Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, everyone, Jim Phoenix here. And today's special, what's cracking is special indeed. We've got a trifector. We've got award winning writer, producer, voice actor, all around great person to have. Wonderful hang. We got none other than Ren Valentino coming. And at the end. That's right, we have a special offer. We're giving away five copies of his books. Go click on through the other side. See you soon. Hit it.
Hey, everyone. Jim Phoenix here. And in today's what's cracking, we've got a little bit of a trifecta. We've got an award winning writer, film producer and voice actor and none other than Ren Valentino. Ren, pleased to meet you.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Thank you, sir. Happy, very happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: You're happy to be here. I'm excited to talk to you. I have to say, I may have looked up some of your stuff before coming on more in depth than I usually do, and I love what I see. You're eclectic. It goes all over the place, but it's all polished, it's all well done, it's all gripping.
Wow. Thank you. What's your secret? What's your secret in juggling three different careers?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: No sleep. No.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: No sleep till Brooklyn. I think that's BC Brooklyn. Yeah.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: No, no, just a couple of things, really. Um, just a passion for telling stories would be, I think, above all, that kind of just drives me.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Really great support system that makes it all possible and then just, um, I'm not the most self disciplined, so just trying to, like, adhere to the best time management that. That I can find that works. Um, and just a curiosity about the world and people and their stories and how I can capture them and share them in some capacity, I think is really behind all of that, that, you know, the productivity, if you will, I think you.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: You nail it on the head. It's the being able to capture and tell the stories of people.
Right. I think that pushes a lot of us as artists even. Sometimes the story might be our own, but it's also the, oh, you know, I heard this about or I love talking to people who live through something that no one believes them, and it's just getting that story. So what brought you into the world of art?
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Oh, teachers. My teachers.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Really?
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I just. I don't come from a particularly creative family, which I'm sure they would all admit. And so, you know, at the age of seven, my first grade, second grade teacher misses Carter, who I'll forever be indebted to. Right. Because everybody has to have a misses Carter at some point in their life.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Right, Miss Richards?
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.
She asked us to write a Halloween story, of all things. And I turned it a five page sort of mini epic about a woman. It was called the Blue Witch. And it was about a woman who didn't want to be a witch anymore. And it was this emotionally complex character that a seven year old probably had no business writing, but. And then she kept me after class and I thought I was in trouble and it was just to tell me that, you know, to keep writing. And she, she reached out to my mom and said, you know, he's really creative and can encourage this. And my mom saved up and got me a secondhand typewriter when I was 13.
So I taught myself how to type. And then I published my first short story when I was 15 and just kept going from there. And. But I think. I think the misses Carter's. In my life, I've had many great teachers that really saw something in me even before I did. And, like, in a world that doesn't always support creativity, I found that luckily that people just were like, this is what you're supposed to be doing. And so just having all of that, that encouragement at a young age, I think, gave me that sort of.
I don't know if I call it fearless, but just more of that. That willingness to take risk and to do something that not everybody else was doing and tell stories. And I was a big reader, too, I think.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Books definitely brought me into this world.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a combination. I think people don't give teachers enough credit for this, or mentors or peers. Sometimes when a child is developing, if you encourage the imagination, they will flourish. If you. The moment you say something negative about their imagination, they shut down forever.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah, like forever.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Lost opportunity for that. I'm so glad you had someone to make it into a short story about a witch who no longer wants to be a witch. I'm pretty sure. The other thing was like, we need to talk about, is everything okay at home? You know, I was imagining that story, like, and they asked me if everyone was okay. I was at home. They called my mom.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
Like, well, that's one an amazing thing. And you taught yourself how to type on the old typewriters that you had to really pound those keys.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Smith and Corona manual typewriter with the. With the red or the black on top and the red on bottom? Ribbon. Change every so many pages.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: I am very familiar with those. That's the reason why I destroyed so many keyboards. Once it went to, you know, the computers came out.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Because we're like, bam, bam, bam, bam. The keys like, no, stop hurting me.
So you go from short story writing.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: And then how do you transition that into film?
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Well, you know, interestingly enough, my background was in theater. I started working in theater at a very, very young age. Theater was such a great community for somebody who, growing up, didn't always fit in, in the wherever. And so, so it was such a great safe space again, provided by teachers. And so theater was really how I transitioned from. From film. The film is an interesting story of how I got into film. I'd written a stage play called Frozen Stars that was produced in this really, like, blink and you'll miss it. Theater in Chicago. I kid you not, it was underneath a freeway overpass way above the theater. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think there was maybe six people a night in the audience, but a woman, God bless her to this day, named Belle Hernandez, who I knew the spanish teacher on Beverly Hills, 90210. So I was a little starstruck, happened to be in town in Chicago. I was an undergrad at a college in Chicago, and I was so broke, I wrote Frozen stars in the computer lab at the school because I couldn't afford.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: And fast forward. We self produced this play and she happened to be in town for a latino film festival, had the night off. The play, Frozen Stars, was a latina themed play. And she saw little blurb and the Chicago reader and jumped into Tackley and came and Sarah play went back to LA and wrote about it in like a latino trade public. Really? Yeah. And then two weeks later, I was on the phone with Miramax and it was that crazy. And I didn't sell it to Miramax, but we ended up working with a subsidiary of Sony. But just that mention, that validity, that credibility that she gave me as a writer with something that was worth taking a look at.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Right?
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Opened up so many doors again, somebody stepping in and helping me in a really great way.
And then it just kind of kick started it. And then they had hired a film director to direct Frozen Stars, because again, I came from theater, I wrote the screenplay, the adaptation, which they made me go through 32 rewrites for. But that's a story for another time, for sure.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: And two nights before they went into production, the director left the project for another project. And they called me in a panic and said, is there any way you can direct this film? Because you're the only one who knows this. And so I literally became a film director on accident by default, because the original director stepped away. And I made everybody wear name tags the first day with their name and their title. And so I walked around. I was like, who are you? Like, I'm so and so. I'm the gaffer. Great. Nice to meet you. What do you do?
What's a gaffer? Yeah, I literally had to get film training, like, on the job, but I had a really awesome director of photography for frozen stars who carried me and that film through, through the process. The technical side of things, the performance side, I felt pretty confident in because of directing theater, like, I knew how to get, you know, but the technical side about lighting and all those, and we were shooting on 35 millimeter, so it was very cool, but it worked, and it's out in the world, so. And then from there, I really, I don't. I found out very quickly that I prefer writing over directing, not just because of that experience, but. And then I. The writing, screenwriting just started to really it again, it's another form of storytelling. It's different than the, you know, fictional, the narrative storytelling on the page in terms of short stories and novels. But, you know, I think having all of those experiences on the technical side made me a better screenwriter because screenplays are so technical often, and you're really telling something in moving picture form, so it kind of informed each other, and then. Yeah. And then the film producing kind of grew out of the screen writing, and I still do both, and I enjoy both a lot. And I've worked, got to work with some really amazing filmmakers, especially, you know, on the indie side of things and a couple of international films and so forth.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: So I had been looking at your IMDb, and it's everything I want the review, by the way, like, all your titles, like, oh, my God, how do I not see this one? Like, I want to review all these, and it's. It's wonderful. I have a couple questions about screenwriting, from directing to screenwriting, again, back to producing, because I also, I have a screenplay once again, no, I also have done the screenwriting thing for, you know, doctoring or doing whatever scripts. Do you write with a budget in mind? Because you know what it takes to be a producer and director? You're like, oh, my God, I can have this, like, car explosion here. What the hell's wrong with me?
[00:10:19] Speaker B: I absolutely do. I write in terms of locations and the amount of them.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: The night shoots versus the day shoots. Okay, so. So I am a very. I like to think of myself as a very producer friendly production. Right. Thoughtful screenwriter in that right aspect. Because figuring out how to tell the story with less so that all the money is on the screen, if that makes any sense.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: No, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. We've seen some movies with budgets that I won't announce the movie, like, yeah, we blew up a helicopter. I'm like, that was your entire budget. Yeah, you blew up. What's one shot? You're done. The entire budget. Everything else was like, you know, craft service was a bottled water. Like, here you go. Here's a bottle water. Good luck.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Maybe a cookie.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: But it's actually an airline cookie. They flew over and, like, stole some.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Right?
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
But that's an amazing. It's amazing.
You know, it's inspirational, really. You. You got that push. And I'm wondering, because she pushed you, is that why you also want to produce? Giving people a little bit their own push?
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and I don't know if you know the actress Felissa Rose, who was in.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Okay. She. She was the sole reason to get me into. We. She and I, we've had. We've hung out a few times. And I produce a lot of her films and have been in some of her stuff as a voice actor. But we met. Gosh, probably it was a year and a half ago, I think it was. And I had done some producing at that point. But we had a conversation about it, and she really encouraged me to do more. And so I jumped into a couple projects she was a part of. So I really am grateful to her. But then she. She is exactly what you just talked about if you've ever interviewed her. But she is the epitome of pay it forward in a really beautiful way. And so she's all about connecting people and, like, really, like, seeing something and saying, this is what you need to do more of. Like, she's kind of like an unofficial life coach. I hope she doesn't mind me saying this, but I had that conversation with her, and it was very transformative. And that's when I really, like, rolled up my sleeves and was like, yes, I really need to do more of this.
But I think the producing definitely informs the screenwriting. And the screenwriting forms the producing in a really nice way. They balance each other.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: Now I have to, because I know some people listening right now, I have to make a clarification. This is Felicia Rose, the person who might be looking at the penis inspectors for the last drive in, which. Oh, Bob Briggs. Is that the same school sleepaway camp?
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Sleepaway camp for icon legend.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Beautiful. I'm like, yeah, I think we've, we've seen fliss of it for, no, she's.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: An amazing human being, truly one of the nicest people in the industry and with a big heart. And I just absolutely adore her. But she really, she really encouraged me to continue to explore that. And so, you know, within that time, I think I've worked on 30 films because of, because of her encouragement.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: So as right as both of you should, I believe she, by encouraging you, made a lot of other art come to being through you. And I love it. Yeah, I can almost go through if I read your titles out loud.
All my people are like, yeah, no, I want to see this. Like, I'm not going to say attack the corn zombies. Yeah, cool.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great, that's Acrostar films, who's a wonderful. There they are producing a really lot of cool. It's sort of a little bit of a throwback to those 1950s Sci-Fi drive in.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: You know, like, like all those great, like Roger Corman kind of early produce on a shoestring budget with all the money into the creature, so. Yeah, but I love that. I love Akrostar for that reason, because they're producing that kind of film and it's so interesting and it's needed, you know, in the horror landscape, and then it's kind of like old horror meets new horror in a really cool way. So. Yeah.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: And that's what I really like about your work. It is a lot of things that, you know, haunted MTL believes in, and it is coming from this. Honest to God, when you're reading this on the screen, I'm talking to you, I'm like, okay, you really live this. You really love this genre. You are into helping people out. You're what the movie and entertainment industry needs the most.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Oh, thank you for that. I appreciate that.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Absolutely. Anytime. I know, like, gushing right now. And I have to say, as a fellow person from Chicago who've probably seen that theater, I was directions, you know.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: If you're from Chicago, I'm sure you know it well. Not far from Western Avenue.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
It's like, I'm like, that's a small world.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: So you have this great career in the film industry and you're like, I want to make books.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: How do you do? How do you shift your brain into that?
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a very interesting question because, I mean, it's all storytelling when you think about it, but it's different form. And I think that's if I ever have a struggle, it's coming up with an idea and a creative idea and then going, okay, what's the form to tell this, then? Is this a poem? Is this a novel?
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: And sometimes I try it in a different form first and then go, it doesn't. This is not working. And so then I'll move over. So I think that's kind of the one of the advantages of working in different genres and different forms, different, you know, screenplays, all the different things I do. But, um, all of it, at the end of the day, is just connected to storytelling. And I think, at the end of the day, I'm so lucky to be able to tell stories in different formats and different genres and that the audiences and the readers show up for those things in those different formats and genres. But, um, it is. It is kind of a little bit of a hat switch, a little bit of a creativity switch. I find the novels take a lot more out of me than the screenplays. I think just because of the way that they're written and that there's so much research sometimes with a novel and so much revision. Not to say I don't revise screenplays, but the revision process, the editing process alone in a novel, different. It's very, very taxing. So it's a labor of love.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: It is. For those that know, especially for a screenplay, you can get away with some stuff on a screenplay because eventually the studio was making it is gonna make their own decision. And, you know, for sure to see the screenplay itself.
Novels, not so much. That is what people see. That is the product that, like, that's what it has to be. Very polished. And I'm looking at some of their genres right now. Just a little haunted.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: The mystery we've been talking about. Cozy. So I need to know a little bit about this.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: It's my first. It's my first cozy. And it's, like, outsold everything that, of course. Right. Like the ones that you do. So we're actually. So. Just a little. Just a little haunted start. It's a. It's a series that's. That's the first one in a series. And the rest of the series doesn't come out yet. And I came up with this really fun character, Stella Sabatino, who's a parapsychologist, investigator, and has, you know, this sassy cat, of course. Because you have to have a sassy cat, of course. Yeah. Yeah.
And a great assistant and so forth. She's an american living in the UK. And while she's grieving the death of her husband, which is still kind of a little bit of a mysterious death backstory, parallel story. She's serving as this. She's going into these places that people claim are haunted to prove that they are aren't. And so it's just kind of a fun thing. I did it kind of as a side project, and then it literally blew up. And I was like, who knew? Who knew?
Just a little. Hana's getting expanded to a full, full length novel, and I've committed to three of those, those books in the next year.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: It's wonderful. I mean, I just got back talking about this, so it's really fresh, my mind, especially the cozy. I look at the COVID I love the colors. I love the way she's looking at the house. Everything is centered perfectly. The font is spot on. It's a short story mystery and your name. But underneath it, it reminds me of a great poster for a movie. Oh, like the throwbacks, you know, reveals, you don't know. Movie posters go through, like, revisions every so often, and there's just style revisions themselves. And this bit, it's so warm and yet it's spooky. It's Halloween. Yeah, it's really Halloween.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: And I can't take any credit for the COVID I have. I work with an amazing cover designer named James who runs a company called go on. Right, like, writ right in the UK. And he's. I've worked with him for years and he does great work all the time and. Really nice guy to work with.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Well, this is amazing. And I like the differences of the things you write.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: I'm looking, the branding.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: Everything is. Everything is there. Everything is there. But I have to ask.
Souvenir boys.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: A collection of poetry. So even doing a poetry book.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Yes, I just finished my. It hasn't come out yet, but I just finished my third poetry collection, walking in the underground. I won't come out till next fall of 2025, but, yeah, poetry was one of my first loves. Again, a great teacher, a teacher knew I was interested in writing and put a book in my hand called the country between us by Carolyn Forshay. When I was a very young undergrad at a community college. And it. I read it cover to cover multiple times and said, yeah, I want to be a poet. I want to write poetry. My, of course, early poetry was really bad poetry, but I think every poet would say that. But, um, I, you know, I love poetry because of the brevity of language within poetry, of writing in a sense of rhythm. It gives you. It gives your language and musicality. And I. And I use all of that in other forms of writing, too. So I think poetry is like my purest form of writing in terms of technical technicalities. Technical writing, I guess, if you will, like learning the mechanics of it.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: And then I just use that in other places. But I don't write the poetry as much as the other things. Not because I don't love it, but just. It's harder to fit in sometimes. And it's not. It's a completely different market in a completely different world.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Oh, no, I.
I bet it is. I bet it is. And I'm wondering, because you do have this love for poetry. Does that. And you bring into other things. Does that affect your rhythm for dialogue?
[00:21:03] Speaker B: Dialogue is my favorite. So I will tell you, Jim, that I am a professional eavesdropper.
Aren't we all?
I get so many stories from going to target and watching parenting happen in front of you.
I just. There's so many stories out there. I feel like I'm just a story. I'm a satellite, really. I'm a story detective, and I just hear it. Dialogue is such. That's. It's probably why I'm driven. Or driven, like, to or appealed. Stage plays and screenplays are so appealing to me because they're so dialogue driven.
I feel like, as a writer, that dialogue is my strong suit. And I feel like I just get the sense, the way that people talk authentically to each other, that translate wells for the reading or viewing experience. But, yes, to answer your question, the poetry has definitely strengthened the dialogue because of all of those elements of poetry that are alive. Good dialogue.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. I think some of the best ways to really get in your creative juices is to go into poetry. And then back in the day, it would be what's not gonna name its new name. But Twitter made people write more succinctly how many characters I get? Like, how do I say this? You know, it really made your dialogue more punchy because you had to do it in that short form. Now, if you were gonna give the younger version of you some advice, as someone looking back on a pretty decent, amazing career and multiple genres, what would be advice you give?
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Choose your battles carefully.
My immediate instinct, this is gonna sound horrible and so Hollywood, but, like, have a good attorney. No, I was gonna.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: I was gonna say. I was going, I think this is probably the teacher and me speaking. I would have this conversation with myself, which I did study writing. I just was late to the studying of writing. I had to. I made the choice to go back in the middle of my career in LA to finish grad school and so forth. Very glad that I did. No regrets there. I think it would just to be just to continue to study the craft and just know, the more you know about those mechanics we talked about earlier, the better the writing will be and to. To stick to your guns. You know your story better than anybody else will, and your story is going to matter to you more than it's going to matter to anybody else. And also, too, I feel like looking back because I'm kind of at this more like retrospective, part of the other side of the career kind of thing.
I can look back and see taking those brave choices with content and telling the story that you wanted to read as a young person. Somebody had asked me once, it was another author I was teaching at a low residency program, and she said, do you write for you or do you write for the younger version of you? And I thought, yeah, I do. I write for the younger version of myself. So keeping in touch with that younger version of self like you were talking about, like, going back and telling the younger self, what advice would you give and just, you know, it's such a. It's such a. It's such an interesting life in so many. It's so unconventional. It's, you know, that's not the nine to five. It's not. The way you measure successes is really up to you.
There's no sort of prescribed formula of this, you know, I mean, of course there's the accolades and all those. Those benchmark kind of things, but for your own personal journey is to really determine what those levels of success are for you. And then when you meet them, to really celebrate them for yourself, because a lot of hard work went into getting.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's what people sometimes miss, is this celebration. It's okay to celebrate your success.
No one else is going to trust me.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Right, exactly. I mean, you have a 32nd dance party in your living room.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Yeah. It doesn't have to be like, you get a cupcake and that's it, man.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Go on. And that's the thing. It's. A lot of people try to say, like, well, especially today's consumer or into, you know, everyone's the instant celebrity for 15 minutes.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Right?
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Like, oh, I didn't have, like, 3 million likes on my instagram. I'm a failure. No, no, you're not a failure. For that, you. You need to define your level if that's your level of success, then go for it. But your level of success, what's going to make you happy as a creator? Be true to your story, because there's a lot of people who want to change it. And the thing is, story, it's your story. And I love what you say. Like someone successful as you and as accomplish as you saying, don't change your story. Be true to that. That's an amazing piece of advice, and I love it.
I'm going to follow up with this out of nowhere voice acting. How'd you get into that voice acting? I know, I told you, I'm nowhere.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: No, no, no. It was, it's so. Okay, so during the pandemic, like, everybody else had a lot of time on my hands, right?
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: And a really wonderful actress named Nancy Sullivan, who was known for, like, josh and Drake from Nickelodeon, was offering a voice class for animation.
I had done some acting in the past, and I had a couple people like, oh, your voice would be great for voiceover. Kind of. So, no, whatever. So I took this class, and then I just fell in love with it. And then a casting director friend of mine was, and I took the class, and then the pandemic, you know, and then kind of just forgotten about. And then a casting director friend of mine, she reached out and I posted something. I had done some video on TikTok or something, and she's like, your voice would be really good for this project. Can I submit you? And I'm like, sure. So she's like, record this. Do this. So I sent her everything she wanted, and then she called me back. She's like, I got you booked for three movies. And I was like, what?
[00:26:59] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: And so it just kind of like, opened up this whole new door. There's kind of like pandora's box a little bit. Opened up this whole new world to me. And I just finished doing the voiceover this week for my 15th feature film.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: It's a lot of, like, newscaster, radio caller, the sassy best friend. But it's fun. It's fun. I have a little, like, home studio, and I go in there and record stuff, and then you, it's all digital and remote. It's so perfect. You don't have to go to set and you just record it and send that file to the, whoever, the producer, director, whoever asked for it. And, you know, you do multiple takes and all that kind of stuff, so they have choices. And then you hear your voice on a project and it's really fun. And I worked a lot with SRS Cinema, and you're probably familiar with them because of all the horror stuff that you do.
And they've been great to work with and they've been very, very collaborative in that way. So it's a lot of fun. So, yeah, it's kind of, it was a side project that went that, again, that turned into something a little bit bigger. So, and I just kind of, when those, when that happens, and I think everybody did just go with it because you never know where it's going to take you.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: Oh, you never do. And especially during the pandemic, we're like, oh, we're making move. We're not making anything.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: About my tv show, you can't go in people's houses, right?
Like, oh, voice. You can still do voice. Yeah, still. Someone's gonna animate and you're gonna do the voiceovers, you're gonna do the commercial, you're gonna do everything else. And I think right now, the Internet still the equalizer of correct me if, please do correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm hearing is you no longer have to do the cattle calls, where you go to location, you read it off and you get back to you. You can just like, submit it, send it through the website. Yeah, they get back to you. Great. Otherwise, keep rock and rolling. Put your portfolio up on online so people can listen to you or see your stuff. It's become a little more friendly if you want to market that way.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Yes, for sure. Yeah. I think the entire industry has had to shift, and I think some of those shifts that happened during the pandemic are still, they found that it's, it's, in terms of cost, in terms of, you know, workload, in terms of everything.
I mean, it's happened to a lot of industries when you think about it. But, but what's, what's left behind is like what you were saying. Everything's so digital now, you know, and especially in voice acting because it's all about, you know, MB, three files.
And which, as you were stating, the technology makes it all possible now. So, you know, I've been able to work on 15 films from, you know, my bedroom studio without ever leaving my house. It's, it's an introvert stream come true. What do you think about it? But, but, yeah, no, it's, and I think, I think that it's going to continue to happen. I think that acting, film acting and television acting, you know, and especially with all the things that have happened recently with with unions and so forth has really revolutionized, you know, I mean, the way that we go about casting and producing and filming even has changed completely. So, I mean, I mean, yeah, it's, you know, it's rare that things are being even shot on film nowadays. So it's, it's, it's definitely transformed in so many ways. It's a very fast moving industry on that, in that way that just, things are constantly changing. The way we're producing things changes a lot, so.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: Oh, the way we consume things and the way we record things. I remember when Danny Boyle's film came out because he was the big, you know, digital release on the big screen. If you're like, oh, it's gonna look like crap. It's digital. It looked fantastic.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Very pristine. Yeah.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: I was like, whoa. Now I'm seeing, like, movies that were done by two iPhones. Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: And you, and that's what I'm so excited about filmmaking is those people who do those first time things that change everything that comes after those pioneers that you just gotta, you know, give props to those folks because, you know, it takes somebody to come in and be like, but wait, let's try it this way. And then they prove it to be successful and then everybody follows suit. But, but I admire those people that, those risk takers that jump in there and say, nope, let's try it this way. And then they, they prove us right or wrong. And it's a really cool thing.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: We need them. We need them. We need more people like you. We honestly do. It's been wonderful. I, I said we're gonna. 20 minutes. It's already past 30. My fault. Usually I like.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: No, you're good. Great time. I appreciate it.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: Oh, I appreciate it. What are you working on? I know this might come out sometime in October. Yeah, Halloween. What are you working on now? What are you working on?
[00:31:32] Speaker B: So I just finished a couple of screenplays. One is called scare me, kill me. And it's out on submission right now. It's a throwback to the 1980s slasher flicks set in a boarding school in the middle of nowhere. And it's all about a game, sort of a truth and derek gone wrong. That's out right now on submission. So hopefully we hear back on that soon. And I'm working on a really fun horror screenplay right now called executive, about a very lonely office worker who finds a portal in her office building, like sort of a time travel portal to another sort of existence, parallel life, where she's the executive. And to maintain that lifestyle, she is required to kill people in her current lifetime. So it's sort of a serial killer, killer gone, office worker.
It's definitely a hybrid project, but my beta readers have really been liking it, so I think I'm in good, good shape.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: It's fantastic. Wouldn't you. I mean, like, I would be like, I don't know, maybe. And then once you start doing one.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: Right, it's kind of an addition.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: It's like a tattoo.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: That's what I've been told.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: So. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, just. And I have on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I have a urban dance romance novel coming out in February, Ass Beat, which has been a lot of fun to write. So it's really love story. So set in Chicago.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: You got me. You said anything in Chicago except for apparently a football team, but actually they're doing better.
It's been a long decade or two.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: You have me, Chicago. I'm there. And this is why I love your background. I love talking to you, because we went from the slasher throwback to the let's kill someone to be rich, the intergenerate, and to the urban.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Makes for an interesting day. Always.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: It has to. It has to rent. Where can we find you on social media?
[00:33:37] Speaker B: I'm all over social media. So. Ren Valentino, everywhere. Instagram, please. If you're a writer that I can help in some way, never, never hesitate to reach out. I'm all about pay it forward. Happy to connect you with resources if I can. If I can. So renvalentino.com is my website. All the things that are there that you would need to connect.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. And not because I'm just feeling generous, generous. But I really do love these mysteries. So for the first five people. First five people. Just a little haunted. Estella, 17. Oh, mystery. If you contact me through socials, we'll get you to your door. On us.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Five copies on us. I want to spread this love and it's really a great, great thing to do. Just take it out and read. We all need more reading.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you this and for what.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: You do well, thank you for appearing. And as always, thanks for everything. And I hope to see you soon. And always feel free to drop us a line. And remember, it's all been fun until you get lost in the corn maze and you got some zombies chasing after you. I'm guessing that's the book. Not the book. That's the film. Yeah, that's the movie. I knew it. Thanks, everyone. Bye.
