PROBLEMS AND POLITICS IN HOLLYWOOD AND MEDIA

Robert Hansen

So it's your fault?

Chris Debiec

Yeah, it's my fault. Reality TV is my fault. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I did that for six years. Basically, it was myself and Tara Long. We were the only two that started the division.

In the six years that we were there, we've created probably about 400 to 600 hours’ worth of television, with multiple series like Growing Up Hip Hop and Fameless with David Spade. There's a lot of it. I'd actually have to read my own resume to tell you all the shows I've worked on.

After I left eOne, I went to do the Olympics. I did a show called Scouting Camp: The Next Olympic Hopeful.

Robert Hansen

Yeah, it was great. I liked that.

Chris Debiec

USOC?

Robert Hansen

Yeah, I wish they'd made another season of that. It was pretty amazing.

Chris Debiec

Yeah, it was amazing. We discovered a bunch of Olympians, and one of our guys won a bronze in bobsled.

Robert Hansen

These are not Olympic people. These are just randoms, off the street, basically.

Chris Debiec

Oh yeah. LA Fitness ran a program for anyone who was working out the gym and wanted to be an Olympian, come on down thing. I did that. And then another couple of years of various movies, reality shows TV.

In 2019, I was the production executive on a movie called The Green Knight. Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander.

Robert Hansen

It was a great movie.

Chris Debiec

I spent about five months in Ireland. I have to say, Ireland is an amazing country. It was one of the best shoots I've ever been on my entire life.

Robert Hansen

I bet. Also, it was interesting. It added a lot to the aesthetic. A lot of Hollywood, they put fog machines in instead of it just being a foggy day.

Chris Debiec

The Green Knight, we were there. And actually, a lot of production gets upset when it's raining. We were hoping for rain because pretty much most of the movie is Dev Patel with a giant axe on his back trudging through the marshlands of Ireland.

I did that, and then I came back. I was doing a show called Ghosted for MTV. On March 14th 2020, they shut us down because of the pandemic. So March, April. Beginning of May comes, and I get a call from James Cameron's brother, John Cameron. John had a tech company called the Human Health Organization.

Jim called, “We need PPE, and we need testing for Avatars 2 and 3.” I'm like, “Okay, let's do it.” So I jumped on board as chief operating officer. Avatar 2 and 3 were actually the first two shows that were up and running during the pandemic. And that was May, June, July ish, 2020.

The next client we have is Netflix. Then the next client we have is Lionsgate. Lionsgate bought a lot of tests for all of their shows, both scripted, unscripted, features, TV, the whole thing.

Now, the Human Health Organization instead of doing tech had transitioned into COVID protocols. As it turned out, we were one of the top companies in all of California doing testing. And we only tested Hollywood shows.

Myself and my staff were on set for at least 1500 different productions. All kinds; commercials, nonfiction. We did Apple, Netflix, Hulu, everybody. So I have a little bit more experience with dealing with COVID protocols.

Robert Hansen

Yeah, I imagine. One of the cool things is now you and I have had a similar experience. We both moved from California to Texas. You're the new transplant, you're the new guy on the block.

Chris Debiec

I moved to Austin, Texas on January 6 this year.

Robert Hansen

What are your first impressions?

Chris Debiec

First of all, Austin's a great city. Beautiful people. Great food.

Robert Hansen

Thank you.

Chris Debiec

Yeah, you’re welcome. It's a big city in a small town, and I really appreciate that. Yes, I know there's traffic. But yeah, it's not like LA. So I really enjoy that. Gas price is half the price in LA. It's like seven bucks in LA now. I really enjoy Austin.

Robert Hansen

Yeah, I noticed something interesting when I moved here. I actually noticed something similar when I moved from Southern California to Northern California. Northern Californians seem to think Southern Californians are all about who you know. Whereas Northern California, it's more about what you do.

Chris Debiec

You're doing Silicon Valley stuff.

Robert Hansen

Yeah, in that area. It's funny because when I moved to Texas, I had the same weird epiphany. Everyone's just super nice, incredibly nice to the point where when I first started going out, people would help me. And I just was sure they were trying to rob me. I was actually putting my hand on my wallet like, “Uh-oh, here it comes.” It was a very bizarre experience. But I think LA has got a bad rap about that.

My one claim to fame about this at all, and this should show you that's not a good story. I was in a grocery store. Somebody had left their shopping cart in the middle of the aisle. I'm like, “What asshole did this kind of thing?” And it turns out it was John Corbett.

John Corbett behind me said, “Oh, I'm so sorry.” I recognized his voice before I saw him because I’d watched Northern Exposure. I didn't even want to turn around because I knew who it was. I turned around, yep, sure enough. And he's super nice and very gracious.

It just occurred to me these are people. These are normal people, and I have no reason to think of them any different than I think of you or anybody else I might know. But I think a lot of people in Northern California look at Southern Californians as this weird collective of who you know and not who you are. What's your experience?

Chris Debiec

33 years in Hollywood, you learn a few things, I suppose. I won't say it's all, but it's who you know. Sure, it's called networking. But you also have to do a good job, too. I used to have people ask me, “What kind of producer are you?” And I'm like, “What?” He's like, “Well, what producer are you?” I'm like, “I'm the one that works for a living. I come in before everybody else, and I'm the last one to leave.”

For about 15 to 20 years, I'm a line producer. For the audience that doesn't know what a line producer does, you have above the line, which are directors, actors, writers, other creative. And below the line, you basically have the crew; the camera, the grip, electric, sound.

There's a line in the budget that basically separates the above and the below. The line producer is the line. Even though it's not technically a creative position, I'm not technically crew either. But I have to manage both.

Robert Hansen

So budgets as well as personnel issues?

Chris Debiec

Personnel, vendors, budgets, insurance, legal. All of it. I am basically-

Robert Hansen

You're the CEO of the project.

Chris Debiec

Yeah, pretty much. Well, maybe, yeah. However you want to spray me.

Robert Hansen

I don't want to get into trouble with your director friends.

Chris Debiec

No, that’s all right. They question that.

Robert Hansen

What does it take to be successful? You've had a very historic career in many different ways. But someone just getting started in their career, maybe they're an intern, maybe they're working the camera, or maybe they're trying to work their way up and get into Hollywood, what does it take to actually be successful from the ground up?

Chris Debiec

Well, personally, I can speak to what I've done. It is networking. I used to guest lecturer at UCLA film school, USC film school. I’d talk to the graduating class. They would want to know, “Well, what's it like out in the real world?”

I would basically start by saying, “Who wants to work at Starbucks?” Nobody raised their hand. “Who wants to work in the film and television industry.” Everybody raised their hand. I say, “Great. About a quarter of you are going to be working at Starbucks if you don't pay attention.”

For me, you need your first show. Get your first show. PA is an entry level position. It's a gofer, coffee. Whatever. So if you can get in as a PA, then you'll start learning and you'll start meeting people. The way I did it was, I PA’d for several years in various different departments so I could learn each of the different departments.

While I was doing that, I was making friends. So for those who are starting out in the film business, you need to work hard, do a good job, and make a lot of friends. And then as you keep growing, you'll start figuring out what you want to do and how you want to do it.

Robert Hansen

How did you do it?

Chris Debiec

Well, I got the opportunity to work with Jim Henson and the Muppets. I worked with Jim before he died. Jim was this amazing, spiritual power. Just a force. His producer was Martin Baker, and Martin was equally as powerful as Jim was.

Martin said to me, “Chris, what you're doing here on this show, you should do for the next 10 years of your life.” I was like, “What do you mean?” He goes, “Well, if you want to do what I do, then you need to work in each department on one show; a commercial, music video, whatever, all of it. And you need to do that for the next 10 years. And I guarantee you, you will be one of the best producers in Hollywood if you follow that pattern.”

Now, Martin won multiple enemys. Emmys.

Robert Hansen

He probably got that, too.

Chris Debiec

Me, too. He won multiple Emmys. It was Jim Henson, of course, the Muppets. So he had a lot of claim. I followed his lead. 10 years later, I was a production supervisor working on a movie called Spy Hard with Leslie Nielsen. And I finally felt like I had a real good grasp of the industry.

Robert Hansen

It's really just hard-earned work.

Chris Debiec

Hard-earned work. Yeah, correct.

Robert Hansen

There's no magic pill, unless you happen to be born into a wonder family using the same machine or something like that.

Chris Debiec

Yeah. Well, the other fun part of this industry is that if you have relatives in it, use them.

Robert Hansen

That nepotism is pretty gross.

Chris Debiec

It's gross. I hate to say this, but it's real. You use what you got.

Robert Hansen

You got to use the tools in front of you.

Chris Debiec

Correct.

Robert Hansen

Not my style, but I write my own tools. How about that?

Chris Debiec

There you go. Well, you have a different industry than I do.

Robert Hansen

Definitely. I think you're an interesting person for a number of reasons. One of those is because you are a line producer. So you really do get to see the economics of how these deals are made as well as how the sausage is made under the hood.

Someone gives you a budget, you really have to go make this thing happen within that budget within this time frame. There's a lot of things I think you have to do to make that occur that may not be as wonderful as people wish it was. There's a lot of bodies buried out in the desert in this industry.

Chris Debiec

Yeah, true. I'm not telling. Sign an NDA.

Robert Hansen

I feel like in the industry, you have to decide how much you're willing to do to get ahead. Is that your impression from working with these people? There's a lot of sociopaths who just end up doing this and just have to make it happen. You don't strike me as a sociopath. You’re a very empathetic person to me.

Chris Debiec

I have a work ethic. I come from Reading, Pennsylvania. And I come from a good family. Hollywood changes people sometimes. So you have to just roll with it. But for me, I've kept my feet on the ground. And I tried to learn the business of show business first.

I got more advice from other friends in the business that said, “Show business is about economics.” It really is. Yes, the creative controls the storyline and shows what you're going to shoot. But you need the money to make the creative. So for me, I find that economics and creative go hand in hand. They walk together on the same path.

Robert Hansen

Well, you certainly control the purse strings. So that makes it easier.

Chris Debiec

Well, yeah. For example, working for James Cameron. He is not the easiest person in the world to work with.

Robert Hansen

Oh yeah? I haven't heard.

Chris Debiec

But it took me about a year and a half to figure out what your-

Robert Hansen

That's your good story.

Chris Debiec

Oh, good story. Well, okay. You're going to love this one. Five years working for James Cameron, I got fired four times. Three of the times had nothing to do with me because I just happened to be in the line of fire. But the fourth time had everything to do with me.

I have to jump back just a little bit. I became best friends with John Cameron, Jim's brother. John and I were thick as thieves during these documentaries we were doing. I’d just got back from Portugal, and we were just finishing up Aliens of the Deep for Disney.

I got back from Portugal. Actually, in a way, it wasn't aliens. I apologize. See, this is my resume. Everything blurs into one year. Let's see. We did go Ghosts of the Abyss, Aliens of the Deep, Expedition: Bismarck, Last Mysteries Of The Titanic. In that order. We’d just finished Ghosts of the Abyss, and I was coming back from Portugal.

I got a message on my answering machine. We had answering machines back then. It was John Cameron saying, “Hey, Chris. Give me a call.” I said, “Okay, great.” So I pick up the phone, I call JD. We call him JD. John Cameron's JD. And JD said Chris, “I need you to meet Jim in Nice, France Saturday at 12 noon.”

I said, “I just landed. I just got back from Portugal. What are you talking about? This is a Thursday.” He says, “Yeah, listen. This is what's happening. You need to do this. I booked you a flight already.”

I'm like, “That means I have to leave today.” “Yeah. Okay. Don't unpack. Just take your stuff with you.” I rush back to the airport, get on a plane. And I go to Nice, France. So I land. It's Friday afternoon, give or take. No hotel bookings, no transportation, nothing. I just had a ticket. And they told me to go and, “Call me when you get to Nice.”

I went, got a hotel. I called John and said, “John, I'm in Nice, France. Where am I meeting Jim?” And he goes, “Great. Write this address now.” So I write this address down. I go down to the front desk to ask the ladies at the front desk, “Where is this address?” This was in 2002, so we didn't really have the kind of technology, the phones and the GPS and all that stuff.

The ladies at the front desk were very helpful. They opened a map of France, and they were looking for the town I'm supposed to meet Jim at. And they finally found it. If anyone's familiar with geography of France, Nice is like up here somewhere. Paris is over here. Marseille's down there.

The ladies found the town and they go, “Oh. Ici, ici.” which means here in French. I'm looking at that. I'm like, “Well, where are we?” And they go, “Okay, we are here. You need to go here.”

Robert Hansen

Opposite side of the country.

Chris Debiec

Yeah. I'm in Nice, and I need to go to Marseille. I have to admit, I was a little upset at John at the time because I don't know what the hell was going on, why they sent me to Nice.

As a producer, you have to think on your feet. You have to be quick, and you really have to solve problems. So I ask the ladies, “How do I get to Marseille by tomorrow morning if I leave tonight?” I couldn't really take a flight because of just the way the times worked.

One of the ladies said, “My father's a farmer. There is a train that goes all around France.” It's an agriculture train. And she said, “I can get you on that train. It leaves tonight at 11:00 p.m.” I said, “Okay, great. Put me on the train.” I grab my stuff, and I go to the train.

There's one car for farmers. It smells like cow shit, chicken shit. It's got feathers all over the place. And they don't have seats, they got wood benches. I'm on the train. it takes about eight hours to get all the way down to Marseille. And it's horrible. It's July, I'm sweating. The whole thing smells like cow shit.

I see the sunrise in Marseille, and that's gorgeous. I get there. I grab a cab, only one cab out in front. Then we take the cab, and I show him the address. He goes, “Okay, no problem.” He takes me to the address, and it's a feed mill for animals. I'm like, “This can't be right.” So we're driving around, driving around, and it keeps taking me to the same address.

The town had a little kiosk that said “Visitor Center”. He dropped me off there. I get on the phone. It's the middle of night in LA. I call John and say, “John, I don't know where I am. I'm out here, but the address is a feed mill. I'm in the center of town. What do I do?” He literally says to me, “Okay, great. Jim will be there in about an hour.” and hangs up.

I'm like, “How in the world? Do you know where I am? I told you I don't understand how this works.” I was just beginning with the Camerons, so I didn't really get how they functioned. I waited around. And literally, a 15-passenger van pulls up. Door slides open. Jim, Suzy, his wife, three kids. Jim looks at me goes, “Hey, Chris. How was your trip?” And I'm like, “Fine, Jim.”

I get in the van. First of all, with Jim Cameron, you keep it very quick, very short, and to the point and try not to add any more words that don't need to be added. I jump in the van. I'm sitting there next to Josie, one of Jim's little girls. She was like 10 years old.

Josie starts going (makes sniff noises). She's smelling me. I smell like sheep shit. I’ve been in a train for eight hours rolling around in that stuff. Suzy slaps Josie on the arm and says, “Stop that. Don't be rude.” And she's like, “Mommy, he smells.”

Robert Hansen

Kids are honest.

Chris Debiec

Yeah. We go back to that same feed mill, but there's a road behind the feed mill that I did not see before. They opened the gate, they go in. Jim is nudging me in the shoulder going, “Wait till you see, wait till you see.” And I'm like, “I don't know what the hell I'm doing here.” Because no one told me what I was doing here. I was just meeting Jim.

We go in the back, we get to a warehouse. They open the door of the warehouse. And Jim is like a child opening his presents. He's like, “Wait till you see what we got. Wait till you see what we got.” We go in, and I look at a warehouse as big as a Costco. And there are two submarines. There are four boats, four trucks, and shelves and shelves and shelves of underwater deep sea diving equipment.

Jim looks at me. Now, this is the first time I have seen the two submarines, all the equipment, all this stuff. Or even know they exist. John gave me no information. Jim looks at me and crosses his arms and says, “So, how long is it going to take you to ship all of this stuff back to my ranch in Santa Barbara?”

I'm looking at him going, “You know I'm your production manager, right?” I didn't say that. You never say that. But in my mind, I'm like, “You got to be fucking kidding me. Really?” Again, knowing what I know about working for James Cameron, I put my hand on my chin and I was like, “You know what, can we walk around so I understand exactly everything's in here, so I get a better perspective of this?”

Jim respected that. He goes, “Yes, I understand why you're doing that. So let's do it.” Jim’s showing me all this stuff. And the whole time I'm walking around the warehouse, all I'm saying is “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I don’t know what to do. Oh my god, what the hell am I going to tell the guy?”

We do this for like a good hour, hour and a half. Then we go into the office and Jim goes, “So, what do you think?” Now for me, I try and get as much time as I need. So I told him eight weeks. He looks at me and slams his fist on the table and says, “Eight weeks? You have three!” I'm like, “Okay.”

Robert Hansen

So now you have three.

Chris Debiec

Now I have three. Anyway, that's James Cameron. I actually did it. I got it done in three weeks. But getting back to how I got fired. This is how I got fired. I did everything by the book. It was the way it should have been done because I had to deal with Interpol, I had to deal with the FBI and CIA. I had to deal with Naval Intelligence. There's a lot of different people I had to deal with. So I figured it all out.

Before that, Jim gave me a 13-page manifesto on how to ship this out. He had written this up already. I think he just handed me and said, “Follow these instructions, and it'll be done.” I'm like, “Okay, great.” I looked at page one. I'm like, “Yeah, that ain't going to work.”

I basically put them in a folder and said, “You know what, I'm just going to do this the way I need to do this. I figured it all out.” Jim calls me and says, “Hey, how's everything going? Are you on schedule?” I'm like, “Yep, we're on schedule. We're on time. Everything's loaded, ready to go.” “Did you follow my protocols?”

I said, “Well, Jim, unfortunately, there was a lot of things in your protocols I couldn't follow because of certain legal rules and this and that in the country of France and et cetera, et cetera.” There was silence on the other end. Then all of a sudden, he starts screaming at me on the phone. And I have to hold the phone out like this.

He is saying, “You.” Every slur in the book. He was so angry that I didn't follow his instructions even though we're ready. Three weeks, it took me to do this. I didn't know how to do it. I figured it out. And then he rips the phone out of a wall, throws it through the window of the office, runs out of the office, gets in his car and starts doing donuts in the parking lot.

I found this out later because Andrew, his producing partner, told me what happened. The final words Jim said to me were, “Burn your passport. I never want to see you back in the United States.” So that was the fourth time I got fired.

Robert Hansen

Then he rehired you.

Chris Debiec

What happened was, Andrew called me up after Jim freaked out and says, “Chris, tell me everything you told Jim.” So I went through it all stage by stage. And Andrew was like, “Chris, that's amazing. That's amazing that you were able to get it done so quickly and so legally, legitimately.” He's like, “I'll talk to Jim. Take a week off in the south of France and have fun.” I'm like, “Cool.”

Here's the thing, I had seen Jim blow up before that. So I knew that this would get worked out. Then Jim wrote me an email about two weeks later and says, “Chris, you're the greatest thing since sliced bread. Thank you so very much. No one could have done a better job. Get your ass back here. We have a lot of work to do.” So there's your Jim Cameron story.

Robert Hansen

Why don't you tell a quick story about how you and I met? Because I think that that's dovetailing into the actual conversation here. This is just your bona fides.

Chris Debiec

I know. I was going to say it. Wow, okay. I was a vice president of production at eOne. Robert came in with Jeremiah Grossman and another fellow named Joe, and they were pitching us a reality show about hacking. And I thought, “Wow, this is great. I really want to do this.”

They all come and sit down. Robert asked me, “Hey, what's your Wi-Fi password?” I said, “Well, it's on the wall. We actually had a piece of paper on the wall. He's like, “Okay, great.” Joe and Jeremiah start pitching the show. About 10 minutes go by. And Robert flips his laptop around and shows me a mockup of marketing campaign he had for the show.

He's like, “Here's what we think. Here's these images. We want to do this and this and this.” I'm looking at them going, “Wow, that's really great.” And then I look at the banners around it. I'm like, “What is that? Where is this marketing thing? Where is that?” He goes, “Oh, I hacked your website.”

Now, Entertainment One Television is a half a billion dollar corporation out of Canada as big as Lionsgate. He hacked our website. You hacked our website. You put the marketing campaign on the site. And I was like, “Okay, can you take it down, please? Because we're going to get into trouble for this.”

You said, “Yeah, no problem. I'll take it down.” The pitch continued, and we ended up buying the show. We went and pitched the show. Nothing really transpired with it. But about two days later, we got an internal email from corporate in Canada saying, “We've been breached. We've been hacked. Change your passwords. Change this, change that.”

The two development guys I was working with run into my office and go, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Should we tell someone?” And I'm like, “No, don't say a word.” They're going to now find out in this podcast it was you that hacked eOne. So get ready for the police that show up at your door. Anyway, that's how we met. And we've been friends ever since.

Robert Hansen

Yeah, absolutely. A quick aside, why do you think Hollywood didn't want to do a show about hacking? Why do you think that they're allergic to that idea?

Chris Debiec

Well, one of the pitches you guys had was with MTV Viacom. The feedback we got was that Viacom legal thought it would be a larger liability than an asset because they were afraid that you guys were doing a hacking show, they were going to get hacked. Just because that's what you guys do. You like messing with earth other.

Robert Hansen

Look at what happened to Sony.

Chris Debiec

Yeah, exactly. You guys keep messing with each other. So that's basically the feedback we got. I really love the show, but I believe they were all afraid of what it meant legally.

Robert Hansen

I think that's really a travesty. The show might have been good or might have been bad, I don't really care about that part. But the fact that Hollywood is afraid to take chances is almost the opposite of what you think. You think Hollywood is all about pushing boundaries and exploring human conditions and this next generation data.

Chris Debiec

When it comes to the story, that's made up. Sure. But when it's in real life, “Oh, no. It's called risk assessment.”

Robert Hansen

Okay, I'm going to let that one go. That's right around the time that I met John Cameron as well. I did a little work, a virtual CISO role with him. For those who don't know what that is, chief information security officer. One of the things he was doing, which I thought was really interesting, was he had invented a cold vaporization technology along with Seamus Blackley who was the guy who invented the Xbox, actually.

The cool thing about it is, for those of you who don't know anything about vaporization, the difference between smoking and vaping really just comes down to how fast the molecules are moving around. So if you have two molecules and they're heated, they're moving really fast, they can hit each other.

They can start off as something fairly benign, and then they turn into 10 things. Those 10 things hit each other, and those turn into hundreds of things. You might start off with something really relatively benign like a tobacco leaf and end up with hundreds or thousands of different chemicals.

With vaporization, you're only slightly heating it up and turning it into a vapor and taking it in. So it's much less cancerous. Not to say there isn't any bad thing that can happen. But as far as consumer safety, it's better. Some of you drink it. But he'd invented something that would just basically push it into your lungs as opposed to adding any heat at all. Can you tell me a little bit about what you remember from those days? What was your experience?

Chris Debiec

Sure. Well, first of all, obviously, I work in film and TV. But I've been a loyal, trusted friend of the Cameron family for 20 years. When John brought me in to help with the vaping and technology, me personally, I said to John, “You know what, I'm not interested in vaping. But I'll run your company if you want me to.” So that's how it all started. I'm not sure where else to go with that.

Robert Hansen

I think it's really a shame. For those who don't know, John passed last year.

Chris Debiec

October 25th 2020, John Cameron, James Cameron's baby brother died. Our best friend.

Robert Hansen

He was a really amazing human being for all kinds of reasons. But I think his legacy, if I'm going to try to boil it down just a few sentences, which is really difficult to do if you've ever met this person, he's just amazing.

He actually got the tobacco industry to really look at vaping as an alternative. Not just look at it, but like, “Uh-oh, we're in trouble. We have better start doing this right away.” And it's better for them anyway. It will never kill their consumers.

Chris Debiec

Right. John and I took a private jet to Virginia, and we met with the top tobacco leaders in the country. On stage, John, in his very flamboyant blue leisure suit that he loved basically addressed all the tobacco leaders telling them they'll be dead in 10 years. Meaning not dead as far as dead body, but their companies will go down because of vaping.

He had the solution to that vaping. It was fascinating. I'm simplifying it because I don't really remember the whole thing. But he actually addressed these top leaders and told them they're wrong.

Robert Hansen

He did it while smoking a cigarette.

Chris Debiec

He did it while smoking a cigarette on stage. It was unbelievable.

Robert Hansen

It was amazing. There's really interesting footage of that. Yeah, he's an amazing person. We should probably just dedicate an entire hour just to talk about him at that point. But he's an amazing human being.

I would like to change a little bit and start talking a little bit about the politics around Hollywood and some of the stuff that you've been involved with or have near misses with. When Trump got elected, I think you had some insights about how that whole thing happened from your perspective. I’d love to hear what you think happened.

Chris Debiec

Sure. I've been in reality TV for 15 to 20 years. Line producer, for the most part, VP of production doing all these shows. One of the things that we tell the talent is that, “Listen, if you live your life at a volume of say, two or three, when the camera turns on, we want you to go to a 12 to 15. We really need you to bring it up, just drama and emotion and whatever. Start throwing stuff around.” Because that's what reality is. We won't get into that part.

The election in 2016, I was telling all my friends that Trump was going to win.

Robert Hansen

I’m sure that made you some friends.

Chris Debiec

They were angry at me. They were like, “What are you talking about?” I'm like, “I'm not a Trump supporter.” I'm more of a centrist at best as far as when it comes to politics. But I explained to them, I said, “Listen, Trump is following a game plan. Trump is doing everything that we do in reality TV.”

Now, he learned that from The Apprentice, I'm sure. Mark Burnett trained Trump to do a lot of this stuff. So when he was following the game plan of reality TV, I figured that he was going to-

Robert Hansen

What would that be? What do you think that looks like from his perspective?

Chris Debiec

Creating your own reality? If you're loud, then people will hear you. He believes everything he says, whether it's right or wrong or whatever. And that's what you have to do. If you believe it, then you'll make other people believe it.

Robert Hansen

I heard a rumor, which I tend to believe, that he actually intentionally finds enemies. Doesn't really matter who it is. Just somebody who will fight back so that he can get a lot of earned media without having to pay anything for it. Is that part of the playbook?

Chris Debiec

That sounds about right. Yeah, totally. Again, anything that you can do to cause drama.

Robert Hansen

What does the next candidate do, looking at that playbook?

Chris Debiec

Very good question. I suppose if there was a Democratic front runner that's running up against Trump in the next election, they're going to have to pull out their dirty, little playbook.

Robert Hansen

You think so?

Chris Debiec

Oh yeah.

Robert Hansen

You think everyone, going forward, is going to have to play by those rules?

Chris Debiec

Well, no, I don't want them to play by the rules.

Robert Hansen

I didn’t say you want to, but do you think that's what's going to happen?

Chris Debiec

I think in order to be heard, in order to be in front of the line like he is, sure. Trump may actually win, unless the Democrats can pull somebody together that can go up against him that's real.

Robert Hansen

Interesting. And Biden isn't that, you don’t think?

Chris Debiec

No. Unfortunately, I think we're going to probably have somebody else. Could be Kamala, could be Hillary. I doubt it. But I don't know. Again, I don't really play a lot in politics.

Robert Hansen

Why not? Why is that? Why is that an area you haven't focused on?

Chris Debiec

Oh, I'm in politics. It's called Hollywood. Sure, it’s a different kind of politics. Listen, I have problems focusing already. So I just want to focus on my lane.

Robert Hansen

All right. Speaking of politics of China in Hollywood, there's been a lot of really interesting things that have happened where China has said you have to have certain types of characters in your movies, you have to remove certain types of characters from movies.

In Red Dawn 2 the remake or whatever, they had to change the bad guys from Chinese to North Korean and all kinds of examples of this in Hollywood. What are you hearing on the street as far as how China is doctoring the media?

Chris Debiec

First of all, it's about economics. Again, it's about money. China controls a billion people and the airwaves and what they see and how they see it. It's a communist country. So they do what they do, and they're allowed to do that. Now, how Hollywood has to deal with that is that we censor ourselves based on what China asks us to do. So you won't see certain movies in China because of that censorship situation.

Robert Hansen

I heard they only allow 34, I think, movies per year from the United States. And maybe that's even gone way down since then.

Chris Debiec

I'm not sure of that number. But if the US Hollywood made 100 movies a year that showed how great China was, you'd have 100 movies a year. It wouldn't matter how many. As long as you don't insult the Chinese people and the government or change what they're trying to do, then you do as many movies as you want.

I have a deal right now that I'm trying to work out with a Hong Kong based media company. We're going through every single script that we have, trying to find the one that is the best suited so it doesn't offend anyone in China.

Robert Hansen

Why are Chinese citizens so easy to offend?

Chris Debiec

No, it's not the citizens. It’s the government. Of course, it is. Listen, what's happening in Ukraine is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm scared shitless about all this. I worked with Russians working with James Cameron from 2000 to 2005.

Robert Hansen

On the boats.

Chris Debiec

On the boats. It's a Russian ship, Mstislav Akademik. Excuse me, I can't pronounce it right. Akademik Mstislav Keldysh is the largest science vessel in the world, and it's Russian. Now, at the time, those guys were awesome. Those were all of our friends. They were normal people.

They put on their pants, jeans, shirts. They were just normal everyday folks that don't give a shit about politics. Very blue collar, science guys. Don't care about politics. All of them. Most of them hated Putin anyway. I'm on a tangent. Bring me back in.

Robert Hansen

Well, so how does this relate to China?

Chris Debiec

Oh, China. Yeah, that's right. Sorry about that.

Robert Hansen

No problem.

Chris Debiec

Again, it's about censorship. And it's about what the Chinese government feels is good for their country. And we censor that.

Robert Hansen

What would a perfect Chinese movie be these days? How would you doctor up a movie to be pro Chinese? How would that look like exactly? Characters?

Chris Debiec

Well, yeah. Mulan is a Chinese character, and it has to deal with a woman battling the forces of evil. Even Marvel, Shang-Chi the Ten Rings. As long as you're not showing the Chinese government in bad light, you can do almost anything you want.

Robert Hansen

Interesting. Let's talk a little bit about the gun-handling incidents that we've seen coming out of Hollywood. The most recent one was Alec Baldwin and Halyna Hutchins. How do you pronounce her name? The bullet went through her and hit the producer.

Chris Debiec

The director.

Robert Hansen

The director.

Chris Debiec

He may have been the producer. I know him to be the director.

Robert Hansen

The director. Maybe he’s the director. Souza?

Chris Debiec

Yeah.

Robert Hansen

Do you have any information about that? But also, you were there when the other incident with Brandon Lee happened.

Chris Debiec

Yes. I worked on the movie That Girl. I was a special effects assistant, PA. But I did special effects because it was a non-union film in Wilmington, North Carolina. I had a little sledgehammer, and I would walk up and down the hose lines. If you ever saw The Crow, the first one, it took place mostly in the rain.

We were shooting on February, so the lines were freezing. And when the lines freeze, you don't get rain. Alex Proyas is the director. When he yells action, we want rain. So it was my job to smack the hose lines with my little sledgehammer. Very simple job. I didn't have anything to do with guns or bullets or anything like that. But I did work in that department.

What I know from all of the information that we got while we were shooting the movie, it was an accident. But it was an accident that could have been resolved if the prime minister who was handling the gun would have looked down the barrel of the gun and noticed that there was a piece of a fake bullet that broke off into the gun. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

It was a series of things. First, he didn't look down the barrel to see if there was a piece of broken shrapnel stuck in there. Then the next thing is the gun was handed to the actor, and the actor pointed at Brandon. Now, you don't need to point a gun at an actor, especially when you're off camera.

He was off camera because I think they wanted to see the smoke of the pop of the bullet. Not the bullet but the black powder drift in front of the camera, give it a little special effect thing. And so he pointed at Brandon, and he was way off camera.

We put a squib in the grocery bag, and one of our special effects guys was behind a wall. They yell action. Brandon comes out with the grocery bag. Dialog, dialog. And then bang! Now, when the bang hit, from what I'm told, the medic looked at Brandon's eyes. And he saw something was wrong. So the medic runs-

Robert Hansen

This isn’t just acting.

Chris Debiec

No, this isn't just acting.

Robert Hansen

This is a really confusing moment for somebody who's watching that like, “Oh, that's a great acting job.” He's laying there on the ground for a while. Everyone’s clapping.

Chris Debiec

Yeah, there's some interesting things. Brandon drops to the ground. Medic runs into the shot. Alex Proyas is heard, “Get out of my shot, get out of my shot.” And the medic’s weapon is close. Then the special effects guy comes up behind the wall, and he was excited because he thought he did the right timing on the squib.

When the grocery bag exploded, the squib hit the right time. Everything happened the way it did. He just didn't see what was happening until he came out from behind the wall. And it was one of the most traumatic moments of my life to ever be a part of a film where an actor died.

Robert Hansen

So why is this happening? Why is this happening twice?

Chris Debiec

If you remember, The Crow was shot in 1997/8.

Robert Hansen

Yeah. But I feel like Hollywood should have learned its lesson.

Chris Debiec

Most of Hollywood learned its lesson. Talking about Rust, I only know what I read in the news.

Robert Hansen

But you have some pretty good insights though.

Chris Debiec

Well, yeah. First of all, why there were live rounds allowed anywhere near that set or people with guns and live rounds anywhere near that set just boggles my mind. When we were on The Crow, we had one scene where I think we went through 10,000 rounds. He was standing on a table, and he's getting shot by all the bad guys. Nothing ever happened with that. Because we had four handlers and armorers.

All of those guns and all that ammo is locked in a giant truck, and that truck is driven away at the end of each day. And no, there's no actors going, “Hey, let's go shooting after work.” None of that stuff took place because, for me, it was a professional set.

With Rust, again, it just sounds like there was a lot of inexperience. And the producers should have had a much better handle on what was going on. The armorer didn't have the experience she needed to do the job. I hear her father was a very famous armorer with lots of experience. Why didn't they hire him?

Robert Hansen

So this is purely you get what you pay for situation?

Chris Debiec

You know what, listen. Again, I don't know the entire story. But based on just superficial information that the news reports, it just sounds like there was a lot of incompetence and a lot of inexperience that was going around.

Robert Hansen

That's a shame.

Chris Debiec

I've worked on set with lots of guns before, and you will have one gun. You literally are handed one gun. The producer should have been standing there on set and had a little folding table. You put the gun on the folding table and have the producer, line producer, anybody, any other producer have three or four people check the freaking gun.

That's what happens now. But again, with Rust I'm sad that that all took place. But in a lot of ways, it will help hopefully allow our industry to remember that we work in a dangerous field.

Robert Hansen

Sure do. All kinds of reasons. How many times has Jackie Chan broken a bone?

Chris Debiec

I worked on a movie called Dinosaur where we had a grip die because he got electrocuted. He had a cherry picker. He went through power lines because he couldn't see where the power lines were. He hit them, and he died. I take my job very seriously. So all safety protocols are involved, everything is established. And I'll be a dick about it, if I have to.

Robert Hansen

One thing I think that was weirdly interesting about that particular thing, if you're going to learn two lessons, one is about safety. But the other one was about the fact that the bullet went through somebody and went through the next person.

This is something that Hollywood seems to consistently always get wrong. You always see the person jumping out in front of them heroically getting shot. The person behind them is like, “Oh, you saved my life.”

Chris Debiec

The gun was supposed to be empty.

Robert Hansen

No, I know. I realize. But that's what bullets actually do. Bullets continue to go until they’ve run out of energy. But there's a lot of problems very similar to that in Hollywood.

Very often, you'll see space movies where people are having shootouts and there's all these laser sounds or whatever. Or you'll see somebody driving a two-stroke motorcycle back in the ‘80s. But it sounds like a four-stroke because they just overlaid some sound on top of it. The sound engineer just changed it completely.

There's all kinds of examples like that of biomedicine hacking. Oh my god, don't get me started on these terrible hacking movies. What's wrong with Hollywood? Why is it so consistently very wrong about basically any technical detail? Why aren't they hiring people who actually know what they are talking about?

Chris Debiec

I think you're generalizing, first of all.

Robert Hansen

I am, but not by much. You don't have to go far.

Chris Debiec

You'll be surprised that there are a lot of films that are made that hire experts, and they follow the rules.

Robert Hansen

Are these just the wrong experts?

Chris Debiec

No. A lot of times, it's made for dramatic effect. This pen may be black now. But you know what, for the movie, we're going to make it purple and blue. But it's supposed to be black. It doesn't matter. It's what we're doing. We're doing creative changes to it. Most of the time, I do think Hollywood does try to follow some of those rules.

Robert Hansen

I realize I'm an outlier, but I find a lot of those movies to be unwatchable in a way. It's like I really have to suspend disbelief.

Chris Debiec

You do. Yeah.

Robert Hansen

Significantly though.

Chris Debiec

Have you watched a Marvel movie lately?

Robert Hansen

Well, yeah. But that's a little different. That's supernatural. The metaphysical or supernatural. I can suspend disbelief for the purpose of that. Did guns suddenly get worse in this universe? What happened?

Chris Debiec

All right. Maybe some other reasons that could be too is that if you're doing a low-budget movie, maybe you can't afford to hire the exact expert. So you do screw up a few things. Maybe you don't have enough money in the budget to hire the right sound people to actually go out and create the exact sound you're trying to do.

When we did Expedition: Bismarck for Jim Cameron, we hired a sound company which by the way, won the Emmy for best sound in television on that show. They went out, and they literally recreated every single sound in Expedition: Bismarck. When you watch that TV show, the sound is exceptional, beyond anything you'd ever imagine. And so going against what you're saying, they took the time. We had the budget to go out and make the sounds real.

Robert Hansen

The rest of the time there's just somebody clanging in a basement somewhere?

Chris Debiec

Pretty much. But no. Listen. Again, it depends on who you're working with, who the producers are, how much time and money they want to spend to make it as accurate as possible. And sometimes you don't have to because well, it's make-believe, for the most part.

Robert Hansen

Got it. One thing I think is interesting is there's been a lot of really bad controversies coming out of Hollywood, specifically the actors. It's all kinds of random things, often sexual. But it could also just be some racist comment or whatever. I want to know how seriously, if at all, the people are starting to look to the future.

I'm not so interested in where we are, almost ever. I'm always trying to think of where things are going. I just don't see a world where we have actors and actresses anymore. I think they're going to go away. Not because people don't like acting and showcasing their skills or whatever, but they're a liability. So from the business side, because you’re a line producer, you can see the pros and cons of this.

If I told you I could create something for tenth of the cost of the actors fees and you shoot hundreds of movies with this character over and over again, perfect sound, looks picture perfect, got a great voice. Not a real person but doesn't really matter, in all shapes or forms. It's never going to do anything that you didn't write it to do.

Why wouldn't you say, “You know what, we should probably start moving in that direction.” Just getting rid of the traditional actor and actress.

Chris Debiec

Because AI doesn't have true emotion.

Robert Hansen

Yet, Chris.

Chris Debiec

Okay. You asked me a question. I’ll answer it. AI can't give you an actual human response.

Robert Hansen

This is only a matter of time, Chris.

Chris Debiec

Of course. Maybe it is. Well, you know what, we're not there yet. When we get there, then we can talk about it.

Robert Hansen

Okay. But let's say we're there. Let's say we're 10 years down the line.

Chris Debiec

How about like 50 or 100?

Robert Hansen

Whatever the number is. Do you think there's still going to be actors and actresses?

Chris Debiec

Well, of course, there will be.

Robert Hansen

Think so?

Chris Debiec

Yeah, because you're still going to need understanding of how human beings operate.

Robert Hansen

No, I'm not talking about some person who's in a suit walking around with bulbs on them. I'm talking about an actual actor or actress.

Chris Debiec

The AI is going to have to mirror something. Let's say that I want to do an AI with like Sigourney Weaver for Aliens. It's Sigourney, it's modeling. You still need a human being to do that. You still need to model it to someone.

Robert Hansen

You don't. You're only thinking about what tech is there today. What about in the future where I can do all that stuff? And that's just a matter of me saying, “Hey, I want my character do these five things and crouch and look scared.”

Chris Debiec

When we come to that point, let's have this discussion again.

Robert Hansen

Okay. All right.

Chris Debiec

Because right now, we need actors as much as actors need us.

Robert Hansen

I think it's just a matter of time, my friend.

Chris Debiec

I know. Okay.

Robert Hansen

All right. Tell me about your new company. You got a new production company.

Chris Debiec

Well, I have an old new production, newish. I moved to Texas. So I dissolved the company in California, and I moved it to Texas. It's called Civilized Entertainment. Originally, it was called Human Entertainment. That was something John Cameron and I were putting together. But when John passed away, I felt it was no longer appropriate. So I changed it to Civilized.

Now, Civilized for me has multiple meanings. Working in reality TV for 20 years, what Tara and I started in eOne, to me, was what I want Civilized to be. Because the first couple of years we started, we were the company everyone wanted to work for. Because we were nice, we were fair, we didn't micromanage, we hired people that were experts at what they did and let them do it. And professional. It was a great environment that everyone wanted to work in.

Robert Hansen

Security of website left a little to be desired.

Chris Debiec

No, that wasn't in my control. I had my own division I had to deal with. But for me, Civilized Entertainment just doesn't mean my goal is to do projects that deal with science, technology, health, historical, medical. I want to do things that can contribute something to the world.

Entertainment, absolutely. I want it to be entertaining. But I also want it to be somewhat meaningful in some capacity. So it's twofold. I'm going to do meaningful content that will propel the human story forward.

I also want to provide a safe working environment and a fun working environment and a professional work environment and something that has good energy about it. Because to me, Civilized Entertainment is the company everybody wants to work for.

Robert Hansen

That's great. You have a new coalition you're building as well.

Chris Debiec

Moving to Texas, I stay busy. I can't sit still, I have to stay busy. I reviewed the Texas film and television tax incentives. Well, for the most part, there are none. They have low caps on everything. You have to jump through a lot of hoops.

In a lot of ways, a lot of productions don't want to come to Texas. Because technically speaking, in their view, they don't have the kind of credits that are necessary. So I'm forming the Texas Media Coalition that is going to take a look at restructuring the entire Texas Film Commission tax incentives.

I've done many movies in many states. We didn't structure, but we used their tax incentives. And they work. They work great. So I was going to cherry pick basically all the best things about several states across the country and try to mold a new and different tax incentive program for Texas that doesn't take away money for social issues, that doesn't take away money from, let's say, occupancy tax.

But that will actually generate more business for the state of Texas and bring more business into the state of Texas keeping the tax incentives that we're generating from the film and television industry, giving those tax incentives to Texas businesses. So in a way, it's just generating more for the state of Texas.

Robert Hansen

Describe why it's so important to have these. What’s the difference between having them and not having them?

Chris Debiec

It's economic development. I'll take you out of the country for one second to Ireland. We did The Green Knight in Ireland, and Ireland probably has the best tax incentives in the world. It's like somewhere between 32 to 36% cash back. So if you have a budget of $10 million, they're going to write you a check.

Let's say you spend the entire $10 million, you're going to get a check back for like 3 million bucks. They do it. It worked. We learned that on The Green Knight. That's part of the reason why I felt The Green Knight was one of the best movies I've ever worked on. Because everything just worked like a machine. It was amazing.

Obviously, in the US, we have a lot more complicated issues than that. But we shouldn’t. I think I can figure out a way to move money around, call it soft dollars, and keep all the money in the state but then generate more business and bring it into the state. I'm still working that out.

Robert Hansen

Who's interested in this? Who are you talking to, the film commissioner?

Chris Debiec

I basically have spoken to all the film commissioners that stay in Texas; Houston, Austin, San Antonio, the actual Texas Film Commission itself. And one of the places that I'm going to is oil and gas. I have some relationships with some very large oil and gas companies in Texas. So I want to go to them with a proposal to somehow keep it all in the state.

It'll propel film and television as well as just business. I can't really get into it because I don't know enough about taxes and the way the tax structure is in Texas. That's what I'm learning.

Robert Hansen

A lot of property tax.

Chris Debiec

A lot of property tax. But I'm learning how to do that. And I'm going to show you how that incorporates into the little program I'm creating.

Robert Hansen

How do people support you? How do they get behind this or get behind what you're doing? How do they find you?

Chris Debiec

civilizedentertainment.com. It's real simple. We have an email address, civilizedentertainment@gmail. Send me notes. We're looking for endorsements from corporations, companies that we can generate so that I can help your business with whatever taxes you're paying by bringing in more business from Hollywood and just keeping everybody busy.

That's why I have a problem sitting still. I want to keep myself busy, and I also want to work. If I can create more jobs here in the state of Texas for film and television, then I will.

Robert Hansen

That's great.

Chris Debiec

Yeah, absolutely. Then we're also creating a training program, too. Going back to Ireland, they have something called the trainees. So the country of Ireland puts a trainee in every department on whatever movies they do, and they subsidize.

Robert Hansen

It’s a way to get small, local organizations and all.

Chris Debiec

Yeah. Basically, you build a base of crew. So if you have a PA or a trainee in every department that trainee does this show and that show and that show, you do three. After the third show, then they get accepted into the union. Now you just build your base. And that keeps going and going and going.

Ireland can shoot like 100 movies if you want all around the country because they have a very large base of crew. So if we can try to do something like that with Texas say, the universities, use all the university film and television programs that they have and incorporate them into the training program when they graduate, there you go.

Robert Hansen

It's a great way to get a lot of local businesses involved as well.

Chris Debiec

Oh, absolutely.

Robert Hansen

Well, it comes back to them. Now they're getting stuff shot in their city, and their kids are involved in the program.

Chris Debiec

I want to bring up one thing. I got a question from an ibble follower that said, “What are the current COVID protocols now dealing with our industry?” Well, currently, they're still the same. The unions dictate what those are. And they really haven't changed all that much. They still do rapid testing, they still do masks, they do PCRs depending on what is the requirement from each studio, from each network, etc.

Robert Hansen

This is mostly insurance-related, I'm sure.

Chris Debiec

It's health-related. We want to keep everybody safe on set. Sure. So that's where the business is now. But I hear by the end of April, the union's may be changing their tune a little bit, which would be good.

Robert Hansen

Great. Well, do you have a social media profile that people should follow you at?

Chris Debiec

Facebook, Civilized. Twitter, Civilized. All that. It’s @Civilized, I think. Actually, here, I'll look at my card. How about that? I'm not the best social media guy. Yeah. Facebook, it’s @Civilized. Twitter, it’s @Civilized. Instagram, it’s @CivilizedEntertainment.

Robert Hansen

All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on The RSnake Show. I really appreciate it, both this conversation as well as your help with producing the show.

Chris Debiec

Thanks, Robert.

Robert Hansen

Thank you so much. Yeah, appreciate it.

Chris Debiec

Appreciate it. Thank you.