Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 435: Building Films from Scratch_Mastering Microbudget Movie-Making with Evan Kidd
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network.
- 0:06Speaker 2: For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
- 0:10Speaker 2: ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
- 0:12Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four thirty five.
- 0:16Speaker 1: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
- 0:19Speaker 1: breath and try again. KT Whitten broadcasting from a dark,
- 0:24Speaker 1: windowless room in Hollywood.
- 0:26Speaker 2: When we really should be working on that next draft.
- 0:28Speaker 2: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
- 0:32Speaker 2: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
- 0:35Speaker 2: screenplay bulletproof.
- 0:36Speaker 1: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
- 0:42Speaker 1: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
- 0:44Speaker 3: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
- 0:46Speaker 1: Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
- 0:50Speaker 4: Now.
- 0:51Speaker 1: Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
- 0:56Speaker 1: on the kind of project you are in the goals
- 0:59Speaker 1: of the project you are, so we actually break it
- 1:01Speaker 1: down by three categories micro budget, indie film, market, and
- 1:05Speaker 1: studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a
- 1:07Speaker 1: reader that's used to reading temp pole movies when your
- 1:10Speaker 1: movie is going to be done for one hundred thousand
- 1:12Speaker 1: dollars and we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof
- 1:15Speaker 1: script coverage, our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA,
- 1:19Speaker 1: wm E, NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist,
- 1:24Speaker 1: and many many more. So if you need your screenplay
- 1:27Speaker 1: or TV script covered by professional readers, head on over
- 1:32Speaker 1: to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host
- 1:37Speaker 1: Dave Bullets.
- 1:39Speaker 3: Our next guest. We talk a lot about team building
- 1:42Speaker 3: and how do you find those reliable people, how do
- 1:44Speaker 3: you find people that you know you can collaborate with,
- 1:47Speaker 3: you know, And we also talk a lot about resource
- 1:49Speaker 3: based film making, you know, aka the Rodriguez List, because
- 1:53Speaker 3: you shouldn't make no if you're going to make a film.
- 1:55Speaker 3: I'm not talking about a student film. If you're going
- 1:58Speaker 3: to make a film nowadays, and you know you don't
- 2:01Speaker 3: have a bunch of money in the bank, you know,
- 2:04Speaker 3: you're not gonna be able to find some VC who's
- 2:07Speaker 3: just gonna, you know, money, drop a million dollars in
- 2:08Speaker 3: your bank account. What you should do is, you know,
- 2:12Speaker 3: use what resources you have to make a film. Don't
- 2:15Speaker 3: make a colossal space movie or some action movie like
- 2:19Speaker 3: a Lah John Wu, it's just gonna end up blowing
- 2:23Speaker 3: up in your face. And I and take it from
- 2:25Speaker 3: personal experience, it has blown up in my face before
- 2:28Speaker 3: when I've tried to just shoot for the moon and
- 2:31Speaker 3: you end up with a with a half done movie
- 2:33Speaker 3: that the effects don't look good enough. You know, a
- 2:36Speaker 3: movie that comes to mind is Primer. If you've ever
- 2:40Speaker 3: seen Primer, you know, it's a it's a whole movie
- 2:42Speaker 3: about time travel and the guy shot at Shane Kruz
- 2:45Speaker 3: shot it for like seven thousand dollars, and it's it's
- 2:48Speaker 3: very well done. It's a very cerebral movie. But it
- 2:52Speaker 3: just shows what you can do with the right resources
- 2:53Speaker 3: and the right script. But speak of the right resources
- 2:56Speaker 3: and the right script. You know, my next guest, we're
- 2:59Speaker 3: gonna be talking about just that. We're gonna be talking
- 3:01Speaker 3: about all of this stuff. And it is a phenomenal
- 3:04Speaker 3: phenomenal for conversation with guests. Evan Kid, Hey, Evan, thanks
- 3:09Speaker 3: off coming on the show.
- 3:10Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for having me Man, Hey.
- 3:12Speaker 3: My pleasure. Evan. You know, it's a question I always
- 3:15Speaker 3: ask everybody. It's a question I I just always begin
- 3:18Speaker 3: every interview with and that question is Evan, what got
- 3:21Speaker 3: you started in the film industry.
- 3:23Speaker 4: I think just a love of the craft of cinema.
- 3:27Speaker 4: You know, It's it's that simple for me, as you know,
- 3:30Speaker 4: the other filmmakers have said this before, but you know,
- 3:32Speaker 4: I'm really no different. Like I grew up around it.
- 3:36Speaker 4: We watched a lot of movies in my house growing up,
- 3:39Speaker 4: and it was kind of the default. If something wasn't
- 3:41Speaker 4: going on, you know, parents would put on a movie,
- 3:43Speaker 4: we'd watch it, and I just kind of grew up
- 3:45Speaker 4: in that culture. You know. I ended up stealing my
- 3:48Speaker 4: dad's VHS camera a lot of times when I was
- 3:50Speaker 4: like three and four years old, and I would you
- 3:52Speaker 4: know shoot stuff around the house and the pets and
- 3:54Speaker 4: you know, stuff around the neighborhood. So it kind of
- 3:56Speaker 4: just grew really naturally. And then when I went, you
- 4:00Speaker 4: know into high school, there was like this little uh,
- 4:03Speaker 4: you know, film in the morning announcements class, which was
- 4:06Speaker 4: really cut and dry, but gave you access to you know,
- 4:08Speaker 4: tripods and editing software and stuff like that. So I
- 4:11Speaker 4: would kind of use that after hours and do what
- 4:13Speaker 4: I wanted, and I thought that was cool. And then
- 4:16Speaker 4: that was around the time YouTube is really taking off.
- 4:18Speaker 4: And so you know, I think all those things kind
- 4:19Speaker 4: of gelled together to propel me into you know, pursuing
- 4:22Speaker 4: it once I got to college and kind of from
- 4:25Speaker 4: there it's been history. So it's you know, been pretty natural.
- 4:28Speaker 4: But I think it's also been a direct correlation to how,
- 4:31Speaker 4: you know, over the years, technology has really allowed more
- 4:34Speaker 4: people into the film business. You know, I've never had
- 4:37Speaker 4: a huge inkling to just go and direct you know,
- 4:39Speaker 4: Avengers five or whatever. For me, it's always just been
- 4:42Speaker 4: about telling a compelling story with you know, resources around me,
- 4:46Speaker 4: whether that be you know, cast and crew or just
- 4:48Speaker 4: you know the technology that you know, so many of
- 4:50Speaker 4: us have access to.
- 4:52Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, very true. And you know I remember
- 4:55Speaker 3: those big VHS cameras.
- 4:56Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 4:56Speaker 3: See see you and I are kind of sort of
- 4:59Speaker 3: around the same age, I I mean, but you know,
- 5:01Speaker 3: and sometimes some of my guests are a little bit
- 5:03Speaker 3: older than I am, so you know, they didn't have that,
- 5:06Speaker 3: They had this like the Super Ring. Hey, that's what
- 5:07Speaker 3: they remember when they were a kid, you know. And
- 5:09Speaker 3: and guys like us, we had the you know those
- 5:11Speaker 3: big old it looks like a big boom box you
- 5:14Speaker 3: put on your shoulder. You couldn't use it for more
- 5:16Speaker 3: than five minutes or you know, you'd kill your back
- 5:17Speaker 3: and your neck, and you know, it looked like a
- 5:20Speaker 3: bazooka and uh, you know, and then now they went
- 5:23Speaker 3: to many DV but yeah, you know, I remember when
- 5:25Speaker 3: YouTube first was taking off in like two thousand and four,
- 5:27Speaker 3: two thousand and five. Yeah, and I remember just being
- 5:30Speaker 3: blown away. And I remember, you know, people were just
- 5:31Speaker 3: putting up different stuff and it was still on the
- 5:34Speaker 3: you know, nobody really talked about it until a few
- 5:36Speaker 3: years later, and then all of a sudden, it was
- 5:38Speaker 3: like this freaking juggernaut exactly.
- 5:39Speaker 4: I mean, I remember when it first, you know, launched off.
- 5:42Speaker 4: I was like, we can put online video on the Internet.
- 5:44Speaker 4: And you know, at that time, my parents believe it
- 5:46Speaker 4: not still a dial up, so that concept was in
- 5:49Speaker 4: like two thousand and four, super foreign to me. Uh
- 5:51Speaker 4: And so you know, I would only watch YouTube literally
- 5:54Speaker 4: at school, and we weren't even supposed to do that.
- 5:56Speaker 4: So you know, for me, it was like technology was
- 5:58Speaker 4: just slowly emerging out of the shell. And then, you know,
- 6:01Speaker 4: give it a few months, you know, most everyone including
- 6:04Speaker 4: my family, got you know, DSL and faster internet, and
- 6:08Speaker 4: everything kind of started catching up to what you could do.
- 6:11Speaker 4: And for me that was extremely exciting. And I remember
- 6:13Speaker 4: thinking I could just make a movie and put it
- 6:15Speaker 4: on YouTube, like, holy shit, that's crazy, like and you know,
- 6:18Speaker 4: for me that didn't even seem within the realm of possibility.
- 6:22Speaker 4: But you know, like I was saying, given a little
- 6:24Speaker 4: bit of technology, I think that's half the reason I'm
- 6:26Speaker 4: able to do what I do and so many others.
- 6:29Speaker 3: Yeah, totally agree. And you know, I actually want to
- 6:32Speaker 3: get into that too, about you know, making your film
- 6:34Speaker 3: Son of Clowns and you know, working with all the
- 6:36Speaker 3: resources you have around you. But I wanted to ask
- 6:39Speaker 3: really quickly, did you go to a film school?
- 6:40Speaker 4: I did. Yeah, I went to East Carolina University a
- 6:43Speaker 4: couple of years ago. I graduated from that in Greenville,
- 6:46Speaker 4: North Carolina. And it was a great program. I really
- 6:48Speaker 4: enjoyed it definitely taught me a lot. I think it
- 6:50Speaker 4: was a lot more of a technical program in terms
- 6:53Speaker 4: of how to operate a camera, cut your own stuff
- 6:56Speaker 4: like that than it was, you know, truly trying to
- 6:58Speaker 4: craft you know, screenplays. That there was screenwriting classes, but
- 7:01Speaker 4: I kind of think it geared more to that. So
- 7:04Speaker 4: I did a lot of learning on my own in
- 7:05Speaker 4: terms of you know, the story structure and all that. Like,
- 7:08Speaker 4: it was definitely there, but I think if you really
- 7:10Speaker 4: really wanted to get the full you know, breadth of it,
- 7:12Speaker 4: I would talk to my professors and they'd be like,
- 7:14Speaker 4: you know, here's this resource. You got to look at
- 7:16Speaker 4: it on your own hours just because it wasn't built
- 7:17Speaker 4: into every part of the curriculum, but I would definitely
- 7:20Speaker 4: recommend it. It was a great program and really cut my
- 7:22Speaker 4: teeth there for sure. You know, met a lot of
- 7:25Speaker 4: the people who would end up helping me make Son
- 7:27Speaker 4: of Clowns and other films like that. But yeah, I
- 7:29Speaker 4: definitely think that is you know important, and you know,
- 7:32Speaker 4: at the very least, it gave me the know how
- 7:35Speaker 4: because I also do a lot of documentary work and
- 7:38Speaker 4: so a lot of designs in those situations, I don't
- 7:40Speaker 4: have as big of a crew as I would, you know,
- 7:42Speaker 4: on my narrative stuff, and like you know, shooting something
- 7:44Speaker 4: last last month and I was literally the only crew member,
- 7:48Speaker 4: and it was kind of by design, Like if I
- 7:50Speaker 4: really dug around, I could have you know, probably got
- 7:52Speaker 4: a camera operator or sound designer stuff like that, but
- 7:55Speaker 4: it was just such a you know, sporadic opportunity. I
- 7:59Speaker 4: didn't have time, and so in those occasions, I'm really
- 8:02Speaker 4: glad I went to film school because otherwise I don't
- 8:04Speaker 4: know if I'd know how to operate a camera, run sound,
- 8:07Speaker 4: you know, kind of do all those technical things.
- 8:09Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, that's a question I usually ask.
- 8:12Speaker 3: You know, certain people have come on and they said, Dave,
- 8:15Speaker 3: film school is a waste of time. Some people have
- 8:17Speaker 3: come on and said, hey, film school was phenomenal to me,
- 8:20Speaker 3: and you know, and it's it's something I always go
- 8:21Speaker 3: back to because you know, our experience is your perception
- 8:24Speaker 3: equals reality, and you know, if your perception of if
- 8:27Speaker 3: something is you know, skewed or something is perception, if
- 8:30Speaker 3: something is hey listen, my experience was terrible, you know,
- 8:33Speaker 3: and my perception of it is it was totally worthless,
- 8:35Speaker 3: you know it.
- 8:36Speaker 1: You know, So I just ask.
- 8:38Speaker 3: People to be honest, you know what I mean, and
- 8:39Speaker 3: if and and I always like hearing people's different experiences.
- 8:42Speaker 3: I know, my listeners like hearing different people's experiences about
- 8:45Speaker 3: this stuff because I think it's that's critical, you know
- 8:47Speaker 3: what I mean. And it's sort of something you've touched
- 8:49Speaker 3: on with what you just said is also something critical,
- 8:52Speaker 3: and that is building a team. And I always ask people,
- 8:54Speaker 3: you know, how did you build your team? You know,
- 8:55Speaker 3: where does your where did you guys meet? Uh, you know,
- 8:58Speaker 3: and and you met your whole team through film school?
- 9:01Speaker 4: Yeah, most of them. I did meet a lot of them,
- 9:03Speaker 4: a couple of folks after the fact, but you know,
- 9:06Speaker 4: I think it was that network that really makes film
- 9:09Speaker 4: school and valuable. You know, I've heard a lot of
- 9:11Speaker 4: people say you don't need film school. I've heard a
- 9:13Speaker 4: lot of people say, oh, yeah, you got to do it,
- 9:15Speaker 4: or else you're screwed. I kind of fall in the
- 9:17Speaker 4: middle of the road thinking, you know, obviously I'm a
- 9:19Speaker 4: product of a film school and I went to one.
- 9:21Speaker 4: But at the same time, it was a film school
- 9:23Speaker 4: that I think, really, you know, it kind of forced
- 9:26Speaker 4: me to do a lot of outside learning outside of
- 9:27Speaker 4: the program, So I think it kind of good, got
- 9:29Speaker 4: a good breadth of you know, a lot of different options,
- 9:33Speaker 4: you know, Like I said, I there's this story I
- 9:35Speaker 4: always tell I made this documentary called spaz Out a
- 9:37Speaker 4: couple of years ago, and the project was, you know,
- 9:41Speaker 4: out of this documentary class I was taking an undergrad
- 9:43Speaker 4: and basically you had to make this ten minute documentary
- 9:46Speaker 4: over the course of about two months, and it was
- 9:48Speaker 4: the story, you know I was telling was about this
- 9:50Speaker 4: underground punk groy music scene and there was you know,
- 9:53Speaker 4: doing shows out of this warehouse. It was super legal,
- 9:56Speaker 4: but there was a lot of you know, heart in
- 9:57Speaker 4: the you know, people trying to make music happen.
- 10:01Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
- 10:07Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
- 10:10Speaker 4: And to me, it felt like a bigger story. So I,
- 10:12Speaker 4: you know, wanted to make something longer. And we're talking
- 10:14Speaker 4: to my professor and he was like, why do you
- 10:16Speaker 4: want to make it a bigger story? And I was like,
- 10:18Speaker 4: just because I feel like that's the best way to
- 10:19Speaker 4: tell it. And he was like, if that's the reason,
- 10:21Speaker 4: then go for it. And you know, I think that
- 10:25Speaker 4: has stayed with me because a lot of times I
- 10:27Speaker 4: want to make projects that maybe aren't originally thought of
- 10:31Speaker 4: or aren't originally you know in the you know, quote
- 10:33Speaker 4: unquote guidelines of something. And I think film school is
- 10:36Speaker 4: a you know, great launching pad. So you know, I
- 10:39Speaker 4: guess I got a little off track, but I would say,
- 10:41Speaker 4: you know, coming back around, you know, I think it
- 10:44Speaker 4: really depends for each person. Like if you are going
- 10:46Speaker 4: to go into extreme debt and you know, you know,
- 10:49Speaker 4: it might kind of mess up your trajectory for the
- 10:51Speaker 4: next couple of years. And you're pretty self taught, you
- 10:53Speaker 4: watch YouTube videos and stuff like that, you may not
- 10:56Speaker 4: need that kind of technical guidance. But you know, again,
- 11:00Speaker 4: and if you want the resources and the crew base
- 11:02Speaker 4: and the you know, internships and stuff like that, you're
- 11:04Speaker 4: not going to get that through YouTube tutorials. So I
- 11:06Speaker 4: think it really is kind of something each person needs
- 11:09Speaker 4: to weigh individually.
- 11:11Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's very true. A friend of mine, you know,
- 11:14Speaker 3: he went to UH I think he went to n
- 11:16Speaker 3: YU and you know, Morton Scrissese comes in to talk
- 11:19Speaker 3: to a class like once a semester or whatever, and
- 11:22Speaker 3: you know, when he walked in, he was like, holy shit,
- 11:23Speaker 3: Mortin Scissegy just walked in the right and and was like, Hey,
- 11:26Speaker 3: everybody want to talk about film And it's like, who's
- 11:29Speaker 3: gonna Who's gonna say no? First off? And you know
- 11:32Speaker 3: what I mean, but it's uh, but it's that, you know,
- 11:34Speaker 3: that's the benefit he got from going to n YU
- 11:36Speaker 3: or you know, and if you go to USC I
- 11:38Speaker 3: think Steven Spielberg comes in like once a semester as well.
- 11:41Speaker 4: Yeah, and I mean that's invaluable. I mean, if you're
- 11:43Speaker 4: able to get that, how do you pass it up?
- 11:44Speaker 4: Like you said?
- 11:46Speaker 3: Yeah, and but you know it's you know that. That's
- 11:48Speaker 3: what we want to talk about too, is you're building
- 11:50Speaker 3: your team, you know, and using those resources around you
- 11:53Speaker 3: to actually make your film. And I want to ask
- 11:55Speaker 3: you about building your team. So you know, Evan, when
- 11:58Speaker 3: you were building your team, I don't maybe it did,
- 12:01Speaker 3: maybe you didn't, But I don't know if anybody really
- 12:03Speaker 3: goes out with that mindset of, Hey, you know what
- 12:05Speaker 3: I'm going to go today, look for a team that
- 12:07Speaker 3: I could put together. I think it sort of happens naturally.
- 12:10Speaker 3: It happens organically, and eventually, you know, something clicks in
- 12:13Speaker 3: your mind where you go, hey, I could work with
- 12:14Speaker 3: this person as a producer, you know what I mean?
- 12:17Speaker 3: And I think you know, that's how people sort of
- 12:19Speaker 3: build teams, as I found doing this podcast and even
- 12:22Speaker 3: my own experiences in making stuff. So you know, what
- 12:26Speaker 3: are some of the qualities Evan, that you find with
- 12:28Speaker 3: your team that that when you were sort of putting
- 12:31Speaker 3: them together, when when you you know, May May May
- 12:33Speaker 3: put that team together to make a Son of Clowns.
- 12:35Speaker 4: Your team is your backbone, and you are pretty much
- 12:41Speaker 4: as made as your team is made, I guess I
- 12:42Speaker 4: would say. And so you know, it's like a sports team.
- 12:45Speaker 4: You're the coach, but you want to pick your players.
- 12:48Speaker 4: And when you're making something like the way we made
- 12:51Speaker 4: my feature film Son of Clowns, for example, you know,
- 12:55Speaker 4: that was the biggest crew I've ever you know, had
- 12:57Speaker 4: the opportunity to work with up to this point. And
- 13:00Speaker 4: you know, certain days were better than others. You know,
- 13:02Speaker 4: certain days we'd have very small crew, like six seven people.
- 13:05Speaker 4: Other days we'd have a bigger crew, a lot of pas,
- 13:08Speaker 4: you know, probably fifteen twenty. And so most everyone in
- 13:12Speaker 4: that crew worked for free. No one made money. And
- 13:15Speaker 4: that's the thing that's tricky, because when you're in micro
- 13:19Speaker 4: budget cinema, like, no one cares. Before I made the film,
- 13:23Speaker 4: no one cared if I made Some of Clowns. I
- 13:25Speaker 4: was the only person that cared, you know, the actors
- 13:27Speaker 4: and the crew, but no one else cares. And that's
- 13:29Speaker 4: the kind of rough truth that you need to get around,
- 13:33Speaker 4: is that you know, when you're making your micro budget,
- 13:35Speaker 4: no one cares. And once you kind of accept that
- 13:38Speaker 4: and once you say, okay, people will care once we
- 13:40Speaker 4: make it. But like, up until this point, you don't
- 13:42Speaker 4: have investors. You're really bankrolling on your own credit card,
- 13:45Speaker 4: which is what I did. Basically, my mentality was fine
- 13:48Speaker 4: people who want to a work because at that time
- 13:53Speaker 4: the North Carolina film incentives just crashed because of some
- 13:55Speaker 4: stupid politics and so a lot of people were out
- 13:58Speaker 4: of jobs and a lot of people we're kind of
- 14:00Speaker 4: sitting around anyway. So I was like, well, instead of
- 14:02Speaker 4: sitting around, let's all do something. You know. I took
- 14:05Speaker 4: a hit from that, and a lot of other people
- 14:06Speaker 4: did because by day I do a lot of crew work,
- 14:08Speaker 4: you know, ac stuff like that, and so you know,
- 14:12Speaker 4: for me, it was kind of a situation where let's
- 14:14Speaker 4: make the best out of, you know, something that sucks.
- 14:17Speaker 4: And then you know, I would say on the second thing,
- 14:19Speaker 4: when you find crew that are passionate, grab those people
- 14:23Speaker 4: because those are the people you want with you on
- 14:26Speaker 4: the battlefield, so to speak. Those people will you know,
- 14:29Speaker 4: stay the extra hour, Those people won't mind if you
- 14:32Speaker 4: do lunch an hour or two late. You know, those
- 14:34Speaker 4: people really just want to get your story. And uh,
- 14:37Speaker 4: I'm a big believer in you know, quote unquote working
- 14:40Speaker 4: for free. Yeah, no one got paid. I definitely didn't
- 14:43Speaker 4: get paid. I went to the Red but you know,
- 14:44Speaker 4: it was my movie, so I totally understand that. But
- 14:46Speaker 4: every other aspect of this production, I said, let me
- 14:49Speaker 4: not make it so it costs people money. Okay, So
- 14:52Speaker 4: let me fill up the gas tanks, let me get
- 14:55Speaker 4: all their meals covered, you know, let me give them
- 14:57Speaker 4: something great for their real Let me actually publicize this film,
- 15:02Speaker 4: because I think the thing that happens and why a
- 15:04Speaker 4: lot of people are hesitant to do free work is
- 15:06Speaker 4: because they've been burned in the past. And I've had
- 15:08Speaker 4: it happen to me when you you know, work on
- 15:11Speaker 4: something for free. I think a lot of times there's
- 15:14Speaker 4: this kind of you know, hesitant notion, which I totally understand.
- 15:17Speaker 4: Like I do a lot of crew work for a living.
- 15:19Speaker 4: That's how I make a lot of my money. And
- 15:22Speaker 4: for me, like, I will work on a free project,
- 15:25Speaker 4: but I have to know where it's going. Will it
- 15:27Speaker 4: be sent out to festivals? Because the last thing anyone
- 15:30Speaker 4: wants is to work on a film and just have
- 15:31Speaker 4: it get thrown up on YouTube, get about one hundred
- 15:33Speaker 4: videos and then no one cares. You know, people want
- 15:36Speaker 4: to know they're part of a project that's going to
- 15:38Speaker 4: at least try to go somewhere. Like everyone knows it's
- 15:41Speaker 4: not guaranteed, but at the very end of the day,
- 15:43Speaker 4: there has to be some effort being made. So I
- 15:45Speaker 4: tried to be as transparent about that possible with like,
- 15:47Speaker 4: you know, the whole cast and crew. You know, I
- 15:49Speaker 4: sent them emails for months and months after the fact.
- 15:51Speaker 4: You know, we got into this film festival. We're going
- 15:53Speaker 4: to submit here, you know, stuff like that, you know,
- 15:56Speaker 4: give everyone their footage promptly so they can put it
- 15:58Speaker 4: on a reel that you know, that kind of thing.
- 16:01Speaker 4: Just just be a decent person. You know, if you
- 16:03Speaker 4: can't pay people, try to, you know, make all the
- 16:06Speaker 4: rest of the filmmakers who don't have a lot of
- 16:08Speaker 4: money look good.
- 16:10Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know that That's something I agree with too,
- 16:13Speaker 3: is I think people have been burned in the past
- 16:15Speaker 3: by free work and it's sort of you know, maybe
- 16:17Speaker 3: they've worked for free for you know, a person and
- 16:20Speaker 3: it's never been reciprocating, so they kind of say, you know,
- 16:22Speaker 3: I I you know, now I'm in the hole now,
- 16:24Speaker 3: so to speak. And you know, I got into a
- 16:27Speaker 3: friend of mine and actually teaches you know, film at
- 16:29Speaker 3: a high school, and he and I had gotten this
- 16:30Speaker 3: whole thing before because we were talking about free work
- 16:34Speaker 3: and you know, some people say do it, some people
- 16:36Speaker 3: say don't do it, and basically we all The thing
- 16:40Speaker 3: that we have a problem with was when I was
- 16:41Speaker 3: making my student front films, I said, you know, I
- 16:44Speaker 3: need some help, and some people offer to work for free. Well,
- 16:47Speaker 3: they would come on and then they would sort of
- 16:49Speaker 3: act like they don't need to be professional or act
- 16:52Speaker 3: like they need to actually do their job the right way,
- 16:55Speaker 3: because hey, you're not paying me anything, so what the
- 16:57Speaker 3: hell's the difference.
- 16:59Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think that's the reason a lot of
- 17:01Speaker 4: these people have bad experiences is because there's a lack
- 17:05Speaker 4: of professionality on some free sets. I'm not going to
- 17:07Speaker 4: say all, but you know, the way I coordinated my set,
- 17:11Speaker 4: I would say, and a lot of people told me
- 17:13Speaker 4: it ran very professionally, and a lot of people said
- 17:15Speaker 4: they were shocked. You know, both you know day players
- 17:18Speaker 4: who just had you know, one scene they were just
- 17:20Speaker 4: coming and out, and you know people who are there
- 17:22Speaker 4: for the long haul too. A lot of people said that,
- 17:25Speaker 4: and you know, I guess I could take it as
- 17:27Speaker 4: a compliment, But for me, I want that to be
- 17:29Speaker 4: the bar, like I don't want I don't want that
- 17:32Speaker 4: to be the exception to the rule. You know.
- 17:35Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the other thing to you always make
- 17:37Speaker 3: sure your set's running good. But again that's having that
- 17:39Speaker 3: team right, you know, making sure you have a producer
- 17:42Speaker 3: who you know and if that person's going to be
- 17:44Speaker 3: the producer. You know, do you have a UPM you know,
- 17:47Speaker 3: do you know, have a location manager, Do you have
- 17:51Speaker 3: you know, a solid first a D you know, do
- 17:54Speaker 3: you have a solid cinematographer? Usually what you know, when
- 17:57Speaker 3: what I've come across is when someone's going to make
- 17:59Speaker 3: a project and they have people work for free, usually
- 18:03Speaker 3: there's one sexy selling point. And what I mean by
- 18:06Speaker 3: that is usually they have some amazing location they can use,
- 18:10Speaker 3: or you know, some kind of you know, you know.
- 18:12Speaker 3: For instance, I had a friend of mine make a
- 18:14Speaker 3: film and he ended up having a world class cinematographer
- 18:18Speaker 3: on there, and that was a selling point, going, look,
- 18:21Speaker 3: you know, the film's gonna look good, and you know,
- 18:23Speaker 3: because we have this cinematographer, and people were actually more
- 18:27Speaker 3: interested in enjoying the project because they said, hey, if
- 18:29Speaker 3: this prop person is a part of it, you know
- 18:31Speaker 3: what I mean, then it's gonna be good.
- 18:33Speaker 4: Definitely, I would say, you know, for us, maybe it's
- 18:37Speaker 4: kind of half a miracle that we pulled it off.
- 18:39Speaker 4: You know, I never had an ad for any of
- 18:41Speaker 4: these days, so I mean it was I lost my
- 18:43Speaker 4: voice so much just because I was doing double duty,
- 18:47Speaker 4: you know, with the directing, and especially there's a scene
- 18:49Speaker 4: in here where we had like forty extras and majority
- 18:52Speaker 4: of them were you know, kids under the age of eight.
- 18:54Speaker 4: So you know, like I said, trying to get that
- 18:57Speaker 4: many people at it was a party scene, so there
- 18:59Speaker 4: was you know, noise and a whole bunch of stuff
- 19:02Speaker 4: coordinated is very difficult. But I'm a firm believer if
- 19:05Speaker 4: you know, you put something to mind, it truly can happen.
- 19:08Speaker 4: As corny as it sounds, would I do it that way?
- 19:11Speaker 4: Gainified a choice? No, But you know, I think a
- 19:13Speaker 4: lot of times in micro budget cinema, you just got
- 19:16Speaker 4: to treat it like it's almost its own separate thing
- 19:20Speaker 4: from normal filmmaking, because you know it well, I say,
- 19:23Speaker 4: that not as a slight to it, but you know,
- 19:25Speaker 4: when you get put in these situations like, for example,
- 19:28Speaker 4: another thing that happened during filming, our sound guy got
- 19:31Speaker 4: sick on the third day and you know, thanks to
- 19:34Speaker 4: going to ECU and you had to run a boom.
- 19:36Speaker 4: None of our pas had touched it. And I was like, okay,
- 19:39Speaker 4: it was our shortest day. I'm gonna have to run
- 19:42Speaker 4: this boom. And I was not excited about it. But
- 19:44Speaker 4: it was like everyone came out, we had this restaurant
- 19:47Speaker 4: cleared out, and it was the only day we were
- 19:49Speaker 4: going to be able to get in this restaurant, and
- 19:51Speaker 4: if we didn't shoot, we're going to lose the location,
- 19:53Speaker 4: and you know, we waste a whole bunch of people's
- 19:55Speaker 4: time and blah blah blah. So I mean it's really
- 19:57Speaker 4: just rolling with the punches, and you know, we called
- 19:59Speaker 4: it off. I made it work.
- 20:02Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
- 20:08Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
- 20:11Speaker 4: What again, would I choose to do that?
- 20:13Speaker 3: No?
- 20:13Speaker 4: But I think when you do work in micro budget,
- 20:16Speaker 4: you just kind of have to be flexible. And you know, definitely,
- 20:20Speaker 4: if anyone has ego, I mean, check that shit. At
- 20:22Speaker 4: the door because that does not even fly. Like you know,
- 20:27Speaker 4: had I been on a normal set, there would be
- 20:29Speaker 4: no way in hell I would touch a boom pole.
- 20:31Speaker 4: But in a situation like that where you're making your movie,
- 20:36Speaker 4: you know, for me, this was like one of the
- 20:38Speaker 4: most personal stories I've ever told, you know, in a
- 20:40Speaker 4: lot of ways, and so you know, for me, I
- 20:42Speaker 4: just wanted to get the thing made, and so I knew, okay,
- 20:45Speaker 4: I got to buy a bullet do this, and I
- 20:47Speaker 4: just kind of roll the punches.
- 20:49Speaker 3: Yeah, ego is something that is very dangerous. And you know,
- 20:53Speaker 3: I've I've been a part of some projects, man, where
- 20:56Speaker 3: some people's egos were so unbelievable. And you know, I'm
- 21:00Speaker 3: usually sort of the bad cop, like I'll be the guy,
- 21:03Speaker 3: and I don't mean, I don't you know, just you know,
- 21:05Speaker 3: you don't fight fire with fire right away. I just
- 21:07Speaker 3: sort of get to take him aside and say, hey, guy,
- 21:08Speaker 3: you know, maybe we should just tone this down. I
- 21:10Speaker 3: think some people, you know, and you know, I mean
- 21:13Speaker 3: I've met some people who were just I don't know
- 21:16Speaker 3: where they get their ego from. It's it's almost like
- 21:18Speaker 3: somebody when they were younger told them that they were
- 21:20Speaker 3: so special and so talented, and they can everybody else
- 21:23Speaker 3: can just go fuck themselves and then you and then
- 21:26Speaker 3: they come to these film sets and it's like, hey,
- 21:28Speaker 3: I'm here, let me you know, real quick, little funny story.
- 21:30Speaker 3: I went to a friend of mine's film set and
- 21:33Speaker 3: it was about that it was a horror movie, was
- 21:35Speaker 3: a slasher film, and there was this PA it was
- 21:38Speaker 3: walking around who thought that he was God's gift to
- 21:40Speaker 3: film and thought he was so de rel you know,
- 21:43Speaker 3: thought he was so misused by being a PA. And
- 21:45Speaker 3: I said, hey, you know, you know, what's this guy's deal.
- 21:47Speaker 3: I went to shake his hand, He's kind of looked
- 21:49Speaker 3: at me, and I was like, what the fuck? And
- 21:51Speaker 3: and later on somebody said, oh, yeah, he doesn't want
- 21:54Speaker 3: to be a PA, and the director knows he's got
- 21:57Speaker 3: an ego problem and just made him a PA, sort
- 21:59Speaker 3: of like a punished type deal. And yeah, I mean
- 22:02Speaker 3: it was just I said, why doing this fire the guy?
- 22:05Speaker 3: Why do you even have you know, I'd rather have
- 22:06Speaker 3: nobody and just put you know, tape on the floor
- 22:08Speaker 3: and say hey, come in here, this way, this ways,
- 22:10Speaker 3: the craft, this ways, the set, well, this way's the
- 22:13Speaker 3: group of Yeah, so it's like, well, you know, the
- 22:16Speaker 3: ego just it just I mean, I I you know,
- 22:19Speaker 3: I've encounted that before and it really, it really is
- 22:21Speaker 3: so toxic because it starts to spread other people too. Yeah.
- 22:24Speaker 4: I mean when I got out of film school, I
- 22:25Speaker 4: worked on Shark Tank for a little bit, and you know,
- 22:29Speaker 4: I was a camera pa and I kind of worked
- 22:30Speaker 4: my waff a little bit of Matt World. You know,
- 22:33Speaker 4: it's not really a world. I love hanging out in
- 22:35Speaker 4: a lot reality, but I've done a lot of it,
- 22:38Speaker 4: and you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with it,
- 22:40Speaker 4: but I do see actually, believe it or not, a
- 22:42Speaker 4: lot of ego in reality TV. And this is on
- 22:45Speaker 4: the crew side, not in all shows. And actually Shark
- 22:47Speaker 4: Tank is not my example. They were actually very lovely.
- 22:49Speaker 4: But I worked on some other shows after that, and
- 22:53Speaker 4: you know, I saw a lot of these like reality directors. Man,
- 22:57Speaker 4: they like thought they were God's gift. And I'm just like, man,
- 23:01Speaker 4: you're you're directing like a fake fight between people on
- 23:07Speaker 4: like a TLC show, like what like you know, and
- 23:11Speaker 4: I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but I mean,
- 23:14Speaker 4: you know you're gonna get what you kind of deserve
- 23:16Speaker 4: gossip wise, I guess by your crew if you're acting,
- 23:19Speaker 4: you know, just like an idiot and like, you know,
- 23:22Speaker 4: telling people, oh, you don't know who I am. I
- 23:24Speaker 4: did this pilot of this. I'm just like, well, I
- 23:26Speaker 4: mean half this stuff I've not even heard of. And
- 23:28Speaker 4: that's kind of my problem. It's like, I don't like
- 23:30Speaker 4: pretentiousness on any level. But if you're gonna, like, you know,
- 23:33Speaker 4: if in this and I'm sure he's a wonderful guy,
- 23:37Speaker 4: but you know, if Scorsese was a little pretentious to me,
- 23:39Speaker 4: I guess I could take it because he's Scorsese. But
- 23:42Speaker 4: you know, it's like if some of these other people
- 23:44Speaker 4: do it, you know, I kind of, you know, have
- 23:46Speaker 4: a little question mark over my head and I kind
- 23:48Speaker 4: of look at that a little weird. So you know,
- 23:50Speaker 4: for me, I just try to not be pretentious and
- 23:52Speaker 4: not not you know, act like an idiot, you know,
- 23:55Speaker 4: treat people with respect. You know, I've been there. I've
- 23:57Speaker 4: been the PA. I know kind of how much you
- 24:00Speaker 4: know it sucks and how a lot of times people
- 24:02Speaker 4: take advantage of you. So you know, with this film,
- 24:05Speaker 4: I tried to tell my PA's you know, I don't
- 24:08Speaker 4: want you to just grab coffee, like I want you
- 24:11Speaker 4: to tell me what you want to do and will
- 24:14Speaker 4: put you near that department or if you have questions,
- 24:18Speaker 4: you know, between takes, feel free, like you can talk
- 24:21Speaker 4: to me, like I don't want to ever appear or
- 24:23Speaker 4: seem unapproachable. So that that's kind of my mindset.
- 24:28Speaker 3: Yeah, the you know, I we can understand Scorsese's pretentious.
- 24:32Speaker 3: You know, I had one time I was on a
- 24:34Speaker 3: film set and one of the guys said was arguing
- 24:39Speaker 3: with another guy, and he says, do you know who
- 24:41Speaker 3: I am? I won the South Blah blah blah film Festival.
- 24:44Speaker 3: No one's ever heard of this fucking film festival. And
- 24:47Speaker 3: the fact that he won it with some movie called
- 24:50Speaker 3: I think it was called a dirt Bag or sleeves
- 24:52Speaker 3: Bag or something, and and he screened at one time
- 24:55Speaker 3: and I was like, this movie won a film festival.
- 24:58Speaker 3: I said, what was the two entries? And but like
- 25:01Speaker 3: when he said that, everyone just kind of laughed, and
- 25:04Speaker 3: it's just like, you know, there's there's two options. Either
- 25:07Speaker 3: you're just ignore that guy or people start to fuck
- 25:10Speaker 3: with them, you know what I.
- 25:11Speaker 4: Mean, Like, well, well, my dad always had a saying
- 25:14Speaker 4: when I was a kid when I you know, act
- 25:16Speaker 4: it out or whatever, you know us to be like.
- 25:17Speaker 4: You know, if if I could roll the tape back
- 25:20Speaker 4: on that and show you, you'd really see how much
- 25:22Speaker 4: of an idiot you were. And I, you know, I
- 25:25Speaker 4: apply that to anyone else I meet, because I think
- 25:27Speaker 4: a lot of times, in the heat of the moment,
- 25:29Speaker 4: people say stupid stuff. But you know, if we were
- 25:32Speaker 4: to roll the tape back, so to speak, on everyone,
- 25:33Speaker 4: I think a lot of people would admit, Wow, I'm
- 25:35Speaker 4: coming across like a douchebag.
- 25:39Speaker 3: Yeah, I I That's why it is so important about
- 25:42Speaker 3: building that team to just make sure you know, all
- 25:45Speaker 3: those egos are toxic people or people who are going
- 25:47Speaker 3: to try to, you know, take over the project. You know.
- 25:51Speaker 3: I had one time some people message me and I
- 25:54Speaker 3: wasn't even part of the project, and they were working
- 25:56Speaker 3: with a friend of mine and they said, Dave, can
- 25:58Speaker 3: you go talk to him because he's listening to this
- 26:00Speaker 3: one guy who started off as nothing. He was just
- 26:03Speaker 3: like a consultant, and now all of a sudden, he's
- 26:05Speaker 3: a producer and he's going and telling us how he's
- 26:07Speaker 3: trying to micromanage everybody. And they said, you know this
- 26:09Speaker 3: was this started off as a fun little project and
- 26:12Speaker 3: now this guy's like ruining every everything. Can you can
- 26:15Speaker 3: you talk to him? Uh to my friend who was
- 26:17Speaker 3: in charge, and I said, I I don't think I
- 26:20Speaker 3: can go down that path because he like because you
- 26:21Speaker 3: know what I mean, because he likes that guy so much.
- 26:23Speaker 3: It's like you got to pick and choose your battles
- 26:25Speaker 3: and what the well.
- 26:26Speaker 4: Absolutely, and going back to what you said about the team,
- 26:28Speaker 4: I mean, that's the most important aspect, you know, both
- 26:30Speaker 4: in life and in filmmaking, is just surround yourself with
- 26:33Speaker 4: good people.
- 26:36Speaker 3: Yes, very true. Cat all those negative people, those hateful, passive,
- 26:40Speaker 3: aggressive people, and uh, you know I just read an
- 26:42Speaker 3: article on Twitter the other day about how that how
- 26:45Speaker 3: like this snarky attitude that some people have, Like oh yeah,
- 26:49Speaker 3: that's real fucking cool. You know that attitude you have
- 26:52Speaker 3: to get you know that that's even toxic to yourself,
- 26:54Speaker 3: you know what I mean? And and and so what
- 26:56Speaker 3: happens is if you have those people on set, we're like,
- 26:58Speaker 3: oh great, we're doing another film. Get those people out.
- 27:01Speaker 3: I don't care what they've done in the past, how
- 27:03Speaker 3: talented they are, just ask them very politely to leave
- 27:07Speaker 3: and just try to, you know, say hey, listen, we thanks,
- 27:09Speaker 3: but no thanks.
- 27:10Speaker 4: Well, you know, isn't that the worst kind of person,
- 27:13Speaker 4: you know, someone who complains about the environment in which
- 27:17Speaker 4: they're very part of. You know, it's like, if you're
- 27:19Speaker 4: so wonderful, why are you here? You know. It's like
- 27:24Speaker 4: I always find that, you know, kind of gross, and
- 27:28Speaker 4: you know, anytime I see that, I just kind of
- 27:29Speaker 4: have to roll my eyes a little bit. I mean,
- 27:31Speaker 4: there's definitely a culture, you know, with certain people who think,
- 27:35Speaker 4: you know, they're better than this, or they don't have
- 27:37Speaker 4: to do this, or you know. But you know, at
- 27:39Speaker 4: the end of the day, it's like, if you feel
- 27:41Speaker 4: that way, why did you show up in the first place. Yeah.
- 27:45Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really odd, and I think it is an
- 27:47Speaker 3: ego thing, you know. They just want to make themselves
- 27:49Speaker 3: feel heard and seen. Like, you know what I was
- 27:52Speaker 3: gonna I could have been in my apartment today, but
- 27:54Speaker 3: instead I'm going to be out here on this film
- 27:55Speaker 3: set telling you how great I am. Yeah I can't.
- 27:57Speaker 4: It's like, you know, I could be in my underpants
- 28:00Speaker 4: watching Netflix, but I decided to grace you with my presence.
- 28:03Speaker 4: So it's like oh, thank you.
- 28:07Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's one of the reasons why I
- 28:10Speaker 3: refuse to watch cinema sins and trailer whatever that's called
- 28:16Speaker 3: the truth of the trailer or oh honest trailers, that's it.
- 28:19Speaker 3: And you know those two things because it's just like
- 28:22Speaker 3: the snarky, nitpicking type of deal and some and you know,
- 28:27Speaker 3: you could tell that both the people who run them,
- 28:30Speaker 3: I guarantee you want to be filmmakers, and they just
- 28:32Speaker 3: are too frustrated or can't do it, so they just
- 28:34Speaker 3: have to make this thing where they insult other people's work.
- 28:37Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, I don't know personally for them, but
- 28:40Speaker 4: I mean I know there are people that way, definitely,
- 28:43Speaker 4: And you know, I think it's unfortunate because again not
- 28:47Speaker 4: to you know, PROD the fire or whatever. But you know,
- 28:51Speaker 4: nowadays it's easier than ever to be a filmmaker. So
- 28:54Speaker 4: it's like, if you're still ragging on people, it's like, damn,
- 28:56Speaker 4: what's your excuse?
- 28:59Speaker 3: And you know what's fun, Evan. I have friends who
- 29:02Speaker 3: I've known who are like that. You know, I'll enter,
- 29:05Speaker 3: you know, I'll post what I'm doing on social media, like, Hey,
- 29:08Speaker 3: I'm entering this contest. This guy sent me an email,
- 29:11Speaker 3: and it was just this attitude like, oh man, I
- 29:14Speaker 3: wish you know, I don't have the time anymore, blah
- 29:16Speaker 3: blah blah and this, and I'm like, dude, you know,
- 29:19Speaker 3: write a page a day or something I don't know,
- 29:20Speaker 3: or write something I mean, you know what, why are
- 29:22Speaker 3: you coming to me?
- 29:23Speaker 4: You know what I mean? Like, and was sitting you
- 29:25Speaker 4: up for advice or he was just saying like I'm
- 29:27Speaker 4: tired of seeing you talk about stuff.
- 29:29Speaker 3: It was more like a backhanded, backhanded compliment sandwich. It
- 29:35Speaker 3: was like, hey, good to see you doing stuff well.
- 29:37Speaker 3: But then then here comes the passive aggressiveness and then
- 29:39Speaker 3: he finishes up with like another compliment. So it's kind
- 29:42Speaker 3: of like, you know, I don't know how to take
- 29:44Speaker 3: this sandwich.
- 29:45Speaker 4: But yeah, no, I've gotten a couple of those over
- 29:48Speaker 4: the years. And I mean, I think it's just like
- 29:50Speaker 4: when you're doing something good or well, or you know,
- 29:53Speaker 4: maybe not even good or well, just in general just
- 29:56Speaker 4: being active and not you know, sitting on your couch.
- 30:00Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
- 30:06Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
- 30:09Speaker 4: You know, some people take offense to that, or some
- 30:11Speaker 4: people wish they were doing that and you know, I mean, again,
- 30:14Speaker 4: everyone has their own situation. I'm not going to pretend
- 30:16Speaker 4: I know why. You know, some people can't make a
- 30:18Speaker 4: film every year or whatever. But you know, to those
- 30:21Speaker 4: of us who are attempting to do that, I really
- 30:23Speaker 4: don't think you know the way to do it is,
- 30:26Speaker 4: you know, backhanded compliments. I mean, if you're interested in
- 30:28Speaker 4: truly doing that for yourself, ask how did you do it?
- 30:31Speaker 4: Ask how can I help you? Ask can you help me?
- 30:35Speaker 4: You know, I think there's a more productive way to
- 30:36Speaker 4: have that conversation.
- 30:39Speaker 3: And you know what, I want to have that conversation
- 30:40Speaker 3: right now, Evan, I want to ask how you did it,
- 30:43Speaker 3: because you know, with Son of Clowns, you know you
- 30:46Speaker 3: so let me just guess with what you did and
- 30:49Speaker 3: maybe you can correct me. You know, maybe I'm wrong,
- 30:52Speaker 3: But you sat down and I think you made an
- 30:55Speaker 3: asset list of what you had access to, and you
- 30:58Speaker 3: sort of built the script on that, and you sort
- 31:01Speaker 3: of and you already had your team in place, and
- 31:03Speaker 3: you sort of, you know, you showed your team, hey,
- 31:06Speaker 3: I made this, I wrote this script. Son of Clowns.
- 31:09Speaker 3: What do you think they need to give you some feedback?
- 31:12Speaker 3: And you know, maybe went through a few drafts and
- 31:14Speaker 3: then you were saying, you know what, I think it's
- 31:16Speaker 3: ready to make this thing. And you you know, you
- 31:19Speaker 3: got those you know, the asset list, you you know,
- 31:22Speaker 3: you know, you you knew you had access to that stuff,
- 31:25Speaker 3: and you were able to sort of put together, you know,
- 31:28Speaker 3: a shooting schedule, and you were you know, you put
- 31:30Speaker 3: everyone's schedules together, you know, of all the actors, and
- 31:34Speaker 3: you know, you got yourself a cinematographer or who was
- 31:37Speaker 3: already a part of your team, or you did it yourself,
- 31:39Speaker 3: and you were able to, you know, within one degree
- 31:43Speaker 3: or another, pretty much shoot the script that you wrote
- 31:47Speaker 3: because you sort of wrote from the inside out. Am
- 31:49Speaker 3: I right or wrong?
- 31:50Speaker 4: That's pretty pretty accurate to how the dominoes fell? Yeah,
- 31:55Speaker 4: I mean pretty much that's what I did. You know,
- 31:57Speaker 4: I started this project completely a couple of months after
- 32:02Speaker 4: I got out of film school. I was like, okay,
- 32:04Speaker 4: I want to write something.
- 32:05Speaker 1: You know.
- 32:05Speaker 4: I was kind of schlepping it out on those reality
- 32:07Speaker 4: shows coming home at night, kind of wishing I could
- 32:10Speaker 4: do something a little more artistic. So I started writing,
- 32:13Speaker 4: and you know, took about you know, yearish, and at
- 32:16Speaker 4: that point I was finishing some promotion film festival circuit
- 32:20Speaker 4: touring for my last short, Displacement Welcome, which was my
- 32:24Speaker 4: thesis film from Film School at East Carolina, And during
- 32:28Speaker 4: one of those kind of interview situations, I met this
- 32:30Speaker 4: guy named Bradley Bethel, and he was a writer, but
- 32:34Speaker 4: he also expressed an interest in wanting to make movies
- 32:37Speaker 4: and produce and he was in the middle of making
- 32:39Speaker 4: a documentary and he you know, had a lot of
- 32:41Speaker 4: success with that, and he was saying he was interested
- 32:43Speaker 4: in kind of shifting into producing narrative film as well.
- 32:46Speaker 4: So once I met him, it was kind of a
- 32:48Speaker 4: combination of my network and his network. So I met
- 32:52Speaker 4: my cinematographer through him. He met his assistant producer through me,
- 32:57Speaker 4: So you know, we kind of shifted and traded around
- 32:59Speaker 4: people we both it's new until we had this amalgamation
- 33:01Speaker 4: of a whole bunch of people. And then kind of
- 33:03Speaker 4: going back to what you said about, you know, making
- 33:05Speaker 4: a list of assets and things that had access to
- 33:07Speaker 4: absolutely because you know, when you're making a micro budget film,
- 33:12Speaker 4: you know you really don't have the luxury of just
- 33:14Speaker 4: like pointing to a place on the street and saying
- 33:16Speaker 4: we're gonna buy that place out for a day and
- 33:18Speaker 4: stick our cameras in there, because that's not how it
- 33:21Speaker 4: works when you're doing this. You know, we found these
- 33:24Speaker 4: locations weeks and months in advance, and you know said, hey,
- 33:28Speaker 4: what is the time when you know you're either doing
- 33:30Speaker 4: little to no business or your clothes. So that way
- 33:32Speaker 4: we don't have to you know, shut you down and
- 33:34Speaker 4: you know, take your guys's you know, cash full out
- 33:37Speaker 4: for a couple hours or whatever, you know, and make
- 33:38Speaker 4: it as easy for you guys as possible. And you'd
- 33:41Speaker 4: be surprised if you kind of phrase it that way
- 33:44Speaker 4: what a lot of people will be willing to do.
- 33:48Speaker 4: You know, we kind of explain to them we will
- 33:49Speaker 4: promote this film heavily. Your you know, stuff will be seen.
- 33:52Speaker 4: But you know, I think more than that, Like that's
- 33:55Speaker 4: kind of promises that you know, people have heard before.
- 33:58Speaker 4: I think if you're just transparent and honest and you
- 34:00Speaker 4: just say, look, we don't want to cost you money,
- 34:02Speaker 4: because like if you're a bar owner, right so we
- 34:05Speaker 4: filmed in several bars. If you're a bar owner and
- 34:07Speaker 4: I and Evan Kid just randomly shoots you an email
- 34:10Speaker 4: you don't know me from Adam. You know, you open
- 34:13Speaker 4: your email and you just see, hey, we have this
- 34:14Speaker 4: in you feel wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, lest film your peace
- 34:16Speaker 4: please blah blah blah. You're gonna be like, okay, so,
- 34:20Speaker 4: uh is this going to cost me money? Am I
- 34:22Speaker 4: gonna be out? And you just have to make it
- 34:24Speaker 4: speak their language. Essentially, they don't care that you're making
- 34:26Speaker 4: this personal film. Blah blah blah. All they care about
- 34:29Speaker 4: is Okay, I want to help you out, but you know,
- 34:32Speaker 4: let's not cost me a lot of money. So that
- 34:34Speaker 4: that's kind of the situation we framed with them.
- 34:38Speaker 3: So the reason I was able to to sort of
- 34:40Speaker 3: gauge out Evan is because you know, I've done this myself,
- 34:43Speaker 3: and lately I've been sort of that's been my you know,
- 34:46Speaker 3: for podcast listeners. They know that for every time I
- 34:50Speaker 3: introduce a show. Now, I've been talking about this, you know,
- 34:52Speaker 3: you know making you know, how do you make a film?
- 34:55Speaker 3: You know, how do you make a film with what
- 34:57Speaker 3: you have access to right now? And you know, some
- 34:59Speaker 3: people at the Rodrigaz list, Uh you know, I actually
- 35:02Speaker 3: had Robert Riguez as a producer on here and we
- 35:05Speaker 3: and even and I were talking about that because he's like, yeah, Dave,
- 35:07Speaker 3: you pretty much got it. That's exactly what he what
- 35:09Speaker 3: he did. And uh so, you know, you know, if
- 35:12Speaker 3: you have access, you know, let's just say, for instance,
- 35:15Speaker 3: I had friends of mine. They had access to an
- 35:17Speaker 3: old abandoned meat packing plant and they had the key
- 35:20Speaker 3: and they were able to film there. And you know,
- 35:22Speaker 3: that's if that became a location. You know, Okay, we're
- 35:24Speaker 3: going to set the entire film in this abandoned meat
- 35:27Speaker 3: packing plant. Well what happens in there? Well, obviously it's
- 35:29Speaker 3: a horror film because you're not going to set a
- 35:31Speaker 3: comedy in there. So so it's now you know, it's
- 35:34Speaker 3: a slasher film, okay, And they're stuck in there, all right,
- 35:37Speaker 3: and you know, one thing leads to another and they
- 35:39Speaker 3: sort of, you know, go from there, and you know
- 35:43Speaker 3: that that's sort of how they built the script, you know,
- 35:45Speaker 3: and I think that's how And I just also noticed
- 35:47Speaker 3: this too, Evan. I think this is sort of becoming
- 35:50Speaker 3: the calling cards slash hallmark of our time, where this
- 35:54Speaker 3: is this is a a sort of definition of talent.
- 35:58Speaker 3: Can a person or film maker make a film in
- 36:01Speaker 3: one location and keep it interesting? You know, what I
- 36:03Speaker 3: mean ken a person, you know, make a movie with
- 36:07Speaker 3: you know, the Rodriguez list and keep it interesting. And
- 36:11Speaker 3: I sort of think this is a you know, sort
- 36:12Speaker 3: of the benchmark now where we're serious filmmakers and people
- 36:17Speaker 3: who just sit around and say, hey, listen, I have
- 36:18Speaker 3: an idea for a film. You know, I don't know
- 36:21Speaker 3: what to do, and I'm just gonna wait until somebody
- 36:23Speaker 3: gives me ten million dollars exactly.
- 36:26Speaker 4: You mentioned Rodriguez, I mean him and link Later and
- 36:29Speaker 4: filmmakers like that. I mean, that's who I kind of idolize,
- 36:33Speaker 4: and you know, watched growing up in high school and
- 36:36Speaker 4: going through film school, and you know, those are kind
- 36:38Speaker 4: of the mindsets I like to kind of, you know,
- 36:42Speaker 4: put myself in if possible, because you know, I mean,
- 36:45Speaker 4: working with a million producers and investors in Hollywood's money
- 36:49Speaker 4: and you know, or some you know, rich guy's money
- 36:51Speaker 4: or whatever. I mean, that would be fantastic. I'm not
- 36:54Speaker 4: gonna lie. But you know, at the same time, I
- 36:57Speaker 4: think resource based filmmaking will get you a story that
- 37:00Speaker 4: you're not going to get if you make you know,
- 37:02Speaker 4: a film that way, if you kind of do it
- 37:03Speaker 4: quote unquote by the book I think in resource based filmmaking,
- 37:07Speaker 4: like you said, you know, there's people who will set
- 37:10Speaker 4: films in there, you know, meatpacking, abandoned warehouse, or you know,
- 37:14Speaker 4: like a lot of the mumble course stuff from ten
- 37:16Speaker 4: years ago, New York apartment pretty much the whole time.
- 37:20Speaker 4: And you know, I think a lot of people poke
- 37:21Speaker 4: fun at that, or you know, kind of look at
- 37:23Speaker 4: it in a different way. But I mean, I actually
- 37:26Speaker 4: think there's a lot of strength to being a good
- 37:28Speaker 4: enough filmmaker to set something in one location like you said,
- 37:32Speaker 4: and keep it interesting. I think that might make you
- 37:34Speaker 4: more talented than if you, you know, have a film
- 37:37Speaker 4: that puts you in an outer space going through a different
- 37:39Speaker 4: planet every ten minutes or whatever. You know, nothing wrong
- 37:42Speaker 4: with that, but I just think that's more interesting to me.
- 37:45Speaker 4: And you know, a lot of times filmmaking is like
- 37:48Speaker 4: solving a puzzle. So you know, for me, I like that,
- 37:51Speaker 4: I like that challenge. And I mean for Son of Clowns,
- 37:54Speaker 4: we probably made it harder on ourselves than we needed to,
- 37:57Speaker 4: just because we did have so many locations and a
- 37:59Speaker 4: lot of times your characters would drove around throughout the
- 38:02Speaker 4: triangle at North Carolina. That's the region of the film
- 38:05Speaker 4: is set, and you know, we probably didn't need to
- 38:07Speaker 4: make it is in depth as we did, but we
- 38:09Speaker 4: kind of wanted the film to have a slice of Raleigh,
- 38:11Speaker 4: North Carolina, So we kind of wanted to incorporate a
- 38:14Speaker 4: lot of different locations to give you know, people who
- 38:17Speaker 4: knew the area a little taste of it. And so,
- 38:20Speaker 4: you know, if we were to do it a different way,
- 38:22Speaker 4: like you know, I'm writing a new feature right now
- 38:24Speaker 4: and it's a little bit more of a psychological film,
- 38:26Speaker 4: a little bit more introspective, a little darker, and I
- 38:30Speaker 4: think you know, that film is probably going to be
- 38:31Speaker 4: a little bit more similar to that where you know,
- 38:33Speaker 4: there will be not as many locations, so it's going
- 38:36Speaker 4: to rely a lot on you know, character development. Not
- 38:39Speaker 4: that Santa Claus doesn't there's a lot of character development,
- 38:42Speaker 4: but you know, I think just in terms of getting
- 38:44Speaker 4: a new location to kind of you know, refresh your
- 38:47Speaker 4: you know, the ad of the audience so to speak.
- 38:49Speaker 4: You know, you may not get that, so I think
- 38:51Speaker 4: that is interesting definitely, and kind of being able to
- 38:53Speaker 4: tell that and convey that in a compelling way as
- 38:55Speaker 4: you know, a mark of strength.
- 38:58Speaker 3: Yeah, and also you know, This is something I've talked
- 39:01Speaker 3: about before, which is if you were to live let's
- 39:04Speaker 3: just say, you know, I live in Philadelphia. You're in
- 39:07Speaker 3: North Carolina, correct.
- 39:08Speaker 4: Yeah, by way of Louisiana at the moment. I'm working
- 39:10Speaker 4: on a project, but yeah.
- 39:12Speaker 3: So you know where we live. People sort of aren't
- 39:15Speaker 3: burned out yet from from being asked. You know, if
- 39:17Speaker 3: you go to LA and say, hey, listen, I can
- 39:19Speaker 3: I shoot here, They're gonna say, look, look, buddy, you're
- 39:22Speaker 3: the third person today who's asked us about about that,
- 39:25Speaker 3: and the answer is going to be nice.
- 39:26Speaker 4: Yeah, oh sure. I mean I was in Los Angeles
- 39:28Speaker 4: last month for a film festival for Son of Clowns,
- 39:31Speaker 4: and it was kind of I'd been there before briefly
- 39:33Speaker 4: during layover, but you know, I was there for three
- 39:35Speaker 4: days this time and kind of got my feet wet,
- 39:38Speaker 4: so to speak, in LA. And you know, I was
- 39:40Speaker 4: talking to some folks at the festival and they were
- 39:42Speaker 4: just telling me all the same things, and they were
- 39:44Speaker 4: like the locals, and they were just saying, you know,
- 39:47Speaker 4: independent film is super tricky if you live in Los Angeles,
- 39:50Speaker 4: like they were saying, it's almost harder over there, just
- 39:54Speaker 4: because you know, people know, and it's such a part
- 39:56Speaker 4: of the culture, and you know, Hollywood is king over there.
- 40:01Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
- 40:07Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
- 40:10Speaker 4: So you have a little bit of resistance. I mean,
- 40:13Speaker 4: you could obviously shoot something in your backyard or your
- 40:15Speaker 4: apartment or whatever. But like if you're, like you said,
- 40:17Speaker 4: trying to get into bars and stuff, you know, you
- 40:19Speaker 4: may as well forget it unless you've got a lot
- 40:21Speaker 4: of money.
- 40:23Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, It's just it's you know, even a
- 40:27Speaker 3: friend of mine who actually found a little independent spot,
- 40:31Speaker 3: every time he shot there, they would raise the fee up.
- 40:34Speaker 3: You know, they kept raising the fee up a little
- 40:35Speaker 3: bit more, a little bit more, and finally he by
- 40:38Speaker 3: like the fur or sixth time. He said, my god,
- 40:39Speaker 3: it's caused you know. It's now it's like a little
- 40:42Speaker 3: this little coffee shop they charge us like, I think
- 40:45Speaker 3: two hundred bucks. Now he's like, they're charging us over
- 40:47Speaker 3: one thousand dollars, and he said, you know, it just
- 40:49Speaker 3: doesn't make any fiscal sense anymore.
- 40:51Speaker 4: Yeah, I know. I mean, if if we were to
- 40:53Speaker 4: film done of clowns in that coffee shop for two days,
- 40:55Speaker 4: we would have gone over our whole budget for the film.
- 40:58Speaker 4: You know, I'd be like, that's the short of it.
- 41:01Speaker 4: But you know, I definitely think if you want to
- 41:04Speaker 4: be an independent filmmaker, I would advise anyone to find
- 41:08Speaker 4: a city that's big enough to have crew base and
- 41:11Speaker 4: you know, film schools around it, so you know, maybe
- 41:13Speaker 4: not the middle of Idaho, although you could maybe challenge
- 41:17Speaker 4: yourself to do something out there. I don't know, but
- 41:18Speaker 4: if you find one of these kind of regional big cities,
- 41:21Speaker 4: I think you can really set yourself up for success.
- 41:25Speaker 4: Because I had a lot of friends who, after ECU
- 41:28Speaker 4: and film school, moved to Los Angeles, and like, several
- 41:31Speaker 4: of them are doing pretty good for themselves, but like
- 41:33Speaker 4: a couple others are really struggling, and you know, it's
- 41:37Speaker 4: a hard I mean, everyone knows it's hard out there,
- 41:39Speaker 4: but you know, a lot of them have not made
- 41:42Speaker 4: their own work since film school, and I think that's
- 41:44Speaker 4: just kind of hard because once you're in that system,
- 41:47Speaker 4: you kind of need to you know, be a cog.
- 41:50Speaker 4: You know, not as an insult, I'm not saying this,
- 41:52Speaker 4: but you kind of have to do that first before
- 41:54Speaker 4: you're allowed permission. And I think anywhere else you you
- 41:58Speaker 4: know that's there, but you kind of get a little
- 42:00Speaker 4: more leeway to say, okay, wait, back up, I want
- 42:03Speaker 4: to make my own story. How do we do this?
- 42:06Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and I've heard that same, you know,
- 42:09Speaker 3: same type of experience too, is you know some people
- 42:12Speaker 3: do you know kind of well out there. A friend
- 42:14Speaker 3: of mine ended up you know, crewing on different stuff.
- 42:17Speaker 3: Then he went to Louisiana. Now, yeah, where he you know,
- 42:19Speaker 3: he's working on Crewe a project. You know, he's working
- 42:21Speaker 3: on tons of projects and crew and other friends. You know.
- 42:24Speaker 3: I had one friend who went out there. He had
- 42:26Speaker 3: contacts out the ass and you know what happened, Evan,
- 42:30Speaker 3: He felt very lonely and isolated out there. And he said, basically,
- 42:34Speaker 3: you know, everyone's always busy and one's always working, and
- 42:37Speaker 3: he just felt, you know, basically his only people he
- 42:40Speaker 3: could talk to with the people at like a Chinese
- 42:42Speaker 3: restaurant or whatever, and you know, because he would order
- 42:44Speaker 3: from them every day. He'd go down there and they
- 42:46Speaker 3: would know who he was and he'd say, oh, yeah,
- 42:48Speaker 3: it's me, you know. Uh, and you know, he just
- 42:51Speaker 3: he hated it and he ended up moving back, and uh,
- 42:54Speaker 3: funny little story, Evan. He still hasn't made a movie himself.
- 42:57Speaker 3: And you know, we always I talked before about you know,
- 43:01Speaker 3: I said, what you know because he asked me. He's like, Dave, seriously.
- 43:03Speaker 3: We went out to dinner and he said, Dave, what
- 43:05Speaker 3: is holding me back? And I said, your fear of
- 43:08Speaker 3: failure is holding you back because if you if you
- 43:11Speaker 3: think that you make this movie and it sucks, it's
- 43:14Speaker 3: going to mean you have no talent and it's going
- 43:15Speaker 3: to be indicative of everything that you've spent your whole
- 43:18Speaker 3: life doing. Yeah, and that's what's stopping you.
- 43:20Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, fear is uh. You know, there's a
- 43:23Speaker 4: book I've read. I think Robert Riguez mentioned in an
- 43:27Speaker 4: interview a whole bunch of years back, and it's called
- 43:29Speaker 4: The Art of Fear. And it's a book that basically
- 43:32Speaker 4: categorizes every doubt, every little inkling of you know, why
- 43:36Speaker 4: we shouldn't do an artistic endeavor into a category and
- 43:41Speaker 4: kind of lets you filter through it so you can
- 43:43Speaker 4: catch those thoughts before they come. It's a great read.
- 43:45Speaker 4: It costs like eight bucks on Amazon. I would totally
- 43:48Speaker 4: recommend it, but you know, I would say it's not
- 43:52Speaker 4: just that book, because I mean, I made these this
- 43:55Speaker 4: film before I read that book. But I mean, I
- 43:58Speaker 4: think it's just a mindset and you know, I hate
- 44:02Speaker 4: just the little Nike just do it. But I mean
- 44:05Speaker 4: it's so true, like there's no one way that you're
- 44:10Speaker 4: going to be successful. There's no one way that you're
- 44:12Speaker 4: gonna make this, you know, feature short or whatever. But
- 44:15Speaker 4: you know, if you try, you can at least they try,
- 44:18Speaker 4: because I mean, isn't that the worst thing to go
- 44:20Speaker 4: to bed at the end of the day and kind
- 44:22Speaker 4: of all over in your head. Man, I still haven't
- 44:24Speaker 4: taken the jump. I mean, because at the very least,
- 44:26Speaker 4: if you take the jump and it's a horrible failure,
- 44:29Speaker 4: I mean, who who's really going to care? Like I mean,
- 44:31Speaker 4: maybe a few of your friends will be like, yeah,
- 44:33Speaker 4: he tried to make a movie, But like I guarantee
- 44:35Speaker 4: you a few of your friends have much bigger problems
- 44:37Speaker 4: than you know, trivializing over your movie. So you know,
- 44:40Speaker 4: I mean, at the end of the day, it's really
- 44:42Speaker 4: you that has to deal with it. So you know,
- 44:44Speaker 4: if you can kind of make peace in your own mind,
- 44:45Speaker 4: I think that's the key. Yeah.
- 44:48Speaker 3: There's also a great book called The War of Art
- 44:50Speaker 3: by Steven Pressfield.
- 44:51Speaker 4: Oh I've got that one.
- 44:52Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it is, you know what. I read that
- 44:54Speaker 3: book and I very rarely ever just put down a book.
- 44:58Speaker 3: You know that that's not fiction, and uh and and say,
- 45:01Speaker 3: holy crap, I gotta read that again right now. Literally,
- 45:05Speaker 3: I sat down to read it at a Barnes and Nobles.
- 45:08Speaker 3: I read the whole thing, and I still I was like,
- 45:10Speaker 3: you know what, I'm gonna go buy this. I have
- 45:11Speaker 3: to buy it. I mean, this is like my my,
- 45:13Speaker 3: my new go to thing and everything he talks about.
- 45:16Speaker 3: I was like, that's me. This is you know, you know,
- 45:19Speaker 3: you sit down to write and all and in one
- 45:22Speaker 3: ear you're hearing you know, sort of like you know,
- 45:24Speaker 3: your your your your muse. And then the other year
- 45:28Speaker 3: is resistance, you know, whisper, you know, whispering in your ear. Oh,
- 45:31Speaker 3: you have no talent. Don't do this. It's stupid. You're awful.
- 45:34Speaker 3: Just forget about this and go be you know, go
- 45:37Speaker 3: sell you know, uh, snow cones down the beach and
- 45:40Speaker 3: you're like, well, you know what I guess I should
- 45:42Speaker 3: and you and you know what I mean, And I've
- 45:43Speaker 3: I've been there, you know where you're like, you know
- 45:45Speaker 3: what I should just go out forget all this stuff
- 45:47Speaker 3: and just go get a job, uh, you know, doing
- 45:51Speaker 3: whatever instead.
- 45:53Speaker 4: Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean we've all dealt with that
- 45:55Speaker 4: kind of depression and that kind of wrestling within your mind,
- 46:00Speaker 4: you know, as you're an artistic person. I mean I
- 46:02Speaker 4: can only speak to my own experiences, but I mean
- 46:04Speaker 4: I know that to me is a lot worse than
- 46:07Speaker 4: the fear of failure. I mean, the depression and the
- 46:10Speaker 4: kind of you know, funk you get yourself into when
- 46:12Speaker 4: you're not working. I mean that freaks me out a
- 46:15Speaker 4: lot more than just making a film and it's like,
- 46:17Speaker 4: oh no, some people didn't like it. That's a lot
- 46:20Speaker 4: more frightening. So I mean, for me, it's never been
- 46:23Speaker 4: really about failure. It's it's been I just don't like
- 46:25Speaker 4: those kind of periods where I'm not doing something because
- 46:27Speaker 4: I feel like, Okay, what's wrong. There has to be
- 46:30Speaker 4: a reason, you know, maybe it's outside of filmmaking blah
- 46:32Speaker 4: blah blah. But you know, I think keeping yourself busy
- 46:36Speaker 4: and keeping yourself sane is the best way to do it,
- 46:38Speaker 4: because I mean, you can get caught up in your
- 46:40Speaker 4: head too easily. I mean, especially these days. I mean
- 46:43Speaker 4: you know, a lot of times, like we spend so
- 46:46Speaker 4: much time just staring at devices and you know, like
- 46:48Speaker 4: kind of not actually engaging with the world around us,
- 46:51Speaker 4: so you kind of end up in your head a
- 46:52Speaker 4: lot more than you may otherwise. And you know, I
- 46:55Speaker 4: think it's the best way to filter through that is
- 46:58Speaker 4: to make work, you.
- 46:58Speaker 3: Know, yes, yeah, And I think that's where a lot
- 47:02Speaker 3: of frustration for some people comes in, is that they
- 47:04Speaker 3: can't either they don't want to write because they think
- 47:07Speaker 3: that if it's bad, it's indicative of them, even if
- 47:09Speaker 3: they write a script, you know, and it's and it's terrible.
- 47:11Speaker 1: You know.
- 47:12Speaker 3: I've had to learn a very hard lesson, and I've
- 47:15Speaker 3: had to learn this over and over again, and that
- 47:17Speaker 3: is to stop trying to get perfectionism on the first draft.
- 47:20Speaker 3: I don't I I it's like this weird thing with me, Evan,
- 47:23Speaker 3: Like I will outline like you. I mean, I will
- 47:27Speaker 3: outline pages and pages and pages, and then I'm like, oh,
- 47:30Speaker 3: you know what, maybe let me, let me do something different.
- 47:32Speaker 3: And I'm just like it's almost like you're you're you're
- 47:34Speaker 3: going in that hamster wheel because you're always taking that
- 47:36Speaker 3: first draft and then you and then you you say, hey, no,
- 47:39Speaker 3: I'm gonna start draft one one dash B and then
- 47:43Speaker 3: it's one draft C and then you know what I mean,
- 47:44Speaker 3: And then you're you're still in that first drift instead
- 47:46Speaker 3: of just getting something done and then trying to go
- 47:48Speaker 3: back and trying to figure out what worked what didn't work. Uh,
- 47:51Speaker 3: you know, And I think that's a lot of what
- 47:54Speaker 3: holds people back.
- 47:55Speaker 4: Oh absolutely. I mean I would say I just wrote
- 47:58Speaker 4: a pilot and it's a series that I'm gonna attempt
- 48:02Speaker 4: to work on here in uh, Louisiana. And the guy
- 48:05Speaker 4: I'm working on it with, you know, we basically just said, like,
- 48:08Speaker 4: let's get the Vomit draft out because we basically want
- 48:11Speaker 4: to shoot this pilot on our own and have a
- 48:14Speaker 4: you know, solid, you know, cut pilot, everything like that
- 48:17Speaker 4: nice and done to present to some investors to hopefully
- 48:19Speaker 4: get funding for the best to season. And you know,
- 48:22Speaker 4: for me, I was so worried about that. So I'm like, man,
- 48:24Speaker 4: there's a lot of people, there's eyes, there's people who
- 48:26Speaker 4: are going to try to repress. It's got to be perfect,
- 48:28Speaker 4: It's got to be perfect. I'm just like, I'm only
- 48:30Speaker 4: in stage one of the draft. I haven't even finished
- 48:33Speaker 4: into edits yet, and we haven't even shopped the film.
- 48:35Speaker 4: We haven't even cut the film, So there's a lot
- 48:38Speaker 4: more filters we're going to go through before this thing
- 48:40Speaker 4: seen by anyone. So, like, I think that's the thing.
- 48:43Speaker 4: Everyone's thinking way too far ahead, and like I think
- 48:47Speaker 4: everyone just needs to kind of chill out a little bit.
- 48:50Speaker 4: And I know that sounds counter productive and I need
- 48:53Speaker 4: to take my own advice sometimes, but you know, I
- 48:55Speaker 4: think if if you really get a little bit more
- 48:58Speaker 4: relaxed with it, at least on a first draft. I'm
- 49:01Speaker 4: not saying like, don't work hard and don't outline and
- 49:03Speaker 4: don't do this, because that's all very critical. I mean,
- 49:05Speaker 4: pre production is the key to being successful. But I
- 49:08Speaker 4: think a lot of times not trying to be so
- 49:10Speaker 4: hard on yourself with that first draft, because if you're
- 49:12Speaker 4: so hard on yourself making that first draft that you
- 49:16Speaker 4: never actually write it, it doesn't even matter, you know.
- 49:21Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I agree with you completely, man. And it
- 49:24Speaker 3: is getting that vomit draft out there. It is getting
- 49:26Speaker 3: something on the page, because that's the thing you get
- 49:29Speaker 3: stuck in your own head and you never sort of
- 49:31Speaker 3: stop thinking in terms of what if or It's what
- 49:35Speaker 3: somebody once told me is called this decision fatigue, you
- 49:38Speaker 3: know what I mean, where you sort of you make
- 49:40Speaker 3: so many decisions and you know that's taking of your energy,
- 49:43Speaker 3: you know what I mean. You're like, well, what if
- 49:44Speaker 3: this happens? No, no, no, what if this happens? And
- 49:46Speaker 3: then this happens? Then you're sort of just caught in
- 49:48Speaker 3: your own head of all these different options.
- 49:51Speaker 4: Decisiveness is really underrated these days. Man.
- 49:56Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
- 50:02Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
- 50:06Speaker 4: And it's hard to be decisive, I think because there
- 50:10Speaker 4: are so many options. I mean, like with film and
- 50:13Speaker 4: not you know, and just in life. I mean, there
- 50:15Speaker 4: are so many options with pretty much everything we do nowadays.
- 50:18Speaker 4: Do you want to shoot it on the sixty? You
- 50:19Speaker 4: do want to shoot it on see you one hundred
- 50:21Speaker 4: mark too? Don't want to shoot it on the lex?
- 50:22Speaker 4: I mean, like, so many options. But the end of
- 50:24Speaker 4: the day, it's just a damn camera if that's what
- 50:26Speaker 4: you're worried about, or you know, am I going to
- 50:28Speaker 4: cast this person to that person? If it's a micro budget, Well,
- 50:30Speaker 4: at the end of the day, your actors are pretty
- 50:33Speaker 4: much just a vessel that you're telling your story through.
- 50:35Speaker 4: You're not dealing with like Brad Paiter or anyone you know,
- 50:38Speaker 4: outrageously famous. So just make your stuff. I mean, like
- 50:41Speaker 4: at the end of the day, like all these little decisions,
- 50:43Speaker 4: they are important, but I think we as filmmakers really
- 50:47Speaker 4: to kind of trivialize them and kind of really make
- 50:49Speaker 4: them way more blown up than they have any business being. So,
- 50:53Speaker 4: I mean, I think a lot of times just committing
- 50:55Speaker 4: to something and again, I mean I'm guilty of it too.
- 50:57Speaker 4: It's hard to be decisive sometimes, but I think just saying, Okay,
- 51:00Speaker 4: I'm writing ten pages today, or I'm writing from two
- 51:04Speaker 4: o'clock to three o'clock, not looking at my phone. I'm
- 51:07Speaker 4: not gonna check Twitter, blah blah blah. I'm just gonna,
- 51:08Speaker 4: you know, turn off the Internet and just write. I mean,
- 51:11Speaker 4: like that's really underrated and that's and it's difficult, but
- 51:14Speaker 4: you know, I think doing that and getting in a
- 51:16Speaker 4: habit of kind of reprogramming your brain is really helpful
- 51:21Speaker 4: to getting work done.
- 51:24Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, getting that, you know, just turning off all
- 51:27Speaker 3: those distractions. And I think that is a thing too, man,
- 51:29Speaker 3: you know, is that the cell phone is like this
- 51:31Speaker 3: sort of the double edged sword. You can do so
- 51:34Speaker 3: much with it, but there's also so many things vying
- 51:36Speaker 3: for your attention. And what I what I find is
- 51:39Speaker 3: when I'm gonna write, I take the cell phone away
- 51:41Speaker 3: and I just sit in front of my computer. I
- 51:43Speaker 3: can turn off the Internet through a number of different
- 51:45Speaker 3: add ons and you know what I mean, and you
- 51:47Speaker 3: just and I just work inside something like open Office,
- 51:50Speaker 3: which is free because it's open sourced, or even just
- 51:54Speaker 3: Notepad or fade in or final Drift and just that's that,
- 51:57Speaker 3: make a full screen mode and just write for you know,
- 51:59Speaker 3: twenty minutes and get into that habit. Because somebody once
- 52:02Speaker 3: told me, oh, I'm gonna butcher this, but I think
- 52:06Speaker 3: it's you know, actions become habits, and then habits become
- 52:10Speaker 3: what you're known for. Oh yeah, and I maybe I
- 52:13Speaker 3: did butcher that. I'm not sure, but uh, but that
- 52:15Speaker 3: but that's so true, you know, and you're you're gonna
- 52:17Speaker 3: they're gonna say, hey, there's Evan. That's the guy who
- 52:19Speaker 3: can write for you know, two or three hours without
- 52:21Speaker 3: looking at his phone. He's a freaking superstar, because you know,
- 52:25Speaker 3: most people can't go five secs.
- 52:27Speaker 4: I don't know if I'm there yet, but I'm working.
- 52:30Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's hard. It's definitely
- 52:33Speaker 4: hard to turn off those distractions.
- 52:36Speaker 3: Yeah, it real, it really is. And uh, you know,
- 52:38Speaker 3: you know, Evan, you know, we've been talking for about
- 52:40Speaker 3: you know, forty eight minutes, and I just want to ask,
- 52:42Speaker 3: you know, before uh, you know, would we start wrapping up.
- 52:45Speaker 3: I just want to ask about Son of Clowns. You know,
- 52:48Speaker 3: what was one of the biggest production issues that you had.
- 52:51Speaker 3: I mean, whether it be a location or maybe you
- 52:53Speaker 3: were gonna film outside and thunderstorm rolls in. You know
- 52:56Speaker 3: what was one of the biggest production issues you ran
- 52:58Speaker 3: in while making Son of Clowns?
- 53:00Speaker 4: I mean kind of throwing through just time. I mean,
- 53:03Speaker 4: we shot this whole feature in ten days, which was
- 53:06Speaker 4: really a brutal schedule. You know, we a lot of
- 53:09Speaker 4: times we would just pull ourselves up in a location
- 53:12Speaker 4: for three days, you know, do air mattresses, that whole thing,
- 53:15Speaker 4: and just get it done. We didn't shoot ten days straight,
- 53:19Speaker 4: but we shot ten days over the course of about
- 53:21Speaker 4: two weeks, two and a half weeks, so I mean
- 53:23Speaker 4: it was you know, three or four days straight, then
- 53:26Speaker 4: a day or two off and then right back at
- 53:28Speaker 4: it kind of so on and so forth. But I mean,
- 53:30Speaker 4: aside from time, I mean, I think it was just
- 53:33Speaker 4: trying to get conditions perfect because a lot of this
- 53:35Speaker 4: was I mean, it's a narrative film, but we shot
- 53:37Speaker 4: in the real world. There was no sound stages, there
- 53:39Speaker 4: was no you know, roping off an entire area to
- 53:42Speaker 4: make it quiet. I mean a lot of times we'd
- 53:44Speaker 4: have like giant trucks trying to come through and we're
- 53:46Speaker 4: filming in a parking lot for a scene, and like
- 53:49Speaker 4: this eighteen wheeler was trying to make a delivery and
- 53:51Speaker 4: then we had to stop and wait for him. And
- 53:54Speaker 4: then by the time he finished unloading his truck, like
- 53:57Speaker 4: the sun was way different, the lighting looked, you know,
- 54:00Speaker 4: completely off, and you know, it's just trying to fix
- 54:02Speaker 4: those things. And it's really easy in the moment be
- 54:04Speaker 4: like I we'll fix it in post. But it's just like,
- 54:07Speaker 4: don't shoot yourself in the foot. But I mean, I
- 54:10Speaker 4: actually you mentioned the thunderstorm. A quick little story from set. Uh,
- 54:13Speaker 4: there's a scene towards the end of the movie. I
- 54:15Speaker 4: won't spoil it, but a Jabbari who's Hudson's brother Hudson's
- 54:21Speaker 4: our main character in the film. Basically, they're they're mending
- 54:24Speaker 4: kind of a soured relationship between the two of them.
- 54:27Speaker 4: Something's gone wrong in a very big way. And basically
- 54:31Speaker 4: they're doing this scene where you know, they're trying to
- 54:34Speaker 4: make amends or Hudson's trying to make amends and you know,
- 54:36Speaker 4: Jabari's having none of it. And it's really this dramatic,
- 54:40Speaker 4: tense moment, Like, I mean, they were both doing so
- 54:42Speaker 4: good you could cut the tension with you know, a
- 54:44Speaker 4: pair of scissors, but out of nowhere, you just hear
- 54:47Speaker 4: this giant thundercloud and they stating character and just kept
- 54:50Speaker 4: going in that slowly started raining a little bit, and
- 54:52Speaker 4: then the light was all weird and wonky, but you know,
- 54:55Speaker 4: we kept brawling, and that's the take we used. And
- 54:58Speaker 4: so a lot of times when people watch the film,
- 55:00Speaker 4: there's this like thunder in the background while they're having
- 55:02Speaker 4: this argument, and a lot of people are like, did
- 55:03Speaker 4: you add that, And I'm like, no, no, no, that's
- 55:05Speaker 4: just from like the real world. So I mean it's
- 55:09Speaker 4: like it fit really well, I thought, and like it
- 55:12Speaker 4: didn't come off as like corny or weird, because I mean,
- 55:15Speaker 4: it didn't sound like an effect. I mean it was
- 55:17Speaker 4: just off in the distance and you could see it,
- 55:19Speaker 4: so it was really cool. And uh, you know, it's
- 55:22Speaker 4: just one of the situations where you know, we wouldn't
- 55:24Speaker 4: have got that from a sound stage. We wouldn't have
- 55:26Speaker 4: got that from you know, a whole bunch of like
- 55:28Speaker 4: polished you know, clean sets or anything. You know, it's
- 55:30Speaker 4: just shooting in the real world. That's what happens. So
- 55:33Speaker 4: I mean, I think you do get happy accidents like that,
- 55:35Speaker 4: but then at the same time you get the guy
- 55:37Speaker 4: unloading the eighteen wheeler, so that's a double edged sword.
- 55:40Speaker 4: So I think it's just a matter of like time
- 55:41Speaker 4: and getting those locations, you know, to work for you
- 55:45Speaker 4: instead of you working for your location.
- 55:47Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, it's amazing when you're out there
- 55:52Speaker 3: actually filming all the things that could happen, and you
- 55:54Speaker 3: know sort of the some things can come together very well,
- 55:57Speaker 3: and then something's like you see the truck the guy
- 55:59Speaker 3: and learn the truck and can sort of put a
- 56:01Speaker 3: damper on things. And you know, uh, you know, just
- 56:05Speaker 3: some of the things that I found in hearing stories
- 56:08Speaker 3: about filmmaking and you know, vi own personal experiences, you know,
- 56:12Speaker 3: sometimes you just you just never know. I mean we're
- 56:14Speaker 3: For instance, I was going to film in uh for
- 56:17Speaker 3: three days out in this in this park, and I
- 56:20Speaker 3: looked at the weather forecast and they said it was
- 56:21Speaker 3: going to be beautiful all three days. Evan, it stormed
- 56:25Speaker 3: like crazy, and we were gonna use zombies and we
- 56:27Speaker 3: couldn't put them out there because the zombie makeup was
- 56:29Speaker 3: going to run, so we ended up having to sort
- 56:33Speaker 3: of do everything inside and they look completely different than
- 56:36Speaker 3: what we wanted. It was just, you know, we improvised
- 56:38Speaker 3: as best we could, but it's always like, damn it,
- 56:40Speaker 3: if only we could have done more outside.
- 56:42Speaker 4: It's you know, yeah, I mean, filmmaking is just a
- 56:44Speaker 4: big game of improvisation and trying to stay two steps
- 56:47Speaker 4: ahead of the real world. And I mean like, as filmmakers,
- 56:50Speaker 4: we have an unhealthy habit of thinking the world's going
- 56:53Speaker 4: to stop for us while we're on set. But you know,
- 56:56Speaker 4: the world doesn't care. That guy, you know, unloading his truck,
- 56:59Speaker 4: he's just you know, doing it job, like, he doesn't
- 57:01Speaker 4: care that we're making a film. I mean, you know,
- 57:03Speaker 4: so it's like that's what you deal with. You know,
- 57:04Speaker 4: it's gonna rain or it's gonna do this or that,
- 57:07Speaker 4: and it's just a matter of being flexible. I mean,
- 57:09Speaker 4: I think like being kind of zen about everything and
- 57:12Speaker 4: really trying to, you know, I guess, be a little
- 57:16Speaker 4: bit hippie with it and just try not to let
- 57:18Speaker 4: every little thing bother you and just kind of be
- 57:20Speaker 4: a piece. I mean that's the key, because I mean,
- 57:23Speaker 4: if you're you have to be type A, I think
- 57:25Speaker 4: to make productions work. But I think if you can
- 57:28Speaker 4: kind of take a little bit of a type B
- 57:29Speaker 4: mindset when something goes wrong, you're gonna save yourself a
- 57:32Speaker 4: couple of great hairs. Yeah.
- 57:35Speaker 3: Absolutely. I think also meditation helps with that. Yeah, just
- 57:38Speaker 3: learning to learning to roll with this and be like, Okay,
- 57:41Speaker 3: you know what, we'll figure this out. I'm gonna become
- 57:43Speaker 3: very David Lynching about this. I'm gonna you know, try.
- 57:46Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean that's that's how I try to be.
- 57:48Speaker 4: I mean, like Werner Herzog, he talks a lot about
- 57:51Speaker 4: you know, just shooting Gorilla and like just the stuff
- 57:54Speaker 4: that could go wrong and how you'd kind of incorporate
- 57:56Speaker 4: that into your film and how that's actually part of
- 57:59Speaker 4: your esthetic. And like, I mean I absolutely buy that
- 58:02Speaker 4: because I mean a lot of our film was just gorilla.
- 58:04Speaker 4: I mean it was just out there, and you know,
- 58:06Speaker 4: it was it was wild, and so, you know, you
- 58:08Speaker 4: deal with the situations that come by just sticking a
- 58:12Speaker 4: camera in the real world, and I think it gives
- 58:14Speaker 4: your film a little bit of authenticity. I think that's
- 58:17Speaker 4: actually really exciting, but I think at the same time
- 58:19Speaker 4: it's also challenging. But once you capture it's almost like, hey,
- 58:23Speaker 4: I got away with something. Hey we did it. We
- 58:25Speaker 4: you know, managed a film here, even though that guy
- 58:28Speaker 4: unloaded his truck or whatever, and so you kind of
- 58:31Speaker 4: walk away with a little bit of a you know,
- 58:34Speaker 4: excited edge you may not have got if you just
- 58:36Speaker 4: kind of rolled camera in a perfect little situation and everything,
- 58:39Speaker 4: you know, just checked off the list.
- 58:42Speaker 3: Yeah, very very true, very true, Evan. You know, Evan,
- 58:46Speaker 3: just in closing, I want to ask where people check
- 58:48Speaker 3: out Son of Clowns.
- 58:50Speaker 4: Yeah. So we are playing two more festivals at the moment.
- 58:53Speaker 4: Like I said, we were just at Action on Film
- 58:56Speaker 4: in Los Angeles, and we were at Yollywood Film Festival
- 58:59Speaker 4: in Atlanta this past weekend. And we've got Queen City
- 59:02Speaker 4: Film Festival in Maryland on the sixth, so it may
- 59:05Speaker 4: not be this may not be out by then, but
- 59:07Speaker 4: then we have a Cuckle Lauris Film Festival back home
- 59:10Speaker 4: in North Carolina, and I am super excited for that
- 59:12Speaker 4: film festival. That's one I've loved personally for a while,
- 59:15Speaker 4: and so it's gonna be a great homecoming for the film.
- 59:18Speaker 4: And actually, the day after Cuckle Lauris ends this film,
- 59:21Speaker 4: November fifteenth, is going to be streaming for Amazon Prime
- 59:25Speaker 4: and Amazon Video on Demand. So November fifteenth is the
- 59:28Speaker 4: day I think most people should remember because you'll be
- 59:30Speaker 4: able to check out Son of Clowns in full and
- 59:32Speaker 4: streaming on Amazon.
- 59:35Speaker 3: And I will also link to all that in the
- 59:36Speaker 3: show notes everybody, and just in case, in case they
- 59:39Speaker 3: didn't get that. But again, it's at Davilis dot com,
- 59:42Speaker 3: Evan where we'll find you out online.
- 59:44Speaker 4: Yeah, I do Twitter probably the most, So if you
- 59:47Speaker 4: do Twitter, Twitter dot com, my thing is at mister
- 59:50Speaker 4: Evan Kid. My work's also online Rocksetproductions dot com. That's
- 59:55Speaker 4: where I keep everything. And then obviously if you want
- 59:57Speaker 4: to know more about Son of Clowns in particular, Self
- 1:00:00Speaker 4: Clowns dot COM's got everything you need to know.
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
- 1:00:13Speaker 3: Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's like you know, I always say,
- 1:00:16Speaker 3: you know, social media is a tool and it depends
- 1:00:18Speaker 3: how you want to wheel that tool. And Twitter is
- 1:00:20Speaker 3: one that I have. I have met so many people
- 1:00:22Speaker 3: in there, Evan. Uh you know, I I would say
- 1:00:25Speaker 3: you and I meant on there, but you actually you
- 1:00:27Speaker 3: and I meant through email, but.
- 1:00:29Speaker 4: I saw you on Twitter. That's probably I think.
- 1:00:31Speaker 3: So there you go. All right, the Twitter. Twitter is
- 1:00:33Speaker 3: the you know, it's an actual source of all that. Evan.
- 1:00:36Speaker 3: I want to say thank you so much for coming on.
- 1:00:39Speaker 3: This has been a blast of a conversation dude, and uh,
- 1:00:43Speaker 3: you know, I wish you the best son of clowns.
- 1:00:44Speaker 3: And uh, you know, if you ever want to come
- 1:00:46Speaker 3: back talk about you know, whatever else you're up to,
- 1:00:48Speaker 3: about the TV pole you talked about or whatever else,
- 1:00:50Speaker 3: please you know, there was always open.
- 1:00:51Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks Dave. I appreciate it.
- 1:00:53Speaker 3: Oh my pleasure, Evan kid. I want to say thanks again,
- 1:00:56Speaker 3: and I wish the best of luck. Man.
- 1:00:58Speaker 4: Thanks man, appreciate it.
- 1:00:59Speaker 3: And time take here, buddy.
- 1:01:00Speaker 4: Thanks.
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: a great job on this episode. If you want to
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: Forward slash four thirty five. Thank you so much for
- 1:01:13Speaker 1: listening to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter what.
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: I'll talk to you soon.
- 1:01:18Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
- 1:01:23Speaker 2: dot tv.