Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 824: The Screenwriting Secrets Every Indie Writer Needs to Know with Dan Benamor

Transcript

IFH 824: The Screenwriting Secrets Every Indie Writer Needs to Know with Dan Benamor · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the INDIEILM Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight twenty three,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Cinema Should make You Forget. You're sitting in a theater,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Roman Polanski.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the film biz.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle podcast.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: I am your humble.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: prey upon them. The odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: The distribution model of making money with your film is broken,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and there needs to be a change the future of
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the film entrepreneur.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: In Rise of the Film Entrepreneur, I break down how
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: to actually make money with your film projects and show
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: you how to turn your indie film into a profitable business.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: With case studies examining successes and failures. This book shows
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: you the step by step method to turn your passion
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: into a profitable career. If you're making a feature film, series,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: or any other kind of video content, the Film Entrepreneur
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: method will set you up for success. The book is
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook. If you
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: want to order it, just head over to www dot
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: On this week's episode of the podcast My Guests new
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: film Initiation, which he co wrote. It's being distributed by
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Gravitas Ventures. We talked writing, working as a development executive,
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: and so much more with guest Dan Bennimore. Hey Dan,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: thanks love for coming on the show.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: My pleasure.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: You know, so, Dan, just to get started, you know,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: since you've listened to the show before, you know what
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: the first question is going to be and that question
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Dan is you know, how did you get your start
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: in the film industry?
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you know, for me, I mean, I
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: guess the real definitive moment was I came out here
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: to la and I got an internship with a production company,
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: and then I was doing app about six months, and
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: I pretty much, you know, I ended up getting hired
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: as an assistant, and then I got promoted from there
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: and eventually I became the head of development. So it
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: was sort of I mean, really, I guess to be
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: broken down, it would probably be when I just first
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: got hired from an intern to actually being an assistant
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: and then it sort of ball from there.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Now does that still work in a similar way, you know,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: because you know, things are always changing and with with
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: the changing face of the distribution and everything, is it
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: still that that that way where you think interns are
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: used as sort of like that farm system where they
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: can be brought up within an agency.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: My opinion on it, you know, was that because I
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: was at a small company where basically, you know, the
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: principles of the company were right there, like you know,
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: you're dealing with them every day, and it wasn't you know,
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: I think that sometimes if you go for an internship,
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: you could get an internship with somewhere really cool, like
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: you know, like say, for example, I got an internship
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: with Lion Skate or something. Right, so I'm a really
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: big company like that, I would just be a guy,
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: you know, one guy in this massive machine. I think
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: in a scenario like that, it would be a little
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: bit harder to have the trajectory that I ended up
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: having a small company, because in a smaller company, you
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: go act dirrectly with the it's the bulls. They get
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: to know you, and you know, it's a more it's
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: so much more personal relationship, and so it's not I
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: don't think it says when it's a bigger machine, you know,
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: I think you might have a tougher time having any
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: sort of you know, upward mobility like that.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Now, So when you went in there was that was
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: that your goal to be to be hired or did
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: you maybe have another aspiration h to you know, to
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: or another goal to maybe work for another company, or
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: or maybe you know, just goal from your own.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I had no particular aspiration. I mean
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: I showed up here in LA with my buddy from
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: film school, and we got an apartment in Hollywood, and basically,
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: you know, for the first week, who went to the beach.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: But then after that it was like, all right, what
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: are we going to do? So I figured it would
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: be worthwhile to try to learn, just learn as much
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: as I could. And so I actually had a couple
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: I think I had like two or three different internships
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: at the same time. And I just, you know, I
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: had no real particular goal. I mean, I I've always
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: my endgame was always to be a writer. But you know,
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: when I first got to l A, I just figured,
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: as much as I can learn, it's all positive. So
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: I just kind of showed up and uh, you know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: and things things took the course they took, yeah, you know.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: And and you know that that's great because you know,
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: uh because I've had friends who have moved to LA
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: and uh, you know, the things are the same thing.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: They're like they always felt guilty about not being outside
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: because they're like, look, it's a beautiful day out. The
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: beach is down the street. What the hell are we
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: doing inside? You know?
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, for sure, man. I mean the longer you're
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: here too, the less you.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: Go until until like somebody like a relative or something
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: comes right and then you're like.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Uh so you know this and since we're talking, you
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: know about this part of your career, I want to ask,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: you know, because some of the people that have been
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: on I didn't get a chance to ask them this,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: but what are some of the skill sets that did
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: you think that you had at this point that really
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: helped you stand out and really help them? You know,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: your bosses and your managers that they you know, they
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: they saw you, and they saw your skill set and
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: they wanted to keep you. So do you do you
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: know any like any of the skills off hand that
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: you think that really helped you, you know, get that promotion.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: You know, it was funny because I started as an intern,
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: and at the end I was in charge of the interns.
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: So I would, you know, I would kind of manage
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: the interns. I would, you know, me and other people
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: at the company, of course, but I think primarily I
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: was part of my job, so I would kind of see,
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: you know, you would give some interns, like you give
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: them a script, and you know, there were times when
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: I was really busy and I genuinely needed to have
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: like a really in depth creative discussion about a script
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: and I didn't have time to read it. I would
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: give it to an intern to read, and then I'd
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: get up, you know and say, hey, give you that script,
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: what do you think? And you really it was very
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: noticeable and it's actually interesting. So now a couple of
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: years are pas since I was at that job. The
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: guys that were my interns that I could tell had
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: something extra, they've had continued success, Like they've transitioned to
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: other jobs where they've they you know, some of them
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: would become produced filmmakers. Some of them work at other
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: companies now. And you know, you can tell the guys
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: who basically had confidence, that had an opinion. That's pretty
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: much what blows down to you know, if if I
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: got up and I would ask an intern like, hey,
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: what do you think of that script? And he was
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: just like yeah, all right, you know, like that, that's
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: that's not really what you're looking for. You know, you're
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: looking for somebody who has confident as an opinion and
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: also is like has a strong opinion. You know, Like
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: so if I like something and you know, the intern
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: that I'm checking in with him and he didn't like it,
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: and I say, well, you know, I thought, you know,
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: I felt this work and that work, and he kind
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: of backs off his opinion. I think that is also
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: another thing that like, your opinion is your opinion, and
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: it's important, in my opinion, to be strong in your
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: convictions because once you walk full you kind of lose credibility,
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: you know. So it's stuff like that, I think. And
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: then also just the basics, right, like just being responsible,
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: like you're if you're giving a job to do, do
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: it to the best of your ability, be on time,
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: be pleasant to deal with. You know. It's that that
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: type of stuff is really important too.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: So would you ever sit down with a lot of
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: these interns and go over things like this is how
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: you read a screenplay and these are the things to
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: look for, you know? Would you do stuff like that?
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean when you would first bring them in,
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: we'd usually try to get a coverage sample to show
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: that they knew how to read a script basically, and
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean we we had our own template
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: and stuff like that, but that you know, typically if
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: somebody's coming in to be an intern at a production company,
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: we want them to have some reading experience because we
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: don't want them starting from absolute scratch. I mean, then
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: they have no real place to have a strong care
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: of opinion. So usually we try to find somebody who
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: had some sort of background in reading script maybe they
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: you know, whatever that might be, and uh and hopefully
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: you know, start from there.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: So was there ever a you know, a time when
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: when you you know, you read a screenplay and maybe
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: you loved it and you wanted to get a feel
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: for all these interns, and maybe you gave it to
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: them and there was a point where they said, hey,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: you know, hey, boss, uh we we ruined it like this,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: and then and then maybe you said like, hey, yeah,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I loved it actually, and and was therever? Was there
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: ever a time like that?
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: Sure? Yeah, I mean always, I mean that's but that's why. Yeah,
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: that's what you need, uh, you know, readers for basically
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: to kind of check you so you can get a sense,
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: especially if it's something a little bit out there where
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: you're like, you know, I think this is great, but
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: it's pretty pretty weird. You know. You need a lot
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: of times you need that extra voice to kind of
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: you know, get a sense of how it's playing. So
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: often in the situations like that, I would actually have more
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: than one person read it, I'd have like five people
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: read it, and then I'd be able to look at
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: sort of the general response and and you know compare
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: and see what was consist in and stuff like that.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's two Verger takeaways too, is uh, you know,
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: one have confidence and two have an opinion. You know,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: that's very important to mention Dan because I you know,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: just through everyone listening, I you know, I think that's
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: very important too in the general in the film industry
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: is that you have to have, you know, confidence and
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: you have to have that opinion, which you know, if
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: you're as a director, you need that. As a writer
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: as you know, you need that point of view from
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: where to tell your story.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's and that's you know, it's it's a funny
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: thing because it comes back on you in so many
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: different ways because if you project confidence and it's leaven
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: on the page. You know, if you project confidence on
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: the page and you project confidence when you then later
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: go into a development beating or whatever, you can kind
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: of slay people. Like people want to buy into that confidence,
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: Like you know, somebody's sitting to read a script, if
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: that first couple of pages is written with a really
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: strong authorial voice, they'll kind of come with you, you know.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: And if you, as the writer have a really strong
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: take on a story and feel really strongly about it
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: and can back it up on all that stuff, people
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: you know, kind of want to take that journey with
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: you and they want to trust your credibility as a writer.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: So it's so important. Well, I think once you it's
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: not to say that like, oh, you know, don't be
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: be inflexible, it's not about that, But it's just you
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: got to be confident in what you're doing because if
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: you're not, and there's no ways no one ever else
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: will ever be confident in you. You have to be
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: confident in yourself number one, and then other people can
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: basically trust you. And you know, in our business it's
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: so tough already that if you don't project that confidence,
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: I think it makes it way tougher.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: So what are some of the things that you notice,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: Like when we were talking about confidence on the page,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: you know, what are some of the things that usually
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: jump out at you and you can usually say like, hey,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: you know that writer, he believes he or she believes
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: in her own not her writing.
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's I think it's a lot
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: of different things. I think I think one thing for
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: sure would be starting out with a storytelling sort of
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: approach where you're not you're not waiting for us, like
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: you're the story's going and we're either coming with you
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: or we're not, but you're not going to hang around
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: and hold our hand, you know. I think that that
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: is something you'll definitely see in professional scripts, and it's
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: a very noticeable difference from when you're reading a script
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: maybe by a more beginning writer. You can tell the
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: level of confidence in terms of a shorthand of communicating information,
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: you know, where it's using it's it's asking a lot
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: of us as the audience that hey, you you got
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: to keep up with me kind of thing. And I
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: think that you when you when you read something like that,
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: it actually sort of galvanizes you as the reader because
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: you are suddenly empowered to like figure out what's going on,
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: and it just makes it a more dynamic experience. The
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: worst thing you can do is, you know, have something
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: where it's just spelling it out to you. You know,
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: in every way, whether that dialogue or just the slowness
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: of the presentation of information or presenting old ideas as
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: if they are new ideas, you know, and there's there's
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: you know, the audience now is so savage that it's
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: really you know, there's a lot that can be done
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: in shorthand, and if you're not using that shorthand, I
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: think that's where you can kind of get into a
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: scenario where it doesn't come across to the same level
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: of confidence on the page.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd agree to the audience is very savvy now.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, sometimes I'm watching movies and I see,
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: you know, cliches, and I'm always thinking to myself, you know,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: if they I wonder if the writer, director, whoever it was.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I'm We're always wondering, you know, why didn't they try
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: something else? You know what I mean, because you know,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: you know, now, Dan, what I do is the movies.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: I'm always dissecting them in my head, not even just
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: you know, like a piece of paper, but in my head,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: I'm always thinking to myself, you know, is this a setup?
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Is this is you know, what would the payoff be?
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: You know, you know, I wonder what the incding incident's
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: going to be and when it finally comes there, you
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: know you know what I mean. I mean, do you
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: do the same thing do you said? You know when
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: you watch movies now, are you just dissecting them and
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: sort of ms trying to get ahead of the story
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: to see if you could, you know, predict what the
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: writer was thinking.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I'm pretty much ruined as an audience
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: member at this point. I mean, I remember, I remember
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: I used to when I was when I was in college.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: I would go my buddy and we would sneak, you know,
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: we would both see one movie and then sneak around
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: the theater and we would do that for like twelve hours,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: and we would see every movie that was in the theater.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: And I can actually should and watched literally I watched
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: literally anything. But now you know, I'm such a that's
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: an awful audience member. I'll find something, you know, like
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: you'll quick something new on Netflix two minutes if there's
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: stuff in there. I just I'm watching it and I'm
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: just like, ah, man, you know, I'll turn off, Like
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: I'm I've become such a terrifable audience member exactly because
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: of what you're talking about, Because we were in it
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: so much that it's like you stop consuming it kind
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: of as like a regular consumer, you become a lot
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: more sort of I guess hypocritical when you're when you're
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: watching stuff because they're always thinking about the design of
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: it and things like that.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know what you mean, because sometimes you know,
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: I watch movies, right, even if you're a trailer now,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: and I'll say, let me guess what happens in this movie,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: And sometimes, you know, I'll stay it out in front
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: of my friends and like, how the hell do you
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: would you get that from seeing this? And I'm just like,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: because I just you know what I mean, You see
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: that stuff, you see those points, you know what I mean?
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Like there was you know, okay, well this is obviously
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: last part of the movie. I know this sounds a
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: little bit redundant, but the first time I ever had
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: not the first time, but the most time that sticks
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: out in my mind was when Paul Blart Molcop came
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: out and I saw the trailer and a friend of
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: mine went to always screening of it and I told
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: him exactly what I think happens in the beat base
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: based on the trailer, and he goes, wow, you're really
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: good at this and I know I now granted obviously
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: we don't go see Paul bart Molkoff for the writing,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: but but you know that's I was just bringing that
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: up as a point of reference.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, in general, you know, that goes back
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: to the authorial conpetence thing, right. It's like, but soon
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: when you're starting the story, the audience is ahead of
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: you in the same way of what you're talking about.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: Like if you set it up and they're they are
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: going to be predicting a certain storyline. So you the creator,
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: you got to kind of know that, and you're sort
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: of knowing that you have to give them something that's
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: at least a little bit different, because otherwise it's going
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: to be exactly like what you're talking about. If the
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: if the audience is able to predict it like beat
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: by beat, then you're screwed. I mean, that's really you know,
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: that's a really tough it's a tough place to get
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: away from if you're in that scenario. So you got
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: to or some sort of wrinkle that makes it a
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: little bit different.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very true. And you know, I actually, you know,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: just as we talk about all this writing and everything else,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: I want to you know, get get into your writing.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: You know, so did you always you know, have the
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: inclamation that you wanted to be a writer director?
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: Well, no, so I have. I've directed one movie and
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: some shorts and then you know, for me, the experience
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: of directing my movie, which is called Betrayed, pretty much
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: told me that I would prefer to just be the writer,
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: which you know, I enjoyed it, but it's just so
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: all consuming. So I give a lot of credit to
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: my cousin in Orange, who directed our movie Initiation. It's
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: it's really an immersive thing that she kind of just
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: you give up. You got to put a lot of
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: yourself into it. So for me, I prefer being the writer.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, the experience that we had making this film,
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: it's kind of like exactly what I love about being
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: a writer is that I was able to come in
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: and contribute to the story and then they went off
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: and made the movie and I watched the movie. I
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: mean that's you know, that's like, so that's when it's
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: cool being a writer, because it's literally like you wrote
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: something on a piece of paper and then you get
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: to see that it exists, and you know, it's pretty
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: pretty neat.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very true, you know, because I you know, I
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: looked at your I MDB. I did see you have
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: the short then you you did direct Portrade, and you
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: know I wanted to, you know, just ask you know,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: what was the biggest difference that you found when you
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: when you had to direct. I mean, was there any like,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: you know, challenges that you weren't anticipating or you know,
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: did you just say, you know what, I prefer to
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: be a writer.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think that when you're gonna direct, I
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: mean I very much. I love working with actors. I
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: think working with actors is so fun. And you know,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: if I ever end up directing again, it will be
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: because of that. The part that I felt, you know,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: and you kind of have to be all in or
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: not in at all. For me, that was the visual authentic.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: I had a really great uh cinematographer on my film Betrayed,
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: and you know, he was really good about like basically
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: checking me and being like, hey, that's not gonna look good.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: Let's do it like this. You know, when you're when
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: you're promarlier writer, you don't necessarily think in that visual
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: in the way that a director can become on the
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: same tools. You know, if you're if you're someone who's
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: confident directing stuff and your aspiration is absolutely to direct,
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: then you're going to be doing the same study that
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: you and I do for writing, right where we we
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: know it so in and out and we know all
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: the tools and tricks and things like that. I think
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: that you know, uh and obviously you want you lean
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: on your cinematographer as a director, of course, But I
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: just felt like for me, I enjoy sort of trying
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: to master this one facet of it as opposed to
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: like trying to I felt like it would be kind
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: of a jack of all trade situation if I tried
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: to directing thing as much as I like it.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: I don't I don't have the same you know, energy
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: with it as I do with the writing.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I you know when I I haven't directed anything
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: for like five years, but you know, I find that
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: it's not because I don't want to. It's just because
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: I've learned Dan that the writing has to be not
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: good but great, you know what I mean. You're going
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: to do any projects, I've learned that it has to
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: be you have to like you, yourself, whoever, you know,
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: for everyone listening to this. If you're writing something, you
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: and yourself have to get so excited about it. You're like,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: how the hell is this not a movie made already?
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Even look, you know what I mean, And you have
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: to be so And that's something that I've learned. So
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: what I've I've been doing is I took one step
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: forward to take two. I'm sorry, I took one step
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: back to take two steps forward. And basically what I
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: mean by that is I just wanted to make sure
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: that I got better at things. And during this whole
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: five year period, I I've actually produced stuff, I've actually
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: had a graphic novel get made, uh, you know, stuff
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: like that. And but but it's really, you know, comes
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: back to you know, making sure that writing is phenomenal.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: And you know, when you when you talk about writing,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: you know, I can you know, I can hear you
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: get excited about it in your voice, and that's good
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: exactly you need that, right, So I wanted to ask,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: you know, Dan, when whenever you're writing, you know what
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, like, is there any things that you keep
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: in mind to you know, make sure that you're always
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: sort of going forward, if you know what I mean.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a million things. I mean, that's the part
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: that kind of it kind of sucks about the more
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: you learn about it, right because I mean when when
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: when I started, you know, you would it was a
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: little bit more free because you were just like, yeah, man,
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: you know, it's once you learn so much about it,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: then there's so many different things that you got to
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: be thinking about, and so it actually makes you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: once you actually get on the page, I'm good. But
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: the planning, the planning stage, you know, there's a lot
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: that you have to be thinking about, and it helps
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: to just do it a million times. You know. I'm
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: very grateful for the time that I was a development
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: executive because I basically you know, develop I mean dozens
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: of scripts and we made a bunch of those movies too,
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: so I really got to see the whole process many times.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: And so that that helps because you sort of get
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: almost like a muscle memory for it. But yeah, you've
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: got so much stuff you have to think about. You
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: got you know, theme and character and dialogue and arc
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: and structure and mood, and it's uh, yeah, there's a
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: lot to kind of manage, you.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: Know, one thing I've learned, and you know, like you said,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: you know, the more you learn, the more uh you know,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: the more the more you do, the more you learn,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: the more you learn, you know, you realize how complex
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: this gets. And you know, I've read every screen running
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: book on the market. I literally, you know, you can't
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: see it because it's the podcast, but i have every
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: screen writing book out there, and I've read it from
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: cover to cover. You know, I've done what everybody else does.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: You start with screenplay by Sidfield, and you work up
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: to Save the Cat. Then you get a story by
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: m Key, you know, any sort of and then you
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: sort of branch off from there after read those three
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: works because you know, everyone sort of talks about it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: But one thing I've learned over the years is that
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: everything comes back to character, you know what I mean,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Like everything, you know, when we talk about scenes, when
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: we talk about favorite parts of a movie, when we
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: talk about this or that, it always stems from a character.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's very true. Yeah, I mean I would
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: always say when we would you know, when I was
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: a dumb executive and we try to put a movie together,
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: it was pretty in every movie that we made that
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: actually ended up getting made. There was always a moment
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: where we would attack somebody that was meaningful, whether that
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: was an actor or director or whatever, and that person
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: when they would come in, it wasn't like they said,
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: you know why I'm doing this movie because I love
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: the you know the midpoint, Like, no nobody ever said that.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: It's it was always about whatever the emotion was of
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: it or whatever the character thing was that we were doing.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: That was what they would key in on and say, Man,
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: you know, really that meant something to me. And I
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: got company out of that. So yeah, nobody, it's it's
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: all you know, the plot is informed by the character,
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: and then they have to they have to not only
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: coke this, but actually sort of be intrinsic to each other,
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: like the the best movies or movies where the plot
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: has to happen because of the character. Like those two
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: they can't exist outside of each other.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's very true. And I think the
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: mistake a lot of writers make, and and I've made
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: this mistake, you know, more times than I can count, is,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: you know, developing a plot and trying to plunk characters
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: insaid plot if you know what I mean.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Think when when you yeah, when you try to reverse that,
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: when you try to reverse engineer or something like that.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: I I think that's where you sort of get stuck.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: So you know, when you know your new movie Initiation, Uh,
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: it's it's being you know, distributed by Gravitas Ventures. Congratulations,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: by the way, that's freaking huge.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, we're we're we're very excited, you know, and
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: we're very proud of the film. Yeah.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: I mean that that is you know, absolutely phenomenal. And
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask, you know, where, so where did
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: your idea come from for the film? You know, did
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: was this an idea that came to you or was
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: this just something that you know that that you have
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: been sort of working on for years?
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: So this this is actually something that you know, my
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: cousin or and he had the initial idea, He had
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: a script, and he basically, you know, we being thousands
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: we both live in LA I would always come hang
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: with him, and you know, he mentioned that he was
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: working on this, and at one point he, you know,
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: he and I talked about working on it together and
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: so basically I came in and I co wrote it.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: I I you know, we we ended up writing revising
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: that script and and working on it together through to
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: the end, and he directed the film and edited it
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: and produced it. And so I this was a situation
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: where basically I came in where there was already a
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: product that existed, and I just gave my sort of
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: careerive energy to it. And I think that we both
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: kind of complimented each other in that process, and you know,
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: that was that was the process played out on this one.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: So for those for those listening who aren't familiar with
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: the film, could you give us a brief explanation about
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: about the film?
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: Dan, Yeah, So it's basically a group of strangers are
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: kidnapped and they're taken to this kind of a serious
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: house and they basically come to realize that they've been
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: kidnapped to take place in an initiation ritual for a cult,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: and to be initiated into this cult, you have to
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: fight somebody to the death. And so these people that
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: are complete strangers to each other, they're just random people
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: and they thrown into this insane situation and they have
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: to try to figure out a way to survive, and
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: that's what the movie is about.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Very cool and it's actually cool that it's coming out
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: right around this time, you know, this fall Halloween time.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean. It sounds like the movie
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: that's ripped out alley Way.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's well, it's what's
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: been cool about it is that it sort of it
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: towes the line between action and horror. So you know,
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: we've been we've been really happy to see that a
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: lot of horror websites have reviewed the film and given
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: us nice notices because I think that it it's something
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: that's a fun movie for people that like horror movies,
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: but it's also a fun movie for you know, an
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: action fan thriller type of thing.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that is very cool. And you know because I
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: mean whenever you can see the horror you know, horror sites,
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: whenever they can get excited about something, you know, it's
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: always awesome because, like we were talking about, with all
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: the films you know that we've seen and you know,
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: being able to sort of you know, spot the story,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: you know, they seem ton of horror films. So you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: when you get them on board of something, you know
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: what I mean, it's like, okay, great, now you got something,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: you know, because if if they like it, I mean, what,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: what's the general public going to think? You know what
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: I mean?
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: Right? Yeah, No, And we've been I mean we've you know,
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: we have shown the film to a lot of people
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: at this point, and you know, enough people where it's
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: a funny thing your relationship with your own work, right,
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: I mean, anytime you show something to somebody that knows you,
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: you're kind of like, well, you know, they might they
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: might just tell me to be nice. So they thought, like,
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: but we we've shown it to so many people, and
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: then obviously I think we have you know, on IMDb
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: there's some some reviews linked and uh and you know,
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: Bloody Discussing gave us a met review. And we know
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: these are people that have no reason to tell out
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: one way or the other. Right, So when when somebody
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: that has no relationship to you tells you they got
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: something out of your work, then that that's uh, that's
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: that's big because then you figure, okay, well maybe you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: maybe it does work, you know, And and this is
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: a sort of more objective for that.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And you know I see that on the
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: i n dB page. It's up on Amazon Video right now.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Is there is there any other places that that people
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: could find the movie.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all over. It's on It's on iTunes, on Amazon,
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: it's on PlayStation, it's on It's on a lot of
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: cable on demand providers. I was in I was home
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: in Baltimore, and I I saw it on my parents,
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: you know, cable at their house. It's on Blue Doo,
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: It's it's on the majority of video on demand providers.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: And I will link to that everyone in the show notes.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I will make sure to link to all those places
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: that you can check out. H the initiation. Uh, you know,
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask, you know, also about the initiation.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: You know, Dan, what's what's one thing you want to
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: be able to take away from the film? I mean,
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: did you I mean, you know, did you want to
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: have people leave going you know, damn that was intense
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: or was there any other sort of theme that you
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: wanted people to walk away from that walk with but
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: from We'll be.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: back to the show.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: A friend of mine just watched it, and that was
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: pretty much what he emailed me. He said, that was
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: intent the the you know what was cool about it
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: for me was that I think we should feed it
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: something that I'm always trying to do, which is ached
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: with the genre movie and basically invest it with a
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: real meaning, meaning that it's not just kind of an
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: empty genre exercise that's actually it has a has a
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: message and a point to it that is emotional, that
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: is you know, I mean, this really is basically about
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: the idea that no matter what situation you're kind of
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: put into, if you have this sort of inner strength
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: to defeed it, then no one there's nothing anyone can
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: do to you. And you know, we sort of explore
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: that in a lot of different ways in the film,
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: but it was something that you know, meant something to me,
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: and I think it gives the film a weight that
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: you know, if we sort of just relied on all
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: the genre stuff, it wouldn't have that same weight to it.
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: So that that was the thing to me that I
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: was most satisfied with.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: You know, just as a side note, you know, a
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: screenwriting professor once told me a great piece of screamwriting advice,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: and that was when you're sitting down to you know,
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: brainstorm a concept or whatever for for your movie, he said,
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: this is a question you asked yourself, what do you
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: want audiences to leave. What do you want audiences when
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: they leave to take away from this movie? Do you
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: want them to say, oh my god, that was hilarious.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: We know, And He's like that helps guide you throughout
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: the process when you're making the movie.
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, you gotta you
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: gotta do it for a reason. And there's just too much.
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: There's too much stuff out there, all this It tasts
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: too long, it's too much of a pain in the
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: ass if you're not doing it out of some strong
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: impulse of And it doesn't necessarily always have to be heavy,
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: you know. I Mean we're like right now, how we
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: h My cousin and I are talking about doing another
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: film together, and and we're we're talking about doing one
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: that's a little bit more sort of light at least
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: in the tone. Uh, and uh, you know that that
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: can be fine too, But it's just whatever that impulse
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: is that you have that makes it interesting and exciting
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: for you. You know, you got to really feel strongly
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: about that and kind of and and key on that
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: throughout the whole thing, you know, because that's what you
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: want the person who watches it to have that thing feeling.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's exactly right. And uh, you know, I
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, when we can finally convey that,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like I think, uh, you know,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: like for instance, Quentin Tarantino, whenever he writes, I'm thinking,
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: that's the same thing that people pull away from, is
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: the same mood he's in, you know what I mean,
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: particularly like, heyful late, I have a I have a
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: you know that's sort of like a It was the same,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: but it was different for him. And I sort of
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: think that, you know, you could sort of pull away
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: what he's what, you know, what he puts into the script,
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: if you know what I mean. And and you know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you Dan, as we know we
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: were talking about your your future projects. I wanted just
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: to ask, you know, what does a typical writing day
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: for you look like?
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: Man, it's just if I can just get some time.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: It's really time is the most important thing. I mean,
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: I I'm not for me. It's not like I'll write anywhere.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: I'll write at any time. I don't need to like,
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: you know, consult the mus or anything like. I can
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: just down and bang some stuff out. But I think
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: that I have a tough time. I'm sort of an
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: impatient person, which I think is probably a pretty important
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: part of any figure out that I have had or
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: will have is done. You know, I'm just I'm not
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: patient to like just let things comb as they may.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: Like I want to get stuff done, and you know,
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: kind of that's always my ethos. So when I the
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: planning part of it, that's the part that takes forever.
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: Like I'll do research, you know, on initiation. I did
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: research into military stuff on other projects I've written, you know,
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: I'll read like three books about it. But once it's
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: time to write and I actually have figured out the story,
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: I'm so I have such a burning desire to just
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: get it out of me and get it onto the page.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: It's almost to the point where like I feel like
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna lose it if I don't that it comes
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: very fast, you know, and I almost I almost will
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: consciously try to set aside, you know, just a couple
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: of days or whatever where I know it's going to
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: just be kind of flowing out of me and h
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: and just be able to kind of bang pages out,
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: because you know, that's I don't I don't, Yeah, I mean,
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: it's just a difference in process, right, For me, the
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: real cracking of the story comes in the planning. The
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: actual writing is just putting the planning on a piece
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: of paper. So the writing itself is the fun part.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: The hard part of the is coming up with the
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: actual story.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, I could not agree more. That's something that I
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: found too, is that you know, uh, because once once
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: I have an outline or a treatment or anything, you
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: know what I mean, like any even if it's a
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: piece of paper work some ideas, you know, scribble down
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: on it that looks like the journal from seven. Uh,
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: you know, just something. I know where I'm going, you
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: know what I mean? And you know, the biggest part
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: that was always you know where the plot is going.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: But then I've realized it always comes back to where
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: the characters start, you know what I mean. So you
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: know when the when the when the script starts is
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: where the movie starts. So then where do we find
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: our characters when the script starts, you know, you know
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: what I mean? Or do they have something? Do they
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: not have something? You know, what's their desire? Uh, you know,
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: what's what's their intention? What's their obstacle?
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: So Dan, I mean, like how on average, how off
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, how many hours a day do you write?
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, is it like sometimes like a thirty minutes,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: then sometimes maybe it's like two hours.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: I think that on a day when I actually can
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: really you know why, I have nothing going, I can
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: really just sit and focus on writing, well, usually I
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: think after like three or four hours, you got to
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: stop and I've done it. I've had times where I'll
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: fit and I'll write for like you know, I'll write
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: the whole day. But I think, as a general rule,
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: unless it's something where I've gone insane and I have
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: to you know, I think that three or four hours
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: of a focused writing, after that it has to become
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: diminishing returns. Just your brain kind of. It takes a
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: certain sort of brain muscle I think to come up
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: with this stuff, and after a while you start like
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: you don't have that theme because you know, I mean,
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: it's sort of what we were talking about before, Like
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: each scene that you write, you really got to sit
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: and think about it and think about like, Okay, you know,
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: here's the regular version of this scene. Why is this
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: scene going to be somewhat cooler than the regular version?
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: Like how can I make it different? How can I
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: make a different not just in what happens, but in
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: how the characters interact with each other with the visual
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: thing that I'm doing in this scene or the reversal
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: in this scene. So it's so much like mental effort
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: to go into it that I think after three or
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: four hours, I got to stop. So for me, a
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: good three or four hours of writing and then maybe
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: some research you know in the afternoon, or a lot
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: of prep for the next day, you know, like okay
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: and tomorrow. I know, I got to write these themes
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: just kind of what I'm thinking, and I at least
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: have a little bit of a roadmap of the actual
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: precise execution, and then you can kind of flow into
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: the next day.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's kind of like which I think Stephen King
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: maybe said that. He said basically, he he ends on
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: a high note that way, and the next day he
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: comes in, he knows exactly where he's gonna go, and
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: he keeps that flow going on every day.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I tend to do that as well.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: Great mind stick alike, you know, and that and that's
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: great advice, by the way. So you know, Dan, in closing,
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: you know, is there maybe anything that we can talk
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: about that you wanted to or any sort of parting
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: thoughts you want to want to add to this conversation.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: No, I mean, you know, I think the thing that's
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: cool to me about this project specifically, and I think
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: is relevant to what we're talking about and probably to
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: a lot of people listening to your podcast to you know,
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: this is something that any of us could do. You
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: could you you could have made this movie. You know,
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: anybody listening to this could have made this movie. It's
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: a movie that we made for a low budget. But
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: you know, one of the reasons that it's been so
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: cool getting some nice reviews from some cartscle is that
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: they basically said, yeah, it's a low budget movie, but
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: the sort of ingenuity and the effort that went into
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: it and that that made it it didn't. It doesn't
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: feel low budget, you know, like it's not. It's the
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: point being that there's nothing to stop at any of us.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: I'm just going to make in a movie, and not
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: just a movie that we sort of is enablegating for
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: our own edification, but a movie that anybody can sit
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: down and watch and enjoy at a real movie. You know,
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: even if you have to do it for a low budget,
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: you know, and I think that this is sort of
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: to me a good case study of that that we
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: actually went made this movie, got it distributed by a
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: very legitimate distributor. It's out everywhere, you know, and you know,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: we we've on a lot of nice responses to the movie,
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: so we do think that the movie works. And you know,
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: we we just look forward to hopefully having people to discovered,
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: you know, and and maybe we can go make another one, you.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: Know, and that's that's phenomenal. And you know, honestly, Dan,
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna make sure check out the Initiation. I will everyone.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: I will link that in the show notes. Dan, where
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: can you find you out online?
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, just just stuck with the movie.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: I'm not I'm like the worst person ever for all this.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: I don't have a Twitter or something. I'm not a
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: social media dude. But the Initiation movie we have a
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: website with Facebook page, and obviously it's on iTunes, it's
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: on Amazon, it's all these other platforms.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: Dan, I want to say thank you very much.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: For coming on my pleasure, a good conversation, Oh my pleasure, sir,
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: Take care, take care any way.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Indie film huscle
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: dot com Forward slash eight twenty three, and if you
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: have it already, please head over to filmmaking podcast dot com,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: really helps us out a lot, guys.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Thank you again so much for listening to guys.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: E F I L M h U S T l
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: E dot com.