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BPS 410: Why Most Independent Films NEVER Make Any Money · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four ten.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, Episode number four
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: oh nine. Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: a deep breath and try again.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: KTU Whitten broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: when we really should be working on that next draft.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: screenplay bulletproof.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
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  Speaker 2: on the kind of project you are and the goals
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: of the project you are, So we actually break it
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  Speaker 2: down by three categories micro budget, indie film, market and
• 1:09
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  Speaker 2: reader that's used to reading Tempole movies when your movie
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: and we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof Script Coverage,
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  Speaker 2: Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more.
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  Speaker 2: So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Now, Guys,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: today on the show, we have filmmaker Anderson Cowen, and
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: he is the filmmaker behind the new film Groupers.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 2: I had the pleasure of meeting Anderson over a year
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: or so ago. We met through a mutual friend and
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  Speaker 2: he had just finished his movie at the time and
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  Speaker 2: he was looking for some advice on distribution and how
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: to get the movie out there and what I thought,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: and he had been listening to my podcast, so I
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: agree because we had a good mutual friend who to
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: have lunch with him. And as you will find out
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: in the interview, he was pretty much a heat deer
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  Speaker 2: in headlights. He didn't know the first thing about distribution,
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  Speaker 2: about getting a movie out there, about how to make
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  Speaker 2: money with your film. Was it was interesting and he
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  Speaker 2: has gone through a lot of misadventures getting his film
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  Speaker 2: up onto the screen and getting money back from his film.
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  Speaker 2: So I wanted to bring him on the show so
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  Speaker 2: we can discuss a lot of the mistakes he made
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: along the way, and hopefully you guys can learn from
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  Speaker 2: them as well. So, without any further ado, please enjoy
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  Speaker 2: my conversation with Anderson Cowen. I like to welcome to
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  Speaker 2: the show Anderson Cowen. Man, how are you doing, brother.
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  Speaker 3: I'm doing fantastic, Alex. Thanks for having me.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, thank you for coming on the show. Brother,
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  Speaker 2: We've got We've I've been on your show. I've been
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: a guest on yours, on your radio show and our podcast,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: and a little while ago when I had my first
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: book out and I had a ball. That was back
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: when we could actually sit next to each other without
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: without the fear of something happening.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: I'm kind of an isolationist, so I don't really mind
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  Speaker 4: any of this. This is nice to be able to,
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  Speaker 4: you know, see people two dimensional. I don't like the
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  Speaker 4: three D movies. I don't like three D people.
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  Speaker 2: This is this works for me, So man, we're here
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  Speaker 2: to I want to do on the show because you
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  Speaker 2: made a movie called Groupers, and uh, there's a lot.
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  Speaker 2: I mean when we first came, when we first met
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  Speaker 2: through a mutual friend of ours, you were talking about
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: this movie and you were talking about what you wanted
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: to do with it, and you wanted some advice and
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: you were kind of just getting your feet wet. And
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  Speaker 2: this is like what a year and a half ago.
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  Speaker 4: Now, yes, it might have been two years ago, Alex,
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  Speaker 4: and I still think about that lunch that we had.
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  Speaker 4: It was my it was my friend, your friend, and
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  Speaker 4: I right, and I was. I didn't realize that I
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  Speaker 4: was a deer in the headlights at the time, but
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  Speaker 4: I was an absolute deer the headlights. And I can
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: only imagine what you were looking at when you were
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: sitting across the table from me, because like, I had
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  Speaker 4: made the movie, I was done, but I like, I
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  Speaker 4: didn't know what a film market was.
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  Speaker 3: Like you're right, going, well, the first thing you want
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  Speaker 3: to do is you know, looking.
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  Speaker 4: At AFM, Like, okay, AFM. You're like, it's the American
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  Speaker 4: Film Market And I'm like, what like a fish market?
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  Speaker 4: It's like a like like they sell movies there. You're like, yes,
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  Speaker 4: that's that's how it works Anderson and I look back
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  Speaker 4: on that and the stuff that I have learned since
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  Speaker 4: that moment is just unbelievable.
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  Speaker 3: And I'm embarrassed of that version of myself.
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  Speaker 4: I'm embarrassed of many versions of myself, but that one
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  Speaker 4: in meticular.
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  Speaker 3: Man.
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  Speaker 4: And there's so many people like that Alex who make
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  Speaker 4: them far. They have no idea.
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  Speaker 2: Most most, I'm gonna say most first time filmmakers have
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  Speaker 2: absolutely no idea what to do with the film when
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  Speaker 2: they're done with it.
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  Speaker 4: And and you know what that that leads me to this,
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  Speaker 4: which is it's no surprise at all that there are
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  Speaker 4: as many sharks as there are out there, predatory distributed
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  Speaker 4: distributors and aggregators. And it makes perfect sense because there's
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  Speaker 4: so many douchebags like me who are like I mean,
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  Speaker 4: for the first twenty years of my movie making career,
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  Speaker 4: I was just like, you know what, I'm gonna find
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  Speaker 4: the guy that's going to help me, or find the
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: woman that's going to help me, you know, get it
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  Speaker 4: out there. And I'm the artist and I just want
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: to do my own thing, and I don't want to
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  Speaker 4: be corrupted by the business side of things, and I
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  Speaker 4: actively avoided it like it's like a total douche. And
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  Speaker 4: of course there's going to be a whole like, you know,
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  Speaker 4: litany of predators just waiting to take advantage of people
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  Speaker 4: like me.
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  Speaker 3: So thank god I.
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  Speaker 4: Found her show and started really reading up before I
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  Speaker 4: went out there in the murky waters.
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  Speaker 2: Oh no, thea. I remember when I was coming up.
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  Speaker 2: I always, I mean I was, I always had some
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  Speaker 2: sort of business sense. But I just said, man, I
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: really when I was at my full douchiness, which there
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: was like a level of high douche early on in
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  Speaker 2: my career where I had, I was so far up
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: my own butt that it wasn't even funny. I would
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: I would say, I need my Brian Grazer, I need
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: my Laurence Bender, you know, because find me. And by
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: the way, and by the way, I was Ron Howard
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: quin Tarantino in those scenarios in my mind. So let's
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: just clarify that right then there. But it was I
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  Speaker 2: was good.
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  Speaker 4: I was talking about this the other day, like Stanley
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  Speaker 4: Kubrick didn't get discovered, Like he went out there and
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: pushed himself to become like you don't get discovered. But
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: I think that a lot of us start that way,
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  Speaker 4: Like I spent twenty years of my life, maybe thirty
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  Speaker 4: years of my life never say movie.
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  Speaker 3: Everything was a film. Oh it's a fine film, you
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  Speaker 3: know what I mean. And I just look back and
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  Speaker 3: it's like, dude, it's just it's not a good look.
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  Speaker 3: It's not a good vibe.
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  Speaker 4: And I think that you got to have some level
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  Speaker 4: of arrogance so to think that you have a voice
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  Speaker 4: enough to want to make a movie.
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  Speaker 3: So it's good that YOUT.
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  Speaker 4: Tame that when you're younger and then learn your you
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  Speaker 4: know your your limitbility, your limits and uh and the
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: move from there. But yeah, I've learned so much about
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: business since.
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  Speaker 2: Do I'll tell you what I wanted to. I'll just explain.
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  Speaker 2: I've said this, I think on the show before, but
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  Speaker 2: to explain to you the level of ducheness that I
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: was at when I was in film school and coming
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: out of film school product My first production company was
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: called Prepare Yourself wait for it, A Tour Pictures. Oh no,
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  Speaker 2: oh yeah, no, I had Oh it was called the
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  Speaker 2: Tour Pictures. The logo which I hadn't made, which was
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: on Marble not kidding you with a nineteen ninety six
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: three D movement camera where the shadow of the of
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  Speaker 2: the of the letters that spelled out a tour would
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: just shift. That was like big stuff back then. When
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: you can move a three D line, that.
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  Speaker 3: Is pretty cool still, I mean, I'd be impressed by that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was a tour pictures.
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  Speaker 4: Thank god, though it didn't happen the way that we
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: had to happen in our own minds, because I I
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  Speaker 4: hate to think that of what a horrible douche I
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  Speaker 4: would have become, you know what I mean, or would
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  Speaker 4: have continued to be if I if it actually did all.
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  Speaker 3: Come true, you know if when a lot of it,
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  Speaker 3: it's all it comes.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: From insecurities, right, always knowing that you're a tiny, tiny
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  Speaker 4: little fish and you gotta have this chip on your
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  Speaker 4: shoulder and this bravado and believe in yourself because no
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: one else is believing in you.
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  Speaker 3: And so I understand where it comes from.
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  Speaker 4: But looking back at it, it's just like, ah.
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  Speaker 2: No, without question. I mean, if like the book I
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: was my first book, shooting for the Mob, which I
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: was on your show about, if that would have happened,
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  Speaker 2: if I would have made the ten or fifteen million
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  Speaker 2: dollar movie, if I would have worked with those stars.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: If I would have gone down that road, I promise
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  Speaker 2: you I would have self destructed afterwards. I wouldn't. My
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: ego would have not been able to handle that kind
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: of attention, that kind of fame, that kind of anything
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: I would have been.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: My body wouldn't have been able to take it. I
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: would die. I think I would die from drug overdose.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: I would just be out there every single night and
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: I'd be a total flash in the pan. I'd make
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: one thing and then I would just burn out from
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: drugs and probably die.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: I'm not kidding.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: So I don't understand when I see these like really
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: young kids get early success, It's like, good on you
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: for being able to handle that, because I know that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, me in my early twenties was a nightmare.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, no question at all.
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  Speaker 3: LUs.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: You don't really have a whole lot to say when
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: you're early in your early twenties, right, Like, you haven't
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: really lived life enough to be telling large audiences like
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: you know, parts of the world and parts of like
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: stories and human interest stories.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: And I don't get it. I don't get a lot
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: of it, Alex. I'm still learning.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Well, we all are, man, we all are now you
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: jumped into filmmaking later in life, So can you Can
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: you give any advice to people out there that might
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: be listening who are scared to take the jump.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, it's I hate to feel like it was
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: later in life. I mean, I've been making movies for
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: twenty years, but I didn't really take a swing and
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: actually put myself up for rejection until later in life. Yeah,
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: I got stuck in the radio world, and that was
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: that really slowed me down. For I worked on Loveline
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: with Adam Caroll and Doctor Drew for almost twenty years,
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: and that stalled me. Man. I remember Doctor Drew on
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: on a regular basis.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Going dude, why are you gonna make your movie?
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I know, but you know it costs a
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: lot of money, Drew, And then how you don't just
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: make a movie out of the blue.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: We'll be right.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: to the show.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: But the dream never died. I never lost interest in movies.
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: I've got a bit of a bit of I'm very
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: obsessive about things, and I've been in love with movies
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: and the idea of movies and studying movies and watching
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: tons of movies my entire my entire life, and I
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: just kept kept the dream alive, and I just kept
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: pushing and pushing. And I've been doing a couple two
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: or three different movie shows weekly for the last number
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: of years now, and I used one of those shows
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: to raise money to make my first feature.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: I've been writing all along.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: I got like a number of scripts, but they all
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: cost you know, a million plus. So I finally wrote
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: something that was cheap enough that I'd be able to
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: raise the money through my audience, which I did in
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: making Groupers, which is pretty much just takes place at
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: the bottom of an empty pool for the first half
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: of the.
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  Speaker 3: Movie, which it's a pretty cheap way to make a movie. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: if you could find find the empty pool, you.
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  Speaker 2: Know exactly now what made you make the jump?
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  Speaker 3: Like?
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: What was that thing? Because I know a lot of
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: guys out there, a lot of girls out there just
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: sitting there going I just don't like. For me, it
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: took me till I was forty to finally wake up
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: after another deal went down for me to just say,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: screw it, I'm gonna go make my first film, and
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: I did. Thirty days later. I was shooting my movie
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: so that's what took for me. What was it that
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: thing that you like?
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: I got it. I get what was what was my bottom?
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Your catalyst?
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: You know it's kind of a yeah, a catalyst or
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: my bottom of Every single morning I would wake up
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: and the very first thing that I would hear in
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: my head is you're a You're a loser.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: You've never made a movie. When are you going to
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: make your first movie?
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  Speaker 4: I had made shorts, but I had never made an action.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: And I got together. I had a really good idea
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: that I wanted to do make a short out of.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: It was about a guy who liked his personal space.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: Is actually pretty apt for what's going on right now.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: He was He was this guy that really liked his
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: personal space and he hated it when people came into
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: was like a little, you know, social distancing bubble, and
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: he would put on a disguise to make him look
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: like a pedophile to keep people away from him.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: And I said, I want to shoot this.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: So I got together with my buddy from film school,
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: and as far as film school goes, the best thing
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: that you can get out of film school or contacts
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: that you can get together with ten fifteen twenty years later,
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: because when you get out of film school, they're not
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: worth anything as contacts. They could be friends, but they're
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: not going to be able to help you. One of
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: my best friend from film school, he's got a lot
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: of connections and he had a great relationship over at Panavision.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: So I said, let's get a package from Panavision and
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: shoot a short.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: And then I looked into the production insurance.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: Which I knew nothing about, right, and Panavision is like, yeah,
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: we'll give you this five hundred thousand dollars package of
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: equipment for free for the weekend, but you need to
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: have insurance.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh Jesus.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Turns out that the insurance for two weeks costs almost
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: as much as.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: For the full year. So we got the insurance for
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: the full year.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: We paid like thirty five hundred bucks or whatever it was,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: and we just shot shorts all year long. And that
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: was really the catalyst to, you know, get my feet
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: wet again after you know, five years after film school
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: and and start figuring this out again. And uh, I
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: just every single day it was like a mantra. And
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: I didn't ask for it, Alex. I didn't want to
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: hear the voice of my head calling me a loser
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: every morning.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: But that's what I heard.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: And then once I made the movie, or once it
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: was like in the works, the next mantro was, you
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: don't have a kid, You're never gonna.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Be a dad. What a loser. So there's always something.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: You need to talk to. That that voice. Man, we
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: all got that voice. Some of them are a little
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: bit more aggressive than others, but yeah, I have the
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: I have that voice too. And you know, right now,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: it's it's not easy, you know, hit you can't hit
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: the gym. So now you've got to like self motivate,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: you got to self motivate to actually, you know, do
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: get out their workout, stay said, not carb up, not
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: eat every snack that you have gotten. It's it's tough
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: right now. It's it's really tough in that sense. But
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: you know what, we're in better shape than many people
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: out there with the.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the best time to be to be uh
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: in this situation with you know, which is you know,
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: self quarantine and the stay at home orders. Never in
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: the history of humanity has there been a better time
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: to have to do this.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: With all the.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: Delivery services and the streaming services, and everything else.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Now you raised money through your audience and you
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: use the pitch video. Can you can you tell me
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: how you raise the money and how and how you
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: kind of packaged this to your audience because the audience
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: was basically fans of you and what you did, not
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: specifically the film. It was about you.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they knew my sensibilities, they knew my taste in movies, uh,
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: and they a lot of them just appreciated all of the.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Recommendations I'd given them over the years.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: On the film Vault in particular, you know, every single
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: week we talk about the three most recent movies we've seen,
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: and then we do a top five list of like
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: like last week we did top five supermarket scenes because
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: you know, we're all spending one of the only places
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: we're allowed to go right now, supermarkets, So we kind
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: of tailor it to what's going on. And a lot
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: of people just wanted to see me, you know, take
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: a swing and make my dream a reality to actually
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: make a future film. And that's where a lot of
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: the money comes from, is you don't realize that people
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: a lot of people who aren't necessarily doing what they
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: want to do, you know, nine to five, appreciate a
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: peer or somebody else still trying to make the dream happen,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: and they will, you know, help you out to make.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Make that go. First thing I did was I got.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: A producer, and I, you know, I've been sniffing around
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: for years for somebody who might be able to be
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: in this position, and somebody, Max Langworth, was my producer.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: And then he once you get somebody who's very business minded,
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: you're gonna hopefully take the next steps.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: And the next steps is raising the money.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: He had a bunch of different suggestions, one of which
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: was to get a crowdfunding coach. This guy named Justin
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: Giddings was great because he helped me with the Facebook
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: because I'm terrible at Facebook.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: I'm on a Facebook. He helped me with the Twitter,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: and I like.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: The Twitter, the Facebook, the instig It's.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Nice, the Twitter machine.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I just I thankfully I get to wax poetic,
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: you know, via podcast or what used to be radio shows.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: I get the word out with those.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: So I don't really see the value in social media
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: because I don't want to, like, you know, say something
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: on social media that I'm going to just repeat myself
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: again on the onwe of the show. So I'm terrible
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: with it all. I just and every time I get
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: down on our Alex, I see somebody saying something that
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: infuriates me, and I just I'm terrible social media. So
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: it was great having this this Justin guy to kind
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: of walk me through it, and he had a bunch
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: of great ideas.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: But really it was my audience.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: You know, I had a built in audience that helped
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: propel me to get the eighty I was looking for
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: seventy five thousand dollars and we ended up getting eighty
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: five thousand dollars. I don't really know how you go
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: about it if you don't have a built an audience,
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: especially nowadays where everyone's got a crowdfunding thing going. You know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: the crowdfunding racket has been pretty pretty run dry.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, the audience. Building your own audience
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: is definitely something that needs to be happening, regardless whatever
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: your endeavors are in your filmmaking career, having that audience
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: is super, super valuable and every way possible. Now, when
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: you wrote the script good.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: I was gonna say, one of the things that you
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: can do, and you talk about this all the time,
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: is you know, look for your niche, and you look
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: for your lane, and if you're good at it and
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: you know what you're talking about, that's a that's a
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: great approach. Or in my case, I went for a hook,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: like a really easy to explain hook, something that was obnoxious,
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: that was kind of, you know, gonna stir the pot.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: And I was able to get people on board pretty easily,
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: and that was the Chinese finger traps.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, the whole premise of my movie was.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: Just, you know, those guys out there that claim homosexuality
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: is a choice, Well, those were my targets. So the
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: movies about these two homophobic jocks who get kidnapped.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: And they're there.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: They are are set out to they must prove that
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: homosexuality is a choice by being gay for each other,
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: and there's a Chinese finger trap that connects the two
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: of them. So it's incredibly sophomorican childish on that level.
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: But then the movie goes much much deeper and much
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: farther as well. But it's a comedy. I was trying
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: to make an important comedy, and that's tough to do,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: you know, it's really tough to do. But I pretty
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: much made the movie that I wanted to make, which
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: you know is and there's no way I would have
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: without all those shorts that I made that one year
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: when we got the the production insurance, so that that
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: helped a lot.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Get your feet wet.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: So you mean you actually practiced your craft before you
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: actually and did something big, no stop.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: It is one of.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: The toughest crafts to practice, like it's it's not.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Like playing catch, you know, the guitar or the guitar, right.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: You don't get to watch YouTube videos showing you how
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: to direct, even though they'll they'll happy to believe that
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: Ron Howard will have you give him a bunch of
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: money for his masterclass, and you know, maybe you'll learn
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: and some of the stuff that we learned in film school,
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: but a lot of that will too also just have
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: you direct like everybody else. Right, So it's to find
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: your voice, to find your style, to fear out what
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: if you're even good at it or not cost so
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: much money, takes so much time and take so many
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: people people's energy, not only just you, but you have
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: to have all your friends and volunteers work on these things.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: It's it's it's crazy how hard it is to practice
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: this craft.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Now, when now, when you were writing the script, did
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: you I'm assuming you had budget in mind, you know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: before you wrote this book.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Well, oh no, that's another problem that I had. And
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: I got to tell you. I'm writing right now and
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: I do have that in mind, and I do have
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: marketing in mind as i'm writing it.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: But I'm not selling out. I'm making sure that I'm
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: not selling out.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: But I am thinking about all those things, which is
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: so so valuable. I would just write because I was
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: purest alex. I wasn't gonna, you know, like for business.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: Was I don't care if and no one shows up.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: I'm making this movie for me.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: It's art. It's art. We'll be right back after a
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Every script I had written, like the first four scripts
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: I had written, they probably you know, one to five
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: million dollar range. You know, I'm not thinking about that
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: because I don't care.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: It's art.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this one, I was thirty pages in writing it
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: for myself.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: When it dawned on me. I'm like, Holy Holy.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: I won't cuss, but I'm like, my god, this is
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: a cheap script.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: I've never written anything this cheap.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: And that's when I realized, you know what, this is
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: the first movie I'm going to actually be able to make,
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: and I was excited. But that's also when the wheels
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: started turning to the point where every word became precious
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: because it was the first movie I wasn't writing just
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: for myself. I knew that this was actually gonna be
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: on the big screen and overthink think everything for sure.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: So it took me a while to write it after
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: I realized that. But no, I wasn't thinking budget until
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: I was on about page thirty when I realized cheap.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: It is cheap.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: But I highly recommend that people just one year daydreaming
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: up ideas try and think cheap and small.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean the chances of you if you
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: want to be a filmmaker and you're trying to get
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: a movie packaged and sent out and try to raise
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: financing and stuff. It is doable. But man, you've got
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: to have all cylinders hitting, you know, at full throttle,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: and you really got to know what you're doing, and
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: you really got It's kind of like you're gonna thread
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: that needle. You've got to have a lot of skilled
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: people around you as well as yourself to hit that target,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: and a lot of filmmakers don't. They's just like it clumsily,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: like I just picked up the bat. I've watched baseball forever,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: but I just picked up the bat for the first time.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: I'm walking up to face a major league picture. I'm
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: sure it's gonna be fine, because I've seen it a
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: thousand times. That's what you don't want to do. And
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: I think writing a script that you can actually manage
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: yourself and shoot for fifty grand or less, you know,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: one hundred grand or less, and do it all within
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: your power is you know. I take that to the
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: extreme with my first two films, you know, five grand
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: and three grand, you know, to.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Insane to make those?
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: Has that been verified? And we actually get some like
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: number of crunchers to.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Come in and knock yourself out.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Not that makes no sense.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Well, the reason why it makes no sense is because
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: I've spent twenty five years putting so many tools in
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: my own toolbox that I carried a lot of the
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: weight myself. Oh if I would have to pay everybody
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: my jobs that I did, oh forget.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: It, you would have a lot of money, be your
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, I would have a lot of.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Money, exactly so you know, that's the only way you
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: could do stuff like that.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: Something that you actually that I learned from you early
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: on was that you know, the cheaper, the better twofold. One,
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: it's gonna be easier to raise the money or find
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: the money if it's cheap, obviously, and two it's the
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: game is recouping that money so you can make the
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: next one. And you got to be able to prove that.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: And that's what I want to talk to you about next.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: Is the insanity that is, well, we'll just go with
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: Amazon because.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: They're the big player here.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: You know, my my movie became available tvod in November
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: of twenty nineteen, and my distributor, my distributor and I
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: have no idea how it's performing.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: We have no idea.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: Amazon does not have numbers for us until it's done
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: with until the end of the second quarter of the
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: first full quarter of business, right, which is crazy because
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: of course they have the data. Why they don't share
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: it with the filmmakers or the distributors or even the
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: aggurate with anybody is beyond me. I'm an affiliate member
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: with Amazon with one of my shows. You know, you
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: click through a little banner you get a percentage kick
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: back to their show. I can see what people are
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: buying pretty much in real time, exactly what they bought,
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: what they paid for, what are percentages they have the technology.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Why they don't share this with filmmakers is beyond me.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: Do you have any ideas on this?
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes It makes all the sense in the world.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: It's the reason why distributors in general and platforms in
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: general take forever to pay because they're just there. It's
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: like a bank. They're holding the cash and they're kind
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: of just paying it for that and that's all fine.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, they can save the money.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, give it to me eventually, Like even with my
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: affiliate program, it takes some ninety days to pay.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: That's that's okay.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: I'm not gonna but let me see what ads are working,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: let me see what media you know, social media posts
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: are working, so that I can you know, double down
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: on those.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: It's it's there's a serious problem with all of this
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: distribution in general. It's something that I have been racking
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: my brain around, you know, about since last year, if
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: not earlier, but really really kind of done a deep dive,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: you know, ever since the distriber debacle and what happened
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: with them, and I was just like, there has to
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: be a better way. So I'm I'm thinking and working
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: on things myself, trying to figure out a better way
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: of doing this. But it's lunacy. It's it's lunacy because
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: the cost of the product is so expensive. You know,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: it's not like a pen. It's not like a pen
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: that cost me a few cents to make, and it's
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: going to take me, you know, two hundred and forty
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: days to get my first payment for it. You know,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: it's not even a sixty ninety it's not one hundred
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: and eighty day. It's actually longer than that. So that's
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: the thing, is like the system is so flawed, it's
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: so you know, not set up for us as the creators.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: That that's why I kind of just opted out of
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: the whole system. And you know, when I when I
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: made my first two films, I partnered with a distributor
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: that you know, Indie Rights, who I've worked with, and
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: but they're just one revenue stream where I have multiple
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: revenue streams coming in from my movies through my platform
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: and through other products and other services and things.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: That I do.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And that's why I opted out of it, and I
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: think that is the only way moving forward is you
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: have to create other revenue streams from your art in
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: order to make it. I mean, look at the music
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: industry right now and right now. Before the way they
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: were making money was touring and live shows and appearances.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: So I can't even imagine what is going to happen
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: to musicians moving forward, because now their only way to
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: make money is now going to be virtual, you know,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: virtual live performances.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: No, this will, this.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Will end though, I mean, this isn't forever, this one.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: No it is younger people.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: No, No, of course it will end. But the point
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: is that it's going to take a while, and even
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: the hangover of what's going on right now is going
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: to take at least till next year. So for this
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: rest of this year, I don't see any There's no
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Lallapalooza this year, you know, there's no. I mean regardless,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, if it's going to take time before we
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: get back to normal, I'm not going to a movie
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: theater this year. I don't care what they say, you know,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: so you know not this year.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: I will. I'll be there, I know you will. You
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: open up those theaters and I'm going to be there.
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: It really concerns me and upsets me with all these
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: people saying, hey, who needs theaters? You know, just pay
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: twenty bucks watch it at home. It's like, no, no,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: that's not what movies are. I mean, not to get
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: douchey again and get you know, like back to our
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: tour pictures again. But movies aren't special unless they're an
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: event in a theater for a limited amount of time,
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: That's but that's our generation though. That's for our generation,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: not for a whole other generation that's own.
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: So let me ask you this, Alex, Like, if they're
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: not events that you can only go to and see
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: them the way that they were made to be seen,
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: which is in a theater, when when when these movies
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: are being mixed together for their sound and the pictures
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: being colored time, they're doing that on big screens with
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: at most speakers.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: They're not for your iPod, you correct, your for your iPad, your.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: Face, So you're you go to see it the way
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: that was intended to be seen, and you can only
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: see it that way for a limited amount of time,
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: which makes it special.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: If that's not an option anymore, then do we really
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: even need new movies?
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: Maybe maybe one a month to a month, because we
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: have one hundred years worth of movies that most people
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: have never seen that are going to get us through
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: the day.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Tell I'll tell you what. Look, it's it's it's a
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: travesty to watch Star Wars on your iPhone like that,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: you know, watching any Nolan film, any Kubrick film on
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: a iPhone is a travesty in my opinion. There there
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: are there are things like I actually had the chance
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: to see Full Metal Jacket in the theater with With
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: with I'm gonna do shout a little bit here, but
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I had Kubrick's right hand man, the guy who made
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: the movie, filmmaker.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Like that documentary.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah huh yeah he was. He was in right behind me,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: and I got to talk to him off towards and
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: I watched and I watched Full Metal Jacket with him
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: and Matthew Modin in the in the theater, and I
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: was just like, this is awesome. And I'd never seen
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Full Metal Jacket in the theater. I've only seen it
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: on DVD and on VHS and all that stuff over
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: the years, and it was just like, wow, this is insane.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Like watching two thousand and one at home is awesome,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: but watching it in the theater, Like I saw Lawrence
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: or Arabia at a theater in seventy million.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: I thought a cinerama doom. Yeah yeah, yeah, so like
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: the intermission, yeah exactly.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: So the thing is, but that's that's an event and
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: for a generation like you knew who were raised on that,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: that makes sense. But there's a whole generation of filmmakers
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and filmmakers. But yeah, well not filmmakers and film lovers
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: who are watching Irishmen. Yeah, a Scorsese film on the
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: I forget.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: That, and I get the generational thing, and I don't
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: want to come off like the old man, but it's
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: it's about the relationship that you have with the movie
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: and how it's fleeting and you can only see it
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: for that period of time in that theater, Like you know,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: you can go and have your little intimate moment with
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: that movie. And like There'll be a movie that'll come
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: out once every five years and I'm like, I'm so
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: into it. I'll see it four or five times in
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: the theater and I and it's it's insightment of knowing
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: uh that, like, you know, it's only going to be
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: around for another week in the theater, you better go
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: see it one last time and have you know that intimate. Sure,
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: you can watch it countless times in you know, in
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: your house, but it's not it's not the it's like
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: it's like kissing someone as opposed to actually, you know,
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: having sex with them.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show. No, I get it.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I get it completely, and I do personally believe that
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the theater experience will stay alive in one way, shape
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: or form. I don't in the next twenty years.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I don't see the theatrical experience maintaining what we knew
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: it as. But it will be. It will always be there.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: The IMAX. You can't compete with IMAX. You can't compete
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: with the theatrical experience.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I need Alamo Draftous to get an IMAX because
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: I do think that they're going to be one of
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: the sole survivors when all this.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because they cater.
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: The people that like you know you and I yeah, exactly,
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: So I think it will be in one way, shape
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: or form, But I don't think it will have and look, this,
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: this whole event that we're going through right now is
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: really proven the fact act that you know, people are
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: gonna after this event, after this good blows over.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: People will want to go out, people will want to
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: go back to the movies. But there's gonna be a
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: nice large percentage of people going to go you know what,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I'll I'll just stay home unless it's a huge event,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: like and you have to go see it in the theater, Alex.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: Like, I'd go to my AMC theater down the street,
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: and uh, you know, there'd be four or five people
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: there at ten pm on a Wednesday night, like young people,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: and I would I would wonder, like I'd be happy
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: to see people there, but I'd be like, how do
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: they seldom to themselves that they think it's a good
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: idea to go watch like an eighteen dollars movie once?
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: When they could you know, have that that pays for
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: two months of Netflix with unlimited movies. Like it's the
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: model's broken and it needs to be fixed and changed
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: and saved somehow.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: And I don't know the answer.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think what's going on right now with Look,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: I've always said this about we're going off tangent here.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: But I've always said that the theater in general, the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: whole industry has had a very come back relationship with
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: the customer with overpriced food, bad experience for a lot
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: of those years. They've actually now upped their experience because
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: they had to, not because they wanted to, because they
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: had to compete. Like you know, now you can sit
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: and plush seats and everything is clean, and the sound
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: is impeccable and the screen is great and all of
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: that stuff. That took years, decades for that to come up,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: and they had to do it because they're like, well,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: people don't need us anymore. But there's still this combative
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: relationship with like, look, it's like going into an airport
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: and buying a sodam, Like do you not know what
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: things cost outside? Like I don't know, Like so there's
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: that whole and then the price of the tickets and everything.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: So it's always been very combative. So now like AMC,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: who is about to go bankrupt any day now, is like, oh,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: we're not going to show any more Universal movies because
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: they said something negative about us. Because Control two made
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars on streaming and I'm gonna are you.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: If I was the Theaters, I would do everything in
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: my past hour to try to ingratiate myself to a
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: studio like Universal, who's still releasing major tent poles, like
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: are you like with how.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Alex? What's really funny is the biggest AMC in LA
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: is that.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: At the Universal City Walking It's.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: But yeah, that whole exchange was so effing childish, and
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: it's just it's it shows you that the people to still.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Don't know nothing, you know what I mean?
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: That the fact that they got so petty so quick,
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: it's just it's mind blowing.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: It's it's basically the guy it's it's basically, Oh, it's
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: the guys who had the horse and buggy, guys who
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: used to build buggies, and they're like, well, this upstart
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: automobile is ridiculous for the car. Nobody wants that. It's unreliable.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: It's all. This is the same thing happened with kerosene
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: lamps versus electricity. Like you you, it is what it
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: is streaming is here regardless whether you like it or not,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: it is it's saving us right now now in this
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: experience that we're going through right now without it and
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I think so many more people are going to get
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: so much more comfortable with streaming and having it as
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: part of their life and getting great content. They're going
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: to go, well, I don't need to go to the theater.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Maybe once a year, maybe twice a year as a
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: special event, but I'm not going monthly, that's what they'll say.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: So and by the way the whole industry was, you
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: could see it was dropping. It was dropping and dropping
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: and dropping, and the international ticket sales were the only
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: thing that we're really keeping it up to the theatrical
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, remember, I remember a day when the US
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: market was seventy or eighty percent and international was twenty.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: And now it's the opposite, as you can see with
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: films that have Asian actors and Chinese themes for no
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: apparent reason, because they need to sell it in China,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: which is a huge market now. So the world is
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: upside down, and I don't you know, it's this happens
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: in every industry. The old guard holds on as long
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: as they can to the way things were, and till
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: they have know the choice, they're blockbuster. Basically. I think
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: movie theaters right now are blockbuster. I don't think they'll
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: go away completely. But I think, by the way, by
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: the end of this thing, we're gonna lose somebody. We're
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: gonna lose a lot of screens.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, there's some movies theaters for sure that have
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: closed and will never open up again.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: I don't doubt that at all. And even before all this, Alex.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: My big theater down the street from me is AMC sixteen,
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: and I love paying twenty three bucks a month to
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: be able.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: To see three new releases each week.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: For twenty three bucks a month, it was very affordable
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: for me, for somebody like me who watches movies all
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: the time. But it's attached to a mall that has
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: just been abandoned. It's kind of this crazy dead mall
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: where like every single store is gone. It's actually where
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: they shot Valley Girl that came out just recently. Anyways,
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: they're making a new theater. AMC's moving across the street
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: to a mall that's living. But they're going from sixteen
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: screens to twelve screens. So I mean, it's all that's
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: before all this, that's before the pandemic. So we are
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: trending to less screens in this country at least, which
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: you know, it's it's inevitable.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: I get it.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, without question. Look, look, remember the film and
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: digital conversation. I mean that that that whole thing that
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: took forever to finally figure out, to the point where
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: now everyone was like, well, you know, Red showed up
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: and changed the game, and then Airy took them forever
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: to finally catch up. And now they they they're like, well,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: we're not going to go after the main market. We're
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: going to go after the professionals, and that's all we're
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: going to do. Well, let Red, you know, have the
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: dentists buy their cameras and shoot their movies. But that's
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: where they're aiming at. So but look, I remember when
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: that came up and when people were still arguing film
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: versus digital and all this stuff, and you can have
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: we could still have that argument about it now, but
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. At the end of
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: the day. People are going to shoot digitally. If they
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: want to shoot film, go for it. I've shot film.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: I love film, but I.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: Don't I got attached on my arm. I mean I
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: have thirty five millimeter tattooed on my on my arm.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: I love the idea.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Oh I remember selling the the smell, the smell of
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: the role like when you opened it after Yeah, it
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: was you know, I remember changing that. I remember changing
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: the you know in the bag and going to the
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: to the lab and dropping it off. But very much
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: like block like video stores, I have a nostalgic relationship
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: with video stores. I wouldn't go back, Like, if there
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: was a video store down the street, I'm not gonna
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: go rent my movies there because it doesn't make sense.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: I have a nostalgic feeling for what I felt when
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: I was at that point and I worked at a
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: video store, and I love that that whole But that
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: was a time and the same thing goes for this.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: I get that for sure. I worked at a video store,
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: and you know, I love that time. And it's a
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: it's a it's a it's a bygone era and I
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: and I get that. But I'm hearing what I'm hearing,
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: and at least it's in the headlines and it's in
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: the media right now is who needs movie theaters? You're
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: not going to see packed you know, you're never going
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: to see a souldout movie theater again.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: Movie theaters are a thing of the past, and I
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: just told really disagree with that. I agree.
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: I think that there is a portion of us that
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: still appreciate the movie theater and always well, and it's
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: not an old thing, it's a it's a it's a
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: right thing, because if if there is no movie theater experience,
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: Like I was so happy that Grouper's got a theatrical release.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, that was a dream come. Getting a distribution
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: deal was great, but getting that theatrical release that made
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: it in my mind, like I actually made a real
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: movie that had a theatrical release. You get that, But
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: if you don't have that option, then it's just TV.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, and Tarantino said it a few years ago.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: That's why he's been threatening to retire for all these years,
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: because he's like, we're not making movies anymore, We're just
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: making you know, long TV shows, which essentially, I mean,
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: there's something to be said about that.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: So no, I I agree with them. I I agree
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: with you. I don't think I don't. I Look, if
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: you don't believe that movie theaters are going to be
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: packed again, way till the next Avengers shows up?
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, way till the next day, right?
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Even look, AMC could be pissed off as much
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: as they want. They need the movies. They need Avengers,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: they need Disney, they need Disney, they need Warner brother product,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: they need you know, the next Harry Potter or whatever
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: they're gonna people will show up. Will it be as
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: big of a pie as it used to be? No,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I think they'll be different. It's the window gonna be different. Yes,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: you know, will you will there be a thirty day
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: window as opposed to this ninety day window that movie
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: theaters have been trying to go for forever. I think
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: it's gonna draw. That window is gonna change, and they're
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: gonna have to renegotiate. If not, they're just going to die.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: They're just not gonna make it because theaters need Hollywood.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Hollywood doesn't need theaters at this point.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: Uh yeah.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: I think that the worldwide we'll we'll see. I mean,
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: right now, we're all going off of what Trolls two?
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: Did you know what I mean? Well?
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: No, And that's a very unique and that's a very unique.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: That's the thing I said to I was talking to
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: somebody else earlier today. I was said, look, Trolls two
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: is a very unique film in the sense that it's
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: a low hanging fruit, meaning it was an equivalent low
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: budget movie. Ninety million bucks for a for a Nano
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: made it film is fairly affordable, you know, for them.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: And now back to the show. And it's it's like, well,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: we could either shelve it or we could put it
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: out there. And it's a kid's movie and it's in
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: the middle of a pandemic and parents are going crazy.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: It may it checked off a lot of boxes, and
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: that's why I did as well as it did. But
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: what will happen when Bond shows up? Like I think
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: if Bond if like if we if if this thing
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: does keep going and nobody goes if the theaters don't
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: open up until November, and you put Bond on a
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: t I call it premium t VOD. Yeah, I'm gonna
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: pay twenty bucks to see it, and I'm sure a
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: lot of people will like. So it hasn't really been
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: tested yet. Let's throw a real tent pole up there.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Let's see what happens. Like can't But I, like I
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: said earlier, like Tyson fights back in the day, we're
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: making five six hundred million dollars in one night.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: That was a party thing too. That was an event
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: that you have an event at your house and you'd
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: host it, right.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: So why wouldn't this be why I think that's where
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: this premium teavot could go for these giant event movies.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but then you gotta have to tap into the
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: fomo too, because, like I said, there's so much entertainment,
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: so much entertainment, you got to have it so that
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: the kids don't want to go to school on Monday
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: unless they've seen it, because they don't want to be
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: left out of the conversation. Like and there's very few
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: of those are you making when that's what you're the
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: main motivating factor is to create fomo?
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: And I guess they're already doing that.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was about to say, what have you not
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: been paying attention to Hollywood over the last decade?
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: That's what they do hundred years.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: I guess that's what they do. Well, we went a
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: little bit off We went a little bit off off
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: target here, but but you said you got a distribute
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: it with your film? What who's if you don't mind
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: me asking what's your relationship with the distributor? Are you
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: making any money with them.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: I don't know, uh, because I'm still waiting for Amazon
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: and iTunes and all those you know, show their reports.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: We find out for the movie that I got released
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: in November, came out in theaters I think October, and
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: then it got and then it went to a tvo
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: D and then it's on Avod as well.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: I'll let you know where it is all the different places.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: But that was November.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: We don't find out what it did, how it's done
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: business until July. From what I understand, like sometime in July,
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: we'll figure that out. But I landed with Terror Films,
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: who was the only I got five offers from five
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: different distributors, and I can tell you the first offer
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: I got I would have jumped at had I not
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: known what I was doing a little bit, had I
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: not listened to people like you.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: And what was that deal? What was that deal? By
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: the way, it was thirty seventy split to me, and.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: It was it was a very large distributor who has
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: a whole bunch of movies. And I didn't get very
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: far down the path went back and forth with a
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: little bit and then another distributor that I was very
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: familiar with, came in and they wanted it. So I'm thinking, great,
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: two big names that I could, you know, say hey,
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: my movies with so and so, you know, and uh
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: and then the third guy uh Now, actually he was
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: the fourth guy that came in. I was Terror Films.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: I also had a deal with with I don't want
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: to say any of the names.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Sure you don't have to say the names, but the
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: But so, let me ask you a question. With these
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: other deals that you turned down. Was there minimum There
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: was no minimum guarantee, so you weren't getting paid any money? No, no,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: but was there what was the was there marketing cap?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: And also what was the terms length length the agreement?
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: It's just curious.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: I'd have to pull it up, Alex.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: And also I can tell you that I had Glenn
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: with Circus Road Ye front of.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: The show, Front of the show. Glenn Reynolds, great guy.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: And what's funny is I I got him out of
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: a f M kind of.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: I met him outside of a f M.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: We set up a meeting and met down the street
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: at FM because he didn't even go to FM that year,
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: and I was all willing to the deal with him,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: and he was gonna you know, find he was gonna
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: be my my rep. And I'm listening to you talk
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: to Linda with ind Rights, Yeah, and you're doing an
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: interview with her right and Uh, you guys are talking
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: about reps and producers reps and and and how and
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: and sellers reps and how they they just rip people
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: off left and right and if anyone asks for money
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: up front, run they're they're bad people. They're just there
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: to take your money. And I'm like, you know what,
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: I'm not signing with this Glenn guy. I'll never forget.
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: I was showing my movie in Orange County the next
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: uh later that night, and I was getting ready for
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: UH to show my movie because I four walled it
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: first before I got the distribution deal.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: And I'm in.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: My my hotel and at the Hyatt out in Orange
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: County listening to you guys talk, and I'm like, I'm not.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: Gonna I'm breaking off this deal with Glenn. And then
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: she says, or you say, unless it's somebody like Glenn,
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: I'm like.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Well, there's very few. There's right, Glenn's gray. And there's
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: very few producers reps who actually do what they say
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: they're gonna do, who are fair who care. There's that.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: I could count them on one hand, so they're they're
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: a very few.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: Fantastic And as a first timer, I can say if
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: you if you're lucky enough to have somebody like Lenn
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: who likes your film and they want.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: To get it out there for you, they want to
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: work with you.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: He was great because I never felt like any offer
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: he brought me was going to be taken full advantage
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: or I was going to get screwed. And he'd go
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: through with a long form and he'd cross things and
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: highlight things that were an issue. And ultimately, though, what
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: kind of made sense was when Terror Films came Joe
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: Dang with Terror Films, I know you've got him on
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: since sure, since I signed with I took his call
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: just to be courteous, as I'm like, who am I?
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: You know, I had no interest. I saw his fifty
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: to fifty split. I never heard of him. They're a
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: horror film distributor. I'm like, not the right fit. But
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: you know, I'll take his fifteen minute phone call because
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: that'd be rude, and who the hell am I'm a
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: first time filmmaker.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: I should be lucky.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: Then anybody wants to even look at my film right,
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: talk to Joe two Hours goes By.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: I'm talking to Joe, and I just love everything he's saying.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: And because of the things that I heard from you
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: and other horror stories that I had read about, you know,
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: the first time film maker has never seen the dime
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: and never having any idea what their film is doing.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: Joe's business model is built in that you are going
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: to see at least something because you get fifty percent.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: There are no caps or all the marketings.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: On him any business the movie does, I see fifty
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: percent of it automatically.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: There's no recoupables for him. It's just straight uple. So
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: if you're with.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Partners, your partners, your partners partner exactly.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: So if it you know, if it does two rentals
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: at five bucks a pop, Amazon's going to take their
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: fifty and then I'm gonna split the five dollars with
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: Joe and I'm gonna get I'm gonna get a list
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: two dollars and fifty cents because I know a people
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: are into the movie.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: So that's nice to know, you know what I mean.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, Jose, Yeah, I've had Joe the on
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: the on the show. And if you're a member of
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: the Protect Yourself from a Predatory Film Distributors an Aggregator
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Facebook group. Joe's a very vocal voice in that group
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: and has been since the beginning with distriber and that
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: whole debacle, which is how we met originally. Uh but yeah, man,
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: look it's it's it's not perfect for you know, his
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: model is not perfect for everybody, but it is for
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: some people. And they're like I said, there's a handful
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: of people that I can count on one hand as
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: far as distributors and producers, rep sales agents and things
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: like that, that I would trust and go, you know what,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: these are the guys. There's very very few. So the
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: majority just understand, the majority of who you deal with
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: is going to be it's going to be product. I
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: was like, listen, I was listening. I just had a conversation.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: I had a consult with a filmmaker was coaching them
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: through through a distribution deal, and they had they had
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: a million dollar plus minimum guarantee offer on the table.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: The wait a minute, wait a minute, and the movie
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: was made for about seven eight hundred thousand, Okay, it
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: was with a very it was two deals, two million
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: dollar plus deals on the table, both very well known companies.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: If I said their names, you know who they were,
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: and it was an MG, a million dollar MG. That's
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: how good his film was. He turned them both down.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: And do you know why he turned them both down
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: because by the time, like it was so much Mickey
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Mouse bs on when he got paid and how the
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: payment it was just so and that the deliverables list
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: that he had to set up. He's like, at the
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: end of the day, I was like, I'm never gonna
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: see this. Even though they say I'm gonna get an MG,
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: It's gonna take six months to a year before I
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: even get to the where, right. And it was just like,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: but that's standard practice. That is what business as usual
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: is in the entertainment industry. So they they I think
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: the distribution space in general has had such a long
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: run of hey, it's us or nothing kind of attitude
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: that they just like, we're just going to abuse you,
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: and if you don't like it, there's another five thousand
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: movies sitting right behind you that are willing to do it.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: We don't really care if you take it or not.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: And that's the world we live in. So that's why
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I've been you know that's been preaching the film entrepreneurial
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: method and figuring out other ways for filmmakers to make
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: money and to sustain themselves as a career before they
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: can get you know, unless they want to eventually get
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: hired on to work for hire at a big studio
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: or work on TV or do something else like that.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: But it's brutal out there. It is so brutal. So
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: so anytime I talk to a filmmaker and they have
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: a deal, I'm like, give me the details. I want details,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: is you know off the record, tell me what you
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: how much you mid make, who you make, because I
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: like to hear all. This is why I used to
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: love going to AFM. I'm not going this year, probably,
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: but I used to go. I loved going to AFM
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: because I would get stopped every five feet by somebody
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: or a filmmaker who's like, hey, here's my deal, and
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: they would tell me their deals, so I would really
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: get a feeling for what the enough God, some of
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: the deals I heard, I just twenty five year deals
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: will be I back after a word from our sponsor
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: Twenty five Yeah, another you know what one of them
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: I was a twenty five year deal. One of the
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: offers that I got was twenty five with Joe. It's
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: a five year deal, which was by far the lowest,
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: like it was.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: It's one of the lowest.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: I got fifteen twenty and twenty five year deals offered
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: to me, except for Indie Rights, which was a whole
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: different ballgame.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: And that's almost like self distribution.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: I'm close, yeah, and I'm and I'm with the I'm
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: with Indie Rights and Linda and Michael and they they're great.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: They're great, and they and they you know, I got
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: my first check.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: Oh cool, already wait year after.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: Me though, No, no, but I got my first check
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: from this is meg okay, so this is yeah. So
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: so they just picked that up and that got released
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: first before on the corner of Ego did and it
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: is not a lot, but I got something.
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: You got something, yeah, because I heard you talking with
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: the original guys, the Disturber guy years ago. Uh, and
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: he was talking about how he did why he created
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: Distribbers because he he had produced ten movies and he
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: never saw a dime for any of them, and that
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: was his that was his bottom. I guess like that
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: was his catalyst to actually go out and create a
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: new model a wait for filmmakers to not have to
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: deal with that. And it's kind of ironic now that
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: here we sit with the last time I was supposed
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: to the first time I was supposed to do your show,
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: that was the day that distribber blew up. And then
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: the second time we rescheduled, that was the day that
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: Tom Hanks got coronavirus.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: So I'm glad that here.
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: We are finally recording no pandemics and no major X
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: scandals in Hollywood.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: To know, it's like what we call last time. I'm like, dude,
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: we could record this, but man, like on my mind's
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the world. The world is coming to an end right now.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: We don't know what's going on. Probably not the best
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: time to do this interview.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: It was literally the day that they canceled NBA or
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: suspended MBA.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: Actually it was the day that it became real.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: Right before I forget Alex, let me let me give
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: a little piece of advice to you too, because I
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: know you have a lot of people who are like
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: like me right now or like yeah, the way I was,
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: and just you know, and I don't want to spare
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: people from twenty years of thinking that they're gonna be
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: discovered or thinking that it's gonna happen just because you know,
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: I got stories to tell.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: I'm a smart guy.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna be able to I'm gonna change the world,
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: you know what, because that doesn't work. And part of
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: the reason why I was so gunshy is because I
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: got an appreciation for Stanley Kubrick once again, to go
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: back to him at a young age, an unhealthy obsession
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: with his movies, his method, reading books on him, obsessing
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: about Stanley Kubrick, and then you get in your head
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: and there's no way you're gonna make anything that looks
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: like Stanley Kubrick.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: So I was exceptionally intimidated.
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: Now, a lot of the filmmakers that I love, like
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: they grew up watching like Roger Corman movies or you know,
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: like John Carpenter movies, attainable movies, movies that you and
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: your friends could go make, like in the Backyard with
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: some fun effects. I wish, I wish that I had
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: gone down that path. I would have made my first
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: movie probably ten years earlier.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: You know, that's the that's the same thing for me,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Like I didn't make my first feature, even though I
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: had the skill set probably a decade earlier. But I
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: didn't do it purely because I was up my own ass.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: I just like, I need my first movie's gotta be
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Reservoir Dogs, it's got to be Mariachi. It's got to
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: be something that comes out and explodes. And I put
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: so much pressure on it that it was just no
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: way it could ever live up to it. So it
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: was just excuses because I was scared, and then five
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: I was just the bottom line. It was just excuses
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: for I need five million. I need five million. I
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: can't work without five million, you know, I have to
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: have that, and like that kind of stuff.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: It's yeah, yeah, yeah, it's childish. It really is childish. Yeah.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: And I went to the completely opposite and I'm like,
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: you know what, five grand screw it?
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: Boom? Yeah then yeah, then.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: I made this for this poultry amount of money, and like,
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: I'm in awe of what you did with the amount
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: of money you had. I mean, that's way more impressive
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: than if you made, you know, some shoot them up
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: five million dollar movie whatever. I've seen that before, you
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: know what I mean?
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know what the thing is, man, I know,
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: and I know a lot of people in the industry
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: who who you know, we're are working directors and and
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: their you know their employees, and you know they're very
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: well paid employees, but their employees. So when the boss
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: doesn't have work for you, you're done. And that's a very
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: weird place to be. And I've always I've always been
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: I've been fired from both jobs I've ever had in
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: this industry as a as a as a staffer. Very
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: proud of my firings. And I've always been self self employed,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: running my own company because I always wanted my fate
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: to be in my own hands in one way, shape
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: or form. And that's the whole method of the film
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: entrepreneur is to control as much of the revenue, control
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: the system as much as humanly possible, because I feel
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: it's it's just insane to spend one hundred thousand dollars
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: or two hundred thousand or a half a million dollars
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: and just magically trust somebody here I expect to check
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: in six months. That is such a scary thing. That's
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: not a good business sense. This is not a good
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: business in general. So that's what I've been trying to
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: preach for as long as Posse.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: And nobody's ever said that like independent film is a
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: smart business or it's a it's a business that kind
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: of came out of necessity because the studios, you know,
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: they were in control of everything, and there was a
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: bunch of people like you and I and other filmmakers going,
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: I got something to say, I'd like to make one
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: of those pictures, right, So we had to kind of
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: do it on our own over here, and then here
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: come the sharks, aark, Oh you want to do it
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: on your own.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Okay, we'll sign right here. We'll help you. It makes
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: perfect sense.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Be it'll be fine. I promise you, everything will be fine. Now,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: you also went down the festival circuit with this film
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: a little bit. Is there anything done differently.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: Anything that I would have done differently? Yes, I would
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: have cut my movie so that it was less than
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: ninety minutes. I think that's another very important thing if
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: you're a first time filmmaker and you're trying to get
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: on the festival circuit.
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: They love the shorter movies.
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: They love movies that are like seventy five eighty eight
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: eight minutes.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: My movie is a little fat for an independent movie.
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: It's one hundred and nine minutes hour and forty nine minutes,
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: and I think that that that was probably a problem.
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: We ended up premiering at Sinequest, which.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: Was really really good. That's you know, top ten festival
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: right in the US.
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: So I was happy with h with with where we premiered,
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: and thank god we both got our movies in before
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: all this.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: I feel so bad for people who went south.
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: And then you get in your dreams are coming true
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: and then this happens, like I can't believe because usually
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: that happens to me, Alex. I can't believe that I
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: dodged this bullet somehow. But yeah, so I went down
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: the festival circuit and that's fun.
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, you really got it.
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: If you have not done this before, know that you
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: have to be prepared to just be rejected all the time,
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: and you never know when it's going to happen like it,
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: and it hurts as much as being dumped by a girlfriend.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: If you if you have your dream of you know,
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: getting into sun Dance or or south By, and you
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: never know where you're gonna be when that email comes in.
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: So you'll be sitting in my case, a lot of time,
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: may be out to eat with my wife and my
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: you know, one year old son at the time, having
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: a great time, and then I get a little email notification.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: I look, oh my heart, we recruit it.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: We regret to inform you. We regret to inform you.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: It's not you, it's not you, it's us.
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just as there are so many good ones
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: this year. Yeah, it's it's the same form letter. And
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: then I get really angry. I think slam Dances had
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: like a bunch of typos, which I was furious, Like, you.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: Couldn't even bother to reread your rejection letter.
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: It was a great documentary called Official Rejection, which I
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: highly recommend people watch before actually going down that road,
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: because if you're sensitive. I'm a sensitive little guy, I
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: really am. I hate rejection more than most people probably do.
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: And uh, it would just you know, ruin your day
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: for the rest of your day and you never know
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: what's And then I was getting rejection letters from the
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: festivals I'd forgotten that I had even submitted to, which
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: is like, it's like the International Field Festival.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: They sent me a letter to my my my bar.
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: I went on to my my my mailbox and there's
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: a letter in there from the Houston.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking, oh my god, this is a letter. This
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: is awesome. We regret to inform you. And a week
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: later they send another one with the same exact letter.
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: They doubled me up for whatever, And so I got
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: two rejections from those guys. But you just have to
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: be prepared for lots of nos, just NonStop Nope, we
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: are not interested.
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you what, though, where do you think
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: you know, where do you think the festivals are going
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: to go now? Man? Because they are not. You know,
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: people are If you think it's rough getting to go
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: see the Avengers in the theater, These smaller festivals, man,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: I don't think they're going to be able to survive
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: moving forward, especially this year. Nice uh cleansing.
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's more festivals than there are new movies.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: There really are, right, Yeah, no, no, there is. I
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: think there might be a gluttony of festivals. But in general, though,
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: the importance of these bigger festivals it's I mean, before
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: it was everything, you know, and if you got into
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Sundance or slam Dance, it really did mean a whole lot.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: And don't get me wrong, it still does, but it
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: doesn't guarantee anything at all at all. So now all
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, we're in a world where south By
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: got canceled, and Tribeca will be canceled, and Can will
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: be canceled, and I promise you Sundance will probably be
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: canceled next year as well. It probably won't go on
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: because I don't think we're going to be out of
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: this by January, not to the point where they're gonna
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: what they're gonna right Digitally, there has to be something.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Digital screenings and that kind of thing.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: But that's only But that's only too, that's only to
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: those top ten fests. Like how about the rest of
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: the thousands that don't have that kind of cache and
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: don't have that kind of email list or following? You know,
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: people will log into Sundance, will they log into you know,
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: a smaller festival in regional like I always said, the
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: Moose Jaw International Film Festival, which doesn't exist, you know,
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: so will they sign up for the Moose Jaws Film
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: Festival somewhere in Ottawa? You know, like it's not I'm
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: not sure if it does exist. I hope not. I hope,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: I hope it doesn't if it does, I apologize. We'll
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: now back to the show.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: I'll the poll to see.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: I think there's twenty five hundred to thirty five hundred
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: film festivals around the world.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: No, it's about five to six thousand. It's about five
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: to six film festivals.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: Maybe it's gone up that much since I was in
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: the festival circuit two years ago.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know the numbers that I've seen. It was,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: it's around five to six thousand worldwide, including online festivals
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: and all these other kind of things as well.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: I honestly, as much as I love movies, and I
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: think that I've made that pretty clear with you in
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: the audience, just talking to you about my old man ways,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: you know, theater or die, which I truly believe, and
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: I've never seen the allure of festivals. Honestly, I don't
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: really understand why people like festivals. I get how they
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: help filmmakers, and as a filmmaker, I understand their value,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: But essentially they're like screening companies, right Like they just
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: screen a bunch of crap to try and elevate the
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: best one so that you know, nobody who else are
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: you gonna they're a strainer almost.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: It's if I, if I may steal a quote from
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Wolf, the director of a FM, It's a culture.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: It's a cultural event. It is. It is a way
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: for film lovers to get together and see art. It's
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: all it is. It's never was meant to be business.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: It turned into that, especially at these bigger festivals. But
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: it's also makes no sense because you're giving over your property,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: you're giving over your product. They're selling tickets to show
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: your movie and they keep one hundred percent of the money.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: It's like college. It's like college athletes like it's yeah, exactly.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: So you know, if it wasn't for the filmmakers in
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: the film Sundance can't make any money at a festival.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: So it's a weird And the only thing you trade
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: off with that is awards, maybe sometimes cash, awards, maybe
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: some attention, maybe something that can lead to distribution or
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: some thing that can you know, help you monetarily later,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: get an age.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: A little essentially a little trophy to go walk around
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: and be like, look, I got the little trophy and
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: they said that my movie is better than you know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: ninety five percent of the movies that they they got
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: slung their way, and it's it's it's a cog in
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: the wheel. I I think that we could survive without festivals.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: I from what I've seen the festivals. In my twenty
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: years of looking at festivals, I've been to like three.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: I went to tiff a few years ago.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I just I don't like watching four or
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: five movies in one day. I don't think you're being
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: fair to the movies when you watch four or five
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: movies in one day. I'm not a big fan of
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: the festivals. I understand their purpose, but I think that
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: we'd be okay with maybe twenty festivals total, you know, get.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Rid of it's it's it's gonna be interesting how this
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: all shakes out. Man, It's going to be a very
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: interesting time. And let me ask you one last question.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: What is the biggest lesson you learned from this entire
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: process of making that your first feature, Uh.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: The business side is actually fun? It's it's not.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: It's I I was, you know, I already talked about
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: it a little bit with you. But I guess the
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: punk rock side of me growing up being you know,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: anti establishment, I'm like, you know, f that could learn
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: anything about the business side of I actually really like
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: the business side of things, and there is a lot
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: of ways to continue to put the fu and f
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: you to establishment, and you can actually do so more
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: effectively if you understand the business side of things. So
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: I wish that I had not been so anti. It's
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: actually afraid of the business side of things for as
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: long as I was.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: Now, what advice would you give a filmmaker trying to
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: break into the business, not specifically today, but in this
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: general time.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, pandemic notwithstanding, just start shooting.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: And now you don't have an excuse.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: I had an excuse because when I first started wanting
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: to make movies, the digital was awful. It looked like terrible,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: and uh my excuse was I can't afford film, which
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: I couldn't. Now you can do it on your iPhone.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: And if you don't believe me, watch Tangerines. It's fantastic
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: Tangerine or Tangerines I've seen Tangerine. Tangerine Andangerines is the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: foreign film about the two opposing war combatants that get
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: harmed on the tangerine farmer's property and then heat mends
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: them both back to the house. They get better in
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: his house, and then they start fighting in his house.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: It was really good tangerines. But tangerine is what I'm
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: talking about, was Sean Baker.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: It just get your friends together, have fun with it,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: and see if it's for you. A lot of people
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: I think they think they want to direct, and then
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: when they give it a shot, they're awful at it,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: or it's too scarier, too intimidating, or they just can't
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: keep their mind straight.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: So figure out if it's for you earlier the better.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: whether in the film business or in life?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: Man, this is it seems like they're all the same answer, right,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: not being afraid of the business side of things.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: Okay, really pure artists.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: They die poor, broken and lonely and alone.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: And they cut their ear off.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and then boring movies are made about them one
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: hundred years later.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: What are and what are three of your favorite films
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: of all time?
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: That's easy because I do that for my main my
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: main motive, my main mode of making money is talking
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: movies and lists and stuff.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: So clocker Goornge number one.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I have a top five sum five Harold and Maud, Midnight, Cowboy.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: Goodfellas, and Platoon.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: Platoon is the first movie that I saw, you know,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: allwards of over a dozen times in the theater, and
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: that was the first time that I really connected with
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: a movie to it extremes.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: All Right, So then I'll give you top three Kubrick
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: films of all time, since you're such a Kubrick buffalock.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: I am son of a bitch.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: That also changes month to month, but it's clockor Orange
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: is number one, and then I'm probably going two thousand
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: and one, depending on my mood.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: And then the killing, the killing nice got.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Them killing, and the killing is the killing amazing.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: Back to my movie groupers, it's kind of it was
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: definitely inspired as far as story structure with the killing
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: where you're seeing different different things happen in different times
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: and everyone's like, oh, pulp fiction. It's it seems like
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: pulp fiction like Tarantino. I'm like, I stole from the
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: same guy that Tarantino is stealing from.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: That's what you're seeing.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Well, I will I will have to say inspired by sir,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: What I will say my favorite Kubrick. People always shocked
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: by this, but it's eyes White shut.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: Eyes, I don't know, that's so funny.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: I was first in line, okay, I'll be honest, second
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: in line at the Chinese theater opening day to see
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: Eyes Wide shut.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: I saw it.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: I had no idea if I was enjoying myself for
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: a y four times since, I still don't know if
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: I even like it.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: So I just like, so the thing with idolwise shut,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: because now everyone who's listened to me knows that I'm
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: a huge Kubrick fan and I've gone down that well
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: too deep. Sometimes I've lost in there. But the reason
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: why I love Izwey shots. I did the exact same
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: thing in nineteen ninety nine. I was a first I
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: was first to go see it. I went to go
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: see it. I walk out and my friends and I
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: are like, did you like it? I'm like, I don't know,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: but I'll probably but I'll probably understand it in ten years.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: Because that's what happens with all of his films, Like
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: when you see them, you're like, well, I don't get it,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: and then like ten years later like, oh my god,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: this is an amazing film. And that's what happened with
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: that why I shot ten years later I saw it
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: I was like, this is really good, and then I
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: saw it after I got married, and that that's a
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: whole other level to it. Not that I'm in a
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: sex cult thing, but but I get right, I understand
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: what he was trying to say about love and about
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: relationships and about these two fighting forces between a husband
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: and what. I get all of it, and even then,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: I'm still probably missing a whole bunch of it. There's something,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: there's still something extremely dream like. Every time I watch
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: the movie, I feel like I'm in a dream. And
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: he does that purposefully. He shot it purposefully to make
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: you feel like he's a dream. There's like, if you
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: analyze the street like where Tom Cruise is walking, it
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: doesn't make sense like it's New York, but it really
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: isn't New York because it was shot in London, so
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: like you know that it's not New York and it's
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: not really supposed to. There's no street ever in New
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: York that looked like that. So there's that whole that
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: whole vibe and stuff. So it's such a unique film
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: inside of his inside of his filmography, but they're all unique.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: I mean I watched Clockwork Orange like a year ago
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, how did this get made back then?
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: Like how like I couldn't get made now, there's no
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: possible way that movie came made now in the studio system.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: But back then, like in the first twenty five minutes,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: the stuff that he got away with was well.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he had left mind blow.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: You already left the studio system, right like because of
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: his experience with Spark. It's like he's like, I'm never
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: gonna work for you guys again. I'm going off intoing
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: my own thing and I'm bailing. I'm actually going to
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: a different country at But but.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: But he was still but he was still working in
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: the studio system. These are all Warner brother films.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: And were Warner Brother films. But he was like, oh
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: he's outside with the open check book.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, correct, correct, Yeah, it's insane.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: Like Lolita was even more punk rock at the time.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, making Lolita was just like he was a
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: button pusher. And I don't think he gets credit for
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: being the button pusher that he was, and that's what
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: he was.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: He's, you know, a genius filmmaker.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: But the subjects that he that he tackled, the fact
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: that he gets you to root for.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: A rapist is just unbelievable, right, how is that possible?
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: Like again, I'm watching it and I'm like, it was
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: made in the seventies, and you watch the first thirty
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: minutes of Clockwork Orange and you're like, that's extreme for today.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: Like if you put that on the screen today, it
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: people will be like what like will be right back
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: after a word from our sponsor and now back to
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: the show.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: Here's the fun fact, alex A clock Regornge and Harold
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: and Maude came out the same weekend.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: Two of the greatest films ever made.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: Send to Me came out the same weekend, and they're
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: so different, but they're they're both, you know, of the
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: of their time for sure.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: Have you ever seen Room to thirty seven? You've seen that?
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: Of course, I've seen them to thirty seven. Yeah, I've
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: seen any any documentary on Kubrick, I've probably watched. I've
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: seen all the British ones, I've seen Boxes, I've seen
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: all of it. I've seen all of it. I mean,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: I'm such a Kubrick fanatic it's it's not even funny.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: Like I hate Boudan because he speaks ill of Stanley Kubrick.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: So I do I dislike Matthew Odean, I'm come crazy
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: with it. I get a little crazy with it.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I get you. Now where can people
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: find you? And and what you your shows?
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: And also the movie my website which I'm in the
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: middle of updating right now. It's very very early twenty tens,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: but that's Anderson Coowen dot com.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: And the movie is available on to B and Amazon.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: It's on too b for for AVD and on on
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: Amazon and iTunes. It's called Groupers, and it's it's a
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: movie that I I made with the idea of kind
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: of mixing things up, having a hook and you know,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: having something to say too. And I wanted to be memorable.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: And I'm hoping that, you know, anyone who sees this
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: movie will want to see what what else I can
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: I can do and what I can make next. So
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: that's the idea of Groupers. And uh, it's the kind
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: of movie where you see it and you immediately want
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: to start talking about what you just saw and what
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: it really meant or what you were trying to figure
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: out or if you know, it's this kind of movie
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: you need to talk to people about after you see it.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: That's what I set out to.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: Domovie dot com is a good place to go.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: Anderson, Man, thank you for talking. I know we could
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: talk for at least another three or four hours, but
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: I appreciate I appreciate your time, and thank you for
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: coming on and sharing your experience in this weird and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: wacky world that we call the film industry. Man, So
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: thanks again.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: Brothers had me body good to see it.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Anderson for coming on the show
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: and being so raw about his experiences and misadventures in
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: the film business. Thank you so much, Anderson. If you
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: want to get links to anything we spoke about in
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: this episode, including how to watch his film Grouper's, head
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: over to the show notes at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv. Forward
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: slash for ten. Thank you so much for listening to guys.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: to you soon.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: dot tv.