Mick Unplugged - The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Dive into an electrifying conversation on Mick Unplugged, where host Mick Hunt sits down with award-winning filmmaker Jason Aron, as they unravel the accidental journey from criminal justice to the star-studded world of film production. Tune in for captivating stories, like filming Michael J. Fox talking hockey, and the serendipitous inception of the "Back to the Future" documentary. Mick and Jason explore the essence of storytelling, the magic of creativity, and how even seemingly simple moments can lead to monumental projects. This episode is a masterclass in turning passion into reality—don't miss it! Takeaways: The accidental journey can become a pathway to success: Jason's career in filmmaking kicked off unexpectedly, showcasing the power of seizing opportunities and saying 'yes' even before you're completely ready. Simplicity can lead to greatness: Jason's approach to projects, focusing on basic but universal concepts, reflects the idea that sometimes the profound is found in simplicity. Creativity doesn't sleep: Jason shares his relentless drive to create, underscoring that true passion means constantly finding ways to express and challenge oneself. Sound Bites: "Jason Aron: Heavily by accident. To be honest, my college degree is in criminal justice."  "You have to be a little nuts, and I think you have to be willing to work 22 hours a day sometimes."  "Mick Hunt: I'm not letting you get away with that, Jason."  Quote by Mick (Host): It's not just, hey, we're going to go record something. There's still a story that has to be told that's deeper than the story that's telling."   Connect & Discover with Jason: Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/jason_aron/ Website:  https://www.jasonaron.com/   FOLLOW MICK ON:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickunplugged/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mickunplugged/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mickunplugged  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickhunt/Website: https://www.mickhuntofficial.com                                                              Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mick-unplugged/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm just into what interests other people and that's what I think a good story is I think far too often things are a little too artsy, you know, and and I think that Artsy really is nothing more than saying it's just so niche Welcome to Mick unplugged the number one podcast for self-improvement leadership and relentless growth No fluff. No fluff, no filters, just heart-hitting truths, unstoppable strategies, and the mindset shifts that separate the best from the rest. Ready to break limits? Let's go. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged and we have an award-winning

everything. When I talk about filmmaking, directing, producing, he just told me he is T-Neck New Jersey's finest. My guy. Unofficially. There we go. Jason, how are you doing today? Good.

How are you, Mick? It's a pleasure to be here. Man, I am honored to have you here. I don't get to talk to award-winning people all the time. Wow, okay. Right? So there's so many questions I wanna ask. There's so many places I wanna go, man. But let's just talk about you

and what got you into this world of entertainment and filmmaking, directing, producing? What got you here? Heavily by accident, to be honest. My college degree is in criminal justice. I did nothing with it. I was going to go to law school, dropped out three months before I was going to start, and was just lost.

22 years old, a degree in something I wasn't going to use, what do I do? I had a little bit of a cushion just to hang out for a little bit. My dad had a sales business and I was always creative. I was always into Photoshop and in college I was that guy sitting editing music and I was a DJ in college for a while. That kind of pushed me somehow into web design and graphic design.

This is the early 2000s. And I was an okay graphic designer. I was okay, I was all right. I could still work my way around Illustrator and Photoshop. But that allowed me a platform to, this is still the early, this is before Canva, right? This is before everyone could do it themselves. So as long as you could do something,

you can make some money. And I was designing a bunch of logos for people and doing business development in the graphic design space nothing major and through that I'll never forget the day a family friend who had an insurance business said do you do video and I said yeah of course but no I'd never done a single video my entire life and and that was it that was the genesis of the whole thing. I went out.

He wanted a website and a video for the website. The irony is he ended up hating how he looked on camera, which was probably my fault. But he decided after we shot the video that I went out and bought the camera and did the whole thing, he decided that we were just gonna do a stock video, stock footage video, which I made for him,

but I didn't even need the camera, that was the whole point. But that was it, once I had that, started doing corporate video, and I think the good thing is that I didn't know what I wanted to do, which allowed me to do a lot of different things. And the first television pilot that I shot, which I still think would be a good show

that never went anywhere, was a show called Music School. We went to different college music festivals, like you know their spring festivals. We shot our pilot at Rutgers Fest, which was my alma mater. That was NERD played, like shot Pharrell. Like first thing I ever shot was like Pharrell. It's like oh okay. There you go. And it was a cool show. We had a Z100 DJ, his name was Nico. He like hosted the show. I still think that's a cool show and would sell. Shot a couple of pilots, but along the way just started making money. The corporate video stuff that like everybody does,

you know, dentist office or like whatever. And then 2012 was my big break when I had the wild idea to make a documentary about Back to the Future. There we go. And so I wanna go there next, man. So actually, before I go there, let me pause for a second and give you some appreciation. Because what you do, and I don't think a lot of people,

the average person like myself, don't understand storytelling through film, right? It's not just, hey, we're gonna go record something. There's still a story that has to be told that's deeper than the story that's telling, right? Like, how did that become a thing for you and how, to me, I call it creative genius. Genius I don't have, but definitely through your work is there. Like, how important is that for you when you're like, before you take on a project, like, what's the story and then how you take that story

and like truly tell it. I think one of the interesting gifts, and I'll use that word that I have is that what interests me, I think interests a lot of people. It's a weird gift, but I think over the course of the last 15, 20 years, I've kind of figured that out. I'm into some obscure stuff and I think you have to be, and I think you have to of the last 15, 20 years, I've kind of figured that out. I'm into some obscure stuff, and I think you have to be, and I think you have to be a little nuts,

and I think you have to be willing to work 22 hours a day sometimes. You need all that, but I think as we're gonna get into kind of that back to the future doc, I'm just into what interests other people, and that's what I think a good story is. I think far too often things are a little too artsy. And I think that artsy really is nothing more than saying

it's just so niche. And there's nothing wrong with it. It interests you and maybe it interests 10 other people. But I find that the stuff that I'm interested in is what interests a million other people or 10 million other people. And it's weird to say this, but I think I'm just an average guy, right?

Like I'm just- No, no. Not letting you get away with that, Jason. I think, you know, I like to watch sports and I like to watch movies. The entertainment that's supposed to appeal to the masses appeals to me. And in turn, I could take that and turn it around.

And the things that become interesting to me become interesting to other people. The documentary I'm working on now, it's about eating healthy. Yep. And, you know, I thought I hit a big cultural moment hitting the 30th anniversary back to the future, which was huge and we'll get into it. Yeah. But now I'm doing a documentary about eating healthy. I mean, everybody eats. Literally, there are so little things that as human beings, we all have in common. We don't all have the same political beliefs. We don't all,

you know, have the same religion. We don't all have the same, wear the same clothing, but we all eat. We all eat. We all breathe. I don't know that a documentary on breathing would be interesting. Maybe it would be. But outside of that, what do we really all have in common? And that wasn't something that I was thinking about when I had the idea for this. But over the course of a year producing this documentary, and people would say, Hey, what are you working on? And I'd say, Oh, a documentary about eating healthy. 100% of the people I've talked to have been interested in it or want to strike up a conversation about it or want to know what the angle is. And that's even to me, that's like mind blowing because that's 100 layers beyond back to the future yeah um i have way

too many friends in their 20s that have never even seen back to the future and it's like oh my god i you know yeah so so let's go back to the future first let's because perfect segue because one for you to do a documentary on that was amazing and it's one of my favorite ones by the way So definitely go check it out. Love that but then two it's hard for films a Classic like back to the future one to have three to have a trilogy is hard and then to say not only was there a trilogy We're gonna do a documentary about it. Like so so walk us through that hole It was the year was 2012. Yeah. And the Genesis story is amazing because I was still working in event film production.

So I kind of got to that point where I was shooting a lot of weddings, bar mitzvahs, whatever. Yeah. And this was sort of the odd phone call. Somebody who was having a bar mitzvah for their son wanted me to make a short film that they were gonna play at the bar mitzvah. And the the guy sold insurance I don't know why I have my own life so turns but the guy sold insurance and but his calling in life was to be a film producer okay you know he wanted it so badly he loved that world and so this was his opportunity to write a script and act and produce something and it was a little hokey, but basically he takes his son who's now 13,

takes him back to when he was 13 and then to when his grandfather was 13. And they do this through a DeLorean time machine and they go and they see their grandfathers and everybody in the family got to be in the film and it was fun. Well, he rented a DeLorean and this is out in Long Island. And the day that we were filming,

everybody who passed by, stopped at the cars dead in the street got out took pictures as DeLorean And I was like wait a second. It's like I love back to the future I guess a lot of other people love back to the future But you know, this is a fairly affluent area of Long Island where you know a DeLorean at the time You could buy a perfect condition DeLorean for like 30 grand. And people are pulling over their $100,000 cars to take a picture of this relic from the early 1980s. And that was it, that's all it took. And I was like, wow, this is incredible.

I should make a documentary about how the DeLorean affects so many people all these years later, from back to the future. And that was it, that's all it took. And then I just had, I had the ability, because I had the equipment to go out. I found the guy up in. And then I just had, I had the ability because I had the equipment to go out. I found the guy up in Massachusetts

who was a huge collector of Back to the Future stuff, went up there for a day, shot a pitch trailer, put it on Kickstarter, raised $45,000 on the first Kickstarter. And that was, I think we had 600 backers for the first one. But that's all it took to know, okay, this project is viable, they want it to be made. I thought $45,000 was like a million dollars to make a film.

Because to me, I'm doing it, it's all my equipment, that's just so much money. I burned through that money in like three months, it was gone. Our first couple of shoots were in Vegas, LA, and it was just the travel that just ate through the money. Ultimately, we had another producer who came on board, and he invested in the film to become a producer

because we had already sort of kicked the ball down the hill a little bit. So that brought in more money, and then we always knew we would do a second Kickstarter where we raised $150,000, which to me was $10 million. And I feel like some of that money was already also spent before we even got it, but again, it was enough to finish the film.

So we basically had zero out-of-pocket cost. We just had fan investors, again, it was enough to finish the film. So we basically had zero out-of-pocket cost You know, we just had fan investors essentially who got paid back in t-shirts and blu-rays and license plates. So All it took was just that spark and knowing that hey the public wants to make this film It's clear the media attention we got was unbelievable I say we were we were in every publication from National Geographic to Playboy and that is with no exaggeration We were in both of those publications, and everything, The Hollywood Reporter and all that, all the stuff you'd expect, but just everyone picked it up. And they were sending cars to my house

to take me to 30 Rock to go on MSNBC. On there, forget, my second appearance on MSNBC was right before the doc came out, and I'm on, I don't even remember what the show was. I'm on the show, talking to the host, and they're like, we have to break. Bernie Sanders has just announced his run for presidency. I'm like, okay, I guess Bernie Sanders is booting me. And it was just moments like that. And it kept happening over and over and over. We promoted the film at seven Comic Cons. We went to London where we were the opening panel on the main stage of the London film and Comic-Con and the panel after us was

15 members from the original castle back to the future was the largest assembly of that Yeah, and we were there opening act and it's just like yeah How how does this happen amazing all cuz I just sat there and said oh I should make a documentary about DeLorean and oh Three years from now. There's this big 30th anniversary back to the future and it's the date in the film October 21st 2015 when they go Into the future that would be a good date to release a film. Yeah, that's it It's all took crazy outside of the box but almost simplistic in your thinking right to the point that you get scared because I Had the thought well, who am I? I'm just some you know filmmaker from Long Island

Yeah, Universal Studios is gonna want to do this like I can't do this because you know there Nope, you know and You gain a lot of confidence through an experience like that Where you just go no, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do it first and I'm gonna do it better and I think that Once everybody realized how big this anniversary was I'm sure Universal would have loved gonna do it better. And I think that once everybody realized how big this anniversary was, I'm sure Universal would have loved to do it, but I was way ahead of them. And so, you know, I beat a big studio to the punch,

which is, it's crazy to think about. And you got to meet, obviously, and talk in films, some of the cast, right? Yeah, I mean, almost, everyone who's in the film, I met, Steven Spielberg is the only one, he was busy on post-production of film, so he did our interview, his team basically said, okay, what cameras do you want it filmed on,

what's your framing, what microphone are you using, how do you want it shot, send us the questions, we'll ask for you. I try to fight back, but I lost that battle. But everyone, you know, to sit this close to Robert Zemeckis and talk to him about a film that he made is like, is mind-blowing. Michael J. Fox who lives pretty close to where we are right now. I mean, we just sat and talked about hockey, like we're both like hockey guys. It was weird. It was weird.

So, so what was it like, man? I'm gonna call him Fox because you know there's two Fox, there's three Red Fox, Michael J Fox, and Jamie Fox, right? All of them, you can just call him Fox. Vivica A. That's right. Vivica A Fox. Can't forget her. Yes, so the four Foxes, right?

You can just call them Fox. So when you met Michael J, what was that really like? Because I could only imagine me sitting here and it's like, holy crap. It's so surreal. Oddly, I think the date was January 7, 2015. I don't know why I remember that. And there was a snowstorm here in New York.

He has his house and office are combined. Uptown, not going to give out his address. Of course. Nor do I remember it. But just the date. So there's a lot going on, right? Commuting into, so one of the things about this documentary is we did very little filming in New York. Most of the filming, Adam F. Goldberg,

who is the writer and creator of the show The Goldbergs on ABC, he was an executive producer, which is a story in and of itself, but he had come on and he basically gave us carte blanche access to the Sony lot in LA to film as many interviews As we needed on the set of the Goldberg's which was perfect because that show is set in the 80s Okay, so the set looked like the 80s. Yeah, so we've we had filmed Dean Cundy over there

Leah Thompson we did on that set we I finally convinced Adam to get in the documentary. I'm like you are a part of this I finally convinced Adam to get in the documentary. I'm like, you are a part of this. Right. Because the show had done an episode on the Goldbergs, which I filmed BTS of them filming their episode, which is also like another out of body experience. And Michael J. Fox was one of the rare interviews that we did in New York.

Wow. I mean, off the top of my head, I can't even think of another one. So the weird part of that is, it's not weird for me to wake up in my own bed and go to work. I mean, I do it all the time. But for this documentary, to wake up in my own bed, get up, go into, come into the city and film an interview,

that was very different than almost everything else on this project. So the buildup wasn't there. Like, I didn't get on a plane. I didn't go somewhere. I didn't get on a plane. I didn't go somewhere. I didn't have to go to a movie studio that day. I just got up and went and then it was snowing. So there's like snow, which is like, you know how it is here. It's just a pain. So now you're dealing with all that. We're unloading a grip truck in the street and the snow.

And like we had to hand carry everything into his house and make sure that we didn't get snow everywhere because it's this guy's house. And then next thing you know, and then we're setting up an interview. It's like, okay, I've done this 10,000 times. And then Michael J. Fox walks in. And it's like, damn, if nine-year-old me could see this right now, like this is crazy. And that was, it's so out of body. And then afterwards, afterwards like I said we're just talking about hockey like my team's breaking down and we're just oh yeah go to the ranger games all the time oh yeah where do you sit oh yeah yeah i'm friends with cam neely and you know you know and he's he's canadian and yeah um you know he's a bruins guy and rangers guy and it's just so weird and then i saw him again

a few times uh london film and comic con was one of them, and we got the semi-VIP treatment at all these things, and we would just hang out backstage and just talk, and it's weird to be, you end up on the same level as these people that you watch on TV. And when you're a kid, these people are heroes, athletes and actors and whatever, and then they just become a part of your life. It's a weird of your life. It's it's

It's a weird place to be what's something cool that most people don't know about Michael J Fox Oh, I think now when you see him with the disease everyone's like, oh, is he okay? You know, like is he like how was it? Is he his mind? He is sharp as yeah attack like, you know, he has a he has a physical physical element, yeah, but Yeah. Attack. Like, you know, he has a physical disease. A physical ailment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, when you see the tremors

and you see the shaking, I think to a viewer, it makes you uncomfortable. But when you're kind of a foot away from him and talking, he's just, he's that guy. Yeah. He's still that guy. And I know he's in a lot of pain. And obviously, he's basically given up on acting,

except for sort of weird either commercial things or one-off appearances, but it's sad. I liken him to, I think, this is crazy opinion here, I think that Michael J. Fox would have had about 50% of the roles that Jason Bateman's had in the last 10 years. Can totally see that. Can totally see that. I don't know why, but that came to me one day and I'm like, I'm positive. I feel like they're in the same lane

and you know, Michael J. Fox, Michael J. Fox. I feel like he would have had so many of those roles. I agree. And Jason Bateman tries hard to kind of be the bad guy too. I think he wants that for himself. Yeah. You know, even like a role like he had in Ozark, let's say. Right, right.

You know, he's good, but he's bad. I don't know that Michael J. Fox fits into those roles, but I feel like so many parts I've seen Jason Bateman have, and he's blown up, he's huge. That would have been Michael J. Fox. I could see that, I could see that. And so like right after that, well I shouldn't say right after,

but sometime after that, right, you also had to work with probably the most tantalizing sports event ever, at least at that time. And I'd say still probably- It's probably ever. Yeah, yeah, ever. And for those who don't know, we're talking Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor, Jason. How did that come about, bro? You know what? That's another one that's no planning, right place, right time. What's fun about my career is that I did

not stay in one lane. I think that's my brain that just fires it in a million different directions all the time. It's funny, I'll run into somebody on a pickleball court and they say, Oh, what do you do? Like totally out of context. And I just say video production because I don't even, that's, what do you say? And they're like, oh, that's cool. They're like, yeah, it's fine.

Let's just end it. I've got a trophy back home though. You can see my awards. Yeah, no, so we, I had gotten into a lot of live production after the documentary, just because it was again, a my career. I was doing live production When I was shooting weddings still yeah, I would get the weird phone call like hey

I know you do like some live stream stuff and this before live streams live stream My grandma can't make it up from Florida for the wedding quit live stream the wedding for her and that got me in like really at the ground stages of the for her. And that got me in like really at the ground stages of the prosumer live stream world and equipment and how-to and figuring all this stuff out. Believe me when we got to COVID it was a great skill to have. I was one of the busiest men on earth during COVID and I truly believe that. But I, one of our clients at the time was Showtime. I was working full-time at an agency and We were just following their boxing weeks and making like little video clips like for social media and that grew that relationship grew into hey

You know we have these press conferences like after fights and some guys like throwing it up on Facebook live on his iPad Do you guys think you could do something a little better? And we're like, yeah, we can definitely do something a little better. Yeah, so Ultimately, what happened is the agency that I was at, we became Showtime's digital arm for all the ancillary events that were not the fight during the fight week. So that was press conferences, weigh-ins, that grew into doing a lot of these pre-shows. So we would do some of the fights.

So if, let's say, for those that don't know, if you ever watch boxing on TV, you see usually four fights, maybe five. Right. But when you go to the stadium, there are 12 fights that happen or 10 fights. So we're- It's a long day. Yeah. Long night.

Yes. It's a long night. I mean, it's crazy because you know, that when you turn on that pay-per-view at nine o'clock, they've usually been fighting since like four or five o'clock. Exactly. Exactly. And at four or five o'clock, they're fighting for nobody because the stands are empty. Yeah. You hear like the fighters mom like, right, like, go Mike. Right. Like that's, that's

what it is. And so we started not those fights, but basically like seven to nine. That was us. Yeah. And then, you know, the truck production would take over. So we started doing all that for showtime. And it became very cost effective for them to use a smaller digital crew that didn't have the expense of two trucks and union labor and all this stuff. Twenty people. Right. And so we would do, a lot of times they would do a kickoff press conference for a fight

that let's just call it a pay-per-view that kind of new would have legs. Instead of just doing a press conference four days before the fight, they would do a press conference right after they announced it, like anything else in sports. You sign a player for a seven-year contract, do a press conference. So same deal. They sign up a big fight, we would do the press conference, and that was flying all over the place and doing these things. And I mean, again, I'm underselling it.

It became very turnkey and it was a very repeatable process and it was great. Well, 2017, Floyd Mayweather has come to the end of his career and decides he's going to It became very turnkey and it was it was a very repeatable process and it was great. Well 2017 Floyd Mayweather has Come to the end of his career and decides he's gonna fight Conor McGregor. Mm-hmm now Anytime Floyd may Floyd Mayweather was boxing Floyd Mayweather still boxes these stupid exhibition fights and people still watching He gets paid a fortune to do it at the time. This was going to be his last professional fight This was fight number 50. Yeah, and he was fighting at the time by far the most polarizing, exciting fighter in the UFC, Conor McGregor. And they decided to do a press tour, which not unheard

of. It was going to be a four city press tour, LA, New York, London, and Toronto was the fourth location. London was last, the other three first. We started west and moved east. And Floyd had done, I think Floyd had done like 10 city press tours when he fought like Madonna and stuff like that. Shout out to Kelly Swanson who put all those things together for all these years. And we were doing this thing. And they asked us, the digital team, to come in and just stream these press conferences

because they weren't going to bring in and just stream these press conferences because they weren't going to bring in the whole truck production for this. It was too much. And not only that, there needed to be some level of being nimble because we were in LA on Monday and Toronto on Tuesday. You can't move trucks that fast. It's impossible. And Showtime had their own truck.

They own their truck for their fight production. So I don't know if that was part of the equation like well, we can't even physically do this We'd have to rent broadcast trucks in different cities. So let's just use the guys new digital stuff Make I was in so far over my head on this First of all, this was going out to linear television. Yeah, my first experience doing that We were in these the I say we were in LA and New York, we were at the Staples Center and the Barclays Center. Okay, those are the locations. And in Toronto, we were at a 10,000 seat amphitheater. It was outdoors, it did a lot of music stuff there and whatever. And I'll tell you a great story from Toronto. But now I'm dealing, like

I'm playing with the big boys now. And we're doing these shows and I think what showtime didn't have the forethought to realize I don't know that anybody did Was this was gonna be the biggest thing ever not in sports ever in pop culture like ever. Yes, you could not You know fast forward to the fight which happened over that that summer. I Remember walking in and we're just on the floor and I did the post fight. So during the fight I was just walking around. Mm-hmm and We were kind of on the on the floor level of VIP level Yeah, Roger Clemens walks in with the owner of the Astros and okay And then I hear somebody behind me yo tobe tobe and I turn out like Toby McGuire's like our spider-man's here They're my a rods over there. J. Lo's right there. Jamie Foxx the other box we met earlier

He's he's three feet away from me in my right. It was shack was there Of course. This was the biggest cross-section of Entertainment people that I had ever seen i've and i've been to some major boxing events i've been to super bowl like yeah I've never been at an event where you would just have this feeling if you're not here tonight You're nowhere because this is it. Yeah, this is this is the mecca. You know, this is the coliseum in rome you know like You know 500 years ago. This is This is where it was at. Yeah, and we That event was just so big and we ended up streaming like 10 streams for that fight because we did we did the four that we

Did five fight week? and Uh, i'll tell you the great toronto story. I'll never forget. There was nowhere. There was no like backstage area for us to set up So it's a very big stage in the Sanpitt Theatre They had the press conference in the middle of the stage and we're just off on the side of the stage like just behind like Where the curtains would be but on the stage, so I'm here and there's the press conference happening right in front of me So my whole setup it's it's you know, it's portable We're on a couple tables and I'm just sitting there and and also you wouldn't believe how small of a crew we did this with. We had a camera operator

on every camera. It was me, my guy Shy who ran all the audio stuff and then I had another technician from our company who didn't really have much live experience but was like an extra set of hands for me to like cut cameras. So I'd tell him like I just press, you know camera to camera three or four Yeah, that's all he knew just to press one two, three, four five or whatever it was Yeah, and that was the whole production crew. That was it Wow, and then and then a camera operator on every camera and it was like you tell me you did that with for that Yeah, that's all what that's all it was And it was everywhere

dude watching that doc, I would not have thought that at all. It was Everywhere, um, you know, and of course there's so much media there and they were doing behind, you know behind the fight and all that stuff But we were just like I said, we were the production crew to actually make that live production was nothing and Even still those videos on YouTube millions of views but that doesn't even count. All the television stations that picked it up all over the world, you know, and their views and whatever, it was just, it was wild.

So I'm sitting in Toronto, I'm on the stage, I'm at the computer and like, you know, when you feel somebody coming up on you, like, you know, you kind of have that, I look over my shoulder and I'm like Drake standing over my shoulder Staring at my computer just watching me like cut the show out. I'm just like oh Hey That was that press tour it Just certain things in life that you work on they just become so much bigger Than you could then you could ever imagine. You didn't think that was going to be big when you started it? As I grab you just to sip water.

It's interesting because we got to, you know, I've gotten to work on some really big fights and you know, Jervon Davis now is one of the biggest fighters in boxing, done a ton of his fights. The magnitude's just not there and you hear the stories of like Floyd in his prime and when those fight weeks were like our Tyson back in the 90s and I Worked the Andre Berto fight the Floyd Mayweather fought which was fight 49. Yeah that was kind of went once we had made our segue into showtime and like Same guy right?

It's Floyd Mayweather. And that fight was basically a dud. He just danced around. He carried it. Yeah, he just danced around for most of it, threw a couple of punches, got the win. So no, you can't imagine that. I mean, that fight was an, I've talked to so many people,

I've become friendly with a lot of people working media and you know combat sports That fight was just the perfect soup of You know just bringing two sports together Selling us on the idea that Conor McGregor had a chance of Might get knocked out right which there was no chance. He wasn't gonna get touched There was no chance and the wasn't gonna get touched. There was no chance. And the people that really knew knew. But I think even me who had been covering boxing

for a couple years at that point, I believed, because Connor made you believe, because he was one of the best salesmen out there. And yeah, I mean that fight was great until the fight started. Everything about the promotion was great until the fight started, and then you're like, wait, what? Foot speed, little different. connor was here connor looked awkward throwing punches

foot speed and that's what boxing has become now i mean the fights that sell are these celebrity fights you know it's it's jake paul mike tyson like that fight did incredibly well for netflix also great business model same had some of the same elements. Yeah. But you know, you can't fake Floyd Mayweather who's still active at the time he was older, but still active and Connor Gregor who's at the peak of his prime. Yeah, you can't fake that with a boxer who's a celebrity boxer who nobody's ever thought was really all that good and Jake Paul, right? And Mike Tyson who's 56. Like you're not right. But it had a lot of those elements

like oh this guy can knock out Mike Tyson or oh Mike Tyson is going to finally knock him out. I mean everyone's still waiting for Jake Paul to get knocked out. Right. And it hasn't happened and it won't happen because the people making his fights won't put him against him to knock him out. And there are I mean there's two dozen boxers out there that can knock out Jake Paul in two rounds. There are. But then the show stops right then the story ends and the money runs out. Exactly so why would they do that right? Like totally get it guys it's a business system. And most of those boxers that could knock Jake Paul out won't sell tickets because you don't even know who they are. Right. And it's sad that you have to you know I mean I hate to say it but I worked on I worked on the Evander Holyfield fight

Um, I mean, this is a career moment. Donald trump called that fight. Yeah, this is down in florida It's in between presidencies. Yeah, he was I guess hanging out marlago didn't have much to do triller puts on this fight It's oscar del ahoya Fighting vitor belfort. Mm-hmm again like this boxing crossover with an active MMA fighter like right at the end and Oscar was certainly big enough to carry this fight and then he got COVID like too I think it was two weeks before the fight he gets COVID Triller spent all the money what do we do they call Oscar they call um Evander Holyfield he's sitting on the couch also in his 50s now the thing with Evander is again Evander could sell fights. He had enough of a

name to like salvage this thing. Vander's in shape all the time. Right. He looks like he could fight right now. Right. But looks like he could fight and can fight are two totally different things. When the bell goes off and you gotta shuffle, it's like, oh wait, wait a second. These are 58 year old hips. Yup. And I remember and I remember his his media workout because they did a media workout and it just everything looks slow and I I did that production and I remember telling my camera

operator shoot really tight because really tight like slow doesn't look that slow. Yeah. And wide slow looks really slow and I remember watching it and I go I think Saturday night's gonna be ugly and it was I mean he got knocked out like it was That was that was the one time I ever worked a fight that I think everybody working the fight felt dirty. Mm-hmm Like why are we doing this? Why is this? Why is this happening? But Trump called that fight? It was That was crazy. You know, I'm just I have a picture of like me and a suit standing there I'm like, I just put his earpiece in cuz again tiny crew. So I'm also the guy doing that right and And the day before the shoot they're like, oh your entire crew has to go through Secret Service

like background checks and almost everyone made it through and I was like, oh Then we had to like negotiate deals like okay, can we sit in the hallway? They won't be in the room with him like all this like this is the only time I've ever had to deal with this on a production Mm-hmm, and I just have a picture of me standing over him and Donald Jr And and he's like looking up at me like this and I'm like, yeah. Yeah, I was telling him, you know Yeah, but it's just a funny picture. It's it's crazy. It's a weird time. That's crazy Good stuff man. So now we're gonna fast forward to the new documentary, right, Netflix.

But before we go there, I wanna ask you a question that probably is gonna lead to this. On Make'Em Plug, we talk about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why, right? For me, why is superficial. Your because is what holds you accountable to getting things done.

So if I were to say, Jason, man, what's your because like, what's deeper than your why this like making you do the things you do? I have a burning desire to create. If I don't, you know, there are days that go by where there's no shoot, right? I don't have a shoot every day. I wish I did, I guess. But, you know, there are just days that you don't. a shoot every day. I wish I did I guess but you know there are just days that you don't and If there's a day and you're sitting around the house and You know You're watching tv and like you just get to the end of the day like it feels so unproductive And it's almost a double negative, but I I don't know how to not

Create and I don't feel right when I don't. And that could be TikToks. Like that could just be making a five second TikTok and putting it out there. But you're creating, and you're putting something out in the world, and then you're watching to see if people watch it. I mean, the instant gratification

that you get from social media is it's a drug. Love it. The irony is the one platform I've never tried to to uh kind of grow is my own instagram that's the one that i've never you know it's just like people that i know that's it like you know but i mean my tiktok i've grown like way bigger than than instagram because i'm doing that more as a creative outlet to like put videos out there and see if i can hit the algorithm like all stuff um i i need that because the double negative there is if I don't have it, I feel incomplete and un-whole.

And that's what's cool about doing a big documentary project that unlike doing contract work and doing shows, there's a date of that show, there's a meeting for the show, there's a pre-pro and then a up, and then you do the show. And then it's over. With a documentary, especially something that I'm writing and directing, there's this sense of it's there.

For the entire duration of the project, it's going on, it's happening. And my brain's always working. Right now we're getting towards the end of production, this doc, I haven't even turned on a television. I haven't watched, since the Super Bowl, I don't think I've turned on a television Okay, and by the way, I was working during Super Bowl also

So I was directing a concert and then there was like a screen with the Super Bowl on first time That's ever happened in my life Because I am a big sports fan But I haven't watched TV at all because my mind is so in like create mode and I think that is deeper than the why because you could think about the why I think the because is is innately buried inside of you exactly exactly I love that you like my thing is my because is the promise that I keep right so the promise that I made to my mom when I was

10 years old I'm keeping that promise the promise that I made to my mom when I was 10 years old I'm keeping that promise the promise that I made to my kids I keep that promise and that's what's deeper right like my why are my kids my why are my family But it's because I make all of them a promise and I fulfill that promise every day At least I try to fulfill that promise every day, but it's the promise. That's my because I love that And I think the people that are closest to me in my life, it's hard for them to necessarily understand the hours that I put in or the fact that there's no five o'clock bell and that when my phone rings at 10 o'clock at night for work, I don't think twice about answering it because that's how it's been for the last literally 20 years.

That doesn't stop. And I'm sure sure plenty people would tell me how unhealthy that is That there's no work-life balance, but like work is life and not that it should be but it's my life. Yeah And that's because I don't have a job, you know, I'm not doing a job that I hate right It's so cliche to say oh, you know do something you love and you never work a day in your life But it's true find anybody who does what they love and they'll agree. Cliche's are cliches for a reason. Yeah, I live that dream every day. I love what I do.

Right, so I never feel like I'm working. I never have a problem being on a laptop. And yeah, you need to make time for yourself and you need to get away and you need to unplug and you need to go on vacation. You need to do all those things because mental health is a thing, but I am programmed

to just constantly be Thinking about creating and working and you know that next success Money has never been a driver for me ever. I like it. I mean who you know Tell me somebody money who doesn't like it, but yeah That's never been a driver for me. It's never about like making the next dollar It's about doing the next thing, you know creating the next thing being about making the next dollar. It's about doing the next thing. Creating the next thing, being successful at the next thing. That's the driver.

And that is, I feel so deeply inside of me that I don't have to think about it. I don't have to make it a part of what I do. It is me. Yeah, yeah. So let's get healthy for a moment. Yeah, let's do it. So I love when we started and you said,

you thought about commonalities and people and everybody breathes and everybody eats. The fact that you could just do that that simply, bro. I'm seeing the story of Jason a little bit, right? It's the simplicity of things that you can make creative and go. So talk to us about the documentary. How did it start? Where is it going? All of that. Same gen make creative and go. So talk to us about the documentary. How did it start?

Where is it going? All of that. Same genesis. I sat, I was having a conversation, thing was with my girlfriend, and I said, you know, the price of healthy food is expensive, but I don't know, I feel like it's overblown. Like it doesn't have to be that expensive.

And that was it. That was all it took to get the wheels in motion. And so I was traveling a lot back and forth to Raleigh at the time. And I was coming home. And I kind of had this idea. I think it was over the Christmas season, 2023. And you're talking Raleigh, North Carolina?

Yes. Oh, that's where I just moved from. Oh, nice. Yeah. It's been I just moved from. Oh, nice. Yeah. Spent a lot of time down there. And so I go to the airport and I'm sitting in the Delta lounge at the airport and literally in like 20 minutes, I did basically the entire research, this entire documentary.

Wow. Came up with a name, the price of health. Again, simple. Right. I mean, the Back to the Future documentary is called Back in Time. Right. came up with a name, The Price of Health. Again, simple. The Back to the Future documentary is called Back in Time. It's the play on the song. I researched who I would want in it, like kind of what we could touch on. Finding out that nobody ever did it,

obviously that's the big piece of it because there have been a gazillion documentaries on food. I mean, that's not new. But just finding the unique angle of, essentially what this documentary became is the inverse SuperSizeMe to the point that it was so obvious that I was uploading transcripts into ChatGPT to organize them. And I asked ChatGPT, do you understand what this trend is? And they said, yes, this project is like the opposite of SuperSizeMe. I was like, okay, I'm done with the machines. But that's what it is. And I think the benefit of what I'm doing over SuperSizeMe,

SuperSizeMe is entertainment, right? So this guy went to McDonald's, ate McDonald's every day. But what do you learn? Not to eat McDonald's? I mean, I think that's fairly common sense at this point. Nobody's gonna tell you what do you mean McDonald's isn't healthy. Right. Every day. Right. You may want it. You may eat it, but I don't think anyone's going to be pitching how healthy it is. Right.

So what I want to do with this project is start at the top. Look at healthy food. You know, my documentary is called The Price of Health, and we're looking at how much does it cost to eat healthy? Well, the problem with that question is there are two variables. If you go back to high school math, there's two variables in that that need to be defined. One is what's healthy, and the other one is what's expensive. One of those answers cannot be answered, which is what's expensive, because expensive is going to be different to every person. Right.

What is healthy, I think can largely be answered, and then there's room for exploration on certain other things. I think as I've done this, the biggest problem with the healthy food conversation is that people get so caught up in trying to be perfect that they do nothing. Because you can start talking about oils and then, oh, but this oil, but then that, and then it's not 100% and, oh, there's this chemical in that and that's an additive. That doesn't mean you can't just be better. And I think that even outside of food, just be a little bit better every day and that's

a great way to live your life. And that's kind of how I look at food. And I wasn't extreme in this project in any way. It wasn't extreme in this project in any way. Ultimately I did a 30-day experiment where I ate healthy for 30 days. What defined healthy? There were no extreme guardrails on it, but it was eat whole foods. Don't eat things that have a million ingredients in them or that are cooked in a ton of oil

or that are fried. I think largely we know or with a teeny tiny bit of research, you know, what's kind of healthy I had no macro counts. I wasn't counting calories and in 30 days you know, we added up the number and that's a secret for the end and Even the health results and I'll give away some of them. I, I lost 10 pounds and 10% of body fat in 30 days. How?

Just by eating healthy. There was no exercise involved. I played pickleball, so because I played before, continued to play because that didn't change any variable. The only variable that changed was just eating. There was no working out, there was no exercise, no gym. Just ate healthy. And when you define healthy, what is that for you? So it was a lot of

eating chicken, eating fish, eating steak, although I had to cut that out because I had taken, I took blood tests before and after as well and like found, oh my cholesterol is really high. So we cut out a lot of the red meat stuff. It was eating quinoa and eating frozen vegetables. Frozen vegetables are, I found this out during the project, just as healthy if not healthier than fresh because they're flash frozen as soon as they're picked. So frozen vegetables get a bad rap. It doesn't feel like you're eating at a gourmet restaurant when you have peas and carrots on your plate, but they're just as good for you if not better.

And a serving of frozen vegetables at a big box store is about 45 cents. Serving quinoa is 45 cents. You can buy salmon, even frozen prepackaged pieces, about $4 a piece. That's a meal for $5. And those are the changes that you start making. The snack stuff, I use Thrive Market, the CEO of Thrive Market's in the documentary. I use them just to order a bunch of snacks, see how it is.

I did some meal prep with a company called Eat Clean Bro. They've been around for a while. They kinda started servicing the finance guys and then the gym world. And is that something I would regularly do? Their meals are about $12 each if you order for a week and do the pricing. Is that something I would regularly do? Their meals are about $12 each if you order for a week and do the pricing. Is that something I would regularly do?

Probably not, but gave me a little bit of variables in there, got some sauce on stuff. You just stay away from sauce. But at the same time, met what most people's calorie goals. Three meals about 1,800 calories, three of those meals a day, and then filled in with some snacks and cut out the snacks.

There were no potato chips. There was no Doritos. There was no chocolate. I make ice cream at home and a Ninja Creamy so it's relatively inexpensive and it's super healthy and low to a protein. Watching that, watching protein every day, making sure you're having protein in every meal, I didn't want this to be a film about a specific diet. And that's absolutely not what it is. It's about being mindful of what you're eating,

being mindful that, hey, having protein, fat, and carbs in every meal is important. And showing that you can lose weight, lose body fat, without counting a single calorie, almost doing it by accident, because that's just what's gonna happen. And mindfulness. Mindfulness is probably the one thing

that comes out of this documentary the most, that we're all busy. I mean, I just talked about working 22 hour days. We're all busy, but you know, I think when you do anything for yourself, when you go to the spa and get a massage, you get satisfaction out of that, taking that time and doing something for yourself.

These meals that I was making, these are not gourmet meals. This is stuff that like open a package, pour some rub on it, put it in the oven. This is not complicated. The frozen vegetable stuff, like broccoli, bag, microwave, five minutes. And sure, you can get to, what do you mean the microwave? You can't microwave food and it's not good yes I understand that I do I wasn't trying to reach this hundred percent pinnacle right of how to be it was just being healthier and making right choices and absolutely sadly there are people in

this country that don't know that like fried chickens bad for you because they think it's chicken and but it's right. And that's a real thing. Right. And you know. I have friends that are Presquitarians that love fried fish and I'm like, whoa, okay. Exactly. Exactly. And I found for myself, because fat's not an issue,

I didn't know this, but I could drink olive oil out of a bottle and get only benefits from it. There are so many health benefits to olive oil, as long as it's olive oil, not canola oil, not those what they're frying stuff with at some of these restaurants. But if you're not worried about fat intake, then yeah, drink olive oil till the cows come home. So yeah, I could doubt stuff, but then you go to the restaurant and you get those vegetables and they're nice and soft.

I mean, they're soft because they're drenched in oil, but like what is it? What oil right? Probably not that extra virgin olive oil, right? So things like that and I think this project is gonna help a lot of people So many health documentaries that I had seen they're just so specific Don't touch me and you could do this don't touch this or you can't eat anything out of the ocean we're killing the oceans and these are great documentaries and they're based in research and science and That's fine. But going back to the beginning do they reach the masses? Does it hit that 80% of people who are not the 10% extreme not the 10% at the other end? 80% in the middle and speak to them in different ways like, oh, I could do this.

Oh, I could exercise. I could change my diet a little bit. Oh, if I just stopped doing that and, you know, eating doesn't have to be restrictive. It certainly wasn't for me. There are things that I did not eat, but if I was hungry, I ate. It wasn't like I didn't intermittent fast. There are benefits to all these things, but I think I stayed away from the extremes and just ate and had a good time.

So, when is the documentary coming out and where? Although, I said it earlier, but for the listeners and viewers, this is a big deal. We are looking at Netflix. There are some other players involved. I actually had a great talk with our sales agent this week. The documentary space is weird right now, just in terms of who's spending money and who's not in studios. When is a little easier.

We're going into post right now. Aside from the interview that I'm shooting in an hour, we're basically wrapped on all the interviews. I already did the 30-day challenge. There's going to be a little bonus at the end of my workout for 30 days and see kind of what that does to my body. That was one of the recommendations I got from a doctor in the documentary early on was you need to be strength training.

You're at that age where you don't use it and train and build muscle, you lose it. So that's gonna kind of be the footnote to the documentary that health is not, it's not just about eating. Eating is definitely the most important piece, but your own life's journey through health can have different twists and turns. We'll see what that does over the course of a month.

I think it'll be positive. So I'm gonna do that, but we're gonna go into post at the same time, because again, I know where that's gonna fit into the film, so I don't need to wait a month to shoot it. And then from there, we probably 60 to 90 days in post. And then one thing we're looking at

is a big film festival release. So don't know where that would be. If you kind of know what film festivals are gonna be in early 2026, you can figure out what we're targeting. And then from there, the streaming release. So that's the plan, but I mean, super exciting. It's crazy to think the Back in Time came out 10 years ago this year. Yeah.

10 years flies. I've been in contact with Bob Gale, who is a writer of Back to the Future, and I know that they're planning some stuff this year because now it's the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future. Correct. Right. It just creeps up on you.

Amazing. To think, I worked out another feature-length talk about travel in the middle. That is still, it needs some refinement. Never got to the fit. COVID kind of killed that as we were sort of getting to the finish line. Maybe I'll pick that back up. Maybe I won't. Who knows. But who knows. I think it's been 10 years since the last release. I mean, I could not be looking forward to that more because the only thing more fun than working on a long-term project is releasing the long-term project. There you go, there you go. So two questions I'm gonna get you out of here. I know you're busy you've been gracious with your time so here we go. Rapid fire two questions. When are you

gonna do the podcast documentary on the world of podcasts and how that came? And then part two of that question, do I get to be the superstar? Since it was your idea, definitely yes to the second question. Thank you. And the first question, I like that. I like that idea. I would definitely be ready to do that. All right.

We get some of the big names at the top, some of the small names at the bottom. That's a good... I'll go to the bottom, I'm good. No, I mean, you know, I'm thinking Rogan's gotta be in there. Of course. But then, yeah, I think this is, that could be next.

I had another good idea too, the other day, which I already, I forgot. Uh-oh. But yeah, you gotta write these. It was podcasting. Podcasting. Yeah, it was, yeah, you gotta write these things down. You gotta write these things down.

There you go. And you know. There you go. And then last question, where can people find and follow you? Where do you want them to know? So Instagram, the one that I don't optimize is Jason underscore Aaron. It's one A-A-R-O-N. And that's the best place. And of course, shout out to Younggri, which is the agency that we just started.

Young and hungry. So Younggri. I love that. Yeah, it's I was Ankur's name. Shout out Ankur Garg who came up with that but Started that early this year. That's kind of where we're taking taking all our talents and on the sort of corporate and production side You know Youngery is a full-service marketing agency. Yeah, I had a video and creative there. So All of Youngery's socials are another good place because he does a much better job of promoting us than I do. There we go.

Ladies and gentlemen, this has been my guy, Jason Aaron Jaren. Jason, thank you so much for breaking bread with us today, man. Anytime. You got it? No bread though, we're staying off the carbs. There we go. Because you told me to.

For all the viewers and listeners, remember you're because is your superpower. Go unleash it. You're awesome, brother. Dude you told me to. For all the viewers and listeners, remember you're because is your superpower. Go unleash it. You're awesome, brother. You too. That was great. Yeah. Yeah.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Mik Unplugged. If today hits you hard, then imagine what's next. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this with someone who needs it. And most of all, make a plan and take action. Because the next level is already waiting for you. Have a question or insight to share? Send us an email to hello at mcunplugged.com.

Until next time, ask yourself how you can step up.