Magical Thinking, with Ali Cotterill

Transcript

Alexis Clements  

Hello and welcome back to The Answer is No. I’m your host, Alexis Clements. 

For our last episode of our first season, we wanted to do something special. We figured we’d spend some time sharing a few of our own stories. So in this episode, I’ll be interviewing Ali Cotterill, my co-producer and the editor of this podcast, who also happens to be an accomplished filmmaker. 

[music]

I got to know Ali a few years back when I was early in the process of making my first film. Ali had much more experience than me in the field, having worked as an editor for years, and she was also well into working on her own film, a documentary called North Pole, NY that focuses on one of the first theme parks in the US and its fight to stay open.

Ali ended up editing my film and was a fantastic collaborator who was generous with the tips she picked up over the course of her career. So often, in the earlier episodes of this podcast, guests have mentioned how important it is to have people in your life that you can talk with about the messy details of building a life in the arts, and Ali has been one of those people for me. 

[music]

We hear a lot about how Hollywood and the film industry fall short in so many ways when it comes to celebrating and supporting filmmakers of color, as well as women, trans, and queer filmmakers. While we’ve seen the beginnings of change on screen, the reality is that the pace of change has been slower behind the camera. 

According to the 2020 Hollywood Diversity Report by UCLA, in 2018 only 7% of the top grossing films were directed by women, and only 19% were directed by people of color. In 2019, while women made some strides directing 15% of the top grossing films, directors of color had fewer opportunities, directing only 14% of those same films. 

Having each been through the gauntlet of directing and releasing an independent film as queer women, both Ali and I can speak to the many hurdles that you have to find your way over to reach the finish line on a feature-length film. 

We’ll dig into some of that in this episode, as well as Ali’s path into the field. And just to know that we recorded this conversation back in September of 2020. 

[music]

So can you tell me a little bit about what, like when you were a kid, what did you imagine that you would do when you grew up?

Ali Cotterill  

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an inventor, my whole childhood probably?

Alexis Clements  

Did you invent anything?

Ali Cotterill  

Nothing like really amazing. I did do like the local invention convention at my school, which was just like a bunch of nerds making stuff.

Alexis Clements  

But oh my god, what did you present at the invention convention?

Ali Cotterill  

I made a book that was like, it was a travel book, but then you could just take out whatever chapter for wherever you were going. So you wouldn’t have to carry like a heavy book.

Alexis Clements  

People still do that, they talk about ripping out half of the travel book when you’re walking around.

Ali Cotterill  

I mean, I wouldn’t call it genius or anything. But I actually did learn a really good lesson from my first invention convention, which was another girl who was like also eight, she made like this really amazing, like robotics hamster feeder. It took a lot of, you know, robotics knowledge or whatever. And then the guy who won was some kid who he made the tray table that’s on a plane that flops down for your car seat, which is like, who cares? And he won because the guy who was the judge was like, loved his brother, and was like, oh, my God, you’re so-and-so’s little brother, you win. So I guess I really did learn a lesson there about like nepotism and, and white guys bringing up other mediocre white guys. That’s definitely a lesson learned young.

Alexis Clements  

That’s real. That’s real. And it’s, it’s painful. how relevant that remains in the world today. Obviously, you had some kind of creative streak, but in terms of the adults who were in your life, what did they want for you, when you were a kid?

Ali Cotterill  

They wanted me to be like a doctor or a lawyer or something like that—super straight and narrow. There are a lot of accountants in my family. Like I brought home a drawing one day and my mom was like, it’s okay, we don’t have artists in this family. Like we don’t, we don’t really do that. And like, whatever I can’t draw.

Alexis Clements  

So not only did she basically tell you, your drawing was no good, she also dismissed any hope that you had of pursuing an artistic career. 

Ali Cotterill  

My mom’s awesome, she was like super supportive in the, in the end, but she had no model for, you know, working as an artist at all. And there was no model for that. 

Alexis Clements  

And that’s real. That’s true for a lot of kids. At what point did you decide that you were going to make a go of it?

Ali Cotterill  

I went to Oberlin college undergrad and thought I would like be a writer of some sort. But yeah, I also like was trying everything—playing in bands performing as a drag king, and then yeah, later on, like maybe my junior year is when Final Cut came out, so I started shifting into film. 

And then I went to Portland, Oregon, and I lived there for a few years and I was performing as a drag king, and had all sorts of day jobs mostly like in, like bartending or restaurants or stuff like that. And then I decided to go back to film school full time, when I was like 25.

Alexis Clements  

One of the things I’m super curious about, when I started to go into high school, pursuing my interest in the arts was also about accessing what I thought of as like the weirdos, like it was also an access point to a culture that I wanted.

Ali Cotterill  

Well, that’s a good point. I mean, I started a literary magazine in high school with some friends, because the literary magazine turned down my friend’s queer poem, and we were like, screw this. And so a bunch of us did our own literary magazine, that was all stuff that they wouldn’t print in the other ones. So there was queer stuff, stuff about drugs, things that, you know, 17 year olds really are figuring out. 

And then I mean, the other reason is, like, you know, I picked up a guitar for the first time at 17, because I was like, cuz I saw the movie “All Over Me.” “All Over Me” is like a seminal, queer classic. I think it came out like ’96, ’97, and it’s about these two girls that are friends in high school, and one of them’s queer, and the other one isn’t, and they have sort of an ambiguous relationship. And I think a lot of people can relate to that if they were closeted in high school. And I was like, you know, girls, especially queer girls would like it if I play guitar. So that’s why I learned it. It wasn’t a super high or lofty, like goal at the beginning.

Alexis Clements  

I can point to at least a few turns in the path of my life that were driven by romantic aspirations. It’s a great motivator. But how did you go from playing guitar and being a drag king to film as your medium of choice?

Ali Cotterill  

Yeah, I think it was a perfect combination of factors. I was always a film nerd. As a kid, I remember thinking, oh, maybe I’ll be a film critic or something. So I think it was kind of a, kind of a perfect storm with where the technology was. Yeah, like Final Cut came out when I was an undergrad. And then, by the time I went to film school, five years later, you know, YouTube was launching and, the sort of, all the digital possibilities were opening up and I just thought like, I just thought that was great. You know, before that film school was monstrously prohibitive, it was only on film, it wasn’t digital. And, and I don’t know that I would have considered it. And it just felt like a new, a new possibility.

Alexis Clements  

When you looked forward into the future and you were like, I want to try to make a go of this, I want to have my day job in the film industry and also do my creative practice in the film industry, did you imagine yourself living a comfortable life? Like did you imagine, oh, eventually I’ll be able to make enough income to kind of pay my bills and also eat out at restaurants and go for trips?

Ali Cotterill  

After the first year, I remember in a class writing something that said, I don’t know why I thought that going to film school, it would magically merge—my creative practice and my job would just magically merge just because I did this. They didn’t you know.

Alexis Clements  

Like I think that’s a great way to phrase it because I think that I had magical thinking in my 20s too, about—my version of magical thinking, as I was coming into theater and writing and performance, I just somehow thought that I would get enough success in a decade, that I I would get all the grants and I would have enough demand for my work that somehow I would be able to make the ship float without having to do as much work outside of it. And I feel like that’s so often why I emphasize to people that the statistics show that most artists don’t live like that, even well into their career, because I think it’s a, it is a form of magical thinking that I think is subliminally given to us. Oftentimes, if we had the opportunity to study these things, as undergrads, part of the sort of subtext there is like, oh, eventually, you’re going to be able to make a go of this.

Ali Cotterill  

Yes, I think that’s very much part of the magical thinking. And I found it a little bit upsetting, maybe, at 25, that that wouldn’t be the case. But then, but then I didn’t actually, after that, because, you know, I make, I make enough at my quote, unquote, day job, which is also in film, so I don’t think of them as super separate. But I make enough that I have space to do my art. And that’s really all I wanted. So the biggest thing that changed my thinking was realizing that people at every level are dealing with stakeholders and funders. And, you know, in some cases, the stakes are very high. And it’s kind of a blessing in some ways not to have that on your project, especially if you want to do anything outside of the box at all.

Alexis Clements  

Yeah, I completely agree. You mentioned something that, that for you, it’s not always super clear what your artistic practice is, necessarily, versus your day job—that they overlap and intertwine in some ways. 

Ali Cotterill  

So I work as a film and video editor, and then I’m a documentary filmmaker. So I make my own work as well. And so my own films, it’s super clear, I’ve, I’ve never done one that had, like, a major funder that had any creative control, they were totally DIY. And then, with my work that pays my rent, it’s like, sometimes it’s documentary features, and a lot of times it’s, like more commercial work. And so, you know, I’ll work with people, like I’m the editor on some commercial project, the producers on that project, we’re working on that, and we’ll be talking about our films, you know, like, they’re also doing their own projects. 

I don’t know, it’s not like I’m like an accountant who then makes films. Like, there’s a lot of stuff that’s merged. When I’m looking at jobs, editing jobs, it’s like, people say, like, one for the meal, one for the reel, which is like, you know, you take like a high paying one, and then you take one that you like, and I guess is how you think about it. But I guess it’s the, you know, the triangle, I guess the triangle, I would think is like, do I like the client; would I put it on my website; does it pay well? And like I always, if you have all three, that’s amazing, but you often have two. So it’s like, you know, I like the client, and I’ll put it on my reel, but it’s like a lower paid thing, but I love this project. Or it pays well, and I like these people, but this is never going on my website. [laughter] You know, like you usually get two, you usually get two. If you get all three, that’s awesome. If you get one, just say no. [laughter]

Alexis Clements  

That’s a good, good advice about saying no, yes. 

So let’s get into it. Let’s start with your films. Were there any instances where you were looking at ways of distributing that work or ways of sharing that work that people were asking for things that you were just like this is, this is a solid no for me?

Ali Cotterill  

Yeah, so for my film, North Pole, NY, it’s a feature, and when I was trying to figure out like, I always knew I wanted to do sort of a hybrid with self distribution, but I did think I wanted to get a broadcast deal. I would talk to a couple filmmakers and it was so disheartening to talk to them, because they would be like, yeah, I signed on with this distributor, and my movie is everywhere and I got nothing, you know.

Alexis Clements  

First of all, I love that you’re talking about the fact that you talked to other filmmakers about the distributors before you made any kind of choices. How much is that network of people in your life crucial to your decision making process?

Ali Cotterill  

It’s number one.

Alexis Clements  

And what does that network look like for you.

Ali Cotterill  

So I have a network of editors that we recommend each other for other stuff. There were always people that were more senior and more junior. I would stay on their radar as they were moving up so that they could send stuff when I was coming up. And then as I was moving up and stopped taking jobs, I had junior people that I pass things to. I also have motion graphics people that I send things to and sound designers because they get hired after me. And then I sort of have a network of producers that I’ve worked with. 

And then for my own films, I’m a member of like, several different clubs. Literally, those groups are so great, because any topic like this, like, you know, I’m making a documentary about whatever, do you know anything in the style? And they’ll send like ten recommendations of stuff you can watch for that style. X distributor contacted me, what should I do? You send it out, you know, I send it out to that list and ten people come back and be like, they’re awesome or they suck. It’s just such a big network any of those questions they can answer. 

Alexis Clements  

So many filmmakers have their day job in film. Tthere’s a lot more transparency, at least behind the scenes, about things like what’s your rate; how do you get paid; what does your distribution deal look like? In the visual arts, or in theater and other areas of the arts, those things are very opaque a lot of the times. And I feel like, do you think that it is because you do this as your day job that it’s easier for you to talk about those things? 

Ali Cotterill  

So what’s interesting is that my film groups, every year, all of them, do a rate survey for our day jobs. And then it comes out, and it says exactly, by location, age, gender, race, every category of what you’re editing, what everyone makes, and you can crunch the data for exactly what you’re working on and see where you are in the scale, and if you need to raise it. And I feel like we all raised up together. And it’s actually really great. For filmmakers, with like distribution deals, I wish there was the same thing, where I could be like, looking up this distributor and being like, this person got ten grand from them, this person got a million from them, this, you know, there should be an equal database. There’s such a good database for work, like day job stuff, and not as much for distribution stuff. 

With documentaries in particular, but with films in general, there’s like, there’s just this idea that there’s like magic to the number. And also, you make a movie about something that topic ends up in the news, and now your movie is worth a lot more, that is a thing that happens. So it’s really hard, I think it would be really hard to get a database.

Alexis Clements  

I feel like that gets at the core of this podcast, right? It’s like the difference between freelance work or stuff that’s considered a job versus how we actually get support for our creative or artistic projects. I see it over and over again, where people are totally fine to talk about their hourly rates for a commercial gig, but if you want to get at how much they’re earning from their artistic practice, things just go totally blank. 

My suspicion after writing about this topic, and talking with so many people about it for so long is that fear and shame play a big role in what’s going on in that desire not to disclose. So for instance, one of the first things that I wrote about this topic, was on the 2012 Whitney Biennial. I knew that the artists who were exhibiting, by and large, were not being paid, and I just needed to do my journalistic due diligence and call them up and confirm that. And what I kept encountering, over and over and over again, is that artists were really reluctant to tell me that they hadn’t been paid, because they were worried that they were the only ones.

Ali Cotterill  

Oh, that’s interesting. I mean, I see the psychology of that for sure.

Alexis Clements  

Like, it’s interesting listening to you talk about distribution deals, because I ended, I ended up deciding to go with a distributor for my film, because I’m new to the field. But even when I hear you say, oh, distributor deals, they’re not good. Like, I start, like, I can feel my skin, like I can feel the goosebumps starting to come up a little because I’m like, oh, damn, did I not negotiate enough? But I’m just saying that to illustrate the fact that that, that shame and self doubt creeps in so much when there is opacity?

Ali Cotterill  

Yeah, I think there is a lack of transparency in these deals. But I mean, I could just tell you what my deal is, you could just tell me what your deal is.

Alexis Clements  

So for me, when I went into the distribution deal, part of what I was thinking about was, will this get to the audiences that I want it to get to. Because this was my first film, and it was very much a passion project—it’s a film about queer women’s spaces, and I am a queer woman, I am involved in those spaces, and I care deeply about the subject, and the academic market was the one chance that I really had to recoup some of the costs. So that was the reason that I decided to go with an academic distributor, because it might help me. If I got to go to the University of Kentucky, maybe while I’m there, I could find a local gay bar, or you know, queer space and screen the film at the same time. 

You know, in the end, the distributor takes the cut, the larger cut for most of the academic stuff. For like University sales and academic sales, which is my main goal in working with them, they take 70% and I get 30%. So that’s, and I’ve, you know, it’s hard to say, could I have negotiated a better deal on that? I was a first time filmmaker, and I didn’t feel like I had much leverage behind me. But this is, I decided to take the deal because they were going to give me an access point that I didn’t have.

Ali Cotterill  

Are you going to say what your movie costs and what you plan to make back or have made back or what your best ambitions were for what you would make back? 

Alexis Clements  

The total cost for the film was about $45,000 in real dollars. Well, I put in $30,000 of my own money in savings, or money for my day job, and that was split over the course of the six years that I worked on the film. And then I raised the other $15,000, through individual donations, or crowdfunding, or that, that small grant that I did get. So far, the film has made back a little over $4,000.

Ali Cotterill  

How many months in are you? You’re like, well, there’s a frickin pandemic too.

Alexis Clements  

I’m about eight months in to having released the film. But obviously, all the gigs that I had lined up from April forward, we’re all canceled, and a good chunk of those would have helped bring the revenue up. And in terms of my revenue goals, like, or earned income goals, the goal was just to get some of that money back, so I could start my next project. That’s always been the primary goal.

Ali Cotterill  

Yeah, exactly. I think that’s right.

Alexis Clements  

Can you do yours, like really quick? Like, how much did it cost, how much did you earn?

Ali Cotterill  

You know, when you apply for grants and stuff, they always say like to put on like the full actual budget. And so when we would put that on, we would say that it was $200,000 in-kind donations, which was like our labor and everyone else’s labor. And that’s just like, sort of this magic money that never existed and will never come. And then in hard cash, it was $80,000. And we raised $40,000, nd then we put in $40,000. So we raised like, maybe $15,000, during production in like, a ton of small donations, over years, it was $15,000. And then our Kickstarter was $25,000. And that’s $40,000. And then we put in $40,000, over five years. So, we put in like $10,000 upfront, and then like, whatever that is, like $6,000 a year. And it wasn’t until I was like adding it up that I was like, oh my god, that’s like, we put in a lot of our own money!

Alexis Clements  

I had that same experience, when I looked at the budget at the end, because I was like scrimping and saving on the side. And it seemed like, god, how am I going to pay these bills? Or I just, well, okay, I just have to pay this if I want to get to the next stage. And I never, like I’m so glad I kept the budget because yeah, only at the end was I like damn, where did that money even come from? 

Ali Cotterill  

Yeah. And like the $10,000, we didn’t just have $10,000 sitting around, like the $10,000 up front, we took on a roommate for, here, for like a year. [laughter] And I like live here with my wife, like it was like, oh, man, never again. [laughter] I’m too old for roommates. 

We went totally indie. So we did, with the distribution. So we did theatrical for six weeks in New York. And I booked that myself, by like cold calling places. And then we had our own website where we sold DVDs and merch. And the reason that we went that route is because the audience for this movie was older. It was mostly Boomers, and they, they were still, like everyone asked for DVDs. While we were production, they were always like, where’s the DVD? Where’s the DVD? And I was like, wow, okay, like, it’s amazing that we are going to be able to make money off DVDs in 2018, which is when my movie came out. 

So we made let’s see, like $12,000 off DVDs maybe, and then like $8,000, maybe off merch. But, you know, a lot of that goes right back out to the cost, you don’t really clear a lot on the merch. And then maybe like $10,000 or so off theatrical. So I think we put in $40,000, got back $30,000, probably. And then, of course, [laguhter] all of our labor was free for years. Oh, and then digital. It’s like, I mean, it’s in the hundreds, it’s not in the in the thousand. But every time that I see someone like bought it for like $8, I’m like, I love you. [laughter] Thank you! 

Alexis Clements  

Well, and I love that you—I’m just going to stay on one point that you brought up a little bit earlier because this was a learning curve for me. When I wrote the first budget for my film, I knew that I should include some of my labor and I knew that I should inflate it beyond what I thought I might actually be able to cover in real dollars. But the first budget I wrote was $80,000. And to me, that was a staggering sum of money. I was like, I will never see this much cash, and like, I don’t know how I’m gonna get that amount of money. And I, I was looking for a fiscal sponsor, and I was looking for some help with grants. And people saw that number and they were like, nobody will take you seriously if you write $80,000 on your grant applications.

Ali Cotterill

They’ll just think you’re making like the lowest budget thing ever. You have to put 250 or 300 [thousand dollars] for a doc at the minimum. 

Alexis Clements  

So I did, yeah. So I bumped it up to $300,000, because that satisfied the people who were helping me and I needed the fiscal sponsor. And it was so interesting because you know, you shop that budget around, you send that to everybody, but this is like a part of the smoke and mirrors that is persistent throughout the arts, right? It’s like, we all know that that’s not real. And I was finishing the film, and I was, you know, with the people who were working on the sound and the color at the end, both of whom teach. And, you know, we were talking shop at a certain moment, and during that process, and they were like, oh, yeah, you just need like, $40,000 to make a movie. And I was like, right. Like, why is there this enormous disconnect?

And I know, like, look, I’m somebody who’s all about valuing people’s labor and putting dollar amount on people’s labor, whether or not you know, we’re able to achieve those rates or not. But what a phenomenal difference between the, this sort of like, image we project through these grant applications and these budgets, and the realities. And it, it makes it seem unattainable. That’s, like, even the amount of money that I was able to put into this doc is totally unattainable for an enormous swath of people. So the idea that I would have had to have made seven times as much money in order to—it’s just staggering, the difference between perception and reality.

Ali Cotterill  

Yeah, every filmmaker I know has their lala land, $300,000 and up budget, and then they have their actual cash budget, which is like usually $50,000 to $100,000. Or sometimes, like, even less.  just think for indie filmmakers that hear $300,000, I just want them to know that that’s, like $200,000 of it is like in-kind. And even, even like saying that, like I put $40,000 into my movie, if I heard that, and I was 25, I would be like, I’m not, I’m not gonna have $40,000, like, but if you think about over 10 years, you put in like maybe up to $4,000 a year, then it’s like, I mean, it’s still like out of reach for a lot of people, but it’s not, it seems more possible, I guess.

Alexis Clements  

The goal of this entire project is not just about saying no. It’s about the fact that when you learn how to say no, and when you learn what a bad gig is, it frees you up in order to be able to say yes. But I’d love to hear one or two stories of saying yes.

Ali Cotterill  

I applied to a whole bunch of festivals. I got into Independent Film Festival Boston, and I really wanted that one. And it was coming up pretty quickly, and it was like one of the ones I wanted. I was gonna say yes. But I remember telling someone that, and them saying like, oh, what you have to do is like, you know, call all the other ones, like whoever they are, and like negotiate back, And I was like, that’s so crappy. I love this one, I want to do this one, what are you talking about? Also, like, ew, like, I don’t know, the whole thing. I know it’s a whole thing that people do, but I was just like, this festival is awesome, it totally fits our film, it’s coming up soon, nd of course, I’m just gonna say yes. 

I don’t know, there’s a weird prestige hierarchy. Like let’s say we premiered at something that was a higher prestige, quote, unquote, festival, like, it could just be totally lost. It could play on Sunday morning at 10am and be totally lost. So, I don’t know, I really just think people need to think about their individual goals. Like it was a perfect place for us to premiere and that whole thing is just kind of a little gross, I think honestly.

Alexis Clements  

But it is easy to get sucked into it, because festival culture exists in every media in the arts, Like there’s art fairs, there’s music festivals, there’s theatre festivals, there’s writing. Like there’s—festival culture has like, I don’t know, I would argue it’s sucking the lifeblood out of a lot of media. Because the festivals often present themselves as, quote unquote, opportunities, right? This opportunity that exists across the arts, where it’s exposure. Like the prestige festival is supposed to give you more exposure. And in some cases, that works, but to your point, like it’s very easy to get lost in the shuffle in those huge festivals, where you’re competing with studio executives instead of other filmmakers. And I feel like that’s true in every area of the arts. Either way, be clear on what your goals are before you start making these deals. 

Ali Cotterill  

Yeah. 

Alexis Clements  

When you look ahead, having learned what you’ve learned from that first feature, how do you define success at this point in your career?

Ali Cotterill  

With my films, I do think it’s like, I do think of how many people have seen it, and how much they loved it. And then also like, how much creative control I had. So I think final cut is crucial. When we talked to someone early on who was potentially considering coming on as a funder, and they wanted final cut, and I thought, forget it. Especially because the way that they pitched our movie back to us, I thought, was gross. They said, oh, this small town with people with dreams, but they’ll never get out of it—like “Waiting for Guffman.” I was like, I actually love these people, and have spent five years making a movie about them and think they’re amazing. And I’m not bringing on a funder who wants to recut it, who gets final cut and then make fun of the people. I mean that would have been the absolute worst case scenario. So yeah, it’s weird. 

It’s hard when you have an amorphous thing of success like that, it’s a lot easier to be like, my movie will make X amount of dollars. But it’s a lot more fulfilling. I mean, I got an email from a guy who was like, you know, I live in a town of a hunder people in North Dakota, and we couldn’t be more different, but you know, like, this has made me think about, like, what I have in common with like, people all over and who live in the city. And I, we both love this place, and this just warmed my heart and made my day, and I bought it for everyone for Christmas. I don’t it’s like, come on., it was amazing. 

Alexis Clements  

Yeah, yeah, no, totally. So what are you working on next, Ali? Do you want to plug anything?

Ali Cotterill  

I’m really excited about my current project, actually. I’m working on a podcast, a short podcast with my friend Harvey, who is a childhood friend that I went to summer camp with. And we wrote letters back and forth during our junior year of high school. And we wrote about being queer in code, so that if anyone found them, they wouldn’t find out. And it’s just kind of like a time capsule of the mid-late 90s, and I’m just so glad that I have them. I feel like if I was just a few years younger, I wouldn’t even have these letters. So anyway, the podcast follows Harvey and I reading them for the first time today, many years later. It’s called “When You’re a Jet,” and yeah, it should be out by the time this podcast comes out.

Alexis Clements  

Thank you so much, Ali, for taking the time to have a conversation with me. 

Ali Cotterill  

Thank you. It was a lot of fun. 

[music]

Alexis Clements  

As usual, we’ll have links to Ali’s film, her podcast, “When You’re a Jet,”  and lots of other things we talked about here in the show notes for this episode, which you can find at theanswerisnoshow.com.

Thank you so much for listening in to our first season – it’s been a great project to work on, and we’re grateful to have you along for the ride.

Please do keep also sending us your stories of saying no to bad gigs. You can email us or record a voice memo and send it to theanswerisnoshow AT gmail DOT com. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at The Answer is No Show.

Thank you again to all of our listeners – please share the podcast with anyone and everyone you think might be interested in these stories.

And remember, collectively saying no to bad gigs can help us all get to a better yes.

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