Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 864: The Brutal Truth About Getting Your First Film Made with Greg Francis

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IFH 864: The Brutal Truth About Getting Your First Film Made with Greg Francis · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
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  Speaker 2: sixty four. You try to do it, and you do
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  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
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  Speaker 2: That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest
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  Speaker 2: host Dave Bullis.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: All right, everyone, thanks an for joining me today on
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: the show. Is writer director Greg Francis. How were you, sir?
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty good. Dave, thanks for having me. Oh,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: thank you very much for coming on. You know, I
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: really appreciate it. You know, I heard your podcast, heard
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: your interview on another podcast, and I was like, Wow,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: this guy has a fascinating story and I want to
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: talk to him as well. So Greg did to start off,
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: could you give us a little bit about your background.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: Sure, as far as film and stuff.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: I think probably like most kids my age, when the
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: VCR came into play, we all became cinophiles. I liked
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: the movies all time as a kid, and then I
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: ended up moving to Asia. My parents are actual missionaries,
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: and so I was living in Taiwan for junior high
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: and high school, and one year for our tax rebate,
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: we bought one of the very first of ECRs. It
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: was a giant, giant machine, and I just remember going
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: down and I couldn't read any Chinese, so all the
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: videos would be there and I would just say, well,
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: give me a comedy, or give me a horror, give
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: me drama or action, and then they would just give
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: me a handful of tapes and then just go back
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: on movies all night. And that started in junior high
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: and continues to this day. I think, but never really
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: thought that this is something that I could do. It's
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: just something that I loved. And it wasn't until I
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: got into college and I started doing theater and making
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: short films that I really got excited about it. And
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: then I thought, this is a it sure be to
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: working and it sure seems like fun. Let's see if
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: we can make this go. And that's sort of how
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: it all started.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: So, now, when you made those short films, were they
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: were they college projects or were they just listen for fun?
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sort of, because it wasn't There wasn't any I
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: wasn't at a school that had any kind of film
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: program or anything like that. I think they had one
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: or two classes, but I was in the Chicago area
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: and they had a cable access stations, which I don't
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: even know if they exist anymore. But it was like,
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: really it was kind of like Wayne's world, where there
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: was little studios that if you went in and took
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: some training you could use their equipment and make shows
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: for their TV for their TV station. And so I
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: remember using their equipment and being like, oh, we get
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: this for free if we just went to so we
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: started making it would somehow tie into a class project.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: But I remember making two or three thirty minute projects,
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: and then I started making at the college I went to,
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: each class would make a film and have a big night,
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: and so I did that for the last two years too.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Oh cool, you know, I think there is still some
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: kind of public access lists. I'm sorry, Yeah, is there Yeah,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: I think there is. Sorry if I interrupted you, Greg,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry about that. I thought, Uh, I think I
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: think it was a little lag there. I apologize if
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: I interrupted you. But yeah, I think there's still slowly
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: a little public access programs here and there across the country.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: There's something in Philadelphia called Philly Cam and Comcast actually
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: has the fund that fund this because it was a
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: deal that they actually struck with a city and you
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: can actually go there and use gear and stuff like that.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: And this, I mean, it was a great idea. And
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: for people back in those days where equipment was just
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: cost prohibitive and getting your hands on anything to make
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: your own things was almost impossible. There's no you know,
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: DSLRs or anything like that. It was just so expensive
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: and film was beyond that. But even just getting big
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: video equipment was silly. I think there was we had
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: cam quarters that had come out, but the quality is
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: really bad. In fact, I remember doing my first shorts
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: where it is like the old days, you would do
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: in in camera edits and if you didn't like to
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: take you'd rewind it and then do it again and
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: rewind it. Then do it again. And yeah, it makes
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: me sound really old, but we were so excited just
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: to be able to be like, oh, we're kind of
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: making a movie that sort of planted the seed, you know.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I remember those this camp quarters too growing up in
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: the nineties. Uh, because I was born in eighty four,
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: but I remember my my parents they got us. Uh,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: my parents got me a this like old style VHS camera,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: and I remember those huge ones where you would put
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: it on your shoulder. It was literally like twenty pounds
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: and you're just like, I need a tripod because look
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: my shoulders breaking here. Uh, but you know, and there's
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: and yeah, and there's and then you would edit it
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: and you'd you could, like, you know, if you got fancy,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: you could try to connect it to your TV through RCA,
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: And you get to two of them and then try
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: and do tape the tape and dub over like you
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: do with your mixtapes. It was pretty cool, Yeah, exactly.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and uh. Eventually I got a TV with a
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: VCR built in, and I connected another VCR VCR to
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: A so I could actually start, you know, copying like stuff,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: like I could make copies of stuff I did for
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: people or I could like edit this together, make best
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: of and stuff like that. Yeah, it was pretty high
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: ten for then, so you're like, this is freaking awesome,
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: you know, yeah, exactly.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: And just to have access that was the biggest thing.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: I don't come from a wealthy family or or people that.
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, I was a Midwest kid and growing up overseas,
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: I didn't have any connection to the industry or people
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: in the industry, and so getting your hands on equipment
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: for the first time was like so exciting and being
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: able to write stuff and then make it, it just
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: was unprecedented, except for doing theater. You know, it felt like, oh,
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: we're doing something important and being able to do it
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: for without having to pay was amazing.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's kind of like what Spike Lee
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: once said. He said the reason he went to film
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: school was just because they had all the tools, and
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: because somebody asked them if they would go to film
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: school now, and he said, no, I wouldn't go because
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: you know, your phone is a camera now, so you could,
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: you know, and you know, camera is like you said,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: DSLR and the red and everything else. I mean, you
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: have these wonderful cameras now that you could, you know,
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: somewhere more expense than I was. Where can still rent
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: some of these, you know, and you know you can
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: put together a pretty solid movie.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's a completely different time now. You know,
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: film school you can go back and forth all the time.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: And the horrible thing, of course, with any school now
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: is it's just so ridiculously expensive. But one of the
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: great things that does come out of film school, more
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: than the equipment or anything else, is just meeting other
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: people that want to do what you do and being
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: able to crew up and get people to work on
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: your projects and do it at that cost level, which
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: is hard to find other places unless there's good film
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: groups in your city or whatever. But film school does
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: at least give you contact with other people that are
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: trying to do the same thing.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, very true.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: But it's said, man, it's so expensive, it's ridiculous.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I actually want to end up going
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: to school for business, and you know, I was there.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I actually was like, you know what, I really just
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: want to do film, and I ended up basically the
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: way I network is through Twitter. I mean that's you
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: know how I met you, and you know everything else,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: and you know, and you know, we can do things
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: online now, Like there's so many online film courses and
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: sites now. It's like I literally, Greg, I don't know
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: about you, but I get like an invite every week
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: to a new like, oh, we have streaming video servers
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: and we have webinars, and it's it's amazing.
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: It is amazing. In fact, I was scrolling through all
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: the people that you've interviewed and I was like, Holy, Macael,
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: this guy's connected. You've gotten some amazing interviews with some
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: really good people. No idea why you're to let me
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: on your show, but I was. I was really impressed
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: with all the people that you've you've had on your show.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you very much. I try my best. I
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: have a ton of other people too. I got like
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: a back order backlog of people here now. But I
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: really appreciate that. Thank you for saying that. But but Greg,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: you're awesome, and then you know, that's why I want
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: to have you on.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: You know, and I want to talk about Poker Night too,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: but I just wanted real quick to go back to
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: your background. You know, you got started in the video world.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: You know on your IMTB, your first credit, we know
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: its Paleo world, and you know you had a couple
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: other things, you know. Could you talk about how you
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: got started into that specific industry.
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: Sure. I got out of film school. I got married
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: like two weeks before I started film school, and I
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: went on our honeymoon to my grandparents' house because we
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: couldn't afford anything. I was twenty one, and we came
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: back and went to film school for two years, and
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: I made a movie about a thirty minute black and
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: white sort of film noir parody, and of course it
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: doesn't happen. It doesn't matter how many awards I wont
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: at that point, So I ended up gripping for a
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: year and pa ing, and then I started art directing commercials,
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: and about two years in a guy who worked at
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: Family Channel saw my film and said, well, I got
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: this project I need over the weekend. I need you
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: to This sitcom has one hundred episodes down to like
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: a fifteen minute sales tape for mipcom, which is kind
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: of like NAPTI internationally it's a TV sales So I
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: did that and watched it was a sorry oppression and
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: say that it was a how should I say it?
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: It was it was a tough job, and we put
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: together a good tape and it sold really well. And
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: so then like the next week, he goes, all, right,
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: now I've got we're launching a game show channel, and
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: I need a doesn't matter what the budget is. But
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: it was kind of like Princess Bride with the dread
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: Pirate Roberts. You would always say, you know, you have
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: to do good or I can't hire you anymore. And
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: it wasn't to put pressure on me, but just to
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: give you the reality of if people don't like what
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: you do, we can't bring you back. And so I
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: went from cutting something to shooting a twenty minute piece
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: on thirty five with no budget, I mean, just whatever
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: we wanted to come up with, and that sort of
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: started about I gave that about almost a year of
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: just doing these really big projects like that and had
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: a good run. And during that time someone from Discovery
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: had heard about me and they brought me in and
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: asked me if I'd be interested in producing these series.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: And I was twenty four and I was doing some
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: you know, big producing be a really good way to
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: expand and I was fascinated by it. There were two
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: science shows that was still shot on film that was
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: all international, so I jumped in and we did that
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: for a year, and then I was you know, producing
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: is a tough gig, and I never wanted to be
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: a producer. I was always a director, so I would
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: argue with the EP all the time, Well, really, I
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: want to be directing, but sometimes you get too valuable
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: at one thing and they don't want you to do
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: something else. So finally, at the end of that year,
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: I quit, and when we finished the seasons and then
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: they hired me back as a director. I started. I
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: sort of rode right after that. About ninety six was
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: the OJ Trial, and that was when the first crime
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: shows went on Discovery and our company did those, so
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: it grew from about nine people to about two hundred people,
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: and we were doing five six shows at a time
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: and had a big studio and just running act here.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: But I rode that horse for a long time. In fact,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: I'm still doing crime shows. But it was fascinating and fun,
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: and I was traveling all over the country meeting with
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: different cops and then coming back and getting actors and
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: redoing you know, the murders and the stories, and so
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: it was a great education of you know, showing up
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: and having to do ten fifteen pages day or you know,
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: running around just creating stuff as you went, and it
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: was it was the best home school I ever could
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: have had, and I really learned a lot.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: So so when they were when you were producing, and
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: they and you mentioned that when you become so good
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: at something and I want you to do something else, you know, like,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: what were some of the challenges you would face, uh,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: you know or some of the biggest challenges you you
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: had to face as a producer.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: Well, Caaul hard I mean and into something different, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: I'd produce big commercial things that we had money Discovery
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: we were on more of a limited budget, and plus
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: it was international, so there was a lot of and
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: these were as close to pure documentary as everything that
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: I've done. So, you know, we were working with Archaeology
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: Magazine and I'd send a crew out into the field
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: and they might go over to Petra in George and
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: I sent him over there because we think there's a
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: dig about one thing. And they get over there and
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: that story sucks and they changed the story completely. But
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: they're gone for seven days at a place with This
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: is before cell phones or pagers, and they're out in
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: the field and I don't know until the day they
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: come back to the airport and they call me and say, oh,
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: we changed everything. It's a whole new story. Everything you
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: send us over here to do is wrong, and so
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: then you come back and have to put that together.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: And so there was a lot of that, you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: and just trying to keep people safe, you know, we
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: were we had crews in some hot spots, people just
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: flying everywhere, just trying to manage all that and learn
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: and then come back and put it together into a
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: story that makes sense. So it was a great experience
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: and a lot of learning on the fly. But at
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: the same time, you know, I wanted to There were
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: two or three shows that I took myself, you know,
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: going over to China and doing stuff there, and that's
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: more what I wanted. I wanted to be out in
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: the field. I didn't want to be sitting in the
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: office us are sitting in that at Sweet as much
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: as I wanted to be out doing it.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: So as you went through the years of this, eventually
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: you know you decided you want to you wanted to
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: actually make feature films, correct.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: I think the goal was always to make feature films.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: That was why I went to school, and that's what
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: you want to do. And you know, at that time,
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: in the early nineties, it still seemed you know, this
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: was the Spike Lee era, the Kevin Smith era. All
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: my heroes, Robert Rodriguez, these are guys that are out
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: doing it, like man, why right project at the right
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: they were, you know, this town's tough, and so you
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: have to work your way up. And I think I was.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: I was married and had kids coming by this point,
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: and I was doing really well in TV where you
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: know I was. I was just working all the time,
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: and so it was always a struggle with me, you know,
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: do you keep riding this horse or do you quit
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: and leave and try and try and go out there
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: and do what you wanted to do. And that's finally,
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: eventually where I got got to where I wrote Poker
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: Night and started down that road.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Oh so, so when you wrote Poker Night, you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: could you take us through the process of how you
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: actually started to write it. I mean, did you outline
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: heavily or did it or you know, did you do
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: a lot of treatments or did you just dive right
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: in and just sort of find your way out so
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: to speak? Sorry? Gregor' you there?
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: Hey? Yeah, I am. I'm kind of processing it. Oh sorry,
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: laughing at myself. Up.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: I think what really separates a lot of amateurs from professionals,
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: and certainly for me, I've written on my life and
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: I'm a very undisciplined writer. I love writing. I love reading.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: Let me rephrase, I love reading and I love stories.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: But you know, sitting down and really being disciplined every day,
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: I'm not great at I was doing so much time
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: with homicide detectives all over the country, interviewing him all
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: day and then going out with him at night and
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: hearing all these thirty pages of Poker Night. I just
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: kicked out in like a day, and that has sat
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: there for about four months, and I didn't know what
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: to do with it. I had a friend to come
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: in and I would tell him the story, and so
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: Doug and I would talk about it. He's credited with
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: story with me on the film, and he helped me
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: break it and talk about different things. And then and
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: then over the next basically ten years, it was a
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: lot of rewrites and changes and as as things would switch,
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: we would rewrite, and it continued all the way up
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: till when we were on set finally ten years later.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: So when you were writing, did do you ever subscribe
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: to the eight sequence method or do you know or
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: you know anything like that, or do you just you
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: know set aside?
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: I think the only book that I had because I
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: took script writing in film school in grad school and
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: loved the class, loved the teacher, and wrote a bunch.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: But I think we had Sidfield's book, and there really
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: it wasn't really a cottage industry like it is today
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: where there's all these other things. You know, story didn't exist.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: Then none of the other things existed, and I kind
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: of was just plotting in the dark.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: And then it became, uh, we'll be right back after
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: show out.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: Well, if I have three acts, I can have three
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: different stories at the table. And then he tries to
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: escape three times, and so that's kind of how I
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: built the structure of the film. And then we got
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: to the end and it sat there for another two
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: three months because I didn't know I never had the
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: ending and didn't know what it was or how to
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: pull it all back together. And then finally that came
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: and then it changed again once we got to production.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: So it would be great to say that I was
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: smart and had it all plotted out and figured out.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: And you know, you go back and forth too. If
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: you're write a lot. What's better to really know everything
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: that you're doing. It's certainly easier in one sense, and
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: it certainly makes it more achievable. But there's something nice
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: about being surprised by the characters and being inspired as
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: you go too. It's just it's a lot harder. It's
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: a lot harder.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I know what we've actually tried, like both
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: men as myself, and sometimes I'm writing and just you know,
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: you sort of just get a starting point and you
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: have no plan where this is going, and you just
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: sort of say, hey, see where the character is going
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: to take me, and you know it is. You know,
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: sometimes you're like, oh, wow, that happened. Holy crap. You know,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: I didn't I didn't see that one coming. But uh,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: you know, once you can get into that flow, so
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: to speak, Uh, you know, that's that sweet spot that
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: all these old writers you know, talk about. It's you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: it's it's a it's the one thing you wish you
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: could turn on or off.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's it's so tough, you know, anyone that's
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: a writer I have so much sympathy for because it's
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: it's a tough life and it's a very tricky thing.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: And to be disciplined and also to have something interesting
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: and keep people interested. It's hard. It's hard. I need,
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: I hope to keep getting a lot better at it.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: I need to get a lot better at it.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Have have you read the book The War of Art?
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great book.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's as sound I always every writer,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: I always who comes on, I always talk about that
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: with them, just to see if they've read that, because
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: that is, in my opinion, you know, like the de facto.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: If you're going to start like a novel or a screenplay,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: you should just sit down and read this first, and
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: you know this is what you're going to be in for.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: It's it's funny because you know now it's like I said,
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: it is such an industry, and I've read I think
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: I've read every book. I have this weird thing I
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: abscribed subscribe to that if I learn one thing from
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: a book. It's worthwhile now since I love reading, but
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: it's also it's a great way to avoid writing. Is
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: I think I have every book on writing, and I'll
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: sit and read that instead of writing. So it's tough
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: and I don't know that any more that necessarily they help.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: One of the best things I ever heard from a
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: guy out here on screenwriting was is the only thing
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: that matters is if when I get to the bottom
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: of the page, do I want to read the next page?
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: And everything else doesn't really matter. And I think that's
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: really the truth of what a good screenplay is.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: And that's very true. You know. So as you took
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: you know, Poker night, and you have to finish screenplay,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: you know, what was your next step and you're getting
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: it out there and stuff's getting made.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: That's another great question, you know. It's one of those
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: that There were a few things before that that I
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: got really inspired by. Besides all of the great indie films,
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: there was Wayne Wang did this movie called Smoke back
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: back in the early nineties, and it was about a
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: cigar shop in Brooklyn and had a lot of big
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: names in it. And while they were filming, they they
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: were enjoying themselves so much. They shot another film called Blue,
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: Blue in the Face, I think, and just kept bringing
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: people in and they improved a whole other movie, and
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: I was like, man, people are just doing it. Why
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: can't we do it. So we tried a few things,
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: writing and putting things together to get to that point
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: where I was like, we could do something kind of cheap,
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: but it never came together. Poker Night was the first
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: thing I felt like, all right, this, you know, this
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: is something that has has a genre feel to it,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: and I think we could get the money. And at
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: that point, obviously Blockbuster was still huge, and you're like,
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: at least someone will pick it up at Blockbuster. So
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: I put it together and I thought, the only thing
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: that I don't know is you know how to get
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: the money. And so I was talking with friends, and
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: my sister lived in a place where there were some
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: people with money, and her husband owned a restaurant and
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: he said, well, why don't you come out and I'll
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: introduce you to some people and I'll you know, you
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: guys can eat for free. And that's kind of how
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: it started. I would go in and just pitch these
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: rich people, and eventually we got about a million dollars,
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: and I thought we were going to make the movie.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: So we packed up and moved moved to that town.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: And then we still had to get another million dollars,
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: so that was the problem. But I thought like, well,
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: you've already got a million, how hard can it be?
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: And it came together pretty fast. So but it proved
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: to be harder than I thought.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: So when you got that first million, you know, with
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: the pitch, did you know, did the investors ask a
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: lot about like, you know, ROI or did they do
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: they want to see like a physical packet? Because I
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: mean at that point, you know, probably you know, digital
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: packets are big now, but I mean at that point,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: you know, physical package is probably still in vogue. So
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: did they ask to see any of that?
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: We not really. We we had a pretty nice business plan,
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: similar to what everyone else is going to put out,
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: you know, you lay out here's some similar films. Here's
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: how they performed a big statement upfront about risk and
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: how much money you need to have in the bank
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: if you even want to consider an investment like this,
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: what the rate of return could be, how how profit
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: from film is divided, a lot of background on all
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: the people that were involved, and and then we did
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: have a DVD that had a little video pitch and
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: had a little teaser on it and some more information.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: But truthfully, the people that I was talking to, I
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: don't think they cared one bit. Most of them were very,
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: very wealthy. And when because I went back to him
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: and tried to do it once once we had the million,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: and I was hitting a couple of walls, I'm like,
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: why don't you guys just double your investment And they
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: were like, look, we never expected to see this money again,
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: and we like you, and we liked we wanted to
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: invest in you, and so go out and get the
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: rest and see if you can make it. But it
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: wasn't like they were looking at this is boy, this
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: will be a great way to return the money. I
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: think mostly they were also just you know, part of
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: it is it's a sexy business, and I think they
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: were interested in that. And and a lot of these
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: guys were a venture capitalists themselves who started with nothing
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: and had some people bet on them and became incredibly wealthy.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: So I think, you know, it was like a long
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: shot thing that wasn't gonna hurt him too much. And
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: they were amused by me.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Truthfully, I once read an article about from a filmmaker
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: who said there are other methods of ROI, and what
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: he meant was basically his he had one financier and
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: that was a billionaire's wife. And this wife just liked
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: to tell people that she was a movie producer, and
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: whenever he had a movie, you know, she would write
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: a check and here you go. And so when they
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: when they would go to like, you know, yacht parties
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: or whatever else, Hey, you know my wife, this is
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: my wife a film producer. So that's how they got
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: let's sell our wife, honny.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. People are are really funny, and it's a
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: tough thing because anyone, as anyone in this business knows,
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: it's it's a really tricky thing to return money on investment,
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: especially now. I think it's harder than ever. You have
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: to be very creative about it, and I think there
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: are people that are coming up with some really interesting ways.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: But the business has changed so much, I think in
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: the last three years. Even so, it it's a dicey thing,
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: especially if you're trying to go it alone.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: M So, uh, you know, you're just as a food
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: for thought, Greg, you know, I don't know what your
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: next project is. Not to jump too far the conversation,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: but you know, have you ever thought about crowdfunding for
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: your next project?
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I have. I think that it's it's a great,
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: great source. It's you know, getting I think, getting the
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: people in the following I think now maybe with a
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: project behind me and people a little bit more aware,
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: at least some fans of the project, I think that
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: that would be easier. At the time, I certainly didn't
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: think so, but now I think, you know, that's definitely
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: something to look at.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: So, you know, so now that you know eventually you
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: did get the the two million or so to make
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Poker Night, you know, how did you go about, you know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: building a team from there? I mean did you already
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: have producers on board or did you wait until you
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: after you got the money to start like crewing up
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: with like a director's cinematography and you know all the
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: other key roles.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: Well, it was a long process from there, and all
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: those initial investors are not involved with the project as
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: it is now. There was a point where after we
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: had the money and I came out and met some
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: people out here that were very shady in LA and
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: still didn't have a good feel for it. There was
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: a producer that was a line producer at the time.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show, who was.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: Just starting to make bigger movies, and he loved it,
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: and very quickly he got the script to He was
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: shooting a film in Irelander Isle of Man with James
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: Franco and Kevin Reynolds who directed water World, called Tristan
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: and is old and the guy that was the the
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: second unit director swordsman on the film stunt coordinator, also
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: did Star Wars, and for whatever reason, he loved the
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: script and he got it to Sam Jackson and he
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: got it to Hayden Christensen and they both wanted to
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: make the movie, and all of a sudden it became
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: a big project and they didn't want me to direct,
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: and I debated with him a long time and finally
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: stepped down and stayed on as a producer, and we
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: got picked up by three companies right away, and a
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: lot of a lot of fighting and a lot of
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: phone calls. For about a year and a half, I
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: was on the phone every day with all these different people,
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: and it suddenly became something, and we finally ended up
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: at Icon Films, Mel Gibson's company, and it was going
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: to be a ten million dollar film and that was
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: set for August two thousand and six, and it was
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: about a year leading up to that of just trying
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: to get Sam and Hayden's schedules clear and getting everybody
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: in the right place. And at that point then they
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: got off he Jumper with Doug Lyman, which was I
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: think hundred and ten million dollar film. They both were
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: probably making more than our budget, their whole budget, and
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: they left and so the after two years it sort
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: of fell apart. They gave me a couple names that
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: I could try and get to keep the project alive,
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: but I was at a point where I needed to
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: make some money because it was a long road to
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: do that, and so I just dropped the project and
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: went and started directing skincare commercials in overseas and then
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: here in the States and did that for about four years.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: And during that time the project was optioned three or
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: four more times and set up at different places and
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: almost to go, and had lots of meetings as a writer,
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: none as a director, and finally I just kind of
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: stopped giving the option. I didn't want people to take
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: it unless they would let me direct it, and so
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: that went on for another year or so, and then
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: finally the producer I have now came in and he'd
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: been bugging me over the years and knew of the
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: script from the first First Incarnation back in like two
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: thousand and four, and he's like, we're going to make
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: your movie this year. I was like, I don't believe you.
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: And then we went and did it. So it just
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: took a long time to get there. And as far
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: as putting the team together, there wasn't anybody left from
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: when I started, no One, and so it's all new.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: I took two people. We shot in Canada and the
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: only people that came up with me was a young
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: lady who started as a PA for me and is
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: now a big commercial producer and just produced her first
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: film and the DP and I actually had a different
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: DP up until two weeks before the film, who I
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: shot a lot of commercials with and he was just
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: breaking into film. Well he wasn't just breaking, but he
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: had done a lot of small films and was getting
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: bigger films and did a really nice horror film that
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: year that was big and was ready to do it,
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: and we pushed a week and he thought the film
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: wasn't going to go and he took a different job.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: So I had to find a new DP in a week,
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: and so I found Brandon and Mandy did a great
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: job for me. We really clicked right away and it
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: worked out really well.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: So did you find that your experience as a producer,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: so when like a fire like that breaks out with it,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: you know your dpek, you know, has to leave a
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: week before that. You were able to find one so quickly,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: you know, did you think your producer experience helped with that?
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean anyone who regardless of I guess where
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: you end up in these positions. You know, the reason
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: I got that producing job in the first place was
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: because I was producing all the stuff I was directing.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: And then anything that I've done outside of Discovery, like
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: I've done two series in China, a lot of commercials,
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: all the skincare stuff. For four years, I'm producing and
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: directing all of that. So it's not that I've ever
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: stepped away from it. And I think you also end
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: up in you want to control as much as possible,
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: just so that you have the things that you need,
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: and so none of those things stood in my way,
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: I would say, in the sense of it did it
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: bothers you. But you're just like, well, we've got to
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: make this happen, and so you keep going. So otherwise, man,
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: you fall apart because everything burns to the ground pretty
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: fast and there's crisises every day. So you just get
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: get tough and and keep pushing through and don't let
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: it stop you. Yeah.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's very true, Greg, because I you know,
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: there's you know, I've done stuff myself and you're like,
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: you know, you always sort of end up, you know,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: realizing those short films that you did or you know,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: student films whatever, you know, those always end up teaching
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: you you have to have like a plan A through
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: Z because plan A is going to fall very rarely
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: do just play plan A ever workout and then you
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: got to you know, and then going down the steps. Now,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: uh so we actually get something that actually ends up
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: like you know, like you with poker until and of
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: actually happening and everyone's on set and you're like, all right,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: here we go, let's film this.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: I used to tell people, you know, because forty seven
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: so I started when I was twenty one, twenty two.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: You're like, in all those years, I feel like I've
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: failed so many times at so many things. And the
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: reason that you get paid better as you get older
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: is because you don't fail the same way. And so
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: it's like, I've seen all those problems happen in twenty years,
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: twenty five years, and I've found I know, I'm not
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: going to have that same problem. I'm going to have
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: new problems and I'm going to make new mistakes, but
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: I better not make the same ones that I've made before,
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: because it's the business is just it costs too much money.
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: So I think, you know, experience really does teach you,
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: and those hard lessons that you learn on all the
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: hard projects only make you stronger and better when you
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: come to a new project.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very true, you know. Like something I've learned
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: is that over the years is that storyboarding is so key.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: I know some directors don't storyboard, but that's something I've
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: learned that really helps not only you visualize the movie,
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: but so it helps everybody else as well.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: I've heard that, I've heard rumors of that it was
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: a great story about Matt Damon going to work with
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: the Coen Brothers on True Grit, and he said he
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: wanted to take the job because I forget who was
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: telling him. It might have been I think, as Brad
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: Pitt said, you know, the great thing with working with
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: the Coen Brothers is every day you get your sides,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: which is, you know, the piece of the scripture shooting
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: that day, and next to your sides is the storyboard
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: of every shot they're going to do, so you know
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: exactly what you're doing in every single scene. And I
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: was like, wow, that's crazy. And I remember getting to
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: hear mm at Walsh talk when I was in Foam
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: school about Blood Simple and it was the Coen Brothers
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: first film, and then he had a great story about
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: he had this ideal when he gets shot and falls
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: in the bathroom how he wanted to do it, and
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: he said to Cohen Brothers kept showing him the storyboards
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: and going no, but look, this is how you fall,
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: and he goes, yeah, but I thought of it and
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: miss it. No, no, no, this is how you fall. And
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: so I always think of that because I love them.
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: They're brilliant, but yeah, I don't know that my drawing
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: skills are good enough for storyboarding, and sometimes I'm also,
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: I don't know. People are all funny, but you're like,
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I want everybody to know because
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: it changes so fast and as soon as you put
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: it on paper, they're like, but this is what you're
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: supposed to do. And I think doing so much TV
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: and so much so many things that change so quickly,
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: I end up being a lot more fluid on set
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: from what I plan.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: So that's a great story about Emamutt Walsh. You know
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: Blood Simple. You know I've watched that movie, you know,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: a dozen times. You know, I think that's a very
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: good almost the film school in itself, because it's it's
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: it's very good, and that you could tell they you know,
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: they didn't have a lot of money, but they used
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: the story to just you know, hey, look we don't
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: have we can't blow up a car, this and that,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: because I remember the interview they did for Raising Arizona.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: They said they finally got to blow up a car,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: which I always wanted to do, and they couldn't do
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: that in Blood Simple or or Crime Wave or second movie.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: I forget what it was, but you know it was.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: But as you get better, you know, like you said,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: now only do get paid better if I'm making the
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: same mistakes, but you get to blowup a car.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he has to dream bigger, you know.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Greg, just to you know, sort of take a step back,
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: you know, when you were talking about you know, in
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: LA and talking about producing and and you know, going
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: out and finding some really shady people, is there any
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: you know, just sort of tips that you could parlay
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: to people that about you know.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: What to look out for if they ever, you know,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: get someone trying to give them a you know, a deal,
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: whether it's a distribution deal or you know, an actual
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: investment deal.
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: Boy, it's difficult because as the creative, you know, you're
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: willing in some ways to almost do anything to get
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: your movie made. And and so when people are offering
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: you things, it takes a lot of discernment to know
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: is this a good offer? Is this a bad offer?
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: How do I and and truthfully, when you're starting out,
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: you don't really have a lot of choices. But I
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: did feel, because I had raised that initial investment, that
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: I was sort of a caretaker of that and a
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: lot of a lot of the guys that wanted to
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: invest or to work with that money. I just didn't trust.
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: Even having the money that I raised, I didn't feel
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: like you could just tell. And then, you know, then
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: you sort of learn, well, that's how they all are, necessarily,
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: just these guys. But and then you know, over the
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: next ten years, I go back and forth a lot. Well,
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: you know, if I would have said yes, then at
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: least the movie's done, you know, or maybe it just
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: should never happen. And so it's a cautionary tale on
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: both sides because at a certain point you just want
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: to get it done regardless, but you also don't want
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: to have to go back to the people that believed
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: in you and trusted in you and say, these guys
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: took us off for a ride. I think once I
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: finally came to a producer who was putting up the
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: money and staying on board, it was a different situation.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: And so it took it took ten years to get
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: to the right situation. I hope it won't be ten
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: years for the next one. But I would say, use
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: your use your judgment. And and then sometimes you know,
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: you look at some of the great filmmakers John Sales,
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: James Cameron, they all, you know, these guys that started
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: with Corman and some of the other things. It wasn't
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: ever the best situation. Their first films are. You know,
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: they show promise, but they're not great. Sometimes you just
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: have to roll the dice and and go for it
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: and know that it's it's not going to work always
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: in your favor. Paul Thomas Anderson was the same thing
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: with Reischer with Hard eight and then and then you
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: hope that you had enough good will off that project
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: to get another one. So it's it's it's very difficult.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: I wish that I had better advice, but trust gut,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: trust your gut.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: Well no, I think that's great advice. But you know,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: and you're right, you sort of parlay then, you know,
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: one moving to the next. And uh, and I don't
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: think you would have to wait ten years to make
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: something after Poker Nights because I think you know, uh,
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: you know, you've got distribution on iTunes right now, you know,
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: the movies doing I see all the time people are
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: tweeting at you about the movie. You know, I really
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: think that you know, and like we talked about earlier
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: with crowdfunding. I think, you know, when you do have
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: your next script, I think you can sort of expedite
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: the whole process.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: Now, well, you're moth to God's ears. I would love
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: to be able to get another shot at the plate.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: We've had a good reception and it's been fun to see.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: You know, there's definitely a lot of haters too, But
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: the people that are looking for something like it, I
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: think like it. So that was that was why we
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: tried to do it in the first place, was just
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: to come up with something that's the same but different
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: in the same realm but different, and and have fun
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: with it. And that's what we tried to do. So
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: I think it connects with certain people and other people
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: have no patience for it, So I understand that too.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: So you know, you know, and speaking of you know,
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: actually making the films, you know, could you take us
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: back to how did you actually cast Ron Perlman in
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: Poker Nights? You know, you know, how did you go
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: about contacting him and eventually cast him in the movie.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I wish there were more romantic still
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: worries about this kind of thing, but the casting process
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: is a very difficult thing, and I was. You know,
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: coming out of TV. It's different because people want to
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: work and I'm not working with high level actors on
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: the shows that I do. It's it's mostly new actors.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: So it's very easy to get lots of auditions and
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: go through the auditions and make people audition again and
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: find the right person for the role. For this, we
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: knew we needed to get good actors, and we had
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: a casting director, Chadwick Struck, who's really great and goes
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: back and forth between you know, some low budget stuff
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: to better budget stuff. He works a lot with Kevin
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: Spacey's company, and he just is a really great guy.
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: But any of these movies are hard to get because
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: there isn't a lot of money and you're just sort
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: of throwing throwing it against the wall until you get
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: somebody to say yes. I think with Poker and Night
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: on the page, it could go either way. You don't
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: know if it's going to be, you know, a gory
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: slasher film or if it's going to be or play
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: to the more smart parts of the script. So getting
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: people to read it and getting offers out that people
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: were interested in it took a while. I remember, and
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: I was hitting every character after I could. I just
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: had I had a list of fifty sixty names of
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: the best in the business that I loved, and we
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: just you know, couldn't get responses a lot of time.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: And so you go through, you make an offer and uh,
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: it's a timed offer usually, so it'll be X amount
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: of money against X number of days, and we need
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: you to respond by next week. And you never even
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: though they're required by law to give them the offer,
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: you never know if they do, you don't know what's
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: going on. And I was looking for older guys, so
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: some of these guys are like, I'd rather be out
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: in my boat fishing or whatever. So you never know
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: the truth of if they even read the script or
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: saw the script. And so we kept just making offer
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: after offer after off, and we went back and forth too,
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: because you're like, well, do you get Jeter first, or
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: do you do you get the young guy first, or
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: do you get the old guys at the table? And
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: which is going to help the other. And I always
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: wanted to go for the older guys because those are
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: the guys that excite me anyway. But there was a
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: lot of thought that maybe we should get the lead first,
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: because if we get the right lead, it'll help position
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: the film to the older guys. And eventually it didn't matter.
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: It would be a lot of rejection. I want to say,
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: it might have almost even been a month, and some
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: people would you know, it wasn't really a rejection. It
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: would be the offer runs out and you don't know
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: what's happening. But truthfully, we got one actor who said yes,
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: and as soon as he said yes, we filled up
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: all the roles like super fast. In fact, one of
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: the things that I would recommend, and I've heard other
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: people do, is that you can make a contingency offer.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: Because a lot of a lot of these lower by films,
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: you're doing favored Nations. You know what that is, right, Yeah,
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: so everyone's getting kind of the similar offer. But I
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: did hear after that, you know, you can there is
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: a thing called like first in bonus, because sometimes it's
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: just getting that name to make it a legitimate progue project.
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: So as soon as you have somebody that means something,
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden it means something, and then everyone
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: else is in a as afraid. So maybe there's a
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: you know, five grand. I don't know. Five grand is ridiculous.
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: I don't even know what the number would be, but
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: there's a bonus for the guy that signs first, because
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: then everyone else came in. And literally, I think once
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: we had that first name, we had everybody within two weeks.
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: And Pearlman was a guy that you know, I've loved forever,
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: I've loved since Quest for Fire and really wanted him in.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: And he's funny because we did the Q and A
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: out here at the premiere in LA and I was
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: telling this story and he was like, well, you know,
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: because he wanted to play a certain role, and I
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: had three old guys at the table, and the guy
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: that Proman plays I always imagined as like a forty
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: year old guy. I wanted one guy in between our
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: young guy and the old guys, and so Prolman really
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: wanted to play that part, and I kept going, he's
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: better for the other part. I want him as one
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: of the older guy, so I can get a younger guy,
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: you know, like a these are you know, like a
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: Mark Ruffalo that's a dream cast, or you know, even
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: a John Cusack, some of these guys that are really
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: great that could sort of bridge that gap. And the
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: word kept coming back, Nope, this is the one he
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: wants to play. And when I told the story, Ron
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: was like, well, if I would have known you felt
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: that way, I never would have pushed for it. And
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: I'm like, no, it doesn't make any difference what I thought,
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: because Perlman's great. And actually, the producer said to me,
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: you really want to tell Ron Perlman though, is that
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: what you want to do? You don't want him in
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: the project just because you think that this role should
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: be this way is really dumb thing. So I was like, no,
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: you're right, I'm an idiot and one of many times,
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: and so I sort of I don't even I didn't
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: even rewrite it. We just changed it and gave it
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: to Ron, and my gosh, he's the shining light in
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: the film. He's amazing, and he knocked it out of
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: the park. I think he felt like, well, I wouldn't
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: have I wouldn't have ever taken this role if it
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: was that. But I'm like, man, it's the best thing
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: in the world that he took this role. It's the
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: best thing in the world. The producer talked to me
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: out of my foolishness, and he shines on the screen.
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: He's amazing. In fact, we got so lucky with all
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: the actors. I can't I couldn't even imagine that we
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: would get a cast like that. These guys are all brilliant,
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: and I mostly just had to sort of stay out
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: of their way and let them do their thing and learn,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: watch and learn a lot, just like Poker Night.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: It's that old saying when when you have a great script,
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: you know, that's like half of the work done for
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: the director right there, so you know, cause you can
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: always you know, go from that. You know, all the
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: actors can go from their actions, their dialogue, the subtext.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: And then they said, you know, having a great DP
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: is like the other you know, twenty percent, And they said,
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: you know, there's just like ten percent left where the
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: directors it's up to the director to screw it up.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: Have you ever heard of Greg.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think that. I think there's a lot
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: of truth to that. Over the years of doing it,
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: I've I've really learned to sort of step back and
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: let people do their jobs and and I mean, you
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: get the credit anyway unless they're really screwing up. People
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: still say nice things about me, But my gosh, the
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: crew we had, the DP I have, Brandon Cox, the
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: actors I have, you know, the things that are messed
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: up and the movie aren't my fault, and the things
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: that work, I really the credit belongs to everyone that
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: was up there. The Kadian crew was unbelievable. I just
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: felt really lucky and really blessed with the people I
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: got to work with.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: So do you have any other you know, tips for
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: directing actors that you've you know, if you accumulated over
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: the years.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: Boy, everybody's different, and you know you work with somebody.
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: Each one of them was different. Ron was very specific
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: and if I gave him a note on a line,
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: you could bet that that line would change. He was
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: very I was afraid. There's a couple of John Badam
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: books on directing. I don't know if you've seen those.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: I think it's like, I'll be in my trailer and
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: I forget what the next one is. And it was
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: all these stories of him working with big actors and
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: all the problems, and he collected him from generations, you know,
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: stuff with Steve McQueen and with other people where just
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: directors and actors clash and so it wasn't that I
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: read that and was like, oh, I'm scared, but I
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: was very nervous going in of you know, who's this
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: guy that's done all this TV and you know, we
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: know what we're doing. We've done two hundred movies. And
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: it's true. They all had I think, knowing that I
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: wrote the script and they all had a lot of
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: respect for the script gave me more cachet. So there
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: was never a time when anybody got grumpy with me
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: or rude to me or said shut up or you
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: don't know what you're doing. They were all very, very good.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: But at the same time, I feel like I'm not
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: an overbearing director. I've learned over the years. One of
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: the things that I usually do, and this is from
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: Poker Night even to my crime shows, is I sort
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: of set up the scene, this is what's happening, here's
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: your blocking, and then let them do the scene the
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: way that they've prepped it, because it could be way
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: better than anything that I thought or that I would
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: direct them to do. And so when you see it
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: the first time, you're just like the audience, going wow,
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: this could be amazing. And then if it sucks or
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: it's bad, then you can come in and start leading
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: people a certain way. But I usually don't try. I mean,
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: on Poker night, we didn't get to have rehearsal beforehand.
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: You know, we're just thrown right into it. In fact,
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: oh yeah, remind me. I'll go back and tell you
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: one more casting story. But I tend to step back
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: and see what people are going to bring to the
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: project first and then go from there. But with these guys,
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: they're all I mean, what could I tell them? You know,
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: these guys are all veteran actors, character actors who've been
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: shooting hundreds of movies and I'm just the guy for
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: this one. But you know, they treated me with respect,
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: They listened to everything that I said. They change things,
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: they would if they I was leading them a wrong way.
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: We would talk about that. Ron and I on our
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: very first take, I was trying to do something that
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: I thought was helpful and he sort of was like,
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: I think the script, you know, is this way. And
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: it was really good. So they kept me in line too,
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: and I like anything, you know, you learn learn from
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: the best. They were amazing, and it's just being patient
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: and I love actors. I started as I started in theater.
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: I would never necessarily say I was an actor, but
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: it's so much fun to have people come to life
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: and bring something to life that he did. And to
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: get to work with these guys and have a process
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: to allow them to relax and do their best work.
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: That's something I cherish and really enjoy. So it was
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: so much fun.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: You know, you mentioned having a big actor and you
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: were kind of scared because you know, sometimes they might
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: be you know, used to a certain thing or a
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: certain a certain way. I actually had, you know, just
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: to you know, just to compliment that story. I have
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: a friend of mine and he was shooting a movie
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: here in PA and he shot an Eastern State penitentiary
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: and the actor was notorious for just going off with
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: the director at random times, and he was relieved at
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: the end because they didn't have a fight at all.
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: They they actually got along well. And he at the
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: you know, as they were leaving for the day, he
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: came up to him and he's like, yeah, you know,
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: it's amazing we got along and and everything. And the
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: guy said, yeah, well see you tomorrow and he said no, no, no,
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: we're done. The movie's over. And he's like, what the
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: what the fuck do you mean the movie's over? And
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: he goes, well, that was it. We got every all
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: the footage and we we're all good. And he goes,
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: what the fuck and he said he just lost it
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: for no reason for telling him the movie was done.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: I got And so yeah, you know, but you're right though,
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: you know, you know I would still there's certain actors
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: I would just love to work with, but I'm always,
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: you know, hesitant, because you know, there's different experienced levels,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: and there's different expectations, and you know, and some people
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: just have bad days, you know. Yeah, so you just
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: got to sort of ride the storm and see, you
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: know where that takes.
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: You, right, Yeah, And you know, I don't know, everyone
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: has a different approach. I've been doing it a long time,
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: but at that level and the way that those guys
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: probably saw me, not at their level. But I'm also
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: I come in pretty. It's not hat in hand, but
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: you know, I don't feel any need to throw down
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: some kind of you know, I'm the guy in charge
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: and this is how we're going to do it, and
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: you're on my train. I'm know David Fincher, I'm know
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: James Cameron, I don't. That's not my skill set yet.
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: I'm just a guy that wrote a script and I'm
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: happy to be here and ecstatic to be working with
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: you guys, and so you know, I was very I
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: talked to each of them to say, well, this will
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: feed into that casting story. So part of making these
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: offers is, you know, you hear all the time, Well
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: I went and met with this guy and we talked
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: about if this, if they would be right for the part,
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: and how they saw things. Well, on this level of filmmaking,
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: you don't. I mean, I wasn't allowed to talk to anybody.
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: The agents refuse to allow me to have a conversation
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: to even be like, well are they right for this?
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: Do they hate this script? Have they read the script?
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: Do they decide they want to play it? In an address?
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't get any feel at all other
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: than their body of work and how amazing they seem
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: to be, because they don't. You know, Proman might get
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: on the phone with me and all of a sudden
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: think I'm a good guy and then say, well, you know,
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: tell his agent make the deal. I don't care what
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: it is I want to work with him or the opposite.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: He might say forget it. I don't want to do it.
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: And the agents are already not happy because you're taking
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: their actor on a small film and that's time that
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: they can't be making money on a big film. So
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: it's a hard process to get in. And it wasn't
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: until they accept the offer that then I get a
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: phone number and I can call them. So now they're
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: already in the movie. I don't know if they like me,
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: if they liked the script, if we can work together,
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: any of it. So it's a scary call and you
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: have to get on the phone and say, hey, I
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: hope you liked everything. Let's get to know each other.
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: How do you what's your take on this character? And
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: it's all after the fact, so it's a really I mean,
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: I was in amazing hands. It wasn't like I was
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: going to somebody that's never done anything and all of
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: a sudden they're hired. And it wasn't. None of these
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: guys had a reputation of being you know, crazy or anything.
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: They're all brilliant actors. But it's still that feeling of
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: it's the cart before the horse a little bit that
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: we can't even have a chance to make sure we
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: can get along, because some people you just don't get
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: along with. So it was a very frightening thing. But
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: with each of them I was very clear, Look, you
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: know I've done TV, I haven't done a film. I
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: did write this. This is how I see things. If
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: you have a process different than what my process is,
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: tell me the best way that I can help you.
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: You know, this is how I approach it. How do
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: you approach it? I know. Ron El Dard was one
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: that he told me right away. He's like, look, you
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: don't have to come in and play any kind of
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: games with me. I don't need to know, you know,
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: think about this or think about that. You just tell
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: me exactly what you want. Say it faster, say what
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: you want. I think you should be angry here. I
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: don't like how you said that word. He wanted me
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: to be very specific and not waste time on trying
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: to manage him or direct him in a different way,
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: because you know how it is. You'll be like, well,
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: you know, I was thinking, you know, you've had this
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: part and you've come in here and you're trying to
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: set the scene to get him to a way that
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: you want him to be. And he was just like
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: just tell me exactly it. There was another actor on
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: set that was unbelievable in a smaller part, Lochlin Monroe.
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: He played the.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: Serial killing photographer. And he's been on so many sets
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: and done. He was in unforgiven. He's been in a
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: lot of the Wayne Brothers movies, and he could tell
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: the cameraman every time he would cross behind the actor, Okay,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: I'm getting ready to bring out the knife on one, two, three,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: And then you know, he was like directing the cameras
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: that they never missed any parts of his performance in
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: the middle of his performance. I've never seen that. And
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: he was brilliant in the film. So there was a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: lot of everyone has a different process and you sort
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: of start learning. But I think the best thing you
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: can be, at least for me on the first film,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: was to be very flexible and fluid, especially because I
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: mean these are top top actors. They're not you know,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: the money makers that are Tom Cruise Is, but man,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: they can just act circles around so many of our
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: big celebrities. They're just really really good.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also sort of like what dov ss Simon
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: says in his book you Know from Realer Deal. He
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: always recommends saying the actors, why don't we try it
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: this way?
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And they were totally open to everything. There was
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: one there was only one time that that one of
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: the actors was like, I'm not going to do that.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: And it was a pretty funny thing. I asked him
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: to do something that was a little bit crazy and
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: he's like, I'm not doing that. And then the next
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: day he told me I really should have done that, which,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: you know, they're masters at games to all those guys,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: and so they were directing me as much as I
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: was directing them, you know.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: I once you know, I was talking to a friend
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: of mine, Gary King, who I'm whim to have on
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: the podcast, and he said one thing he learned while
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: making all the student films and short films was that
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: you have to take after each take, direct the actors
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: in a certain way. That way, when you go to edit,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: you have different things to choose from. Because he used
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: to have actors basically do scenes, I'm sorry, each each
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: take of a scene the exact same way, and then
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: when he was editing, he's like, man, I got nothing
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: really to choose from. It's you know, it's either take
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: one where she says it like this, or take two
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: where she says it exactly the same way.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: You know, Yeah, I can see that. I think I
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: can see that. I don't know that I've ever done that. Partly,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: I feel like you're heading down a path that you
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: know where you want to get to and you can
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: feel it when it's there. And even just to get
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: what you want corrects takes some time, so you know,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: it might take three or four takes to get it
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: where you want it, and then you want to get
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: it right if they were doing something different every single time. Partly,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think it depends too on the kind
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: of director you are, if you're making your show more
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: in the edit room, or if you're locking on set
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: what you're going to do in the edit room, and
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: I do I would say I would subscribe more to it.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: If I feel like we've really knocked it out of
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: the park on the first set of coverage, well, let's
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: try something different on this one and do one or
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: two takes that way. But it's tough when you don't
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: have a lot of time and you're moving fast on
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: a low budget film to have, because then you're going
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: well on your wide shot. If you do five different versions,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: then you're going to go to your over or your
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: medium shot, and now you got to do five different versions,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: and they better match the first five versions, and then
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: you're close up those all better match those first five
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: and how delineated are those five? So I think that
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: it can work, and especially maybe on a comedy, I
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: could see that a lot more because there's a lot
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: more room for that, But I've I haven't done too
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: much that way. I think that it's an interesting idea
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: and if you have all the if you have a
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: lot of time, I think it'd be a great thing
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: to explore. I just I guess I haven't had that
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: luxury yet.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely agree. We definitely work better on a
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: comedy because that way you could at least have that
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: juxtaposition of like, you know, he's supposed to say this,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: but he's angry and it's you know, stuff like that.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I you know, I see exactly what you mean,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: and you know, but no, you know, a lot of
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: this would always come up with his food for thought,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: and it's just you know, that's why I love creating
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: this dialogue just to see.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's awesome. And I think too, like, if you're
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: really exploring something, there's something interesting too to making that happen.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, Fincher's famous for one hundred takes, but I've
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: had people that have been on his sets and they
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: say he's not really directing him much. He's just making
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: him do it again, do it again, do it again,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: do it again, until you're not acting anymore. You're just
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: talking because you're exhausted and you don't know what he wants.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: But doing things different ways, I think there is a
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: way that would be interesting to explore that way. Well,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: what if we did it like this? What if we
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: did it like this and all of a sudden something
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: new comes out of that scene that wasn't there before.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: I just I've never done it that way, but I
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: think it's an interesting why.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: It's very interesting.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: You know. Uh.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: One technique I link to do is I actually, on
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: the last take, I just let the actors. I say,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to give you any direction and I'm
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: going to let you just whatever acting decision you want
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: to make, that's what we're going to roll with, and
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: just to see what they would come up with, and
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: you know, and so that and also makes the actors
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: happy because now they're saying, oh, good, we get to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: have some you know, some input on this scene. You know,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: so uh, you know, my, you know that. That's just
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: what I've sort of learned of the years too. I
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: don't know if it helps much, but I.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: Thing it's a great idea. I usually do that on
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: the first take, where I'm like, well, let's see, let's
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: see what you want to do. Let's go out, let's
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: just try it. Let's see what it is and see
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: what they're doing, and then I'll gradually move them towards
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: what is in my mind influenced by what they did,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: unless what they did was so brilliant, which is what
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: happened a lot with our with our Poker guys. And
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: then in the end a lot of times also background
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: and say you want to try something different and let
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: them do a different one, and sometimes that changes the
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: whole scene, and then you go all right, no, I
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: really like that take on it, and hadn't thought of
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: that before, and now let's go back and redo the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: wide shot and redo this and switch things around. Because
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: it's so good. Because you usually start conservative and then
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: you get a little bit crazier as you go. So
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: it's all fun.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, And you know it's always you know,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: I usually keep I end up keeping like a journal
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: of every day shooting and you know what I learned there,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: and you know, how to do all this stuff that
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: way it carries over well into you know, your next
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: projects when you're like, you know, looking through the back
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: over that stuff and you're like, oh, well, I remember
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: this stuff.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: It's a great idea. I've never done that. That's a
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: really great idea. Oh especial right as I get older
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: and I can't remember stuff anymore as well as I
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: used to.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad I was able to, you know, give
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: you that great idea, you know. Uh So you know
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: with Poker Night, now you know it's on iTunes, you know,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: could you sort of go through how you got you know,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: digital distribution for it, you know, and why you chose
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: iTunes and you know, you know, is it company Netflix?
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: Stuff like that.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sure it is. I didn't choose it the producer.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: The producer did it. And actually we were picked up
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: prior we were really close to being in south By
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: Southwest last year we were one of the finalists and
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: then I guess we're one of the last two cut
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: and that hurt. But we had a lot of interest
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: in the film then, and Accelerator Media is the one
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: that picked up the film right after that, and they're
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: an amazing company. They've done really well for us as
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: far as I would know. They got us a lot
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: of our online press, and they put it immediately on
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: I think on the fifth it went on video on
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: demand and on Amazon, and it didn't hit iTunes until
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: a couple of weeks after that, and we had a
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: week run here in La at a theater, and it's internationally.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: You know, there's streams in every language already, but it
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: opened in Iraq, Iran, in Egypt, so it's like conquering
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: the Middle East. That's who we speak, or at least
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: it's playing in the Middle East. But I get tweets
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: from Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, a lot from England recently, and
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: I think now that it's it's out there legally a
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: lot more people are seeing it. But here you can
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: get it iTunes, you can get it on a vod
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: it's on Amazon, and it should be coming to I
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: think it's coming out on DVD in February, and then
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: probably right after that it'll hit Netflix.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: Oh very cool because I'm actually I didn't know it
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: was on Amazon, but I'll make sure to link to
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: that in the show notes if you want to check
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: it out. Yeah, that's awesome, you know, because I had
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: Jason Brubaker on, who's a digital distribution mastermind, and he's
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: always talking about you know, different ways and you know which,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: you know, there's really no correct answer for the right platform,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: so to speak. You know, so if you chose iTunes,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: you know, is there really a big difference between that
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: and Amazon? Well, I mean I don't know enough to comment,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: but I mean, really what I hear is basically the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: answer is not really because you know everyone's fighting over
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: you know space. It's still you know, you know there's
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: a store window where you know people would walk by. Well,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: now you know the front page of iTunes is that
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: new store window where everyone wants to fight for retail space.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: Yep. So it's been a very interesting thing. And also,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: you know, just the distribution models different, Like Accelerator had
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: somebody that was just getting lots of placement on different
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: websites for articles, or they did a lot of clips
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: of the movie. In fact, at one partment, I was like,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: pretty soon we'll be able to see the whole movie
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: just through clips.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: But you would think, well, it's going to run. I
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: don't know who knows, I don't know what the digital
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: model is, but maybe it's going to run like three
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: weeks before the movie opens, and then once it opens
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: it tapers off. But it was a lot longer tail
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: where I'm still getting reports. I mean they're still putting
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: getting reviews and websites that are talking about the movie.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: We just had an interview on Fangora Go up yesterday
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: and it came out on Amazon and vod on the
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: fifth of December, and it wasn't until close to the
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: twentieth I think, on iTunes, So you know, just getting
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: it out there and getting it around. It seems to
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: be that their take is it's a lot longer window.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: You try and hit a lot more sites, and you
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: keep the publicity going because it can always drive somebody there.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: And it is I think in this climb that just
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: getting anybody even know about the movie is the hardest part,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: especially if you're not running you know, a thirty second
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: ad every two minutes on TV, So just having anybody
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: even know that it's out there, it takes a lot
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: more time and energy.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely. So many one's mentioned to me recently
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: it's not money that's in the shortest now, it's it's
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: a tension spans. Yeah, and he said, you know, he
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: actually got money for his project, and he's like, you know,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: trying to get the word out there. It's like, you know,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: it's a very crowded marketplace.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very tough, and especially you know, the line
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: is so much more divided. What used to be, you know,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: a good you know, two million to five million dollar
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: film is a five hundred thousand dollars film now, and
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: you're in the same ballpark as you know, a thousand
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: other films trying to get the same eyeballs and with
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: no money, and so it's it's a difficult time to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: sort of step out and stand out from the pack.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: But it's also an amazing time because you know, ten
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: years ago, none of those films would get made, or
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: very few of them, just because it was cost prohibitive.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: And now there's so many more ways to get your
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: film out there. It's just we've got to find a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: good economic model to be able to sustain this new
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: way of doing things.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, very true, and you sort of see
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: how it's sort of forming right now where basically everyone
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: is getting their own, you know, all their own content
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: on their own websites, you know, Netflix, HBO Go. They're
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: sort of taking their things off Hulu and Netflix and
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: just sort of saying, hey, we're going to just be
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: here from now on, and you have to subscribe to us.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: And that's why. Now Netflix and Hulu are creating their
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: own content and pretty much everyone now is looking for
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: their own comment. Even Amazon is looking for their own content. Now.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Back Run's got a new series on Amazon that's
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: really great if you get a chance to see that,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: Oh sure, which is that it's called The Hand of God.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: They just did the pilot. But I think that he's
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: I think that he's wrapped the series, so I don't
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: know how many episodes. It's probably ten and it'll probably
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: be February March maybe even later that it's going to
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: come out. But the pilot's up on Amazon now. It's
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: really good.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'll make sure to look at that in the
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: show notes.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: I think Titus too, his Amazon series Bosh starts in February.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: He's already wrapped that, so he's got another one. So
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: both those guys went immediately to Amazon series right after
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: the film, which is great. It's giving good actors a
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: lot of life and things that maybe they I don't
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: know if they for whatever reason, they wouldn't say that
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: they could carry a network show in a certain way.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: And these guys had the freedom to do this and
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: make these characters their own. So they both really enjoyed.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: It, and that's really cool. And it's also more opportunities
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: for everybody too, because you know it's.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: Going to be more directors and somebody I was at
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: a meeting at the Writers Guild and they were saying
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: there were three hundred, over three hundred drama series on
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: TV last year. Over three hundred. That's just unprecedented. So
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: there's a lot more opportunity, and I think that's sadly
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: in some ways, I think that's the direction independent film
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: is moving to those people that sort of we're in
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: that sweet spot in the market, are all gravitating towards TV.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can definitely see that as well. And and
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: you know, and also too, there's so many independent film
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: channels now too, which which just you know, specialized independent
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: film and you know, you go on there and you're like, wow,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: there's like a couple of thousand choices of movies that
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: have been made in you know, in the past five
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: years that are all independent films, and it's just you know,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: you you don't have enough time to watch them all,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: you know, any given time, because it's always getting new
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: ones in there. So you know, it's very Yeah, it's
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: very interesting to see with this is all where it
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: is all going to go, and you know, which eventually
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: is going to become the new market model in both
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: of terms of payment and distribution and you know, and
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: you know and net neutrality too. You got to make
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: sure that, you know, stay where it is or else
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: you know, it's all sort of for nothing because if
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: you know, there's different you know, levels of Internet, then
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: you know, some people who don't you can't afford the
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: big stuff, you know, will you know, get became off
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: trouble watching things online.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot of big issues that are coming
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: up and interesting issues, and it's a you know, you've
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: been around this business for a long time too. It's
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: not like it's It's so much more of a middle
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: class business than people think, at least for people in
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: the tech side, from the writing, directing, producing, even the
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: acting side. There's the you know, the five to ten
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: percent that are really ridiculously wealthy, and the rest of
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: us are sort of grinding out our time because we
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: love this. I didn't get into this to become wealthy.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: I got into this because I love to tell stories,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: and I love working with people, and I love that collaboration,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: and I thank God that I'm able to pay my
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: rent doing it. But nobody's like stockpiling millions and driving
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: a BMW. You know, we're still all Honda Toyota guys,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: trying to go to work each day and make enough
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: money to pay your rent at the end of the month.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: And mostly just because we do love this. This is
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: I can't imagine doing anything else. Just feel very lucky
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: and thankful and blessed each day. On whatever level of
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: production you get to be involved in. It's it's a
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: great way to make a living. It's a hard way
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: to make a living, but man, I can't imagine doing
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: anything else it's so much fun.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I completely agree. You know, it's like Ted
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: Hope he actually left in pedafilmmaking and then now he's back.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: It's just it's an addiction.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: It is an addiction. You're absolutely right.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: I ask you a few questions for people wrote in
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: If you don't mind, I'll just pick like the best three.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: The first question is, uh, do you have to live
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: in LA to become a screenwriter?
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: Nope, especially not now. I think the caveat to that
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: would be it sure helps. I was in Indiana when
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: Poker Night first, I was in the trades with the
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: First Incarnation when we had Sam Jackson in and suddenly
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: I had agents for writing, and I had, you know,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: forty to fifty meetings with all the different studios and
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 4: all the little studios, and I had to fly out
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 4: every time, and then I had to do a lot
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 4: of stuff on the phone. And so you go, is
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: it easier if you're here? It sure is easier. If
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: somebody calls your agent says, hey, that guy that wrote
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: that thing that we read last week, can we get
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: him in here today? And they're like, no, he doesn't
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: live here, but we could do a phone They might
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: be like, eh, we'll get somebody else in then, so
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: I think, but once you've made it, I don't know
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 4: if it matters as much. And the industry's getting smaller,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: but boy, it's hard to get that lightning in a
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: bottle for that first script to get people interested and
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: wanting to meet with you. And I think being out
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 4: here helps, and especially I mean I wasn't here, so
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: it was really and probably you see the movie and
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: you're like, well, that scrip shouldn't have gotten any attention.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: But I think for some of the scripts that aren't
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 4: one thousand percent great, but maybe they're only eighty percent great,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: it sure helps to know low level executives, the low
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 4: level assistance people that you can give your script too,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: that'll read it and then push it up to their boss.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: And you don't get to do that unless you're out here.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: So I do think that there are advantages to it.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 4: But I would wait until the last possible second. I
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: would get two three scripts under your belt and then
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 4: come out when you're ready blow up the town and
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: then you can get out.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, it's like what Quentin Tarantino said about,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: you know, making a first project. He said oh, just
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: make reservoir dogs.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, I had there was I went to one
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: of the first things I went to out here was
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: the guys that wrote Batman Forever, and they had written
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: a script before that that was a brilliant script, but
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: no one had seen Batman Forever yet, and everyone was asking, well,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: how do you do this? How do you do that?
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: And they kept going, just write a great script and
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: everything will happen for you. And I was so angry
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: at the time because I'm like, what does that mean?
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 4: And how do you write a great script? And you know,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 4: it's almost a blowof and it also implies that they
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 4: wrote all these great scripts and Batman Forever sucked. So
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 4: I was even angrier after I saw that. But I
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: do think there's some I mean, there's some truth to
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: Once you have material that people want, you're in a
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: whole different place. You control a lot of things. They
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: have to come to you to get it. At the
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: same time, you know, if you write a great script,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: shoot it. If you're in Indiana, if you're in Pennsylvania,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 4: if you're in Georgia.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back. After a word from our sponsor,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: Get friends together and do it. Write something that you
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: can do, and you come out here with a project
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 4: that's good. You're in a whole different world and you're
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: treated completely different than somebody that wants people to give
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: you something or that you want to give you a chance.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 4: You've already taken that from them, and you've given yourself
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 4: permission and done it yourself, and then and then the
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 4: world is different. Hopefully it's a good film and it's
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 4: a good project, but it's hard. It's a it's a
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: hard game, and being out here, I think at the
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 4: beginning anyway, making those contacts and working your way up
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 4: is a good way to go, although it's changing fast.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: You know. That kind of answers the second question as well,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: which was, once I had a screenplay written and finalized,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: what should be my next step.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: Get everybody to read it, anybody that you can, and
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 4: have them tell you all the things that they hate
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: and don't like, and give it to people that'll be
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: honest with you. I have a group of writers across
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: the country from Virginia to Midwest out here that I've
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: worked with over the years, and man, before we shot
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: Poker and I I sent it to all of them
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: again and they've read it over that ten years, and
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: I'm like, look, I'm about to shoot. Don't let me
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: make an ass out of myself. Tell me what sucks,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 4: because this is the last chance. And I don't know
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: if they did good enough job. There's all some problems,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: but you know, you have to cultivate those those people
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: and then anyone that you know, you just give it
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 4: to them and you keep trying to find somebody that's
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: going to get it to somebody that means something. And
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 4: I would say, why you've done that. You better be
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 4: writing more. Don't think that this is the one that's
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 4: going to do it, because it's probably ninety nine percent
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 4: chance that it won't. You need to have more than one,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 4: and they need to be getting better and they need
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 4: to see something. And then the truth is is the
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 4: way the business is now unless you're making it yourself.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: There wasn't anybody that I had a meeting with on
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 4: Poker Night and it all starts the same way. Oh,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: we love the script, it's a great script. We have
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 4: these projects. Would you be interested in this? They don't
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: want to make your movie. They want you to make
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 4: their movie. So they're going to be offering you things
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: that they have to see if you're right for that.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 4: So all of these things are just things to get
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: you in a door unless you're going to do it yourself.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 4: But the only way to do that is to have
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: two or three things, keep writing, and develop a voice
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: that people want to hear. It's a hard, hard road.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: And again, the other side of that is I think
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 4: I said it on Ashley's thing, which is I'm not
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 4: the most talented writer. I have so many friends that
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: are way better than me and way more deserving of
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: getting attention for the writing than me. I think that
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: I picked the right subject at the right time and
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: did it in a way that was different enough that
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: it caught people's attention. It wasn't writing about Martin Luther
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: King or LBJ or Game of Thrones. It was something
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: that was very doable. It was very genre. It was
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: something that you could read it and see what it
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 4: was going to be. It wasn't setting the world on fire.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: It was just sort of a very popular genre that
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: people were liking. And so it was more right place,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: right time than any great talent on my part. So
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: I think it's being open to all those things and
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: trying to get better and then getting lucky sad to say,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: has a lot to do with it too.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that is very true. You know, luck does play
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: an integral part in some of this, and you know
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: it actually ties in with the third question, which is,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: you know, should I crowdify my project to show invests
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: that there was real interest in the project. And I
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: think this person is saying is if they crowdfund, they
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: can then go to investors and bec we've already raised
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: x amount of dollars. There is interesting this project. Can
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: we get you know, an actual you know private you
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: know private equity?
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 4: Now, Yes, I would say when I came out to
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 4: LA with poker knite and a million dollars in the bank, Uh,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 4: it was a lot easier to open the door for
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 4: me than it was coming out to LA with poker
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 4: knite and no money in the bank. When people feel
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 4: like you're halfway there and you've already convinced some people
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 4: that your project has worth, it does make a difference.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: It made a huge difference. So yes, if you could
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: crowdfund half your budget, a quarter of your budget, it
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 4: certainly is a lot easier for an investor to come
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: on when they're not the first one. The first one
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 4: is the hardest, just like the cast. And I feel like,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 4: once you say I've already got fifty thousand dollars in
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: the bank and I need two hundred thousand, it's a
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 4: lot smaller to get there, and you're already on that
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 4: road where people feel like we're getting on a train
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 4: that's moving, not we're the one that's having to push
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: the car. So yes, I would definitely say that's the case.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: Very cool.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: And why would I say that. I have no idea
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: I'm saying it. It seems like it would be the case,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: and it's got to put you. It sets you apart
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: from the other people and put you further down the road.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: But I say all this without great knowledge or that,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: so take it as a caveat. But I'm just an
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: idiot who got lucky.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: You know, it's very good advice, Greg though. You know,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: I do think you made a really good point. And
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: you know, if you do have money in an ESCO account,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: and you know say hey, we're halfway there, or we're
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: twenty percent there or seventy percent there, it does carries
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 3: some cash with it. In that way you can and
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: people are like, oh, this guy is serious, and you
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: know he is booting towards something, and you know, you know,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: just you knowly, I know you have places to be
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: before I real really quickly. I'll tell you a little
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 3: story about were I was gonna be part of a
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: pitch fest, a producer's pitch fest, and we were going
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: to invite wealthy investors we knew to come talk to us,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: and it ended up falling apart. But you know, what
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: I was doing was creating a very well thought out
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 3: pitch backet and then if they wanted to, they could
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: just read the executive summary as soon as they opened it.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: And then everything else was like, you know, going to
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 3: be all about our market aggregators, our social media plan,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: how to you know, getting an email list. I mean
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 3: it was so in depth. And you know, one person
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: she said to me, do you think that they're gonna
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: sit there and read all this? And I said, no,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: but they'll probably pass along to like their accountant or
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 3: their money manager or somebody else who probably will read it.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: And you know, that's that was my plan. Unfortunately it
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: never happened. We ended up not having a pitch fest.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: So and that was that was probably two years ago now,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 3: so right now. I've just been you know, writing scripts
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: in the meantime. But that's just sort of to tie
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 3: in with everything.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it is. That was actually even while you
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 4: were talking to I was thinking of there there's a
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 4: deal out here in la that they'll do occasionally with
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: post houses now, and I think part of it is
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 4: because the post industry sort of upended a little bit
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 4: in the last few years too, where post house will
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 4: say to you'll have a script, and they're getting into
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 4: the producing business, so they'll say, well, we'll give you
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 4: post on this film. Let's say we're going to give
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 4: you three hundred thousand dollars of services, but we'll only
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 4: charge you fifty grand. So you can go to investors
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: now and say you've got three hundred thousand dollars of
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 4: investment in your movie against your million dollars by having
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 4: us on board, and then you'll bring all the posts
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: here and pay us with what you make out of
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: the film, and we'll be executive producers. So there are
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: people that are putting deals together that way too, But
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: it puts you on the road, Does that make sense?
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: So I think it would be the same with crowdsourcing.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So is
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 3: it just like certain production houses.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 4: That are doing that now or post houses. I've seen
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 4: it with post houses, okay, with a lot of them.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: And part of it is, you know, that also gives
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: them work to keep their people going and projects coming in,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 4: and they're reaching out to, you know, more people on
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 4: the lower end of the spectrum where you know, they
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: might be telling you it's a three hundred thousand dollars investment,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: but probably they're giving you one hundred thousand dollars investment
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 4: that's overpriced to three hundred. So if you get money in,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: they get paid out first and they get a bigger
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 4: price than what it was. So probably every tenth film
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: that one of them finally makes money pays for the
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 4: other nine. But it does give you a way to
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 4: get started. And so I've heard that going on out here.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 4: Not as a scam. I don't think it's a scam,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 4: but I do think it's that sort of bonus of
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 4: being first in and then looking out for themselves. Yeah.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 3: Actually, I think that's a great idea.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a smart way to go. And I think
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 4: equipment houses will do that too, you know, they'll work
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: your deal line well, it's two hundred thousand dollars of equipment.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 4: We'll give you that up we'll give it to you
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 4: up front, but you're going to pay us eighty thousand
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 4: dollars against that, and then when your deferments come in,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: you'll pay us the rest. So you kind of piece
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 4: it together piece by piece.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then that actually, you know, that would help
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: a lot if too of equipment house to that. So
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, and you know, just thinking out loud, it'd
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: be great if you actually, you know, could crowdfund something
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 3: and get you know, both a post house and a
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 3: a storage house to actually do that for you. Actually,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 3: if they could actually join in together and you could
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: get you know, you know, six figures of services for
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 3: you know, whatever amount of money.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 4: That's excellent, and then you still have to come up
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 4: with a way to pay your cast and your crew.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 4: But but the rest of it, it's a great way
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 4: to get started.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, Yeah, that's actually a good strategy because
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you did have that and then you
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: could actually you know, eve the crowdfund and then go
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: through that to get a like a producer to actually
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: come on board or you know, a well known direction photography,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: and then you know, try to, like you said, get
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 3: you know, the first cast member to actually add importance
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: to the project and sort of go from there.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think it's a great, great way. In fact, truthfully,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 4: just like the script thing, any way that you can
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 4: get money for your project is a great way. It's
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 4: an even better way if you can actually return money
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 4: to your investors. That's the best way. But it's just
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 4: it's a it's an interesting climate and interesting time, and
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 4: I think the more people are innovative about how they
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 4: approach it, the more chances you have.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very true, and you know, I think we'll end
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: up seeing more of those chances coming up now with
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: everything changing. As we were, just like as we were saying.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 4: Totally well, and I mean again, if an idiot like
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 4: me can do it, I mean, it took us ten
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 4: years to get it to this point, and you want
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 4: to say, well, after ten years, you hope it's really good.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 4: I don't know if we got anything that was really good,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 4: but it's it's good. It's just it's a long road
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 4: and you want to go down it with your eyes
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 4: open and enjoy the experience. And some people are going
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 4: to get really lucky in the first year. For six months,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 4: they might hit it and all of a sudden they're
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 4: making a movie. Other people it might be longer than
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 4: ten years. But it's just know what you're getting into,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 4: enjoy that process, and don't let anybody stop you, and
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: don't take no, because if you want to make it,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 4: you can do it. And I think I'm proof you
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 4: don't have to be a genius or super talented. You
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: just have to really enjoy the ride and do your best.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: So and that is a great message, and you know
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 3: I agree with you, Greg. So, Greg, you know where
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 3: can people find you out online?
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: I'm on Twitter, I'm on Facebook, I'm on TUMBLRR I
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 4: think that's it.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 3: You also have an IMDb too, which.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, IMDb, I got my email. If they want to
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 4: bug me, I guess any of that's fine.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 3: And where can they find pocon It's.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 4: At Poker Night, is on v o D, it's on Amazon,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 4: it's on iTunes, and in February, it'll be on Blu
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 4: ray D.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: Excellent, And I'm going to make sure to link all
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 3: those in the show notes. So if for those listening
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: who want to actually purchase it, rent it, you can
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: go to write to those links. I recommend you check
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 3: it out. You know, I've seen the trailer and you know,
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: from what I've talked, from what I've heard from Greg
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: and talked to Greg about, you know, it sounds phenomenal
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: and I want to check it out. I'm probably gonna
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 3: check out tonight. I actually literally this week has been
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 3: like I've had no time to watch anything, so that's
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 3: why I haven't watched it. So I but I promise
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: Greg will watch it.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 4: So don't even worry. When you get a chance, take
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 4: a peek and then let me know what you think.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 3: All right, we'll do. So there's a lot of people Greg,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: who listen to the show who don't, like, you know,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 3: either subscribe or what have you. And I'm always you know,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: pleading with people. Please it helps me parlay to get
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 3: you know, guests or you know too because they want
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 3: to come on a good show. They don't want to
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 3: come on a show. It's like, oh, they have no subscribers,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: they have no very ratings, you know what is this?
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 3: But so it's kind of like a movie you have
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 3: to attach, you know, somebody to to add importance to it,
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 3: you know so, But Greg, thank you so much for
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 3: coming on. You know, I really appreciate it, and you know,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 3: you know, I wish you the best poken night, and
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 3: also I wish you best with you know what project
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 3: you're working on now. Hopefully we'll see something something, another
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 3: movie from you soon.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 4: They can't say how much I appreciate it. Thanks so
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 4: much for asking me on. And I'm really impressed and
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 4: excited for what you're doing. And if anyone feels like
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 4: they're wondering what kind of show it is, look down
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 4: the list of names that Dave has on a show
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 4: and it's quality, quality people. I don't know what I'm
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 4: doing there with this list, but it's a great group.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 4: He's doing God's work for film. So thanks for having
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 4: me on.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: Man, Oh, thank you so much for the commerts. I
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 3: really appreciate that.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 4: Greg. Thanks brother, stay in touch bug me if you
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 4: need anything else, let me know.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 3: All right, Thank you very much, and I have a
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: great Saturday, all right, you too, Dave. Thanks every buddy,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 3: Bye bye.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: get links to anything, we spoke about in this episode.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: Head over to the show notes at any film Elsele
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: dot com forward slash eight sixty four. If you have
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: it already, please head over to filmmaking podcast dot com,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: subscribe and leave a good review for the show.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 4: It really helps us out a lot, guys.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: Thank you again so much for listening to guys.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: indiefilm hustle dot com. That's I N D I E
• 1:35:18
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• 1:35:21
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