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welcome to the fifth edition of the star fox media small business sit down today our guest is christopher williams of prince perry productions and media he's the managing director and prince ray productions and media is a film production company that focuses on the business side of film and helping filmmakers achieve what their their dreams are so christopher thanks for sitting down with us today oh you're welcome it's a pleasure jeff been looking forward to this for at least two weeks for at least two weeks well christopher and i have worked together for eight years now eight years plus yes so we've already been acquainted so i know a little bit more than the audience will at this point but i think that it would be really nice to start with your background i mean i know there's a lot to talk about there so i know it's going to be a lot but how did you get started in film specifically or actually maybe we should probably take a few steps back before that uh what was it like growing up where did you grow up well i was born in 18 now i'm from virginia beast virginia the son of a pastor and a wonderful mother and they had seven boys and i'm third from the top i went to school there in virginia beach integrated schools in virginia back in 1963. i was raised in segregation it was a wonderful experience and and finished the high integrated high school finished the high school ended up as president of my senior class that was remarkable being that it was primarily what i call gringo's ankles and so it made a lot of news in virginia back in that time because this is historical i mean i was threatened by the kkk and a lot of stuff was happening all the marches and riots back then and in the 60s and dr king martin luther king was a personal friend of my father and my uncles actually he used to stay at my uncle's house right down the street from where we live so we had a chance to see and chat with him and that inspired me to do something yeah i think different than the traditional schools so i was fortunate enough to get assists about 49 colleges and four ivy league schools and i went to brown university i graduated from there with a degree in economics and math and then i went to law school the university of virginia and finished that and i'm licensed to practice i'm retired as an attorney from license in virginia a few other places in california and so primarily i served as a an attorney with my previous background involved i'm retired military a former law enforcement officer and you know things of that sort and was stationed here in san diego and decided to stay because of why weather weather brother and my wife's had family here and my family we all over including hawaii which is the other place we spent a lot of time oh that's about it started a law firm well i worked for a few law firms since i had to start my own law firm and it just went off from there built one of the largest at that time law firms they used to use like the governor would say hey it was ethnically identifiable to call the word you know it's not a minority law firm i strongly dislike that i would have people call all the time hey we hear you're a great black attorney i said take the answers about yeah it's a great attorney i'll do the interview if not then yeah pass so hep set up a lot of those programs and we took off the firm we i didn't know has the bond counsel for the city of san diego and the county and so all of those bond issues on the ballot when you vote that's what we used to do very complex boring but paid well it sounds kind of interesting to me how did you get started in law did you were you when you were growing up did you know you wanted to be a lawyer did your parents talk you into it or did you just kind of fall into it yeah actually that's that is interesting my little brother was a lawyer i was supposed to be a doctor i was pre-med a chemical engineering major at brown but i didn't like cutting up cadavers so i i switched to to to economics and math was a big part of that and then when i decided not to be a doctor i got into med school business school and law school i just applied everywhere after i graduated from brown and um right law school work and at one point you also were with the navy during this did that have any impact on your decision to be a lawyer or was the lawyering first and then you went into the navy after that well i am you know retired navy retired military over 20 years vietnam er i got drafted in 1968 so they made the decision for you i had a student deferment and because i'm going to ivy league school you know i'm supposed to be really smart supposed to be and yeah and as a consequence my after we finished brown my service i did have a service commitment and i wanted to fulfill that commitment and the navy needed lawyers and i said hey we'll send you to law school i'll pay for it i said well i can do that and that's how it all started and i ended up as a navy jag and completed my my active duty et cetera and retired in the 90s out of the out of the naval reserve at that point without jeopardizing your uh your top secret clearance or anything like that um is there anything you can like tell us what you did with as jack like did you like who you worked with and things like that well i work for the chief of chief of naval operations i work for a lot of stars and we used to call them you know admirals and generals and right i don't have a top secret clearance now okay i still have a classified clearance but we worked on a lot of things and they've been assigned to aircraft carriers yeah you know submarine bases and stuff and a lot of different ships and special operations command as a desk jockey and you know a lot of things and i've been again a police officer involved in security at all different levels and you know have a wealth of experience i'll put it like that so you were a jag officer and then you after that you went and started your did you work for another law firm then before you started your own is that how that yes i worked for a few law firms i mean some major and smaller and decided to strike out on my own with a couple of partners how well what made you make that decision like how did you decide like you know what it's time i got to start my own thing well i thought i was smarter than the rest of the guys and i wanted to develop a specialty a lot of folks at that time you know i had what you call doors closing my face because a lot of firms did not want someone of my ethnic persuasion i've had that happen said you don't fit the color scheme you're not going to be invited the things that we're we're invite to the other lawyers we're invited to i said joe well i'm going to parties that you're not going to be invited to also and you know back in the 70s this could be very tense a very good friend of mine became the first partner at a major law firm in the state in california that's speaking but i wanted to be a corporate attorney on this and there were very few doors open and corporations now in a law firm everybody wanted me to be a litigator because i had been worked in the district attorney's office and been a cop and all this stuff and i said you got all this experience yeah it does sound like a natural transition like you know to go from policing and working with you know law enforcement things like that to doing you know more criminal justice side law but you wanted to do corporate finance and and uh all of well i wanted to do a billion dollar deal that's really it and then my father taught us he had seven boys no girls and he each one of us he gazed to be in a certain profession one was going to be an accountant cpa that's what he did and then another was going to be a minister we'll just follow my father and i was supposed to be a doctor the next guy was my other brother's architect the next one was going to run the families businesses which is what he did a lot of apartment buildings if there was a six was going to be a lawyer which is what he did ivy league year top of his class the same thing and my little brother was going to be a general military top cadet and unfortunately he had the same problem i had we had heart issues three of us four of us had heart issues which to sort of sideline our careers early because of that yeah i think in the military it's a lot of health things kind of put limits on what you're allowed to do right exactly and that changed my career that's one of the reasons that the navy offered me a jack the lawyer position that needed because i had an accident and plugged the physical and to say i should say act active duty regular navy yeah so from your being a corporate finance attorney and running your own practice what kind of law did your practice focus on mostly well my specialty corporate finance and banking and corporate securities just finance corporate finance now bonds essentially is an iou for a company and stock is as a security is just you your owner your partner owner company your people appreciate that you're sharing the profits and but companies borrow money all the time municipalities states borrow money they do do it through a vehicle called a bond and so as in layman terms it's just an iou if it's guaranteed by some assets as a secured bond if it's not guaranteed by assets it's sort of what they call a junk bot you know just based on whether or not you have a good credit rating i'm sure that uh junk bonds are something that a lot of people have fond memories of from 2008 so um well in the 1990s uh the whole milliken um just a whole lot of things happen and even the crisis in orange county with their investments back in the 90s and worked on a lot of stuff and our our firm became the top 25 in the country 25th and bond worked it was phenomenal but representing california and the state of california several municipalities and all the water departments and dams everything used at schools school bonds housing bonds we did them all and it you know you work with all the major firms in wall street i worked with gomez zach's limp lehman's gone bear stearns you know morgan you name it we did work because they would sell you know they would sell the bonds and and i was fortunate i was fortunate i convinced the city of san diego instead of going to new york or san francisco to close the bond deals as i have this beautiful office in la jolla why don't you just close the deals here you can save all this money and i'll give you a better deal and that's how i started and next thing and well that's how it started but then sdg e energy companies gave us they used a lot of bonds too the finance infrastructure they gave us a a huge opportunity because every time you pay your utility bill part of that money goes back to vader bonds every time a plane lands at limburg average landing fee goes to bonds that's what we did paperwork but like i said it paid well yeah and then i'm you ended up working with a little bit in the entertainment side you this is like kind of slowly the transition with working with with athletes and and yes and so how did you make that transition well a lot of members of my family played pro ball i mean pro basketball for football my brother was a great track star actually four of my brothers were state champions two were in two ncaa and one went to the olympic trials where he got hurt he would have taken a medal and so this at the 72 olympics but he got hurt the munich olympics anyway where they uh killed some of the yeah the israelis but so we had all these things happening and all my family i mean we're just all into sports i mean i played a little sports myself too and as a consequence you know they would come to me christopher you're a lawyer can you help us and we knew a lot of players and one of my partners played pro basketball and we just the doors open another was a tennis player another was a hockey player and some of the attorneys at the firm so it became known and i went to university of virginia which is known as again for sports law img a lot of things came out of that and it was sort of a transition and we had a firm one of my first companies actually was a sports agency firm that we sold to another big la firm and because of that we had a lot of players and i'm not going to run through all the players but i know a lot of guys yes attorney client privilege right well these guys burn through their money everybody wants to be in what movies and make music or at least have their girlfriends make music you know help them so they would come to their attorney and that's how we got into this from the sports management to music and entertainment and we represented we work with a lot of music companies uh record companies and i'm not gonna run through all the names here and then we did some work for some of the film companies because we helped finance because again we're finance attorneys i mean the firm used to ask earlier best primary work we did finance and banking then we did real estate and some corporate a lot of corporate work and minor litigation for the corporations but the the to do movies are done how primarily through finance again putting the deals together there's an equity participation but most of the money comes from banks again our investors and we're the guys who do the paperwork and set it up we had a client here in southern cal he made a lot of movies that went straight to dvd you know action karate which is what a lot of us saying because i was my buddies were all martial artists and mma guys and you're supposed to say yes because you still look like you can yes of course i used to box and and as a as a consequence of that right it's just it kept growing and we used all the indies and this guy kept making all these straight to dvd and you would know a lot of the names kickboxing movies you know like in asia the chinese made all these kung fu movies back then i mean very so we made all these kickboxing movies and it just took off it took off the financing working with the studios and that's how it started and eventually i set up the san diego entertainment sports lawyers association we did a lot of work in san diego we helped set up the film commission here and so on and it was a lot of business here back in in the 80s and we've represented uh directors uh quite a few writers and who wrote the scripts all those things in hollywood and people do not know a lot of second-tier folks all live here in rancho santa fe del mar and ocean that's a lot better than la so they were here and we represented quite a few so it sounds like you almost transitioned into entertainment like through circumstances like just how the opportunities presented themselves and you kind of transition slowly over like you know some time so how did that turn into starting print spray the production company well the the the main focus for presbyter at the time um i've been working in the industry and i had to retire from the practice of law through the couple heart attacks but i had a lot of friends in industry and we started a company making movies yeah we had one company and then we went public with consolidated pitchers group and thus started launching it but like everything you got to make some money doing this or you can lose a lot of money also and and but dealing with hollywood is difficult extremely difficult especially when you're a christian and they have their own views about things so the acrimony the problems i created for someone like myself and i could tell you some stories not here about you know people-owned studios and i've been to every studio in la every major in the executive lunchrooms the whole nine yards so i understand how it works and my view was was to make more family-friendly films and more films that would honor american heritage and patriotism and things of that sort so so let's start our own company to help move those movies along and that's how prince perry the idea prince pretty started with it was you know had a different name before but one of the other partners in the company picked that name and uh stuck and we said we'll go with that yeah he said it sounds very british you know something yes indeed sounds regal yeah you know professional filmmaking is a is a very interesting subject because there's a lot of people out there that have film ideas have ovie ideas have things that they'd like to do but you know don't really know where to get started so as someone who works in the film industry and putting these packages together do you have any recommendations for someone who wants to make a film well it depends on the type of film but anyone can make a film and i think you made a few yourself right i might have so but the key is make a film what's the message say we have a message film fund that we're raising money for films have to have a message the ones have a message live forever people want to watch him you see that and we joke with guys who a friend of mine princess owns all those aged john wayne films right and he's still making a lot of money because people like to watch that john wayne now today you're going to people watching clint eastwood movies because of what it represents especially for guys cowboys like me so it's that niche so right now we're trying to get the niche now with message films you want to have nice wholesome message something people because people go to movies they watch a movie for two things i think one they want to feel good the second part is after to see the movie they want to feel good yes and you want to lead them down a path without telling them anything i said you know with a hardcore message but allow their minds to really think about it and to say oh it fits with their own perception of what the film should be you you want to intertwine that that's how really the movie viewer will latch on to it and come back and watch it i mean i have a movie i really love i've seen it 275 times right number keeps growing every time we talk people must keep watching it oh yeah yeah it's a cult film among especially cops ex-cops and we watch it together and some of the guys drink beer and i drink you know lemonade but it works yeah with all the tequila in it but that's a joke so the message is the key and that's what i've been trying to do and we now you know people have what they call hollywood they realize that's what works it's made do you make christian films and i was known in the early days as a christian right there there were a handful of us and you know it was very difficult doing that 40 years ago now but today or even 20 years ago yes right now like i said our focus is on doing message films films with a positive wholesome message and that can include action films and good guys win and you know i historically my job was to you know change people's hearts you know not take out bad guys of course i have taken out bad guys sometimes uh taking out the bad guys can be pretty inspirational as well right it's called arresting them and letting it yeah and letting the the justice system work not what some people would say yeah taking them out back but so i mean that's where with inspiring people as a goal for a film like is is there multiple genres that you can you do all the genres with that or do you have to kind of stick to this traditional like christian film that that other people make all the time no you do not have the stick to quote a christian film that that's you know i don't do i can do thrillers i like but i don't do horror i don't know what a zombie is uh that's a zombie and you can get people make these silly movies but they can make a zombie movie for 25 000 bucks or a hundred thousand and then make 10 million so they'll make these it's what is what's the message in the zombie movie i remember the verse one night of the living dead and i was at brown when it came out and i thought that was weird because it was a fraternity they made us watch it and it was scary but they made no sense and so i'm not going to be involved in the movie that's nonsense i see it right i mean i work for people like different folks even putting bible stories again on video like someone did 30 years ago teaching our kids and there's still people still buying those and using them today okay so a market for 30 years 40 years that's what you really are trying to do right and that's the same thing and i'm not making a movie about roy rogers but that again he was he was a good guy hero movie and that's what you wanted but he's my expectation that's what you want to do right something that will last and have that message the positive message so yes whether it's a western uh love lessons or poor movie like you know francis mill gibson with hacksaw rich told a wonderful story amen same thing with mel his brave heart same thing with passion of the christ so you have movies that have it could be our rating but they're giving that message too and they were blockbusters right even american sniper you know you know some of the guys that worked on that right and how you know they said hey this guy thinks spielberg was in it before and he put it into somebody else in it then finally they got clint eastwood and what happened right everyone i knew in hollywood said it would not work it would be a flop and no one was going to watch it but what they always forget when i say day i'm figuratively i'm talking about the folks in hollywood your traditional movie the people who work for the mate run the majors right and and they said we're not going to be involved in that but what happened they blew up it hit they forget about what you hear frequently outside the flyover states they core america they think only east coast west coast they forget about right what we call 180 million people in the middle right there right that's 100 billion on east coast but they were in the middle and we have a certain type of core values and we go we look at a hero movie so i like hero movies and that's what we're trying to make also so we asked the question what kind we did do i like comedy yes we may make a funny comedy without being you know over-the-top gross and stuff making people feel better walking out of the movie theater than before they came in right because for innocence blind side we i viewed that maybe three times before it came out and had to be you know re-cut like a couple we've been on we re-cut the last version you know is probably the seventh cut of the picture and there's always the right director's gut producer's cut and so on well blind blinds happens that when originally movie came out it was going to be about the kid and the football player right but after reviewing it and they made it for kids suggestions not just all mine okay he said guys this movie should be about it was a family about bringing this young man from this horrid background into a christian family and they returned it was a christian family and one of the things they had a couple of football coaches in the movie i said no bring all of them 40 coaches in the movie they ever had a cameo why because they all have a following and they'll come watch a movie and it had a very positive message and no one thought senator bullock would do anything in this movie i consider one of the original cuts she was defenseless hitting a guy on the rear end she had put the kind of frisky cheerleader thing and not being a just a good mother image right but what worked i think the the relationship between her and the and the football player yeah and the mother image and people felt that in their hearts right so what did she do she won an academy award right the movie was it's like magic right who was it that's in your moment the company made it oh was it um because they also did blade runners oh alcon you know we've talked all of them and over the top they didn't they just did not anticipate it right that's the point those are the kind of pictures you want to make at least for me no that makes sense and so um what what do you think the future is for prince pray where where where's the net what are the next steps well with the changing dynamics in the industry fans that are streaming everything else there more opportunities now we can see with the streaming as opposed to being locked into theaters and the theaters again it's just a controlled industry but we know a few people you know i know from regal and other folks but now with this covert 19 theaters are not going to survive as we know it they were going away anyway now we have the streaming all this new technology so movies with a different flavor and lots of options so and to that extent what what type of movies can you make you can make them a lot easier you're not controlled in terms of distribution you can get them out there in front of folks but two streaming is expensive so you you do everything now with that in mind and how do you how do you make your money because ticket sales as we know it uh no longer here right right and i mean if without the theaters i mean i think that was a lot of time where where films bring in their first big round of funds to repay their investors and stuff is that theatrical film like the theatrical showing and also being in theaters is a good marketing push for you because then it's like you know everyone kind of sees your name up on the in the lights on the theater they see your posters everywhere there's a place to go watch it so they're kind of doing a little bit of the marketing for you so with streaming being the main platform is that is that going to make things a little more difficult when it comes to like trying to get your film known that people even know it exists yes well the thing is if the streaming company doesn't like you for instance i'm not talking about netflix but and the people on netflix quite a few do not like the way okay i position myself so will i get our audience but if you have a winning film about but now these companies are financing the pictures themselves well they find that this picture depends on the audience but again there are more options right with all these other streaming companies around there's just more options so the question is here do you have the money in the past when i would go to l.a and say oh this i said well i'm not asking for money you control distribution we already have our own money and that's what people understand too well you finance movies yes but that movie has to make sense we like to get our money back yeah people that put money into films they're not it's not usually a donation right you're not giving it away right that's the most challenging thing for people understand so now that the streaming companies are financing movies themselves how many times they can short as many times as they want to if they have a large enough audience that's a control now how do we get around that control unless you own your own streaming company with our audience so what some folks i know are concentrating on just trying to get enough money together to buy one of those streaming companies then you can have more pictures that reflect your own values and worries that kind of thing yeah it's interesting because i one of my favorite things about streaming back like when we were starting this eight years ago was that the gatekeepers and the people that kind of were in charge of what films came out was the major studios and their distribution wings and the theaters and i was the i looked at the streaming platforms as the competition that you know we don't have to use the major studios anymore we can make our money on streaming we can do that but if the theaters go away maybe they also just assume the role of the gatekeeper and everything that all of the bad things that come with that unless of course you make your own that you know can compete exactly and that's what is happening now right because you know prince berry now has been involved in a few docs but documentaries i understand and appreciate you can make it for the right price we're not michael moore and we're not doing that kind of stuff over the top and personally this is me talking you know his stuff makes no sense and most of us lies but i know that i got a particular hit because i worked in a film about a sitting president than the previous president and you get attacked because of that and working with denis de souza as jesus got attacked i got attacked and because the nish asked me we all went to the same church we knew each other he said well we're the same complexion as a former president and we're all ivy leaguers come on i have to put your name on it i said hey i don't need to get shot yeah yeah whatever i'm sure it's not exactly the most thing like if making a documentary about a sitting president especially if it's not necessarily flattering is probably not something that you know gets you a lot of political points exactly and you become a target a serious target and a lot of things happen you know i did i'd never typically i never put my name on movies i could care less and chris williams was a very is like jon jones so i don't need to press and i don't want it i don't need the attention so it's not my focus yeah you know some regular guy like playing my grandkids and they like to joke about it and you know you know papa you know this you know this person yeah it's no big deal they think it's society point is now we're at a turning point in the industry so having a streaming company in order to get the message out is key prince murray okay you still have all this television and everything else you know we're focused more i'd like to ask you a question on doing the right kind of docs but we will work in conjunction with some other folks in association with we're working on about the half dozen pictures but action films patriotic films that make sense right so yes that's where i see a direction like i said earlier my client who worked on all these kickboxing action movies he would we should joke he put one in the can for two you know two and for two million bucks yeah but he would sell them for six million well let's just say 4 million okay so he made 2 million profit but the theaters in europe would buy it right and they were selling they'd make an extra 7 million a profit i said why don't you do it he said no because this way i'm guarantee a profit i'll go make more and sell them there's no headaches they're dealing with all those headaches so we set up the right type of what program that works for our company which is making it and then for instance giving it to another distributor at them to push it out as long as we can make the right type of material that appeals to our core audience definitely well thank you for taking the time to sit down with us today and um i if you want to reach out uh printspree.com so p-r-a-n-c-e-b-u-r-y dot com um and make sure to support all their all their films that come out and uh make sure to like them on facebook and follow and if you need any marketing assistance then check us out at www.starfox.media thanks thank you jeffrey