Shoot First: The Trials & Errors of a Wild 2023

Part III: The Unreal Weekly Roundup + Closing Thoughts / What’s Next

The Unreal Weekly Roundup is still in its infancy so there is still a lot left to unfold. This article will cover the biggest W of the newsletter and show the chain reaction it set off in terms of the brand.

The original intention of the newsletter is rooted in the current state of independent film. With the barrier to entry to making a movie so low, there is a total over saturation of content in the marketplace. To put it simply, besides family and friends, if a random person has the choice to watch the new Marvel movie or to watch my movie, which do you think they are picking? I am a firm believer in the cream rising to the top, but the competition still remains fierce.

It is for that reason that generating a pre-existing audience is such a valuable resource for filmmakers, and why I started the roundup. Naturally, things evolved, leading to the biggest win of the entire operation:

The Win: From the Unreal Weekly Roundup came an entire new slate of endeavors

Making the roundup is fun every week, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not a news person; writing and “creating” is truly my passion. Here are the various sub-endeavors sparked by the creation of the newsletter, all published under the banner “The Unreal Renegade” (Note: I am not calling myself “The Unreal Renegade as that would be a little unbearable. One day I hope to expand on bring on other like-minded to work together under the banner).

a. Unreal Reads. Articles varying in length about, well, anything I want. So far I’ve written about a trip I made with friends, fantasy blues (see above), and my origins. With only a few hundred readers per article, I wanted to expand my audience for these reads + the Roundup, so I started:

b. @unrealsherwynofficial. Formerly “The Unreal Renegade” until I realized how confusing that might be. Plus, people generally follow people, not brands. This became the hub for me to share content to people whose inboxing might be a little too cluttered for another newsletter.

Articles are a ton of fun, but they are admittedly long and God knows how many people actually read them. It is for this reason that I’m excited to announce, here first, that I will be launching:

c. The UnrealWorld Podcast (very much a working title). Video content is the way of the future, and I am completely cucking myself by sticking to the written word. I’d die before I put out click-baity reels and went full influencer, so I figured the podcast would be a good way to put out high quality content while staying true to myself.

The goal is to record and upload an ep once a week to supplement the roundup, reads, and, of course, the movie stuff. God I am about to be a very busy man…

Here is the projected slate for 2024:

(Note: the slate is very likely to change/evolve)

January: Shoot “Lil Brick Answers the Web’s Most Searched Questions”

Suuuuuper stoked for this one. Bringing back my boy JAtkins who some of you may know as the Concierge in the Help Me I’m Stuck! trailer to play a rapper in this parody of the famous Wired video series. Even got a vocal cameo from a famous rapper-turned-actor who will remain nameless until he sends me his lines.

April: Shoot my first ever feature.

I’ve got a working title and script in mind but I’m holding it close to the chest until I commit to that particular one.

With a modest budget, this thing is going to be closer to a Clerks (1992) or Puffy Chair (2005). We’re going to lean heavily on good writing and guerilla filmmaking to get this one done; it feels irresponsible in this market to put all your financial eggs in one basket when you’ve never even made a full length movie before. The April feature will be a great exercise on filmmaking, as well as create a product that I will be able to use to attract bigger actors and investors with for my next one.

May: Launch UnrealWorld

I’ve got a lot of ducks to put in a row before I go live with this one, so I will be spending the first half of 2024 prepping and getting organized for the debut. Plus, it doesn’t feel responsible to undertake such a big venture while prepping for my first ever feature (wow 2 responsible decisions in a row, is this what growing up is like?). Regardless, UnrealWorld is gonna be a schmanger and a ton of fun. Wish I had more but, like I said, still in its incubation period.

September: Shoot the big one.

Hopefully and probably Help Me I’m Stuck!, September is when all my knowledge and training will pay off. The plan is to use the proof of concept trailer + my April feature to generate the financing needed to make this one a banger. Fingers crossed.

Well, there you have it folks. I know I’m exhausted from writing all of these, you better be exhausted from reading them (there will be a quiz on the contents of this series on Tuesday, I’ll assume you’re staying in on New Years Eve to study.)

I’ll leave you with the common denominator of all of this and the ultimate lesson:

Shoot first, ask questions later.

None of this could have been planned. I sincerely mean that. Well, it was planned, and that plan got blown to smithereens, birthing another plan, which was blown to smithereens, and so on and so forth.

I’m not going to sit here on an ivory tower and tell you how I “never gave up” and I “kept dreaming despite the adversity” and yada yada yada. I never did give up and I did keep dreaming despite adversity, but those are just the bare requirements necessary to play the game.

And a lot of people do play the game, they just hold the ball too long. They look for that perfect pass and, by the time they decide to throw the ball, that previously open receiver is covered and they’re being taken down by a 300 pound defensive tackle called life as the clock runs down to zero.

What I’m proposing is this: it may not be a perfectly clean window to throw through, but making a play is better than getting sacked. Throw an incompletion, throw a checkdown pass to your running back for 4 yards, do something to move the ball down field, because something is better than getting sacked, and the worst thing you can do is to let that clock run out, like so many people unfortunately do in life.

Unless you go for it, you’ll never know what can happen, and even your failures bring the opportunity to learn and for unexpected success that you couldn’t have even conjured had you not tried.

So go ahead, try to make the best plan possible, wait for that golden once in a lifetime opportunity that may or may not come, keep telling yourself “once ___ happens, then I’ll do it”, and watch life lay down an illegal hit on a defenseless player (you).

Or, you can do the brave thing, make plays, get the ball down field and, even if you don’t get in the end zone, you might just be in field goal range. But in order for that to happen, one thing is for sure. You need to:

Shoot First.

I understand that the above is not a perfect analogy but I’m writing this with the Chiefs vs Bengals and the Chargers vs Broncos games playing in another tab; football is on the brain rn. Had 3 teams go to the finals this year, 1 lost and I’m waiting for the other 2 to wrap. Need 3 more tackles from Khalil Mack to win one (we play with an IDP, don’t ask.) and for Isiah Pacheco and Ty Chandler to outscore Kelce in the other. Feeling pretty good about both.

UPDATE: Won both. LFG.

Help a brotha out: