#85: Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu)

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:00:00]:
I see it as us, people who create documentaries and docuseries, we're we're the new long form deep dive journalists. And that's that's the gap that we're filling and people are craving straight news.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:15]:
Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to the lay of the land podcast where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today I had the pleasure of speaking with Sean Rec, a Cleveland native and Emmy award winning producer and director who has created over 2 100 episodes of television programs that are currently licensed around the world and several films that have appeared on Showtime, on Starz, and on Netflix. His first film, A Murder in the Park, was named one of Time Magazine's 15 most fascinating crime stories ever told. And in addition to the hundreds of hours of television programs and documentaries he has directed and produced through Transition Studios, where he serves as CEO and co founder, he is also the founder of 2 boutique streaming services, AGTV and TrueBlue, where he is focused on offering low cost streaming services featuring factual programming and helping to grow Cleveland's permanent media industry. I really enjoyed working through Sean's perspective on the importance of factual programming and positively affecting history through truth telling and documentary productions.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:34]:
Please enjoy my conversation with Sean Rek. So at this intersection of, you know, a Venn diagram, between film, factual programming, and and entrepreneurship, you have carved this, professional space for yourself to build and and tell the the kind of stories that that impassion you. And I I'd love to start, you know, hearing about your draw to each of those areas. You know, where did your interest in each of them respectively come from? And and how has your experience shaped your path to work at their intersection both as a as a director, as a producer, but also as an entrepreneur?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:02:18]:
Yeah. I think my experience as an entrepreneur is the reason that, we took a a little bit different path than most companies trying to make it in entertainment. There's a a dynamic, especially out in Hollywood where filmmakers are very much at the whim of of whoever is buying their product or whoever they're partnering with in the product. They limit how much you can make, they they take advantage of people's enthusiasm and desire to get things seen or stories out, and they they quite frankly rip them off. And the fact that I came from an entrepreneurial background, and it's kind of been a hustler my whole life, has given me the skill set to keep those hands out of our pie. And the goal since I've started, since since I started transitioning has been to get as as many, cups out of our revenue waterfall as possible. You know, you there are deals out there, film deals where there are 40 entities being paid, taking cuts, and you're left with almost nothing. So now we're trying to do what the music business has done in a way which is make this a relationship between the creator of the content and the consumer of the content through one conduit.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:03:36]:
And that conduit can be Itunes, it can be, a streaming service, it can it can be, you know, a deal a direct deal with a network or something like that. But we've we've been very fortunate in that, you know, we're willing to say no. One of the biggest deals ever made for a for a docuseries, which is what we specialize in, was the jinx. It's not disclosed how much it was, but everybody knows it's it's the largest purchase ever in docuseries. And the reason was that the the the person who financed it, Andrew Jarecki, the direct the director, was the founder of MoviePhoam and he didn't have to take their money. And he could say no. And he said no a lot. And, that's that's how he ended up getting what he wanted.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:04:22]:
And a lot of artists and creators and journalists are not empowered to do that. So we just make sure that, first of all, that we don't need their money. We find local people to finance our projects for us, and we reinvest our profits into our projects. And the other thing we do is, create our own means of distribution so that if nobody's willing to offer enough, well, we'll buy it off us. And that's what we're doing by, you know, with starting these streaming services like, True Blue which will which will launch this Thanksgiving.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:56]:
And maybe just taking a step back, you know, if you could unpack a little bit your your journey as an entrepreneur, you know, where where did that interest come from? How did it start? And how how has it developed over time?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:05:07]:
It started when I was a kid. I I was, 6 feet tall when I was 12 or 13 years old. My mother's straight from Germany, and, you know, kind of got a hard edge to her. And she said, you have a man's body, go out and earn go out and earn your own money, which I did. So I, went out and shoveled driveways and mowed lawns, and my father had kind of a hustler mentality. He said, boy, if you had better equipment, you could probably do more driveways and more lawns. You save up half the money. I'll lend you the other half, and and you can get more efficient.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:05:44]:
That happened and I saw where, you know, I could grow a business just as a kid going to school. And, so I I was pretty entrepreneurial at a at a very young age. And, I enjoyed the independence that came with having some money in my pocket that my friends didn't have. And so I said, hey, let's go to the movies. And the other 4 guys said, I don't have any money. I'd say, well, let's I'll pay. Let's go. Let's have fun.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:06:09]:
So it was it was it was great as a kid to, you know, I I just I enjoy working, and I I never apologize for trying to make money. My first business I'm not considering mowing lawns and doing driveways a business. So my my first business was actually an engraving business, that I started while still in high school. Those are usually mom and pop shops that, you know, do their local high school and a few little businesses that'll do nameplates or they'll do awards, but I wanted to scale it up into more of a national company so we invested in some equipment and also took advantage of the fact that the equipment prices came down right when we were getting into it and equipped ourselves to handle national accounts. We used to make all the signs inside Bally's Health Clubs. We did every table tent at the Long John Silvers. You know, when you were waiting for your order and you had a number 6 on your table. For the whole country, we did every name badge for every Denny's in the country.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:07:12]:
Thousands and thousands of apartment signs and directory strips for apartments. And that business turned into a national company. And, you know, these little tiny businesses, where people basically started a job, you know, I I started something that actually could employ people and and ran it for about 20 years and sold it. Then I got into the software business, 3 different types of software. 1, I got started and sold. The second one was pretty successful. I sold it, but I was I wasn't paid. They stiffed me and stuck me with a heck of a tax bill because I wasn't careful how I structured it.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:07:52]:
The third thing I did was, software wise, was educational software. And, it was a fantastic product, but, the company completely flopped because I wasn't cognizant of the corruption involved with education. And everybody I was trying to sell to ended up, like, down the line, resigning in disgrace or going to prison

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:12]:
Oh, wow.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:08:13]:
Because of, of their business practices and how everybody had to, kick back money and I just I didn't know that game. So I I blame that, but I also obviously made a lot of mistakes myself. So that was a colossal loser and I I learned more from that. You know, that that was sort of my college education. I did a couple years at Cleveland State studying economics, but I never earned my degree because my business took off and I was young and arrogant and thought, well, if I make as much as my professors, I don't have to go to college. So after that failure, I it it kind of people who've been through a failed business understand it. It'll it'll fry your brain. And I I destroyed many relationships too because I thought I was gonna be the hero and, you know, family invest, neighbors, friends, and, they all lost on that thing.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:09:04]:
You know, I'm still repaying them to this day. And, sort of went into a deep depression and thought, well, maybe I'm not cut out to be an entrepreneur. Maybe, you know actually part of me wanted to go out and do driveways and and mow lawns again just to to make sure it still worked. So I I I became an editor of a trade magazine for the multifamily housing industry and I did that for several years, And I got the bug again. Actually, my boss sensed you know, he's he knew me when I was an entrepreneur, when I was running companies. He knew I wanted to get back into something, and he actually helped me financially. He's my partner now. His name is Ralph McGreevey.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:09:45]:
So he helped, fund the start of transition. I just knew that if I was gonna fail again, I was gonna fail doing something I absolutely loved, and I've always wanted to make movies. So I thought that television was the path to movies. Now it's it's become very murky because there's not television's elevated its game, movies are kind of crashing, So I'm I'm glad I started in TV, but we we do both here at Transition. So that kinda led led up to where we're at now.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:20]:
So a lot of questions from from that, and as we make our way to to film and, and documentaries and and factual programming, how did you then go about breaking into this this world of film where, you know, that was not where your experience and expertise had been at that point in time? How did you break in?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:10:43]:
So the the keys to breaking in were not listening to anybody when they told me we couldn't do it. A lot of people said you couldn't do it if you we wanted to create a show called Warrant Unit, which later became Crime Stoppers Case Files. Ralph, my partner, lived next door to the head of Crime Stoppers and a sergeant named David Rutt, who ran Crime Stoppers for Northeastern Ohio. Dave, Ralph, and I started the show. So we had access so we had access to the detectives, which is not always easy to get, but everybody said, no. You're not gonna be able to get on TV. They're gonna charge you. You're gonna have to, you know, pay them $25100 to air a half hour show, and, you're not gonna make any money.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:11:28]:
They were they were kinda right about that part. I said, you'll never get it on TV. It's basically what people told us. So I went out and found a young man to be my intern named Brandon Kimber. He now owns the company with us, and he was the first of, of the filmmakers we hired, and he was extremely good. And we made television I mean, we made quality that looked like what you saw on TV. He was able to do that with a skill set. So basically, I delegated the creative part to Brandon.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:12:03]:
I consider myself more of a journalist and storyteller, so I made sure that I found the right stories. Then the entrepreneurial side kicked in, and, I had to kind of create a little bit of competition for these shows for these stations to want the show. And we ended up getting in on WOIO channel 19, which is CBS affiliate, and it ran there for a couple years. And then we got it on channel 5 where it ran for a few more years in Cleveland. That show was really successful in, and we didn't have to pay to air it. They actually, it was what they call a barter deal, which meant that they got half the ad spots and we got to sell half the ad spots, which was tricky and added another element to the business, but at least we weren't paying for airtime and we could go out and sell ads on our program to help finance it. The show had some success and we Miami Crime Stoppers heard about it. The head of Miami Crime Stoppers, a gentleman named Chief Richard Masten called us and said hey I want to do it down here.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:13:08]:
And so we did, and, same thing, I ended up getting it on CBS down in Miami. That show ran for many years. You could still see it, you know, on Tubi and True Crime Television and and places like that. We did it in Los Angeles and got it on CBS in Los Angeles, and in Chicago we got it on Fox. And probably the biggest feather in our cap is that, you know, in LA, the Los Angeles sheriff's department Los Angeles county sheriff's department, you know, which is surrounded by thousands of production companies came to Cleveland, Ohio to make their show. And I just thought that was pretty cool. And I think, that was sort of a a notch in our belt that that our our quality was was good enough that, we could hang with anybody.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:59]:
And all the while, while you're building out, you know, transition studios, you're you're doing it in Cleveland.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:14:05]:
We're doing it in Cleveland, and we're committed to Cleveland. And now we, you know, we've got 30 filmmakers, 28 of them in Cleveland, and we have an office in Huntsville, Alabama and Destin, Florida also, where we do some stuff. But almost all the post production's done here. We have a 12,500 square foot facility here in Playhouse Square in the Idea Center. We're 2 floors below the film school. We're, you know, a Cleveland State film school who runs a steady stream of interns through our business and allows us to cherry pick, the best of their talent. But yes, we're very, very committed to Cleveland. I've lived in Cleveland since I was 3 years old and, I'm trying to stop people.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:14:49]:
And I think we've been successful in this. A lot of people have this idea that you need to that you need to head to Los Angeles or to Atlanta or to New York to get into movies and TV and you really don't. You can do it right here from Cleveland. Until recently you could fly to LA for meetings for for a $100 so you can go have your meetings out there. They don't have to know where you live but you can you can create the content right here in in Cleveland, and that's what that's what we do. And, you know, there there are benefits to that. To live out in LA, an editor, you know, is gonna pay 3 or $4,000 rent. Where in Cleveland, they they can have a $1200 house payment.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:15:30]:
That enables us to pay them a good living but, you know, not have to pay crazy gig rates that we'd pay if we were if we were out west when we create these these programs.

Jeffrey Stern [00:15:42]:
How have you seen the Cleveland's, you know, permanent media industry evolve over the time as you've started and built and grown transition studios?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:15:53]:
There's a pretty established significant permanent media industry here, but most of them aren't doing public stuff. Most of them are doing commercial work. You know, there's a, like, a very large studio in the Cleveland Clinic, but they're just that's an internal constituency. You know, we've obviously got our TV stations, but there are companies in Cleveland that are quite large that just focus on education, focus on commercial work, which we've done some of that in the past and we're still willing to, but not many of them venture into trying to create content for Netflix or or whoever. Everything, by the way, all, you know, every movie we made pretty much has has ended up on Netflix. So that's kind of the the the gold standard these days for where where you want your stuff to And, I don't know if we're we're making a docuseries criticizing them, so I don't know if, the lover or anything of ours again, but, you know, we've got to tell the truth. So

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:58]:
That sounds fascinating.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:17:00]:
Yeah. I can get into it if you want. It's really Sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:02]:
I'd I'd love to hear about that. We'll go on a detour.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:17:05]:
Yeah. The biggest crime docu series in history was Making a Murderer. You know, I think it had the highest viewership. They don't really release their numbers, but I mean, I think, worldwide over a 100000000 people watched Making a Murderer. I watched it. It was fascinating. Loved it. And then they did a little little bit of research and found out that I was completely tricked.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:17:25]:
They didn't tell the whole story at all. They created facts. They edited testimony. The filmmakers when they made that when they made that that documentary and it's really important in this business. We consider ourselves journalists. They use narrative filmmaking techniques and kind of Franken edited that series and now that it's coming out that it was really dishonest, it could it's gonna lower the stock of all of us who make these types of programs. So it's very important that we so we we created a what it's kinda like the 3rd season of Making a Murderer, but it sets the record straight. It's called convicting a murderer.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:18:07]:
It may be renamed before we release it. It's it's gonna be done actually, next Friday. We've been working on it for about 5 years and spent 1,000,000 of dollars on it. But it's, basically, it should it should be a pretty big deal because it's gonna it's gonna show a lot of people how they were tricked by some pretty dishonest filmmaking.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:27]:
Well, I I think that's that's maybe a a great segue actually to talk about, you know, the mantra that that I know you have at Transizion, which is, you know, positively affecting history. And I think it's it's really interesting and important to to get your perspective on this because I think that's exactly, you know, right. When we deal with the past in deciding, you know, which version of history we want to recognize or which stories from it we wanna tell, effectively, we're we're we're going through what we want to remember and what we want to forget. And it's why I think it can become so politically charged and why historians actually have great influence given our multiplicity of views about the the past and its significance for the present as a society. And I think this framing of positively affecting history is important. I'd love for you to unpack what you mean by that, and how you think about, you know, stewardship. You know, how is it that you tell the stories that you're telling and your your commitment to factual programming?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:19:29]:
Well, we do a lot of media criticism. We've criticized the the media in probably every movie we've we've made because the there's there's lazy journalism out there. There's unethical journalism. There are people who are too cozy with one side of the story. So setting the record straight is very important to us. I think I believe we're the only filmmakers to have had a hand in 3 wrongfully convicted or over sentenced prisoners walking out. It's really fun to walk out of prison with somebody and film it and, because of the work of the people you're filming or because of your work. So that's that's another kind of feather in our cap.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:20:11]:
But so that we think that's positively affecting history. But here's the thing, when I am about to close my eyes for the last time and and and meet my creator, I don't wanna look back and say, yeah, that company was a success and we filmed pretty ladies whipping wine on each other, you know, and having cat fights. God bless Basketball Wives and shows like that. You know, everybody has to make a living, but I I just wanted to do something that's a little more consequential. But the trick is to do it in a way that you can make money. So that's that's what I think we're achieving now is kind of an intersection between socially important and sticking to genres in which there's always an interest. You know, crime isn't what they call an evergreen genre. It never goes dark.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:21:04]:
People always have a craving for crime programming. So that's kind of what that's a lot of what we do is crime.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:10]:
And there's always gonna be crime, unfortunately.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:21:14]:
Yeah. Different types. Now, you know, my partner in TrueBlue, our new streaming service, my partner is Chris Hanson. So now we do all the predator investigations that's called takedown with Chris Hanson now. So we we go to Michigan and Florida and California and catch bad guys who are trying to meet children. We, are exposing scammers. Our our footage is frequently requested by both sides in legal cases to prove their point. And we even have some religious programming that Brandon has is really passionate about.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:21:47]:
Our biggest movie ever. It was called American Gospel Christ Alone that and that movie criticized faith healers and tricksters and hucksters and pointed out the the you know, that if they call themselves Christian that they're they're in error, and, even that is kind of correcting the record at least for Christians. So pretty much everything we've done has been like, hey, take a look at this shoot. You're you're you're doing it wrong, and here's why.

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:14]:
Mhmm. So as you kind of, you know, work through the the maturity of of transition studios over time, at what point, you know, do you start thinking about True Blue? Right? Like, what what are the questions that you're asking? What what are you trying to validate? What vision did you have for the future that kind of warrants the creation of a different organization relative to the work you're you're already doing and the stories you're telling through transition?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:22:41]:
So True Blue came about because I've got to back up a little bit. I told you that American Gospel Christ Alone was our was our biggest film. It created so much thirst for that type of content that we ended up creating a boutique streaming service called AGTV. If you wanted to see the website, it's watchagtv.com. And that service is a success. I mean, we're not even 2 years into it and it is successful streaming service as a boutique streamer. And I learned the streaming business when we when we started that company, and it's just focused on that sort of content. While I was doing that during the, you know, the woke movement, Hollywood was responding to pressure by canceling very popular programs.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:23:35]:
They canceled Cops, they canceled Live PD, Crimewash Daily went off the air, they didn't want to be associated with police. And, you know, people want that programming. Now Cops has been resurrected by Fox, Reels just resurrected Live PD, which we were going to do, but they beat us to it. So God bless them. So it's basically I said, you know, there's gonna be a thirst for true crime programming. They're out canceling it despite it being such a big part of the revenue stream. So they're shooting themselves in the foot to to to look like they're on the right side of history. And the demand is out there for it so we're gonna provide it, and we're gonna create original content and we're gonna license content.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:24:18]:
So TrueBlue uses transition as a vendor, of course, but we we're a buyer. We buy other people's content. We're licensing hundreds of films from Gravitas, also here in Cleveland. They moved here back from Hollywood to Cleveland, and they control 3,000 films. So we're we're a buyer, and basically what it is is a little Netflix that'll launch on Thanksgiving Day that's just dedicated to, factual programming, social issues, and true crime and and some civil rights. So that that's the vision. The vision, I I'd love to say, you know, I had a dream and, you know, this needs to happen, but I'm I'm gonna be honest with you and tell you I saw a hole in the market and decided to fill it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:05]:
May maybe you can share a little bit of context on what the market looks like. Right? What what is the the state of documentaries today, factual programming? Maybe how how has it evolved? How has how has it, you know, handled the transition from the old media vehicles to to streaming? Just, you know, where where we are with all of that and and where what was the the actual gap?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:25:26]:
No one will debate that factual programming is bigger now than it ever was. No one's gonna debate that. What they will debate is why. My theory why is that organizations that used to deliver straight news all for whatever reason decided to pick a side. MSNBC went far left, CNN went slightly left, Fox went far right. There's some other kookier ones that are even farther right. And it seems like no one besides maybe BBC and PBS are delivering straight news. So I see it as us, people who read documentaries and docuseries, we're we're the new long form deep dive journalists.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:26:18]:
And that's that's the gap that we're filling, and people are craving straight news or, you know, if you do have a bias that that it's implied and you're and you're pretty transparent about what your bias is. You know, and the like, we we do we do have a bias when we're trying to get someone out of prison, for instance. You know, we it's pretty clear that we're trying to tell the story so that something changes, but you just have to be honest about that. I think that the the the hole I saw was the hole in news. Everything is just far left, far right, and, you know, somehow that's what's paying off for them, but the market has hurt journalism. So we're filling the gap.

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:03]:
Is there or I guess, how do you think about competition and differentiation? You know, when I just as a as a consumer of of different media, you know, there's this it's it's overwhelming, honestly, this proliferation of different streaming services. We've gone through the bundling, unbundling, rebundling of all these different streaming services. How do you think about competition in the space and and differentiating, you know, TrueBlue as a as a service?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:27:29]:
Well, I believe that I mean, our con TrueBlue's content is gonna be licensed to other networks as well. And and studies show, research shows that that does not cannibalize your own audience for some reason. It's amazing. You can have it on a different network and and still not lose subscribers on your own on your own network or or viewership. What's gonna differentiate TrueBlue is integrity and people I think can spot when you're telling a story straight and not not putting a slant on it, and, the quality of the programming and the quality of the stories. You know, our first film, A Murder in the Park, when I watch it now, I cringe at some of our cinematography and the way we did things, but, you know, the story is so great that it still made Time Magazine's list of the 15 most fascinating true crime stories ever told. It's the story. So we find really good stories, really interesting stories.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:28:27]:
I've got a pretty good nose for what people wanna hear about and see. So it's the quality of the stories that are that are gonna bring people to TrueBlue. And and there's a viral name. You know, Chris Chris Hansen's previous investigations are one of the most downloaded things and viewed things ever. I think we tallied half a 1000000000 YouTube views of various predator investigations from the past. Now that franchise is restarted as takedown with Chris Hansen, people people are gonna be able to see fresh episodes of that on True Blue. We have a civil rights show that's unlike anything anybody's ever done called The People in the Pictures. We were filming in Alabama last week, in which we take an iconic, well some iconic, some never seen photos of something involving civil rights where there's an oppressor and a victim.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:29:21]:
And we find those people And we find out if they've changed. And if they changed, how did they change? And why did they change? And we do a super deep dive into a photo. We find the people in it. I mean, picture Ruby, the young the young girl who was walked in by Marshalls, during desegregation. All these, there were a bunch of white high school girls just screaming at her with scowls on their face. How many of them have mixed grandchildren now? And have they changed? How do they feel about their behavior back then? You know, this is this is the type of thing we're exploring. I think that's really compelling television. And, that's I don't think I've seen anything like that on TV before.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:30:06]:
So that's the sort of thing that I think will draw people to true blue.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:10]:
Yeah. No. I think that is that is quite powerful. What what do you find are the biggest misconceptions people have about documentary filmmaking and, you know, what perhaps do you wish people knew or or understood about the about the space?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:30:26]:
People need to understand that that you need to check documentarian's work. You can't totally trust them right now because we don't have established ethical standards in this space like journalism does or like attorneys do. We need to establish a voluntary set of standards. You know, we need to tell people who paid us to make it. We need to tell people if we have a point of view upfront. There needs to be some disclosure, and we're pushing for that with one of our projects. That's that's how it ends. We ask for for the filmmaking community to establish these standards.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:31:04]:
So I would tell people to check the work you just watched. It's it's pretty easy these days. There's usually a a Reddit a Reddit thread on on pretty on everything that comes out, and you can, you can see both points of views and check for yourself if you're passionate about the subject.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:24]:
Across transition, the the kind of founding here of of TrueBlue and, you know, the the success you've had with AGTV. What what is what has surprised you the most on on this leg of your journey?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:31:36]:
Oh, the biggest surprise is the the success of the of the Christian films. Brandon, Kimber, our creative director and the president of AG TV now, who was our first intern, we hired for a $150 a week stipend, you know, 14 years ago. He didn't wanna do any more murder. So we did all these, you know, hundreds of episodes of Crime Stoppers, and we had to deal with, you know, families who were just torn apart by the the the death of their sons. And we were softies, and it affected us profoundly. We we really really it got to us and we we didn't wanna do it anymore because we felt so bad for these families and we kind of empathized and suffered with them. So he said and he's a he's a devout Christian. He said, I I just don't wanna do this anymore.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:32:24]:
No more murder. And I I promised him we would do a movie, I think, on adoption, which I because I was adopted, and that we never that never materialized. And I said, we're gonna do another movie. And he said, what's it called? And I said, oh, boy. I said it's a murder in the park. And he said no I'm not doing it. I said Brandon if you do this, if you edit this film and shoot it with me and the team I will let you make any movie you wanna make, any movie you want. And he said fine, I didn't know he was like loaded and ready to go.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:32:58]:
He said I'm making a movie about the about the gospel and about false preachers and, people who are who are in rebellion, you know, who call themselves Christians who aren't. I said fine, and I turned around, went to my office, said well, that's gonna be expensive and no one's gonna watch that. I was just that's one time in which my instincts were totally dead wrong. I I told him, I said, Brandon, people want high stakes. You know, crime, that's high stakes. And he rolled his eyes and walked away, and then, we released we just self released American Gospel and it's this massive, massive success. I mean, just staggering success. And he came to me and and and took a shot at me and he said, Sean, what's higher stakes than eternal salvation? And I I I realized, he kinda had me there And that's that, you know, the higher the stakes, the higher the viewership.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:33:55]:
And, you know, it's just it's serious stuff for a lot of people and I I was surprised by the success of that film and then the fact that we had a successful sequel, have a third one coming, and could create a streaming service with 800 hours of content and tens of thousands of subscribers, from that film. That was the biggest surprise in this journey. And I was totally wrong, and I'm glad I was wrong.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:21]:
As you, you know, think about the the future and what's coming next, what what has you, you know, most excited over the next year and and change? And, you know, maybe at that point, we can tie it back to Cleveland as well. And and what has you excited about, you know, the the development of of Cleveland's film scene?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:34:39]:
What has me excited is that people are starting to believe me when I say you don't have to move. That's what that's what excites me. We're kind of living proof that you can stay here, you don't have to leave, you can make great stuff. Every time we hit, you know, a single or a home run, we're we're we're showing future creators from Cleveland that they only have to move to LA. There are a lot of cleavenders out in Los Angeles, believe me. Some of the biggest shows ever were, run by Clevelanders and created by Clevelanders and written by Clevelanders. Why are we developing this talent and losing it? That's probably what I'm most excited about. It's starting to work.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:35:28]:
People always ask me, oh, do you, you know, you do you must do a bunch of stuff for the film commission. And it's like, no. That's that's completely different. Their their mission is is more akin to, like, the sports commission or the convention of visitors bureau. You know, they're trying to bring money in and bring outside productions in, but those people come in, film, and leave, and hopefully use some of our workforce. This is completely different, you know, in that we're creating permanent jobs. I want everybody here to eventually start their own company, or, you know, I tell everybody who comes here, even as an intern, one day if everything works out we want you to direct a film, if that's your goal.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:07]:
Mhmm.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:36:07]:
So, that's what excites me now is seeing how the future looks here in Cleveland.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:12]:
No. That that is that is quite exciting. I think the the witnessing of the the narrative changing, that's that is progress.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:36:19]:
I think so.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:20]:
So we'll we'll close it out here, keeping it with Cleveland in in focus. The the closing question that we have for everyone on the show is not necessarily for your favorite thing in Cleveland, but for something that other folks may not know about Cleveland. You know, a hidden gem, if you will.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:36:39]:
My hidden gems I'm a I'm a fat guy. You're not doing video, but people would see I'm a fat guy. My my hidden gems involve how good our food scene is. But the other thing I usually have to educate people that I have to bring them up to speed on is our arts infrastructure. The robber barons a century ago really, really funded some incredible stuff. I think something that some more people should know about are things like, the Cleveland Orchestra and some of the museums we have near Case Western Reserve and that whole area. I think that, the problem with it I was gonna bring up food, but, like, these places are dropping like flies. It's killing me.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:37:25]:
I used to love taking people to, University Inn, Sokolowski's, because they could have a they could have a meal that was exactly like their grandmother made in the sixties or seventies, but that they they chose to close, but, I don't wanna end on a negative note. But I think that I think our our arts infrastructure is something that a lot of people don't understand or or know about and I think that our philanthropic infrastructure is amazing. The Cleveland Foundation is incredible and it's huge and a lot of people aren't aware of of the work they do. So I think that those are probably the maybe not so hidden gems, but things that aren't talked about enough.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:05]:
Yeah. No. I think those are those are awesome. Well, Sean, I I I really appreciate, you know, you coming on and, you know, sharing your own story in addition to many others. So thank you very much.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:38:15]:
Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. If people wanna sign up and, possibly, check out the new service, when it releases Thanksgiving, just go to watch trublu.com. That's where they can, catch up on what we're doing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:30]:
Wonderful. And if if if folks had anything they wanted to follow-up with you about whether that'd be TrueBlue or or Transition or, you know, AGTV or or any of the work that you're doing, what is the the best way for them to do so?

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:38:42]:
Oh, just email me. It's shawntransitionstudios.com. I'd be happy to answer any questions anybody has.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:50]:
Awesome. Well, thank you again, Sean. Really appreciate it.

Shawn Rech (Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu) [00:38:52]:
Thank you.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:55]:
That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey@layoftheland.fm or find us on Twitter at podlayofthelandor@sternfa, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. The Lay of the Land podcast was developed in collaboration with The Up Company, LLC.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:38]:
At the time of this recording, unless otherwise indicated, we do not own equity or other financial interests in the company which appear on the show. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of any entity which employs us. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next week.