Antoine Allen, Filmmaker: I almost died during Covid. I caught Covid and that's
just a wake-up call. Go after your dreams. I don't want to die an old man full of regrets.
Film Courage: Did you have any businesses before you started your production company?
Antoine: No, first business ever.
Film Courage: You were always an employee?
Antoine: Yeah, I was managing before,
at security, I was working in HR department, supervisor, so I always was employee, yes.
Film Courage: How did you start your production company?
Antoine: Well, my first movie. I wanted to brand myself. I learned from Tyler Perry
about branding yourself. He had Tyler Perry cinemas or studios whatever at the time
and I said let me do Antoine Allens films and first I went to Legalzoom.
Legalzoom is a website that you could basically trademark your company,
do everything for your company to get you up and running, an LLC [Limited Liability Company] and
go through them it's way cheaper than going to a lawyer. Legalzoom (dot) com.
Film Courage: So you did your sort of Articles of
Incorporation or your I'm not sure if that's for LLC or not?
Antoine: Yeah, okay.
Film Courage: And then you…
Antoine: So I did an LLC that's for tax purposes. S you do all that, whatever state you are in,
you do that. Then the second thing you want to do is trademark your name
because even though Antoine Allen is my name, I said the trademark. You’ve got to do two
trademarks, you do the name trademark, you do the logo trademark and you do step-by-step, baby
steps. But you want to get an LLC to get a bank account and then you want to trademark your name.
Film Courage: And why an LLC?
Antoine: I mean it could be whatever you want I did the LLC because it works with me.
Film Courage: Okay, so then an LLC is its own structure?
Antoine: You can do an LLC or a incorporation. then it's it's so it's if you do LLC or you do
incorporation. So whatever makes sense for you but you want to do that first and then
your bank account and they want to trademark your name.
Film Courage: What about for tax purposes? What are you doing?
Antoine: Same thing you we with attack purposes if you're making money you know you want to get
an accountant for it but Legalzoom I think they help you with that you can get accountable if
you go to Legalzoom (dot) com all that information there that gets you up and running and then what
was the first thing you spent money on aside from Legalzoom because I'm assuming legals didn't cost
yeah yeah so legal zone first and then your project your film project
whoever the film project is and what you want to do too that I'll learn later on when you do a
film such as feature films you want to get a bank account just for that film so this instead of you
doing your projection company so if your film is Lola you want your bank account say Lola do a LLC
just for that bank account what that does is that protective that protects you and protects the film
so all the money is going through the LLC for the movie not for the production company
so if you get an investor hey I want to invest in your movie write the check to Lola LLC and stuff
like that you want to separate the money yeah what was the first piece of equipment you bought
I don't buy equipment I have no equipment so what I do is I hire a cinematographer to hire
a crew to do my projects I have no equipment no costumes no I don't buy anything I just hired
a crew I just hired a DP production company key grip I would hire a whole team and do my
movie so you had the LLC you had the trademark you had the bank account and then you started
looking on film so it films up so so you had already started shooting at this point or you
waited to make sure all the ducks were in a row no sometimes I did it sometimes I made decks in a row
I weighed it the little depends can't do everything right the first time but yeah but after
a while you know you get it structured to get it together so you don't have to you could start off
without doing any of that stuff but when money start coming in you start getting big checks
you want to have that because when the investor writes you a check they're not writing to your
name they're going right to the production company so when you get to that point you want to get all
that together so you don't have to do it right away it's no rush did you take out any loans no
everything all my money I ever started it came from if I needed extra funds friends and family
or an investor but majority money came for my 9 to 5 job yep so then you would shoot on the weekends
no sometimes you have to work oh I had a job always have vacation so I might use my vacation
time to shoot and stuff like that I look like I have a good support system like I'm married and
having a great wife a great partner is the best thing because you know when you're out on set
and having that partner at home so shout out to my wife Soraya okay very nice and is she a filmmaker
too no she's in a whole different world she's in real estate and that's nothing to i'd rather they
be with someone or marry someone that's out of my field this great why is that too too complicated
it's two different worlds I dated someone before before my wife and there was an actress and
they wanna be in your movies and all this stuff like go go make your own movie
yeah but yeah it's a great thing yeah marvel's great so so it's kind of compliments one another
when two people are different yeah it does they want different ones in different worlds
so like my wife she's amazing so having like having that partnership and building
your foundation is very important so the way y'all watching this wait don't settle for less
how many people were involved with the production company when you started and then now
when I first started maybe five six people I got rid of all of them
and now just me and two other people but really like I said me I'm the
I'm the captain ship but I have people I work with like two three people I got my partner Eugene
I work with another guy john taurus I'm on the partner I work with I'm working with now Lester
Green so I have different parties they and change in and out well they're also writing these scripts
do you advise people to just start small and don't hire a bunch of people yeah start small
a lot of times we want to look outside a house and the people you need right in your house
it's like stop eating out it's homecoming fooling house what basically means don't try to search
for the big names like yo you have talent right in your backyard so you have friends and family
build that team build your crew up you don't have to go out and try to build someone else out
like everything is in your house you just got to look for the right people in your backyard
what are your duties your day-to-day duties with the production company so right now
is writing projects pitching projects getting funded for it before I had before covet I was
still working by 9-5 but now I no longer I do this full time now I'm not been doing the foot time but
I'm completely flip time now why why did Covid if you don't mind me asking take you out of the
full-time job the nine to five because it gave me I mean I was I was out a year before coverage oh
okay I was supposed to go back but I decided not to go back and cover taught me that life
is too short no one promised them all why are you working at that job that you hate
I like I almost died during Covid. I caught Covid and that's just a
wake-up call like go out for your drink I don't want to die old man full of regrets
did it really knock you out yeah was it almost died I was out of here oh wow because I had
diabetes I'm type 1 diabetes I did a podcast with y'all guys and I talked about the last video I did
with you guys I talked about my diabetes while I'm doing part one I almost died I always take
care of myself so this time around Covid with the diabetes and it was a bad match but I survived it
mass did you have any long-term effects yes my back ache a lot it went away but I had like back
problems so wow I thought I was pregnant my back was hurting and stuff everything
but it was it was it was a bad lot of back pains I don't know why is that part of the side effects I
guess so I had a lot of I was taking a while to get rid of my back pains wow same thing my wife
my wife caught it and she really had no substance about the back pains so I was in the hospital and
she she was fine she just had back pains but we both made it through so knowing that you caught it
and you're so young and you have so much you want you were just like you know what
I don't this isn't worth it to me yeah because you know sometimes little life like a rehearsal
and it's not worth it like it's not worth to be unhappy so you know betting yourself I
could always get a job but I said no way I'm not going back I was going to go back to work but I
see him like now let me better myself and then the bet work so cover the wake-up call man like
you know I know it's hard out there but you got to always choose you first
and was Lola 2 already set in motion no those who was a blessing because I was going to do those too
I was going to wait because I had no money but god gave me a blessing Monica Floyd she said
answer I believe in you and she believes in me to get a film for me and now we're inseparable
the best business partner I’ve ever had.