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IFH 859: What James Gunn Taught Me About Success with Will Keenan · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking 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 ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: fifty nine.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Cinema should make You forget. You're sitting in a theater,
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Roman Polanski.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we showed you how to survive
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the film biz.
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: I am your humble.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
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  Speaker 3: the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
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  Speaker 3: a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
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  Speaker 3: independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory
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  Speaker 3: prey upon them. The odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker.
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  Speaker 3: The old distribution model of making money with your film
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  Speaker 3: future of independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the
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  Speaker 3: This book shows you the step by step method to
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  Speaker 3: the Film Entrepreneur method will set you up for success.
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  Speaker 3: The book is available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook.
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  Speaker 3: www dot filmbizbook dot com. That's film bizbook dot com.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave bullis So.
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: In today's episode, I have actor, stuntman and founder of
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: the Saint Babist Church. We're going to talk about everything
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: from his first starring role in Tromeo and Juliette where
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: he was Tromo which was actually written by James Gunn,
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: to moving to India to starre in Bollywood films, to
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  Speaker 5: becoming an exec that some of the biggest content studios around.
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  Speaker 4: With guests will Keenan. Hey, Will, thanks off for coming
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: on the podcast.
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  Speaker 6: Dave Bullis, how are you?
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  Speaker 5: I am doing very well, Will, How are you doing
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: on this on this fine Sunday morning.
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  Speaker 7: It's beautiful down here in kate May County in New Jersey.
• 2:34
  Speaker 7: And Hey, just so you know that you know, this, uh,
• 2:37
  Speaker 7: this opportunity to sneak with you for your podcast, which
• 2:39
  Speaker 7: I've now checked out, kind of came out of nowhere
• 2:42
  Speaker 7: in a way, but I'm glad. I'm glad we're doing it,
• 2:44
  Speaker 7: and I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to
• 2:46
  Speaker 7: now promote you as the podcast man in the Philly area.
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  Speaker 5: Oh, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Yeah,
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: you know, that's the way I try to do it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: I sort of come out of nowhere and I sort
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: of find find people on social media and I sort
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  Speaker 5: of go.
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  Speaker 4: Hey, I'm I got this podcast. Do you want to
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: come on and talk?
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  Speaker 7: But yeah, you know, I I'm like, you know, I'm
• 3:07
  Speaker 7: a big deal in my own head, but I get,
• 3:09
  Speaker 7: you know, opportunities via social media. People ask me to
• 3:12
  Speaker 7: be on podcasts or speak at at conferences or whatever,
• 3:16
  Speaker 7: and I always then check their social media.
• 3:19
  Speaker 8: You'd be surprised, Be surprised how many how many people
• 3:24
  Speaker 8: like reach out without having their own you know, especially
• 3:28
  Speaker 8: for something like a podcast that is social at least
• 3:31
  Speaker 8: the sharing of it, you know, online you try, how
• 3:34
  Speaker 8: many people reach out for a request but don't have
• 3:38
  Speaker 8: their own channels optimized, if you know what I mean.
• 3:40
  Speaker 7: So all I do is in one click, I know
• 3:43
  Speaker 7: whether I'm gonna say yes or no. So you were
• 3:45
  Speaker 7: a big yes explanation point.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.
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  Speaker 5: I you know, I try to try my best with
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  Speaker 5: my social media, and I know your social media that's great,
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: And I agree with you because you know, I see
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  Speaker 5: other people who have podcasts and such and and you
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: know even you know, actors, producers, directors, screawriters, and I
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  Speaker 5: see there, you know, some of the social media and
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  Speaker 5: it's just it's like nothing, it's just you know, it's
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: just sort of sitting there, and you know that's how
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: they're going to promote their stuff. But you know, yeah,
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  Speaker 5: I'm glad that you could. You could come on, and
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: I want to talk to you obviously, you know about
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: your career. You've got some awesome credits, and I also
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: want to talk to you about you know, all the
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: great things that you're working on, so you know, just
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  Speaker 5: to start, I guess, you know at the beginning, you know,
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: how did you, you know, find yourself in the film industry,
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: So you know what what was sort of your impetus
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: to start in this industry.
• 4:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah, my first film was I was cast in right
• 4:36
  Speaker 7: before I graduated or went down the graduation aisle at
• 4:39
  Speaker 7: New York University. And oh boy, is this before you
• 4:42
  Speaker 7: were born? Dave nineteen ninety five. Summer of nineteen ninety five,
• 4:45
  Speaker 7: right before I think the week before NYU's graduation, I
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  Speaker 7: had been cast as the lead in Trauma's film Tromeo
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  Speaker 7: and Juliet. That was my first film, and it was
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  Speaker 7: a starring role. And I was not familiar with Trauma
• 4:59
  Speaker 7: at the time. I Uh, throughout n y U, I
• 5:02
  Speaker 7: had been doing a lot of kind of performance art,
• 5:05
  Speaker 7: dance theater, I mean, you know that kind of thing.
• 5:08
  Speaker 7: And and prior to that, when a lot of my
• 5:11
  Speaker 7: generation got into the Trauma movies, I was out climbing
• 5:15
  Speaker 7: trees and doing stunts and stuff. So when I saw
• 5:18
  Speaker 7: the casting, like a week before n YU graduation, I
• 5:21
  Speaker 7: was with a friend of mine. He's like, oh, my god,
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  Speaker 7: Trauma's casting. I'm like, who, Who's Trauma? And he was
• 5:25
  Speaker 7: like and uh. And then I went in for the
• 5:28
  Speaker 7: casting and read for producer Andrew Wiener, and then I
• 5:32
  Speaker 7: was called back for Andrew and James Gunn and they
• 5:35
  Speaker 7: were videotaping, uh, the you know, the auditions, and I
• 5:39
  Speaker 7: could tell like, after the first callback, I was I
• 5:42
  Speaker 7: was getting close at used to be considered. And then
• 5:45
  Speaker 7: word came back that Lloyd, the director and mister t
• 5:49
  Speaker 7: Trauma you know, had seen the tapes and wanted to
• 5:51
  Speaker 7: do a few more callbacks and put me, put me
• 5:54
  Speaker 7: through the grind, so to speak. But I think I
• 5:56
  Speaker 7: think named and Andrew Wiener. Someone tipped me off to
• 5:58
  Speaker 7: the fact that Lloyd's wife, Petty Pie Pat Kaufman. It
• 6:02
  Speaker 7: was then the she had been for like twenty years
• 6:04
  Speaker 7: the New York State Film Commissioner that she really liking
• 6:06
  Speaker 7: and she was voting for me. So at that point
• 6:10
  Speaker 7: that point I knew I was probably gonna get it.
• 6:11
  Speaker 7: And Lloyd told this story wise, I did it a
• 6:13
  Speaker 7: few years ago and some kind of interview where he
• 6:16
  Speaker 7: said I walked in with a pizza box for the
• 6:18
  Speaker 7: audition as a prop or something, and It's very likely
• 6:22
  Speaker 7: I would have done something like that, but I don't remember.
• 6:24
  Speaker 7: So look, that was my foray into the film industry
• 6:28
  Speaker 7: because when I was at NYU and right before graduation,
• 6:32
  Speaker 7: I had been a part of this you know performance
• 6:35
  Speaker 7: art dance troup called Via Theater, and we had done
• 6:37
  Speaker 7: a few shows and got great New York Times reviews,
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: and I was so fulfilled creatively that at the time,
• 6:42
  Speaker 7: I was like, even after spending it was like forty
• 6:45
  Speaker 7: to forty five thousand a year on NYU with curriculum
• 6:49
  Speaker 7: and room and board for four years, at the end
• 6:52
  Speaker 7: of that I was so happy with what I was
• 6:54
  Speaker 7: doing kind of you know avant garde theater in New
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  Speaker 7: York City, that I said, I don't care if I
• 6:59
  Speaker 7: never make a dime at this. I want to do
• 7:02
  Speaker 7: this for the rest of my life. But then that
• 7:04
  Speaker 7: faithful day, why don't you just go, you know, my
• 7:06
  Speaker 7: friend saying you should build audition for for Tromeo. So
• 7:11
  Speaker 7: that that kind of changed everything because once I got
• 7:13
  Speaker 7: that role. Although let's just say cult film wasn't such
• 7:18
  Speaker 7: a huge departure from avant guard theater, I mean, wild, wacky,
• 7:22
  Speaker 7: weird stuff. I caught the film bug because when we
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: premiered Tromo at the can Film Markets, and I guess
• 7:33
  Speaker 7: it was the year after ninety six or maybe ninety seven,
• 7:36
  Speaker 7: I saw myself on the big screening and I thought,
• 7:38
  Speaker 7: oh my god, there's a there's a huge difference between
• 7:43
  Speaker 7: theater acting and film acting. And I didn't know the
• 7:46
  Speaker 7: difference when I made when I started that movie, and
• 7:50
  Speaker 7: I thought I looked like a trauma monster. You know though,
• 7:55
  Speaker 7: once something that like that usually happens, you know, then
• 7:58
  Speaker 7: I want to figure it out. So it's not that
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  Speaker 7: I switched to the film after that, but I did
• 8:04
  Speaker 7: some theater. But you know, I think I racked up, like,
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  Speaker 7: you know, twenty five or more independent films during that period.
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  Speaker 6: Right after Tromio in.
• 8:12
  Speaker 7: New York City, there was kind of it was like
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  Speaker 7: almost like the last hurrah in the film in New
• 8:16
  Speaker 7: York City. I guess according to Pat, you know, ninety
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  Speaker 7: five ninety four, a boycott had happened, you know, a
• 8:23
  Speaker 7: boycott was finally over, and then a lot of in
• 8:25
  Speaker 7: the film in New York was getting made and you know,
• 8:28
  Speaker 7: good machine cineblast, Miramax, like so many great films and
• 8:32
  Speaker 7: filmmakers were coming out of New York City at the time.
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  Speaker 7: So you know, I did a lot of them, and
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  Speaker 7: a lot of a lot of cool stuff. You know,
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  Speaker 7: a number of it got distribution, some of it broke through,
• 8:41
  Speaker 7: got great distribution, and some of them were never to
• 8:43
  Speaker 7: be seen again after that first screaming. But you know,
• 8:47
  Speaker 7: starting out as Tromo, which you know, it's one thing
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  Speaker 7: to be a lead in the Tromo movie or to
• 8:52
  Speaker 7: be in a Troumo movie, but to be branded as Tromio.
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  Speaker 7: You know, even though I was able to do a
• 8:59
  Speaker 7: lot of their you know films, after that, it was
• 9:02
  Speaker 7: almost like has It's almost like starting out porn. I mean,
• 9:04
  Speaker 7: Trauman German, not porn. But you know, you know, it
• 9:08
  Speaker 7: opened up some doors and it slammed other ones shut.
• 9:12
  Speaker 7: So after Troummeo I did, I had to work really hard.
• 9:15
  Speaker 7: And this was no slight against loiter Trauma there. You know,
• 9:19
  Speaker 7: he was a mentor of mine in a lot of ways,
• 9:21
  Speaker 7: and uh and fiercely independent and and just a really
• 9:26
  Speaker 7: good human being overall. So I don't you know, uh,
• 9:29
  Speaker 7: no slight on Trauma. But I had to work really
• 9:32
  Speaker 7: hard after Tromeo too, kind of just be you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 7: accepted in the legitimate indie film industry if you can,
• 9:40
  Speaker 7: if you can, you know, call it that. And and
• 9:43
  Speaker 7: and at the time, they were kind of like you know,
• 9:45
  Speaker 7: I get. I think a lot of the you know,
• 9:48
  Speaker 7: the certain film organizations back that back then, you know,
• 9:53
  Speaker 7: kind of look down upon Trauma because of their genre
• 9:57
  Speaker 7: of filmmaking.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 10:10
  Speaker 7: But you know, they've been around for what now over
• 10:12
  Speaker 7: forty forty years and I think the longest, one of
• 10:15
  Speaker 7: the longest running independent film companies in the world. So,
• 10:18
  Speaker 7: I mean, Lloyd's been awarded all over the place. He's
• 10:21
  Speaker 7: never won the AUSTA yet, but he says I should
• 10:23
  Speaker 7: have won the Actor for my my second drummer movie.
• 10:26
  Speaker 7: I did two of them. I start as the cinema's
• 10:28
  Speaker 7: first her mapperdite cerial killer in Tera Firmer. He says
• 10:31
  Speaker 7: I should have won for that until until Chop, what
• 10:36
  Speaker 7: fans I have left say that playing the lead in
• 10:41
  Speaker 7: Tera Firmer was was my best role. But Chop, I think,
• 10:44
  Speaker 7: at least with my ten fans left, they say they
• 10:47
  Speaker 7: say that's the best one anyway. So that's now the
• 10:50
  Speaker 7: career started and then, like I said, there was I
• 10:52
  Speaker 7: think it was timing. You know, it was the last
• 10:54
  Speaker 7: hurrah of the only film broom in New York City,
• 10:57
  Speaker 7: and I was working real hard and I just got
• 10:59
  Speaker 7: into the scene. You know, I said to a lot
• 11:01
  Speaker 7: of actors. You know, I still have actors who come
• 11:03
  Speaker 7: either you know, I asked me to help them out
• 11:05
  Speaker 7: or you know it became a producer and financier to
• 11:08
  Speaker 7: help them with their films or to give them advice.
• 11:12
  Speaker 7: And you know, definitely, if you're an actor and you're
• 11:14
  Speaker 7: serious about it and you're actually getting schooling, take take
• 11:16
  Speaker 7: audition classes. It's a completely different technique than actual acting
• 11:21
  Speaker 7: on stage or film and film acting is different from
• 11:23
  Speaker 7: theater acting is different from TV acting is now different
• 11:26
  Speaker 7: from like YouTube acting. But there's a technique for auditions
• 11:30
  Speaker 7: all itself. And I.
• 11:32
  Speaker 9: Out of like I don't know, fifty some odd projects,
• 11:35
  Speaker 9: you know, films, short films, TV, so and so on,
• 11:39
  Speaker 9: maybe less than a handful, I actually got cast via
• 11:43
  Speaker 9: the audition because I was just a horrible auditioner.
• 11:47
  Speaker 7: And I even at NYU with all all that curriculum,
• 11:50
  Speaker 7: I had never taken an audition technique class, which which
• 11:55
  Speaker 7: I would have done. If I were to do it
• 11:57
  Speaker 7: over and same thing with like the business of entertainment
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: to the business and acting kind of classes, I would
• 12:01
  Speaker 7: have done the same thing. Anyway, most of the most
• 12:04
  Speaker 7: of the roles I was cast in as an actor
• 12:07
  Speaker 7: were you know, either someone telling the filmmaker that they
• 12:10
  Speaker 7: should meet me or talk to me or see my work,
• 12:13
  Speaker 7: or meeting the filmmaker at like an independent film event
• 12:16
  Speaker 7: or film festival. And you know, I like to say
• 12:19
  Speaker 7: I was cast more late at night at some indie
• 12:23
  Speaker 7: film you know event, after getting to know somebody the filmmaker,
• 12:28
  Speaker 7: than I was in auditions. But that's how it all started.
• 12:31
  Speaker 7: And then, you know, indie film business is hard. I mean,
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: even though at the last Hurrah it was never a
• 12:38
  Speaker 7: sustainable business. Out of all the movies I made, I
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: don't think I ever made a dime. In fact, I
• 12:42
  Speaker 7: lost a lot of personal money. And then as the
• 12:46
  Speaker 7: internet kind of gained influence, we saw, you know, the
• 12:49
  Speaker 7: audiences for the format of a feature lengths independent sholl
• 12:54
  Speaker 7: we saw we saw less and less people wanting to
• 12:56
  Speaker 7: go see those, especially in the theaters. You know, I
• 12:59
  Speaker 7: like it to mouth I were have talked to someone
• 13:01
  Speaker 7: pretty much under the age of thirty and say hey,
• 13:03
  Speaker 7: let's go see this really cool independent film. What I
• 13:06
  Speaker 7: get is oh God, no, please, you know, which is
• 13:09
  Speaker 7: the same thing that I used to do to people
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: when they had asked me, you know, in the late
• 13:14
  Speaker 7: nineties to go see a theater piece. You know, I
• 13:17
  Speaker 7: was like, oh God, so much bad theater. So many
• 13:21
  Speaker 7: people by the early mid two thousands had seen so
• 13:24
  Speaker 7: many bad independent films, you know, so that you know,
• 13:28
  Speaker 7: by the time the economic downturn happened, you know, and
• 13:31
  Speaker 7: I was financing movies, producing movies, getting them distributed. I
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: was a distributor to myself with go Kart for a
• 13:37
  Speaker 7: few years back then. And you know, it takes year
• 13:40
  Speaker 7: to at least in most cases, two years out of
• 13:43
  Speaker 7: your life to make an independent film. You beg borrow
• 13:45
  Speaker 7: and steal, and you know, you're lucky to get into
• 13:48
  Speaker 7: a big festival. If you do, you can have a
• 13:50
  Speaker 7: healthy festival run. Unfortunately, that's like you're theatrical now, because
• 13:53
  Speaker 7: you're lucky. If we get a real theatrical deal. People
• 13:56
  Speaker 7: are like giving their movies away to distributors. Lucky to
• 14:00
  Speaker 7: get a TV deal. I could get a VOD deal,
• 14:03
  Speaker 7: but at the end of the day. You know, you're
• 14:06
  Speaker 7: lucky if five thousand people see your movie. You know.
• 14:08
  Speaker 7: So this is like two thousand and fift two thousand
• 14:10
  Speaker 7: and seven, and I had a number of projects that
• 14:12
  Speaker 7: were you know, some were high profile and the films.
• 14:16
  Speaker 7: But then I saw, you know, and I was very
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: aware of online video, especially YouTube when I first came
• 14:22
  Speaker 7: out back then, and I just knew that that was
• 14:25
  Speaker 7: essentially the future. And I think, like ten years ago,
• 14:28
  Speaker 7: I put up my actors reel on there and I
• 14:31
  Speaker 7: think it has over one hundred thousand views by this point.
• 14:33
  Speaker 7: But you know, if I were to do it all
• 14:35
  Speaker 7: over again, no regrets, I'd love my life and career.
• 14:37
  Speaker 7: I'm doing fine. But I always think like, okay, you know,
• 14:40
  Speaker 7: if I were to have done things differently, I think
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: I would have essentially switched to online video back then
• 14:46
  Speaker 7: in two thousand and six, rather than take another a
• 14:49
  Speaker 7: few years doing American independent film. And then when the
• 14:52
  Speaker 7: economic downturn got really really bad, I think it was
• 14:55
  Speaker 7: two thousand and eight nine tennish I went to Bollywood.
• 15:00
  Speaker 7: I went to India at first on an exploratory trip
• 15:04
  Speaker 7: because they have the largest independent film industry in the
• 15:06
  Speaker 7: world and there's actually like four distinct film industries there, Bollywood, Hollywood, Hollywood,
• 15:13
  Speaker 7: you know, and so forth. That that I started working
• 15:17
  Speaker 7: there for a number of years and worked with some
• 15:19
  Speaker 7: of the biggest stars there and made a few movies there,
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: and and things were going great. I was, you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 7: I was, I was well received. They kind of rolled
• 15:28
  Speaker 7: up the red carpet for me. My Indian friends who
• 15:31
  Speaker 7: tell you now tell me it was because I was
• 15:33
  Speaker 7: a Westerner and had some real, you know, Hollywood credits.
• 15:38
  Speaker 7: But you know, my trips there kept getting longer and longer,
• 15:42
  Speaker 7: and I was living like a king. I put on
• 15:45
  Speaker 7: me on the cover of like the New York Post
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: of all of the yeah called the Bombay Times of
• 15:50
  Speaker 7: a I think they called me a young, hot Hollywood producer.
• 15:55
  Speaker 7: And I had a driver, a chef, a gardener, like
• 15:58
  Speaker 7: I said, living like a king. But at the time
• 16:01
  Speaker 7: I was married to my My last trip there was
• 16:03
  Speaker 7: eight months my wife, who has a you know, it
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: was done very well for herself, and Hollywood said, hey, look,
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: you don't come back. We're gonna have a problem in
• 16:12
  Speaker 7: our marriage. And I'm not coming there because she she
• 16:16
  Speaker 7: was doing well here building up her business. So I
• 16:18
  Speaker 7: think it was within three days I was back on
• 16:20
  Speaker 7: a flight to Los Angeles, and I think it's like
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: spring of twenty eleven, and this was the time I said,
• 16:29
  Speaker 7: all right, this is this is a career transition, still entertainment,
• 16:32
  Speaker 7: but I'm going to move from you know, quote unquote
• 16:35
  Speaker 7: traditional film, independent film, you know, studio film, TV whatever,
• 16:40
  Speaker 7: to online video to digital. So I locked myself in
• 16:44
  Speaker 7: our house and for about three weeks, I put myself
• 16:47
  Speaker 7: through like a boot camp of trying to learn everything
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: I could about online video and and YouTube, especially because
• 16:55
  Speaker 7: that's you know, that's then that's when the it was
• 16:58
  Speaker 7: kind of the rise of the MCNs, the multi channel networks.
• 17:01
  Speaker 7: And I did that for about three weeks, and my
• 17:04
  Speaker 7: now ex life will tell you that we have a
• 17:06
  Speaker 7: big had a big dining room table was just filled
• 17:09
  Speaker 7: with stacks and printouts with highlights and notation and underlines.
• 17:13
  Speaker 7: And at the end of that three weeks, I was like,
• 17:15
  Speaker 7: you know, haha, I know everything about online video, which
• 17:18
  Speaker 7: wasn't true, but I was confident enough that I'm one
• 17:22
  Speaker 7: of those guys who thinks you know what you think
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: about you bring about, especially if you have positive, confident
• 17:27
  Speaker 7: thoughts about it. So I think it was like two
• 17:30
  Speaker 7: days later after my you know boot camp that I
• 17:33
  Speaker 7: put myself through to learn online video, I got a
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: call from the then head of human resources at a
• 17:39
  Speaker 7: company called Maker Studios, which was a growing multichannel network
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: I think it was number one or number two at
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: the time on YouTube as a network, and then started
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: working there. It was very small operation at the time.
• 17:52
  Speaker 7: The three founders hired me and I worked with them directly,
• 17:56
  Speaker 7: and I think I was the fifty first full time
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: employee and there's like three one hundred channels we had
• 18:01
  Speaker 7: on YouTube at the time, getting about three hundred million
• 18:04
  Speaker 7: views every month across the network, and the company was
• 18:07
  Speaker 7: valuated I think at the time at like twenty five
• 18:10
  Speaker 7: to thirty million dollars. And then by the time I
• 18:13
  Speaker 7: left two years later as VP of Network Development and
• 18:17
  Speaker 7: Original Programming the way and then I got that wrong
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: upf of Network Programming and Origional Development or whatever. It
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: was a long title. We had I think one hundred
• 18:28
  Speaker 7: and ten thousand channels, almost five billion views a month,
• 18:32
  Speaker 7: and the company was being valuated I think at the
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: time it closed to three hundred million dollars. And then
• 18:39
  Speaker 7: right when I knew the sale to Disney was happening.
• 18:43
  Speaker 7: There was going to be a big transition. I had
• 18:45
  Speaker 7: been getting you know, other offers from kind of rival
• 18:49
  Speaker 7: MCNs and so forth at the time, and and then
• 18:52
  Speaker 7: I accepted the job at End of Ball to be
• 18:54
  Speaker 7: their presidents of their first kind of digital division in
• 18:57
  Speaker 7: North America. And that was another two years after that,
• 19:00
  Speaker 7: which was great. That was my so, I guess, transitioning
• 19:03
  Speaker 7: from indie film, Bollywood film to digital. I you know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 7: I also went although I you know, truth to be told,
• 19:11
  Speaker 7: I stopped acting like Tanner or so years ago. The
• 19:15
  Speaker 7: movies that came out over the past I don't know
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: four or five, six years or ones that I had
• 19:20
  Speaker 7: been involved with from somewhere and other years ago, but
• 19:23
  Speaker 7: I haven't you know, sought acting roles in many, many years.
• 19:28
  Speaker 7: So but that was the other part of the transition.
• 19:30
  Speaker 7: I was, you know, going from actor, producer, so forth
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: and so on and traditional to digital entertainment executive. And
• 19:38
  Speaker 7: then did that for two years at end them Mall,
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: which was great and became then I think the first
• 19:42
  Speaker 7: six or eight months we got all these awards and
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: we're the fastest growing MCN and the there's a couple
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: other monikers that that we were given, which was great,
• 19:53
  Speaker 7: and and then after that again it was kind of
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: like if a mirrored maker, but there was a.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: And now back to the show.
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: A merger going on within them All and another big
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: company called Shine. And I had been told that even
• 20:17
  Speaker 7: before I was hired, that this merger was eventually going
• 20:19
  Speaker 7: to happen during my tenure. And then I said, you know,
• 20:22
  Speaker 7: it was an old friend and colleague, Charlie Corwin, brilliant
• 20:26
  Speaker 7: dude who's at least reported about to take over a
• 20:30
  Speaker 7: CEO or actually it's a new reform position as seem
• 20:32
  Speaker 7: to have imagined entertainment, so Charlie's killing it. So yeah,
• 20:36
  Speaker 7: he brought me into end them All and he told
• 20:37
  Speaker 7: me about the merger, and we kind of made a
• 20:39
  Speaker 7: gentleman's agreement. I said, all right, look, I'll build what
• 20:42
  Speaker 7: I say I'm going to build for two years and
• 20:44
  Speaker 7: then you know, kind of all bets are off, you know,
• 20:47
  Speaker 7: because I like to feel like I had mine crew is.
• 20:49
  Speaker 7: I like to build things and then essentially hopefully set
• 20:52
  Speaker 7: them up with the right people to continue them and
• 20:55
  Speaker 7: then move on to something else. So that happened, and
• 20:58
  Speaker 7: then and then I took prayer. I was asked to
• 21:01
  Speaker 7: join stream Up at the time the fastest growing or
• 21:05
  Speaker 7: now the largest and fastest growing at the time live
• 21:09
  Speaker 7: streaming network, and I was present of that for six months.
• 21:13
  Speaker 7: And then it was during that six months I realized that,
• 21:18
  Speaker 7: you know, towards the end of that, I was entering
• 21:21
  Speaker 7: twenty fifth year my professional career, and I really just
• 21:25
  Speaker 7: decided to take stock of it all, and I thought
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: I needed a break. I realized my mother was falling ill.
• 21:33
  Speaker 7: So I kind of announced and left that I was
• 21:37
  Speaker 7: taking a sabbatical for six months, a true sabbatical away
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: from the industry. And what I was really doing was
• 21:44
  Speaker 7: was doing that but also spending time with my mother
• 21:47
  Speaker 7: and attempting to take care of my mother as she
• 21:49
  Speaker 7: started to fall ill. And I thought, you know, she
• 21:52
  Speaker 7: would give me at least the six months, but I
• 21:54
  Speaker 7: got there, and my sisters say, she just kind of
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: waited for me to come home to pass because she
• 21:59
  Speaker 7: gave me si days instead of six months, and that
• 22:02
  Speaker 7: was July fifth. And then instead of like you know,
• 22:06
  Speaker 7: going right back to work or going right back to Hollywood,
• 22:08
  Speaker 7: I decided to continue with the sabbatical and reconnect with
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: family and friends, and then you know, really kind of
• 22:14
  Speaker 7: going all walk about and decide what I wanted to
• 22:17
  Speaker 7: do with the next few years or with the rest
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: of my life and the career, and it kind of all,
• 22:22
  Speaker 7: you know, came together. It's like divine intervention because, you know,
• 22:29
  Speaker 7: my mother's little condominium in South New Jersey when I
• 22:33
  Speaker 7: would come home, and unfortunately, you know, the past few years,
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: it was only I was only able to get home
• 22:37
  Speaker 7: two or three times a year, whether just to go
• 22:40
  Speaker 7: see her and my family, or because I was at
• 22:44
  Speaker 7: buitiness or I was speaking at you know, conferences or
• 22:48
  Speaker 7: conventions in New York. I always visit them. But it
• 22:52
  Speaker 7: used to be before she started to fall ill a
• 22:54
  Speaker 7: few years ago, you know, that everyone could come over
• 22:56
  Speaker 7: and we used to sleep sixth to the floor friend's
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: family when I was back in town. But you know,
• 23:02
  Speaker 7: as she started to get sick, I realized, you know,
• 23:04
  Speaker 7: I couldn't make her house the congregation house anymore. So
• 23:09
  Speaker 7: I'd been looking for property to buy in South Jersey.
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: But then everything happened. She passed quicker than I had imagined.
• 23:16
  Speaker 7: So then there was this opportunity to buy this over
• 23:19
  Speaker 7: a finish one hundred eight year old historic church in
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: Cape May County, KA Courthouse to be such specific one
• 23:26
  Speaker 7: of the favorite areas of my mother, and I renamed
• 23:30
  Speaker 7: it Saint Babb's in honor of my mother. Her name
• 23:33
  Speaker 7: is Barbara, and I started the foundation, a not for
• 23:36
  Speaker 7: profit out of one suit three charity called the Barbara A.
• 23:39
  Speaker 7: C's Keenan Foundation, and it's essentially to continue her work.
• 23:43
  Speaker 7: She was a registered nurse her whole life and career,
• 23:46
  Speaker 7: and if you look at some of our online channels,
• 23:50
  Speaker 7: you'll see that people have said that she was like
• 23:51
  Speaker 7: the mother Teresa of nursing.
• 23:53
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 23:54
  Speaker 7: So I really believe that my mother did not become
• 23:59
  Speaker 7: a doctor, which is what everyone thought she should do,
• 24:01
  Speaker 7: because she kind of raced through nursing school and and
• 24:05
  Speaker 7: was the kind of nurse where doctors would defer to her.
• 24:09
  Speaker 7: But I believe she didn't go because she had to
• 24:12
  Speaker 7: put me through NYU. And in that way, this was
• 24:16
  Speaker 7: my way of saying, Okay, like, you know, some people
• 24:19
  Speaker 7: think I'm nuts for you know, what a lot of
• 24:22
  Speaker 7: people would think is, you know, peak of my career
• 24:24
  Speaker 7: right now to kind of leave Hollywood and go do
• 24:27
  Speaker 7: this this not for profit, but I kind of think
• 24:29
  Speaker 7: the opposite. To me, it's, you know, I'm doing doing
• 24:34
  Speaker 7: this to spread her good work and to also take
• 24:38
  Speaker 7: all the skills I've learned in Hollywood and apply them
• 24:40
  Speaker 7: to something that you know, I think can do some
• 24:43
  Speaker 7: real good in this community and the surrounding communities where
• 24:46
  Speaker 7: we are in South Jersey. But also it's going to
• 24:48
  Speaker 7: have a very strong online digital component, so I hope
• 24:52
  Speaker 7: to be able to you know, do the same kind
• 24:54
  Speaker 7: of you know, services for people online as well. That
• 24:57
  Speaker 7: was a long winded answer to so tell us about
• 25:01
  Speaker 7: how you started your career. In fact, I started and
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: finished my career. There you go.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: Uh, it's it's okay.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: Well, I I tend to ask open ended questions and uh,
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: you know, I I love hearing stories like yours, and
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: you know, that was an amazing, amazing, you know career
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: you've had, you know, but you know, and and there's
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: certain things obviously I want to ask some more questions about,
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: you know, just just sort of going back to talking
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: about how when you know, when you first got started
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: and you were working on Tromeo and Juliet.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: You know, James Gunn was a writer on that and
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: you know James Gunn.
• 25:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah, he was. He was Lloyd's right hand James wrote it.
• 25:40
  Speaker 7: He was the and i'd say the main uh non
• 25:45
  Speaker 7: financial producer, you know, besides Lloyd. And you know, Lloyd
• 25:50
  Speaker 7: is the first to admit this. And maybe people watch
• 25:53
  Speaker 7: you know, certain documentaries, uh Farts of Darkness, Trump the
• 25:58
  Speaker 7: Trump Apocalypse movie. You know, Lloyd gives people like James
• 26:03
  Speaker 7: and myself and after me, I think it was Trenhaga,
• 26:07
  Speaker 7: not the people before. He He takes people like that
• 26:11
  Speaker 7: who show the passionate drive, have the talent and and
• 26:15
  Speaker 7: who will you know, stay up all night to to
• 26:20
  Speaker 7: make you know, make the Trauma movie. Uh. He gives
• 26:23
  Speaker 7: them a lot of economy. And uh you know so James,
• 26:27
  Speaker 7: James did so much. I mean he you know, he
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: essentially you know, these people like James, myself for Terry
• 26:35
  Speaker 7: Film or Trent for some toxy fo. You know, it's
• 26:38
  Speaker 7: an uncredited, uncredited kind of co director of position. And
• 26:42
  Speaker 7: I think Lloyd has said that before. But you know,
• 26:46
  Speaker 7: you work with all the actors, you rehearsed them, you
• 26:48
  Speaker 7: stage all the scenes. You know, there's so much. And James,
• 26:52
  Speaker 7: you know, not only wrote a brilliant script, but you
• 26:55
  Speaker 7: know he was beside Lloyd. It was the main guy
• 26:58
  Speaker 7: on that movie.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's you know, I've actually had Lloyd on the
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: podcast before, and we've talked to you know about about
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: you know, James, and also about you know, about Trent
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: and also about you know, we were just saying where
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: he you know, he would find different people and uh,
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: you know sort of shepered them along in different projects.
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: You'll give him, give him a chance, you know, to
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: you know, maybe rate the next s Troma movie. And
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: you know that's you know, it's just funny. It's a
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: small world because usually most people have on this podcast
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: one way or another, have met, met or worked with
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: Lloyd in some capacity because he's everywhere, right, And we've.
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: All learned so much from Lloyd. I mean I didn't
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: go to.
• 27:31
  Speaker 7: Film school, right, so Trauma was my film school. Uh,
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: and it was the art of low budget filmmaking and
• 27:37
  Speaker 7: the art of guerrilla marketing, you know, the art of
• 27:41
  Speaker 7: the sound boye the sound bite. Lloyd is. Lloyd is
• 27:44
  Speaker 7: a genius. And you know, one of the things we
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: all learned from him is that, you know, he's a
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: very very passionate guy. So his energy, especially on set
• 27:52
  Speaker 7: is is uh is so so very intense. But he's
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: been doing it so long and he's such you know,
• 27:59
  Speaker 7: he's a genius and wealth that he has this intuition,
• 28:01
  Speaker 7: the sixth sense about him. Like I remember, he'd be
• 28:04
  Speaker 7: saying things, well, you gotta you gotta watch out for this,
• 28:06
  Speaker 7: you gotta worry about that, and I'm like, well, that
• 28:07
  Speaker 7: will never happen because of this or that, and He's
• 28:09
  Speaker 7: just like, all right, all right, you'll see you'll sing,
• 28:11
  Speaker 7: and then it would happen. And I'd be like, there
• 28:13
  Speaker 7: was no rational reason for that to happen except Woyd
• 28:16
  Speaker 7: just can He could almost foresee the future when it
• 28:19
  Speaker 7: comes to being on a film set. It was. It's amazing.
• 28:23
  Speaker 7: So we've all learned so so much from Lloyd. And
• 28:26
  Speaker 7: then you know, look, you know there's so many people
• 28:28
  Speaker 7: who've gone through you know, the trauma school, so to speak,
• 28:32
  Speaker 7: and look what they're doing now. I think James gunn
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: Is is put the latest you know, uh, you know,
• 28:37
  Speaker 7: prototypicals that got a work example.
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 28:41
  Speaker 7: He's one of the biggest directors in Hollywood right now.
• 28:43
  Speaker 7: And you know, I am honored that James and I
• 28:48
  Speaker 7: made our first movie together and that was Tronio.
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's amazing, you know how how far James has gotten,
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: you know, when he made Super and then he made
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: and now with Guardian's The Galaxy.
• 28:59
  Speaker 7: I means, well, here's what I told James this like
• 29:03
  Speaker 7: Super although an awesome movie and produced by someone I
• 29:07
  Speaker 7: had worked with before, Ted Hope, one of the one
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: of the best, you know, film producers in the world.
• 29:11
  Speaker 7: He's now running Amazon Film. And before Super came out,
• 29:17
  Speaker 7: like Ted's got a bit, you know, a pretty sizable
• 29:20
  Speaker 7: social media audience, James had one. And if I at
• 29:24
  Speaker 7: the time, if I were to go by what social
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: media was saying, I thought Super, which I think the
• 29:29
  Speaker 7: budget was around four million dollars, was going to be
• 29:31
  Speaker 7: like a hit, you know, like the indie film, the
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: real four million dollars indie film that could but theatrically.
• 29:38
  Speaker 7: And this goes back to what I was saying, you know,
• 29:40
  Speaker 7: about switching when I decided to switch from indie film
• 29:43
  Speaker 7: to digital theatrically, you know, I think it made one
• 29:46
  Speaker 7: hundred thousand dollars a box office. And as someone who
• 29:49
  Speaker 7: started out with James, who you know, was a supporter
• 29:51
  Speaker 7: of James and you know, a longtime friend of James.
• 29:55
  Speaker 7: I was like, oh shit, man, this could hurt his career.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: You know, we'll be right back after a word from
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 30:10
  Speaker 7: And and I thought he was he would have been
• 30:13
  Speaker 7: left for dead, you know. But Marvel such an amazing,
• 30:18
  Speaker 7: amazing company and amazing movies. They I'm told, not by James,
• 30:23
  Speaker 7: you know, you hear stories that that they started to
• 30:27
  Speaker 7: look at some of the properties and characters and brands
• 30:30
  Speaker 7: that have not been licensed either by others or you know,
• 30:34
  Speaker 7: Marvel would make in partnership with others, and they started
• 30:37
  Speaker 7: looking at and then they started, you know, attaching essentially
• 30:40
  Speaker 7: you know, known fanboy directors, ones that have the cred,
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: you know, the kind of the fan cred and the
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: cult cred like James, and then hire them and surround
• 30:49
  Speaker 7: them with with you know, top abub line crew and
• 30:53
  Speaker 7: and wow, look look what he was able to accomplish,
• 30:57
  Speaker 7: you know, with essentially Marvel backing him. After you know,
• 31:01
  Speaker 7: he he had a movie that wasn't a huge, huge hit.
• 31:04
  Speaker 7: I think it critically it was it was okay. But
• 31:06
  Speaker 7: you know, when I was a producer and actually raising
• 31:09
  Speaker 7: the money for movies, I started. And this is right
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: before I switched to digital, started becoming a tyrant in
• 31:14
  Speaker 7: a way because you know, every two hundred thousand bucks,
• 31:18
  Speaker 7: every million bucks you know in an independent film is
• 31:22
  Speaker 7: it's because you know a lot of them go to
• 31:25
  Speaker 7: the budget, although not mine where I was writing checks,
• 31:29
  Speaker 7: and it takes so much out of your life that uh,
• 31:32
  Speaker 7: I hold on real quick. My dog wants to get
• 31:35
  Speaker 7: in hold on all right? Ervany here? All right?
• 31:39
  Speaker 6: Where was I What was I talking about?
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: Are you talking about your money in the producing any film?
• 31:45
  Speaker 7: Oh? Yeah that, Oh yeah, I was becoming a tyrant
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: where you know, when it came to i'd source the property,
• 31:52
  Speaker 7: I'd start to come up with the potential like talent
• 31:55
  Speaker 7: and above the line crew attachments, and then I would
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: I would talk to my pool of investors and then
• 31:59
  Speaker 7: start you know, early talks with distributors and buyers and
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: so forth. And it got to the point where unless
• 32:08
  Speaker 7: the directors you know, on my short list, unless their
• 32:11
  Speaker 7: last movie was a critical and commercial success, like I
• 32:14
  Speaker 7: don't care if you made the movie for a dollar,
• 32:16
  Speaker 7: did you make the dollar back? Did you make a
• 32:18
  Speaker 7: dollar and ten cents? You know, because a lot of
• 32:21
  Speaker 7: those things when you're doing the financing of independent films.
• 32:25
  Speaker 7: A lot of those things, you know, falls into the
• 32:27
  Speaker 7: whole number crunching algorithm, you know, bankable or not, you
• 32:31
  Speaker 7: know what I mean. And that was in addition to
• 32:34
  Speaker 7: me trying to put in in successfully the last three movies,
• 32:37
  Speaker 7: putting in directors contracts that you know they were obligated to,
• 32:44
  Speaker 7: you know, produce a shot list and storyboards and everything,
• 32:50
  Speaker 7: because too many times in an indie film, I mean
• 32:52
  Speaker 7: it's like, look, if you're making a movie that costs
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: a dollar or one hundred thousand or a million, it's
• 33:00
  Speaker 7: the same. It's essentially the same amount of work. You know,
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: the crew could be bigger or smaller, but when you
• 33:06
  Speaker 7: really break it down this it was a very smart
• 33:09
  Speaker 7: production manager named Randy Terureau in La who taught me
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: this when we were making a movie called The Politics
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: of Love because Shirley McLain, the Oscar went in actress,
• 33:20
  Speaker 7: was in the cast and she wanted she wanted her
• 33:25
  Speaker 7: character to have like one of those little lap dogs
• 33:28
  Speaker 7: when almost as a prop and she was an Oscar
• 33:32
  Speaker 7: winning actress, and I was a little not starstruck, but
• 33:38
  Speaker 7: I wanted to make her happy because if Shirley McLain
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: isn't happy. We got problems with the production. Okay, But
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: when I was telling my production manager about this, he's like, no,
• 33:48
  Speaker 7: it'll cost too much money. I'm like, what are you
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: talking about? It was a dog cost per day and
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: it will only be like you know, I think it
• 33:54
  Speaker 7: was nine days out of the eighteen day shoot we
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: would need the dog. And yeah, the trainer you need
• 34:00
  Speaker 7: need a trainer, you know, legally and all that kind
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: of stuff. He said, Okay, there's that. This is how
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: much that costs. He said, but when you break down
• 34:07
  Speaker 7: our budget, every day of shooting, every ten minutes costs
• 34:11
  Speaker 7: this much money. And he said, if that dog proves
• 34:14
  Speaker 7: on fet if that dog won't do the take, you
• 34:18
  Speaker 7: know you're wasting five minutes, ten minutes. There's thousands, tens
• 34:21
  Speaker 7: of thousands of dollars going out the door. And I
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: was like, oh, are you shit man? So that was
• 34:26
  Speaker 7: one of uh, that was one of the one of
• 34:28
  Speaker 7: the lessons. I know what brought me that was I
• 34:30
  Speaker 7: trying to get to another larger point. Yeah it's James. Yeah,
• 34:37
  Speaker 7: So anyway, Uh, Viva James Gone, Viva lost, James gunn
• 34:43
  Speaker 7: Viva Lou James gun.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: It's good.
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just a yeah, like you were saying with
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: super Yeah, I was just going to say that, you know,
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: it's amazing you know that that you know what he
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: what he you know, we're you know, uh, he's been
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: able to do and that's why I always always but he.
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: Never he never went to film school either.
• 35:01
  Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, Trauma was his film school and here
• 35:04
  Speaker 7: he's you know, how many how many studio like Superhero movie,
• 35:11
  Speaker 7: you know, mainstream like popcorn movie directors never went to
• 35:15
  Speaker 7: film school. Yeah, I mean I guess James Gunn did.
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: He went, he went to the the Film School of Trauma,
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: but he was you know, I think he had just
• 35:23
  Speaker 7: graduated or he was his last jun year or something
• 35:26
  Speaker 7: at Columbia as a writer. You know when when we
• 35:32
  Speaker 7: started Trauma in ninety summer of ninety styles.
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because we need to look at all the directors
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: that went to that that didn't go to film school.
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: I mean like Tarantino didn't go. I can't remember if
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: Kevin Smith hasn't gone. But but yeah, and James Gunn you.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: Know you get out there.
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there's not there's not many.
• 35:49
  Speaker 7: I mean who get like or even Tarantino movies. You know,
• 35:52
  Speaker 7: they they limited that budget to a certain extent, you
• 35:54
  Speaker 7: know what I mean. I think James Gun's first Guardians
• 35:58
  Speaker 7: of the Galaxy budget was I'm just going to take
• 36:02
  Speaker 7: a lot guests here, considerably higher than all of Tarantino's budgets.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the first Guardians was somewhere around maybe
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: one or one twenty.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: I think somewhere around there.
• 36:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah, And you look, you would know better than me.
• 36:18
  Speaker 7: And I'm guessing Tarantino got to play with one hundred
• 36:21
  Speaker 7: milli at least for one of his movies. But maybe,
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: you know, maybe not. I think when you add the
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: marketing into you know, the budgets, but then you know,
• 36:30
  Speaker 7: same thing. You you add how much they spent on
• 36:32
  Speaker 7: marketing Guardians, and it blows you know, the overall budget
• 36:38
  Speaker 7: of any of Tarantino's movies out of the water. I think
• 36:41
  Speaker 7: I'm right, And if anyone's listening to this podcast, please
• 36:43
  Speaker 7: google it right now and find out.
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: I'm pretty yeah, I'm like one hundred percent sure that
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: you know, you're you're absolutely right, will because you.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Know, I think the most money a Tarantino movie.
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: Costs to make just production without marketing I think was
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: was Inglorious or Jango, and I want to say it
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: was around sixty million just to make it. If he
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: had in marketing, it's probably you know, bumped up to
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: maybe one hundred or so.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: But with Guardians, I mean it's probably when you can.
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And there's the difference.
• 37:11
  Speaker 7: I mean, Tarantino's movies are although James wrote the script
• 37:15
  Speaker 7: for Guardians, they were the original concepts and the inception
• 37:19
  Speaker 7: of the idea was his right and he he you know,
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: his I guess his first real breakout film was Reser
• 37:25
  Speaker 7: war Dogs and then you know, with Harvey and played
• 37:28
  Speaker 7: the Mirrimax game for a while and James was hired
• 37:32
  Speaker 7: to write and direct Guardians. But you know, that was
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: you know, it was it was I think a long
• 37:40
  Speaker 7: time coming for James. He's been, you know, a comic
• 37:43
  Speaker 7: book fan for a long long time. I'm sure Tarantino
• 37:46
  Speaker 7: is as well to a certain extent, but maybe maybe
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: not you know, like James's. Although I have to believe
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: Tarantino has been offered to direct and or write some
• 37:56
  Speaker 7: kind of superhero movie.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: I think he was trying at one point to get
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: on the Bond franchise and I think when they were
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: gonna reboot Cassino Royale, uh or yeah, and I think
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: he made a pitch and then and they they were
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: actually gonna, like legitimate think about hiring him, and instead
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: they went they went, I don't think it was Sam
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: Menday's on that one, but I forget who it was
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: on the first Christina Reale.
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: But but yeah, so that's you know, who knows.
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: But if hearinginge, could ever you know, do the Superhero
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: movie the way because.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, sometime again, like you said, well, when.
• 38:27
  Speaker 7: You're working with the studio, retire soon well.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: After ten movies. So he's got he's got two left.
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: Okay, so maybe one will be a Superhero movie.
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I know, because you know, when you're working with studios,
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: there's expectations of you know, like I said, intellectual property
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: of freezects and characters and you know making and then
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: you know you have your artist's vision and you know,
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: as we speak about that, that's something that has you know,
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: I've seen as sort of it's almost a miss mixed
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: match of styles. And I think James has been one
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: of those guys who was even this is even more
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: rare now because when you see these different styles, you know,
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: you're see the the problems with Fantastic Four and Josh
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: Trank h. Then you see the problems with you know,
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: like Suicide Squad and David Ayers. There's just there's a
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: clash of styles and it's just and I they a
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: lot of these studios want to go out and they
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: want to get you know, Alvan Gard directors or maybe
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: some indie Darling directors, but but it very rarely does
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: it ever work out.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: And then it worked out for James. But you know,
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: as you.
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: Talk about independent l mail, will you know you talk
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: about you know, making independent films. You know, have you
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: you know, see you know, with all the advances in
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: digital technology and you work for Makers Studio, have you
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: ever thought about you know, maybe you know, uh going
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: on like Kickstarter or Indiegogo or maybe crowdfunding, uh like
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: an indie film with again with a smaller budget and
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: maybe you know, shooting it on like you know, like
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: a red or you know something like that that's a
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: digital format.
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: Have you ever thought about that?
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 40:00
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I have, and I may you know
• 40:05
  Speaker 7: I have, you know, I'm doing what I'm doing now
• 40:07
  Speaker 7: in the Saint Babs the foundation I started down here
• 40:11
  Speaker 7: in Kate May. But and there will be, you know,
• 40:13
  Speaker 7: there's a number of aspects to it. There's definitely going
• 40:16
  Speaker 7: to be community services and self development. There's gonna be
• 40:22
  Speaker 7: a large recovery aspect. My sister who teaches that you pen,
• 40:25
  Speaker 7: she's big in the recovery movement, so she's gonna be
• 40:27
  Speaker 7: doing a lot of those things here. And there'll also
• 40:29
  Speaker 7: be you know, kind of an arts education aspect to
• 40:33
  Speaker 7: what we're doing down here. And I do plan on
• 40:35
  Speaker 7: creating uh, you know, content for a number of platforms
• 40:39
  Speaker 7: here and as far as like you know, the format
• 40:44
  Speaker 7: of feature length storytelling, the narrative feature film. I have
• 40:48
  Speaker 7: one or two I think you know, left in me
• 40:50
  Speaker 7: as far as you know, uh getting them off the
• 40:53
  Speaker 7: ground and and and you know, executing them. H And
• 40:58
  Speaker 7: crowd funding may be you know, a way to go
• 41:01
  Speaker 7: for one or both of those. We'll see, you know,
• 41:04
  Speaker 7: When I was making indie movies back in the day,
• 41:06
  Speaker 7: pre internet and then after the Internet, you know, before
• 41:09
  Speaker 7: crowdfunding came about, you I raised my money mainly from
• 41:13
  Speaker 7: you know, Wall Street, dudes who would throw in fifty
• 41:16
  Speaker 7: grand or one hundred grand up pop and didn't expect
• 41:17
  Speaker 7: it back. They really just wanted to meet the actresses.
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: And you know, there was foreign pre sales. There were
• 41:24
  Speaker 7: a number of different you know kind of independent film
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: financial products back then, which which you know, I think
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: it was during that economic downturn. I was thoughting about,
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: you know, a lot of the funders left in the
• 41:36
  Speaker 7: indie film and some of them that you know, a
• 41:38
  Speaker 7: number of them have not come back. It's harder and harder.
• 41:40
  Speaker 7: But the bright light I think for indie film at
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: least creation has been crowd funding. When you look at Kickstarter,
• 41:47
  Speaker 7: when you look at indiegg, I think they've funded more
• 41:52
  Speaker 7: independent films, you know, than than true independent uh you know,
• 41:58
  Speaker 7: film finance companies, whether it's banks or hedge funds or
• 42:02
  Speaker 7: so flick and so on. So a lot, you know,
• 42:04
  Speaker 7: a lot more getting funded that way. And I also
• 42:06
  Speaker 7: think it's a great kind of democratizer because when people,
• 42:10
  Speaker 7: you know, they have they have an idea for an
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: indie film, it's a story they've fallen in love with.
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: You know. I still get people pitching me, you know,
• 42:16
  Speaker 7: and they'll send me the script or whatever. And even
• 42:19
  Speaker 7: before I read a script, I'll have a lot of questions.
• 42:22
  Speaker 7: And you know, I'm that guy who thinks he's so
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: good at it that he can read a script and like,
• 42:26
  Speaker 7: tell you, what do you want to make it for him?
• 42:28
  Speaker 7: They tell me four million. I'm like, you'd be crazy
• 42:29
  Speaker 7: to make this for over four hundred thousand, because I'm
• 42:32
  Speaker 7: also thinking about, you know, the back end, Like what
• 42:36
  Speaker 7: is the audience for this movie? Is it true that
• 42:38
  Speaker 7: you know a number of people are going to go
• 42:40
  Speaker 7: and see it and make that four hundred thousand or
• 42:42
  Speaker 7: four million dollars back? Because you know, James, is you know,
• 42:46
  Speaker 7: one of a million. Because most of the time, when
• 42:49
  Speaker 7: you make a movie that doesn't make it money back,
• 42:51
  Speaker 7: you're making it and you're making it harder for yourself
• 42:54
  Speaker 7: to make your next movie. You know, I've had plenty
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: of mentors tell me, hey, don't rush into just making
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: this movie. If it takes four years to put together
• 43:02
  Speaker 7: the right movie, let it take that long. Because if
• 43:04
  Speaker 7: you're just one of those filmmakers like I just need
• 43:06
  Speaker 7: to make another movie, and you make something and you
• 43:09
  Speaker 7: do it quickly, and yeah, it gets into a festival
• 43:12
  Speaker 7: or whatever, but you know, you beg borrow and stole
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: hundreds of thousands or more dollars to make the movie
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: and it didn't know it wasn't critically acclaimed, and it
• 43:22
  Speaker 7: wasn't some kind of commercial success, even just one dollar
• 43:24
  Speaker 7: in the black. Then then you're actually hurting your own
• 43:27
  Speaker 7: career as a filmmaker. So the next movies I make,
• 43:33
  Speaker 7: I mean, I may you know, truth be told. I
• 43:36
  Speaker 7: still at least a few times a year, I get
• 43:38
  Speaker 7: asked to, you know, star in a movie that's of
• 43:42
  Speaker 7: the genre I'm known for, like I guess comedy, horror
• 43:45
  Speaker 7: or cold movies, and I may you know. I've been
• 43:49
  Speaker 7: saying no for years because as an executive, you know,
• 43:54
  Speaker 7: I can't divide my focus. And I'm and I was
• 43:57
  Speaker 7: very very concerned that if I continued acting while I
• 44:02
  Speaker 7: was an executive that of a company I was working for,
• 44:04
  Speaker 7: I'd be like, oh see, he still just wants to
• 44:06
  Speaker 7: be an actor or whatever, you know, So I was
• 44:08
  Speaker 7: I really wanted to make that crystal clear to people.
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: And you know, I think it was one of the
• 44:16
  Speaker 7: variety writers that told me that. You know, if you
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: take Tom Cruise and all the big actors who created
• 44:21
  Speaker 7: their own production companies out of it. I think they
• 44:26
  Speaker 7: said I was the first actor who used to like
• 44:28
  Speaker 7: starting real movies.
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah they weren't eighty million dollar movies.
• 44:31
  Speaker 7: But who then of his own accord, essentially not creating
• 44:34
  Speaker 7: a production company, but was hired to be an executive
• 44:38
  Speaker 7: and then and then you know, kind of rose the
• 44:40
  Speaker 7: uh the executive ranks at least in the digital world
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: within a when a short period of time.
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: Uh, but where are we going with that?
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: Oh?
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: No, we were just talking about independent film and uh
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: I was going to say, you're you're you're a trailblazer
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: in that in that regard will because you know, just
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: like you know they were saying, was you know, you're
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: actually you know, sort of starting your own almost like
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: I guess I don't want to say marketing funnel, but
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: but in a way, you are, if you know what
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, because you're you know, you're finding the scripts,
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: you're and then you're you know, you know what, you
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: know what what's gonna you know, what what's to make
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: production for. So like you just said, you know, don't
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: make this for four million, make it for four hundred thousand. Uh,
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: you know, because you know that production side of it.
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: If you have to make it. And we've all talked
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: to filmmakers like I have.
• 45:24
  Speaker 7: To make this movie, I have to make this story.
• 45:26
  Speaker 7: And you know, I will grill directors like why why
• 45:30
  Speaker 7: do you have to make I'll keep going because I'm
• 45:32
  Speaker 7: trying to get down to like the essence of it.
• 45:34
  Speaker 7: And I've had you know, once I start to break
• 45:36
  Speaker 7: them down, I've heard I've had filmmakers say to me,
• 45:39
  Speaker 7: I just want to lock people in a room and
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: force my emotions on them. I'm like, all right, no,
• 45:43
  Speaker 7: that's evil or some of them say. Some of them
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: say like I just want to make the movie. I
• 45:50
  Speaker 7: would want to go and see I was like, all right,
• 45:52
  Speaker 7: that's eight people, here's eighty dollars. Make a YouTube video,
• 45:55
  Speaker 7: you know, you know, and and look, plenty of people
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: get what made just because of their their force of will.
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: But it's not to say that there's an audience for them.
• 46:07
  Speaker 7: It's not to say, you know, it's not going to
• 46:09
  Speaker 7: hurt your career that doesn't do well. It's like, you
• 46:12
  Speaker 7: can be original by looking at what you know, by
• 46:15
  Speaker 7: giving people what they want at the same time, you know,
• 46:18
  Speaker 7: and you can you can add your own voice or
• 46:20
  Speaker 7: your own style to something that people actually want to watch.
• 46:23
  Speaker 7: That's why you know, I'm looking at I've been in
• 46:26
  Speaker 7: the digital world for years now, and you know, these
• 46:30
  Speaker 7: are my minds in many cases, the new stars they're
• 46:33
  Speaker 7: putting butts and seats, they're you know, they're the new
• 46:38
  Speaker 7: A listers in a way, you know, and we're seeing them,
• 46:40
  Speaker 7: these digital stars, these YouTube styles or Instagram influencers, they're
• 46:45
  Speaker 7: seeing them. They makem movies now and due to do TV.
• 46:50
  Speaker 7: So I think, you know, it's essentially traditional and digital
• 46:53
  Speaker 7: or conversion, which is a really really exciting time because
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: it also affords you know, people just starting out or
• 46:59
  Speaker 7: even people who've been doing it for a while, there's
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: a new avenue to want to express yourself and or
• 47:05
  Speaker 7: to you know, the new getting discovered at Schwab's drug
• 47:10
  Speaker 7: store is the Internet.
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just you know, making a YouTube, you know channel,
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: Like when you were at Maker, you guys ended up
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: attracting Paudie Pie and you know, now he you know,
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: he was discovered and you know that just his whole career.
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: Director Now he's the number one YouTuber in the world.
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: And you know it's funny as we you know, as
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: you were talking about budgets.
• 47:29
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: Well, it's funny because I had a friend of mine
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: who actually wrote a literal one location script and it
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: was going to take place inside of his own house.
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: He could shoot it there, and you know, and I said,
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: you know, it was kind of it's kind of stereotypical
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: of an indie film.
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: It's a lot it's about a guy who loses a girl.
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: You know, it's one of those.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: But you know, he's at his house, and so what
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: happens is it was gonna be his house right in
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: one location. And he ended up, you know, meeting me
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: later on and said, okay, I got raised two hundree
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: thousand dollars to shoot this thing.
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: And I said, wait a minute, what do you need
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: two hundred thousand dollars for?
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: Like I've read this script. I said, you could shoot
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: this in for like probably the change in your couch.
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: And he was to see his top line budget and
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: how much he was paying himself.
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: Well, well, it's funny, I was. It's funny.
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: What happened was, I said, you know, where's all this
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: money going? He goes, well, you know, I have to
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: pay a cinematographer. I've got to pay this I got
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: to pay that well, he ended up getting a production
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: company involved, and he actually sat down with one of
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: their producers and she even said, like, I don't know
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: where all this extra money, you know, where you got
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: two hundred thousand dollars from? And she got she said,
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: if we could do his whole thing for fifty and
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: even I said, you know what I said, you know,
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: even that, I was like, you could probably shoot you know,
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: prior for a little cheaper.
• 48:43
  Speaker 7: But but you know, it look good and that's thanks
• 48:47
  Speaker 7: to technology.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and still make it look good because you
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: know at some point, by the way, he ended up
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: never making that film, by the way, Uh so uh.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: You know, but you know it's just it.
• 48:57
  Speaker 10: Wasn't The factmakers is that if you can write it
• 49:00
  Speaker 10: that the story is really really good, that you have
• 49:03
  Speaker 10: and you are dead set on getting this movie made,
• 49:08
  Speaker 10: and in a way budgets shouldn't matter, right and.
• 49:10
  Speaker 7: In a way it shouldn't matter where the money comes from,
• 49:12
  Speaker 7: so for with and so on. But write the script
• 49:17
  Speaker 7: as if you were going to make it yourself. In
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: this case, your friend wrote like a one location script,
• 49:22
  Speaker 7: you know, And that's probably one of the biggest budget
• 49:25
  Speaker 7: busters when people write scripts and stories that they have
• 49:27
  Speaker 7: too many locations, too many set ups, so with and
• 49:29
  Speaker 7: so on, too many you know characters. But many times
• 49:36
  Speaker 7: people come up with the good you know, writers filmmakers
• 49:38
  Speaker 7: come up with a good story and they overwrite it,
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: meaning that it's it's a good story, but because of
• 49:45
  Speaker 7: the way they wrote it with all the locations, now
• 49:48
  Speaker 7: you can't make it for anything less than twenty million,
• 49:50
  Speaker 7: forty million, four hundred million dollars, right so, and that's
• 49:54
  Speaker 7: that's a tough, you know, mountain to climb. So what
• 49:57
  Speaker 7: I say is that you know, will be right.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: Back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: to the show.
• 50:08
  Speaker 7: The essence of it. You know, if it can be
• 50:11
  Speaker 7: done in five locations, doing five locations, if the story
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: when you start sending out the script, the script and
• 50:17
  Speaker 7: the characters, the dialogue, the story starts resonating with people
• 50:20
  Speaker 7: or resonating with you know, big production companies, they'll find
• 50:25
  Speaker 7: ways to make it a bigger movie and increase the budget.
• 50:28
  Speaker 7: You don't have to do that for them. If you
• 50:30
  Speaker 7: really want to get the movie made, write the script
• 50:33
  Speaker 7: where you know you can make the movie for a
• 50:35
  Speaker 7: certain amount of money. But you know, if everyone still
• 50:38
  Speaker 7: has the idea that you know, imagine entertainment is going
• 50:40
  Speaker 7: to option your script. They will if they like it,
• 50:44
  Speaker 7: whether or not it looks like, you know, a two
• 50:47
  Speaker 7: hundred million dollar movie or a twenty million dollar movie,
• 50:49
  Speaker 7: or a two million dollar movie or twenty or two
• 50:52
  Speaker 7: hundred thousand dollars movie. You know, if if it's good,
• 50:55
  Speaker 7: it's good, and you can always broaden the scope and
• 51:00
  Speaker 7: you you know, it's much. You know, an acting, we
• 51:02
  Speaker 7: used to say, ah, it's much. It's it's easier to
• 51:07
  Speaker 7: go bigger as an actor and then tone it down
• 51:11
  Speaker 7: than it is for someone who's very tone down to
• 51:14
  Speaker 7: do a big performance, you know. So with with script writing,
• 51:17
  Speaker 7: I think it's the opposite. It's like, you know, you
• 51:20
  Speaker 7: have the story, then keep it, keep it small. But
• 51:25
  Speaker 7: the the good elements of you know, of the script
• 51:29
  Speaker 7: are are noticeable so that you can expand it from there.
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: Because it's much harder to take a really really good
• 51:37
  Speaker 7: script that my god, I love it, but there's no
• 51:39
  Speaker 7: way you can make this for under one hundred million dollars. Uh.
• 51:42
  Speaker 7: Then there's a lot of work that goes into trying
• 51:45
  Speaker 7: to pare down paardown and and then you know, you
• 51:47
  Speaker 7: have the filmmaker who's watching his you know, these these
• 51:50
  Speaker 7: these you know, ten million dollars scenes that he was
• 51:53
  Speaker 7: so attached to, you know, get get thrown out to
• 51:56
  Speaker 7: make it for you know much less.
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: That make sense.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense.
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: And I'm glad you brought that up too, Will, because
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: you know, you do have four writing credits, and I
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: wanted to ask, you know, at least you know, touch
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: on you know, your writing process, because you know, I
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: wanted to dig into that a little more and ask
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: you do you so actually I'll just ask that you know, what,
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: what what is your process on writing?
• 52:18
  Speaker 7: Will?
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: Do you do you ever do subscribe to a method
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: or do you just sort of, you know, have your
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: own process?
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah? I think, well, it depends on what I'm writing. Right.
• 52:28
  Speaker 7: I haven't taken part in writing a future length film
• 52:32
  Speaker 7: script in in a while, but if I remember correctly,
• 52:36
  Speaker 7: you know, once I'm in the mode of knowing, I
• 52:38
  Speaker 7: have to get it, get it done. And in most
• 52:41
  Speaker 7: cases I think I wrote with partners and then we
• 52:43
  Speaker 7: would kind of divide work, you know, well, you write
• 52:45
  Speaker 7: this sestion or this scene or so forth, and then
• 52:49
  Speaker 7: and the other one writes this one, and then when
• 52:51
  Speaker 7: we're done, we we passed them to one another and
• 52:54
  Speaker 7: essentially edit them or or co write the scenes. So
• 52:59
  Speaker 7: when I was writing future film scripts where it was
• 53:02
  Speaker 7: alone or with a partner, you know, I went through
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: a process and I think I consider myself a fast writer.
• 53:08
  Speaker 7: You know, there might be I might be able to
• 53:11
  Speaker 7: bust out a full script or you know, at least
• 53:14
  Speaker 7: my what I'm supposed to do for the script you
• 53:17
  Speaker 7: know pretty quickly. But then, you know what they say
• 53:19
  Speaker 7: writing is rewriting it. So it's always kind of like
• 53:21
  Speaker 7: fine tuning and polishing. But just like you know what
• 53:24
  Speaker 7: great filmmakers said it about full movies, but same thing
• 53:27
  Speaker 7: with scripts. It's like, you know, they they're never done.
• 53:30
  Speaker 7: You could keep going forever making it better. There's always
• 53:33
  Speaker 7: room for improvement essentially, right, But there's comes a point
• 53:36
  Speaker 7: where where you have to say, Okay, it's it's go time.
• 53:39
  Speaker 7: You know, there's not it's it's it's to the point
• 53:43
  Speaker 7: where other people are saying, this is great, let's I
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: want to be involved in this, even though you know
• 53:47
  Speaker 7: there's still more refining to be done. But that can
• 53:50
  Speaker 7: be done essentially later in the process in pre production
• 53:53
  Speaker 7: or even on set or rehearsals with the actors and
• 53:55
  Speaker 7: so forth.
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and you also you're talking about you know, what
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: you have to right you know, as if we again
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: the difference between you bring an independent film or maybe
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: if you're good, let's just say you're going to write
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: a film right now. I always tell people to, you know,
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: do their Roriga's list, you know what actors have access to,
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: what locations I have access to, what props do I
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: have access to, and build a film around that that
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: you know, what you have, and then you can sort
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: of make a film around that.
• 54:23
  Speaker 7: And then you're baking into the cake stuff you already know.
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: And they say, write what you know?
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: You know, yeah, rather than you know, make a script
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: where it's going to cost you know, fifty million dollars
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: and explosives and and stunt work and and squibs everything
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: else and you don't have you know, we can't shoot
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: that at my grandmam's house or anything, you know what
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: I mean.
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: It's it's uh so you know, when I was making.
• 54:44
  Speaker 7: Money, these are filmmakers who actually want to direct their
• 54:47
  Speaker 7: own movies. And we all know the stories about people
• 54:48
  Speaker 7: who wrote scripts but they wanted to direct and they
• 54:50
  Speaker 7: didn't or you know, stuck to their guns and did.
• 54:54
  Speaker 7: But there are some writers out there who just want
• 54:55
  Speaker 7: to write a big studio movie. And that's you know,
• 54:57
  Speaker 7: that's different from what I was talking about, you know,
• 55:00
  Speaker 7: out writing for budget.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you know absolutely. I was just gonna say.
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: You know, when I was making my student film again,
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: I didn't go to film school either, And when I
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: was making my student film, basically that's what we did.
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: We figured out what locations we had and we just
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: pulled all our resources together and we we shot a
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: film my my one friend's grand grandparents' house, and that
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: became pretty much like five locations because we would use
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: different rooms for different things. And it's just you know,
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: again using what we have. You know, we have access
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: to the sort of you know, to make these indie films.
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: And like I tell people, if you even if you
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: make an indie film and you realize, you know what,
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: maybe this isn't going to go anywhere, you know what
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: I suggest? Well, honestly I tell people sometimes just put
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: on YouTube. I know, it's as weird as that sounds, yeah,
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: because that way, at least you know it's gonna get seen.
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: And two it could you know, maybe you old track
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: somebody who says, hey, you know what if you do
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: that for nothing, you know, maybe you know, with a
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: big note, let's see what you can do with a
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: slightly bigger budget of maybe you know, five.
• 55:54
  Speaker 7: Thousand exactly without if you finished your movie, the shorter
• 56:00
  Speaker 7: feature and it's you know, it wasn't getting it isn't
• 56:03
  Speaker 7: getting accepted the festivals. You only recourses to put it online,
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: you know, and hope and hope that you know, you
• 56:10
  Speaker 7: can attract some attention, like you know, to me, the
• 56:14
  Speaker 7: especially you're going up against you know, you finish your film,
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: you're going up against so many other movies, a lot
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: of them well funded, especially in a marketing campaign, you know,
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: so you can't compete with that. How how do you compete?
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: It's one of the things Ted Hope was saying when
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: he you know, he's been he's been sounding the siren
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: of the deafnel of indie film for for years and
• 56:36
  Speaker 7: now he's part of you know, one of the main
• 56:38
  Speaker 7: people I think bringing it back with Amazon's backing, which
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: is great. But but Ted used to say, like from
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: day one, you know, when you're writing your script, you
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: start putting online you know, you create a page for
• 56:51
  Speaker 7: your movie and you start putting online like you know,
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: taking a picture of the title page, the cover page
• 56:57
  Speaker 7: of your script and putting up there and start engaging people.
• 57:00
  Speaker 7: And they did that with Super throughout. It's why I
• 57:02
  Speaker 7: thought it was going to be such a big hit.
• 57:05
  Speaker 7: You know, you take pictures of casting and there's so
• 57:07
  Speaker 7: many you know, there's you can do live streams of
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: your your table read and so forth. Because you're essentially
• 57:13
  Speaker 7: engaging people who hopefully by the time your movie is
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: for released, they they feel somewhat invested in it, you know,
• 57:19
  Speaker 7: and that that's your audience, because you don't have fifty
• 57:21
  Speaker 7: or one hundred million dollars to essentially you know, the
• 57:24
  Speaker 7: Hollywood business model of of just moving butts and seats
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: from one movie to the next via you know essentially
• 57:31
  Speaker 7: TV and online advertising that costs a lot of money.
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, And you know that's you know again, you know,
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: we have all these options that are coming out.
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: I might go farther and this is this is where
• 57:43
  Speaker 7: filmmakers start to hate me because I try to talk
• 57:45
  Speaker 7: people out of filmmaking because I know I know what
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: goes into it, I know what the what the success
• 57:50
  Speaker 7: rate is. And I try to talk to people out
• 57:52
  Speaker 7: of acting. And that's what you know, when I said
• 57:54
  Speaker 7: when I grill filmmakers are grill actors. I want to
• 57:56
  Speaker 7: find out what their true purpose is with what they
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: want to do. Is it famee you know, which is
• 58:02
  Speaker 7: kind of shallow? Is it you know, you want to
• 58:05
  Speaker 7: change the world? Is it you want to impress some
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: people like you know? And if I find that the
• 58:10
  Speaker 7: the underlying kind of you know, foundation is is you know,
• 58:14
  Speaker 7: a positive one and makes sense to me, then I'll
• 58:16
  Speaker 7: try to help them. But there's plenty of people who
• 58:19
  Speaker 7: made films that should have been you know, instead of
• 58:22
  Speaker 7: finishing it and putting it on YouTube because no one
• 58:25
  Speaker 7: else wants to will play it, you know, maybe don't
• 58:28
  Speaker 7: make the movie in the first place and make a
• 58:31
  Speaker 7: short film and put it on YouTube. That is the
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: essence of your feature. And you know, yeah, a long
• 58:36
  Speaker 7: gar of the days where you know, a short film
• 58:39
  Speaker 7: at some dance would strike a free picture feature deal,
• 58:42
  Speaker 7: you know, but there is a version of that and
• 58:45
  Speaker 7: it's and it's YouTube now, so it's like, what's uh.
• 58:48
  Speaker 7: You know a lot of people have gotten future film
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: deals from shorts on YouTube. But if you've already made
• 58:54
  Speaker 7: your movie, then yeah, you got to put it online
• 58:57
  Speaker 7: and you got to try to show some kind of
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: audience for it. Because whether you're you know, whether I
• 59:03
  Speaker 7: was a digital exec or a film producer, if I'm
• 59:06
  Speaker 7: looking at if you know, if someone pitches me something
• 59:09
  Speaker 7: and I like the idea and I take a meeting
• 59:11
  Speaker 7: or I want to learn more. You know, either the
• 59:14
  Speaker 7: movie played festivals and got distribution and there's numbers to
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: look at, or you know, I can see the film itself.
• 59:21
  Speaker 7: But if I see it on online and it looks
• 59:24
  Speaker 7: like it got ten thousand, one hundred thousand views, or
• 59:27
  Speaker 7: there's engagement people really like it, then that helps me,
• 59:30
  Speaker 7: you know, that helps me as as a green lighter,
• 59:33
  Speaker 7: as a decision maker. A lot of people are still like, well,
• 59:36
  Speaker 7: I don't want to put it up there. I don't
• 59:37
  Speaker 7: want someone to steal my idea that is long and gone,
• 59:40
  Speaker 7: that's been gone ever since the internet came out. You know,
• 59:43
  Speaker 7: you can hold your precious idea and never get it made,
• 59:48
  Speaker 7: or you can, you know, start to put it out
• 59:50
  Speaker 7: there and do it, do your idea better than anyone
• 59:53
  Speaker 7: else could, so you become that person. You know, when
• 59:56
  Speaker 7: it comes to that idea.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, Yeah, that makes absolute perfect sense. Uh.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: You know, I had a manager before. They weren't meaning
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: they weren't representing me or anything. But I was talking
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: to them about this project that I did, and he
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: was very adamate.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: He said, don't put it online.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: He goes, don't do anything with it, and he goes,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: just so, and and now other marketers who I really.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 7: Responded, I'm not an agist, but I'm guessing this was
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 7: a few years ago, and they they were unaware of
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 7: the influence that comes with people engaging with you or
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 7: your content online.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: Yes, this is probably about four years ago or so.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: This is he was.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: He's playing in his forties and now you know, it's
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: talking to marketers. They were like, Dave, just you know,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: do your thing. Uh So, I'm actually, you know, that's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: been something I've been sort of.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 7: Yeah, the only people who listen, the only people in
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 7: my estimation who are getting signed, you know, by top
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 7: agencies or managers. And I've seen it for the past
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 7: number of years. And I was actually a conduit for
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: a number of them happening. You know, talents, whether it's
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 7: on camera challenge or behind the camera talent. The ones
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 7: who are getting signed are the ones who are building
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 7: audiences by themselves online. You know, there's plenty of talent
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 7: out there who are not putting their stuff online, and
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 7: they're great. They could be better than the talents who
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 7: are getting jobs now. But this is how to get
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 7: jobs now. But no one ever sees your work. If
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 7: no one ever sees your work, then then you know,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 7: continue with that with that second career, and that's probably
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 7: all you're going to get.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's very it's very true. You know, I've had
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: Jason Rubriker on here from Mistriver. They actually put together
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: a movie project for Netflix, all from all YouTubers. They
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: got some of the top YouTubers, put them all together
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: in a movie and sold us a Netflix. And you
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 5: know it worked out well because everyone you know there.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 7: That's big business right now. I consider that a new
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 7: genre of independent filmmaking. But it's the only one. And
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 7: you know, you might have to check this too, but
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 7: I'm going to make a grand statement that the only
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 7: independent films that have made their money back and gone
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 7: into profit except for you know, the ones that really
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 7: break through and get nominated for rosters. The only independent
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 7: films that make their money back and or going to
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 7: profit in the past few years have been ones that
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 7: have digital stars in them. And I'm talking truly independent films,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: you know. And if you you know and name me
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 7: a time when a genre, an independent film was profitable.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 7: This might be the first time independent films starring digital
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: influencers might be the first time independent film and is
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 7: a sustainable business.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 6: At least for at least for a minute, you know
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: what I mean.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it is true. And also you know, they
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: come with their own building, audience and everything, and I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: mean that's what. So it's so you know, interesting for investors,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: and you know, it's why in distributors as well. And
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: you know, and again I think that as we slowly
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: go aboard, you know, like you were saying, that's sort
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: of being discovered in in the old sweet shop. You know,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: there's old stories of Hollywood where you know, an actress
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: was discovered at like a malt shop or something.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 7: This is this is the new way, right, Yeah, No,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: that's it. I mean, that's that's how you get discovered,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: you know, tell actors too. It's it's like they're serious.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 7: They're even going to acting school like some of them,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 7: you know, expensive acting schools, and and they're not online.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 7: You know, they're not they're not showing their acting talent online.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 7: And it boggles my mind because when I was a
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 7: young actor before the Internet, I would hope that I
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 7: would have embraced it if the Internet were there, and
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 7: I would have you know, essentially showed off my talent
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: online and and that will works. I've seen it work
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 7: for a lot of a lot of people in you know,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 7: in the years after. But the ones who are like, no,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 7: they're still doing back, you know, an actor is still
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 7: doing like black box theater, but but they're doing nothing online.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 7: I'm like, you know, and I don't know if it's
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 7: because their their curriculum keeps them so so busy and
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 7: they don't have time to be online. But to me,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 7: it's the only way to get discovered.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: Now, yeah, that's so, that's so true. And you know,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: because I've had people in here and they've we've talked
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: about a lot of the competitions and stuff like that,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: and I think, you know, it's sort of putting it
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: all together as well, you know, I have a friend
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: of mine who's ben here.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 7: I mean screenwriting competitions, or we'll say competition.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: Well, I generally mean screenwriting competitions. But what I was
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: going to say was.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah, all that stuff's good.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: Submit your script and if you get, like as a
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 7: finalist in Nickels or ones that are known awesome, it's
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: like a feather in the cap and it would make
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: someone like me or you know, other green lights or whatever,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 7: you know, put your script near the top, like, oh okay, soone,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 7: you know, it's the group thing someone else like when
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 7: I heard of them, and then we we might still
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 7: read your script, you know what I mean. But as
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 7: as important, if not more, is that, you know, you know,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 7: let's say, instead of instead of getting a screenwriting Fellowship
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 7: award for your script, which yes, agencies, managers, production companies,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 7: if you have that on there, they'll be like, oh okay,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 7: I guess we should really read this one. But at
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 7: the same time, and maybe even more powerful, is is
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 7: putting some you know, putting some kind of content online
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 7: that gets you know, ten thousand engaged views people saying,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 7: oh my god, this is awesome. Are you going to
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 7: do a larger version? You know, because when people are
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 7: making decisions about you know, money, which is essentially life
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 7: or death in the industry. You know, so many people,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 7: especially in you know, an established Hollywood, everyone's afraid to
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 7: stick their neck out. It's like, okay, if everyone else agreed,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 7: then maybe we'll move forward with this.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 7: So one of the things that's getting everyone on the
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 7: same page these days is, you know, look if Nickel's
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 7: Screenwriting Fellowship liked it great, you know, look at all
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 7: the movies that they've awarded and how many got made
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 7: and how many were successes you know, in there since
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 7: they've been around. But if I go online and there's
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 7: just the cold open of the movie and it's got
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 7: engagement and people are liking it. That where I am
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 7: in my career now, if I'm going to continue to
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 7: green light stuff and get it made, that's almost more
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 7: important than the Screenwriting Fellowship.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's I actually had a friend of mine on here,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: Nick Murphy, and he actually started a YouTube channel. It
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: was called Continued question Mark and they actually, you know,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 5: they do panels now because they've just built that audience
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 5: and then they end up now they did They've done
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: a crowdfunny campaign for another web series. I mean, so
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: we they've done very well with that, and again you
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: know they.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 7: And look, dude, to me, that's networking and you got
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 7: to do that too, and that's something that you know,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 7: I became. People think I'm like a master networker, and
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 7: I think I'm pretty good. But everyone thinks I know everybody.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 7: That's not true. There's plenty of people. I could know
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 7: more people and you know, entertainment than I do, but
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 7: that's the perception, right. But it took me a while
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 7: to learn that if I were to, you know, have
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 7: gotten good at networking and everything in the beginning of
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 7: my career, it would I think it would be a
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 7: little a little different. And I didn't want to think
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 7: back then that I don't want to have to go
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: in schmooze. I just want to be an arduced you know,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 7: all that kind of stuff. But you know, this is
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 7: the the you know, it's called, you know, the entertainment
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 7: industry for a reason. You know, you got to have
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 7: you got to have both. You got to know the
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 7: business side of things, which includes networking and schmoozing because
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: you know, sometimes I mean, look, Charlie Korn when who
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 7: hired me at end of all. That was a fifteen
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 7: year relationship and then it culminated in me becoming president
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 7: of you know, the North American Digital division of the
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 7: biggest TV production company in the world. I think it's
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 7: the largest independent production company in the world. And that
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 7: was you know, Charlie and I had tried to work
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 7: together a few times throughout the years. We've met, like
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 7: ninety six or seven, and things didn't work out. But
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 7: you know, you got to you got to start, you know,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 7: not only building your community online and building up an
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 7: audience online and having people say, hey, your work's great
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 7: online so that the industry will like, hey, you know,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 7: the average Joe or Josephine likes this person's work, maybe
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 7: we should you give him a shot. But also, you know,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 7: you got to start building your network as soon as
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 7: you can. And if you're an actor, it's just another role.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 7: You're going out to events and meeting people and you're
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 7: playing the role of networker, you know, and for filmmakers
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 7: the same thing. You can't In many cases, you can
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 7: still be the shy you don't like to talk to anyone.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 7: You're very introverted, but you're brilliant, you know, artist or filmmaker.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 7: And if you can't get a little more extroverted online,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 7: then you know, these are all just learned, you know,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 7: kind of skills that you can always improve upon. You know,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 7: you know where you're at currently if you're not much
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 7: of a networker schmoozer, you know, read hollywooden friends and
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 7: influence people, and then just go out to one of
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 7: that and just try some of the techniques and all
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 7: of a sudden you're like, hey, I'm pretty good at this,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 7: you know, but it's those so important because talent. You know,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 7: sometimes talent rises to the top and and sometimes you know,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 7: the best talent never never rise. And these are the
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 7: reasons why. So you know, if you don't do your
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 7: homework and find out what it takes, then you shouldn't
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 7: complain about not getting a shot. About its life's unfair
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 7: about you know, I'm so talented, I'm more talented than
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: this person. But you know, they're they're getting jobs that
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 7: i'm not, or they're getting cast and I'm not, or
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 7: they're getting funded and I'm not. Okay, well, then you
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 7: know find out why.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 7: And I guarantee. Why is that they're doing some other
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 7: things in some other areas that you are either judging
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 7: harshly rashly and saying no, I don't want to have
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 7: to do that. But then you know, it's the same
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 7: in every industry. It's just a little more as a
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 7: little more pizaz in Hollywood.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, you're absolutely right, Will, And you have
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: to go out there and network.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: And you know, I know we've been talking for about
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: an hour and I know you know obviously I could
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: talk to you all day. Will I just want to say,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 5: you know, I wanted to ask too. I want to
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: get to talk about the Church of Babs. You know,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: you currently have a GoFundMe and by the way, everyone listening,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: I'm going to put this in the show notes for
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: his GoFundMe at you know, at Dave Bullis dot com
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: where the show notes usually are.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: So, Will I just want to ask, you know, just
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: about Church of Babs.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: You know again, I sold the article about it in
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 5: the Philadelphia dot com Inquire online site.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, put that link too, that was pretty good. Yeah.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: Well, I I'm going to make sure to put that
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: in there as well.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: So I just want to you know, as we talk
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: about Church of Babs, you know, is there anything you know,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: I know we talked about earlier, discussed it briefly, but
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: is there anything else you wanted to mention about the
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: Church of Babs or Joe?
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 7: Well, look, the the go fund me campaign is GoFundMe,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 7: dot com slash st d a d s st Babs
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 7: and that's you know, so we've raised almost twenty thousand
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 7: dollars in very short time, and we need more. The
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 7: reason being that I want to you know, it's a
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 7: one hundred eight year old church. I want to restore it,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 7: you know, and then also innovate a little bit. But
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 7: we also want to start a number of programs for
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 7: the community and the online community. And you know, when
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 7: I acquired this two acre property in Ka County, New Jersey,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 7: which is incredible. I'm surrounded by natural wildlife preserves of
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 7: the Autubon Bird Watching Society, the New Jersey Motorsports Park,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 7: private beaches, public beaches. It's just an amazing, amazing area
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 7: of South New Jersey that you know, people think of Jersey,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 7: they think of Panos, but especially South Jersey. I think
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 7: give gives Jersey its name on license plates. The garden state.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 7: But because it's an old historical property like this, like
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 7: I had to but I acquired it, I had to
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 7: pay all cash and it wasn't you know, I'm not
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 7: a multimillionaire because you can't get a more or at
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 7: least I couldn't get a mortgage for a property like this.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 7: It's commercially zoned, but there's no historical rental income because
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 7: it was a church and it's not a private it's
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 7: not a residential place, so no residential private mortgage lenders
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 7: were went, so I had to put all cash into it.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 7: So we're reopening grand reopening at Saint Babs in May
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 7: on Mother's Day twenty seventeen, coming up a few months
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 7: and for a whole week, we have a number of
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 7: festivities happening and certain celebrity friends of mine will be
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 7: making appearances. We'll be launching a bunch of initiatives, will
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 7: be lots of great art and music, you know, showing.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 7: So the money from the go fund campaign is going
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 7: to both the restoration and launching these programs. And I
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 7: think you know it's it's not just one good cause,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 7: it's many good causes. And uh, you know this is
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 7: we're just getting started. So I think, you know, after
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 7: the opening and within the next year or two, just
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 7: like I tried to do with Maker Studios and end
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 7: them all and stream up, I'm going to turn this
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 7: into into something that people will be proud of and
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 7: and really think well off.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: And uh, you know everyone, I'm going to link to
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 5: again in that article in the show notes and uh,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 5: you know, well, I know you're going to do an
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: amazing job with this. And again when I read that,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 5: when I read the article, I said, this is this
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 5: is amazing, and this is.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 7: Next time we talk.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 6: What thank you?
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 7: Thank you? Next time we talk? Why don't you come
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 7: to like I and I'm also building a studio in
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 7: the church, and and you know there's lots going on here.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 7: The whole place is getting wired. Why don't you come
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 7: to your podcast down here? Maybe you know it's not
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 7: during the grand reopening week, which I think will be
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 7: fun and I think they'll be im pressed to come
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 7: out of that. But you know, that's the other thing,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 7: whether it's artists, people in need, people in recovery. I
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 7: want this to be, you know, not their second home
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 7: unless they wanted to make it their second home. But
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 7: you know, I'm opening the doors for people to create, uh,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 7: to commune and so forth, so you.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 6: Know, feel free to do a podcast down here.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: Then oh, thank you, Well I appreciate that. And I'm
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 5: definitely gonna go and and go come down. I want
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 5: to be there for the grand opening. U you know,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: we can meet in person and uh, you know, yeah,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 5: why don't.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: We do why don't we do during the opening in
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: front of people? Why don't we do like a.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: Live podcast or something you know that sounds amazing?
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 7: Let's do it's and then I'll be I'll be a
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 7: guest if you want me as your guest, but maybe
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 7: we'll book one or two other people too, and I'll
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 7: give you the list of you know, the talent and
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 7: the people coming, and you can look at that and say, oh,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 7: they'd be great on the podcast, and maybe we'll do
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 7: it that way.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 5: Okay, that sounds amazing, will uh yeah, and uh and
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 5: I think that'll be a great, great, you know, tool
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 5: for uh, you know, everybody. And uh, because that's very interesting.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: I haven't done something like that yet, and I've been
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: meaning to and I will before, you know, Just in closing,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 5: I wanted to ask, is there anything else that you
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 5: wanted to say just in closing that we can get
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 5: a chance to discuss.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 7: Oh. I heard from a very very good source that
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 7: Lloyd Kaufman of Trauma is developing another movie based on
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 7: a Shakespeare play. And I was told that not too
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 7: long ago when Romeo and Juliet played at the Museum
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 7: of Modern Art in New York a few months ago.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 7: So I if I do another Trauma movie again, that
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 7: sounds like that'd be the one.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that that you know again be able to reunite
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 5: with Lloyd and you know again, I think that would
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 5: be amazing because Lloyd is always know now he's just
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 5: making some some really great movies too. Because now with
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 5: what was it, Toxic Avenger four came out, I thought
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: that was very well done, and I actually bumped into
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 5: it a few years ago. By the way, I'll tell
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 5: you that story in person when I see you. But yeah, no,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 5: but I think that'd be great though, because it's it's
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 5: you know, I always you know great, it's great independent film.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 5: And so again, will I want to say thank you
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: for coming on where you will find you online.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 7: By the way, I'm Will keenan w I L L
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 7: K E E N A n on Twitter, same thing
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 7: on Instagram, on Facebook, and then if you just search
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 7: my name it comes up. I have a blue check
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 7: next to my name on Facebook. What else LinkedIn? Look
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 7: for Will Keenan And now there's a Saint Babs the
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 7: Foundation I just started Facebook and Instadent. Please follow those
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 7: as well.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: Will Keenan. I want to say thank you so much
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: for coming on.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 6: Dave Bullas, thanks for asking me. This was great, this
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 6: was fun. It's do it again.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 4: It sounds great, my friend. I will talk to you
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: very soon.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 7: All right, take care, man, take care, will I.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: Everybody, I want to thank Dave so much for doing
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: such a great job on this episode. If you want
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Indie film Muscle
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: dot com Forward slash eight fifty nine, and if you
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: so much for listening. Guys, as always, keep that hustle going,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: talk to you soon.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: Indie film hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 1:17:42
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• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: E dot com.