Director Raphaello on Unchained Film, Taya Valkyrie, John Morrison

Fred: What’s up, everybody, this is Fred Richani of TSC, we have right here via Zoom, a very special guest. I’d call him the Swiss Army knife of Hollywood, but he’s actually Greek, Raphaello director, editor, cinematographer of Unchained in a number of films. The list of his job titles on his credits goes on and on. We’re going to talk about Unchained, which stars Taya Valkyrie, a.k.a. WWE’s Franky Monet, and everything else he’s currently working on. Raphaello, thank you so much for your time. How’s everything going?

Raphaello: Fred, thank you so much for having me on TSC. I’m really, really almost speechless with that intro. You made me think I’m some kind of amazing individual and ultimately I’m just doing what I love. I feel very privileged to be doing it.

Fred: Well, we’re privileged to have you on and let’s get right to it. Unchained, a psychological thriller, in my humble opinion. Up for interpretation, but definitely a thriller. A whole lot of action.

Raphaello: I’ve been telling people before it is many things. I mean, some people see a psychological thriller, action film, horror. They say some this. It’s a lot of these things all strung together. And ultimately, again, it’s always a story that’s the most important thing. And ultimately, with something like this, I always feel it’s how the viewer interprets at the end of the day. I feel a lot of what we tried to do was to give a little bit of it, almost like Easter eggs. There’s a lot of things that I play, a lot of video games and stuff like that, and I’m always fond of finding those little things that we put in there by the programmer that the average player isn’t going to find.

But we know they’re there and there’s lots of things in Unchained when we do that kind of stuff, too. So pay attention.

Fred: Crazy stuff, I got to ask you because it does involve, of course, a lot of fighting, a lot of mixed martial arts inspired scenes and sequences. Did all the actors do their own stunts?

Raphaello: Pretty much, yeah. And some of them went through some really, really difficult stuff to actually get it done. I’m a great believer that even if you do have a stunt double or something like that, you need to have the intention. You need to know how it’s going to feel if you throw a punch. It doesn’t mean anything if you sort of punch with the intention of hurting and it’s right here in your eyes, it makes a whole lot of difference. And obviously, I mean, we’re going to get to professional wrestling well, but the whole point is one of the reasons I’ve always loved professional wrestling is the fact that I believed it as a child.

I sat there and I was like, I love this guy. I hate that guy, but I want my guy to win. Oh no, Mike, I didn’t win. I can’t wait to tune in and see them get their comeuppance, you know, that kind of thing. And with wrestling, that’s one of the things that I love about that. And he taught me before I learned about stage combat and stuff that the intention, the intent of hurting, that’s more powerful than the actual punch. So even, you know, although on this particular movie, everybody did their own stunts, which I’m eternally grateful for when we do have stunt doubles, I make sure that they are well drilled in what they do.

And, you know, just before we came on air, I know that I was talking to, I do Brazilian jiu jitsu. And for me, it’s a big thing. So we’ll do little things like this is how you would do a normal plot. This is how you would do a guillotine. This is how you do kimura. And we try to incorporate little things in there. So basically, for those who know, they know in a safe manner, of course. So but yeah, it was a lot of fun getting it together, and everybody worked physically very hard to make those things work.

Fred: And as far as casting, what made you decide, Hey, Taya Valkyrie, Franky Monet, she’s my woman as the lead here or one of the leads here, I should say.

Raphaello: Well, honestly, I got to be honest, I didn’t even think we could get her. And when we were first going through the script, the original character’s name was Freya. And we had this idea of this Nordic like goddess coming down and smashing people because she’s so powerful. And a while before that, Taya Valkyrie had debuted in cardmembers.

Fred: It was still TNA, but it’s now in impact wrestling.

Raphaello: Yeah, impact wrestling. And basically, she came out of this Nordic queen thing very different to where I look to which is more noble. But I remember my brain going, okay, this is my work. The other thing about Taya is she’s so believable. My goodness, if you ever meet him in real life, you bet you she could beat the crap out of you. She is legit. And that’s another reason why I loved having her in the movie is you don’t need to do anything with somebody who already has a bat in their eyes that they look like. If they wanted to, they could, you know, tell you like this. And again, professional wrestling. I have such a huge love of it since I was a child that I knew quite often.

Often I have a list of wrestlers that I would want to be in something, and I know a lot of Hollywood guys are like, What is she talking about? Well, ironically, a lot of those people went on to become big stars like The Rock or Dave Bautista. And sometimes I’ll chop down some Buddy’s name and I’d say, Oh. I want this guy to be like Ron Simmons, because, you know, when I saw Farouk as a kid, I was like, That’s a guy I don’t want to mess with. It was tough. And so again, Tyler was she was pretty much top of my list for this particular role, but we didn’t actually know if she was going to be available or anything.

Luckily, she said yes, right? So I don’t know how it would have gone otherwise. So and she actually flew in. I believe she was filming in Canada. I think it was an impact taping up there and she flew in to do the role the very same day. So I was like, wow, dedication. And she didn’t skip a beat at all and extra bit. There’s a scene where she’s talking to Matt in the prison cell. She basically put a lot of that together, so she took the script and knew how to improve it by adding her layer of authenticity to it. So again, when you cast right, you get great results. So I’m eternally grateful that she said yes to doing our little movie.

Fred: Well said. And as far as filming the movie, so did it primarily take place prior to the pandemic, or did you have to shoot some scenes during 2020?

Raphaello: Well, we actually filmed it almost entirely before the pandemic. There’s another movie that came up afterwards where we can talk about after it, but luckily I don’t know what it was, but we knew that something was up and we. One thing about me as a filmmaker, I’m a great believer. I’ve always come in under budget, always on time, and I keep awareness of things that are happening outside the realm of, shall we say, the film. We knew certain things were happening. I knew only had X amount of time. So we were able to do what we were able to do within extremely limited conditions to just get it done. Now, obviously, as a filmmaker, you’re always going to sit there, go, Oh, why did I do that?

Why could not improve this and do this? That’s natural. I’m sure every filmmakers had that problem, but luckily this one had very few issues with the pandemic, and we actually even got the actual edit was even ready and almost ready for distribution within like three months because I like to work fast. I don’t believe in wasting time at all. So luckily for this particular project unchanged, it was completed almost entirely before the real heavy stuff happened, which is good.

Fred: Kudos to you, man. That’s a quick turnaround. Time is that. I mean, if you’re on the independent scene, is that typical or you just kind of build different? I mean, what’s like your process? And I ask you to give all the secrets away, but I don’t like watching everybody’s watching this and maybe thinking, wait a minute. Sometimes it takes six months a year. I mean, how do you get done all so quickly?

Raphaello: Well, I think it’s not even a secret to me. I believe that sometimes as artists. We, shall we say, a bit more laissez faire, as the French say about when we get things done. You know, I’ll wake up tomorrow, but I tell people all the time, I’m a lazy workaholic in the sense that I might procrastinate and I don’t want to do it today. But once I start, I’m finishing. And ultimately, again, another thing that I can always claim whenever I do a project, I finish. Some people will take ten years to finish a project. I know a few projects. Again, no names mentioned. But yeah, you’re right. It will take maybe nine months to two years for something in the new realm to get finished editing wise.

And when I say finished, I mean, the coloring was done, the VFX was done, the everything was done. Pretty much it was ready for distribution. And for me, it’s because of the fact that I am so grateful to be able to say that I get paid to do this as my job. And I know there’s 1,000,000 people out there who would love to do it. And so I know that I want to give 1,000,000% to what I’m doing to make sure that I am the very best of what I can do. And of course, there’s always room to improve. But the whole point is, if I know I have a film and I have an edit bay, I’m just going to keep going.

And yeah, a lot of my movies. Although there are exceptions to this, I tend to turn them around in six months or less. In fact, the quickest I’ve managed to do it is. Just over. Just over two months, which is pretty good, and we’re talking about finished has the music and the sound editing, everything finished. And I like to run a tight ship and I don’t ask people to do things unless I’m going to do them myself. So again, it’s no secret. It’s hard work at the end of the day.

Fred: Kudos to you, man. That’s incredible. And also, I think to you as a director, as the editor, as person has taking the lead in all this. You also have a responsibility to your staff. You also have a responsibility to the actors involved. Hey, you know, one of these films or productions at their end that you directed could be a launching pad?

Raphaello: Absolutely. And I’m always cognizant of this particular theme because it’s a really old movie I did many, many years ago that a few of those people blew up and became big, big stars. And I always tell people all the time, you treat people with respect. Understand that it’s not just about the fact that they could be really big one day, but treat people as you would like yourself to be treated. And sometimes in the movie industry, you’ve heard about all the horrible things that can happen and also lacks things that can happen when people like what happened on rust. I leave nothing to chance when it comes to any of this. We double check, we triple check, we quadruple check, and then we check it again to make sure.

And then just before we’re about to film, we check it again and we make sure that we all on the same page. And my sets tend to be pretty fun. We were very sort of like, let’s get serious about having fun, but when we’re shooting, we shoot. And again, that means that we don’t have to do too many takes because everyone’s just on board. There’s no nerves because we’re just enjoying ourselves. And ultimately, they know that I am so grateful. Again, I’m like a kid in a candy store that I’m allowed to make movies with people like Taya Valkyrie, Franky Monet. I mean, again, maybe I sound like a fanboys, but to me, I am totally in love with wrestling and things that she does.

I and John Hennigan commercial in WWE. I love what they do. I have so much respect. I wish I could do that kind of stuff. I can’t. But she said yes to doing my silly little movie, and that’s just amazing to me. So Sylvia, as I said, respect people on set because if you want them to respect you have to respect them.

Fred: You mentioned John Morrison. I was going to ask you about him. John Morrison, of course, is the real. John Hennigan is the real life husband of Todd about Gary Franky Monet, former tech guest great dude. Such an incredibly talented wrestler also got into acting, took a hiatus from debut in 2011. Was away for a while. Did some acting? Did some acting in some of your work as well? Can you talk about working with John Morrison? What was that like?

Raphaello: Well, John, well, you’re probably talking about the church and Alliston, all that’s basically that hasn’t been completed yet. I had some issues with that one. But ultimately, the great thing about John is the fact that he also had I think he studied even film at one point. He did. I think you did the whole film. Boone, the bounty hunter. That was the whole. Yeah. He knows about this kind of stuff. And he was such a wonderful energy. When you have that kind of positive energy on set and everything, it works so well. And again, look at him. I mean, just look at that guy. If you were to, you know, I know that they say, you know, if this is the perfect sports entertainer or this is how a wrestler should look, look at that guy.

That good guy could be on the cover of any magazine, and it will sell 1,000,000,000 copies. I’m actually surprised they aren’t using him more, to be honest. Again, working with people like that, they know what’s going on. He was actually on set on Unchained as well. And at the time, we didn’t know he was going to WWE and we were going to cost him. But of course, WWE, which again brings me to the fact that Tyler hadn’t joined WWE at the time that we were filming, and that was an incredible piece of luck, to say the least because she was still in impact wrestling at that point, and she was the longest reigning impact’s champion there.

Just watched the Lucha Underground stuff, just watch the stuff that was in impact. It’s amazing, and she’s so good at playing her character and being able to look as absolutely authentic as possible. Again, I still can’t believe she said yes to doing our silly little movie just because it is just amazing to me.

Fred: Well, you’ve done a lot of silly little movies in production, so kudos to your IMDb is insane. You’ve got you know what? I’m just going to literally in real time. Read all the job titles that are listed here, OK? Editor producer, actor, cinematographer, writer director, visual effects editorial department, special effects animation art composer, casting, costume and wardrobe production manager, said Decorator, Sound Department Camera and electrical art director, second unit director, assistant director, music department production designer, additional crew. You have credits. I believe your oldest credit. You correct. If I’m wrong, it’s 2001 or 2002. You’ve been at this game for a long time. You’ve pretty much worn every hat under the sun. Still wear a lot of these days where it all start for you.

When it Raphael, wake up and say, You know what? I not only want to go to Hollywood and create some cool stuff, but I want to do a little bit of everything.

Raphaello: Well, it’s for me. It ties in kind of what you were talking earlier about being able to finish projects on time and quickly because I know everybody’s job. I know what to expect and I know the language. If I need to tell the DP something, I will speak in their language with apertures, f stops, shutter speeds and all that. If I need to talk to the editor, we’ll be talking about specific things Janelle Cutting will be talking about. Are we going to be doing the coloring in DaVinci Resolve or are we going to be using face like, you know, I took the lingo and I’m able to again from the acting point of view, just to take it all the way back.

I trained as an actor initially and way back as a child. I love it. I love theater, but it’s not something you can make a lot of money on, but nothing compares to actually getting on stage doing that wonderful performance, and you get instant feedback from the audience. You can feel it when you come offstage and you know you’ve done well, you’re exhausted, you feel that wonderful thing. However, one day I woke up, I looked in the mirror and I realized, Wow, I’ve got a great face for radio, so I and a voice for silent movies. And I realized, Hey, I can do so much more damage behind the camera. So and so that’s kind of what it came into.

It was like a necessity, saying I realized, Well, I see how movies are working, I see how these commercials are working, but nobody seems to be working efficiently. So I’d be on set sometimes and see people or directors disappearing for two or three hours. Producers not caring about what’s going on. DPS, who’ve never used the camera before and had no idea what their stock was, you know, it’s just this again, it’s a strange industry where people who have no ability whatsoever can make money in this and can be highly paid directors, producers, whatever. So for me, Mike, if you look, my crusade was based on the fact that I want to know how to do that, even if I don’t have to do it for the rest of my life.

I want to know how to do that, so I know what it requires to do. So if I say to somebody, I’d like this happening, I know that I’m not asking for something that’s outside the realm of reality. And again, by doing that, we all know and we respect, OK, he respects what I do. Because he knows what I do. So, and again, it also comes down to the fact that I just love being on set. Sometimes I will take a totally almost meaningless job because of the fact that I’m enjoying working with these people. Sometimes it’s just about, Hey, I’ll be your gopher. It’s fine. I’m just coming here because I love being on set.

I love doing stuff and sometimes they always say, Do what you love. Well, I’m very lucky to be paid for what I do, and I love it too. So it’s a fantastic thing that, yeah, I know when I look at the IDB, the first thing it goes, well, pick a side. What is this? But ultimately, it’s the journey. All of us as human beings, the journey is what defines us. And these experiences your pain, your anguish, your love, your hate. These are all the things that make us unique of who we are. And my journey to being, let’s say, more of a director these days and producer has taken me through all these supposedly little jobs.

Although I tell people there’s no little jobs, there’s only little people, if you know what I mean. It’s taken me through these kind of things paying dues, making sure that I understand what I’m doing. Before I was handed the keys to the kingdom and said, Now you can do it. So again, to all filmmakers out there who want to be part of this, who want to live the dream? I would say spend at least one hour every day. Everybody has one hour every day to spend it on the thing that you want to do with the rest of your life. And you’d be surprised how much just having that little routine every day will improve what you’re doing and make you a better candidate for what you’re about to do, because ultimately, if you don’t, there’s like 1,000,000 other people who are ready to take that place.

Fred: When did you get to a point in your career where you realized one? I’m really good at this stuff and two that I can make a full time living doing this. Like, did you get to a point where I was kind of like in a ha moment or two, just kind of come gradually over time?

Raphaello: I come from a kind of an artistic family, and I know a lot of artists. I know a lot of people who some earn money from their love. Others don’t. And for me? Maybe it’s my parents in the way they instilled in me the notion of hard work will make you better as you are an artist. So I tell people all the time. Michelangelo didn’t wake up one day and decide I’m going to paint the Sistine ceiling. He spent years and years training to be good enough to be paid to do that, right? Too many artists, they think too much about the Oh, I’m going to do whenever I feel creativity or I have this or have that.

Well, that’s great. But if you want to make it a vocation and you want to be paid for it, hard work is important. And I agree that there’s an awful lot of luck involved. And I think again, as a golfer who said it best. The harder I work, the luckier I get it. May I? I can’t remember who it was, but it’s so true. Ultimately, the more work you put in, the more you’re going to get out of it, because otherwise you’re just sitting waiting by the phone in the hopes that the universe will just give it to you. And ultimately, sometimes the universe needs a little bit of prodding to give you what you need.

But when you get there, as a another acting teacher once told me, your first couple of jokes would be luck. Probably look at the other day, but it will be your skill, talent and dedication that will keep you booking it. And that’s the main thing.

Fred: We always like to ask our guests a lot of random rapid fire questions just to get to know them better. Are you ready?

Raphaello: I hope so.

Fred: Your favorite cheat meal or late night snack?

Raphaello: Oh, goodness me. I’m going to be careful, so my wife doesn’t hear that because you really are OK. To me, it fluctuates a lot, but I would say anything to do with McDonald’s burgers and fries.

Fred: All time favorite actor.

Raphaello: I will go with Gary Oldman for No. Too many actors today as celebrities. That’s what they want. They want the money. They want the fame. Gary Oldman can play almost anything, and sometimes he in the woods a Hannibal or something. You didn’t even know it was him.

Fred: Yeah, you can play or anything.

Raphaello: And that, to me, is a genuinely great actor. There are many other great ones, but you put me on the spot. Gary Oldman.

Fred: All time favorite filmmaker.

Raphaello: I know a friend of mine would say, Be confident and say yourself beside yourself. I mean, basically. I’m going to cheat a little bit with this one, because when we’re talking about filmmaking, a lot of people will instantly go to director. To me, George Lucas, he because he again exemplified the fact that he adapted to become the producer, he became his own evil empire, so to speak, that had a major effect on me and dislike cheat. Is Robert Rodriguez. Because when I read Rebel without a crew, I realized? Well, look what he’s doing. He’s doing all this. Conventional wisdom says, you can’t do it. Well, you know, as Han Solo says, Don’t tell me the odds.

I’ll do it anyway.

Fred: Is there anything on your filmography that you feel like is underrated? That I’d ask is like, what’s one project you’ve worked on or directed or whatever that you wish? Got more love? What would you say, and where would people check it out?

Raphaello: This one’s tough because it’s not easy to check out because it’s no longer on probably bloodbath. And the reason being is. As you can probably tell, I’m cut from many cloths, and I have this love, passion, passion for eighties action films, and again, that movie is full of effectively quotes and misquotes from every other movie from the past. If you love Big Trouble in Little China, if you love anything with Schwarzenegger or Stallone, hell, I was watching The Last Dragon the other day. If you haven’t seen that, it’s all plastic film this stuff from that in there, everything, there’s so many little Easter eggs in there. Even the computer manufacturer that they’re looking at is nine Tiger, Nintendo and Sega combined.

Everything is basically a not tipping my cat cap to what built me in my love of action films. And it’s funny. You should mention that because I was talking to the lead actor about it recently. We’re thinking of revisiting it. But, you know, in a bigger production sense, because the interesting thing about that, when we did it for nothing, literally nothing, it was just the love of filmmaking. We put it together. We tried to do things which we knew weren’t really possible. Everything again. It’s easy for me to talk about it without seeing it. But there’s a section with I did a CGI bullet. So as John T-Rex, our hero shoots a bullet you see in slow motion the bullet spinning through the air, cutting the air.

And again, at the time, it was rare to see this, but I was flexing my VFX wings effectively to see, Can I do this? And it worked well. It won a lot of awards, which was great. And I think now the most recent project Pandemic Stories, which is a documentary series, adding that I think I’ve won like over 70 plus awards. But ultimately, it’s not the awards that really matter to me. It’s the fact that I just love great movies and great storytelling, and sometimes they’re not always the one that wins awards. Luckily, Bloodbath did, but it’s difficult to see. I don’t even know where it’s available at the minute. But that would be the movie.

Fred: Awesome all time favorite wrestler.

Raphaello: Besides Taya Valkyrie and besides John Morrison, I was about to say that very thing. I’m again the young version of me. When I was growing up, it was the ultimate warrior. I have been told by absolutely everybody, I’m an idiot for that, but I used to paint my face in the warrior way when I used to play soccer. I would play my football parcels around my arms and run dashing down the field, beating my chest, doing all that kind of stuff. And yet everybody thought I was an idiot then, too. But as I got more into wrestling, I got more into, shall we say, we all again. It’s real wrestling as in stuff that looked like, OK, this is what an amateur wrestler would do.

This is what a real fighter would do these kind of things. And then you suddenly realize then maybe the warrior press slam isn’t the kind of thing you’re really going to see a street fighter or a Gracie gym or anything like that. But ultimately, it’s the. I think Bret Hart, probably I mean, that guy, he just exemplifies almost everything that’s fantastic about wrestling. There’s a few other people like Shawn Michaels was very good. Kurt Angle. Fantastic. And you can probably see I lean towards more the technical side, the more believable side of professional wrestling. But yeah, Bret Hart amazing. Even today I was watching his documentary that they had, and he was absolutely amazed. Even by today’s standards, everything looks crisp.

It looks wonderful. More people could learn by watching him than say another thing, shall we say.

Fred: So glad you said that. Yeah, I totally agree. I love Bret. And yeah. His work is timeless. I really feel like if you were frozen, if you were a Captain America right, and you were frozen for like 70 years and you woke up and you watched this Bret Hart tapes that were lost in the ether, it would still age.

Raphaello: Well, it’s such a masterpiece. And I love to say you always kept everybody safe. You always protected himself, except for super durable, very conscious of the crowd and everything else.

Fred: Yeah. And in some ways, the thing is kind of he gets a lot of love by something. He’s somewhat underrated these days because it’s just he just did everything so well, OK, he wasn’t, you know, the rock on promos. Who is? But just as a professional wrestler, like we talked about building professional wrestler from the ground up like Bret was that prototype for sure.

Raphaello: He was so interesting. You should mention that, you know, he’s kind of like coming back into it. I don’t know if you recently saw AGW CM Punk against was not recent, but it seemed punk against Darby Allin.

Fred: Yes, and they did a callback to it was going to be a kid versus Braveheart.

Raphaello: Yes. And it was just and I didn’t even know it at the time, but I was sitting there watching like, you know, he gets, I can’t remember what movie it was, but basically gets thrown off and Jim punctures that kind of like, I think that will to the head and inside thought, that’s very Bret Hart. It was just again. And it’s so wonderful professional wrestling that we can have this kind of thing, and I’m so glad that Bret Hart is getting the juice he does because there was a time between the last ten years where I felt a lot of people going for more acrobatic styles, and I’m not saying there isn’t a place for that or anything, and if you love that, more power to you.

But to me, I like something that looks like a struggle. I like something that looks like it could be and actually come back to jujitsu and stuff that I’m when I do my jujitsu, often I’m always trying stuff. I managed to pull off the sharpshooter once the 5050 position, and I was like, Yes, and it was like, What is wrong with this idiot? But I said, You know, things like that, the camel clutch I pulled off a single leg Boston crab stuff like that still haven’t managed to get our sleeper hold. Of course, the early on as it’s called in, you know, Brazilian jujitsu, but that stuff works. And I also take great glee in telling people, you know, you just tapped out to the Cobra Clutch or the million dollar dream.

We’re like that. That doesn’t work. It’s fake. Wasn’t fake, that was it. So yeah, it’s it is such an amazing performer.

Fred: Is there any advice for success 11 piece of advice you’ve been given that you could pass along to us?

Raphaello: Well, before I fully answer that, I know that you look at my R&B and you think, Oh God, this guy’s doing everything. The important thing is understanding that there is a lot of teamwork involved. You cannot do everything at the same time. So teamwork is incredibly important. So let me just thank my producers Tatiana Russo, Cova, Elliott Constantine, John Bryan. They were fantastic. The fact that Taya Valkyrie said yes to our movie, that’s amazing. Mel Morrone Larry Andrews was superb rock riddle. You know, triple Hall of Fame wrestler. Fantastic. He has this small role. And yet you steals the show and of course, Academy Award nominated actor Eric Roberts. And I’m like, This is amazing.

I get to play it again, kid in a candy store. I get to do this. But as I keep saying to people, the reason I’m allowed to do this is because of hard work and understanding what needs to be done. If you cannot spend time to study and improve what you do. I just don’t know what to tell you, because it’s really about understanding team effort. It’s about making sure that you put in the effort that you know your stuff when you come on set. There is nothing left to chance. However, having said that, and Napoleon once said, it’s only a bad plan that cannot be changed, and I take that to heart, too. Sometimes I come with a full battle plan on sick, and it’s thrown out the window being flexible in the face of, you know, things going wrong.

That is going to also impress people because of the fact that you do not lose your cool or your head while everybody else is losing theirs. So hard work teamwork and being able to pivot on a dime when it needs to happen. Other than that, just be a good person. And we’ve had a really difficult year. We’ve had so many really terrible things happening. This is really kind of brought us together in a way and make us really understanding that we’re lucky to be alive. We’re lucky to do a lot of the things that we do. So I would tell people all the time, if there is somebody special out there, take the time to say what you need to say to them, but you may not get it tomorrow.

So, you know, Ted said, be excellent to each other.

Fred: Amen to that. Great stuff, man, I appreciate that. Lots, lots of gems there, a great life advice as well. Where can fans find you online and what can they find next from Raffaello?

Raphaello: Well, they can find me online on Facebook, on Instagram, Instagram, which seem to be trying to build because I was forced onto Instagram. I was not a social media post. I’m doing too much and you have to tell me I’ve got another job now to do it. So I’m on Instagram as director Rafael. You can go to website Raffaello Dot Net. There’s we. We did a documentary recently which won a whole bunch of awards for pandemic stories. Again, I was director for that producer, editor and stuff like that. What else we’re about to? I don’t know if I can talk about it yet, but we’re about to do a basketball themed documentary starting what we actually of started doing a lot of the B-roll already, so I’m looking forward to that one, too.

There is also the movie The Year of Living Dangerously, which was the movie that was affected by the pandemic. We may have to do one or two little things on that one, but again. In theory, if some distributor asked me for it’s really, you know, it’s all in, it’s been conformed, it’s past the QC and everything. So everything’s good about it. But from a personal standpoint, the pandemic did screw it up a little bit in places, and so I’d like to revisit that a little bit. But ultimately, yeah, we got a lot of projects coming up. We got another action movie that’s again, I can’t talk about that one just yet, but that one we are supposedly shooting very, very shortly after the basketball documentary and.

I mean, I’m just I just glad to be working. It’s an amazing thing to be working in.