124. Crafting Authenticity on Stage and BEYOND Rob Sciglimpaglla w/ Favazza

Gregory Favazza: 0:00

Like I'm listening to this audiobook it's called Green Lights with Matthew McConaughey, and he goes into his first like movie. That or production or film that kind of set him off and that was dazed and confused and he didn't have any lines except just I Think there's maybe like a couple lines that he was talking about and he had to fill the role of what he imagined the rule would be and he used his older brother for an example, like he was a popular guy you go to after girls and Talked about drugs and having a nice car. So he's like he's got all three but he doesn't have a girl. So then I'm just gonna go for it, and that mentality kind of set him up for success right.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 0:48

So what he did I mean when any actor does what he did, there's he internalized what his brother does, made it become part of him. Because if you're trying to imitate somebody, that's where you have a huge risk that you're not gonna look real, you're gonna look fake. So you have to take those characteristics and you have to make them part of you.

Announcer: 1:09

You're listening to a podcast that encourages you to embrace your vulnerabilities and authentic self. This is your transformation station and this is your host, greg Favazza.

Gregory Favazza: 1:31

I'm doing alright, robert. How about you? Good, nice, nice, yeah, you have a cool background, like you've been all over.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 1:40

Yeah, I've done a few things.

Gregory Favazza: 1:43

Nice, I would love to be a sponge and just absorb everything you have learned throughout life and anything you can teach me on Getting from the microphone or camera like I will absorb it and apply it in real time. Nice, yeah, yeah, be glad to Cool. Well, do you want to give me like a little snapshot about like your whole biography? I'm looking at I'm like whoa, there's, there's a lot of shit and I don't know how to convey the essence of how, how much you've accomplished.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 2:15

Uh, do you have the short? One of the long vlogber is I'm not sure which one I said Uh, it's best known as the dad on yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's I think that's the short one, actually holy cow. So yeah, but I, I, that's my claim to fame for acting, as I was in a super bowl commercial, um, with a. I'm an attorney and I'm an actor and voiceover artist, and then I, now I produce films. So I've been, I've done, I've done like 35 films to nation, wow, and uh, I'm an author, voiceover, legal, um, that that's one of the things that launched me, you know, got me known, um, and it was became a number one bestseller on amazon. Um, working on On the second edition right now, as we speak, about a third of the way through it. Okay, um, but yeah, I just kind of everything kind of Compliments, the other, and, and I, you know, I I Combine everything, I try to combine everything. A lot of it centers off off legal issues. You know, like the production is very much legal, business issues. Um, I try to approach acting and voiceover artists with business in mind. Okay, because you can be the greatest actor in the world For the greatest voiceover artist in the world, but if you don't understand the business and don't understand where, where to go, you're not going anywhere.

Gregory Favazza: 3:46

So oh okay. So when I was going for my bachelor's degree, I wanted to have a focus in mind and the focus was incorporating my podcast. So with each A course that I've taken, they would always ask us to analyze a business or a made-up business, and I would always would put my LLC and just trying to understand every aspect of it. Well, as that's how, like how I got my degree is focusing on how I can improve your transformation station and I don't know, like that is what helped me progress and accomplish the degree was something that I was most passionate about, and Incorporating what I'm learning new and applying that in real time to the current show and episodes right, yeah, that's, it's everything's about transformation.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 4:37

So it's about you know, if you, if you're, you're an attorney or, like me, your attorney, how do you transform those skills in the other other areas, how do you use them and transform in other areas? So, and and that's what I've done my entire, my entire life, my entire career, you know, I've taken what I already know and incorporated into other areas. And I also was a DJ in college. So I was like it was funny because when I was in college I was unsure if I wanted to be a DJ on the radio or if I wanted to, you know, go into law. And I remember I had an internship at the local radio station in Stanford, connecticut. But I was talking to the DJs and they're like, are you crazy? Go in law, there's no money in radio, so. So that's kind of how I made my decision. I wanted where I wanted to go, even though I really liked, I really liked radio and I really liked DJ. But I was able to incorporate that, even though skills I was able to incorporate and that kind of what led me into voice acting, you know, because the, the board's.

Gregory Favazza: 5:41

So you need like a certain like a certain set of Charisma when you do radio and I feel like that would transfer over into law when you're I mean communicating with clients, but also in the courtroom.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 5:56

Absolutely. And then the technical side too. So you know voiceover, you you're recording yourself all the time and and you know, I learned how to use the big boards, the college radio stations, you know, and set up the cue, up the records and and so that translates to that transforms. So all of those skills and people, everyone has those skills, and when I'm talking to people that want to become actors, you want to become voice talent, I tell that's what I stress to them you know like, use, learn, use what you already know and lean on that.

Gregory Favazza: 6:30

Yes, first I have. I have ADHD, so I saw a little floater go across the screen.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 6:37

Oh, did you? I wonder what it was.

Gregory Favazza: 6:39

I don't know what it was, but I tend to do that I tend to. I guess that's what the audience like is my ADHD.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 6:48

I wonder what I wondered. I didn't see anything flying, so maybe it's the light or something weird.

Gregory Favazza: 6:52

I don't know I don't, but that's really cool, like with your background and just going into radio voiceover, but then also kind of twisting towards law. Was there something more towards that, like you deciding, like, was that like a reality moment, like I need to make fucking money, or was there something else?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 7:15

I mean I was just, I was really just trying to decide. You know, I liked, I liked, I really liked radio, I really liked law and I was just, you know, I was just trying to decide what was my best career path at that point in time and you know, it just seemed like. You know, I mean, I had a couple of people that were in the business telling me, like your best career path is to go become a lawyer, and actually they were right, because then I circled back. Later in life I came, I became a voiceover artist. Later on, 10 years later, 15 years later, that's when I broke into voiceover and acting. And I really think that that's the best way to do it because, you're, I was more stable. You know, I had, I had income, I wasn't waiting to have to wake tables, I didn't have to live in my car, so I was more financially stable. So I was able to take time and devote it toward learning the craft of voiceover, learning the craft of acting. And you know, I had a, like I said, I already had the business knowledge about it because I was already representing musicians and filmmakers and voiceover artists. So I already, I already knew the business. So it was just a matter of getting out of that side of my brain and going into the other side of my brain and becoming creative. And that was tough. It's still tough.

Gregory Favazza: 8:33

Is it like a whisper that's telling you that you're not enough?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 8:37

Well, I mean, beside all the normal self-doubts that anyone has. I'm just talking about learning, trying to turn off that side of the brain from thinking and just learning to to do what's in the moment and what you're feeling Like. That's a hard thing for many people to do, especially attorneys, because you know we're always thinking, always in control, but you have to kind of let go of that to be a good actor and I think it took me a long time to do it I'm still I mean, in a way, I'm still that's what I'm still learning my new characters. I need to learn it all over again to get into that character's head.

Gregory Favazza: 9:14

So which is interesting because I would like to go deeper into that. We are recording and, before we go any further, could Robert, can you just share your last name for our audience? Sure, so?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 9:26

Siglim Peglia, siglim Peglia, you even want to give that a shot, did you? No, not at all. Sorry, no worries.

Gregory Favazza: 9:34

Yeah, what is the what's behind that? Your last name.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 9:39

It's Italian, so Siglim Peglia, like really italy, siglim Peglia, that's how they say it. Because you know the S S, c is a she sound and you don't say G's.

Gregory Favazza: 9:50

Yes.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 9:51

In Italy, Siglim Peglia.

Gregory Favazza: 9:53

Yes, well, I'm Italian as well. My last name's Favazza, so I feel like we kind of connected there, just automatically. Yes, but with understanding. Like how actors become actors, it's essentially you have to understand the role but also understand the person that you're trying to be based off. The script that's been handed to you, like, could you go a little bit into that?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 10:15

Sure, sure. So that's where I'm talking about the thinking part, right? So you analyze the character and what you're trying to. When you're doing your analyzing, you're trying to figure out the story that the author or the writers try to tell, right? And you do all that analysis before you start doing anything. Because if you're doing that analysis as you're trying to perform, it's going to look fake, it's not going to look real. So what I tell people ask me this question when you're acting, what you're doing is you're learning how to be yourself. You're learning about yourself. That's what you're learning. So you're learning. You're not necessarily transforming yourself into another character. You're drawing on things you already know and you already have experience with, and then you're applying that to the character because it's coming from within you. It's not coming from somewhere out there. If it's not coming from within you, it's not going to be real, it's not going to be authentic. So you have to figure out a way with each character to get what they're all about from, to come from within your gut, within your heart. That's the best way I can explain it and then turn off your brain because you can't be thinking, oh, the character would cough at this point in time. You know what I mean. People do that when they act and you can't do that. It just does not look, it's not going to be authentic, it's not going to be real, it's going to look fake. It's going to look like oh, you just told yourself to cough. So if the character is going to cough, it's got to come naturally, it's got to come from inside.

Gregory Favazza: 12:01

So Okay, so let me follow up with that. Like I'm listening to this audio book it's called Green Lights, with Matthew McConaughey, and he goes into his first like movie, that or production or film that kind of set him off and that was dazed and confused and he didn't have any lines except just I think there's maybe like a couple lines that he was talking about and he had to fill the role of what he imagined the role would be. And he used his older brother for an example. Like he was a popular guy, he would go to after girls and talked about drugs and having a nice car. So he's like he's got all three but he doesn't have a girl. So then I'm just going to go for it, and that mentality kind of set him up for success.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 12:51

Right.

Gregory Favazza: 12:52

So that's kind of.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 12:53

I mean, when any actor does what he did, there's he internalized what his brother does, made it become part of him. Because if you're trying to imitate somebody, that's where you have a huge risk that you're not going to look real, You're going to look fake. So you have to take those characteristics and you have to make them part of you. Yeah Right, so with the characteristics that they have, you're now you're putting, you're making them part of your personality for the character. So you're making them, you're making them part of the. It's the character's personality, but you're, they're really your person. That's here personally. At that point in time, everything has to come from you. It has to be grounded in you. It can't be grounded in outside stuff or it's not going to. It's not going to work.

Gregory Favazza: 13:34

So, then, would you suggest that people have a good understanding of themselves prior to going down that kind of line of work?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 13:42

That's what you're learning when you're learning acting.

Gregory Favazza: 13:45

Okay.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 13:46

That's what I said. That's how I started it out. You learn about yourself. You're learning about yourself.

Gregory Favazza: 13:51

When did you get stuck in the role? Like, do do actors get stuck in that role?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 13:57

Sometimes, and that's why it's. That's why it's important to keep, keep studying, keep practicing, because you need to expand. And so the thing that actors say all the time that I hear actors say all the time is that they can do any part, but you can't do every part, so you need to. Part of learning yourself is learning what your capabilities are as an actor, and if you want to do a part, that's you know, that's you're going to be stretching it's better to do that in class, in a class situation, because you know it's a safe space, you can get feedback and you can work on it. And I'm not saying that an actor who can't ever do any part, but you need to. It's not something that just comes like that. It's something you need to work. You need to work on if you're doing parts that are outside your normal self. So you know that's what actors do. They try to expand what they, the roles they can play. By doing that by by it's, by internalizing them, they, their their own personality, and internalizing what they know about themselves, and that's how they expand the roles that they can play. So, and that's really what it is, it's really learning about what you can and can't do what your capabilities are. You know what. What about what? If you're, what kind of person you are, you know, like you know, act is it's really therapeutic. Acting is really therapeutic because you learn a lot about yourself and there's things about yourself that you might not like, right, and you know, that's that's sometimes. Sometimes actors are also. They have things that happen in their past and that comes up and you know, and that's why they don't take drugs or alcohol and you know they, they. If you get down that rabbit hole sometimes you can't get out. So that's also learning you know I learned about. I learned that with my acting teacher. That's we we work on all the time. You know she can get me down there but she wants me to get out of there, like she doesn't want me to stay. You know, if it's a deep, deep, deep, sad part, you know like I can get down, but can you go down there now, like that's, that's the fresh professional part in acting, but it's still coming from in you. So like, if you're getting, if you're going down deep and you're being playing a sad character and you got to be, it's got to be, you got to draw an experience, to be sad, you can stay down there. You can stay down there and, just you know, get the presence, start drinking. You got to, but you can't do that. Like, actors need to know how to get in, go, get in and get out, and that that's also part of being a professional trained actor.

Gregory Favazza: 16:27

It's. Usually you have a support system that will kind of help pull you out essentially when you're in that.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 16:34

Yeah, you have a dev coach, but the what the coach does is, you know, you're teaching your people there. They're they're not really like. You have to do that for yourself. Okay, like your coach, if there's something that I'm using, that I'm, that's getting me into a part where I'm, you know, playing somebody that's, that's depressed and sad Right To me. That's real at the time. So I need also something to get that I can associate with, to get myself out of that space too, got you, because there's a danger that when you get yourself down there, you can stay there. Okay, and that's what I'm telling you. A lot of times, when I hear people that they take drugs or performance will go to the model, it's because they got themselves down and they couldn't get out. Maybe it was because of acting or maybe it was because of something outside of acting, but you know, gotcha, that deep space could be dangerous. So you know, that's another part of learning and that's another part of being in a safe space where you can do it in class. And the other thing that I find when I act, I get what they call the post-production blues. So like I'm so much into my character and I'm so the character so me that when they it were, productions over and I'm done. I'm like a good week and I'm like down in the blues, I'm down in the dubs. I'm sad, is it?

Gregory Favazza: 18:07

the dopamine like that you were getting from being on stage doing the acting and all of a sudden you're not doing it anymore.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 18:15

That's part of it. It's part of just the exercise of going, you know, getting into character, and then when you're coming out you know you're like, oh, I'm not doing this anymore, this character is gone forever. You know, and it's that's part of the sadness. You're never going to be with that group of people again. So sometimes you really like your other actors and you like your crew and you're never going to. That's not going to happen anymore. That's done. The plug gets pulled fast. So you know, all that stuff contributes to me. I get the post-production blues.

Gregory Favazza: 18:49

But it does sound cool that you surround yourself with unique types of individuals with the same passion that have learned the tricks of the trades Absolutely and they kind of pass that along. Now, when you're doing acting and you come across people that are trying to be a certain way but it's coming off as inauthentic, I can see that it could be an indirect observation of learning more about yourself and knowing what not to do based on their own actions.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 19:25

Yeah, I mean people when most of the time when people are coming off as an authentic, they're thinking too much. They're in their head you know and you hear that all the time. Get out of your head All the time.

Gregory Favazza: 19:36

That's what it means. I get that all the time.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 19:37

That's what it means, like just stop thinking and let whatever's going to happen come and feel it. You got to open yourself so the feelings can come in, because your head blocks it. Your head blocks those feelings from happening. So get out of your head just basically means hey, you already did all that thinking before, like if you did the, if you prepared properly and you did your thinking about what the, the act, what the character's about, if you have the viewpoint of the artist, I mean the author, writer in mind, and that's how you're speaking from that viewpoint you can. Then you can get out, you don't need to think anymore. You don't need to think. And if you have your lines down, you know you have to obviously memorize, because if you're thinking about lines that's also in your head and you're not going to, the character's not going to come out. So you have all that stuff you do before, that's your prep, so that when you do actually perform you're not thinking about any of that stuff, like that's all rehearsal, so that's all behind you. Now you're performing, so now you're opening. You're opening, you're opening yourself up. I'm not thinking, I'm just feeling Whenever it comes up, comes up.

Gregory Favazza: 20:44

Okay, can we, can I do like a real live, like little scenario, Like if you were to, I were to put you on the spotlight and say, like Robert, can you just act out how a serial killer would approach a, approach his, his victim that he's been stalking for weeks and now, finally, he's about to make his attempt to to get him or her? What would that look like?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 21:14

So for me to do that, it would be me, so I would be. I'd be like you know, let's just say you're, you're my victim, sure, and I'm coming for you. So it would be something like hey, how are you, how's it going today? How are you? It's nice to meet you. What's your name?

Gregory Favazza: 21:35

My name's Greg. It's nice to meet you too.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 21:37

Hey, where do you work?

Gregory Favazza: 21:39

Oh, I work in in St Louis Missouri. I work at home, so you can find me if you look at my address.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 21:48

Oh, okay, what do you do?

Gregory Favazza: 21:50

I'm a podcast host.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 21:52

Nice, we're. We're in St Louis.

Gregory Favazza: 21:57

I would say it's towards a big fan and 141.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 22:07

So tell me, do you, do you have time to hang out with me for a little while? I do yeah All right, let's, let's go over to the bar. You go? Yep, I'll buy you a drink.

Gregory Favazza: 22:21

Yeah, yeah. I don't have any friends, so I feel like that would be great.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 22:24

All right, come on, let's go. And then when I get you to the bar I'll drop a roofie in your, in your drink. And I got you. It's just, it's. It's more. So there's many ways to approach the character. That's the point. So when you think serial killer, I mean what does that mean?

Gregory Favazza: 22:45

A dissociated individual who has experienced trauma and thinking about altering that history with a new version of history in the current present.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 22:58

Right, I agree, but how? But how would you show it? That's the thing. Like, if you start to act arranged, if I go oh, come on, let's go to the bar, you know like you're not going to come with me. You know what I mean. So that's not how serial killers act and that's the other thing that you learn about acting. You should learn a lot about human nature. You learn a lot about human nature. So everyone has there's no, a serial killer is not one dimensional. They're just not demented, right? A serial killer has all feelings. Yes, joy, sadness, madness, they get upset, right? So you're still playing a full character, a full person, when you're playing a serial killer, but there's just certain traits you're going to give that, that killer, that he's going to do so that the audience knows it's really up to the writer, to what they want to give the traits to the character. You know like, maybe, like I said, the roofie, maybe that's what I do to my victims. And when I, when I go in my pocket, I start to pull out the roofie, then you know, okay, serial killers coming out. You know what I mean. So, and if you study serial serial killers, it's what they do. They don't, they lure their victims. They they know they're nice. Most of them are very charming.

Gregory Favazza: 24:17

Yeah Right, so you can't really distinguish it what I would try to look at is is like understanding, learn behaviors later on in life versus behaviors that were naturally given to us as a child, and not being able to recognize and distinguish between the two, regardless of the individual I mean. From my understanding, I would say there's a slight delay, that it's a conscious effort to make the those natural reactions look natural.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 24:51

So I talk about this all the time too, like this is a debate that I have. You know whether people are born inherently good or inherently evil, if there's any control over that, like when you're born, are you good or you're evil. And I use the example of my twins. When my twins were little, little little babies, you know, a few months old, one of them would just sit there and be fine. The other one would go up to her and push her over or throw a bottle or something, knock it down. So I always call the one with the twins good, one of them evil, all right. So and how much of that if you let go, if you don't correct it as they're growing, how much of that just continues on and makes the evil person and narrowly become stable versus learning about? No, this is what society wants you to do, right, so you correct them versus staying good? I don't know the answers to these questions, but it's just something that I think about. You know, like if you leave an evil person, someone that's going to punch you and throw bottles at you, and you don't correct that behavior, are they going to stay that way for the rest of their life?

Gregory Favazza: 26:00

The nature versus nurture aspect.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 26:02

Exactly Nature versus nurture. So I mean it's. I'm fascinated with that, so you know. But that's what I'm saying. Everybody has that in them. Everybody has good and evil in them. You know what shows what comes out. That's the fascinating part and that's the part that you can study and then you can emulate when you're acting and use that for your repertoire of characters. So you got someone who's evil, someone who's good. What do they do? You know how do they act in certain circumstances, you know are they inherently good?

Announcer: 26:40

Are they inherently evil?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 26:41

You know, and serial killers are, inherently, they're evil, obviously right, they kill people. No-transcript.

Gregory Favazza: 26:52

You know, like Ted Buds, for example, you know, look at it, they're doing justice, like they could be thinking this is normal, when it's definitely not allowed, or yes?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 27:04

That's my point. They think it's normal because they were not corrected. Possibly right, there were not corrected. They're kids. They thought that that's oh, killing squirrels is normal Because no one corrected them. They didn't have the guidance. That's one theory. Like I'm much obviously I don't have. Like I said, I know the the answer to this, but I don't need the answer to this. This is observations that I can use for my acting. I don't need to have the answers. These questions Put them into a character, so, in fact, that it's better that I don't have the answer, because then that's the kind of stuff that you can use organically, stuff that comes up Without having to have a solution to it, and that's where your brain comes in. It doesn't? It's messy, it should be messy, so because some messiness illustrates authenticity exactly. Art is messy. When you mess it up, the you know, the more authentic, more real, the more complex that it is, the more that you try to make a nice need and put it into categories. That's boring, it's not active, that's not, that's not art. No science, putting it in the little neat packages If you have. Oh, if you're acting with OCD, it's not gonna it's not gonna be interesting, but it that way.

Gregory Favazza: 28:32

So you must watch like a lot of movies and kind of can just pick up different like aspects of Things and kind of use putting your toolbox.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 28:40

I do, it's so. That's another thing. Like when I watch TV or when I watch film, I try this Did into the story without trying to pull it out, analyze it, pull it apart so much. You know what I mean because, because I know what went into Filming a scene, you know, I know what they did. Sometimes I get caught up into that. It's like, wow, look at that, that was a great shot. I you know the look, the lighting on that. You know like I get caught up in the technical side by try to not to. I tried just to to Concentrate on the performances in the story when I'm watching a film or TV show. But you know, in a way, in a way being a producer and an actor kind of in ruins, ruins movies For you. So and you can recognize as a pro, you know what's done Well, so but yeah, we really have to again. You have to get you get rid of the thinking when you're, when you're watching a film or TV show, so you get into the story and you're not, you're not thinking about all the technical aspects of it when you say that, like, being a producer ruins a lot of movies, are you?

Gregory Favazza: 29:45

are you kind of referring to like this thought that I have, like the more you know, the more you hate life Essentially?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 29:51

no, no, what I'm saying is I look at it from a different viewpoint. I'm not looking, I'm not Not necessarily watching the story, listening to the story. I'm sitting there saying, oh man, that angle was terrible, why did they use it? Oh, why didn't they put the light? Why'd they put the lights here? You know, like, second guessing how they're the filming, because I know how they, what they did to get the shot. Or, oh man, that was a cool drone shot. You know, like, when you show the shot overhead, instead of like, oh wow they, you know there, instead of the picture that they're trying to show you, I'm looking at it like how they shot it. So okay.

Gregory Favazza: 30:23

I'm the same way when it comes to people acting in military uniforms and then the ranking is upside down. I'm like that's not authorized, that's not author, that's not real. This is now. I can't watch the movie.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 30:34

Yep, exactly Say in the same thing when it's illegal, when it's a legal movie, I can die right away. That's not right, that's that's BS. But that's what I'm talking about. Like, as A producer, you same thing like you could, just you can get caught up in all the technical side of it and forget about wait a minute. This is actually this is a good story and there's good acting here. So and then when I watch actors, I I See how they I'm not necessarily looking at their thought process and how they got to the character. I'm looking more more technical when I'm watching an actor, so you know like I'm looking at their movements, looking at their facial expressions, looking in their eyes. You know those are all things that, those are all the nuance that make a really really, really, really great actor. And they say that the greatest actors are the ones that do the best acting when they're not speaking. So like when they're reacting to other characters, like that's. That's, that's how you can tell a great actor from the good or very good actor. When they're not speaking, what are they doing? Wow, in between the lines, in between their lines. I'm looking at that too, but sometimes you can't like it's better for theater to be able to do that, because you can't. Sometimes you know, like I'm filming, I'll cut away and then do another close-up on another actor, so you can't really see what they're doing in between, in between their lines.

Gregory Favazza: 32:07

That's interesting. I really like that. Oh, oh. I want to just transition a little bit to looking at like digital marketing and just marketing in general. Is there like? Is there a similarity between marketing and acting?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 32:24

Yeah, sure, I mean what you're, what you? There's a similarity with everything in life. Yes, what you're trying to do, what a person is trying to do, at least in my opinion, is they're trying to connect with other people. Yeah, try to make a connection with other people. So when I'm arguing a case, I'm trying to make you the connection with the jury or judge. When I'm acting, I'm trying to make a connection with with the audience. When I'm digital marketing, I'm trying to make a connection with the person that can use those services. Right? So if there's somebody that you're marketing to and they can't use the services, there's no point in Marketing to them because they're never. You're never gonna make a connection. So like that's part of part. Part of marketing is Turning over rocks and figuring out which people are right for the services or for the goods that you're selling. They are marketing. So yes, there's a connection and all those things, it and all those. That's what I was trying to say earlier too. Like in all, the common thread is law for me, because that's how I learned to connect originally. So then, I use that for acting, now use it for marketing. I use it for whatever I'm doing. I'm trying to make a genuine connection with the person that I'm speaking with or communicating to you.

Gregory Favazza: 33:39

No, I like that because that's what I'm using is organizational leadership with the podcast, and then vice versa with getting that degree, and now I want to take it further, but I'm still trying to decide how I want to go about doing that and I don't know what would you suggest for somebody like myself that wants to take it to the next level, for like towards the audience, to expand out further?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 34:08

So that's a tough question to answer, because what you need to figure out is what is going to get you the maximum amount of connection with your audience. You know what. What avenue is going to be? Social media, is it influencer road? Is it YouTube videos? Is it all the above? So it's just a matter of how? Well, first of all, figure out who you connect with. That's the first thing, because we can't, if you just throw stuff up on the wall and hope it sticks, it never works. You just waste money and you waste time. So you really need to figure out who watches you on a consistent basis and then target them, talk to them. Those are the people that you want to talk to. So, if you know, let's just say it's lawyers that watch you. Just for an example, right, I would be targeting every single law group, every bar association, every Facebook page that has lawyers. I would. That's where I'd go to get more eyeballs on me, right? And it's just an example. So I don't know, I don't know the core who watches your, your, your podcast, so I wouldn't be able to answer it specifically. But that's the first step finding out who who watches your, your podcast and then go out to them. That's where you start, and then you can always expand from there. You know, then figure out, okay, who are people similar to lawyers that I can market to police. All right, let's go into police groups and see if they, if they respond Right, so you can, you can start expanding your audience based on who have similar characteristics to your main group. So who do you have stats on?

Gregory Favazza: 36:02

So I do. I've had a lot of stats and my issue was I've moved around from hosting to hosting, so I lost a lot of consistent research, but I have all the research. And then I had my my account getting hacked from an ex that took over my iCloud and stole my identity and all that stuff. So that was a huge roller coaster and I feel like that is what I'm focusing on with this next 30 day challenge. I'm calling the 24 30, where it's to help individuals who are dealing with recovery addiction but narcissistic abuse, abusive relationships and just rediscovering things that I used to enjoy, and for the next 30 days I will be putting that out there on every channel and each channel will have a specific nuance that I highlight, and I feel like that's going to be a beneficial thing for everybody, but also for myself, because I want to illustrate as much raw, vulnerable, like moments of myself, because I feel like it's therapy. Like you said with acting, this is same with me with recording. I don't know how or why. I feel like it's stressful as fuck and I hate doing it, but I love doing it at the same time.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 37:28

So that's every you. Just you just described every artist on the face of the planet. Every artist is stressed to the ex, just that no one's going to like their work, and that's the stuff that I'm talking about. You got to distance yourself from that and be vulnerable, like you just said. Open yourself up, be vulnerable and not worry that people are not going to like what you're doing. Just do what you enjoy. Do it because you enjoy it, and if you're enjoying it, great. If you're. You know, if your audience doesn't enjoy it, there's nothing you can do about that. You have zero control over that. So, but if you're marketing to people, you can. You can modify your message to do a little bit. You can tweak your message a little bit so that you can make a better connection with that.

Gregory Favazza: 38:13

Yes, so that's a book that I'm reading. It's called Hook Points and it's able to help people stand out in a three second kind of crowd when we're constantly getting shuffled around with all digital marketing.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 38:28

Exactly, you can really make a connection with everybody on a certain level. So I mean, that's one thing that I try to do. When I meet new people or talk to people, I try to connect with them in some way, and I, you know, I've done many, many things and I've, you know, I play golf and I've played sports and I watch football, and so you know I can connect with different things with different people. So I try to find that common ground when I'm meeting new people, because it just makes your conversation a lot more interesting than just hey, how are you doing, how's the weather today?

Gregory Favazza: 39:04

I can't stand conversations like that. I walk away.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 39:06

It's superficial, so you know, but it's the same thing with marketing, like. So if you can find that common ground with who your who needs your services or products, then it's much easier for them to decide that they want to. They want to buy your products or your services. So or watch your podcast.

Gregory Favazza: 39:28

So let me let's transition a little bit to looking at law a little bit, because now we're in the digital age where everybody's curating content and I feel like eventually we're going to somebody's going to cross pass with somebody else that has similar ideas or it becomes now a possible copyright infringement. How do you look at that and what could you teach our audience about that kind of stuff?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 39:53

Yeah, it happens all the time. So, copyright and trademark, I see those infringements a lot. Well, first of all, I'm going to approach it, not talking about artificial intelligence, ai, because that creates a whole other issue which is much more complicated. But artists sometimes do copy from other artists, and not necessarily on purpose. You know they get the same ideas. So copyright will protect your idea so that if someone does copy it too closely then you can prevent them from making money off your idea or without at least sharing with you. So that's what copyright does. So you write a great, the next great American novel, you copyright it. And someone else? If they intentionally steal your characters or your story, then, yes, that's an easy infringement case. So if they do it, if it's very similar, and it was unintentional, you still have a copyright infringement case. So you can. That's the importance of registering your works so that you can pursue it. Trademark I see it all the time. So I'll see bands that use the same name. I'll see voiceover artists that use the same tags, logos. So it's important to trademark all those specific brands. That would be anything, but you could also just Technically you could also sources a second appeared, something that's away from you and the iconic website, so that you can stop that too. So the voiceover artist uses the same tag that you've been using for years. You can go after them and if you've trademarked it and say cease and desist, stop using it. So that's how you protect yourself as an artist. Then you should. All artists should be doing that. Unless this is what I tell artists if you don't care about rebranding, then don't worry about trademarking. But if you're working on branding something and you want that to stick, you need a trademark to protect it so that you can have other people stop using your brand, your unique brand name.

Gregory Favazza: 41:56

So that's interesting, with not caring about rebranding. If we were to look at entities legal entities being forced to rebrand for some reason, like what should be taken into consideration prior to getting to that point of having to rebrand, like what's the mentality of not carrying to rebrand, like I don't understand that.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 42:22

So some companies rebrand voluntarily. They just rebrands, you know, like X. Do it to X, right, they just decided to do that. They didn't get sued. Wwf, which is now WWE, got sued by the World Wildlife Fund who owned the trademark to that and that's why they're WWE now, right. So that's the difference. That's what I'm talking about. Wwf, world Wrestling Federation, didn't want to change their name. They had to right Cause they were infringing on World Wildlife Fund's trademark. X was not infringing on Twitter, was not infringing on anything or weren't being infringed on, so they just decided to rebrand to X. So that's what I'm trying to say. If you're a company and you're thinking about, oh, I don't really care about this brand, I'll rebrand it and I'll relaunch, I don't really care, then you don't necessarily need to trademark. But if you really are building a brand that you're wanting to stick forever, like WWF, you need to trademark. You need to trademark it. And now WWF, of course they're strict about going after people that they think are gonna infringe on their trademarks. Cause I had one. There was a show called Raw, the Raw word. I had WWE write me and say they wrote to the trademark office and objected, said we couldn't use it because it was too close to Raw, the wrestling Raw. So they're strict about their brand because of that cause. What happened with WWF? So that's an example. That's what I'm talking about. If you want to keep your brand forever and you would be a big hassle and detrimental to your business to rebrand it then you better trademark it, if you're okay with you know, I'm just using this brand to see how it works and if someone steals it I'll just rebrand. Then you don't have to worry as much. Okay, I'll try to work it.

Gregory Favazza: 44:26

Well, let's go deeper with this. When we're creating a brand and trying to protect ourselves, like, what are some things that we can protect? I mean, of course we can protect our logo, we can protect the name. What about our color scheme? Like, what if we had this unique color scheme? That's badass, and then somebody takes it.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 44:44

Yep, so the color scheme is gonna be part of one of the other things. It's either gonna be part of the name, it's gonna be part of the logo or it's gonna be part of the slogan. So you could make that color specific if you want to, or just do plain black and white. That's up to you. When you do the trademark, follow the trademark. It asks is color part of the? Is color an integral part of the trademark? Okay, yes or no, so you could, that's fine. Yeah, the color scheme can also be protected, so, but it's not gonna be on its own. Like, if you use purple as your color, you're not gonna be able to go after everybody that uses purple. You know what I mean. It has to be part of the logo or something, so it looks similar to what you're doing. So you have to maybe be able to make a connection.

Gregory Favazza: 45:30

Okay, interesting. So I'm gonna leave you with the floor and kind of let you share what you would like to share, that things I haven't gotten to address.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 45:41

Sure, I mean. The one thing that I wanna share is that, and the one thing that I learned is always teachers always learn, keep going, learn new things, Don't be afraid to learn new things and don't be afraid to. If you wanna try something, do it, and don't let time and money be an excuse as to why you don't wanna do it Right. Cause when I started, I was an attorney for 10 or 15 years and I decided to become a voiceover. It's just because I took a class. I took an adult dead class and I liked it, so I started taking more voice classes, got my demo, started doing acting.

Gregory Favazza: 46:28

Do apologize for the sirens in the background oh, is that yours?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 46:31

I thought I was there I don't know, get me.

Gregory Favazza: 46:34

I don't know if it's you or me, but I'm just gonna say something.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 46:37

Yeah, I don't think it's me. So I was looking around, yeah. So when I transitioned, one of the things I said to myself was I don't have time for this, I don't have time. So what I told myself but I really decided I wanna do voiceovers is I'm gonna make the time and I'm gonna find the funds. And what I did was I gave up my golf. Golf was my hobby, so I and I played a couple of times a week, so I figured 10 hours, but it was about 10 hours a week, so I gave up that time to pursue voiceovers and it was also a couple hundred bucks around.

Gregory Favazza: 47:17

So you know for like $300 a round. He has a golf shirt on right now, just so you all know.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 47:22

Well, this is an ocean city, new Jersey. It's kind of a golf shirt, but so I would. That's how I started. I took that time and I put it toward voiceover, right, and then I started doing acting and I remember that it was it was like March 2006. And I had already used up all my vacation time with my job that I was working like 60 hours a week at, because I was doing I would go in and do go to the city, new York city, to do voice acting gigs and acting gigs, right. And so I got an offer from Disney to do a 13 day background Acting job. So I showed my wife and I was like, look, I got this offer for 13 days, but I can't do that. I don't have 13 days of vacation left. So what she told me when she said quit your job, she's like you she knew how much I hated that job. She said quit it, just do this. You, this is something, this is an opportunity of a lifetime. You know, if you get into this, if you can get in the final cut, we can show our grandkids this. And then she just said just make sure you pay the mortgage. So, like, that was a caveat. So what I did was I went back out on my own as an attorney. I rented an office and a friend's space that was in town here, started working on my own, and then I was doing the acting at the same time. So if I had that fear hold me back at that point. And I've not looked back. That was 2006. I'm still on my own as an attorney. I'm still, you know, self-employed as an actor, as a producer. All that stuff happened because of that move. And if I had not done that, if I let fear take me, take it over on me, if I didn't listen to my wife, I would probably still be an employee. I never would be doing what I wanted to do. So, you know, find a way, don't be afraid, jump, take a leap, and just don't take a full leap. You know, make sure you're doing it in a way where you're still, you know you're not going to bankrupt yourself. So there are definitely ways to do it so that you're not going to be in the poor house and you're going to still be able to pay your bills.

Gregory Favazza: 49:40

Interesting. Yes, no, I wanted you to just highlight your book a little bit on what you've already written and published. You can share that with our audience.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 49:50

Absolutely. I wrote a book called Voice Over Legal and it's funny because when I started doing voiceovers, a lot of the voiceover actors knew I was a lawyer. So they started asking me questions. You know, oh, should I set it up, start up an LLC? Should I trademark my, my logo, right? So I started writing all these things, all these questions, down, and that's how the book was born. So I did a chapter for all the questions that I gave real life examples and it became a bestseller. You know, it's really. It's the book that voiceover artists buy when they have legal issues and they want to learn about the legal issues of not only voiceover it applies to acting as well, because they're very similar. So link that in the show notes Great, yes, so I'm working on the second edition now. That'll be done pretty soon. I'm going to talk about AI, artificial intelligence. I need to upgrade for that because that's a big issue now. But yeah, that's, that's the book. So it's funny because voiceover artists and actors know me as the attorney and my attorney colleagues know me as the actor, so that's how much it complements each other, like they know me as the, as the opposite thing. So it's amusing to me.

Gregory Favazza: 51:11

That'd be a cool name for you, like they call me, the attorney. Nice Thanks, you like no no, no, I'm imagining I'm you for a second. Yeah, because then that would make you unique. Be like, I don't like a superhero name kind of something, I don't know.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 51:31

I've got to come up with a better superhero named the attorney.

Gregory Favazza: 51:34

That that's or if we look at it as a contract killer, who are we going to hire? Oh, the attorney.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 51:40

Yeah, there you go.

Gregory Favazza: 51:42

Yeah, he's good, he's really good.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 51:45

I like that. I'm going to write a screenplay on that now.

Gregory Favazza: 51:48

Definitely Long as you can Attorney serial killer. Yeah, why don't you incorporate me into it? I would love to participate.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 51:54

Nice, yeah, because I mean, who would think that an attorney would be a serial killer? That's, that's my, that was the point I was making earlier like Ted Bundy, like Ted Bundy was very charming and you know he charmed a lot of women and he ended up being a damn serial killer, like so. So I don't know many. I've never heard of many attorneys that are serial killers. I've heard of attorneys that killed people, but I've never heard of them being serial killers. I think that would be a good story.

Gregory Favazza: 52:24

Yeah, because it's. What is it like if you're getting like investigated? It's like attorney, client privilege, so they can't, they can't ask you shit.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 52:33

Well, it also is just, you know, attorneys are produce years, they they're trusted with money and stuff. So you have to. If you have, you have to trust your attorney really. So if you're, if you're giving all that kind of trust to an attorney that an attorney is like in a perfect position to be a serial killer and I'll say he has like a code and he doesn't hire or he doesn't take.

Gregory Favazza: 52:56

he won't be hired by the the bad people that he would consider, because he would just end up killing them.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 53:03

That's a good. That's a good twist on the on the plot right there.

Gregory Favazza: 53:07

Yeah.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 53:08

So he only takes clients that are bad and he kills them.

Gregory Favazza: 53:11

Yes, that's the yes. That's exactly what I meant. That's awesome.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 53:15

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, so he takes evil clients and kills them.

Gregory Favazza: 53:19

Yeah, so then they never make it to court? I don't know.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 53:22

Or never make it to their next victim. I love that.

Gregory Favazza: 53:25

Yes, yeah, this is going good. I like this.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 53:28

All right, is that script? You and I are co-writers.

Gregory Favazza: 53:31

Beautiful. Do I have to copyright that?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 53:34

After we write it. Yeah, you have to copyright it.

Gregory Favazza: 53:38

Hell, yeah, yeah, this is perfect. I will link this. I'll link everything we talked about into the show notes, but was I able to ask you everything you wanted to address?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 53:52

Yes, oh, actually I want to talk a little bit about I also have a new membership program that I started called attorney on demand who ATTYondemandcom, and it's for businesses and artists. So if you want an attorney, you want them on retainer and not pay a lot of money. You can join our attorney on demand and ask me as many questions as you want, get free contracts, get reduced trademarks, reduced LLCs, reduced fees. So that's a new. It seems to be resonating very well with the artistic community, so I thought I'd mention it.

Gregory Favazza: 54:27

Beautiful. No, I'll definitely link that into the show notes as well, as as long as you provide me a destination link where they can go. Yeah, absolutely, yep, excellent. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show today.

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 54:39

Appreciate you having me. Thank you.

Gregory Favazza: 54:42

Yes, and one last thing how can our audience get in touch with you?

Rob Sciglimpaglla: 54:48

They can go to my law website, which is robcesccesqcom. Rob Sig Eskcom. That's the easiest way, I mean, you can Google me and find me.

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