We were lucky to catch up with Mitchell Jaramillo and Siddharth Sharma recently and have shared our conversation below.
Mitchell and Siddharth, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
As Hold the Sauce Films, our work ethic comes from the core philosophy that we need to earn the audience’s interest. The competition in storytelling is fierce, and our philosophy is that we don’t expect people to watch our work just because we put effort into it. That’s a saucy mentality.
For us, “sauce” is the cool stuff—the amazing cinematography of “1917” or the 15-minute one-take from “Tár”, or the iconic quirks of Heath Ledger’s Joker. But sauce must be earned. Doing cool stuff for the sake of it is not exciting – it needs to serve the story.
That’s why we work hard to make sure that every single thing we do creatively is in service of the story. It also means that everything we do as filmmakers is intentional. Our work ethic is an expression of our humility, grounded in the fact that the universe doesn’t owe us anything.
We’re grateful to be in the position we’re in and we intend to maintain that gratitude every step of the way as we continue to earn our sauce.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
We’re Mitch and Sid, co-founders and producer-director duo of Hold the Sauce Films! Our company was born in an acting class where we first met. As actors, our first priority was to find a way to put ourselves on screen instead of waiting for a big break so we started HTS Films unofficially in March of 2023 to do just that.
We worked with our acting/filmmaking peers who had scripts but were waiting for grants to skip the waiting period and make it happen! Our approach to HTS Films was to operate as if the universe isn’t going to place opportunities in our lap – what reason does anyone have to give you a grant if you’ve never made a short before?! So we committed to building momentum by making shorts without any excuses. In our first year, we managed to shoot 4 short films and a music video!
After getting this experience under our belt, we were finally in a fortunate position earlier this year to actually win an $18k grant for another short that’s now in post-production. This is the kind of earning we’re talking about!
We find that the philosophy that is “Hold the Sauce” comes up every step of the way. We first noticed it in nervous actors who try to do too much, then we noticed it in eager filmmakers who were getting ahead of themselves, and we often notice it in ourselves, as we navigate the experience of running a business together. It’s easy to get lost in the sauce (ego) and forget why you’re doing something. But we’ve learned if we continue to check ourselves, we’ll be able to communicate properly to find a resolution no matter what.
Going forward, we’re excited to be finishing up this short and a few others that are almost there as we continue developing the next project. We’re also focused on the distribution phase as most of our projects are entering this now. It will be interesting to see how Hold the Sauce navigates that space.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
We both come from some pretty diverse backgrounds. Mitch studied literature in school and worked for a few years in the tech industry before pivoting a couple years ago. Sid went to film school and signed with a reputable agent immediately afterward, so he’s been on some solid productions before starting Hold the Sauce Films.
As a result, our skillsets have complemented each other well – Mitch coming from a business background has primed him to lead the producing work while Sid, having been immersed in the world of art and storytelling for quite a while, has developed a forceful artistic sensibility that has set our work apart. We learned early on that this company is only greater than the sum of its parts when we do what we do best to move it forward. We’ve made conscious choices to avoid diluting our contributions by focusing on leveraging our unique skillsets.
Alongside this, we’ve also developed a few qualities by working together to maintain our momentum as a business:
Passion and Purpose: We have ambitious goals for ourselves which motivates a lot of our work, but we found that holding your breath for the destination is self-sabotage. Instead, you genuinely need to fall in love with the process and make that your reason for getting up in the morning. This goes for our work as a business but also our work as creatives. In both cases, you sometimes need to forget the why and do the work because it needs to be done. One of our favourite quotes is, “the magic you’re looking for is in the work you’re avoiding.” The work is really all there is. That has to be your purpose.
Commitment and Discipline: The doubt will never fully disappear. The fear never fully goes away. You will second guess yourself and wonder if you’re spending your time doing the right thing. But commitment and discipline means you remain steadfast even when you’re uncertain. It means doin things even though you’re scared. Wearing multiple hats is challenging as it pulls you in different directions, making it tough to know if you’re committing to the right thing. But you need to figure out the opportunity costs and get to work. It’s much more effective to focus on the wrong thing for 100 days than nothing for 100 days.
Adaptability: Alongside commitment is a humble and nimble sense of adaptability. We aren’t afraid to stop and assess our direction to figure out the best way forward. Pivoting because you’re unwilling to do the work is a real problem. But beating a dead horse when the path is an obvious dead end is equally problematic. We’re pretty confident both problems come from a place of fear, but it’s up to you to clock that, always be honest with yourself, and figure out how to strike that balance between persistence and flexibility. It’s all part of the process.
All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
We’re currently in a new phase in our business that we’re learning: distribution. We now have a few assets under our belt, and the next step is properly learning the business of film to leverage those assets for growth.
We’re proud of our shorts (and the progression in quality) and our goal is to now expand our network! We are eager to meet folks who work in the film business and are also looking to connect, but also folks from other industries as well where there might be overlap (any VCs reading this?!).
It’s exciting because anyone can make a short. But navigating the business is a whole different game, and one we’re excited to dive into.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.holdthesaucefilms.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holdthesaucefilms/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hold-the-sauce-films/
Image Credits
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