Get Commercial Directing Film Schooled by Master Classman Jordan Brady

Jordan Brady - Final Transcript

[00:00:00] Hersh Rephun: You know, I love that there's been progress made there and you're a huge, huge champion of diversity. Just from the word go across the board. Everything you do, everything you put out, that's another part of your brand. It wasn't likely an intentional thing, but it just sprung out of your, your doings of

[00:00:17] Jordan Brady: the thing you do well.

[00:00:17] Jordan Brady: You have to make a choice, right. If you're gonna support it or not. Yeah. And I think beyond, thank you for pointing that out. Sure. But beyond memes and hashtags and, and posts on social media, I figured, well, that's not enough. So, yeah. Like we have a shadow director on every set. Nine times outta 10. It's a bipo L G B D Q female film.

[00:00:43] Jordan Brady: It's not a white guy, Uhhuh. I actually got some racist, some emails calling me a racist because on a recent shoot,

[00:00:49] Hersh Rephun: a racist against old white

[00:00:50] Jordan Brady: guys. Yes. Yeah, white three. Three white guys emailed me saying You're a racist. Another two unsub unsubscribe from my mailing list [00:01:00] because I was excluding the privileged to help.

[00:01:06] Jordan Brady: No, I was excluding the represented. Oh, okay. To help the. Underrepresented. Right? I said yes. Yes, I am. Like guilty.

[00:01:21] Hersh Rephun: Martians landed. Yes. Wearing Prada suits. Yes. Drinking Henry Seltzer. Yes. Chewing Juicy Fruit. Yes. Your branding here? Yes. Friend. Your message here? Yes. And a verse about Yes. Your product here.

[00:01:36] Hersh Rephun: Yes. I'm Hi Redmond. Yes. And I'm a message therapist. Yes. And I have a podcast. Yes. Brand. That's right. That's it? Yes. We'll help you fix the world. Yes. For your bottom line. All right. Your bottom line. Get it. I get it. Welcome to the Yes.

[00:01:55] Jordan Brady: Brand podcast.

[00:01:58] Hersh Rephun: Yes. Okay, so I've done [00:02:00] the masterclass. I've done the bootcamp.

[00:02:02] Hersh Rephun: Yeah. I do now want to do the retreat. Oh, you'd be Joshua. Retreat. Now the only thing is I have no, I've not a director. I have no. I don't even have designs. It doesn't matter to become a director, but I feel like I, I just love the way you share your knowledge with people and the, and, and this is not, you know, news.

[00:02:19] Hersh Rephun: We've ta we've talked about this and you know, you have a very refreshing perspective on all of the knowledge and skill that you've accumulated over the years. So tell our audience, cuz we, I didn't even really welcome you yet to the show. We just started talking. So welcome to Yes Brand. Were here, you were here for the, for the very original iteration of Yes Brand, which no one can find.

[00:02:44] Hersh Rephun: And it's been squirrel away. I'm probably pay walling it so that when this is a world renowned podcast, I can break out those episodes. But you were one of the first guests on uh Oh, I remember

[00:02:57] Jordan Brady: on that. Yeah. I think you did it in character. [00:03:00] Probably

[00:03:01] Hersh Rephun: I did, probably, I was either German character or I was doing some kind of, some kind of accent.

[00:03:08] Hersh Rephun: But those were the years Jordan, when I was hiding from my identity as a thought leader and business person, and I was, I thought, you know, I was always trying to be funny. But that's, you know, that is in

[00:03:21] Jordan Brady: the past. You're with us now as a serious man. Yeah. Now

[00:03:26] Hersh Rephun: I'm serious. Now I'm very serious about my business now.

[00:03:30] Hersh Rephun: I

[00:03:30] Jordan Brady: woke up at like five this morning anticipating giddy, giddy about being on the show today. And for some reason in my head, I, I was hearing Na na na, yes bra.

[00:03:45] Hersh Rephun: No, no. So you're writing jingles now, now you're writing jingles.

[00:03:48] Jordan Brady: Yeah. Well, the Jingle Hut is a new business. I'm gonna be starting at the end of the year, Uhhuh right now.

[00:03:53] Jordan Brady: I'm, you know, I just launched my production company. True gentleman. True, true Gentleman [00:04:00] Industries Incorporated, which is incorporated in the state of California back in August of 2018. Huh. And I've been lying low, laying low, lying low. Yeah. Always tell the truth. That's a sign of a gentleman. That's right.

[00:04:15] Jordan Brady: But I went public. I had my coming out this, this past month.

[00:04:19] Hersh Rephun: Wow. Well I did see, yeah, I saw some, I saw an, an interview with you. I've seen some press. We sometimes I do press for you sometimes though, we like to keep it interesting by you just kind of doing some story. Somebody calls you and wants to do a story on you and you know, and lo and behold, there you are in the press.

[00:04:40] Hersh Rephun: And I and I, and it impresses even me because I have not. Behind it at all in any way. So I haven't,

[00:04:46] Jordan Brady: well you have been one of the pillars of press for Jordan. Brady and Thank you. Commercial directing film school, which people can learn more at commercial directing film school.com And true gent, I have stepped [00:05:00] into yes stories and you know, our friends at Shoot magazine for instance.

[00:05:05] Jordan Brady: Yes. I simply emailed that We were coming out, we're out. We're out for the public to hire us. Right. And they did a nice story, little black book, you know, which is an industry rag. Yeah. They heard about it. They wanna do a little piece. So I step in good press. I've been blessed. I don't have any control over it.

[00:05:24] Jordan Brady: But you've been one of the pillars, especially with like the commercial directing bootcamp and the diversity award winners. Sure. That come to the bootcamp. And I come to you because you were my chat, G T P before chat, G T P.

[00:05:42] Hersh Rephun: And before it changed its name to Jet Chat, G P t,

[00:05:46] Jordan Brady: whatever it is. I get it wrong

[00:05:47] Hersh Rephun: all the time.

[00:05:47] Hersh Rephun: PT four. PT four. I just, what I tell people is, look, I, I, I went to a symposium and I heard a presentation from chat G P T and I think that AI is, I say this all the time, I think [00:06:00] AI is a great starting point. And it it, yeah. That has no wit. Yeah, that is, that's the thing. And I,

[00:06:07] Jordan Brady: and I, I tried chat g uh, t h c, uh, very slow.

[00:06:12] Hersh Rephun: Oh, yeah. It depends which, which, which, which one you take. Sure. You know, there's chat sativa, there's wooki, there's

[00:06:20] Jordan Brady: a, there's a Purple dragon. There's, yeah.

[00:06:23] Hersh Rephun: That's what, that's, that's the real insiders. No. You say, yeah. Are you using chat? G P T? And they say what strain of, you know, But I will say this, I think that it just raises the bar and it means that, you know, writers have to up their game like everybody else.

[00:06:40] Hersh Rephun: And I think it's, I think it's great and, you know, bring it on. I said to the chat, g p t people, I said, okay. I wrote a couple of taglines down for you while I was listening to your presentation. One was, what was one when it doesn't really matter, was one of my putting mediocre writers out of business.

[00:06:59] Hersh Rephun: Good. Which I [00:07:00] thought was cute, which I, yeah, it's cute. Which I thought was very cute. And then I can't remember where the third one was. They didn't take either, either of the first two. So I, I kind of felt I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna get that account.

[00:07:11] Jordan Brady: But, uh, there was, if we were walking down the street, my son Jake and I, and he edits my filmmaking podcast, respect the Processes, which is everywhere you pod Yes.

[00:07:20] Jordan Brady: It's about commercial filmmaking. You've been a guest. I,

[00:07:23] Hersh Rephun: not only am I, what was I a guest? You were the inspiration for me to be a podcaster. Wonderful. Yes. So I apologize. Thank you.

[00:07:32] Jordan Brady: Hold for laugh. The thing you

[00:07:34] Hersh Rephun: said, the thing you told me Jordan was stick with it because it takes, you know, it's, it takes a while and it took, and I, and I, not only did I stick with it, I did the, that initial run of Yes.

[00:07:44] Hersh Rephun: Brand episodes. I did about 35 episodes and then got. Back into the sneaker marketing stuff and I got busy with that. And then, then we had this pandemic that was too good to turn down and, uh, yeah. Gotta

[00:07:56] Jordan Brady: jump on that

[00:07:56] Hersh Rephun: bandwagon and jump on that. And now I'm b but [00:08:00] now I'm back with the, with these two podcasts and doing all this stuff that I never even knew podcasts could do.

[00:08:05] Hersh Rephun: And I owe, owe it to the experience of working with you. Jordan. Brady. Oh,

[00:08:09] Jordan Brady: I'm happy to play a small part in your success. Thank you. Um, what I was gonna tell you is I'm walking down the street with Jake Brady, who edits Yes. Respect the Process. And I'm telling him about chat. G T P G P T or tp.

[00:08:21] Hersh Rephun: It's, it's pt, PT chat.

[00:08:25] Hersh Rephun: Think of it as physical therapy for your vocabulary. Okay. So I'm telling, and you'll remember

[00:08:30] Jordan Brady: that it's pt, PT I'm telling about the chatbots and we're walking past a house that's being built and there's a bunch of wonderful carpenters and laborers up there. Mm-hmm. And I said, cuz he, my son Jake is a writer.

[00:08:44] Jordan Brady: And I said, you have to use it as a tool. I said, see those guys up there? Look at, look at those like three guys in the corner and they're all using power drills. Z z they have to know where to drill. Mm-hmm. But what if there was one [00:09:00] guy, imagine one guy over to the left and he's got the old time drill going hand cranking, making a hole.

[00:09:08] Jordan Brady: Yeah. It's gonna take him like, what, 10 minutes? What the other guys are doing in four seconds, Uhhuh. And if he doesn't know how to drill, having a power tool is not gonna be good. That's right. Yeah. It's, it's not gonna make the, you know, I think it was Steven Spielberg who said to me, uh, through the magic of print, I, I've never met him.

[00:09:32] Jordan Brady: Mm-hmm. Right. You read it, you absorbed it. But he said it to me, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, the typewriter didn't put screenwriters out of business, nor would the personal computer, the PC. Right. Doesn't mean just because the tool can help you write and look at the derivative. Well, the derivative of where we're at now with AI is my problem.

[00:09:56] Jordan Brady: Like I think all everybody's selfie that they made 'em look like a [00:10:00] superhero with that cartoon style. Oh yeah, yeah. Like great AI did it. Wow. I mean, in the eighties I had a video filter that would make things look like an aha video. Like they're just, it's not interesting. Beyond the swipe you,

[00:10:17] Hersh Rephun: you know what we used, you know what we used to call them?

[00:10:20] Hersh Rephun: What? My dad used to call 'em when we were kids. Satz. They, it's what is sat satz is like a, like Yiddish? Yeah. It's Yiddish. It's a little ish. There's Yiddish ai. Yeah. No, no. And it's not ai, but it's a little something. It's a little knickknack. It's like a little, what do you call it? An oddity or a, you know, a gimmick.

[00:10:40] Hersh Rephun: Some little thing you play with. Gotcha. And it's basically, yeah, it's Aki. There's just a, it spins around, the pad pops up, and then the thing goes on. How do you say the word, how do you say the word? SATs. So you would do a tv, could tcho be a satchi? TKI is the same thing, but they butcher the uh, oh, the pronunciation of it.

[00:10:57] Hersh Rephun: Gotcha. You know, but what am [00:11:00] I gonna, it's a little tchotchke. What? Yeah. What, what am I gonna do? Fight, fight, fight about it. Now the way it's tchotchke. Tki. Soki. I have the

[00:11:07] Jordan Brady: problem with swag. With swag. Oh, that's another one. Swag. I always knew it was a swag. Like you might get a Schottky for a swag. But now people say swag.

[00:11:19] Jordan Brady: Oh, there's a swag bag. And I think of swag as in I've got swag in my swagger, in my walk. Swagger.

[00:11:25] Hersh Rephun: Swagger. Yeah. That's swagger. Well, what you're do, what, what, what, what you've done is subconsciously, you've made an incredible segue into a topic that I wanted to discuss with you, ma. Yes. Which ma'am is, is your brand, which is your brand.

[00:11:42] Hersh Rephun: Yes. Brand. My brand. Well, okay. No, seriously. The the way and, and there, there was a segue there in my head, but it's not worth dissecting now. But the point is this, over the length of time that I've known you many years, you are a filmmaker, you're a commercial filmmaker, you've made feature [00:12:00] films, but filmmaking is clearly your d n a.

[00:12:03] Hersh Rephun: That's who you are. Love it. You've been a comedian, you've been a writer, you've done all kinds of other things like a lot of us have. But you are a filmmaker, and I love the fact that you. Brand has evolved over years and because as we talked about, I've had like a front row seat to a lot of it. But can you share with the audience, because a lot of the audience is trying to figure out how to get their brand to the next level.

[00:12:29] Hersh Rephun: How do they speak? What's their voice? How do they differentiate themselves from other people? And I would, I think your insights would be really appreciated given that this is something you've done over years and years at the same time applying your trade. So you've built a brand while shooting for brands and doing all this stuff.

[00:12:51] Hersh Rephun: Just, just if you could just share some, some insight.

[00:12:54] Jordan Brady: Sure. And bef, first of all, thank you for the kudos and the compliments. Sure. Second of all, [00:13:00] I am not a lawyer, A C P A, I'm not an Indian chief. I'm not a rabbi, but I'll try. So take listener, take what I say, cherry pick what works for you. And discard what doesn't because clearly God did not just place the cloth of knowledge upon my back.

[00:13:20] Jordan Brady: First of all, if you go to any of my socials, it's father, filmmaker, founder, and putting Father First helped me stay grounded and just keep the priorities in check. Yeah. You know, I tell filmmakers a lot in these courses or consultations or just in chit chatting around the pool table when you walk up the sidewalk to your house, right.

[00:13:52] Jordan Brady: Your apartment, wherever you're going. It could be a camper. When you're, when you're done with the shoot or you're done with the prep and you've had [00:14:00] this amazing day or a hard day, or your breakthrough or creative like Renaissance in your career, like you wanna share it with the world, know that as soon as you walk through the door, your kids don't really care.

[00:14:14] Jordan Brady: They had a thing happened at school. They got an A on their, when they drew a little dinosaur, your spouse. Had something happen at his or her or their day. So as a father, I wanna make that the priority. Yeah. And I think that's, IM, that's important, has been important for me just to keep it real. The filmmaker, definitely.

[00:14:38] Jordan Brady: I mean, my journey from comedian to game show host and writer, you know, features, I made four features, like three independent, one critical flop for Miramax. And so that's behind me. That's 20 years ago. But that experience definitely made me a better commercial [00:15:00] director, A better collaborator or better leader.

[00:15:03] Jordan Brady: Right. Yeah. And then founder is just kind of acknowledging that I do have an entrepreneurial zeal and I think as a commercial director, well, any creative entrepreneur needs. Needs to like mine the business, mine, the shop, there's Right, there's shit that, that I do that like with, with True Gent. That's short for true Gentlemen Industries.

[00:15:32] Jordan Brady: My, yeah, I like that. You know, I've got, I'm blessed in this slow period. If you're listening in the future, we're talking end of third quarter 2000, no, it's not

[00:15:43] Hersh Rephun: end of third quarter. It's the beginning of the second quarter. Okay. The first quarter. So you may be at a different game than everybody else. Yeah.

[00:15:48] Hersh Rephun: That may be the problem.

[00:15:50] Jordan Brady: So I'm very happy to have even the little jobs that I'm bidding and a big one coming up. But, you know, as a, as a filmmaker, I would love to [00:16:00] sit back and say, just make it all happen. I'll show up with my shot list. But as a founder, you know, I have to interim finance the job until I get paid from a big corporation.

[00:16:15] Jordan Brady: So my point is with father filmmaker, founder. What has worked best for me is to pick a lane, stay in it and niche down like super niche and compartmentalize com. Compartmentalization for me has been, and, and I have a D H D I don't remember, do I have a D H D or a D, D or chat gp B, right? And so the compartmentalization has really helped me like put on the filmmaker hat, always wearing the father hat, the founder hat I've got within [00:17:00] that mindset, I have two complimentary businesses, true Gentlemen Industries, which is a production company.

[00:17:07] Jordan Brady: And I de delegation was his spoiler alert. That's the the big thing too, delegating, right? But true gen, when I'm wearing the true jet hat. I don't even post like about the film school on Instagram. I don't want to cloud the message. You know, they're separate accounts. When I'm thinking about the film school, it's a certain amount of hours during the day that I put on the film school hat.

[00:17:29] Jordan Brady: Now, if you're not watching this video and you're listening on iTunes, or what's the Spotify? Spotify. Spotify, yeah. I'm not literally wearing hats.

[00:17:39] Hersh Rephun: No, not with that hair. This is a head

[00:17:42] Jordan Brady: of hair metaphor. Thank you, sir. Yeah, so that the delegation and and niche, to me, nicheing down is very exciting. Yeah,

[00:17:52] Hersh Rephun: you actually, Jordan, you know, in your book,

[00:17:55] Jordan Brady: commercial directing, commercial directing voodoo, you know, it's over 20 years of experience for $10 [00:18:00] on Amazon.

[00:18:00] Jordan Brady: It is a great book.

[00:18:01] Hersh Rephun: We neglected to even mention it because it's like, so I would, I probably do have it like with literally within reach here somewhere. But basically you say, you say in there and you've said to me, you know, if they wanna put you in a box, let 'em put you in a box. Go get in that box.

[00:18:18] Hersh Rephun: Because that's a niche, that's a specialization that you're gonna occupy and no one else is going to, is gonna do that better or get, you know, pick for those jobs. It's, it's so obvious and yet people feel like they have to spread themselves out all over the place in order to sell to everyone, beloved by everybody, have everybody as a customer.

[00:18:39] Hersh Rephun: And that's somehow in volume going to make up their career. And I think, you know, that's, That has not been my experience, that spreading yourself out over a bunch of different talents and skills is really the way to go.

[00:18:54] Jordan Brady: Well, you know, that's I agree. Yes. Brand. When I talked to [00:19:00] filmmakers, so people let, I, commercial directing film school was really pandemic inspired.

[00:19:09] Jordan Brady: Mm-hmm. Because I've been doing this in-person bootcamp in la I traveled with it for a while, but I just stay in LA People fly and it sells out since 2015. So I'm doing this bootcamp and then the pandemic hits three years ago, and I have to kill the bootcamp for the time being Right. We can't gather as people and so I, I fought the, uh, I was kicking and fighting to put it online.

[00:19:35] Jordan Brady: People who, for you know, five years have been saying, why do you have anything online? Yeah. And there's shit I say in the bootcamp that I would never want to put on the internet. Trade secrets, stories, things like that. Not negative or bad about any person or entity. Just like, yeah, some voodoo. So I, my son Ben Brady, he shoots a lot of the master, the actual masterclass [00:20:00] series with Neil Dere Tyson, or you know, who, he's done a bunch of celebrities.

[00:20:04] Jordan Brady: And so he came to my, her, so I think he might have done Verna Ho, I think Verna her, did a,

[00:20:11] Hersh Rephun: did a, uh, masterclass. Yeah.

[00:20:14] Jordan Brady: When Timothy Treadwell thinks that he is helping the Bears, so he came to my office, we sh he lit it like a masterclass. And I, I did, I cherry picked elements of the bootcamp and then kind of broadened the focus as an, like an entry for someone or a filmmaker.

[00:20:33] Jordan Brady: But it's a niche. Yeah. It's commercial Directing Masterclass. It's not Short Film Masterclass. How to make a feature masterclass. How to shoot brands with your iPhone masterclass. It's commercial directing masterclass. So I had commercial directing bootcamp, commercial directing, film school, da da da da. I ended up taking some business classes online, like just to bone up on my skill.

[00:20:57] Jordan Brady: Oh, see Bone Up. That's a good one. [00:21:00] Bone up.

[00:21:01] Hersh Rephun: Bone up. It needs like a, it needs like an Al Pacino LA Boy. Bone Up, Bon up. It was time for Jordan

[00:21:07] Jordan Brady: Bone Up. That's a good ap. So I combined the two under the umbrella commercial directing film school. So again, there's that, that sort of delegation, but still niche.

[00:21:20] Jordan Brady: Yeah. So the story I was gonna just quickly tell, which has turned into quite a boring and lengthy one, is when I talk to people that have taken the masterclass, It comes with a free consultation call if you wish. Yeah. I'm talking to the filmmakers and they ask me about the bootcamp, but what I'm hearing in our conversation is how they've got this feature film that's burning a hole in their heart and they gotta make this indie feature film.

[00:21:49] Jordan Brady: They've been working on the script for three years and they're almost with financing. And I say, as a terrible business person, you [00:22:00] shouldn't come to bootcamp. It's called Commercial Directing Bootcamp. It's not gonna, it's actually going to, it's gonna waste your time. It's gonna cost you a lot of money.

[00:22:12] Jordan Brady: And I would rather see you put the, uh, exorbitant tuition towards the craft services. Right. So, cuz I'm, so that's the niche. And then with True Gent, I'll wrap it up here. With True Gent, my production company, we don't, I don't have any content in development. I'm not gonna shoot a web series, and I'm not, I don't have a script.

[00:22:38] Jordan Brady: I'm not doing a deck for a Netflix show. People on LinkedIn will hit me up, like they put the whole synopsis in the message. Right. And say, if you wanna read the script, you know, but, and I go, we just do commercials. We don't even edit. I'll bring in an I'll recommend. We don't package. We don't develop.

[00:22:59] Jordan Brady: We're not a [00:23:00] collection of artists trying to, you know, for our love of storytelling, putting humanity in your brand message. No, we make commercials. You have the script, we make the commercials. We will we bring it to Life Script for you. Yeah. We'll write the script for you. Brand direct, but, It's very focused, but

[00:23:20] Hersh Rephun: there, but the, but therein is a solution to a problem that a lot of my clients have.

[00:23:26] Hersh Rephun: Not in, not in our industry even. But you know, now that I've branched out and I work with clients across a lot of different product categories, let's say, is how they stand out is by finding that thing that they do that no one else does. So if they say, we're in development on this, here's features, docs, this, that, the other thing, whatever it is.

[00:23:48] Hersh Rephun: It's just too much. Mm-hmm. It's just too much. And, you know, even successful brands have diluted themselves too much. And if this could be the year of the [00:24:00] individual, I would love that. I think that, you know, we're, we're obviously diversity, equity, and inclusion is very important. And you know, I love that there's been progress made there and you're a huge, huge champion of diversity just from the word go across the board.

[00:24:16] Hersh Rephun: Everything you do, everything you put out, that's another part of your brand. It wasn't likely an intentional thing, but it just sprung out of your, your doings

[00:24:25] Jordan Brady: the thing you do. We have to make a choice, right. If you're gonna support it or not. Yeah. And I think beyond, thank you for pointing that out. Sure.

[00:24:32] Jordan Brady: But beyond memes and hashtags and, and posts on social media, I figured, well, that's not enough. So, yeah. Like we have a shadow director on every set. Nine times outta 10. It's a bipo L G B D Q female film. It's not a white guy. Uhhuh. I actually got some racist, some emails calling me a racist because on a recent

[00:24:57] Hersh Rephun: shoot, a racist against old white guys.

[00:24:59] Hersh Rephun: Yes.

[00:24:59] Jordan Brady: Yeah, [00:25:00] white three. Three white guys emailed me saying You're a racist. Another two unsub unsubscribe from my mailing list because I was excluding the privileged to help. No, I was excluding the represented Oh, okay. To help the underrepresented. Right. And I said, yes, yes, I am like guilty. Yeah. And if that's if, yeah, if in your view that is being racist, that's o I'm cool with that.

[00:25:32] Jordan Brady: As I had said, my game, my rules now in, back in November, I did this huge Toyota campaign. And my friend and filmmaker and film school alum, Luke Cheney as Lilly White, and as hetero as you get, he shadowed me for four days based on the merit. I picked him. Yeah. And in, in Vegas a couple weeks ago for Ram trucks, I had Geneva Fey, [00:26:00] a queer female Latina based on merit.

[00:26:05] Jordan Brady: But decidedly on my point, I was excluding white men because yeah, it's just my opinion. But at the end, it's father, filmmaker founder, and the founder says, this is what's gonna happen. Yeah. Right.

[00:26:19] Hersh Rephun: Yeah. But I, I love it. You know, the, the life is made of choices. We have to make choices. This is why I say, so I was saying the year of the individual, because.

[00:26:29] Hersh Rephun: Ultimately, while we are trying to be more inclusive and we're trying to give chances to people who don't have chances every day and trying to treat people fairly in the, in what they get paid and what they get chosen to do, we're also, if we could just remember that everybody's different, everybody's unique.

[00:26:48] Hersh Rephun: There isn't, you know, not every, you know, and maybe, maybe old white guys are all the same, but, but, but not, not really. You know, everybody, regardless of gender, regardless [00:27:00] of of how they identify, is a unique individual. And that's what I would love, love brands to do this year also, is when they think about their voice and how they wanna present themselves.

[00:27:12] Hersh Rephun: That's all I do, by the way. There's no magic. Sauce to what I do. Either a c e O or a founder usually will call me up and they'll talk to me and I'll talk back to them and I'll, and and that's where yes and comes from. They'll say something and I'll say something on top of it, but it'll just be very grounded in who their brand is and who they are.

[00:27:33] Hersh Rephun: It's just not a lot of bullshit. It's not a lot of fluff and it's not a lot of dancing around in circles and trying to convince people of things. So,

[00:27:42] Jordan Brady: you know, I, I gotta, I, I love it. And you make such a good point that like, I'm even surprised that the gays like the L G B T Q and I love the gays. I try to be funny by saying that I hope I'm not pissing video, but [00:28:00] because it's not a monolith.

[00:28:03] Jordan Brady: Yeah, right. Yeah, that's right. They, they have like, they're astonishingly gay republicans. I don't know how that works, but Okay, fine. You know, The white guys that complain almost like your chatbot work. I think they just have to step up. I have to step up my game. Yeah. As a company owner, I get calls from my represent sales reps that say, Hey, you know, can you recommend a person of color?

[00:28:36] Jordan Brady: They're, the agency is only, or they want to bid directors to direct a project of theirs. They want a person of color. Now I could cry and go, well, what about me? I, my work is perfect for that. The numbers be lie, the efforts towards inclusion, like, look, look on in any Instagram post about diversity and you'll see it's still [00:29:00] 78% are white men directing commercials or whatever.

[00:29:03] Jordan Brady: Whatever it is. I'm making that number up. Yeah. But my job is to, a, be better and B, help those. And so my answer is yes, and I recommended, I recommended Geneva, who I met through my school, and that's where it, it all blurs. I met her through the film school and I'm gonna present her through true gentlemen to do a job.

[00:29:26] Jordan Brady: See Hersh. I'm secretly making money off these filmmakers. If I can get them a job and I produce it, that's

[00:29:34] Hersh Rephun: great. Yeah. Yeah. But I was gonna make the point that like a farm system, you kind of, I know, but Yeah. Well, you, I don't sense that you mastermind, so to speak, this stuff. Not, not at all. You know, and, and that's one of the things that I'm trying to adopt in my own business modeling, is that there isn't a.

[00:29:57] Hersh Rephun: You know, it's not a chop shop, it's [00:30:00] not a assembly line, it's not a, you know, just plug it in and turn it on thing. But at the same time, there are things that work for other people that you write a book, a lot of people can read it and learn different things from it. You create a course, a lot of people can take the course and every person who takes the course gets something different out of it.

[00:30:19] Hersh Rephun: Those are products that just have to be, you know, you just make 'em available to people. But the way I'm gonna make, you know, the way we go about it. Yeah. Don't interrupt me on my show. Don't, don't you dare. Don't you come in here, Jordan in, interrupt me on my own show. Well, anyway, that was just

[00:30:41] Jordan Brady: fun. No, sorry.

[00:30:42] Jordan Brady: Interrupted you.

[00:30:43] Hersh Rephun: Yeah, you just, you dis dis You dis interrupted me. But anyway, I don't remember. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But just do it. Don't, Hey, um, do you mind?

[00:30:52] Jordan Brady: No, you're back. Okay. Yeah, you're back on the train. Go for it. No, I don't mind. No. Okay. Thank

[00:30:56] Hersh Rephun: you. Thank you. I don't remember what it, I don't remember what it was.

[00:30:59] Hersh Rephun: You [00:31:00] go, you go ahead.

[00:31:01] Jordan Brady: Well, first of all, I'm gonna make a coupon at commercial directing film school.com if you sign up for any of the online courses and use the coupon code. Yes. Brand, no comma Ooh, just Yes. Brand. You're gonna take a hundred dollars off of any online course. That's pretty, pretty generous right there.

[00:31:22] Jordan Brady: That's very generous. You were saying that, that you don't mastermind, but you cherry pick the things that work and you have to evolve. Yes. You know, adapt or Die is in my book, commercial Directing Voodoo. I also read the Audible on version of Commercial directing Voodoo. Not as good as the paperback book, many people say because of the isms and the, you know, it's one thought per page in commercial directing Voodoo.

[00:31:47] Jordan Brady: A lot of people say Rick Rubin sort of, you know, used it as a launching pad for his popular book. It

[00:31:54] Hersh Rephun: could be, you know, and I don't have like a long history with Rick Rubin because for many, many years I was [00:32:00] doing footwear marketing and see cuz he never wears shoes. There was just no way for us to, no common dress, no cartilage paths across.

[00:32:07] Hersh Rephun: Yeah. There was no cartilage. There was no cartilage. I did see him in a Starbucks once. I was just very intimidated. I just didn't, couldn't even introduce myself. But that's, that's a, that's a side side story. I think the reason your audiobook may not be as popular as the printed version is because the pictures are not necessarily in the audiobook and your artwork.

[00:32:28] Hersh Rephun: Sure. The illustrations, yes. The illustrations that you created, which I understand took 30 or 40 years of just putting the, how do you mount a stick figures arms on its body in such a way that you really get the sense of what that's gonna look like when it's brought to the screen.

[00:32:48] Jordan Brady: A lot of people say they've finished reading from front cover to back.

[00:32:53] Jordan Brady: The entire book. Commercial directing voodoo on the toilet in one sitting, or [00:33:00] keep on the back of the toilet next to a Jeff Foxworthy. You might be a redneck joke book and you pick one up. You read a few pages and put it down. Yeah. But wait, you, there's one thing I wanted to point out. Putting yourself in a box or allowing someone, you said it better, allowing the marketplace to put you in a box.

[00:33:21] Jordan Brady: Yeah. Can give you focus, but it can be product agnostic. And when you can have your d n A in your work across multiple styles, across multiple discipline, not disciplines, if we're talking about focusing, but. Like you can do a car commercial and a Tide commercial and a candy bar commercial, and my goal is to have the Jordan Brady d n a in all of those.

[00:33:53] Jordan Brady: And that would be my voice. My box, exactly. My box is like comedy [00:34:00] with cars and often a celebrity like I do a lot of people next to Catherine Hahn, next to a Chrysler being funny. The car's usually not even driving. That's someone else's box. You know? It's a German director that does running footage or something like that, and then that branches out.

[00:34:21] Jordan Brady: But there's a wonderful creative director, Jeff Abbott, who I did a lot of Kellogg's work with back 20 years when I first started. And. We're doing these little bug snack things and that turned into another little fruit snack, and then there's always a mutation in your career. You have to almost pray for these and accept, you know, people, spiritual people talk about accepting gifts.

[00:34:48] Jordan Brady: I like to accept the mutation. What do I mean by that? I'm working with Jeff and all of a sudden, because we had a good working relationship, we do this Finding Nemo [00:35:00] serial commercial with an animatronic am Anth Anthropomorphized shark, teenage shark, and a teenage mom shark. A teenage shark boy, mom, shark, both in kitchen and it was early.

[00:35:18] Jordan Brady: Oh, thousands. So it's a little hall of presidency. Mm-hmm. Right. It wasn't the best, but we put some CG lips and eyeballs on him and you know, a fake fin. He's eating this Finding Nemo cereal and it turned out great. Right? Yeah. I'm gonna say 12, 10 or 12 years later, I get a call, Hey Jordan, I'm doing a bear and a bull stock trader.

[00:35:49] Jordan Brady: I want to use people in suits and they're gonna walk through their day trading office, Phil and Marty. And I thought, well, there's one guy, he's the expert [00:36:00] on an anthropomorphized. Am I saying that right? Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. The characters with people wearing these suits, And he thought, Jordan Brady, my friend Jeff Abbott put me in that box.

[00:36:13] Jordan Brady: Mm-hmm. Now only every couple of year, you know, but who am I to say, well, you know, I really do comedy in cars now you say Yes

[00:36:21] Hersh Rephun: brand. That's the thing. It's, yeah, but the cars didn't, the car didn't figure it into the tax thing by the way. You had to bring that up. You had to bring up that project that I auditioned for.

[00:36:32] Hersh Rephun: I auditioned for one of the heads and I didn't Yes. Didn't make it. I didn't make the cut,

[00:36:37] Jordan Brady: but, well, they went a different way. They went a different

[00:36:39] Hersh Rephun: way. They indeed they did. You know, now, dare they, but

[00:36:43] Jordan Brady: they, um, and then that mutation led to some other character work and some CG stuff. Like CGI was, there were just token pieces of CGI in those puppet trees.[00:37:00]

[00:37:00] Jordan Brady: And also I'd done like these Eggo waffle spots. So you're, to your point, it's not like I mastermind any of this shit. I'm just holding the tiger by the balls. Yeah. How's that expression

[00:37:11] Hersh Rephun: go? I don't know. I'm not, I'm neither an expert in tigers or ball holding. And you also, did you do a Shark Week thing, but that

[00:37:20] Jordan Brady: had, it did shark.

[00:37:21] Jordan Brady: That had nothing to do with it though. With Rory

[00:37:23] Hersh Rephun: Scoville. Oh my God. What a funny comedian. Yeah. But that, and oh, that brings up another thing. Comedians. Okay. So not only do you work with a lot of great comedians, commercial comedians like Pat Finn and you have wonderful, oh, he's genius, wonderful comedic actors that are, that are specialized in commercials or do a lot of commercials.

[00:37:45] Hersh Rephun: But you seem to know everybody in the comedy world. I guess through the docs, through the I Am road comic. I am comic docs. But I mean, you had on your podcast Judd, ato, uh, you know, how do you get to know all [00:38:00] these people and have these luminaries on your speed dial, so to speak? Or, you know, what was the history?

[00:38:06] Hersh Rephun: What's the history there? How does that happen?

[00:38:10] Jordan Brady: Well, viewers of this podcast will see the brick wall behind Hirsch right now. Yeah. With the iconic guest brand logo. And those of us that were in standup comedy back in the eighties, nineties are triggered into, you know, bad memories of fried food and hecklers.

[00:38:31] Jordan Brady: Right. And club owners wanting to pay us partly in cash and the rest in cocaine. So my history goes back to doing standup. I was a standup comic touring nightclubs in the early eighties. Into the nineties after I'd moved to LA in the eighties, I still would go on the road and I learned to direct on the road with a camera and editing between two tape decks and, you know, a story many, many have [00:39:00] gone through.

[00:39:00] Jordan Brady: Yeah. And I think comedians make good directors as we, you know, like you, you write and direct your own standup. True. So using casting standups and using them in commercials is a wonderful cheat code. Mm. So I knew, so like I knew Judd from days hanging out at the improv in 1988 or doing, you know, that and kept in touch.

[00:39:25] Jordan Brady: And then I made, I Am comic in two, came out in 2010 where I met a new generation of comics as I tapped into my peers. And even a generation before me. And then I was like, Hey, this is kind of old. We're gonna need some young people. So I met a new generation of younger co, like Nicki Glazer. Oh yeah. Was since blown up.

[00:39:47] Jordan Brady: And then Rory, I met through a commercial where we just basically offered him to be in it. I had never met him. Yeah. And then that kind of like the, [00:40:00] the long-winded, the Shark story, it's a mutation that like once you have, you have Rory Scoville on your reel and you have, I forget who else I had, I had the movie with all these comedians in it, and then they started blowing up, right?

[00:40:16] Jordan Brady: Like Louis ck. Louis CK in 2010. We must have interviewed him in 2009. He was on the precipice of being king of comedy. Right. That run that he had. Right? Mm-hmm. And. At the time, I mean, he was best known as the president of the Louis CK Fan Club. Well, I mean, not my cup of tea, but clearly a master craftsman at what he does.

[00:40:45] Jordan Brady: Yeah, he has his voice, right? Yeah. Can't deny it. And grateful he was in the dock. So people would see clips of that glazer and her blowing up in a bunch of other comics in that movie. And that was an entree into [00:41:00] TJ Miller and Pete Holmes. Nick Kroll, right. People that then be were in and Maria Bamford.

[00:41:10] Jordan Brady: And then just like people said, oh, I loved your first doc, so I did another one. Yeah. And then I would say, Hey, well let's do something. And Maria Bamford's manager, I'd known from the eighties, and I said, Hey, you're a director. You're a producer. Make this special with us. So we made her, yeah. I love her special inside of her house for her parents

[00:41:32] Hersh Rephun: that how great is that?

[00:41:33] Hersh Rephun: Who, how many standup specials of a known of a name standup are done in their home with a, with their parents watching? And for her particular brand of genius, that's just perfect. Like, that wouldn't work for, for just any comic, but for her it does. And it still has the scope of a, you know, of a theater show.

[00:41:57] Jordan Brady: Well, that was the shtick, the [00:42:00] genius of that special, which is called the Special, special. Special, yeah. Is 99.9% Maria Bamford. She had the idea, she didn't wanna spend all the money and never recoup. She wanted her parents in the audience and she sent me her material in like six, seven minute, six or seven chunks, minute chunks, just doing it to camera on a webcam.

[00:42:31] Jordan Brady: And it was initially gonna be on this website called chill.com, which went out of business, and then we sold it to Netflix. We like, I had anything to do with it. So my two additions, my 2% was one, if you're playing to someone watching on a computer, they may not sit through an hour without a laugh track because your hour of material is really only [00:43:00] 52 minutes.

[00:43:00] Jordan Brady: Right, right, right. They're like, you got two people laughing. Yeah. So my suggestions were, and she loved them, let's have the crew laugh, like acknowledge that there's a crew. Let's add interstitial bits, where after you do the chunks as you, she thought we would just stitch the chunks together in one performance.

[00:43:23] Jordan Brady: And I said, well, what if you do the material as you know it and you send it to me and then you're baking cookies and the timer goes off. So you go get the cookies and hand them out. Yeah. Then later you gotta give your dogs their medicine or let 'em out Back then a pizza guy is gonna come, cuz we ordered pizza before the show.

[00:43:41] Jordan Brady: That'll be a nice surprise. So a kid knocks on the door with some pizza and the crew has pizza. Like I needed to, I needed the special to eat up some time. Right. To fill out the hour. If she was in a club, that would've been an hour 10 cuz of all the last, [00:44:00] yeah. So that was the, and then adding my friend Wayne Federman.

[00:44:04] Jordan Brady: Who I've known since the eighties doing standup, adding him as a keyboard player and putting her sign her name and lights, but like Christmas lights on an old refrigerator, cardboard box. Like make it as grand as possible. Have a small crane in the living room that sweeps around like those cookie cutter specials.

[00:44:24] Jordan Brady: That's great. So, so the genius is hers and I just added the herbs and spices.

[00:44:32] Hersh Rephun: Well, well, well said. It's as modest, but I'll allow

[00:44:36] Jordan Brady: it. Well, I didn't, I didn't direct her performance into any, any manner. I don't know any, I watch a lot of comedy specials on, you know, on the, the streamers and I don't know what.

[00:44:49] Jordan Brady: Yes, it's directed, but the performer is the director of the material.

[00:44:53] Hersh Rephun: Yeah. I mean, normally in the big shows it's like being a TV director. Yeah. They're like, camera one, camera [00:45:00] two, let's go to, you know, I don't know what really other than a, usually a one minute, you know, story that they tell the beginning in black and white right.

[00:45:09] Hersh Rephun: About them, you know, having a fight with their sister or something. And then, then they go, Hey ladies and gentlemen, because if, you know, a lot of this also is people are playing to stadiums now and Yes. And I was gonna ask you, you know, during Covid and I was among them, you know, people who performed standup comedy are trying to figure out what the hell to do.

[00:45:29] Hersh Rephun: Cuz we can't, we, you know, for a while people were doing the outdoor standup sets to cars honking, and that just, I think that just had mixed results. I mean, it should be wasted for doing it, but I mean, you know. Do you think that changed the game of entertainment at all? The fact that we were, you know, I mean maybe that's why I'm sitting here doing this, I don't know.

[00:45:54] Hersh Rephun: But what

[00:45:54] Jordan Brady: do you think? Do I think the pandemic changed comedy? Yeah. Not in the, not a la [00:46:00] any lasting effect.

[00:46:02] Hersh Rephun: Okay. Next question.

[00:46:03] Jordan Brady: Yeah. I don't know really. Didn't, Erica Rhodes is a, a young comedian. She did a great special with the cars honking the drive-in theater. Mm-hmm. And like, I think in Nate's, the, a helicopter went overhead during the thing cuz it was outside and people honking.

[00:46:18] Jordan Brady: And I'd look at those as a, A timestamp? Yeah. A time machine. Like, oh. Like I'll watch that in five years and I'll be like, oh, that's during the pandemic. Like it's forever mar, but all comedy specials, like Polaroids of our haircuts and bell bottom jeans are little moments in time.

[00:46:36] Hersh Rephun: Watch, you know, Eddie Murphy raw Ooh.

[00:46:39] Hersh Rephun: Who delirious

[00:46:40] Jordan Brady: almost for the games would not be happy.

[00:46:42] Hersh Rephun: No. But when I see clips of that, I picture myself in my best friend's living room watching those shows on VHS or whatever. And like, that's so indelible in my mind

[00:46:54] Jordan Brady: opening Oh, I remember. Go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead. No, no. I rem I remember just sitting around with my, now remember [00:47:00] my sitting around with my aunts and uncles listening to Old Red Fox albums in the hood?

[00:47:06] Jordan Brady: Wait, that wasn't me

[00:47:10] Hersh Rephun: actually. Red Fox. Red Fox. The, the one joke that I remember, red, red Fox, when he says, uh, two hookers, two hookers says talking and one, one sister or the other, Hey, you smoke after sex and the other hook turns around and says, I

[00:47:25] Jordan Brady: don't know. I ain't never looked. You know the, the, the Red Fox Vegas story possibly?

[00:47:32] Hersh Rephun: No.

[00:47:34] Jordan Brady: It was like a cold and rainy night. And Red Foxx was at Caesars Palace and the theater lights go down and the announcer from Backstage goes. Ladies and gentlemen, Caesar's Palace is proud to welcome the Comedy stylings. You know him from Sanford and Son in his many records. Please welcome Red Fox, [00:48:00] and the band plays the theme from.

[00:48:03] Jordan Brady: Sanford's son as he walks out slowly.

[00:48:10] Jordan Brady: Yep.

[00:48:16] Jordan Brady: And it's, he walks slowly with limp at this point, so they have to play the whole song ba, and he gets out that song written by Quincy Jones, by the way. Oh wow. Okay. So he gets to the top and he goes, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. And he hold, he doesn't hear much, and he holds his hand up to block the light.

[00:48:35] Jordan Brady: And he looks out and there's four people at one table and he goes, four people. Red Fox don't play for no fucking four people. And he walks off and the band strikes up bump, ladies and gentlemen, that was Mr. Red Fox. Oh, wow. And that story, I mean, I must have heard it 20 years ago. [00:49:00] Yeah, I remember telling my kids because there was some red Fox thing we were watching, and then on The Simpsons, I think Lisa comes out and she says one thing and walks off stage and they play Bump and

[00:49:16] Hersh Rephun: they play the Sanford.

[00:49:17] Hersh Rephun: Oh. And

[00:49:18] Jordan Brady: so that's what I love about the Simpsons, like when you, those little gems and I must only get, you know, 5% of 'em. But it's just, I love that story and I love when anybody references it and I don't have an ending.

[00:49:33] Hersh Rephun: Yeah, no, you don't need an ending. Yeah, because, because I've got a segue for you essentially, you know, we're reminiscing about, yeah.

[00:49:41] Hersh Rephun: We fall into these reminiscences. And I'll cut out about an hour and a half of them, but I'll keep some of them in. But we fall into them. And what it makes me think of is legacy. Yes. Because you start to think, you know, well, the stuff that I'm doing here, and it's not all entertainment and everybody doesn't, certainly [00:50:00] everybody creates a legacy.

[00:50:01] Hersh Rephun: I have. My argument is that everybody is a legacy brand. Everybody, the stuff they do, the stuff you put out there, it's all good. Whether you like it or not, it's all gonna be put into some kind of canon of some kind. Because I'm

[00:50:14] Jordan Brady: a Challeng Legacy brand Exist. Huh? I'm a challenger legacy brand.

[00:50:18] Hersh Rephun: You're a challenger legacy brand.

[00:50:19] Hersh Rephun: Yeah, me too. I'm a challenger. Legacy

[00:50:22] Jordan Brady: Legacy's very important. And I think it's, I think it's innate in every human that we want to leave some sort of indelible mark on our family, our lives. Like th that's part of the, it's ego. It's I, it's, it's iid, it's everything. And that's okay. I think that feel, look, I wanted to put out a book.

[00:50:44] Jordan Brady: Just so when I die, there's a bunch of books laying around in the garage. Oh, that's cute. You have to deal with it.

[00:50:51] Hersh Rephun: That's cute. You know, but there'll be more people that have it. I'm doing my first, I'm writing my first book now. It's like, what's that called? It's called Selling the [00:51:00] Truth. Selling the Truth.

[00:51:01] Hersh Rephun: And it's, uh, you can't handle the truth. You can't handle the truth. Selling the truth. Musings of a so-called thought leader and

[00:51:08] Jordan Brady: musings of a wait. Selling the Truth, selling

[00:51:11] Hersh Rephun: the truth, musings and the subhead is musing musings of a so-called thought leader love, because I like the, I love that idea that people call themselves, you know, leaders and we, we are all, that's my whole thing.

[00:51:23] Hersh Rephun: We're all thought leaders. We're all creating legacies. It's a question of, of intentionally doing it and doing it in such a way that we feel good about what we're leaving behind. And that's what maybe the pandemic triggered something in me. Not that I wasn't always. Trying to do something, but where I felt like, okay, I wanna enjoy what I'm doing while I'm doing it and hope that it leaves the right message behind.

[00:51:52] Hersh Rephun: That's really it. There's not really anything more complicated or grandiose than that. That's it.

[00:51:59] Jordan Brady: [00:52:00] You know, that's a great place to be in life.

[00:52:03] Hersh Rephun: Well, it's, you know, you put yourself there, that's all. And that's where you are. I know that don't,

[00:52:09] Jordan Brady: I don't ask for permission very often. Yeah. And I think to sum it up here, gratitude came later in life for me.

[00:52:20] Jordan Brady: I think I was kind of a dick when I was younger, cuz I was cocky. I didn't understand being the beneficiary of privilege, even though I'm from a, like a, a poor town in Ohio. Like, I'm not, I didn't have any Hollywood connections. I didn't have any, I didn't come from money or anything. So, I thought I earned everything.

[00:52:43] Jordan Brady: I still do, but I realize people have given me the benefit of the doubt by my appearance. Right? That's why I like helping those that are less represented. Commercial directing film school. And yes, I own commercial directing film [00:53:00] school.com. That is the website in case anyone's wandering. The slogan is Learn to direct commercials for a living from a filmmaker directing commercials for a living.

[00:53:13] Jordan Brady: So nice. It's a little long. It doesn't really fit on a coffee mug, but I do have it tattooed on my lower back and let's see. Mike, I did one Zoom comedy show and I held up pictures like I drew you. Oh, there you

[00:53:31] Hersh Rephun: go. Oh, nice. That looks just like me. We'll have to.

[00:53:33] Jordan Brady: So the timing of the include that, putting the pictures Right.

[00:53:37] Jordan Brady: So the reason I chose that slogan is, is the whole film school for now is predicated on me working. Yeah. So I have to, to go back to the top of the show, I have to delegate. Like, if I don't get some jobs or someday I'll retire. Right. Probably not. I'm definitely going to, I'm definitely [00:54:00] gonna have to change the slogan if I retire.

[00:54:02] Jordan Brady: Yeah. Learn to make, learn to direct commercials for a living. From a filmmaker who directed a bunch of commercials before

[00:54:09] Hersh Rephun: he, he directed commercials for a living Yeah.

[00:54:11] Jordan Brady: Before he retired to, uh, the sound. Yeah. Asheville, north Carolina's artist community or wherever, you know, wherever it's, is that where you wanna retire to?

[00:54:18] Jordan Brady: No, but someone was talking about it the other day and I had a friend move there and it was just top of mind. But the legacy of the film school definitely is, is driving me to make it successful. And I think it's, I think it's doing good work. And when people post, Hey, I was on your, I was on set and I had you in my brain saying, do this.

[00:54:43] Jordan Brady: Yeah. Or someone post a picture of the book or will text me, Hey, I was on set and this happened, and at bootcamp you told, thank God you, I had you in the back pocket. Right. That legacy really does [00:55:00] make me feel good.

[00:55:02] Hersh Rephun: Well, it should. And in honor of your legacy. I did. When I saw you did a picture of me, I sketched a little picture of you.

[00:55:09] Hersh Rephun: Wow. That's pretty good. That's my little Jordan Brady.

[00:55:12] Jordan Brady: I wish I was more square jawed like that. Well,

[00:55:15] Hersh Rephun: yeah. Well now you are. It's like golf Lundgren. Here you are. This is your legacy. Here. Let's hold 'em both up. This is your legacy. There we go. Very nice. Well, I'm not gonna say anything about what you make me look

[00:55:27] Jordan Brady: like.

[00:55:27] Jordan Brady: What has headphones? No, I get it.

[00:55:30] Hersh Rephun: Yeah, he has headphones. He's crazy. He's crazy. I'll tell you what he is. He's a nuts. Oh my God. Well, listen, this has been a a wonderful, wonderful time for me. Oh, thank you for having me. We don't talk to each other enough. We're, oh, I always feel like you're close by and we are in.

[00:55:48] Hersh Rephun: Contact, but it's great. It's great to to do this with you and I appreciate you coming on the show. It gives yes, brand a stamp of, of credibility and [00:56:00] authenticity that I think is really valued and I appreciate it. I appreciate you coming on. Well,

[00:56:05] Jordan Brady: I appreciate you asking me and I have, uh, I think we're up to like episode 473 of respect to Process.

[00:56:11] Jordan Brady: Wow. Yeah. Which has led me to being on other podcasts. And the, if there's a practical tip, I would tell any of your listeners, uh, go on podcasts. Yeah. Getting the word out. And listeners, if you're interested in commercial directing. Yes. Brand a hundred dollars off. Very nice. And I've been a guest on many, many podcasts and, and I can say from the bottom of my heart that this one today is the most recent.

[00:56:40] Hersh Rephun: Oh, well thank you. Thank you. Because I know that you were about to do another one around, I don't know, in about a half hour before mine. No, I gave them the booth and you did not do it. You're, you're doing it probably

[00:56:53] Jordan Brady: next, I guess. Well, and thank you for sending over the deli platter before our recording.

[00:56:58] Jordan Brady: That's, [00:57:00] that's top shelf service right there. I didn't know if every guest got that, but that you sent it over with the cheeses and you knew I like soft cheeses and thank you.

[00:57:09] Hersh Rephun: Also, if I didn't do something with it, it would've turned. So, um, you know, my wife likes to entertain and there's always too much, always the orders too much.

[00:57:17] Hersh Rephun: And we just sent over what we had. I hope that you smelled it before you ate any of that to any of that gross beef. That

[00:57:24] Jordan Brady: yet another motto, smell it before you eat it. Smell

[00:57:27] Hersh Rephun: it before you eat it. Smell it before you eat it. Oh, second day deli, or no, eight day. Eight day deli. You know, you just can't beat it, but smell it before you eat

[00:57:40] Jordan Brady: it.

[00:57:41] Jordan Brady: I love, that's a good slogan. I would love Eight Day Deli. It's like there's a eight day deli. There's a strip club down the street from

[00:57:48] Hersh Rephun: my house. Hold on, let me get a pen. Yeah,

[00:57:50] Jordan Brady: yeah. A strip club. It used to be a comedy club that I performed at quite a bit. It was one of the hotspots on the west side of Los Angeles.

[00:57:59] Jordan Brady: It was called [00:58:00] Ibes Comedy Cabaret. It was a great club. Yeah. They even filmed a show there for Fox, like Fox Sunday Night Funnies or something. Yeah. Now it's a strip club called Plan B. Mm-hmm. I think it's just such a great name and when my boys were teenagers, we were in the car. They go, plan B, dad, what is that about?

[00:58:18] Jordan Brady: I said, well, I think Plan A was to meet girls that like you.

[00:58:24] Hersh Rephun: Well, you know, to meet girls that, to meet the plan A was to be more impressive than you ended up being. Yeah. You know, and let's just say on that night, on another night, you know, maybe you were impressive. Maybe you were, and maybe plan A was all you needed.

[00:58:43] Hersh Rephun: That's, uh, you know, I think if we aim for plan A, if we look at life as always, our plan A every day is a new plan. A I didn't mean for that to rhyme. I certainly, that is No, no, that's good. No, that's in your come out hokey like that. Well, now I'm just gonna put up [00:59:00] a bunch of, I'm gonna put up a bunch of inspirational mantras all over my wall and, you know, be a guru.

[00:59:07] Hersh Rephun: Be a

[00:59:07] Jordan Brady: gu. Bonus bonus, bonus tip guru for your listeners. Yes. Know when to cut bait. I just thought of that cuz you helped me with the diversity awards and press. About the hot sauce. And the hot sauce. I had a hot sauce. Oh, so delicious Hot sauce. Oh, so delicious. Yeah, you were a fan. You helped me with that and I thank you.

[00:59:31] Jordan Brady: But in the fall I realized I'm gonna launch this company, the beginning of 2023 True gent. You can see our work@truegent.tv and the My kids had started this hot sauce with me and we would ship it every Friday at the end of the day. Right, which was the workday was over, the east coast was closed. Jake and Ben would shoot commercials and Jake would come over and wear a bear [01:00:00] suit and we would film, put little posts up and we gave all the money to charity.

[01:00:03] Jordan Brady: By the way, I didn't make a dime. My wife would always be like, are we losing money on the hot sauce? So we gave the money to national military families. A wonderful charity for, for veterans and active duty families. So I still will, it's easier now just to give them donations. Yeah. Because my kids grew out of it.

[01:00:24] Jordan Brady: One's getting married, one went back to college, and so I'm left resentful, wrapping up, bubble wrapping, hot sauce, and I said, no, it's gotta be done. Yeah. And that was just as defining, it was hard because I loved it and I didn't wanna think it was a failure, but I realized no, it's, it's been four years.

[01:00:48] Jordan Brady: It's time has come. Yeah. It doesn't run itself. And it was a chapter. It was a chapter. So I think for your listeners, and you know, like you have had different ventures and you [01:01:00] know which ones stick and which ones don't. That's part of the fun of entrepreneurship. But the other thing I've been thinking just in this conversation, nothing I'm doing.

[01:01:11] Jordan Brady: Really, I'm not built to scale. And I think a lot of your Yes. Brand listeners, they want to scale and go big. Yeah. And that's fine. But when you talk about like, what have we learned from the pandemic, I'm happy servicing clients and giving them every bit of my attention. That's not to say I'm not prepping one job while shooting another.

[01:01:36] Jordan Brady: I'd love for that to, to continue. Yeah. Right. But I think it's okay to just be great and appreciate the job at hand versus trying to scale into some big production company. Even the film school. Like it's, I've licensed my products to another, to the Filmmakers Academy and to a couple other schools, colleges.

[01:01:59] Jordan Brady: But [01:02:00] that's not my, that's not my mo. Yeah. Like I'm happy being a boutique. I don't know what the lesson there is, but No, there is something you were saying wrapping up made me think of

[01:02:11] Hersh Rephun: that. No, I like that because the scaling thing is always comes up. You know, I'm a writer, I'm a creative, I'm an idea person.

[01:02:18] Hersh Rephun: It's I'm a problem solver. It's like, how do you scale that? I did realize that sharing what we know, which is something that you've, well, that's how we started the conversation. It was a wonderful way to wrap this up. Mm-hmm. Is that, you know, we started by talking about your generosity in sharing knowledge and information.

[01:02:37] Hersh Rephun: That's how you scale basically. The idea that only I can do this. This is never what you, what you thought. You thought, oh wow. Wouldn't it, shouldn't I share some information that I learned so that other people don't have to learn every single thing the way I did? You know? And that's what I've learned. So the stuff that I'm doing has value, not because [01:03:00] I'm gonna teach other people's specifically what to do, or hire 50 people underneath me to be writers.

[01:03:07] Hersh Rephun: You know, it's that whatever I've learned, whatever I'm doing, I'm gonna share and perpetuate the spirit. I think of what my, what worked for me. That's really

[01:03:19] Jordan Brady: it. And it takes a little bit of faith and a little bit of voodoo and woowoo. Yes. To sort of count on goodness will come back to you. Yeah.

[01:03:34] Jordan Brady: Regardless of your faith. Have faith that good things will happen. Yeah.

[01:03:41] Hersh Rephun: Yeah. I love it. I love it. I probably will stop recording there because otherwise we, I'll have, I'll

[01:03:47] Jordan Brady: have plenty, have too much to do. Hers. This has been a blast. Thank you, sir.

[01:03:52] Hersh Rephun: All right. If you like the show Yes. And it worked for you.

[01:03:58] Hersh Rephun: Yes. Subscribe and us. [01:04:00] Yes. Five star review. Yes. Tell all your friends, get your branding here. Yes. Get your branding here. Yes. Did I make it clear? Yes. Get your branding on? Yes. Before they're gone. Yes.