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[2:04] Michelle Simone Miller: Welcome to a new episode of Mentors on the Mic Podcast.

[2:07] Michelle Simone Miller: I'm your host, Michelle Simone Miller, a New York City native actress with credits in film, TV, commercials, and off-Broadway.

[2:15] Michelle Simone Miller: I'm so excited for this casting director series we're doing.

[2:19] Michelle Simone Miller: It's a three-week series brought to you by Casting Networks.

[2:23] Michelle Simone Miller: And this particular episode is with a casting director that I've admired for a really long time, that I've been a reader in his office for, that I've auditioned for.

[2:32] Michelle Simone Miller: Oh my God, we talk about one of the auditions that I did years ago, and I was like, ugh, it's not a good look.

[2:39] Michelle Simone Miller: Um, but he was really kind about it in the moment.

[2:42] Michelle Simone Miller: Um, but yeah, it's a really great interview.

[2:44] Michelle Simone Miller: This is really geared to my actors, right?

[2:46] Michelle Simone Miller: This particular episode, I took all the questions that I asked him about acting, and I put it in this episode for you.

[2:54] Michelle Simone Miller: This little mini-series brought to you by Casting Networks, which I've used since I think 2010.

[3:00] Michelle Simone Miller: I've had a profile on that.

[3:02] Michelle Simone Miller: So highly recommend.

[3:04] Michelle Simone Miller: And this particular episode, we talk about everything from how many actors do they ask for self-tape.

[3:09] Michelle Simone Miller: He talks about the submission process and whether he does it himself and he looks through all our headshots or he leaves it to his team.

[3:16] Michelle Simone Miller: I also asked him about actor reels, because that's been coming up for me and my friends recently, like updating your actor reels.

[3:23] Michelle Simone Miller: And I asked him, does he actually even look at actor reels?

[3:26] Michelle Simone Miller: And does he watch them? Does he care about them?

[3:29] Michelle Simone Miller: We also get into whether social media and fame is something that gets baked into casting and what's his relationship to those things, as well as how can actors stay on his radar right now and the projects that he's currently casting.

[3:44] Michelle Simone Miller: He also talked about this really fun project that he directed.

[3:48] Michelle Simone Miller: Uh, he directed a series that where the pilot episode is gonna premiere at Tribeca in June.

[3:56] Michelle Simone Miller: So I'm so excited.

[3:57] Michelle Simone Miller: I'll be attending the premiere for that.

[3:59] Michelle Simone Miller: And it's a really great block.

[4:01] Michelle Simone Miller: It's really exciting.

[4:02] Michelle Simone Miller: We talk about how he got into directing in this particular series called Mother May I Have a Kidney, which is premiering in the Tribeca Now section of the festival.

[4:11] Michelle Simone Miller: And he talks about, you know, the biggest responsibilities he feels like actors are facing right now in auditioning.

[4:17] Michelle Simone Miller: So without further ado, here's PAUL SCHNEE.

[4:23] Michelle Simone Miller: Okay. So let's do a little thing for a lot of the actors who are listening.

[4:27] Michelle Simone Miller: Can you break down for me how you decide what actors to bring in for auditions?

[4:31] Michelle Simone Miller: And what I mean by that, without getting too technical, is just that my basic understanding from just talking to different casting directors is that obviously you create a breakdown, as you mentioned, or description of a role.

[4:41] Michelle Simone Miller: Um, and do you come up immediately with care with actors that you think would be right for that role, or do you immediately just look to the submissions that you get for that breakdown?

[4:53] PAUL SCHNEE: Right. I mean, work on your end. The answer to a lot of these procedural questions for me is it depends.

[4:59] PAUL SCHNEE: Okay. You know, when you're talking about the leads for a let's say a five million dollar independent film, just to pick a sort of standard, you know, typical project for us, as we were talking about before, there will be sort of the wish, if not need for some actors with career or, you know, pro high profile name.

[5:20] PAUL SCHNEE: So it's entirely possible that we'll put out a breakdown with, you know, say the top three or four leads listed, but we'll never audition them because we'll just make straight offers.

[5:29] PAUL SCHNEE: I try not to do that because I don't like to torture the agents, although they torture us.

[5:34] PAUL SCHNEE: But you know, I don't want to like go through the motions of reading lots of people.

[5:37] PAUL SCHNEE: And when we're more into like the what I will call like the working actor roles, you know, coast, what they call co-stars on television, day players or supporting roles.

[5:48] PAUL SCHNEE: I mean, it's sort of a combination.

[5:50] PAUL SCHNEE: There are, I'm not gonna lie, and I'm sure I would think that most of my peers would say the same thing.

[5:56] PAUL SCHNEE: You know, there's like a not even a list, you know, say just a gang of, you know, I don't know, 50, 100 actors that I really love, love bringing into audition virtually or otherwise.

[6:09] PAUL SCHNEE: Um, and so it's a combination of that plus what the agents are, you know, are submitting.

[6:15] Michelle Simone Miller: No, that means that's perfect. It's great.

[6:16] Michelle Simone Miller: And then I hate asking this question, but I want to ask a version of it.

[6:20] Michelle Simone Miller: So normally I would ask something like how many self-tapes approximately per role, because people care about that stuff.

[6:27] Michelle Simone Miller: But do you have an idea?

[6:28] Michelle Simone Miller: I mean, it's changed so much.

[6:30] Michelle Simone Miller: I think this is why I want to ask this.

[6:31] Michelle Simone Miller: It's changed so much since COVID and since it's been reliant completely on self-tapes.

[6:36] Michelle Simone Miller: And I think I've heard you say this at the SAG After panel a while back, a few a couple months ago.

[6:42] Michelle Simone Miller: But how many do you think approximately per, let's say day player or co-star supporting role?

[6:47] PAUL SCHNEE: I mean, again, it depends.

[6:49] PAUL SCHNEE: Depends.

[6:49] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah, that's fair.

[6:51] PAUL SCHNEE: Because if you're talking about even if it's a supporting role of say, you know, I don't know, a kid or someone with a specific language ability or something I might try to cover, you know, cover my bases a lot more.

[7:05] PAUL SCHNEE: If it's, I'm just gonna be completely on, you know, the if it's if it's if it's easy to find for lack of a better way to put it, I will probably I like to watch a lot of tapes and I like to give directors options depending on how they like to work which we can talk about in a second but I would say 50 as a just a very like sort of standard you know ish yeah around that's really between 30 and 50.

[7:34] PAUL SCHNEE: I mean the other thing too is that a directors, you know, are different and so some directors even in the even in the before times when we were in the room some directors for coast uh day players or supporting roles would just do it off tape and not have callbacks.

[7:34] PAUL SCHNEE: Some directors like to meet in person shake hands with look in the eyes of everyone who's gonna say even a syllable in their movie you know and so it depend and then just to back up a little bit even when every even when we were in the room there's still you know breakdown has a a virtual uh platform to present auditions some directors will say send you know for for for Kelly the babysitter send me the your you know just just send me your top five ten three choices some directors will say send me everybody but let me know who your picks are and I'll look at those first but I want to be able to see everybody else too just in case you so it I follow the director's lead as to how and that will then affect honestly how many people I bring in because it would you know if if a director's gonna say only send me your five choices I might bring in fewer people and you know keep keep have the top five to send the director and then maybe you know another five or ten sort of in the bank in case he or she is displeased with those choices.

[8:55] Michelle Simone Miller: So that's smart.

[8:56] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah, yeah it sort of depends.

[8:57] PAUL SCHNEE: And I think also what I always tell actors too.

[8:59] PAUL SCHNEE: This is a and they people I I'm sure actors don't like hearing this, but you know, the numbers are so terrible for actors that you know in a weird way I feel like you should one of your goals should be to come back.

[9:13] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah.

[9:14] PAUL SCHNEE: Because the numbers say that you're probably not gonna book the job.

[9:17] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah.

[9:17] PAUL SCHNEE: And so I do, I mean, I have brought in people for things sometimes years later who auditioned for something and I remembered it.

[9:26] PAUL SCHNEE: But you know, since I don't do the kind of shows that need 20 actors a week.

[9:31] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah, we do three or four, five, maybe seven movies a year.

[9:35] PAUL SCHNEE: So my number, I just don't have that many jobs to offer, you know what I mean?

[9:40] PAUL SCHNEE: So I'll remember things and I'll make notes and I'll, you know, I've brought people back.

[9:44] PAUL SCHNEE: I had to track somebody down the other day who doesn't have an agent anymore.

[9:48] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah.

[9:49] PAUL SCHNEE: I was like, you know, who was this kid who auditioned for whatever?

[9:52] PAUL SCHNEE: And I remembered, and then I track down and he's like, Oh yeah, he's he quit.

[9:56] PAUL SCHNEE: Um and he hasn't quit.

[9:57] PAUL SCHNEE: He's still interested maybe in acting, but he just yeah, doesn't have that agent anymore.

[10:02] Michelle Simone Miller: That's great.

[10:03] Michelle Simone Miller: I love that.

[10:04] Michelle Simone Miller: I hope that that actor can get an agent using maybe that story.

[10:09] PAUL SCHNEE: I hope so.

[10:09] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah, you never know.

[10:10] Michelle Simone Miller: Okay, so we talked about how many people then go to the next step.

[10:14] Michelle Simone Miller: I wanna oh a question out of curiosity.

[10:17] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah how often do you go through the submissions or do you have someone on your team, whether it's Rachel or someone else, go through the submissions and give you more of a shorter list?

[10:26] PAUL SCHNEE: Do the submissions from the agents?

[10:28] PAUL SCHNEE: Again, it's sort of it sort of depends.

[10:31] PAUL SCHNEE: You know, with Palm Royale, you know, we do it as a team because there's it's a big show.

[10:36] PAUL SCHNEE: I mean it's it's less than it was in the first season because there's just not that many new character as many new characters anymore.

[10:42] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah.

[10:42] PAUL SCHNEE: Um on a film that is that I'm the point person on that is really just me.

[10:47] PAUL SCHNEE: I do everything myself.

[10:48] PAUL SCHNEE: I will use an associate or an assistant, which it's getting harder to do because of the you know, everyone's freelance now and they're all unionized.

[10:55] PAUL SCHNEE: It's a conversation for another time.

[10:57] PAUL SCHNEE: But yeah, we don't have the luxury, for example, on Palm Royale, where we have associate both associates, one in LA and one in New York, and an assistant that Apple pays for for the full run.

[11:07] PAUL SCHNEE: Right.

[11:08] PAUL SCHNEE: You know, when I do a small film, I might have a an assistant for two weeks.

[11:13] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah.

[11:13] PAUL SCHNEE: And then I'll figure out to use that person for like, you know, the booking of the actors once we get closer to production.

[11:20] PAUL SCHNEE: So in the in the beginning, I do it all by myself.

[11:25] PAUL SCHNEE: I probably shouldn't, but I do.

[11:27] PAUL SCHNEE: I just like to have I just feel like in every job, you know, the the cop with one line is really just as important as the teacher with the supporting role or what you know what I mean, because it's all part of a great.

[11:41] PAUL SCHNEE: In those cases, on those jobs, I like to have my eyes on it on everything.

[11:46] Michelle Simone Miller: And then what is the best way for someone to stay or to get on your radar?

[11:52] PAUL SCHNEE: Hmm.

[11:53] PAUL SCHNEE: That's I know it's harder now, Paul.

[11:55] PAUL SCHNEE: It's harder these days.

[11:56] PAUL SCHNEE: People ask me all the time.

[11:57] PAUL SCHNEE: They're like, what do we do?

[11:59] PAUL SCHNEE: My role, you know, with mail or email, I guess, because no one sends mail anymore, is is always like I guess I just I need some I need some place to put a piece of mail, whether it's electronic or ver or real.

[12:10] PAUL SCHNEE: I mean, it's not real anymore because I don't have an office.

[12:13] PAUL SCHNEE: But you know, things that I get and I get, you know, I'm sure we all get, you know, five or ten a day.

[12:20] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah.

[12:20] PAUL SCHNEE: For emails from complete strangers, actors I've never met.

[12:24] PAUL SCHNEE: And I appreciate and completely understand the hustle, but I just there's not a ton I can do with it.

[12:31] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah if if I've met somebody, I do on-camera workshops at one-on-one in New York, which I really I do bring people in from those to read for things.

[12:40] PAUL SCHNEE: Um if you come in for something once, or even was if it was a virtual, you know, I think it's good for actors to keep some sort of, I guess in the old days you could keep a calendar of where you went physically for auditions, and now you should do the same with you know, virtual.

[12:56] PAUL SCHNEE: I taped for this via my agent or directly, you know, and never heard anything again, because that's unfortunately how sometimes it happens.

[13:04] PAUL SCHNEE: But chances are I I pretty high that I watched it.

[13:08] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah, might not ring a bell right away, but it's just some sort of, you know, hey, how's it going, Paul?

[13:14] PAUL SCHNEE: I've I taped for you know, whatever.

[13:17] PAUL SCHNEE: Saw on breakdown that you're doing this movie, anything I might be right for, or even better, I saw this breakdown, I'd love to uh read for the role of Kevin or whatever.

[13:27] PAUL SCHNEE: Because mail that has no, I don't know what to do with is sort of like I just it gets thrown away.

[13:34] PAUL SCHNEE: So I feel like, you know, send whatever you want as long as you're okay with it being thrown out because, you know, I just, and again, it's, uh, I don't want to speak for my colleagues, but I suspect that someone who does a network television show who needs 20 bodies every episode has to be more open to a lot of, I don't have that kind of term, you know. I just don't have that many. Well, you know, we're, I'm not doing those gigs where there's, you know, I need 20 bodies every week. I need like, you know, maybe 60 bodies a year. So it's like fair.

[14:07] Michelle Simone Miller: Do you watch reels?

[14:09] PAUL SCHNEE: I watch reels if it's part of the package with an audition for something specific. I will watch reels. I mean, the caveat to all of this is that the specificity of a role and maybe this dovetails with a question probably lots of people have about if you're not represented or if you're on Actor's Access, which is sort of the, you know, unrepresented part of breakdown. I will only go to Actor's Access if the specific needs are so specific that it's highly unlikely that agents—we did a film years ago called Mother of George, which required actors who could speak a Nigerian dialect, it's not even a language. So I'll go to Actor's Access for that. This is great, but for agent and submissions on breakdown, which is your side of Actor's Access for people, um, you don't need to watch reels, is what I'm hearing.

[15:02] PAUL SCHNEE: Well, I mean, I'll watch reels as a supplement to an audition. You know, and it's usually like, oh, what else has this person done? You know, and with reels, and I say this to actors, you know, you just need to pick judiciously what you're gonna put on a reel. I see now a lot of actors are putting on their reels tapes for other projects, um, or just kind of like, I don't know what they are exactly. Sometimes I'll see something like, it'll say, you know, uh, Michelle Simone Miller, powerful attorney, and there'll be a little video clip, and I'll clip—I assume at, I not anymore, but I used to assume that it was from, you know, your Law and Order or something, but it's not, it's some like random scene that you do in your living room.

And it's fine for me. I guess what I like actors to realize is that in terms of a reel or scenes from other work being a tool, I mean, it can only—you should think of it as added value to get you hired and sort of assume that I'm gonna, at least in my case, will show it to a director. Right. Well, what would you want that director to see? And I think usually the answer is a short film I did, uh, you know, my day player on Blue Bloods and all that sort of stuff. So reels are really for me, in the most, you know, sort of mainstream cases, um, an addendum to what hopefully is a good audition.

[16:24] Michelle Simone Miller: Love it. No, no, it's really good to know. Um, so let's switch gears a tad.

[16:31] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah.

[16:31] Michelle Simone Miller: Uh, can you tell me about your latest project premiering at Tribeca soon, which I'm very excited for. And I already have a ticket.

[16:36] PAUL SCHNEE: It is sold out.

[16:39] Michelle Simone Miller: It's sold out on all the screenings.

[16:41] PAUL SCHNEE: I have a ticket because, um, my friend, actor, uh, Elizabeth Ness offered me, um, a ticket. So I got really lucky.

[16:47] Michelle Simone Miller: Well, obviously, it was sold out quickly. Which screening are you going to?

[16:50] PAUL SCHNEE: I'm going to the first one.

[16:51] Michelle Simone Miller: Oh, great. I'll be—there's a Q&A, I think.

[16:53] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah, it was very serendipitous. I saw I've directed a little bit in theater. I mean, not anything, you know. I like working at the Atlantic Theater Company in their, um, BFA program that they do with NYU. And Neil Pepe, who's the artistic director of The Atlantic, and I went to college together, and I know him and his wife, and she runs the school. And so I started, it's about 10 years ago at this point, really like working with the kids at the Atlantic and directing their sort of senior year-end. You know, it's basically a showcase they do a full play. Oh, yeah. And I really, really enjoyed it. At any rate, so Veronica Reyes Howe, who wrote Mother May I Have a Kidney, which is what the show is called.

She was actually an intern in our old office years ago. And she's also an actor, and she's begun writing. And I knew Doug Plout, who's the main actor in the show. I knew him through auditioning. And she called me and said, you know, we're doing this thing, and I was like, yeah, if you can ever get it. So we started working on the script together, the three of us, and it just serendipitously happened to be when the strikes were on two summers ago, 2023. Right. And all of us were out of work and it was dead, and it was a three-week shoot, and I was petrified. And I mean, I had the, you know, listen, talk about going back to what my old boss Sam Cohn said about, you know, being on set with Mike Nichols and watching him make movies, you know, and I guess maybe my experience as a casting director for, you know, since then, my train of scholars. But you're learning from doing, it sounds like.

[18:29] PAUL SCHNEE: Is that what you're doing?

[18:30] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah, I mean, learning from doing and also, you know, relying on, you know, I didn't pretend for a second, and I still won't and can't, that I have any great knowledge or expertise about lighting or lenses or anything technical. And we had a great DP on the show and a really cool crew. It was about a three-week shoot. I think the—I don't know what the budget was in the end, but it was, you know, it's decent. And so it was just a really interesting collaborative process. And it made me realize, you know, it's funny because we're always, as casting directors, one of the first people hired, and then we're almost usually the first people finished. Ideally, except on a television show that's ongoing, my last day on casting will be maybe a week or two before they start shooting, and then I'm on to the next thing.

So it was very interesting to go through the entire process and then be responsible for having some hand in how the actual thing was gonna look. You know, and it was really, it was really, really interesting.

[19:32] Michelle Simone Miller: I love this.

[19:32] PAUL SCHNEE: And also actually, I will say your answer reminded me a little bit of, um, I remember I asked Tony Goldwyn how was it going from acting to directing. Um, and he said, because he, you know, any advice for newer directors, he was like, just rely on everyone else who's good at what they do. Like the cinematographer knows what they're doing, rely on that strength, rely on those strengths.

[19:54] Michelle Simone Miller: So it sounds very similar to what you're saying.

[19:55] PAUL SCHNEE: I think that's right. I think that's right. And you can, you know, all you can do on the sort of like, you know, when they come to you and they're like, how does this look? Do you know, do you like this curtain or this pillow? Is just use your own sense of taste. What your obligation is to the story. And yeah.

[20:11] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah. Well, it makes a lot of sense. Listen, casting directors, I mean, there's a director in the title for a reason. I mean, you're not directing the whole story, but you, uh, have a say and you have a rapport with the actors, which I'm sure is a strength of yours as a director.

[20:26] PAUL SCHNEE: I well, I'd like to think so. I mean, one thing that I always tell actors and when I do these workshops is particularly now in like the self-taping era when you have a chance to watch it, clarity and specificity are probably for me like the two biggest responsibilities that you have. And I think auditioning, you know, it's not the movie, it's a separate thing, but in a weird way, your requirement of being clear and specific is greater in an audition because you've only got the, you know, page or less, whatever it is to work with. And especially now in the self-taping era, I assume. Even honestly, even in the before times when we were sending a link to a, you know, a website of auditions we have done in person, you never know what they, the royal they are watching, or how much or for how long, sadly.

So being clear and specific right from the moment the frame starts in an audition, I think is paramount. And that sort of, you know, you have a little bit of a bigger canvas to work with when you're directing a whole thing because you've got a little bit more, you know, you've got the whole arc of the character, but I don't think that that clarity ever, the need for that kind of clarity ever goes away.

[21:42] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah.

[21:44] PAUL SCHNEE: And then for this particular, how many episodes is it?

[21:47] Michelle Simone Miller: It's six short, it's like a short form series.

[21:50] PAUL SCHNEE: If you remember, like I think high—30 minutes was the pilot.

[21:56] Michelle Simone Miller: So the episodes are anywhere from I want to say 12 or 13 to maybe 20 minutes each.

[22:02] PAUL SCHNEE: Where would you like to see it living one day?

[22:05] Michelle Simone Miller: Oh my gosh.

[22:07] PAUL SCHNEE: I have z—I honestly that's a—I don't really know. That's a great question. I have, you know, one thing I try to not really pay much attention to is the sort of marketing side of what we do. And I maybe it's disinterest or snobbery, or, you know, I just I've had conflicts with people who I've worked for before and then been asked not to work for anymore, because I'm, I'm, you know, it's my age. I mean, I turned 59 this year, so I'm not like a kid. And I just, you know, listen, God bless anybody who becomes an influencer or a TikTok star or has lots of followers and makes the transition into acting, I think that's great.

[22:51] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah.

[22:52] PAUL SCHNEE: I it's not really, you know, and I completely understand why the powers that be are asking us in casting, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I know I'm not alone. When we make an ideal list for a film, let's say, to find out how many followers they have, and the agents now when they send you materials for an actor, they include that.

[23:12] Michelle Simone Miller: 100%.

[23:14] PAUL SCHNEE: And so from a marketing perspective, I completely get it. But if that was something that I was interested in or really good at, I would have gone into marketing. So I just, you know, again, it's kind of like your question about the reels. It's sort of like, it's kind of like gravy. In other words, the acting and the acting skill, I guess, and rightness for the role comes first. If you also happen to have 15 million followers, great. But it very rarely works the other way around. Where, you know, people I work for will say, get this person into audition. They have 20 million Instagram followers. I'll say, okay, great. You know, are they an actor? You know.

[23:50] Michelle Simone Miller: So that happens rarely in comparison, is what you're saying.

[23:54] PAUL SCHNEE: I mean, it sure, it can be a good thing. It happens.

[23:56] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah, but just not as often.

[23:58] PAUL SCHNEE: You don't—the tale never very rarely wags the dog, I guess.

[24:03] Michelle Simone Miller: Interesting.

[24:04] PAUL SCHNEE: I love that.

[24:04] Michelle Simone Miller: No, it's great. I hear what you're saying. You're saying that this is part of the bigger picture of things, but it's just not your—it's not your focus.

[24:10] PAUL SCHNEE: It's not that you're focusing on the creative, you're focusing on, you know, uh, casting the right actors to—

[24:10] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah, as much as possible.

[24:19] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah, as much as possible. And I love that.

[24:21] Michelle Simone Miller: Um, I saw that Rachel Goldman from your office is the casting director on that project. So how was it working with her?

[24:25] PAUL SCHNEE: Well, it's great in this kind of thing. I mean, Rachel's obviously worked with us for a long time, and I trust her implicitly. And it's a small cast, and I knew most of the actors that she had come in. She's a bash. So yeah, I really was thrilled to be able to hire her.

[24:41] Michelle Simone Miller: Okay. So you have a lot of upcoming stuff in IMDb. Um, can you talk about what projects you're currently casting?

[24:46] PAUL SCHNEE: Yeah. The IMDb, you know, is take it with take it with a grain of salt because a lot of those things, it's kind of like you see on Deadline or whatever that, you know, so and so is in talks to do so-and-so movie.

[24:59] Michelle Simone Miller: Yeah.

[25:00] PAUL SCHNEE: Most of them they haven't even—they haven't even been written yet or whatever. A lot of the stuff on IMDb is just producers will put that there. Sometimes add us to it to make it look more real than it might be. School Spirits was picked up for a third season as was announced. It's not a secret, so we're starting on that soon. Um, we have a film that we're casting now called Buyback, which is a really interesting story about gun violence. We're just starting to cast that now. Honestly, a lot of times with these independent films, we'll work on them for, you know, six months, ten weeks, whatever, for casting, and then we don't know what becomes of it. A lot of times they don't come out or they come out in very small one or two theaters for a week and then go to streaming. So I can't honestly, I just don't. I'm not trying to avoid the question. I just don't really know.

[25:52] Michelle Simone Miller: That's right. It's completely fair.

[25:54] PAUL SCHNEE: A lot of times we'll work on something and then it, you know, we're done. We'll maybe get to go to a screening or, you know, it'll premiere at a festival or something like that, and then doesn't get acquired, and then maybe we hear about it six months later.

[26:08] Michelle Simone Miller: I get that. Thank you so much for listening to Mentors on the Mic.

[26:12] Michelle Simone Miller: If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a friend in entertainment you know would love it. Let me know what you've learned or what stayed with you on our Instagram at Mentors on the Mic. I love reading your messages. Uh, you can also find me at Michelle Simone Miller on Instagram. On both accounts, I'll be sharing even more information about our mentors. Talk to someone about what you learned today who would really appreciate it and send them the episode. Also, if you love the show, please go ahead and leave us a rating and review on iTunes. It really makes a huge difference in growing this. It makes it easier for people to find our podcast, and I love reading your reviews. So thank you so much, and I'll see you next week.