Harmacy Pharmacy Documentary | Anaïs Mennuti & Kristin Speer, PharmDs

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

[00:01:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: Anaise and Kristen, those that haven't come across you online, introduce yourself and tell our listeners what we're talking about today. 

[00:01:27] Anaïs: My name is Dr. Annais Webster, and I'm a pharmacist. I work for a hospital system out in Oregon. And I am the producer as well as the co-director of this documentary called acy. You may have known it as, would you like shots with that? But we have had an exciting pivot and we are now pharmacy.

[00:01:48] Kristin: My name is Dr. Kristen Speer. I am a pharmacist I Am one of the producers on this documentary film as well [00:02:00] as co-founder and board director of the Psychedelic Pharmacist Association.

[00:02:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: Annais, the last time you and I talked this was, would you like shots with that? now we're calling the documentary acy. I think it's a cool move. Were you getting Pushback on confusion? Or was it too long or people weren't picking up the reference. Why the change?

[00:02:34] Anaïs: One of the things we've been able to do is partner with a Hollywood consulting producer. His name is Scott DuPont and he has put us in contact with other folks from Hollywood. And one of those people, his name is Rick Pamplin. So Rick and the team we all met and Rick was like, very first thing he said was, change the title.

And I was like, oh, what do you mean the title's so [00:03:00] great? And then it's hard and I was like, wow, I really like the title. But then I listened and I completely saw where he was coming from it is long, it's too long.

Number two,

If you're a general audience scrolling through your tv, is this about liquor?

Is this about pharmacy? What is this about? we did a lot of brainstorming and just kind of putting, About a hundred potential titles in a document, just throwing things out there and then we each looked at it and harnesses is the one that kind of bubbled to the surface because it seemed like this is encompassing what we are talking about, the broader scope of the issues.

Because when we first came on, it was mostly a worker's rights labor rights documentary. We're talking about the working conditions in chain retail pharmacy. But as we've interviewed folks over the last several months and we've had these conversations with people, we realize how deep a lot of the issues in pharmacy go and how [00:04:00] some of the issues if not addressed do create a sort of ACY environment rather than that care environment that we are looking for.

And so we think it's just a more, a broader title with more general audience appeal. And that's short and punchy. 

[00:04:16] Mike Koelzer: I love the name, but. but. I've got to have our listeners make pledge that we're not gonna go down the road of hair salons in naming our pharmacies. You know what I'm talking about? today, gone tomorrow, or, cut above the rest. seen them all. Unless it's just a Michigan thing.

[00:04:36] Mike Koelzer, Host: So pharmacies can't go down that road. But I like it. The pharmacy. That's a real catchy name.

Alright, so what I wanna find out ladies, is what group of people have been the biggest pain in the ass. As you're marching down this path of getting this documentary done, is it [00:05:00] businesses? Is it Is it a group of people? Is it dealing with the Hollywood types? People are actually being a pain in the ass through this endeavor? 

[00:05:11] Kristin: I am thinking about what I wanna say because, you know, truthfully, there hasn't been a lot of the although I expect there could and will be very soon. And the other thing too is you know, we don't want to call out any, any specific individuals too hard 

[00:05:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: names, but maybe

maybe just,

categories of people, categories. Is it,

 The top brass at the chains? I mean, what category of people

[00:05:40] Anaïs: No. They won't even talk to us.

So that's the,

[00:05:42] Mike Koelzer, Host: so they don't even get, to be part of this rating scale.

[00:05:46] Anaïs: yeah, we're still working on trying to get them. We this on every podcast we go. If you are an executive at a chain or a PBM, the invitation is open. Please come talk to us. We wanna hear your side. So we'll put that plug. I would [00:06:00] say sometimes. You're your own biggest pain in the ass. And that's how I'll phrase it.

 There's a lot of internal stuff to work through as you're going through a project. And, so yeah, don't be your own biggest enemy 

[00:06:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: ee bailed you out. And

I know you don't wanna go too far down the road

but what's been a difficult for you here? And can we pick a certain class of the profession or non-professional at that's been putting some roadblocks up.

[00:06:33] Kristin: You know, I think pharmacy's a pain in the ass right now. Both perspectives, meaning it's a pain in the ass to a lot of people working in the industry, it's also a pain in the ass to us because more broadly speaking, even feel like pharmacy hasn't stepped up and been its own advocate. such great patient advocates, but we're not good self-advocates. We never have been. And I think that we're stuck in this position between a rock and a hard [00:07:00] place where we feel like we're being abused and taken advantage of and we're not doing much anything about it. And I think that from the perspective of ese there, who said sometimes we, we individually are in our own way and we're our own pain in the ass. I love pharmacy. I a pharmacist 'cause I believe in it. I think there are incredible individuals working in pharmacy professionals Who are not being utilized, they're underappreciated. But I think also it's partly because have been some of the poorest self advocates.

And from that perspective in trying to promote this film and get it out there and get people who are excited about it to support us and behind us, been a pain in it's been a big challenge because I think in general, pharmacy hasn't been self advocating very well for a very long time. and we've been demoralized.

Think there's a lot of shame [00:08:00] in the profession right now.

And, it's an unfortunate thing. I also think it's gonna be the impetus that pushes us all forward.

[00:08:06] Mike Koelzer, Host: It's shameful. I mean, I own my pharmacy and I'm in proximity of our Checkout area and you hear our techs saying to somebody like, okay, that's gonna be, 52 cents. And everybody kind of jokes about it sometimes those might be a on a hundred dollars sale, but rarely, quite often that 52 cents is the whole kit and caboodle. It's the price you get paid for the drug and the time and everything. And that's rather embarrassing I just kind of duck my head at least figuratively.

Because who wants to admit that you're charging 52 cents? And who wants to admit that? in a situation where we allow someone to put a 52 cent [00:09:00] charge onto us? It's it's hard to stomach. there's anger, frustration, but it's embarrassing too.

[00:09:06] Anaïs: True.

[00:09:08] Kristin: Sometimes in pharmacy you feel like you don't have the support because everybody is just checking out.

Yet we do have a lot of followers and a lot of support on the other hand within So just been a challenge to corral and pull in and inspire, spin up all the support needed to really keep us going. We have it internally, but the more support we can get from the pharmacy profession and world, the better able we'll be able to produce this film and tell the story.

[00:09:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: where do you come across that attitude? Is it when you're. asking somebody for financial support. Where are you getting that kind of pushback From pharmacists themselves?

[00:09:55] Kristin: I'd say a lot of it's just on social, which, you know, social media is, is can be a curse [00:10:00] or a blessing depending on how you look at it. but you know, there's a lot of, a lot of blame and shame going around and know, sometimes it's in the form of just trying to bat down the misperception that we are against pharmacy.

 We meaning the documentary, even the name pharmacy

seems seems to point a finger at the profession. really it's about the impact on the staff and the patients that the system has,

Applied. you know, there's some of that in trying to bat down or combat misconceptions about our goal and our mission and our perspective. And then just the general support. Again, we have a lot of support, but I feel like things could be a bit faster a bit more proficient and effective if we had even more support from the pharmacy community. Whether it be sharing, liking, telling,telling others about this project or even financially, which is always something that's needed. you know, the comment [00:11:00] is, oh, is it done? When's it gonna be done? How soon will we see a film on the big screen or otherwise? And our response is, well, it's about as fast as the support behind us is,

So sometimes that's the challenge, a lot of people are discouraged. a lot of people are even unable to support 'cause they're so freaking busy,

[00:11:20] Kristin: you know, working in the chain.

They just don't have the ability. so I'm not saying that it's necessarily something that we're, you know, accusing or blaming, but it is definitely a challenge that's out there. I'll leave it at that.

[00:11:34] Mike Koelzer, Host: We know pharmacies so closely, so we can easily grasp when somebody says, our, here's the players, the patients, the pharmacies, the owners, the PBMs. Pharmacists can sort of those, but I guess you're right. If you had something like if you came out and said something like, the problem with, bakeries or, bike shops or something like that, it would take you a little bit of time to say, all right, [00:12:00] with the bakery, you've got the, the store owners and the people that the ovens and the, flour buyers you'd start to get a little mixed up on who's what.

And so all the more reason to have the documentary, but I can see where people sometimes have trouble kind of grasping it at first.

[00:12:18] Anaïs: Yes. Absolutely because we have to remember, especially when we're talking to other pharmacists who do understand the landscape a little more, that the general public is still being brought up to speed. A lot of people don't even know pharmacists after the year 2000 have doctorate degrees. People don't know that.

I talked to someone recently that I had connected with at a networking event and she was taking notes and she was like, I had no idea that all 50 states had different pharmacy laws. She's I've moved around a lot and I've had different challenges getting my prescription in different states and I had no idea.

So that's the part [00:13:00] where we're like, it is an expose documentary of course, but it's also educational and we have to remember where the public is starting. And that's why we decided to also write a book alongside the film because we know that you can only fit so much on the screen, but you can really slow down in a book and get into the nitty gritty details.

Like you can't just tell a film audience, this is a DIR fee because they'll be like, I do not care. , I don't understand. That's too far over my head. But if you ease them in, and you're able to slow down in a. Print format in a book. They're like, oh, I get it.

[00:13:37] Mike Koelzer, Host: I think the audience is hard sometimes because you don't know. Like with this show, made it a point to say, I never talk about something that I already know about, just for the sake of somebody. Like I don't have guests on here about, oh, the benefits of retail pharmacy or stuff [00:14:00] like that.

It's like I'd fall asleep on that. I always think, I'm talking to you guys, like we're driving in a car somewhere and we know we're pharmacists, so we don't talk at all about pharmacy stuff. We kind of move beyond that. But I can see like with the audience, like who's the target? What level are you with? conversation to physicians and nurses and pharmacists is gonna be different from, aunt Sally doesn't know about the pharmacy thing. So I imagine that is an area you have to focus to know your audience is.

[00:14:37] Anaïs: dEfinitely, and part of that is why it's been really great to partner with Scott and other folks from Hollywood and our co-director Jose, because they are a stand-in for the general audience. And so a lot of what we're focusing on for producing the film is making it what's called evergreen.

So it's about the characters, it's about the emotional connection you have with [00:15:00] our main subjects you're like, oh, I really, I'm rooting for that pharmacist.

you want them to succeed. you're watching them through their trials and tribulations during the documentary, and you're like, I want that person to succeed. that's the emotional core we're going for. Because if you can make the person care who's watching, that's when you can make them pay attention to some of the more quote unquote boring or complex stuff is when they really care about who you're talking about.

[00:15:27] Kristin: even the title, when we're talking about meeting the audience, where they're at, the title of the film being how many times have you drove by a pharmacy or any storefront where letter's burnt out,

and you kind of say to yourself, Ooh, what does that spell? It's kind of funny, aNd when we drive by pharmacy, sometimes that P is burnt out and I think that that is also relatable 'cause people drive by the pharmacy all the time with a P burnt out or other letters burnt out. And so I think people, when they see, even the title or the image [00:16:00] of what we believe we may run with as far as branding or marketing on the film, that is relatable to a lot of people as well.

 You've got to have the neon light with the p kind of blinking a little bit and finally it peters out and then the pharmacy, right? picture that without even seeing it and that means that it's drawing a little bit of reality out of us, I guess.

[00:16:23] Kristin: Completely, yep.

[00:16:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: I follow your email updates a few months ago you were commenting on the cost of a good documentary and these ones that you're seeing on the screen, or even on a good one on Netflix, something like that. These are running anywhere from on the low end, $500,000 you were saying, and upwards from there. And I fact checked that, I went online and I said, what is the cost of a good documentary?

And it was, it said, 500,000 or not, it was [00:17:00] just what you were saying. So it's a lot of money, a lot of times things that are good are a lot of money. did that amount ever shock you or did you know that from the very beginning? Or was that a reality you had to come to accept as this was moving forward?

[00:17:17] Anaïs: I was definitely shocked when we first started. When we first came on the podcast, it was when we were getting our crowdfunding up and going and it went really successfully. . After we went on the podcast, we got $22,000 in three weeks and were able to take our first trip and it was amazing.

And I was like, wow, it's so great. But then when you start breaking down, you have to pay people, you have to rent equipment, you need lights, you need to get there. There's a lot of expense that goes into creating a good film. There's ways to minimize cost without sacrificing quality. for example, what you end up doing for like ourselves plus our co-director Jose, we're [00:18:00] points

so essentially on the backend is when we are getting most of our compensation. None of us have been paid of the producers. We are doing this because it's a labor of love, but we have put our compensation on the backend. So if the film is successful and there's revenue coming in, we have a revenue split.

And so it's just. People power, we have to pay for a good thing because you need people to do graphics, you need to do animation. Someone has to mix the sound. And so that's why it does cost usually upwards of 500,000 plus and 500 thousand's on the low end. so talking with Scott, our consulting producer, he said usually a documentary like this would be closer to 700,000 to a million.

And the fact that we are doing this for around 500,000 is amazing. And a testament to your team.

[00:18:56] Kristin: It's really cool that we were able to attach the [00:19:00] co-director and cinematographer that we were because he is known in the industry for making micro budget films like ours look like 10 times the value. and the quality. and he is a real pro. We're really excited about this. That's partly how we were able to keep the budget so low. There's other strategies that we employed, but was more surprised to learn that $500,000 is considered a micro budget. initially when we started this, we thought it might a couple million to make the film. So when we got the right people on board and really took a close look at what we were doing and how we wanted to do it and what's possible while keeping the quality I'm actually surprised to know that we are a micro budget film at around $500,000. Butpart of the reason there is keeping the cost low is that we as a team, as Anna said, are taking, [00:20:00] remuneration on the backend. inCluding other key individuals like our co-director and anybody else we bring on to make this project

[00:20:08] Anaïs: I just wanna weigh in about Jose really quick just to talk about how exciting it is that we have folks like him attached. He actually was one of the camera operators for the last dance, the Michael Jordan

And so we're like, this is real talent. This we are making an a tier documentary.

[00:20:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: When you talk about the split of profits on the back end there we go again. Kristen. As pharmacists, we're like, we're gonna spend $500,000 on this just to get a point across. It's yeah, okay.

But this is real life. When people invest in things, if you've got someone putting in, 10 grand into this and it's an who has more than just sour grapes of PBMs or something, they want that split at the end. for some people, [00:21:00] this is a business decision. What kind of revenue are we talking about from documentary like this?

It be box office receipts? Would it be payment from some of streaming services that buy it? or is it advertisers? If This was on some show, what revenue stream is on the back? And if you could imagine it being really big, what kind of big revenue can come from something like this?

 For me, it's kind of foreign.

[00:21:39] Anaïs: Yes, I'm really excited to talk about this because I have been answering this question a lot, as has Kristen. With this, there's a few different possibilities of how we get that revenue. So number one is a sale from a large streamer. So you have your Netflixes, your Hulus, your Amazon primes. If they go, oh my gosh, incredible project, then they write us a check [00:22:00] and however much more that is than our budget.

That is what your ROI is. And then say, we don't go with one of the larger streamers and we decide to do what's called A VOD, which is advertised, supported video on demand platforms, which is two B Roku freebie. . They're free, they don't have a subscription model. And those are the ones that are taking off the most because a lot of people are making the decision to cancel things like Netflix

in favor of these free platforms.

And that's when we would get the ad revenue. In addition to those platforms, you can sell to things like airlines and cruise ships. So when you're on a plane and they're like, Hey check out this new movie. Those projects have sold to the airlines. And then we would get the ad revenue at the bottom, you usually see little ads of that revenue would come to us.

We are also thinking of doing a small physical media run. So [00:23:00] one idea that Scott had was having a little thumb drive with the movie on it, and it's shaped like a pill.

And we approach independent pharmacy owners and go, Hey, do you wanna sell this in your store?

So you wanna sell this plus our book and we sell it as a package, and then we would get revenue that way.

So those are the different ways that we can get revenue. Plus documentary viewing in this country has changed a lot. A lot of people are on TikTok, fact checking you or YouTube or they're going down rabbit holes, and we're going to have a lot of extra footage on top of what we have in the film itself.

So there's ways to monetize that using things like Patreon, because we're not hiding anything. We're like, Hey, there's nothing for us to hide. This isn't a propaganda film. We're not slanting it. So if you wanna watch our footage here, sign up for our Patreon for however many dollars a month, and then that's an extra revenue stream.

So we're estimating about [00:24:00] two to five times ROI on our budget. However, there have been documentaries that have sold for 10 20 XROI. There was a documentary called Boys State. Their budget was $1 million and it sold for $12 million to Apple tv. So there are some of those Cinderella stories you have a unicorn and it's a huge sale.

But you know, who knows? We would love for that to be us.

[00:24:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: And some of those are not exclusive, so in other words, you might have something that's, I don't know, wherever it would be for the most impact for weeks or three months, and then or somebody could pick it up, it's not always just like get it first.

[00:24:51] Anaïs: Yeah. So when it comes to the exclusivity, usually if it goes onto a bigger streamer first, they will have exclusivity for a certain amount [00:25:00] of time. However, certain ones of the A VOD platforms, they don't have exclusivity, so you can be on several at once. Plus you can be on the rental platforms like Voodoo where someone can just rent the documentary for a few dollars and they don't have to pay for a, an ongoing service.

So it just depends on of the contracting language and which platforms you decide to go with first.

[00:25:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: You mentioned independent pharmacies or let's say community pharmacies of some sort that have a dog in the fight. And that's an interesting point you bring up there because sometimes patients will come in and they'll complain about stuff, not about you, but to you about what's happening to them. How, this other store, they had to go there for this or that, a specialty drug and they screwed 'em and all this kind of stuff. And it's to get [00:26:00] your point across without making it sound like sob story, like you're in the drama club, you know, and then I'm hanging out with my sophomore daughter, talking about her best friend yesterday, who is now her worst friend today, and her worst friend yesterday is her best friend today. But it would be kind of cool to point to something, whether it's a book or something, and say, look, don't take my word for it. This is what's going on. 

[00:26:29] Anaïs: Yes. No, we would love that. That would be a great conversation point. And a lot of the big retailers, they are retailers. So there are four-Way displays and other types of displays in a Walmart, in a Target. So if we could talk to some store managers and be like, can you scoot that four way close to the pharmacy with our book?

Maybe it'll help make your customers understand. And it's even easier with your independently owned pharmacies because you just talk to owners and go. Like [00:27:00] you're saying, this will help the conversation. You know what we understand we have a lot of those same issues going on. Why don't you check out this book?

Give it a read, give this movie a watch, and that'll answer a lot of your questions. And it is an additional revenue stream because as we're going to talk about in the documentary, negative reimbursement issues are real, losing money, filling prescriptions is real. So a lot of independent pharmacies are looking for those additional sources of revenue.

[00:27:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: You mentioned some of the big box stores carrying this. Do any of them Come out of this documentary unscathed though,, imagine you're going to, be mentioning some names is your documentary gonna put 'em all in the same bucket?

And then how happy would any of these stores be to see you? Much less have this book in their store?

[00:27:57] Anaïs: Kristen's smiling, so I'll let her take [00:28:00] this

[00:28:02] Kristin: aNd we're laughing because it's definitely a a question and a concern especially for those big box retailers and even And I think the answer to that is we are trying to create a robust perspective on this film. Truly sincerely, we are, we are seeking from big chains and from

[00:28:29] Kristin: state their viewpoints and. If anybody's aware of the problems and the criticism and the complaints out there, it is. These companies, they're very acutely aware of what they're being accused of and what they're being blamed for. And there there are some events, private events, for example, that I've attended that, that I expect others on our team will be attending related to [00:29:00] what these companies are doing. For example, Walmart, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Optum Express Scripts, CVS, they're doing to change the system, to change their practices and if there's anything in the way of making those changes. are. Through our characters what's going on and where the failures are. But there's also a significant opportunity in this film for them to speak from their side. this in the film industry is something that we call access. we're seeking robust access to be able to tell all sides of the story because we believe it's through sharing those sides that will come to better solutions, more complete solutions or more practical solutions to a lot of these problems.

so that, hopefully that answers your question.

[00:29:54] Mike Koelzer, Host: it brings up an interesting point. Uh, Let me write this down a second. Ladies, when you get to be my age, [00:30:00] get a thought and you can't have two thoughts at once. The first one pushes

next 

[00:30:05] Kristin: I'm already, there.

[00:30:07] Mike Koelzer, Host: I gonna talk about? Okay, so let me make two points here. That's interesting about getting people that are the target of something like this to talk. And I wonder what the. not the psychology, but I wonder what the if you could punch this into AI kind of thing and say, is this good to have those being picked out a little bit on there to state their piece? Is it bad? if they go on but they've got a bad spokesperson? How does that make them look? I wonder in general is your thought on that, I don't mean for this project, but I mean in general, let's say on who are those? Michael, I forget his names, but I'm just gonna say on [00:31:00] Michael Moore, but on a documentary, do you think it's beneficial for the the enemy or, you know, the that, Protagonist, 

is a protagonist a good guy or a bad guy?

[00:31:13] Kristin: antagonist.

[00:31:14] Anaïs: Yeah.

[00:31:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: Is it always good for the antagonist in one of these things to come on, if you were the antagonist, if you were the group, and I don't fluff it up to say yes it's good for them to come on.

Do you think it's good for them to come on? 

[00:31:27] Anaïs: I have two thoughts on this because I've thought a lot about this. One is they are going to be in it either way. So they're either gonna be a title card that says, we reached out to all of these folks and no one talked to us. And then everyone fills in the blanks, however they will, or they come on and say their piece and then they at least get to say their piece.

And so that's one side of it where it's like you'll be in there one way or another. I. Then the other side of that coin is it just [00:32:00] it makes for a more interesting documentary as far as a viewership. 'cause if you look at something like Lula Rich, which is about LuLaRoe the company, they interviewed the founders and that documentary did not paint that company in a very good light.

But the founders sat down with them for seven hours. I listened to some of the behind the scenes stuff and they had a really lengthy interview for that docuseries. And I think it's to the point I just made you might as well get your point across because you're gonna end up in the documentary either way.

But then another angle is the marketing side, and so you want to be position yourself as one of the companies who we might be talking about as . We are doing things you wanna save face because you wanna say no. No, we're not the, we are not the antagonist. We're part of the system. We're also trapped in the system and that's what we're trying to discover.

 We just have hypotheses right now because we haven't finished making the documentary. And I think that's a really [00:33:00] important point to make. A lot of people are like, oh, you already know it's this, that, or the other. And it's we actually don't because we're not done. So we just think it's one thing right now, but we don't know because we haven't finished shooting.

And so let us shock test that hypothesis by getting all of the different viewpoints.

[00:33:20] Kristin: Yeah, and I think also too. When you add, we really wanna maintain credibility, there's a lot of complexity, there's a lot of facts, there's a lot of blaming, and we want to maintain credibility. And I think when we include the antagonist, we boost our credibility. We want to be able to portray all sides of the story and to, on a's point, it's really through these cards, all the cards on the table that we could potentially find a solution to these problems that we knew nothing about my [00:34:00] perspective when I came from A PBM industry.

I did see things on the inside that in my mind, seemed like improvements, like active efforts towards improving patient care and, and management of benefits. Despite what a lot of people on the outside see. And so, I guess in a selfish way, but also applying this to more broadly to patient care. I wanna know whether is solutions do exist. And the only way that we can get at those is to really lay all the cards on the table and find out if anything, is prohibiting these big chains from doing better, making a better a more positive impact on the lives of patients and their, their pharmacy staff. And then also at the end of the day, we hold creative authority. So if they say something that, doesn't align well with the story arc or doesn't contribute value or, or whatnot we ultimately hold creative authority on the film.

[00:34:58] Mike Koelzer, Host: It's interesting, [00:35:00] Kristen, you bring that up because I like to watch a good expose. You know, I mean, if I'm watching this, I'd rather have the, no come on and I want to shove the microphone in their face and then talk about how they're all driving their Rolls Royces into our lot to do a, audit or something like this. for the sake of the profession, I don't know if that's best because you can do an expose and it seems that it has a short up and down, a quick wave, but really for the betterment of the profession. like you say, you don't know the end of this. You don't know where it's gonna go.

But seems there's some value also in, getting all sides, letting people think, knowing that this is a problem and how does everybody raise up to, fix this instead of just embarrassment and expose and things like that. It's a real [00:36:00] interesting of which way it could go. And part of it is up to the antagonist if they're going to be on the show or not.

Well, and even at this point, maybe the pharmacists are the antagonists and everybody else is a good person. You don't know that yet. Wink. No, I shouldn't say that. You don't know that yet.

[00:36:19] Kristin: Well,

[00:36:19] Anaïs: I think it's gonna be a lot of shades of gray, essentially back in the day you used to have a lot more like mustache twirling villains like, ha the villain.

But then as film and television have evolved,

it's way more about the anti-hero now because that person is much more complex and it's fascinating for people to watch. And so I think we have much more of an anti-hero situation than we do a villain. 

[00:36:45] Mike Koelzer, Host: Anti-hero. That's interesting. Somebody who you think is a villain and they end up being a hero or vice versa

[00:36:51] Anaïs: No, not even that necessarily. So I, I don't know if you've seen the show succession. Have you seen that show at all? Or heard about it?

[00:36:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: the [00:37:00] billionaires for a while, and the dad out of a helicopter and died or something like that at the soccer match. I don't know. Something like that.

[00:37:08] Anaïs: Yeah, something like that. He, yeah, he had a stroke that, that whole family close enough. But anyway, so that whole family, they would be a good example of an anti-hero because you're like, they're, at some level, they're the hero of their own story, but they're not great people.

There's a lot of complexity.

You're, you can understand why they make the decisions that they make. As you watch the show, you're like, oh, yikes. Why did Kendall do that? That is ridiculous. But I understand where he's coming from, even though it's bad. I don't like the choice, but I understand it.

[00:37:39] Kristin: And that's balance we have to strike on this film. We wanna be entertaining, it has to cater to the audience. But also have to, we want to educate and expose,

[00:37:54] Kristin: we don't wanna do it at the cost of maybe finding potential solutions to the problem [00:38:00] 

[00:37:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: You don't always get the big boys talking. And if somebody does for this, that's a chance to at least, into their mind a little bit. For what it's worth one thought I had was one of the things I've done is at the pharmacy, and this is just about my thought about putting the microphone in people's it seems like when I was younger in the pharmacy, about every two or three years, you'd get a new reporter who came in the area they wanted to do a story on drug pricing, Every few years they'd be out in the streets and having their microphones in people's faces and, asking Why this price is so much here, but across the street it's half that price. one thing I've always done, not so much anymore, ' cause I'm, have this show and I'm lazy, but, but one thing I did was Always trying to be a good resource for these three or four stations in town. [00:39:00] And so then it was kind of like when these things came around, maybe my name wasn't included in the people that they're gonna go talk to, because maybe they have co reporter next to that says, ah, leave Mike alone.

You He scratches our back once in a while and let's not, bite his hand kind of thing. It doesn't hurt to have those relationships, the news.

[00:39:22] Anaïs: Yeah, absolutely. We definitely. Are starting to break into the general news media. At first they were like, oh, this is not interesting or big enough, or we don't know what happened. They weren't really interested in our project at first, but as we've grown and gotten bigger it was USA today, Emily the, cause I believe she did a story and she was interviewing folks.

She was like, several people mentioned your documentary. Several people I was interviewing said, oh, you should talk to the documentary folks. Oh, you should talk to the, would you like shots with that people? And so I reached out to her 'cause I was like, oh, she did this story and she seems [00:40:00] like did a really thorough reporting job.

And when I reached out she was like, oh my gosh, I'm so happy you reached out. A lot of people mentioned your documentary. So we are starting to get on that side of having some reporters who are kind of on our team and willing to. Hear our side of the story and what our project is doing.

[00:40:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: What you typically see in pharmacies is going down, but the service is not going down all the time. You've got an independent pharmacist, let's say that in the past, made a decent salary, decent profit goes down. Pretty soon they're even losing money. About ready to close, you know, in three months. their service really hasn't stopped because of who they are as a person. They care for Mrs. Smith. they're still doing the delivery. They're still smiling, they're still doing a good service for the community, and then all of a sudden [00:41:00] it's gonna drop off the cliff. No one's gonna see it coming with worse service. It's just gonna drop off the cliff, and there's gonna be pharmacy deserts and things like that. I don't think people, consumer doesn't really understand what they're gradually missing until the stores closed, until they went off the

they're like, what the hell happened?

[00:41:22] Anaïs: Yes. I have two stories that just are illustrate this point. One is from when we went out to New York and one of the people that we filmed was Neil Smaller

[00:41:32] Mike Koelzer, Host: Neil?

[00:41:32] Anaïs: at his pharmacy. 

[00:41:34] Mike Koelzer, Host: the 

[00:41:36] Anaïs: yeah, we filmed Neil. And as we're interviewing him, he was telling us about when he had to close 

one of his locations a telling me shared with you what was on his mind? Right. , what? Can't even believe it.

[00:41:49] Mike Koelzer, Host: believe 

[00:41:50] Anaïs: I can't believe that. But he was like, so I had to close a location and the last day was like a funeral. Everyone was crying. It was so sad. [00:42:00] People were like, Neil, how can we help you? Can we come to your other location? And he said, no, don't come to my other store because you'll put me out of business faster.

He said, take your prescriptions over to CVS and then combine my supplements.

And the general public doesn't know that or understand it. He also said, I'm not running a business anymore. if I was losing money on my chicken sandwiches I wouldn't be in business. And so that's, gonna be a very powerful interview when we are able to share that in the documentary.

A lot of the things that he said, because no, they didn't see it, they just saw great customer service from Neil and his team, then suddenly the store was closed.

Story number two is actually from the other week.

So I had a pharmacy owner. This person, I won't share their name because it's you'll see why in a second. But basically we're currently seeking investors for our project. And so I've been, we've both been reaching out to various people in our networks and I reached out to this pharmacy [00:43:00] owner and he was really excited to invest.

He's yeah, I'm ready. I just have to talk to my business partner, see how much we can come in for. And then I followed up with this person. And he says, he sends me an email, he's thank you for your email. We would've been able to invest. And we were really excited and we still support your project.

However, we are in a fight with one of the big PBMs. They are holding $800,000 of our money for no reason, so we don't have any money for you,

And yeah, I was just like, this is so meta. this is the project. It's like we can't get funding that quickly. We are getting funding, we're doing we're doing fine, but like it's, we have these stumbling blocks because we reach out to these independent pharmacy owners who are like, I have the money in hand.

I'm ready to go. And then suddenly it's pulled out from under them. Oh, sorry. $800,000 worth of payments withheld.

Same thing with the [00:44:00] DIR fees coming where they're doubling down, right? 

 for our listeners is these 

[00:44:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: PBMs

come in and take a lot of money the backend like three months later. You don't even know what the hell it's for. They just take money outta your bank account, pretty much. And now the law has changed. So they get to take money outta your bank account right away, also three months later, I don't know. It's terrible stuff. 

 oh, so on east you mentioned your finances are right on target and we as sometimes we're so and I try to add to that negativity with the show I don't try to, it just happens. bUt we see the negativity and we see the request for more investment and things like that. And we're always approaching stuff negatively and saying, well, is this going the same route as the independent pharmacies are, down the hill. But you mentioned that you read on [00:45:00] target for finances and things.

Share that with us.

[00:45:03] Anaïs: Yes. I'm really excited to share that because it's going so well. One of the reasons we partnered with Scott is because he runs a podcast called Finance Your Movie, and he basically is a financial consultant for independent films. And he has this system where you use your personal network, so friends, family, people in your profession, and you reach out.

It's very personal connections and that's how you get your people and you find your financing. And so he helped us put together a business plan. It's And, you share some of that in your network. And with that, we have been inviting people in our circle to help with the financial piece.

And Scott said, trust the process. Trust the process. Because it's a numbers game. You have to. Reach out to a lot of folks. And we have, and we've gotten a lot of people who are like, I'm very excited to [00:46:00] be able to contribute to the film, but I just, I literally don't have money. But seeing the well-crafted business plan and our pivot and the things we're doing with ACY in everything that we're doing we're, people are getting really excited.

Even people who donated before in the crowdfund or maybe they didn't wanna invest previously, 'cause we've asked some of these people to invest before and they're like, oh not at this time, but they've come around because they're like, wow, you have a really solid plan. And so Scott said with his process, it takes about two to six months and it's been about six weeks. 

By the time this podcast comes out, we will probably have broken escrow, which is $300,000, which is when we'll start filming again. A lot of people are starting to respond and go, you know what? I would like to come in for that $9,000.

You know what? I do wanna come in for X amount of dollars. And Scott said, A lot of people ask, oh, what if everyone comes in for the minimum? Like, No one's gonna come in for the higher dollar [00:47:00] amounts. And he's like, everyone thinks that. But once you get a few people who come in for the one shares, two shares, that's when you're gonna get your big dollars people coming in for the

Co-producer dollar amount or the executive producer dollar amounts because they just wanna see some people are committed. But once they do, then you get to make a lot of exciting phone calls. 'cause it's all about calling up people in your network and being like, Hey, I got something cool going on.

And then once a few investors come on board, you get to make the excited phone calls, Hey, get in quick before the opportunity is gone. And we are, we're about to hit that stage. 

[00:47:38] Kristin: Yeah, just the analogy that there's a lot of water sitting about to break the dam. So of people ready to put money in really considering it exciting and just waiting for someone else to jump in. And sometimes they're not even just waiting. I think they're just, you know, they're, they're busy. And then when they [00:48:00] hear that the dam is broken and a few individuals have jumped in for significant support, know there's limited bandwidth left to contribute and they jump.

[00:48:09] Mike Koelzer, Host: Onis.

I remember when you and Kim were on the show originally you talked about a story. You had told me this isn't just damn this group and this group up and how one-sided it is, what is a story aspect of this in terms of, I don't know, Kristen, you're the one that brought up the fancy term of antagonist and protagonist, but you know, there kind of like the entry of the story and then the climax and the up? What is that with this story?

 I take it that process hasn't stopped. You still have a story in this production.

[00:48:53] Anaïs: Yes. So it is always story first when it comes to creating something like a documentary or [00:49:00] anything to be entertaining to a general audience or any audience for that matter. Something that happens at the end of a story, kind of like the third, like 75% in, is what's called the all is lost moment, where you're just like, oof, this is rough.

Everything's going so bad is lost Night of the Soul is another thing it's called and where you're like, you really feel for your subjects and your characters because you're like, they have so much they're up against. I don't feel like there's any hope.

And that's around 75%.

And you don't end your movie there because that's not the emotion we want to leave people with. We wanna take them there, they have to go to that dark place. But then from there you kind of come out of that in the structure that we're going for.

we want to show folks in the general audience that pharmacy is worth fighting for as a profession. They are wonderful services that pharmacists currently provide and [00:50:00] could be providing to more people. If some of the issues that we talked about earlier in the documentary are solved and reformed, we have some solutions that our subjects will present these are different things that different people think could solve these issues.

So that'sWe want the documentary to be a jumping off point. Towardsto solutions. We're not providing all the solutions because we don't have them, but we want it to be uplifting in the sense of channel. The anger that you feel as a general audience member, like why can't that person win?

Why can't this industry win? Channel that towards a positive action because it's worth fighting for. Because a lot of people watching this, for example, have no idea what pharmacogenomics is. They don't know what de-prescribing is. They don't know what MTM is or even other services that they know about, but for the services that they don't know about, they're like, why don't I get precision medicine?

I would [00:51:00] love some of that precision medicine, and it's because it's not appropriately reimbursed, so maybe that person can take up the fight.

1. By writing their legislator to get some payment reform done because they're like, wow, if my family member had this precision medicine, maybe they wouldn't have had this side effect.

So that's the kind of thing we want our audience to leave with that pharmacists as they currently are pharmacy as a profession, could be providing this excellent care for patients if a lot of these issues had been resolved. But the other part we wanna drive home is, but they are not. This is an ongoing thing

and so this is why we want you to take up the fight with us.

[00:51:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: As I hear you saying that anise, I've got kind of that feeling of Hamilton story, you where Mrs. Hamilton, what was her name? wife.

[00:51:55] Anaïs: That's a great question. I don't remember.

[00:51:58] Mike Koelzer, Host: I'll just call her Mrs. [00:52:00] Hamilton. but she lived for another 50 years. You She picked up on that story and then brought it forward once the story was in place. And that's the important part of where we came from and, and where we're going and 

[00:52:11] Anaïs: it is.

[00:52:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: boy, ladies, thanks for joining us. That was a great update. Besides the story of what's gonna be in the documentary, the story behind the story of how this is coming together is really fascinating. It's something that we don't get to uh, about all the time and our little parts of the world.

So it's cool to get behind the scenes of this. thanks for joining us.

[00:52:34] Anaïs: Thank you for having us and letting us do an update.

[00:52:37] Mike Koelzer, Host: Continued best wishes. Where are our listeners gonna go to learn more about this?

[00:52:43] Anaïs: Listeners can go to acy film.com is one place that you can find us. Also, if you still have the old link shots with that.com, we'll redirect to our new website. We'll also be updating our social media handles from the current shots with that to ACY [00:53:00] film, and that'll be on the various social media 

[00:53:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: all ladies, thank you very much for your time and, we're all looking forward to this.

[00:53:09] Anaïs: Thank you so much, and thank you for having us.

[00:53:11] Kristin: Thank you. 

 You've been listening to the Business of Pharmacy podcast with me, your host, Mike Kelzer. Please subscribe for all future episodes.