Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 420: Out of Time and the Back to the Future DeLorean Documentary with Steve Concotelli

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BPS 420: Out of Time and the Back to the Future DeLorean Documentary with Steve Concotelli · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifagpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four twenty
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Tomorrow you will wish you had started today.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Mango Wilder broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: when we really should be working on that next draft.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script
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  Speaker 2: coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind
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  Speaker 2: of project you are and the goals of the project
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  Speaker 2: you are, So we actually break it down by three categories,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: micro budget, indie film, market and studio film. There's no
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  Speaker 2: reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to
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  Speaker 2: reading tempole movies when your movie is going to be
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  Speaker 2: done for one hundred thousand dollars and we wanted to
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  Speaker 2: So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot com. So, guys,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: today we have on the show a very cool filmmaker
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: by the name of Steve Koncatelli. He directed a documentary
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: on one of my favorite movies of all time, of course,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: called Back to the Future, and he rated a movie
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: about the restoration of the DeLorean. Now, anyone who's ever
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: watched Back to the Future knows how important the DeLorean is.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: It is a one of the seminal hearts of pop
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: culture and it was dying in the back loot of Universal.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I saw it there when I did my tours back
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: in the day, and I was like, wow, it seems
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: so sad and it's just being tore up by the elements.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: And he was able to get together with the producer
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Bob Gail of Back to the Future, as well as
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: some amazing talented artists that work in mechanics who are
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: going to be able to put together and put back
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: together the DeLorean, and the movie is called Out of
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Time Saving the DeLorean Time Machine. Now, I wanted to
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: have Steve on the show because I wanted to kind
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: of talk about we haven't had a lot of documentary
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: filmmakers on first of all, so I wanted to get
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: a few more of those on this year, as well
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: as to discuss the process of dealing with a big
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: studio with a huge IP, huge intellectual property for Universal,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: and how he was able to get this whole thing going.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: You know, he was starting doing the documentary without permission
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: and then finally got permission, and how he got it
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: onto a Blu Ray special edition anniversary and all this
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: kind of stuff, and how he was able to make
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: money with the film, how he's able to tour with
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: the movie, and different kind of distribution ideas that he
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: was able to implement because of the rabid fan base
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: of the film of the original trilogy. There's a lot
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: of knowledge bombs in this episode. So if you are
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: fans of Back to the Future, it's going to be
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: even be more so. And I think most people listening
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: has seen Back to the Future. If you have not
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: seen Back to the Future. For God's sakes, what's wrong
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: with you? Stop listening to this podcast right now and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: go watch it on Netflix or Amazon or rent it
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: or do whatever. But you need to watch the Back
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: to the Future trilogy. But without any further ado, here
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: is my conversation with Steve Koncatelli. How are you doing, sir?
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I'm doing just fine. How are you, Alex?
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you brother, Thank you man, Thanks so much for
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: being on the show. I'm a huge fan of your
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: movie Out of Time, and you know, I'm obviously a
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: huge fan of Back to the Future, and I thought
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: this would be a beautiful melding of not only geeking out,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: because we are going to geek out in this episode
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: a bit, but also discovering how you made the movie
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: and went down the road and your Kickstarter, your distribution plan,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: and I'll get to the nuts of bolts of actually
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: making the movie. But while we geek out a bit, So,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: what gave you the idea of making Out of Time? Like,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: how did you even wake up one morning go I'm
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: going to make a movie about restoring the DeLorean.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting it started back in twenty eleven when
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: Universal Studios first announced that they were going to restore
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: the Screen News time Machine. And at the time, to
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: give a brief history, at the time, the Screen News
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: car had really started falling apart. You know, it had
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: been out at the Universal Studios backlot for thirty years.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: It was not in great shape, and so Universal and
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: Bob Gail made the announcement that they were going to
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: restore it. And I was fortunate enough to be very
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: close friends with Joe Waltzer, who was the super fan
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: in charge of the restoration, and so here you had
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: this phenomenal year long restoration project that was going to
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: kick off, and you know, I said, well, is anybody
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: filming this? Is you know, is anybody going to turn
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: this into a movie? Because fans would love to see
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: the nuts and bolts of this restoration, And it turned
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: out nobody had any plans to do it, and so,
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: you know, I kept asking who's doing this, Who's doing
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: this and finally just kind of donned on me, like, ah, crap,
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: I guess it's going to be me then, right, And
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: so I took it upon myself to just start documenting
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: the entire restoration in the hopes of possibly turning it
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: into a film, which we then did.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: And now, how did you get Bob Gail and Universal
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: involved and actually get them to say, hey, you you're official,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: we give you this stamp of approval.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: That was a very very long and nerve wracking process,
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: to be honest.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because I.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: Didn't work for Universal Studios, and so you know, when
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: I started shooting it, it wasn't exactly you know, done
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: with official authorization.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: I'll say that much. It was done.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: I was part of the restoration team. I was documenting it,
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: and that was fine, but you know, turning it into
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: a film is something that was an entirely next level.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Like when you work with a studio, there's approvals.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: And IP and licensing and there's a lot of things
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: that back then I had no concept of.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: And they are not Back to the Future and the
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Delore and it's fairly popular IP.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's among their most popular intellectual property. And
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: so we did it very slowly and very methodically, and
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: essentially what it boiled down to his Bob Gail. Now, now,
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: Bob is the co creator of the Back to the
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: Future trilogy. You know, he wrote them, produced them, and
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: he is the godfather even to this day of all
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: things back to the future. So if any product anything
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: back to the future, gets approved, it goes through him.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: He's the authority. And luckily Bob was spearheading the restoration.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: He was directly in charge of it. So as the
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: restoration progressed, I got a chance to meet Bob and
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: know Bob, and we put together. Halfway through the restoration,
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: we did like a little five minute here's what's going
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: on with the restoration update that Bob hosted, So I
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: shot footage of him and we got to know each
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: other and kind of test the waters to see what
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: kind of reaction you know, the restoration footage would get.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: And but yeah, and then as we progressed and I
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: got further and further into filming, you know, it became
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: clearer like, look, I really need to get some official
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: endorsement from Universal because you know, by the time a
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: year long restoration was done and then say a year
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: of interviews, I was two years into a project. I
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: wasn't even sure I could produce legal and like, oh boy,
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: what are we going to do? So Bob sat me
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: down with Universal's licensing team their marketing teams to eventually
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: essentially make a pitch for me to say, look, he
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: knows what he's doing, he's been doing this a long time.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: And you know, basically Bob gave me his official endorsement.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: But even then, I don't think Universal was quite on
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: board until twenty fifteen. I mean that's three years that
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: I wasn't sure. And then that's when they asked me
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: to possibly put together something for the thirtieth anniversary Blu
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: Ray that came out, you know, and they said, can
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: you do you have enough footage that you can cut
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: together maybe a fifteen minute feature at I said, sure,
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: no problem, And I'm sure Universal Studios was afraid that,
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: you know, I was just gonna make them look terrible
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: because of the shape of the car. And then I
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: sent them a quick cut and they saw it and
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: as soon as they saw my movie, as soon as
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: they saw they're like, Okay, we totally get it. We're
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: totally on board because it's not about blame. It's not
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: about you know, all criticizing this part. It's not about
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: fans being you know, snipy at each other. It's about
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: celebrating this great car and everybody coming together to get
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: it restored. And yeah, once they saw all their fears
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: were going. They said, yep, we'll license this. You can
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: have access to everything you need. I got all the
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: proper permissions and all that stuff, and we were off
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: like a shot. But but it was I won't understate it.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: It was three years of very nervous is this going
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: to happen? Because all it would have taken was one
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: phone call from Universal's legal apartment and boom, the whole
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: film would have been shut down. And this is, you know,
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: after two and a half years of my time. So
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: it was, it was. It was a tough, long road
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: that I'm sure a couple other indie filmmakers out there understand.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I just fought them, yeah.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: You know, and it it could have easily broken the
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: other way. And yeah, I had more than a few
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: sleepless nights, sleepless months about that, to be honest.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: So Bob Gail was basically you were Donnie Brasco and
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Bob Gail was al Pacino. Yeah, and he's just he's
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: he's fine, he's with me working out. So he got
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: you in the door. But it was your work that.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: Kept you in the door, correct, I mean, Bob, Yeah,
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: that's exactly what it was. He opened the door, and
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: he wouldn't have gone to bad for me if if
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: by then I hadn't already proven my myself as a professional,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: you know, and and the story I was trying to tell,
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: And yeah, you know, once Universal saw it, they they
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: embraced it so definitely. But it took a lot of
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: convincing and a lot of baby steps.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: And boy, you could do a whole episode just down
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: the difficulty of trying to license intellectual property from a studio, because,
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: like I'm a fan, Like when I started this movie,
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: I truly had no idea of what it took to
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: make a movie. Like because I'm sure a lot of
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: your listeners are thinking, oh, you make a movie with
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: the time machine, you go and shoot your footage and
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: you own it, so you just go go and make
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: a movie.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: But it turns out not.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: To be the case because the car is owned by
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: DreamWorks or you know, a subset of Universal for the
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: intellectual property, and then Universal Studios owns the film rights,
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: and then you have to get approvals from you know,
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: the producers and any actors that appear in the footage,
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: and I had no concept of how to do any
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: of that stuff.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Let me ask you a question, though, and this is
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: just and this is now we're getting into a little
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: bit of the weeds as far as legal and documentaries concerned.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: But documentaries do have a lot more way than narrative
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: do in the sense that, like you know, I can
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: remember Fahrenheit nine to eleven, where you know, Michael Moore
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: was basically ripping apart the president at the time, George Bush,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: and he was using him in his documentary and he
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: was he didn't get any obviously, didn't get any permission
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: for that. How does it work? Can't you just document
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: something and release it to a certain extent or not?
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Well, I bet if I wanted to put it on YouTube,
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: I probably could have gotten away with it. But I
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: wanted to release it and try to make money off
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: of it. And that's that's an entirely different ballpark, because
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: if you're trying to monetize somebody else's intellectual property, that's
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: that's a ligne you you have to have legal permission for.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: And and to be honest, you know, like I was
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: getting to know, Bob and I have tremendous respect for Universal.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: I wanted to do it the right way, you know.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: I wanted Universal Studios to endorse the film and and
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: be a part of it and not fight against it.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: And you know, I didn't want to just try to
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: release it as like a fan documentary. I wanted their
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: stamp of approval so that the world would know, like, look,
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: Universal has declared this the official time Machine documentary, and
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: you know it's it's quality content. And thankfully that's what happened.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: And yeah, and the Blu Ray in twenty fifteen really
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: kind of jump started that because once, once I had
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: a little fifteen minute feature it on the official Blu ray,
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: I was an official part of the franchise and that
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: and that helped that. But I you know, it's still involved,
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: you know, licensing and paperwork and attorneys and title clearances,
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean even the title of my film,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: which is out of Time, like the time Machine license plate,
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: even that was just like when I started, can I
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: use that? Is that owned by somebody? Does Universal own that?
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: Does the DMV own that?
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: Who do? I have to ask?
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: And you know, all these questions had to go down
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: this infinite rabbit hole of minutia to feel like, okay,
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: somebody Universal said it was okay, I use this, you know,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: and it's just it's it's so far and the weeds
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: when you're producing these indie docks that it just it
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: boggles the mind. You spend like seventy five or eighty
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: percent of your time dealing with things that have nothing
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: to do with making your movie, as I'm sure you
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: can attest.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, no, I was. I was working on a
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: show for Hulu and the characters that they add. The
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: director and the producers wanted to get some Universal characters
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: on some T shirts, like like that they Live Yeah,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: and the Brider Frank Yeah exactly, because the whole show
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: was about the whole episode of that series was about
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: guys putting on glasses. So it was kind of like
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: a wink quick nud dudge and they got it, you know.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: They It was fairly simple, honestly, to get a right
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: to get that they Live logo or whatever put on
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: a T shirt and you have to make it yourself,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: has to be customed. You can't sell the T shirt,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: but it was, but it did. There was some paperwork
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: and then there was some back and forth and they
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: wanted some other people to like, yeah, we kind of
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: owned that one, but it's also a quarter owed by
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: somebody else, exactly, so you might have to go somewhere else.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: So exactly like you're talking about, like the Dolrian is
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: owned partly by dream Works or Spielberg at that point.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, it's it's a subset of one of the conglomerates,
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: and somebody, you know, the appropriate person at the appropriate
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: subset company had to have an email that says, you know, yes,
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: we authorize this, you know. And again they don't know
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: who I am. I'm just a fan trying to make
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: a film and in studios, and rightfully so are very
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: leery about you know, a fan saying hey, I want
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: to make a movie about your movie. Let me use
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: your IP or your footage. Sure, and and so, yeah,
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: it's a I'll say this. If you're making a unique
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: documentary about something like unrelated, go for it. But to
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: make a feature doc about a very famous feature film
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: is among the most difficult and dumbest things you could
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: try to do.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Well, there was a movie The Shark, The Sharks Still
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Sark is still working, You're still working, which was legendary
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: because it took forever for it to come out, like
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: they had interviews with Roy Schreider before he died, and
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: they had Spielberg, they had Dreyfist, they had everybody, and
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Universal was like, I don't know, and this is where
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: everybody was like, when is this coming out? I remember that?
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: And finally it got released like on a thirtieth anniversary
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: or whatever, forty the anniversary of Yeah, release on a
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: DVD somewhere, and we finally got to see it, which
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: was a great doc.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: But what a same thing, same thing, but you were
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: a little bit better. Well I appreciate it, but I
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: think they they had the same thing too, where when
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: the anniversary of Jaws came around, the studio was looking
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: for content that tied into that, and here, you know,
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: these fans had essentially made this entire film for them, Like, oh,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: why don't we just give them the okay to release that?
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: And my situation on Out of Time was kind of similar,
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: where back in twenty eleven, when the restoration started and
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: I started shooting footage, I was already thinking, look, in
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: three years, they're probably going to do a thirty anniversary release,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: and then they're going to want some of this content, right,
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: And sure enough. You know, in twenty fifteen, Universal called, hey,
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: we're thinking about a Blu Ray. Do you have something?
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, I got you covered. Do you believe
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: me I've got.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at your Blu Ray as we speak, sir. Yeah,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: So I've got that thirty of that aniversary.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I have a nice little out of time
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: featurette on there, which you know, as a fan is
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: to think that's something that I did completely by myself,
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: like my own time, with my own crappy camera, editing
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: it on my own crappy home edit system. Is on
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: the official Back to the Future Blu Ray, like behind
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: Doc Brown. Is mind boggling. I still can't believe it,
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: but it happened.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Now, you you also started a Kickstarter campaign and you
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: you launched the kick cards that camp, which was fairly successful.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: It was very successful.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Actually, now, how did you prep and launch the Kickstarter campaign?
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Because I've had I mean, I did my own crowdfunding
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: campaign for my feature film, and but you know this
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: is it could be a beast, but you also you
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: also had a wonderful audience to tap into. So how
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: did you prep it and launch it?
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Well, Kickstarter is its own separate nightmare.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: I'll just start by that, all right, Kickstarter for all.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: The people who think, look at all that free money. Now,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: if I had simply gone.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: To work every day and worked at my regular job,
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: I would have made far more money. That's the simple truth, amen.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: And Kickstarter is a nightmare. And even like your worst
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: fear with Kickstarter is that you won't succeed, your second
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: worst fear is that you do succeed.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: You know why is that?
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Why is that?
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Well, because if.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: You're wildly successful, suddenly, you know, like I found myself
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: with six hundred bosses all demanding like when is this
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: going to be done? You know, when are what are
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: you doing? What's going on? And it was like having
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: six six hundred managers emailing me all the time asking questions,
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: and the vast majority were great, but you do get
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: some squeaky wheels. And I was very, very sent because
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: first I wanted to have a good Kickstarter, but second
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: is that I didn't want anybody bad mouthing me to
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: Universal Studios because whether whether I accepted it or not,
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: by having this film and Bob Gail was in my
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: Kickstarter video, so by having his endorsement, I whether I
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: like it or not. Represent Back to the Future. I
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: represent the franchise and I represent the studio, and I
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: took all that very seriously. So every time I would
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: answer a question or deal with the public, I did
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: it professionally, straightforward, in the most kind of corporate appeasing
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: way that I could, because the last thing I wanted
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: to do was to have, you know, Bob get some
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: angry email from a fan, who is, who's this Steve
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: guy and what's he doing and he's ruining Back to
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: the Future Like that would have been the death of
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: my film, right, But to backtrack and in terms.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Of what we did, we set the bar.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: Our goal for the film was twenty five thousand dollars,
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: which I thought was pretty reasonable and I didn't think
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: we'd hit it. And Joe Walser, who is the head
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: of the restoration and he's the main guy in the film,
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: he was very involved in. One thing Joe does, aside
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: from making time machines, is he's a master at marketing.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: And he said, Steve, we're going to blow the doors
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: off it. And I didn't believe him, and he goes,
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: trust me. Within twenty four hours we hit our twenty
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: five thousand dollars like one, and then I think we
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: ended around seventy five thousand, which was three times our goal,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: which is great but nervous, and the way we prepped
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: for it was I would say not enough, but it's
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: not exactly true. I benefited because during the entire restoration,
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Joe had set up a Facebook page for the Time
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: Machine restoration team, and it was for fans to kind
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: of track the progress. And Joe was very tied into
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: all the Back to the Future online Facebook pages, the
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: big ones, all of them, so he already had access
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: to a very large, very rabid Back to the Future audience.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: And that was the reason my kickstarter was successful. If
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: I had tried building it from scratch, it would have
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: taken a year, you know, just to try to get
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: up to speed and building word of mouth.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: But Joe had been cultivating this because of the restoration
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: for two years, and we had been putting videos online,
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: you know. So his own Facebook page had what seventy
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: five thousand people, and then the other Back of the
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Future pages had millions. So once we decided to launch
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: our Kickstarter, he posted everywhere on all the Facebook pages
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: for back Future, check this out.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: It's official.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: And then when people clicked on our Kickstarter, there was
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Bob Gail sitting right next to me in my Kickstarter video,
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: and Bob is essentially saying, you can trust this guy.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: He's going to finish this project. You can trust your
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: money with him. And that put a lot of people
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: over the top, because you know, fan docs are a
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: dime a dozen, it's for anybody to do it. But
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: to have the creator sitting there next to me endorsing
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: me gave my huge Yeah, it gave it a lot
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: of credibility. And then the other thing we did that
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: was excellent is we had fantastic Kickstarter giveaways, like like tiers,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: tiers that nobody else had, and the most popular one
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: was we made small five x seven tes desktop display
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: shadow boxes with pieces that were taken out of the
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: time Machine that were too damaged to put back in,
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: so we turned them into collectible display cases that were
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: with a CoA signed by Bob Gail and Joe Waltzer.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: So essentially you could own legally a piece of the
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: time Machine for.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Real, And what was the cost of that Just Curious.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: Way too low we priced them. We priced them at
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: like two hundred bucks. I would have bought that, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: they sold out in like fifteen minutes. And then we
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: did a second round of them. Like I think I
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: could have charged four hundred dollars for those suckers.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: I had no idea. You could have easy depending on
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: what it is, you could have probably five hundred to
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: one thousand a pop.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: And yeah, all day.
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah we could have you know, retros Hindsights twenty twenty,
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: but we you know, again, it wasn't about trying to
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: you know, rake them over the coals. It was just
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: to get those out and stuff. And they were wildly popular.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: We had a really cool poster. I had some artwork
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: that I had taken of the finished car. But we
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: had stuff that wasn't just like just the movie. It
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: was real back to the future like official type stuff.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: And it just just blew the doors off. So it
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: was you know, and then at the end of the
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: Kickstarter I'm sitting there thinking, oh God, now I have
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: to fulfill all this nightmare stuff, which and I've filled
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: everything myself, right, Like I didn't have a fulfillment company.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: I boxed and shipped, you know, six hundred individual items
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: to our backers across the world.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: That's an education in itself.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: And believe me, while you're sitting there boxing up like
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: out of time license plates at two in the morning,
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: you're thinking to yourself, Man, I should have just gone
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: to work.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: I should have just gone to work. Got a mateck
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: said to do it as nonsense. I had a leading.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: It's just and I know we all go through that.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: Every indie filmmaker has that same story about just like
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: how much of a nightmare it is. And it's like
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: a boot camp brotherhood in that regard.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: No, there's no question it is. It is fairly brutal,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: and at your level, I can only imagine. And again,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: you had such a responsibility because you were representing Back
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: to the Future, so exactly. It's not like another little
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: indie movie that no one had heard of, like you're
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: you're doing an official.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Doc and not just that.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: But I couldn't pull the plug, like you know, I
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: wanted to quit the film about a dozen times over
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: you know, the years, just because it was exhausting and
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: too much work and just a drain. But you can't,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: you know, because I am representing this giant franchise, and
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: I have to represent the best of what it is.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: How long did it take you from start to finish?
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Well, for a little over four years, which at the
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: time I thought that was forever. And then I and
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: then as I met other indie filmmakers, I realized that's
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: on the short end of indie doc filmmaking time.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, doc could go for a while.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: I've got friends who've been making docs for seven, eight,
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: nine years and they're still not done. So I four
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: years felt like a long time, but I'm you know,
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: it was actually about right on par with most and
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: considering how much I did by myself, that was you know,
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: I think that was a pretty decent schedule.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Now, and you do come from an editing and post
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: production background, Yeah, now, you couldn't. You wouldn't have been
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: able to make this movie unless you were the editor.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think so.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: I've been a professional, like television editor in Los Angeles
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: for about twelve years now, so you know, I knew
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: that I needed to edit it, not just for myself,
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: but because I had over what one hundred and twenty
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: hours of footage and it would have been too hard
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: for anybody else to get up to speed and where
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: the stuff was.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you were shooting it as well.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because I shot it, and so I knew kind
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: of where stuff was. I knew how how the restoration progressed.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: And then I shot all the interviews, and then I
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: went through and logged all the interviews, so I knew
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: where all the sound bites were. And I know several
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: other friends who are top notched professional editors, but it
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: would have taken them weeks just to try to get
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: up to speed to find anything. And then, you know,
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: after working twelve hours at their day job, the last
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: thing they want to do is come home and try
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: to cut my film, you know. And I couldn't have
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: afforded any of them, even if they wanted to, So
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: it just it fell on me.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Now, can you explain to the audience. And this is
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: something I preach about a lot, about tapping into an
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: existing fan base when you're making a project, because it's
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: so invaluable. I mean, you know, yes, and a lot
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: of people like, oh, he's making something for Back to
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: the Future. That's Monsters fan base. I'm like, yes, But
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: the concept is still the same, is if you you
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: went out to create a product that was going to
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: be sold to a audience, and you knew what that
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: audience wants, and you gave that audience what they wanted.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: And it's that concept can go from narrative to documentary.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: But can you explain the power.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: Of that well, I think it would be hard to
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: make a documentary if you didn't all already have identify
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: your fan base and who you're trying to appeal to.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, you're right, Back to the Future has a
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: gigantic fan base, and not just that, but sci fi
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: fans tend to be very technically adept. You know, they're
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: they're online, they consume digital media, they like Blu rays
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: over DBDs, they are digital download and streaming, so they're
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: very active online and that's definitely the Back of the
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: Future fan base, and you know, trying to tap into
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: that is is essential. I don't know if I could
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: have made the movie without it. But even then, even
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: with the gigantic fan base that they have, it's still
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: difficult because my film from the outside is it's a
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: niche film. It's a film about a car where the
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: car and the argument restoration.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah is arguably it's the car.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the car, and you know, a lot of people.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: You hear that, you're like, oh, it's a you know,
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: it's like an episode of Monster Garage where they're they're
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: wrenching out a car for an hour. It's just like, well, no,
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: you know, and to try to explain what it isn't like, oh,
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: is it you know, is it a documentary about you know,
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: behind the scenes of the filmmaking. No, that's that's that's
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: not what this is. This is about the history and
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: restoration of this screen used time machine. And so you know,
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: like you know, every even that cuts back on the
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: potential audience within back to the future that you can
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: apply to, and yeah, you want to make your audience
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: as big as possible. And you know, thankfully they had
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: a very big fan base, but trying to build it
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: from scratch, I I don't know if I could have
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: done it well.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Then also, I mean you're right, because you you know,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: like perfect example. I always use this example the Vegan
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: a Vegan Chef movie. Yeah, you know you yeah, it's
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: like you're like, these people are interested in cooking, Like, well, no,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: it's it's cooking and people are interested in cooking, but
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: it's vegan cooking. And now within vegan cooking, there's raw
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: vegan cooking. Correct, there's vegetarian, there's paleo, there's all sorts
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: of other subgenres of the larger cooking. So same thing
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: goes with here. There's a Back to the Future fan,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: and then there are fans of like of the Deloreate
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: and would like to see that, so that it is big,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: but it's still a smaller sub subset of.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: That's the fame exactly, exactly, yeah, And that's you know,
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: when you're making this film, you have no idea how
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: big or how small that subset's going to be. And
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: that's and that's one of the biggest risks of indie
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: filmmaking is when you take on a passion project, you
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: know you're you're in it to the end, and it
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: could fly and it could flop and you just kind
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: of have to ride it out and whatever happens happens.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Now when you when you finished the movie, so the
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: movie's done, now, how did you market? Thank goodness, thank god,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: it's over.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: It's over.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Who I've gave I've given birth, I'm done. Did you
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: distribute the film yourself? Did you market the film yourself
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: or did you have universal help you how did that
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: help process? Go?
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: Universal didn't help market the film itself because and this
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: is again is the legality of a major studio. I
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: had licensed footage, but my film wasn't an official Universal
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: Studios film. The feature read on the thirtieth anniversary Blu
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: Ray was. But when it came time and I made
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: my feature length standalone version of the film, you know,
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: they were hesitant to promote it because oh, it's not
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: one of our films and blah blah blah. They did
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: give me some shout outs on their Facebook page, which
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: was great, But in terms of marketing, actually a lot
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: of that was once again Joe Walser. It was him
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: motivating and kind of you know, gathering the troops on
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: the Facebook pages and other social media platforms to get
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: the word out to all the big back to the
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: Future Facebook pages and user groups. And I did some
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: discussion on the prop Replica forum. You know those guys
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: they love props.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: So that's a whole that's a whole other subgenre too,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: like yeah, this is the ultimate, this is the ultimate prop.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: But but in terms of distribution, I actually have a
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: domestic distribution company for North America, and so I handed
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: over the actual you know, creation and distribution and getting
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: on all the streaming services they handled that.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: And again that's a whole other subject, is you know, distribution,
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: you distriber versus going with an actual domestic distributed So
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: let's if you I'm still walking through that for international.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: So let me let me ask you a question then
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: and you can say I don't want to talk about it,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: or you can answer it. Do you think that? Because
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: if you would have come to me, and I would
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: have been consulting you on this project, and you would
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: have come to me, like Alex, I have this movie
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: it's about Back to the future, about the machine time machine,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: what do you think I should do? Should I try
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: to self distribute this or should I go through a
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: distributor for domestic? And I would have told you one
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: hundred and ten percent to go self distribution purely because
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: you had such a fan base that would have turned
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: up for this, because of the for international is different international, absolutely,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: but for self distribute for domestic, which is what I
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: did you know, and I had nowhere near the fan
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: base of Back through the Future, and have been fairly
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: successful with it. I think you could have done a Gangbusters.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: So I'm curious on why you chose that route because
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: it was what year was it when you finally released this?
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: The feature came out last year twenty sixteen.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: So so distribuer was around. Self distribution was a thing?
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, oh that thing. I looked into it.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: So what was the reasoning behind you choosing a traditional
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: distributor versus a self distribution outlet? And also, do you
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you want to answer this, Are
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: you happy with your choice?
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Fair enough?
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: Well, I won't mention my distributor by name, but you know,
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: at the time of my thinking was this is that
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: because of the subject matter it was you know, car based,
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: and it was kind of the way I produced it
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: was kind of modular. I have a TV background. I
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: was really hoping to also get it on television and
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: to do that, the distributor I went with had a
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: very solid reputation for indie docks, high profile indie docks.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: I vetted them because I've heard horror stories about but
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: yet terrible, so believe me, I did my work. I
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: vetted them against several people in industry, people I trusted
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: to make sure that they had an actual reputation and
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: then but I wanted to try to get them on
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: television rights because I felt it was a great property
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: for like, you know, the Back to the Future trilogy
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: screenings on TBS. Okay, here's an extra hour of awesome
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: content that ties in sure, And I didn't really have
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: the method to do that myself. That was the next
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: level up of distribution beyond me sure, and I needed
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: help for that. And to be honest, I had done
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: so much of this film by myself that I was
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: ready to ask for some help, like, you know, like
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: I didn't so much. I dropped the ball on so
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: much because I was doing it by myself and details
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: missed that I didn't want to screw up my distribution.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: So I was, look, I want to hand it off
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: to a group of professionals who know how to get
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: the marketing out there, the messaging, who know the easiest
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: way to get these produced for the cheapest way.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: And it was just you know it, it had.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: Everything I was looking for at the time, and so
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: that's what I went with. I mean, you know, now,
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: would I choose different? Yeah, It's it's been about a
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: wash I distriber. I have friends who've done distriber. I
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: hear decent things, and I would certainly consider them next
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: time around. But for this one, it just seemed like
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: the best way to go for the situation I was in.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: And then you're now doing and now you went through
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: somebody else for an international Ah.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: Actually I just went around and around. I had a
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: company in LA that wanted to distribute internationally, and then
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: my domestic distributors like, great, you know, go sign up,
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: it'll be awesome. And then they gave me their what
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: they were looking for, and what they wanted was outrageous expenses.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Just outrageous, that's what you mean.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: As far as like you know how much it goes
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: through their.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: Cans and yeah, yeah, like their caps were just were
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: like more than I would ever make ever, And I'm
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: just like no, So now you know, now I'm actually
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: looking at you know, I was on the phone with
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: the stripper just like a couple of weeks ago in
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: terms of do I want to do that or or
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: for international? Can I just put it on Vimeo, which
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: I could do by myself. And I'm going around around
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: with all that stuff right now.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Still right, well, when we get off. When we get
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: off this interview, I'll talk to you a little bit
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: about that if I Yeah, so can you. So did
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: you tour at all with this film? Did you like
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: go to conventions? Did you do anything like that?
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I did.
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: Actually, I went to a couple of the comic conventions
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: where we screened the film, and then I gave a
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: couple of Q and as I went to San Jose
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: Comic Con, Philly Comic Con. I went to Salt Lake
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: Comic Con a couple of weeks ago, and then I
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: actually I went to DeLorean DCS, which is the DeLorean
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: convention that they have every two years.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: I went and.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: Spoke there and showed the film. So not like a
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: full fledged tour, but but enough and enough that I'm
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: tired of flying all over.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Talking about it. But yeah, and that was great.
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: Like the convention stuff is is fun, and especially when
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: Back to the Future had a large representation at all
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: those conventions I went to, Like I went to the
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: ones that Chris Lloyd was at, that Michael J. Fox
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: was at, so there was already just a huge Back
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: to the Future fan base there and that's why I
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: selected those.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Now, did you sell anything there? While you were there
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: or was I okay?
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: No.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: I whenever I went, I always had a table and
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: I would sell some copies, and you know, some days
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: were more successful than others. You know, most of the
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: time you sit there like, you know, the guy at
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: the table with twenty copies of his movie.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: He's trying to peddle, you know.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Like I've been there many times. It's it's brutal.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you're you're that guy.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: But but I always tried to at least hedge my bets.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: So Terry and Oliver Holler, they they drive around the
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: country and their they're Back to the Future time Machine
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: raising money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and they're
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: they're very well known, and they're at all the conventions.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: So if I was at a convention with them, I
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: would try to get a table close to them because
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: there will be all the fans around the car, you know.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: And and I tried to parlay as much as I could.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: But even then, you know, it's it's still hard. And
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: and breaking through and letting people know what my film
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: was was always the biggest hurdle, just.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: Like what is this film? What is it about?
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: You know, And that's you know, I could I could
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: list a thousand things that I did wrong on this film,
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: and you know, and cutting through the clutter and having
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: a you know, a clear title, and and letting fans
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: clearly know what your film is about. It got a
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: little muddy in there. And I'm even now, I'm still
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: trying to what is what's your movie about?
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: I I've never heard of it?
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: What is it? Right?
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: It happens?
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Now? Did you did you get to meet and meet
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Bob Zamechis at all? I don't remember he was in
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: the dock or not.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: Now Bob's Amechus was not in the dock. I met
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: Bob very briefly once a few months ago at at
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: a back to the Future an unrelated thing. But the
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: only people I've met I know Bob Gaile very well.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: I met Claudia Wells, who was Jennifer Parker. I know
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: her pretty well. I met Chris Lloyd. I met him
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: a few times. Tom Wilson never met Michael J. Fox though,
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: because he was he was never at the same conventions
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: that I was at. But you know, like it's if
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: there's ever a Back to the Future thing in Los
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: Angeles and they're all there. I'm sure I will be
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: there and get a chance to meet them. I mean,
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: it's it's it's cool. But again, like you're in it
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: for so long, after a while you're like, yeah, it's cool,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: but I'm okay sitting this one out, you know, No,
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: I like.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, after you're on the same project for years and
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: years and years, because for you, it's not just a
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: year that the movie's been out. You've been on this
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: half a decade.
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, easy, yeah, And it's just and
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: even now, you know, we're still promoting it, and Back
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: to the Future still continues to be popular, and they're
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: always talking about, you know, putting up fan events in
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: the upcoming years. You know, they did a huge thirtieth
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: Back to the Future fan event in twenty fifteen. I
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: don't know if you were part of that at all
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: or if you went to it, if not, if he
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: missed it. Oh, it was put on by Joe Waltzer,
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: like the same guy who did the restoration. Of course,
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: he's the one to put on this massive, like five
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: day Back to the Future super fan event. And so like,
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: you know, we were out at the Point d Hills
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: Mall where they had a big, like they had a
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: big Twin Pines mall sign built and put in the
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: same place, and they had docks truck and you get
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: pictures in front of it. I mean it was it
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: was like fan insanity.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: That's like as like that's like mecca for Back to
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: It was like going to that mall. Yeah, and it's
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: still there.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, the mall is still there. And not only that,
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: but they they screened the movie in the mall, like
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: in the parking lot there. And then of course when
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: they have the scene you know with the terrorists, they
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: did they reenacted it live in sync. So Marty drives
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: the to the Doreans, driving around the crowd and the
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: vw' is chasing around and there's a thousand fans just screaming.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: Their heads off.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: It's just like like this is just insanity, you know,
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: like it's so surreal you can't even believe it's actually happening.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: That's that that must be just being sick.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was mind blowing. And yeah, like ten year
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: old me like growing up in the Midwest and seeing
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: back to the Future on the screen, like if he
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: saw that, he'd be like, well done, old Steve, well done.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: Like that that was a dream come true.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Now, did you did I know, you've talked to Bob
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: a lot and you've been involved with Bob a lot.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Did you discover any inside stories about the making of
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Back to.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: The Future you could share, you know? Oddly enough, No,
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: I really, I really didn't.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: And actually, at the same time, Cassine Gaines put out
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: a book which was like, we don't need roads. I
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: think it was called The Back of the Future History,
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: which had all those stories.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: So I just read his book. Oh oh, these are
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: the stories I didn't know.
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: But with Bob, you know, I honestly I tread pretty lightly.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: I when I'm around him, I try to be very
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: cautious of his time, and I try to be very
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: respectful because he's he's still working.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: He's still a very busy guy.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: You know, he's got a thousand things to do, and
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: you know, I try to be cautious and I try
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: not to. I try not to do the fan stuff.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: You know you know what I mean by that, Like, yeah, I've.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Been around like celebrities of fans, and imagine when you're
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: working with a person you idolize, or you're working with
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: someone you have a tremendous amount of respect and you
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: just want to kind of geek out to. Yeah, it's tough.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: And trust me, I've been in I've been in a
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: room with huge celebrities, movies that I want to that
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I've you grew up with, and I just want to
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: go take a picture of you can come out. I
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: just want to take a picture. Can you sign this
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: for me? Like, but you can't because you're a professional.
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and I crossed over from that fandom
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: into professional you know, back to the future filmmaker dumb
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: and and you know, you don't want to He gets
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: the fan stuff all the time of the conventions, and
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: that's great and he loves it. But when I'm around him,
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: I I want to be the professional. And and you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: every time I would contact him, it's because I needed
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: help with something.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: You know, Bob, what do I do? You know, the
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Universal is not calling me back. What should I do
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: about this? And you know, it's mostly like I'm in trouble, Bob.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: What am I going to do?
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Right? As opposed to so, Bob, how was it on
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: the first day of shooting again. Yeah.
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: Now, I like every now and then he'd be telling
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: those stories while people were in the room, and I
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: would listen. But I never really really went down that road.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: One thing I did say to him, though, is when
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: I was in production on it, and I was pretty
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: far along, I said, you know, Bob, making this film
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: is it's the hardest thing I've ever done. I had
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: no idea just how insanely hard it would be. And
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: he shakes his head, he goes, yeah, you know, like nobody,
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: nobody understands how hard it is to produce a film,
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: and and you know, Back to the Future was a
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: terribly difficult film to produce, especially with Eric Stoltz, and
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: they'd reshoot a bunch of it. Like I put myself
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: in his shoes, being what, you know, like a thirty
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: two year old producer with this giant film and millions
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: of dollars bleeding out, and like, you're never going to
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: make another movie again if this bombs, like the pressure
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: he must have been under, you know, And I think.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: About Bob's the Bobbs as they call them.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know, I kind of think about that
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: and empathize about that, because you know, my film is
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: not even on the same level, but it's still stressful
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: and hard. And I think that's why Bob and I
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: kind of got along, because he understands that what being
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: a producer is and the sacrifice and the troubleshooting and
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: just the misery that that's involved with it because he's
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: done it.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: It is the misery, it really is. And for people
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: who don't know that are listening, if you watch Back
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: to the Future, that Michael J. Fox was not the
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: original Marty McFly, it was Eric stolt and they.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Shot what like a third of it, I think third.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Of the movie with Eric Stoltz, and you see some
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: of that in the behind the scenes and the blu ray,
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: and you just that the call had to be made
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: that someone that Roberts de Machis had to go to
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Spielberg and go, look, yeah, we got to recast, and like, oh,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: can you imagine No, I can't imagine that conversation at all,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: just just like you know, the heartache or even like
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: when you're when they're shooting with Eric stolts you know,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: great actor, but just imagine looking at your daily is
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: just going to yourself fudge.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: This movie's gotta be bad.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: This is not. He's just he's great, but he's not
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: good for this.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: And just just imagine that that that sinking feeling, you know,
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: of like are we ever going to work in this
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: town again? I I have nothing but tremendous empathy for
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: them as producers now, and you know, all of us
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: who have been indie producers, because it's so it's such
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: a hard damn job that you can't even begin to
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: describe how hard it is.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when we're in we're indie guys, so it's it's
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: a bit difference. We do have pressures, but I cannot
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: imagine the pressures of millions of dollars.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: It's just on top of you in a studio and
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: and a concept like Back to the Future, which was
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: it was a pretty out there concept.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was question Yeah.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: But again, what's what's great about Bob is again he's
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: very producery, where you know, I'm like, Bob, I'm making
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: this film, and his opinion just kind of like, you
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: know what, go for it, give it a shot, give
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: it a try. And that's such a producer thing to say,
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: you know, just throw it up against the wall and
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: see what sticks. You know, don't edit yourself, don't stop
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: yourself from trying it. Just go and try it and
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: see what happens.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Now, why do you think Back to the Future is
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: such a classic and has touched so many people.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: See, you're you're getting into fandom now, I told you,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: I know, I know, But it's I think everybody listening
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: who's a fan knows it all knows the answer to
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: that already. And it's just because it's it's a timeless story.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: It's it's a sci fi movie, it's a romance, it's
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: an action movie. You know, it's an uh, it's all
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: these different movies combined into one. And every every line
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: of the script is perfect, and it's tight, and it
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: just propels the story forward every single second, you know,
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: not a not a second wasted on screen. And and
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: you know, even when I saw it and I was
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: too young to understand the going back and visiting your
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: parents stuff like that time machine man, just like, still
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: to this day when I see those scenes, like my
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: heart still skips a beat, and I've sat in that
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: car hundreds of times and like I still like get
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: you know, I feel my pulse race just because of
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: how cool it is. And you know, my wife teases
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: me and just like, how can you even sit and
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: watch this movie after all the times you've seen it
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: making your film, And I'm like, cause it's still excites me.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: It is, it is for me. It's I remember I
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: remember going to see it in nineteen eighty five.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: I remember going to the theater seeing it and my
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: mind being absolutely blown. You know. That was that there
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: was that wonderful, wonderful time in the eighties that so
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: many great movies were made, like eighty from eighty one,
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: It's just so many great movies. Eighty five. Summer of
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: eighty five was amazing, Summer of eighty four.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're talking my language now, Like I was. I
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: was ten when Back to the Future came out, so
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: I was just a little on the young side, but
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: I was still in that sweet spot for all those awesome,
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: awesome eighties movies.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: I mean between Ghostbusters.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: Oh, Readers, Grandma, Back the Future, Gains and then Goonies.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: But here's another one that it's one of my Joe Walser,
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: it's one of our favorites and nobody ever talks about it.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: Explorers.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Oh it's amazing.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: Flors like so many people don't know Explorers at all,
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: and yet that's one of my favorite quintessential eighties teenager
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: you know films.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: I love everything about that.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: I would also throw Flight of the Navigator in there, yes,
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: and I don't get it. And I would also throw
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: in Monster.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: Squad, Yeah, Monster Squad, absolutely.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: Toss those guys into them, because those are also lesser
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: known because the Goonies took you know, took over. Yeah,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: but now we're geeking out in the eighties movies, and
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: we could I could talk about eighties a whole episode
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: on that.
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: What's funny is actually, in a way, Goonies kind of
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: kicked off my whole out of time movie in a
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: way I owe it to Goonies. Why And I'll tell
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: that story real quick. In twenty ten, before I knew
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: anybody like actually it was before that, but I I
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: had put together a parody trailer, you know, when the
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: mass were really popular. Well, I did a mashup. I
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: did a mashup of Goonies of the Goonies meets Pirates
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: of the Caribbean. Okay, And I'm a professional editor, So
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: what I did was I took both films professionally digitize
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: them and cut together like a professional trailer, not you
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: know not, and it looked it looked real and it
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: was called Goonies of the Caribbean. And when you watch
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: the trailer, it has a plot like the goonies discover,
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: you know, the ship and then the pirates come out.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: And it was this whole thing and it was really
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: well done and it was popular online. And in fact,
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: I got an email from Dick Donner one day telling
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: me how much he liked my trailer. And he's just like,
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: and remember, goonies never say die. And I'm just like,
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: Dick donnerd just make me a goonie.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm calling it. I'm calling it, Like yeah,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: he did. But that story aside.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: One day I get an email from a guy who's
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: just like, hey, you'd like goonies. I'm like, yeah, go
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: check this out. And he sent me a photo of
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: Corey Feldman as an adult sitting in a time machine
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: and I said, who are you and where is that
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: and he goes, my name's Joe Waltzer. It's my time machine.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, I've got to meet you. And then
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: like two days later, I was at his condo checking
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: out his time Machine and we've been friends ever since.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: And then Joe I've heard that before.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: I was at a fondo checking out.
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah Machine, and Joe ended up as the head of
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: the restoration. But that's how I met is because Joe
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: saw my Goonies Pirates trailer online and emailed me about it,
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: tell me how much he liked it, and that started
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: this whole weird adventure. So the Goonies, the Goonies are
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: at the core of everything.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: You've got an email from Dick Donner.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: He did it was it was amazing.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: I like, I couldn't believe it, Like, you know, like, oh,
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: you're always afraid that they're going to say thank you,
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: take that down right now, or we'll sue you, you know,
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: like something like that. But he he said it just
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: tickled his fancy and he really liked it. So I'm
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: just like, boy, I'm framing that one.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: I still smile thinking about that one.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to ask you a few questions. I
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: asked all of my guests, what advice would you give
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: a filmmaker wanting to break into the business today.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Boy, I don't know, because I feel like I'm still
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: trying to break into the business. To be honest, like,
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: I don't like you should go ask a successful multi
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: millionaire film producer that question, because if I knew the answer,
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: I'd be doing it.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you've been doing You've been in the business
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: for ten fifteen years now. Yeah, you're a little you're
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: a little head of the film students. So I have
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: vice for that.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: I do have an answer if if there's one field
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: that you want to do, whether it's writing for scripted TV,
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: writing features, you know, or whatever you want to do
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: in college, intern at the company you want to internet
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: in college, if you that will set you on the
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: right foot for everything else that follows. So if you
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: get an internship with you know, like say NBC Universal
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: or around one of your favorite TV shows, as an intern,
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: you get to sit in the writer's room, you get
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: to meet the people, you get to know how things work,
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: and then they'll be more inclined to hire you as
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: a PA. And once you're a PA, they'll be more
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: inclined out to hire you because you know all the
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: ropes already.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: If you get you can get into the place you
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: want to work early as an intern, do it, and
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: that will set you on the right path.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: That's a great advice. That's exactly what I did in college.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: I worked at Universal in Florida.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: Oh there you go.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was working on the back lot all
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: throughout my I actually skipped in school to work for free.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: It was all that would be awesome.
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I I interned out here for a few companies,
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: So I did it. But they were feature companies and
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: I just didn't end up doing features. So but yeah,
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: great experience and that that will help more than anything else.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Now, can you tell me what book had the biggest
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: impact on your life or career.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: I wasn't prepared for these questions.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: I know you were. No, do you have anything on
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: the top of your head?
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: Nope, I don't.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: I will give a shout out.
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: I one book that pops to mind that I really
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: really enjoyed is Rubble.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: Without a Crew.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course Roberts.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean that's just that's such a filmmaker
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: go to because any any book that details the horrible
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: struggles of any other filmmaker I want to read. I mean, like,
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: I want to know that every other filmmaker is having
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: just as much of a miserable time as I did,
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: you know what, And that's comforting.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: I don't say that to be mean.
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: I say that as terms of comfort because because making
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: films is hard, and it's even successful, people struggle with it.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: And I like knowing that.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: You don't want to hear from somebody you know, I
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: had a great time. It was easy.
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: No, No, because because odds are they're lying or they
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: just had some kind of coep credit where they just
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: show up once a week and walked around the set
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: and home like no, you weren't involved, you didn't do it. No, No,
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: it's just like yeah, like I want to know the
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: real stories. And again, in making this film, one of
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: the great things is that at the conventions I get
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: to meet a lot of the other indie filmmakers and
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: we all have this aim stories about how hard it
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: is and the studios and this and that, and it's
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: just and you realize that when things go wrong, it's
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: not that it's not that you're doing things wrong. That's
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: simply part of the process. Like that's making a film.
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: You're If things aren't going wrong, you're not making a film, right, exactly.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: That's a great tag. That's a great.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: Quote, sir, I feel free to use it.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: That's a great quote. Now, what is the lesson that
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: took you the longest to learn, whether in the film
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: business or in life.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: In this film, it's uh, don't try to do everything yourself.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: That alone was the biggest mistake and the biggest hurdle
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: that I I kind of essentially threw up in front
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: of myself, was I took I took on way too
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: much of this project by myself. And I like I
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: wrote the film, I produced it, I shot it, I
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: directed it, and I cut it. And I did all
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: the graphics. I ran the Kickstarter, I designed the web page,
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: I designed the DVD sleeve like I I cut the trail,
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: I cut all the bonus features, like I literally. And
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: I say that not as a source of pride, but
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: more of a source of embarrassment that that I didn't
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: bring in more people. But you know, at the time,
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: this stuff takes a lot of time, and people people
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: want to be paid, and I didn't have the money
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: to pay people. And and when you and then if
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: they do it on their own time, it would have
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: taken another three years to get done because they you know,
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: cut for twenty minutes here or an hour here, and
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: I was I was on a deadline. So I ended
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: up doing way too much by myself, and details were
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: constantly kind of falling through the craps or falling through
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: the cracks and dropping and and it was just you
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: know the nature of trying to do too much as
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: an individual. And I Yeah, having a team of like
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: two or three people who are all equally dedicated, who
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: all have an equal share in it, that will all
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: support each other and not have anybody bail, I think
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: is critical and makes things a lot easier because you
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: can hand stuff off if you need to.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Now, what are three of your favorite films of all time?
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: Ah, let's see.
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: I would but well, actually I would say on the
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: top of the list, i'd put It's a Wonderful Life,
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: which which is not unlike Back to the Future. You know,
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: it's it's it's seeing what happens life without you, you know,
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: and a different path, and there's a little bit of
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: time travel and mystery in there. So I would say that,
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: and then yeah, back to the Future definitely number two.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: I would put Ghostbusters at number three. I would put
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: you know, the Star Wars, you know the original trilogy, somewhere,
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: you know four Raiders, five, and then you just start
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: getting into all the other, you know, awesome eighties movies.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: It's simply a list of eighties I totally admit it.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: You know, it's yeah, I put Explorers up there. You know,
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: even though the Alien third act is really weird and goofy,
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: you know, a little clownish, but I still I still
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: love it. Yeah, I you can definitely tell that I
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: grew up completely within the eighties, and that's you know,
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: they're they're my favorite films.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: And that's why you must love Stranger Things.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: You know what I do.
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: I haven't finished second season, don't spoil it, but yeah,
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: I'm savoring this one. I'm savoring it going slow. Yeah,
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: I love It's funny because when I watch Stranger Things,
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: I think to myself, none of us made proton packs
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: that look that.
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Good in the eighties.
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: Like that's my eyes, Like we get cardboard boxes. None
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: of ours look that good.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: I actually I was I dressed up. I think I
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: think it was the six I think it was eighty five. Actually,
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: I think it was eighty five. I dressed up and
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: we did a whole show on my school and I
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: was one of the Ghostbusters, and yeah it did not
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: look that.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: Good, No, But it's so funny because all of my friends,
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: like obviously, since I made a movie about the restoration
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: of the time Machine, I have come to know a
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: lot of very very good fan prop makers, including all
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: the Ghostbuster guys, all the Back to the Future guys,
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: all the Aliens guys, and so like, you know, they're
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: proton packs and stuff now are screen accurate and like
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: they have the full size ecdos like in their yard,
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: Like that's how big my fans my friends are. But like, yeah,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: seeing like all of us have pictures of us in
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: the eighties dressed just like those kids, Like, oh my god,
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: I almost have that photo me and my dressed like
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: Ghostbusters in the eighties.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: That's insane.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: And that is the genius of the Duffer brothers.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's oh my god. Yeah, they they got everything
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: right on that one, you know. But again, I would
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: love to know the story of how hard it was
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: them to try to get the series made anywhere else.
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: Those are the great stories of you know, how Back
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: to Feature was rejected by everybody, how Jaws almost didn't
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: get made because they went you know, over budget, over time.
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: The stories behind your favorite films of how they were
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: disasters are the stories I love the most.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Now where can people find you and find information
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: about you, your work and also the movie the movie?
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: They can go to my website.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: It's out of timemovie dot com and out of time
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: is spelled like the license plate. It's out a time,
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: out of timemovie dot com. The movie is currently available
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: on iTunes, Hulu, Vimeo, and it's also available on Blu
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: ray and DVD U and we ship worldwide and it's
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: all all the links are available through the website. And
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: if they want to email me, if they want to
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: criticize my film, you know, tell me that my filmmaking
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: isn't that hard and that I'm wrong, or that Explorers
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: isn't awesome, they can contact me to the website because,
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: as I said before, I run the website because I
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: literally do everything related to the film.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: It comes straight to me. It's not some big team
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: of people, although I wish it were.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Steve Man, thank you so much for taking the time
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: out to do this. Man, it's been an absolute pleasure
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: keeecking out with you. And also talking talking shop with
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: you man.
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, and hey, I just want to say, keep up
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: the good work. I love the podcasts, I love hearing
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: other indie filmmakers' stories, and thank you for doing this.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: We appreciate it.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Oh brother, thank you man. I appreciate that.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: It was great talking about Back to the Future a
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: lot and having Steve on the show and really just
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: discovering his whole journey of how he was able to
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: put this this kind of crazy film together. So Steeve,
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: thank you again so much for being on the show.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: And if you guys want links to anything we discussed
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: in this episode, just head over to Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: Forward slash for twenty Thank you so much for listening, guys.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: to you soon.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: dot tv.