cool.

The Ranch Film Studios Scale

It was a great set, though. They had they built a lot of really cool stuff, it was a fun project. And uh, in fact, uh, one of the producers of uh Bill and Ted, the main producer of Bill and Ted, uh Alex Lovecchi was here producing um the project that just now wrapped up uh two days ago here on our property. So it was good to have him back on campus again. Hope he brings more back uh soon enough.

So how big is the property there?

So we have a 28-acre property. We have almost over 300,000 square feet of uh production space. Um I actually uh I started this place because I was an old location manager. So I did, you know, Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn, I did Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, I did um Terminator Genesis, which was my last locations uh gig, and it brought me here to Shamet.

Uh-huh.

And we took over a former Lowe's home improvement center that was abandoned and built it out into a big soundstage space because that was my job for a long time. It was like go find big open spaces, make them um accommodable for what we need to do in the film industry. Yeah. And uh I had done that for almost a decade, and then I decided to pick the building up and make it into a real estate play in the film industry. And so we did. And now we've taken over a Lowe's, a former Sabas Center grocery store, converted them all completely out into sound stages where we have uh three 30,000, four, excuse me, four 30,000 square foot stages and uh one 15,000 square foot stage. So got a lot of space.

From Editing To Location Managing

Yeah, that's amazing. How how did you first get into the industry? What what led you down the path to do that specifically to get you to this point?

Well, I used to do what Brian did, which was I was, you know, an actor, or at least I tried to be an actor, and then I started losing all my hair, and I was like, I don't really like the way this looks on screen, so I got out of it. So that was very early on. I was in my early 20s and I was like, this is not for me. But I fell in love with the process of editing. I I was living in New York. Uh, I started studying theater at LSU, which got me into acting, and then I moved to New York with a good friend of mine, and uh, I was his uh I was his actor and all his um his shorts that he was making. And I fell in love with the editing process. He was you know sitting in our apartment, you know, putting the story together, and I was like, this is where it's at. I really love this. And so I taught myself how to edit. I taught myself Final Cut Pro and moved home from uh um New York to New Orleans, where I'm originally from Baton Rouge, but I moved back to uh the state, moved to New Orleans, went to UNO, and then they taught me how to edit on Avid. Well, I taught myself how to edit in Final Cut, and then I started producing uh the student projects there, and I became a bit of the it producer. It really is a tough word to use because producer really is the one who's out raising money and you know building the the IP. They really kind of handed you the IP and just said, here, go manage this project. Um, and so anyway, they didn't teach you much about where to raise money or to sell the project. So I started studying business because I really wanted to understand the business uh side of things. I wanted to make a career out of it. I didn't want to just be an artist. So long story short, I did that. I got into um some of the bigger movies at the time, right after Katrina started coming here with Deja Vu and um Cures Case of Benjamin Button, and uh I really started to ramp myself up as somebody who was uh you know a good worker in the industry, and they eventually made me a big location manager, and then I took off from there. I did Percy Jackson, the Sea of Monster, was my first big gig in location managing. I did the host, I did um man, I did Medallion, I did I did a whole slew of movies. Uh like I said, and the last one was Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which put me here, excuse me, Terminator Genesis, which put me here. Um, and then we've done now 42 projects in 12 years at the ranch. So it's been a great career. We've done a lot.

That's one thing. Oh, I want to interject. I'm an actor, but so is TJ, and I kind of overshadow him a lot. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no. It's it's it's my fault for not clarifying everything. But I just want to say in case you needed a bearded bearded guy, TJ's your man. Yeah, either I see homeless guy or weird cult leader.

Whenever it's impressive, buddy.

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I've played played bikers. Uh, I know that's hard to wrap your head around, but I've played bikers, I've played hitmen, I've played a few rough around the the edges characters. I don't get to play a lot of professionals, but you know, I've been thinking about taking it down a little bit.

I don't know, it's a good look. He uh he did a uh one of the 48s and he posted without a picture. Oh, I've cut my beard, and our friends and you know Facebook went wild.

People went nuts.

And he just took like an inch off.

It's like uh well it was it was about two, a couple inches. Oh, okay, two inches that makes a difference. For me, it was significant. I don't know if people noticed a difference or not, but yeah.

Yeah. All I'm saying is you you missed your chance to do it yesterday on April Fool's.

Yeah, that's I yeah, you're uh that would have been pretty close to the one-year anniversary of doing that too.

How long have you been growing this out?

So I retired from the military in 2015 and I stopped shaving the day after retirement was the last time I shaved my beard or shaved my face. And I've taken it down uh I say short to about the length of Brian's twice. And then that one time last year about half of what it is now. So yeah.

Very cool, impressive. Thank you. Discipline. I can't do it. I I just I start doing this when it gets too long, and I'm like, I I can't do it. Plus, my wife is like, I don't like facial hair, and if you want to continue to kiss me, then you need to not have facial hair. And I was like, okay, it's not enough set.

I'm I'm just the opposite. I've bounced it off my wife a couple of times about trying to shorten it a little bit to maybe maybe give me a some more opportunities because I am kind of stuck with what limited with what I can do. At least with my hair, I could pull my hair back and kind of look clean cut from the front, but the beard is hard to hide.

Louisiana Production Status Right Now

How she's got to dare you talk about hair to us. I'm sorry. I I that might that must have really stung. I'm sorry. It did, it did. Speaking of opportunities, uh let's talk about the current state of filming in Louisiana. Yeah.

Well, uh, if you all haven't seen much of the news, we we had a really great uptick at the start of the year. Uh with seven projects on the ground in the state. You know, we got a big, huge project in Baton Rouge, big Amazon project. Um, we had a, like I said, a pretty nice size project here at our facility that just wrapped out a couple of days ago. Um, there are three currently filming out of those seven right now. I think two uh here locally, one in Shreeport, one in Baton Rouge. Um, so it'd be four actually locally. I do know Shreeport's got some stuff that's starting to kick off. We're starting to get obviously some calls for the summer. So like the late spring, early summer looks like it's gonna be, you know, a little bit more uh uh dead, if you will, a little bit more low-key. But as the summer ticks up, we've got some some calls coming in for the summer. Hopefully some bigger projects that are really interested as well. Um, so we're looking for an uptick there. So well, no, that's sort of the landscape right now. It's still really um, it's still really low the amount of production uh being produced in the United States. You know, we're still hearing a lot that uh Atlanta is really not doing obviously that great. New Mexico is really slow right now. New Jersey and New York are a little busy, mostly because of their push on infrastructure and the amount of money that they've given to uh those major corporations to set up shop there. Um, California is still seeing a mass exodus, but uh I think we're really not going to see any sort of the big uptick that we had in the past until we really get a federal film incentive in place. Um, because countries are, you know, they're sovereign nations that can just basically write a check to these productions to come. And uh we can't compete with that. We're we're all states trying to compete against countries, and that's just it's a really tough um way that it's been set up. And so uh if we can get a federal film incentive in place, which we're being told was a real possibility here by early summer, then we're gonna see a massive uptick, and I think you'll see a lot more production come back home. So hopefully we're all ready for that.

Yeah. I know I am.

How COVID Changed Studio Strategy

Did uh so I I'm trying to wrap my head around, and I've been trying to understand this for a bit. I am somewhat of a late comer into the industry. I started in 2018, I did a little bit of background, and I I decided Brian loved doing background. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy you know 12 or 14 hours standing around. It just wasn't really my thing. I didn't like it for the amount that they were paying for that amount of my time. And on set of twisted metal, one of the actors was engaging me between takes. It was a very small scene, and he started encouraging me to get into acting to the speaking rules and told me how to go about doing it. And at that point, I was still getting emails, several emails a day, where they were looking for background players, and then it just seemed like after the strike is when it stopped, even when filming started up again, I just wasn't getting those emails anymore. And it seemed like that's when it dried up and didn't come back. Did something with the strike affect the the federal grants like you were talking about a minute ago?

Strikes And The Shift Overseas

Did something I'll give you, I'll give you the whole sort of origin story of how this all began, which is really COVID. So before COVID, you only had probably three dominant streamers, right? And then COVID hit and nobody could go to the movie theaters, and every major studio propped up an immediate streaming opportunity to push their content through because nobody knew if we were going to go to theaters for a while. I mean, they were all talking about you know years that we were all gonna be locked up or not being able to be around each other because of this, you know, the COVID uh issues that we had. Um, so if everybody all of a sudden launched themselves into the streaming networks and then they couldn't figure out how to monetize that, and then if you were going to, you know, um launch something on streaming, but not in the movie theaters, then it became this big disadvantage to the movie theaters, and there was just all this turmoil of how do we now market our product here in America. And so that became a big issue because all of a sudden all of the studios noticed we don't have enough content to fill our streaming app, like Netflix and Disney at the time had done obviously a really great job of all of that. Uh, they needed to build more content. So you saw this massive bubble in 21 and 22 when we came out of COVID, the huge amount of content was being produced here in the United States. I mean, you we couldn't fill enough space here to be able to um, or we couldn't, or we could fill all the space, excuse me. We could provide enough space for all the amount of productions that wanted to come here. So it was just this massive influx of production. So what happened was is in 2023, the strikes began. And so you had the SAG and the DGA strike, obviously, that came first, and they all obviously wanted their equal fair share for the amount of work that they were doing, and well, which was necessary. I think it was it was absolutely uh, you know, uh a reason to go and negotiate. The problem was that it took so long to get that negotiation done, and that you put such a hard stop on all production here in the US, you had to continue filling content. So the studios went elsewhere. They went to Canada and they went to Europe, where there was no hard stops on any of the union contracts, right? So they started continuing to produce elsewhere. They recognized that it was cheaper there. There wasn't any union fringes. And obviously they were giving them incentives, so the incentives were about the same. And then the cost of money was cheaper to take a US dollar and go to Canada or go to Europe to be able to actually put um money investment into expenses. So they've reduced their, obviously, their risk by anywhere between 10 and 30 percent just on uh money alone. So if you're getting that for uh on top of your additional 20 to 40 percent of your credit, and you're not paying union fees, then you're seeing a massive um leverage liability to invest outside of the United States in film and television production. And so that is the biggest problem that you see. So then when we we get out of the strikes, right? And everybody's like, oh, things are gonna come back. There was the the hint of an IATSI teamster strike. And as you built up to that, people didn't want to come here, set up shop, and then have to stop all over again and have to continue paying those fees if they were gonna go into another longer strike. They didn't end up striking, they got everything done before that happened, but it was already too late because then you had a year and a half, you had 18 months where they were training folks and realizing the investment was better outside the US. And that's been your number one problem. That's been the reason why you don't see a trickle back, is because it's so much cheaper. That's why you see Rob Lowe getting online and saying, Why am I doing this show? Which was the what was it, the square? What was the one with the squares on the ground?

The floor.

Why Indie Film Is Surging

The floor, thank you. I love the show with my kids and I can't even name it. Anyway, sorry, the floor was awesome. But he was saying, I don't know if you know this or not, but it was all filmed in Ireland. They literally took those 100 people that were all part of uh that game, and obviously all the crew, and moved them to Ireland for a couple months to shoot that thing. And it was cheaper for them to do that, to fly them to Ireland from Los Angeles to Ireland. He was like, I'm standing on a soundstage right now where I should be filming the floor, but I'm taking all the people here and myself, and they're flying us over there because it's so much cheaper. That's just wild. That's um that's your issue.

Yeah, it sounds like it was a perfect storm in a series of unfortunate events and shooting ourselves in the foot with with the strike and everything back to back to back. I I guess I didn't put all those pieces together before. That's wow. Yep.

Distribution First Indie Business Plans

And that's why you see a rise of indie film right now. You're seeing a lot more of the lower budget features coming in because there's a there's a there's you're not gonna take something$10 million and try to go do it overseas. It becomes too expensive at that point. But if you're doing something for$30 or$40 million, then it becomes a million to five million dollar savings. And then if you think about something that's$40 to$100 million, you're talking of five to$10 million in savings that obviously goes up on the screen or obviously in the studio's pockets, instead of doing it here in the United States, saving that money to go overseas or in Canada. So it's interesting because you know it you're starting to see trickles to come back, and you're starting to see actors, uh, you know, big names say, I don't want to leave my family for six months to go do a show elsewhere. Um, you're starting to see people raise the American flag saying, no, this needs to be on American soil. Why are we doing this in, you know, Bulgaria? Um and so you're really beginning to see the wave of those opportunities to hopefully really rear back. But I really think the financial risk of the studios that they have right now is so big that they're going to continue pushing to go to the cheapest place that they can until we find it to be cheaper here, which is again a federal film tax incentive, which we really hope is a right around the corner that will put us all back to work here pretty quickly.

Yeah. I also kind of hoped, and and you kind of see, like you said, the rise of the indie films. And almost like a united artist uh idea that happened in the last century that we were in, but with where we get together and make our own streaming service, and we say, we're not gonna use AI, we're gonna use real actors, we're gonna be here and give the people a chance to support that. So I'd I'd love to see that. And my way to segue into your thoughts on AI is you know, I'll get into AI in a second. Okay.

AI Workflows And Budget Pressure

And sorry, TJ, if you were gonna ask something else before I interrupted you. But let me let me tell you about the the opportunities that we have with independent filmmakers because we're doing it ourselves. So full armor, just give you an example. Full armor films, we're developing a five-picture slate right now. And we are developing a five-picture slate, not in your traditional stents, because we actually have a distribution partner. We have a partner in our company that is the former head of two major um production companies who retired, and it's coming out to now formulate and put our plan together on how we're gonna distribute our films directly. So now we have a full business plan versus a production plan. So now we're looking at how are we gonna start marketing this thing from day one before we even go to camera? How are we gonna market it all the way through when we wrap picture? And then how are we gonna go into post? And then what is our plan to actually take this to a theater and to a streaming, which they call downstreaming, um, for a revenue build of a 20-year run, not just a, hey, how are we making money in theaters and then who are we selling it to in the end? We're trying to capitalize on the IP so that we want to do that, obviously, here in Louisiana, build a production company here. We want to be the quote unquote Lionsgate of Louisiana. That's really the idea. And so there are now more opportunities than ever, Brian, to be able to do that. Right now, we can have our own streaming network. We can develop our own app, we can develop our own platform, we can distribute, we can be uh the ones who are reading all the benefits and not having a middleman. You know, there's no reason to have an hire an aggregator anymore. I don't know if y'all know what that is, but that's that's a company that basically helps you get up on all the streaming apps, but they end up taking like 20 to 30% of your overhead uh of your revenue, excuse me. And so, and then you're already splitting that with the streaming app. So if like you go to Amazon, you potentially are only making 25% of the ticket or the click, if you will, the$4.99. So you're making so much less money just to have these opportunities to be up on apparently a highly, you know, marketable platform, but you're basically you're saturated with so much content. Now the opportunities like Angel Studios are doing, where they're saying, no, we're gonna give you one specific type of content, faith and family, and we're the ones controlling all that content. And now you get to be the ones who decide on what we kind of move into, how we're gonna do the next pieces, but you're also you have one place to go to and there's only a select amount. And I really think those silos are gonna start to stand up more and more. I look at like a Blumhouse, really doing that, where they're like, hey, you know what you're getting when you see a Blumhouse project, right? Yeah. Well, if that's all I want to watch is that horror and that thriller type stuff, then I'm gonna go to the Blumhouse app because I know that's what I'm getting. And so that's where I think where we're gonna really start to see the opportunities for more entrepreneurs in our industry, is that they're really gonna start to understand how to brand themselves. They're gonna understand how intellectual property is important to hold on to and how they can grow from creating their own and providing their own and then obviously making their own. And hopefully that's really gonna be the biggest launch that I see in the next couple of years for the indie market to answer your question before we got into the important or the interesting stuff. So very hopeful. Yeah, and I Alex said, I I'm one of those. So I've I've been in this market a long time as a producer. You know, I am producing stuff for some of the the bigger streamers right now. You know, I have a documentary, it's not a huge streamer. I'm hopefully going to be doing uh, you know, a narrative feature after that on this doc. I have another series that I'm doing that we started as a podcast that we actually sold to iHeartRadio. We'll give a plug out to journalistapodcast.com. Go check that out, um, which is a fantastic podcast. We did it as a movie. Um, and so we the full soundtrack and everything, if you will, we made it like you would maybe listening to a movie, if you will. Um and it got picked up, you know. We got picked up by a really great artist who who wanted to um to really kind of broaden it out. And now we're gonna do a big doc series and hopefully an episodic series out of it. Um but anyway, that's the idea is to really find our own niche of the the type of content we want to create and then create that lane for ourselves. And hopefully more, like I said, are doing that themselves. Yeah um but then to your other question, the AI question. So I am uh I know I am a user of AI. I'm not afraid of AI. I actually enjoy the efficiencies that gives me. Okay, it really it really helps me and and all of the things that I do. And you cannot get away from what AI is going to do in every facet of every industry that basically every industry in this world is gonna be touched by AI. We just have to accept it. Now, when it comes down to uh how we tell stories, I do think you're gonna see, and you're already seeing it, a rise in people only using AI to tell the story. And then I also think that you're gonna see a lot of the traditional filmmaking using pieces of AI as major tools only to make it more efficient. So I do think that we're obviously gonna have humans telling stories and you will be able to tell the difference. Um, but I do also know that AI is going to be an integral part on how we bring those budgets down. We cannot continue making hundred million dollar productions. I wish we could, but honestly, the studios are proving that that is just not financially feasible. So they're gonna try and squeeze those budgets down further and further. But I look at it as a quantity and a quality piece. Now you're going to have more because you have less time to make the movie. So instead of us making this massive blockbuster that might take two years to come out, how do I make this massive blockbuster and put it out in 10 months? Or the indie. Instead of it taking me a year and a half to get everything in place and finally get the post done and finally find a distributor, can I shorten that down in four to six months? I think you can. And you're really seeing workflows being able to produce that, those types of opportunities. Now, where does it go with, you know, with what you do, uh TJ and Brian, both of you all do as actors, uh I don't know because right now there are companies that are taking a 360-degree images of characters, and they're basically like, how do I put it? They're they're basically using them as video game capture. Like if you, you know, if you put the little balls on somebody and you took a full 360 and you had them doing like ninja stuff or shooting hoops or and then also obviously doing dialogue, that's all being captured and now being utilized as that person's name, image, and likeness in with AI in movies now, as you're seeing with you saw, I'm sure, the Tom Cruise fighting, you know, Brad Pitt thing that came out. You know, that that is really where it's gonna start heading. So that's an interesting piece that I scratch my head and I go, all right, well, how do we understand or figure out the purity of that type of storytelling versus what we traditionally do now? And are people gonna gravitate towards that? Or is this gonna push people towards more theater where they actually can see it live instead of having to go to a screen and watch it? So I don't know, it's it's a really interesting question. I don't know the answer, but um I I'm not afraid of all of it. I'm a very optimistic person and I'm I'm really hoping to kind of you know, kind of follow the path and just and just be in it and allow for storytelling to at least rise up is the is the overarching thing that I'm trying to do.

Yeah, I got you. As workflow, I agree. As long as humans are getting paid. You know, I was thinking about it the other day. It's not so much the technology, it's the people who use it. You know, like if somebody grabbed our pictures and just did it without our permission. Hell no.

100% agree with that.

Yeah. Or if we're doing picture A and I say, okay, yeah, you can use this image, but only for this picture, and I get paid this much. It's probably gonna have to be the way to go. I don't I'd rather see human beings doing it, but and I like a thought about the theater where it kind of brings that back too. Yeah.

Protecting Name Image And Likeness

Yeah. Yeah. Look, they had a I just literally got pitched today on this really awesome uh augmented reality idea, which allowed for actors to play inside the space that you and I are talking about, but it becomes like you're recording a story, and then it becomes an augmented reality story that now people come to a space and put on spectacles and are part of the story. And I was like, this was blowing me away. I was like, it's a whole new form of filmmaking and theater together. And I was just like, oh, this is really cool. Because think about it, you know, think of the experience you get. And I'm getting goosebumps right now. When you sit in a theater with other people, there's the energy, there's the connectivity. We all either laugh or cry or scream and horror together, right? You know, and so that that experience, I think, is very powerful and is very emotional. I think that humans love that connectivity and I feel are going to be drawn to that. And if we're just sitting here watching AI, which hilariously, my kids, you know, they see bad CGI nowadays and they're like, that's so AI. I was like, that was done 20 years ago. That's that's not AI, that's just bad computer graphics, you know. And so I really think that if that's gonna become the norm of the stereotype, people are going to really gravitate towards true stories, real people, live events, those types of things I think are going to start to rise up more as we really figure out the balance of where all this is headed. So my two cents.

I um maybe I I missed I I had to step away for just a quick second. And if I miss this, I apologize. Do you uh do you see them ever reworking contracts to where they would properly compensate for like a residual for use of uh the NIL, like reusing somebody's image? Yeah, for instance, when James Earl Jones died, he gave the rights to his voice to Disney for the use of if they have to recreate anything, Darth Vader.

Jason’s AI Clone Use Case

I understand the question. And the answer is any contract you sign, it is going to need to have some stipulation in there that any use beyond, you know, this picture or the intended use that you've explained to me needs to be compensated. I 100% agree. And I think that's what SAG is fighting over right now, is they're saying we want to make sure that that's put in place and we want to make sure that there's some sort of pension put in place for all these people that are, you know, potentially gonna start um to either lose or not have as many opportunities in the job marketplace. Um, so yeah, 100%, TJ. And hopefully you have a good lawyer who's obviously looking that over and make sure that that's a part of it because they should not be using anything outside of what um the intended use or the explained use of what you're contractually uh gonna be offering to them. Now, to your point and to what Brian, you know, kind of brought up in a little bit more of the A, like I I'm doing, I'm playing around with this app called Hey-Gen. Do you all know what Hey Gien is? And so it's like H-E-Y-G-E-N. And what it is is it's an it's an AI, um, it's it's pretty much my clone. Let's just put it that way. And I'm sure you've seen a bunch of this around. But the reason I'm doing it is like I used to offer a lot of information about what we're kind of talking about here to my public, right? I would just have like a PSA every week, and people wanted more and more of it, but I don't have time to sit down, go over the script like you all do. Like I'm doing a thousand things, like it's it's not the one thing I do, but people wanted more of that. And so I was like, well, how can I deliver it to them? I found this AI clone that then it records two minutes of me saying anything that I want, anything at all. Okay. And so I did like a full day's worth of two-minute sort of shots, different shirts and all kinds of stuff. And then now they have me with all of my mannerisms, all of my facial movements, my expressions, and I can now put a script, any script that I want, enter it into Hey Gien, and then within minutes, it will build out that script of me reciting that to my audience. So if I have that option of efficiency, to me personally, that works really well. But to what you're talking about, like, can they now, okay, I have you, you know, on film in this scene. Now can I just take that same character and move him to the, you know, the second iteration of the movie and make him a character? Yes, they could, but they need to be compensating you for that. For me, I'm just using it for educational purposes, you know, like you can replicate it over and over again in that respect, and I can do anything I want from that standpoint. But that's me, and that that's my name, image, and likeness. They they actually absolutely need to contract you for that.

Yeah. That's that's my fear and concern with it is them starting to phase out real actors and just recycle uh their name, image, and likeness for future projects, like you just said, and creating less opportunities for people to be working.

Labeling AI And New Rules

I think my fear would be they're not gonna phase out the the actors that they had contracts with previously. I think they might end up just recreating people. That that's what I fear.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I don't know what that looks like. I'm just stating that's a fear. I'm not saying that's where it's headed, but like, couldn't they just make some new person that looks like a human that they now build out, you know, this character on? Yeah. Um, it's a possibility, right? And so it's something that I would be worried about. So I go back to what Brian says, you know, I I'd love to you know stay within the traditional form of storytelling and filmmaking as much as possible to allow for obviously that growth and that community and obviously that uh that economy base that uh that we've done such a great job here in Louisiana building up a lot of talent here.

Right. Yeah, I agree. I'd also like to have AI labeled. Give me the choice, let me know. It's not buyer beware, it's buyer-informed and then beware to me. This is AI, this is the law about it. If you and if you don't do it, we're gonna have a program that detects it, and then you know you get fined or whatever. Just so you can't stop it. The toothpaste is out of the tube.

Optimism About The Future Of Story

Well, YouTube is like that. If you when when you upload a YouTube video, it asks you, is there anything that's not the original person doing it? Uh they don't care if you're using an AI-generated character because a lot of people are doing that. They just want to know about it. And if you don't say yes and you do, you run the risk of uh either getting demonetized or getting your channel completely wiped. So at least they're they're trying to take those steps to safeguard against that.

Yeah. I think there's a lot of rules and regulations that will begin to come out about that, just as YouTube's doing. I totally agree. You know, I think it's gonna be just like your normal PG or R rating. It'll be, you know, PG 13 AI.

Yeah.

You know, if it's AI or not. So you're gonna have you're gonna have something.

Yeah, exactly. This this has been an informative, a scary, a hopeful, hopeful, interesting talk with you, Jason.

Where To Follow Jason Online

Uh it's well look, let me before before that, let's leave you with some optimism. Understand that in all of us is is the element of story. Okay. We tell we're telling a story to each other right now. You know what I mean? You're you're hearing about my history, I'm hearing about yours. We're talking to each other, we're communicating, we're doing it in a form of story. And everything that we do is a form of storytelling. This is a form that that we're in in the film and television industry that I don't think will ever go away. And I feel that, you know, we're only gonna have more. Now, what kind? And what does that market share of actual traditional filmmaking versus AI filmmaking versus some mixture of it? I don't know what that answer is. But we're gonna get to a point in society where we're not gonna be driving cars anymore. We're all gonna be in self-autonomous vehicles because it's gonna be unsafe. I'm just telling you now. And I hope that before my kids get driver's license, that's the case, to be honest with you. Um what are we gonna do with ourselves? Half of us are gonna be on, you know, screens and being consuming content, or you know, maybe people have a negative reaction to that and want to be more, you know, uh um, what's the word I want to look it for? Anti-screen, if you will, and go and do, you know, most uh things before we we did screens, which is play in nature or have more community. And so it really, it really is a balance of where are we going? And the answer is nobody knows. We're in this really interesting time. But all I have to say is that I'm optimistic about the future. I'm optimistic about storytelling, I'm optimistic about um the opportunities that all of us have in front of us. And I'm not looking at this AI thing as a big negative. I really think it's gonna be the one thing that's gonna bring everybody together. And so how that looks in the next five years is the biggest question mark because it's happening very fast. And I hope everybody is starting to tap in or at least having an understanding of what that means and how that use case is going to actually input their lives. So if you're a filmmaker or a storyteller, I beg you to get into it and find ways of becoming a better storyteller. If you're, you know, if you're a grip or an electric, how can you benefit from what is happening in this world right now in AI and how can you obviously move into the course that that's actually taking so you can obviously provide for yourself and your family. So on an optimistic front, I look forward to what's headed our way because I think it's gonna be super interesting. And I hope that all of our creators end up finding, you know, like I said, the most unique things that they can find here in our state because I really do think we have the best talent uh right here in the state of Louisiana and hopefully um we'll rise up and we'll be uh we'll be at a good place for that.

There you go. Yeah, for sure. I'm speechless, which is amazing. Do you have any socials you want to share with the folks?

100th Episode Contest And Support

Yeah, I mean, look, uh, I mean, you can obviously find us at uh weartheranch.com and you can go and check out We Are the Ranch uh for any of our socials. Um we also filmlouisiana.com for any information about the film and television industry uh here in the state. You can go to filmlouisiana.com and follow us on all of our socials. We give updates uh on uh right now, pretty much on a weekly basis, but big monthly sort of updates come through on what's happening uh in the legislator, what's happening with government, and what's happening with film in our state. And then me myself, I'm usually with uh I am J WAG. That's where a lot of my creatives are. Uh also Create Amaze Inspire is another place you can find me on Instagram. Uh, I like to put a lot of my creative stuff up there. So um come check me out. So I appreciate you guys having me today.

Yeah, thanks for coming on.

Very, I really appreciate it. And as another we said at the beginning, this is our 99th episode. Our next one will be the 100th, of course. And we're gonna start a little contest today. I'm gonna put it on social, and it's a way we're trying to get people to help us share. So, like if they, you know, repost this, it's a point. You know, you're probably gonna have to let me know. I won't be able to keep track of that. You know, if you can uh get, let's say somebody reached out to you without us and got you to redo it. You know, so I'm gonna put a point system, and then the winner will get a Nola Film scene t-shirt, an OLA film scene coffee mug, and$50. We are ecstatic to finally be hitting a hundred episodes. Yeah, but a little long road.

Yeah, congrats, guys. And keep it up. Consistency is what's really gonna make uh make a difference, and you're doing a good job around this.

Yeah, thank you, sir. Yeah, thank you. So if you want to support the show, like and subscribe and share it with somebody. Like thanks, folks. We'll see you next time. Have a good one.