From San Francisco to St. Louis: Tim Breitbach on Filmmaking #216

In this episode of The Screen Lawyer Podcast, host Pete Salsich sits down with Tim Breitbach, founder of Optimal Entertainment, to discuss his journey from a creative director in San Francisco to a filmmaker and entrepreneur in St. Louis.

Tim shares his experience co-founding Content Films and directing "Dopamine," which premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. He also discusses his move to St. Louis, where he collaborated with the local production company, Coolfire Studios. After founding Optimal Entertainment, he produced the documentary "The Final 19," which chronicles the story of his cousin, one of the final 19 POWs to be released from Vietnam . Tim also talks about his latest project, developing a media franchise around Robert Stroud, the notorious "Birdman of Alcatraz."

Original Theme Song composed by Brent Johnson of Coolfire Studios.
Podcast sponsored by Capes Sokol.

Learn more about THE SCREEN LAWYER™ TheScreenLawyer.com.

Follow THE SCREEN LAWYER™ on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheScreenLawyer
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheScreenLawyer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScreenLawyer
Instagram: https://instagram.com/TheScreenLawyer

The Screen Lawyer’s hair by Shelby Rippy, Idle Hands Grooming Company.

Transcript

0:00

So joining me on the podcast today is Tim Breitbach of Optimal Entertainment. Tim's a writer, producer, director, filmmaker, impresario, all sorts of things. Tim, welcome. Thank you very much. Glad to be here. Stick around. We're going to get into some very interesting stuff. Hi there. Welcome to The Screen Lawyer Podcast. I'm Pete Salsich, The Screen Lawyer. And joining me today is my guest is Tim Breitbach. Tim is the Owner, Founder, Chief Cook and Bottle Washer at Optimal Entertainment Production company here in Saint Louis. And somebody I've worked with for more than 15 years. Welcome, Tim. Hey. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Finally. Yeah. I had six of your friends before you didn't like something like that? She told two friends. You know, that kind of thing? Well, you know, they all paid something to be on, and you did not. So, Well, welcome. Seriously, it's great to have you. it's. And I think it's really kind of interesting. And I want to explore with you, a little bit today, some of the your, your transition over the years from when we first met and but even going back before that, you, you had a history as a filmmaker in San Francisco before coming to Saint Louis. Correct. And, let's take us through that. And then we you have a really cool project going on now that I want to talk about to as a Yeah I mean I started in San Francisco, but really my first thing was I was an ad guy. I was a writer. I was, creative director had my own agency. And during that time, we the branded entertainment was really starting with BMW films had had this amazing kind of long format storytelling. And so we started doing that for other clients like Levi Strauss and a bunch of other things. And my business partner at the time, he was a a film director and being a writer, you know, we started writing a script and we got a script into the Sundance Institute Filmmakers Labs. Yeah. And, it was called Dopamine. And we took that to the labs and literally was sitting next to, like, Sally Fields and Robert Redford and like everybody, you know, so indoctrinated in our first script into some pretty, deep waters and, within about 4 or 5 years, we started a production company called Content Films, and we filmed it and it, got, in the 2003 dramatic competition with the Sundance Film Festival. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. And that's a really it's a it's an amazing. Can people still see that? Is it? Yeah. It's from there. It's kicking around. Dopamine. Yeah. Yeah. The internet is your friend, folks. Check out double main. Yeah, yeah. So San Francisco for quite a while enough that I think you became a San Francisco sports fan pretty strongly. Right? Correct. Correct. Correct. Yes. Including in the days when the 49ers were beating up on the Rams back here. Right. Yeah. And then that flipped a little bit, but it's Yeah. And and also with the Warriors I was back in the Mitch Richmond, and Tim Hardaway and Chris Mullin days the Run TMC days of yore well before Steph Curry. Right, right. Well, what brought you to Saint Louis? my I'm, I'm from Iowa originally. Saint Louis. I mean, I say Dubuque, Iowa, which is six hours north of Saint Louis on the Mississippi River. Yeah. And I had friends from college that were here. I had my brother that was the athletic trainer at SLU here at the time, and my parents were retired and living in Missouri because they had just, sold the resort that they had. And we all decided to kind of raise our families together and move to Saint Louis and, see what fortunes we could make. Yeah, yeah. So we. Well, I'm glad you're here. It's been. It's been great. We you and I met, 2008, I think something like that. When I started working with Cool Fire and you were in that early growth when it was just sort of assembling, and I always describe it a little bit as a production company that had been making commercials for TV for a while for advertising agencies, and suddenly a combination of things started happening, including some real talent, either moving to Saint Louis or moving back to Saint Louis to kind of assemble and do something different. And you guys started making original programing and that's the first time we work together. Yeah. And you know what? What's interesting, though, is we always say, hey, we're the first doing it with Coolfire Originals and doing that. But actually Jeff and his team and some of the guys that came back, they were doing the, you know, high school sports shows and all that kind of stuff beforehand. So literally, they always wanted to do original entertainment, but usually the more lucrative side commercial production. So you got to pay the bills, so you got to do it. So what we did is we just had, compiled enough people together that would want to do both and then eventually create, an original entertainment division. So it was, right place, right time. Yeah. And that was that was a heady time in the reality TV world. you still had a bunch of different independent networks, which you don't have anymore. So you could pitch shows the different. You could you could have a little competition for bidding wars. and then the business kind of changed. Yeah. Business changed. I mean, it's consolidated. It's also everybody in there, dogs that they could start producing reality television. So they did. And then that waters down the product obviously and then also, you know, the reality of it is also trying to take jobs away and away from writers and the other unions and things like that. So it's, it was just a balance. And I think that the to the so the gold rush happened in a way, and then it's kind of found its equilibrium and found its footing in a rightful place because there's a ton of great non-scripted programing. And that's what I really love. It's not scripted versus quote unquote reality. Right? I don't like manufactured, things. I like, understanding a construct and that letting people be who they are within the construct and finding the story in the natural environment. and so that leads me to documentaries, docu series, that kind of thing. but yeah. So, I mean, right now it's a very challenging time for studios and all that kind of stuff, because it's not like I've been a studio guy. Right? The good, the big guys aren't calling me. I mean, since Harvey Weinstein called in 2003, that's been a while. And probably best that he's you're not taking his calls anymore. Exactly. Yeah. Miramax is on the phone. Okay. Yeah. Well, and that's another, another way in which and I think it's real that the industry has begun to change. Yeah. Right. The fact that the, the way people were treated, I remember seeing it early on at the time at Coolfire on the internship issue because in the, in the Hollywood area, in the network studio, in the TV studio area, yeah. Everybody used unpaid interns. and unpaid intern was the only way you could get into the business. Yeah, but they were functionally a version of free slave labor. And eventually the Department of Labor said, wait a second. That's actually not legal at all. And I remember one of the first things that I do at Coolfire was draft our intern policy to make sure that they were getting college credit or whatever it was. Right. Some something to to comply with the rules for real, you know, there you go. Yeah. And so so let's come forward a little. Yep. You have Coolfire started Optimal Entertainment ten years. 7 or 8 years. 7 or 8 years 2017 okay. And so when that happened, you you really went into this true sort of independent filmmaker. And you and I worked on a number of projects. but the one I'm most interested in, and I want you to tell the story about this one because I think it's amazing. Is The Final 19 okay. So tell us about that movie and the why of it for you. So The Final 19 is the story of Sgt. Dan Hefel, who is my second cousin, and he was one of the last 12, I mean, last 19 POW’s to come home from Vietnam. And it's a story about our family, about the war, about his sacrifice, about his journey. And it is a story that's set in Vietnam. But we didn't have the budget to go shoot in Vietnam. Right. But a lot of other people had produced content from Vietnam. So as you and I both now getting clearance and all of that kind of stuff and making sure the paper trail is clear. it's we did a lot of fair, fair use work on that. Are you sure? Absolutely. You know, and your company was very, kind to me in that process, too. I really appreciate that. and so in that it's, it won a number of audience awards, at different festivals. It got picked up for distribution. And, it can be seen for free right now on YouTube or on Amazon or Tubi or all kinds of different things like that. And, and the nice thing about it is it's took a, it was a 14 year journey to get it to where I needed to get it to, because functionally I self-funded it. So it was every little bit. And I sold t shirts, I sold sweatshirts, I said, you know, hats. It's like whatever I could to, I mean, my hourly rate must have been like $1.22. You know, it's just like. But at the end of the day, it needed to be told. And so one of the neatest, is a really powerful film. Coolest things was standing with Dan and doing Q&A and standing next to a true hero. Yeah. And I think what we learned is, you know, we came out of Covid with that and we were at the, Julien Dubuque International Film Festival, which, as I said earlier, is where I'm from. And where a lot of the story takes place. And it was out of Covid and in a very conservative area. We had like three packed 300 people screenings. Wow. And the standing ovations and all that kind of stuff. And they weren't for the film. They were for Dan. Yeah. You know, I mean, they were part of it because I was just lucky enough to tell a story, but we told it in a way that was unique. We told away was different, but we also gave Vietnam veterans a normal grunt. A guy in the trenches could tell the story the way it really happened. Yeah. And not be affected. It's a hard film to watch, you know? Thank you. I mean, it it's it's, Yeah, it's a powerful film. It's a, it's a it's very uplifting at the end of the day, but it's hard to watch, you know, which I think is how it should be. Yeah. And it's just I. And so I started doing something on that film which is carried forth into other projects as I was trying to figure out the narrative structure of the film and how to tell the story. And so I wrote a song called Oh Pow Mia Set Him Free. And the genesis of the song is, Pow Mia is Prisoner Of War, Missing In Action. But the family Dan’s family, the Hefel family had a vigil for 24 hours every day for 1153, days that he was in captivity. And so that thing is, I was wondering if you weren't a Catholic, which we all were, but there were plenty of people that weren't. Who were you praying to to get these guys home? Because we always have patron saints of some. Sure. Right. Sure. Somebody in specific, if you're going on a trip, if you if you if you go back taxes, you you know, it's just like, you know, we got we got a field. Right. And so, I said, what if this was like kind of a Greek goddess or whatever, and her name was Pow Mia. And so basically I wrote a song that started out to be like a regular song. Yeah, 6 or 7 verses, you know, couple, couple banging. bang, bang in the midsection, whatever. Well, it turned into be a 34 chapter, 34 verse extravaganza. That was the narrative spine of the entire film. Wow. And, and I don't think anybody wanted that. Right. But it needed it. Yeah. And it worked. And then what I've done since then is anytime I start thinking about how I approach the story, I start off by writing a song. Interesting. I never knew that. Yeah. And so I've got a really interesting project that I have with the Birdman of Alcatraz. I got the rights to it, and I wrote this song with Carl Napa. here. yeah. Grammy, great local music, super pro in the music and in Saint Louis for sure. It's tons of Grammy. Well, I mean, in the hip hop thing, he just was exploding. But we have this kind of combination where he does the music and I write the words, and, and so this one's an 11 minute song of all things. You've gotten much better. I but I also have a three minute, you know. But but the idea is this is from the point of view of Robert, the Birdman of Alcatraz, Stroud in a letter to his mother on how he became. What he became is because I was just a kid, and it's like. And it sounds I mean, we use local young musicians. I mean, it sounds like Soundgarden coming back to life is intense. Like audience. I said, well, we'll step back a little bit and tell the story about what that's about, because I remember when you first got involved, we did the book option, and there was all this interesting backstory about how what the underlying content was. So take us back to that. Yeah. So basically, Robert Stroud, Birdman of Alcatraz. He was the most infamous inmate in the, Federal Bureau of Prisons history. He only committed one crime of manslaughter, on the way into prison. And he ended up staying into prison his entire life, over 54 years. And there was 40 boxes in his case file at the National Archives. And you go, how in the world does one person get 40 boxes? Well, it turns out that he, when he was in Leavenworth, he, not only killed a guard, but he also created a bird business where he wrote books, smuggled out tinctures, that could help birds did all kinds of different things and then became this foremost authority. And then in true Shawshank kind of pop culture, he there was a story about him on the first cover that Marilyn Monroe was on Cosmopolitan Magazine. and there wasn't a lot of media compared to the way there were now. So in the late 50s, early 60s, Cosmo was pretty avant garde, pretty powerful. And so it's kind of like the Rita Hayworth poster. Yeah. Interesting. Right. And so it had that thing and all of a sudden, this little known inmate who's on death row with birds explode into a letter writing campaigns and all this kind of stuff, and going all the way to Woodrow Wilson for clemency. And and then there's this battle over all these manuscripts that he wrote, which when he wrote them, when he was in Alcatraz, because he was shifted to Alcatraz, because he was one of those undesirables. Right? They put on the rock. And so he wrote this and in the movie, Burt Lancaster plays Robert Stroud and he's he comes into his cell. And Karl Malden, it was the warden for the warden. Schumaker, the warden. He is sitting there reading these manuscripts. And yeah, I remember that scene. And they get into this fight about stealing a person's authenticity, integrity and stuff, that what it's like that the prisoner was going to be a good prisoner in his eyes, or his version only. Right? And stealing their identity, basically. And, you know, Stroud had done all this stuff for prison reform, done all these positive things within it. But he also had this kind of he couldn't get himself out of trouble, you know what I mean? Yeah. It's just it's like, so the interesting thing. So he wrote these three manuscript volumes. Yeah. And they're called Looking Outward A Voice From the Grave. And he knew that they would be buried with him in some kind of way. And he also wrote an autobiography of 900 pages until he was age 14. The guy could write, and he was verbose, but it was called Bobby. And we do a lot of there's a lot of film. There's a lot of TV series about the making of a murderer. Yeah, right. Yeah. So early childhood development is such a fascinating area, and his in particular. And so what I say about him and you have it in his own words. In his own words. And how did you get access to that material? So people really don't know the story that well that he died in fed met in Springfield, Missouri. And so he was trying to release the manuscripts, which were blocked by the government right in court. And, Springfield attorney named Thomas Dudley was the family attorney to try to get the manuscript released. And then, eventually got them released. And then when he died, they reverted to the attorney. And so then, my partner in and James Cornwell, who was a publisher in more of the cooking space, but he got part of it. And so now we share the rights to all of the bird man's writings. and you did the deal. Yeah. No, I remember I appreciate it. And so a number of times. And so then in that, yeah, we're developing a whole franchise around it and, it's incredibly compelling because it's just as compelling as a Broadway installation versus, a ten episode series for multiple years on a Netflix, because this character is decade after decade after decade. And, I mean, he was literally incarcerated during the epidemic, the two World wars, two Great Depression. Well, you know, it's just as the whole first half. And so imagine the view from within a prison outward. Yeah. And how narrow that is. But it reaches Seattle. It reaches, obviously, San Francisco Bay, reaches the white House. Alaska. Leavenworth. So it's a plains, in fact, his his, headstone. He's buried in the home of Superman Metropolis. A woman away. Yes. Yeah. And even Superman isn't buried in Metropolis. So just a little known fact. Yeah. There's no there's no Clark Kent headstone. and so as far as you know, and as far as we know, Superman never dies. Well, that's a good point. That's a fair point. You should make sure the audience. So. Yeah. So it's a fantastic, amazing property and it's takes a long time to get a property of that level. But, yeah, I mean, you've been working on that for almost as long as I've known you. Yeah. And, and I'm probably one of the three people in the world that's read all the pages. As many times have had sets like that. So, but yeah, I'm excited to bring that forward and as well as other stuff. Yeah. Well, let's let's, bring you forward to current. So you're in here today, obviously to be a guest on, on the podcast and here in our studio. But you're also here in our offices today with a team on one of the most exciting projects that I've had a chance to be involved in a while. and I think we can can we talk about it in the world a little bit? You can tease out the name. Yeah, probably. What? What do you think? Are you going to get the world exclusive? Right. Exactly. I mean, I mean, literally part of our meeting upstairs is talking about now nobody going to talk to the world until we have a strategy for it. But the it's a can you describe a little bit about that. This is it's a it's a really unique property. Yeah. It's a it's a basic cooking and culture show that combines Family Feud with Top Chef with, Shark Tank. And so what we're doing is looking a little Sopranos overlay a little. Yeah, there's there's a little cultural overlay. And if you look at the internet, the world of Italian culture and influencers and cooking and all of that has exploded. Yeah. And the numbers and the fascination and, it's just incredible. And so and also, if you look in history, the mob movies and all that kind of stuff are some of the highest ranked rank and, yeah. And most memorable, as well as Sopranos being the highest rank series. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. And you take it, you go, hey, there's elements of this and what we basically do is we take the, how you would say the, the business side of Italian family, and instead of focusing in on a life of exterior cut crime or whatever you want to say, just the cooking, because the cooking is so important to the Italian culture and the family and the the power of the the true Boston Italian family is the Nana, right? Because it's just like, it's not. It's like, whatever you're eating, you're eating this food out. I don't care what you did out there today. You're eating this, you know that. And, but so the idea is we get great, inspiration in, Pepe Keme, Spaghetti Pepe here at Pino restaurants in St. Louis. Yeah. Came to me with the idea and what I do is I help develop properties and really, like, you know, make it from a glint in your eye to. Yeah, a thorn in your side or an opportunity. Yes. To, Yeah. Yeah, it's really it's a fascinating project. And you've got some, some powerhouse people attached to it, and we'll get a chance. in the near future to talk more about it. but I'm planting that seed for anybody that's listening, because it's going to be fun to see and fun to watch. Yeah. In the near future, we'll be filming here in Saint Louis and, hopefully, you know, take advantage of the new, wonderful climate available to, yeah, filmmakers here in Saint Louis. And I think that. Yeah. And with the film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's just I can't, I can't thank the people who've been on the, on the ground working on that and also the legislators who absolutely, you know, brought it through and we. Yeah. And we very much hope to bring, bring that to them as well as, right. in other ways. We've got a lot of great plans. I think, to celebrate the state in that way. Yeah, I think it's really it fits so well into the what the tax credit is about. Yes. We want to bring, out of town films to film Missouri. Of course. That's something that you're trying to do. And there's a lot of business, value a lot of economic impact in that. But it's also developing things at home and the positive things about the region and about the state. And it fits so well in there. And the availability of the tax credit helps immensely in putting together the financing and and being able to talk to investors about, you know, the value in this and why they should consider this. So I think it's really exciting. Oh, and it's also as we've long known, it's like, we had multiple series at Coolfire that we developed that brought in great revenue streams from Welcome to Sweetie Pies and these. Yeah. Truckloads of bustle, sorry, truckloads. It's a run where busloads of people from like religious groups like the Church of Christ of God's Conference. It's like they would have 20 busses show up at Sweetie Pies. They came from somewhere, right? They're spending their money in the state. They had to go through rural counties. They had to touch everything. I mean, remember, the really cool thing is we did a show called Resale Royalty. Yeah. And that was on Style Network. And it was, a lot of fun to work on with the girls from the vault. and but one of the most interesting things is it's the Cardinals were playing the Red Sox in the World Series, right. And they asked the Red Sox wives what was the one thing that they wanted to do in Saint Louis, and they all wanted to go to Women's Closet Exchange on Sappington, because they saw the show that's on Style Network. And it's like it's a such a small anecdote. Yeah, but it's also the way we have everything here. Right? And, there's no reason the stories can't be told from here. And it doesn't mean because we can look like anybody or look like any place or anywhere. We're distinctly Missouri here. Like I go, oh, those are Missouri clouds. You know, those are Missouri bluffs. Those are. You know what I mean? We had we can make it look like anything. Sure, but it's also some of the most amazing movies, whether it's Winter's Bone and, you know, all that kind of stuff like, are from here. Yeah. And their stories from here. Yeah. You know, that's exciting. I think you're absolutely right. And there's, there's so much still to come on that. Well, Tim, this has been great. Thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day. And you guys head back upstairs to more meetings and I'll join you in a second. But this is great. I mean, you're only, I'm only about six, 12 months behind when I told you I have you on. But that's all right. You know, it's actually been 2 or 3 years, I think I was originally the the inaugural episode, but he was throwing me a bone. He didn't know if I could make it in this league. Yeah, I was I needed to wait and see if you had a few successes. All right. So oh, know this has been great. And folks, if you if you've enjoyed this check out The Final 19. I mean it it is worth your time. and be prepared. Get ready for it and you will not regret it. you can find it just as Tim said on YouTube. optimal entertainment, lots of great stuff, Tim. Thanks. You better really appreciate you folks. If you enjoy this content, find us and follow us wherever you get your audio podcast. And if you're watching this on YouTube, hit that like and subscribe button so you'll get all of our content and you can always find us at TheScreenLawyer.com. Thanks. See you soon.