Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 877: Why This Oscar-Nominated Animator REFUSED to Play Hollywood's Game with Bill Plympton

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IFH 877: Why This Oscar-Nominated Animator REFUSED to Play Hollywood's Game with Bill Plympton · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, episode number 877.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: You try to do it, and you do it honestly.
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  Speaker 3: Edgar Wright.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast.
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  Speaker 2: I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is
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  Speaker 2: sponsored by Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, how to turn your
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• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host, Dave Bullis.
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: Joining me today is world-renowned animator Bill Plimpton. Bill is
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: considered the king of the indie animation and was the
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: first person to hand-draw an entire animated feature film. Bill
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: moved to New York City in 1968, began his career
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: creating cartoons for publications such as The New York Times,
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: National Lampoon, Playboy, and Screw. And in 1987, he was
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: nominated for an Oscar for his short film, Your Face.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: In 2005, Bill received another Oscar nomination, this time for
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: his short film, Guard Dog. and Bill is currently raising
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: funds on Kickstarter for his eighth animated feature film, Revengeance,
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: which the campaign, by the way, ends on May 21st. Bill,
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: how are you doing today, sir?
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Good, thank you so much for having me on your show. Oh,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: my pleasure.
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: Just to get started, Bill, could you just give us
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: a little bit more about your background, how you actually
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: got started in this whole animation field?
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. When I was a kid, I really fell
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: in love with animation. through Walt Disney and Bugs Bunny
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: and Daffy Duck. So at a very early age, I
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: knew that's what I wanted to do was to make animations. Unfortunately,
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: when I got out of college, which was around 1968,
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: the animation business was dying out. Disney was in debt
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: and they were very confused. And Warner Brothers had stopped
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: making animation. Fleischer Brothers stopped making animation. So all my
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: heroes were gone. And so consequently, I moved to New
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: York to become an illustrator. And for about 15 years,
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: I was an illustrator in New York. And then I
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: finally got the opportunity in 1983... to make an animated film,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: and I did not produce it. I did not write it,
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: but I did the storyboards and all the animation, and
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: I directed the film. And once I did that, the
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: film was somewhat.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: Of a success.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: I said, hey, I can make my own film now.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: I don't need anybody else to help me. And that's
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: when I made this little film called Your Face. And
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Your Face went on to a huge, huge success. much
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: to my surprise. And then I gave up illustration, and
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I gave up print, and I went full-time into animation.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: And I've never looked back since. It's always been very successful. Excellent.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: And, you know, I've seen how well your career has done.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: In fact, I even learned that you directed and animated
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: two couch gags for The Simpsons.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Three of them, actually.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, three of them.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Sorry. I did three of them. Yeah, I did a
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Simpsons Noir. I did the early year or the backstory,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Simpsons the backstory. And then I did the Channel Changer.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: So there's three of them that I did. And I
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: enjoyed doing it.
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  Speaker 4: So how did that work? Did Matt Groening actually reach
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: out to you to see if you would be interested
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: in doing some of these?
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Well, Matt Groening actually is from Oregon, Portland, Oregon, which
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: is where I'm from. And I met his dad first, Homer.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: His name is Homer Groening. And we became friends. And
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: then I met Matt, who was a young kid then.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: You know, I was like 16 or 17. And then,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: so we always knew each other. And even though he
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: lives in L.A. and I live in New York, we'd
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: meet at the San Diego Comic-Con or the Annecy Film Festival.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: And I think it was about three years ago, he said,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: you know, Bill, you should do a couch gag for us.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: It would be really fun to see you do some
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: animation for The Simpsons. So I said, yeah, I'd love
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: to do that. So I did the backstory, the Simpsons backstory.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: And that was a big hit. And so they asked
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: me to do two more. So I did the other ones.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: I did the Simpsons Noir and the Channel Changer. You know,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: the interesting thing is more people saw those Simpsons couch
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: gigs and have seen all my films throughout my entire career.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: And it sort of gives you an idea of how
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: popular The Simpsons is and how pervasive television is around
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: the world.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, The Simpsons is just, you know,
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: it's a piece of Americana. It's so world-renowned. I mean,
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: you know, if you like the name Homer, as soon
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: as you hear that name, nobody thinks of the philosopher.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: Everyone thinks of Homer Simpson.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, true. It's an institution.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. And, you know, Bill, we kind of have a
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: mutual friend. Alexia Anastasio was actually on the podcast before,
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: and she actually did the documentary on you, which is
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: Adventures in Plimptons.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Very good. Yeah, it's just a small world, right? Yeah,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: it is. How do you know her?
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: I actually met her through Twitter and then we became friends.
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: And then when I started on this podcast thing, I
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: had her on and, you know, we brought it up
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: and now it's sort of come full circle now.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. Yeah.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: So, you know, just touching on the documentary quickly, you know,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: how did, you know, how did, did she reach out
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: to you to actually start this documentary?
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I met her before through a woman named Esther Bell,
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: who was a director at And she wanted to include
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: me in one of her films as an actor. I'm
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: not an actor. I don't profess to be an actor.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: I even wanted to be an actor. But anyway, she
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: wanted me to do a little cameo. So on that cameo,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Alexia was working on the film. And so she was,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: that's where I met her. And then she, you know,
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: I went into her at film screenings and events. And
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: then she came up with the idea of doing a
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: documentary about me, which I thought was wonderful.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah it was uh it was fantastic having her on
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: the show and the documentary is fantastic as well I
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: actually thank you I had her on the show I
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: actually uh made sure to watch the uh the film
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: and um I'm gonna make make sure to link to
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: that in the show notes cause you know obviously oh
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: thank you oh sure no problem at all and um
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: You know, I mean, any fan who's clicking on this,
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: I'm sure, or any guest, I recommend you check out
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: Adventures in Plinthetunes. And speaking of projects involving you, Bill,
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: I want to talk to you about your new project.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: I know it's on Kickstarter right now. There's a few
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: days left. It's Revengeance. And, you know, I became aware
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: of your campaign. I saw, you know, Seth Rogen tweeted
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: it out. and I saw a couple of other celebrities
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: who were tweeting this out, and I said, oh, wow,
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: Bill has a campaign going. So if you could, Bill,
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: could you give us a little details about Revengeance and
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: what it's about?
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: I'd love to. The writer of the film, his name
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: is Jim Lujan. The first time I met him was
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: actually when he came to my hotel room to do
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: an interview with me for another podcast called And then
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: I would run into him at the Comic-Con, San Diego Comic-Con.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: And he would always hand me a bunch of his
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: new films, his new short films. He does like two
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: or three minute animated shorts. And I get a lot
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: of those whenever I appear someplace. I always get a
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: handful of those things. So I never thought much about it.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: And then about two or three years later on one
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: rainy afternoon, I had nothing to do. I thought I'd
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: put one of the films on. And I was just
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: dumbstruck about how original they are, how interesting and fascinating
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: his characters are, and also how similar, in terms of
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: sense of humor, his is to mine. Even though he
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: uses a lot of dialogue and I don't, I find
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: that his humor is very simpatico with my kind of humor.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: So I called him up the next day and I said,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: let's do a film together.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: And now, back to the show.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: And he said, yeah, I'd love to do it. And
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: so he wrote a script. It took about two or
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: three months. He wrote a script. He did it really fast.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: And he used a couple of characters that I liked
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: in his films, so that was good, because I love
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: his characters. And it's essentially about the sleazy underbelly of
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles, you know, these people who are kind of
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: evil and hanger-ons.
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: And, you know, biker gangs and burnout wrestlers and corrupt
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: politicians and and religious cultists and fanatics and things like that.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: So it's really right down my alley. So he sent
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: me the script, I think it was about a year ago,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: and then I did the storyboards, and I gave him
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: the storyboards, and he approved all the storyboards. And so
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: I started animating, I think that was in the fall
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: of 2014. And it's been going really well. We were
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: about a third of the way done, but it's starting
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: to get really expensive because now we had to hire
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: people to do the coloring. We have about four or
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: five artists doing the coloring, and that gets really expensive.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: So we thought it'd be nice to... to do a
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Kickstarter campaign to help pay off all these expenses. So
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: we started the campaign about a month ago, a little
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: less than a month ago, and actually a little more
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: than a month ago. And it's been doing pretty well,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: but we're short about $ 20, 000. So it's really getting desperate
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: time because if we don't make our money, then we
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: lose all of our funding, and I don't know if
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: we'll be able to finish the film or not. So
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: it's really important that people... check out the site. It's
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: on Kickstarter, The Vengeance. And they can see clips from
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: the film. They can see interviews with me and Jim Luhan.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: and Jim is also doing the voices of the film.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: He's a wonderful voiceover artist, and also he's directing the music.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: So all I have to do is just the animation
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: and the directing, and that's fun. That's easy. I love
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: that stuff. It's very second nature to me. But one
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: of the cool things we're offering is that if you
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: put in like $ 1, 500, I will do a drawing of you,
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: whoever puts in the money, a caricature, and I will
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: put you in the film. So you'll be immortalized. You'll
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: have a cameo in the film. And you can tell
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: all your grandkids and great-grandkids that you were a star
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: in a Bill Clinton film. So it's a pretty cool thing.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: But I do remind people that basically nobody in the
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: film has any redeeming features. They're all basically assholes with
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: fleas balls. And I think that they have to understand
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: that the character they're going to be is probably not
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: a good person.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: That's a great idea, Bill. That's a great perk because
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: being able to be in the movie and being able
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: to actually get that product. Whenever I check out someone's campaigns,
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: I'm always interested to see what perks they're offering. And
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: I think your perk struggles … Excuse me, perk structure
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: is phenomenal. You know, you start out, you know, at $ 5,
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: which is great. And you have some very creative, you know,
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: for everything from old, you know, from previous cell animations
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: to even that reward. And even that, there's a great
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: $ 150 reward, too, about you get the actual physical copy
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: of the script signed by you and your co-writer. I
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: think that's a phenomenal perk.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's a great script. And Jim is so...
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: So talented. So I think one of the features of
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: this film is that I drew every drawing in the film,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: and he's doing all the voices in the film, or
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: at least 95% of the voices. And I think that
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: that's never been done before in an animated feature film.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: So it's a very unique film. It's a very special film,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: and I think people are really going to love it
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: because the story is so tight. When I first read
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: the script, I thought, wow, it's a really cool script.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: But I didn't really understand all the undertones and the
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: depth of the character until I started animating it. And
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: I saw all these connections that he had made and
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: all these little backstories and darker stories that he had
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: included in the script. And that's when I really appreciated
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: the genius and the brilliance of the script of Revengeance.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I watched the Kickstarter video and it remarked that
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: if you're a fan of The Big Lebowski, Jim mentioned that,
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: if you're a fan of The Big Lebowski, you'll be
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: into this movie. And I could see it too, just
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: from the trailer alone, some of the humor and just
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: some of the angles, some of the setups. I mean,
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: it looks hilarious.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody's a loser, basically, in the film. Even the
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: star of the film, Rod Rossi, the one-man posse, is
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: kind of a loser guy. So there are some similarities
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: to the big Lebowski.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: And that's what I love, too, Bill, is seeing... movies
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: that sort of, you ever hear the screenwriting advice where
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: they're like, hey, make your lead character likable, make him this,
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: make him that, and then you see all the trailblazers,
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: and they break every rule, and it's so different, and
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: then you're like, well, wait a minute, these guys broke
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: every rule, how did they do that? They didn't save
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: the cat, you know what I mean?
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, another film that I just watched recently,
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: and I thought this had some similarities too, was the
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Inherent Vice film. And I thought that had a lot
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: of the same or similar characters, I should say, of L.A.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Losers and the sleazy underbelly of Los Angeles. Although it's
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: a different era, I thought there was so many great,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: great samples. I love that film. It's my favorite film
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: of the year. I thought it was a genius, a
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: genius film.
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, especially, it was very different as well, too. I
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: think that's another reason why it stood out, because it
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: wasn't sort of what you were expecting from movies of
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: usually that genre, you know what I mean? And it
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: just had its own sort of, it did its own thing.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, our plan with this film is... We're going
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: to finish it next year sometime, probably this time next
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: year at the rate it's going. Like I said, it's
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: about a third of the animation has finished. And so
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: probably in the fall or the winter of next year,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: we'll start editing and doing the sound. And then hopefully,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: in the springtime, it'll be ready to take to the
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: festival circuit. And we're hoping that people like it enough
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: to get distribution. And then it'll hopefully make its money back.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: That's our dream. Because I already spent a lot of
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: my own money in the film. I spent maybe $ 50, 000
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: to $ 100, 000 of my own money in the film. Because
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: I believe in it. I think it's a great film. So,
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: but I just, I can't spend any more money. I'm
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: down to my last, you know, couple thousand bucks. So
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: that's why we're, we're so happy with Kickstarter. You know,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: I've used Kickstarter before. I did, I did a recreate,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: not a recreation, refurbishing of a Windsor McKay. They, the
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: great early American animator who did a little Nemo and
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: slumber land and dirty the dinosaur. And I, I, He
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: selected his last film, which is called The Flying House, which,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: interestingly enough, was remade by Pixar in Up. And this
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: film has been forgotten. It's been neglected. It's deteriorating and
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: really in sad shape. So I digitally fixed every frame
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: of the film, cleaned up all the dirt and the scratches.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: I colorized all the frames. I hired Matthew Modine and
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Patricia Clarkson to do the voices. I scored it with
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: music and cut out all the... The word balloons and
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: the intertitles. So now it's a much sleeker, more entertaining film.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: And it was very expensive because cleaning every frame is,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: you know, it's a lot of it's about a 10,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: 13 minute film. So I went to go to Kickstarter.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I think we asked for 15,000 and we got 20,000.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: So it was a huge help in taking care of that.
• 18:36
  Speaker 6: Of that project, simply because there was no way I'm
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: going to make money on that film. It's more of
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: a historic recreation.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: More of something that needs to be done so people
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: can discover A Witch of a Cave. So when I
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: started doing Cheatin', I also ran out of money because
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: I selected a digital watercolor style that matched my early
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: illustration style. And I fell in love with it. But unfortunately,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: it's very slow and tedious to do a digital watercolor look.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: So consequently, I had to hire four more artists so
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: we could finish the film on time. And that just
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: shot my budget. I went broke after about, you know,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: a few months. So then we were six months until
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: the end of the film. And I was deep in
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: debt and had no more money And that's when I
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: decided to go to Kickstarter again. And I used Adam Rakoff,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: who's sort of the Kickstarter guru. And he organized the
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: whole campaign. He was able to put together a lot
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: of ads. We'll be right back after a word from
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: our sponsor. And now back to the show. And it
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: was a huge success. We asked initially for $ 75, 000, and
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: we got over $ 100, 000. So we were just pulled over
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: by the success of the project. And so that's why
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: I go back to Kickstarter again, and hopefully my fans
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: will support me and help bring in enough money to
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: finish the film.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: Oh, and you touched on something that's very important too, Bill,
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: is that, you know, you actually invested your own money
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: into Revengeance. And it's so important to, you know, for
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: fans and for, you know, potential donators to actually see,
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: you know, that this person put their own money into it.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: And it's not just sort of like, you know, hey,
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: just fund this. Because I've had people, you know, come
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: on the show and they even stress that importance because,
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: you know, people have come to them for advice and
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: they're just like, hey, I don't want to put any
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: money in this, so I'm just going to go to Kickstarter.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: But, you know... Right.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's so awesome that you actually threw money
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: to revenge.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: I bet my career on these films. I hope they
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: make money back, and eventually they do. In fact, my
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: entire library has been bought by Shorts HD, and they
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: are now presenting my entire library on iTunes. So this
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: is one of the ways I make money. I'm able
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: to keep financing my films. But these feature films are
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: getting more and more expensive. So I just can't afford $ 300, 000, $ 400, 000
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: to make a film. I just don't have that kind
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: of money. If I did, I'd have a mansion in
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: the Hamptons or something. But for me, it's just the
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: love of the art. I just love making animation. I
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: love doing these films. And thanks to my fans, I'm
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: able to continue making making the films I want to
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: make without undue influence from distributors and Hollywood producers and
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Hollywood studios and big financiers. I have complete control over
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: the films with Jim Lujan, I should say. And I
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: don't have, you know, I can stay independent. And that's
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: so important to me, especially in this world today. when
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: films are more and more conglomerate movies. They're made by
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: people who do the marketing, they're made by people who
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: do the merchandising, they're made by people who do the
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: sales and the exhibition and It's really not an artist
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: medium anymore. It's a corporate conglomerate making the film. And
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: I like it to be the production of artists making
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: what they want to make. They're making their dream project.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: And that's why it's important that I stay independent and
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: why it's really cool if people can support this Kickstarter campaign.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's phenomenal, Bill, that you get to do
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: what you love. And it shows in your work. And
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: I know we're running out of time. So, you know,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: in closing, you know, is there anything that we didn't
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: touch on that you wanted to discuss or anything you
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: wanted to say in closing?
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a couple of things. One, I'll get back
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: to the Kickstarter.
• 23:23
  Speaker 6: Earlier, we actually do pitches in Hollywood for film projects.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: And, you know, I was very naive and thought, oh, yeah,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: this is a really great project. I'm sure when it
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: gets on studio, excited about it. It never happened. The
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: studios don't care about me for a number of reasons. One,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: I don't do computer animation. Two, I don't do children's animation.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: And three, I've been independent. I have a tiny studio.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: It's a boutique studio. I have about six or seven employees.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: And so it really was an exercise in frustration. going
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: out to Hollywood and showing my, you know, pitching my
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: story and showing my storyboards and art. And, you know,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: I just realized very quickly that this is not the
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: way to go. This is not the way to get
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: financing for my films. And then along comes Kickstarter. It
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: really shows me that the true lovers of my films,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: the fans, the people who really want to see my film,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: are the ones that want to finance it. The studio
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: heads don't love my films. They don't like my films
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: at all. They're adult, they're kind of crazy, surreal. They're
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: very personal films. And that's not what they want to finance.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: So it just seems to me that the Kickstarter is
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: the way to go. It's the wave of the future,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: and I think it's going to change everything. I think
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Hollywood is realizing that they're losing... They're losing their power.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: They're losing their opportunities to finance really interesting films, since
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: all their films have to be major, big-budget kind of films,
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: and you just can't have an interesting personal film with
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: that kind of financing. So this is really the wave
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: of the future, and I'm so happy that the Kickstarter exists.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Not just Kickstarter, but Indiegogo and all the other crowdfunding
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: services that are out there.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with you completely, Bill. I think crowdfunding
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: is changing the game. More and more I see artists
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: that are going the crowdfunding route for a number of reasons.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: and you know, I, and I, I've done crowdfunding myself.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, I did crowdfunding way back in 2008 when
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Indiegogo for, uh, Indiegogo first started 2008, 2009. And, um,
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: it was a, an uphill battle because a lot of
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: people didn't even hear about it back then. So it was,
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: it was kind of like, what is this? And, you know, um, now,
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: now every, you know, nowadays everyone, you know, Kickstarter is, is, is,
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: is in the, uh, is in the zeitgeist now.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: And, uh, Sure is, yeah.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: So now everyone knows what we're talking about. So, you know, Bill,
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: I know we're just about out of time. I want
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: to say thank you so much for coming on.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Wait, wait, I have one more thing to mention, if
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: I could.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: Oh, sure, absolutely.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: I just finished my feature film, Cheatin', which was, as
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I said earlier, funded by Kickstarter. And it's just a
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: 30-city tour around America to promote the film and to
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: get people excited about Cheatin'. And it just now is
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: available on Vimeo On Demand. So if people missed the
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: film when it appeared in their local theater, they can
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: go to Vimeo On Demand and see the film online.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: And one of the cool things about Vimeo is that
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: the producer of the film, the director of the film,
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: gets 90% of the money that comes in. In other words,
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: if you go to Netflix or iTunes or someplace like that,
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: you only get probably less than 50%. But on Vimeo,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: it's a much better rate for the artists. So if
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: you want to support the artists and make sure that
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: they get money to continue making films, definitely check out
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Vimeo on demand. And that's why we chose it.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: And I'll make sure to link that in the show
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: notes as well, Bill. But I also want to make
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: sure everyone checks out Revengeance. It's right now on Kickstarter.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: And as, you know, as this episode comes up, we
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: have a few days left for the campaign. It ends Thursday,
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: May the 21st at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So, again,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: just check out the campaign. The film, Revengeance, looks awesome.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: And if you're a fan of Bill's work, I know
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: you're going to like Revengeance. So, in closing, Bill, where
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: can people find you at online?
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Studio, or no, plimtoons.com. Excellent.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: And I'll make sure to link down the show notes. Bill,
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: I want to say thank you again for coming on.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: It was an honor and a pleasure to talk to you.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Likewise. Thank you so much for your help. I really
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: appreciate it. No problem at all.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: I'm glad to help out.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: Okay. I'll talk to you later. All right.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Have a great day in New York, Bill. Enjoy the park.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Okay. Bye. Take care, Bill. Bye-bye.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at IndieFilmHustle.com. forward slash 877.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: And if you haven't already, please head over to filmmakingpodcast.com, subscribe,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: and leave a good review for the show. It really
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: much for listening, guys. As always, keep that hustle going,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: keep that dream alive, stay safe out there, and I'll
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: talk to you soon.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at indiefilmhustle.com.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: That's I-N-D-I-E-F-I-L-M-H-U-S-T-L-E.com.