Latest / Half the Picture / #23 - STIMSON SNEAD & SAM DUNNING

Transcript

#23 - STIMSON SNEAD & SAM DUNNING · Half the Picture

0:00
him travers has absolutely no arc.
0:02
He's a absolutely awful human being,
0:04
but that does not work for the lead character of a feature.
0:07
Once we land it on self-love,
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once we hit that it was like, oh yeah, that's it.
0:10
And I think it actually speaks more to dig into self-love
0:13
when it's someone who maybe shouldn't.
0:15
And I think there's a good message in there
0:17
in finding self-acceptance.
0:19
He brought up dead ringers,
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and I don't think I even watched that
0:21
until about a year, year and a half ago
0:23
as a weird blind spot for Mae Kronenberg-wise.
0:25
The whole time I was watching it,
0:27
I was going like, you only had to play two guys.
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Remember Kearney?
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The whole film is about learning to love yourself
0:34
and low self-esteem.
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The legitimate fear that if I was trapped in a room
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full of dozens of other means,
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I would somehow still be the least popular one.
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One of the memories that will always stay in my heart.
0:47
Keith David came to set,
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and I didn't have a chance to go meet him.
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And when we wrapped the scene,
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I went over to go introduce myself,
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to find him Sam and another one of the actors
0:55
running their scene together.
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That was as a director,
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a heartwarming moment for me.
1:08
Hey everyone, I'm Billy,
1:10
and welcome back to Half the Picture.
1:12
Today, we've got another great guest duo for you,
1:14
following up on last week's Heavens episode.
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We've got director Stinson Sneed
1:17
and star Samuel Dunning
1:18
on to talk about their new film,
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Tim Travers and the Time Travelers Paradox.
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It was such a blast having Stinson and Sam
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on the pod to chat about Tim Travers,
1:26
which in case you haven't guessed from the title,
1:27
is a science fiction time travel movie.
1:29
It's a really fun sci-fi romp
1:30
in the style of shows like Red Dwarf,
1:32
which Stinson and Sam and me are big fans of,
1:34
so we talked about that a lot,
1:35
and I really think you're going to enjoy this chat.
1:37
By the way, remember to like and subscribe to the podcast,
1:40
as it really helps us get more amazing guests on the show.
1:42
So, without further ado,
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let's roll on my conversation with Stinson Sneed
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and Sam Dunning.
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Enjoy.
1:49
Hi guys, welcome to Half the Picture.
1:50
How are we doing today?
1:52
Are you ready?
1:53
Great to meet you.
1:54
Likewise.
1:55
So, we've got you on the pod today to talk about your new film,
1:58
Tim Travers and the Time Travelers Paradox,
1:59
which I've seen.
2:00
It's a ton of fun.
2:01
And yeah, for a kickoff, I guess.
2:03
I wanted to ask, how did the two of you,
2:05
I mean, obviously, you know, Sam,
2:06
you're the star,
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or in Stinson, you're the right director,
2:08
and also, you know, co-star?
2:10
How did the two of you first meet?
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And at what point did making Tim Travers
2:14
and collaborating on that into the conversation?
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Tim, do you want to take that one?
2:17
I'll start it then you continue it.
2:20
Absolutely.
2:21
We're getting very good at the dance of the story.
2:24
Really, what happens is we actually,
2:25
we met at a film festival.
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It was this really teeny tiny middle of nowhere.
2:29
It doesn't even exist anymore.
2:31
First year film festival.
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And we both had short films that we had made
2:36
in that festival and in the same block.
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Mine was called Rick and Ruby.
2:41
It was a short, horror comedy that I was using as a vehicle
2:44
for myself to, you know, promote my acting ability.
2:47
And there was a poster for it back there.
2:50
And it was part of Stinson's block.
2:52
And he saw my performance in that.
2:54
And then later that summer,
2:59
he told me, he reached out and told me that he had a script.
3:02
And that if I liked it, it was mine.
3:04
And that was the Tim Travers short film.
3:07
And now I'll let you take over Stinson
3:09
and tell them what I lied about.
3:12
Well, all of that's true,
3:14
but he's just leaving up the creepier details.
3:16
While he and I were on this panel with the short films,
3:20
I had already kind of made up in my mind that,
3:23
oh, this is the guy.
3:25
Because I had written the script for Tim Travers
3:28
a couple, maybe a month or two previously.
3:30
And I had originally planned to cast myself
3:33
and then realized that was a really stupid decision
3:35
and shelved it.
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And so I had put the project aside.
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And so there is a photograph.
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And it's on both of our Instagrams of Sam talking.
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He's in the middle of an interview on this panel.
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And you can see me behind him in the photograph.
3:48
I bawling him top to bottom.
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I come off as very pervy and create,
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this is not a flattery image of me.
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I come off as a very pervy at it.
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But that's literally me over there going,
4:00
oh, he's the one.
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And that tends what you off some.
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I didn't notice until after the fact,
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I just thought that I was being,
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I must have whatever I was saying
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and those photos must have been extremely genial
4:13
and smart sounding.
4:14
Yes, because when we think of Tim Travers,
4:16
Genial is the word that comes to mind.
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But yeah, I reached out a few months later.
4:21
He liked the script.
4:22
We had one or two delays because this was still the middle of pandemic.
4:25
I think we were well into 2021
4:27
before we actually got to film the short.
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And then the short just turned out great.
4:32
Went to festivals.
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We both had a great time with it.
4:35
And we both had a thought that was the end of it.
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Short was good.
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We were done.
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Move on with our lives.
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But then I had this other project
4:43
that fell through at the last second.
4:45
But I already had a crew.
4:46
I already had time booked out with the studio.
4:48
I already had financing.
4:50
So it was like, I need to shoot something
4:52
and I need to shoot it right now.
4:54
And so I called up Sam
4:55
and we pulled this project together
4:57
at just lightning speed
4:59
just to not lose the production window.
5:01
Wow.
5:01
So there was a real efficiency of process then
5:03
as well, I'm getting.
5:04
Because like you say,
5:05
so the Gen Travers started out as a short
5:07
and made it expanded to feature length to 100 minutes.
5:09
And as a follow-up question to that,
5:10
I once asked,
5:11
like, what was it like for the pair of you
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as both star and filmmaker?
5:15
Expanding that short film to feature length.
5:18
I mean, for you, Sam, you'll obviously
5:19
play the main character.
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And that must offer an opportunity
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to really go deep into that character.
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And also for you,
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as the writer and the director,
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you can then go deep into the story
5:28
itself as well.
5:28
And that character's arc
5:29
and the scope of the film just gets bigger.
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So yeah, what was that like for the two of you?
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What changes did that present?
5:35
I know on my end,
5:36
I mean, that was kind of what actually
5:37
got it to be broad in the world.
5:40
The first place is that we had a conversation
5:42
when he was trying to figure out
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what to fill this hole in his
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and the production company's schedule with.
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And he was like, what if we did
5:49
a feature length Tim Travers?
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Would you want to do that?
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What do you see in something like that?
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Like, is there something to make it worth
5:55
going back to this IP?
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And we started kind of spitballing.
5:59
And I was just like, you know,
6:02
full of like fun ideas
6:03
of like what we could play with
6:05
with more time with this guy.
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And we landed on just like,
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well, like everybody loves talking about
6:12
self-love these days.
6:13
What if we take it very, very literally?
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And the other part of that conversation was
6:19
part of the reason we needed to have that
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because it wasn't simply a matter of
6:22
was Sam available and did we want to do it.
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The whole joke of the short
6:26
is that him Travers has absolutely no arc.
6:29
The joke of the short is that no matter
6:31
what we do to this character,
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he is fundamentally unwilling to change
6:36
even a little, which is fine for a short.
6:39
And a lot of fun, but that does not work
6:41
for the lead character of a feature.
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So that's why if you were going to do this,
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what do we want to do with this character?
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And that's why I flipped the question to Sam first
6:49
as the one who was in his character's head.
6:51
That is the thing that as even though
6:53
that was part of the DNA,
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that's the thing that absolutely needed to be changed
6:57
in adapting to feature.
6:58
And yeah, and again, it was sort of like,
7:01
it just opened the door in such a way that it,
7:05
you know, it was just fun just even being
7:07
able to throw around ideas about like anything
7:10
and everything we could do because it is
7:12
this character with no arc and it's like,
7:13
how do you, what are we going to do to give him an arc
7:15
that is also fun as a moviegoer,
7:19
but also fun for me to play and for Stimson to write and direct.
7:23
And I think we found a really great
7:27
in to do all those things.
7:30
It was a surprisingly short conversation.
7:32
Once we landed on self-love and I think it was Sam
7:34
who brought that up, but once we hit that it was like,
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oh, oh yeah, that's it.
7:38
First off, let's do some particular jokes
7:40
that I've always wanted to put on camera,
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but it really kind of dug into the nitty-gritty
7:44
because part of the problem with the 10 Traverse
7:47
just writing-wise as a character is he's
7:48
a absolutely awful human being,
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but just absolutely awful.
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And it's easy to talk about self-love when it's,
7:55
oh, here's a misunderstood nice person.
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Tim is not a misunderstood nice person.
8:00
He is a train wreck.
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And I think it actually speaks more to dig into self-love
8:05
when it's someone who maybe shouldn't.
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And I think there's a good message in there
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in finding self-acceptance,
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but all of that was born out of that calm,
8:13
that relatively short conversation.
8:15
And then process wise, so writing wise,
8:18
this was very Machiavellian writing.
8:20
So because we had 90 days from when we decided
8:24
to make the movie to win the camera role
8:26
and there was no script at all,
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90-day window to roll camera.
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So the first thing is I just needed to will the script
8:33
into existence and make sure the structure was correct
8:36
because as long as the structure is correct,
8:38
the locations are correct, the scenes are correct,
8:40
what's going to be in it,
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then free production can get going.
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We can start casting,
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Sam can start working on the character,
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we can start hunting for locations,
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and that gives me the rest of the time
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to make it, you know, a good script,
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as opposed to a script that just exists.
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So the first thing was just figuring out
8:57
what I had available to me that I could get for cheap.
9:00
So as stuff like, well,
9:02
I have a radio station that I can get for free.
9:05
So there's going to be a radio station location in it.
9:08
I have this 20 acre abandoned aluminum factory
9:13
that looks like the freaking post-apocalypse
9:16
and every scene it's in looks like I'm million bucks.
9:19
I can get that for next and nothing.
9:21
So we're going to set some scenes there.
9:23
I have a seven foot tall fully functional hamster wheel.
9:26
I don't know how,
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but we're putting a seven foot tall
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fully functional hamster wheel in there.
9:31
So a lot of that writing process
9:33
was just working backwards.
9:36
Here's what I have.
9:37
How do I build a story out of that?
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And so that's part of how the writing process on that,
9:41
which honestly was a lot of fun.
9:43
Because when you're able to,
9:45
when you have a long time to write a script
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and you get into those deep philosophical discussions,
9:50
sometimes your head can go so far up your own ass
9:52
that you never actually get to the point
9:53
of just making it work.
9:55
Working with this sort of puzzle approach
9:58
is actually a lot,
9:59
this Roger Corman approach
10:00
as another interviewer referred to it.
10:02
It really helps focus things down
10:05
to exactly what something needs to be.
10:07
Yeah, totally.
10:07
Ever say before that there's an efficiency
10:09
of process where you're working on a low budget
10:10
and tight schedule,
10:11
you have to be efficient and fast.
10:13
But with really complicated stuff for the both of you,
10:16
the movie is a science fiction film.
10:18
It's quite as epic in a lot of ways.
10:20
There's VFX sequences sort of
10:22
threaded throughout,
10:22
involving time travel of course,
10:24
but also black holes and singularities
10:26
and the vastness of the cosmos is represented
10:29
by the time you get to the end of this film.
10:31
And also for you, Samuel, obviously,
10:33
that you're playing,
10:34
I think at least sort of 14,
10:36
if not more versions of Tim Chavez.
10:37
I mean, I think they're even more,
10:39
so that's complicated as well.
10:40
And obviously doing all of that on a tight schedule,
10:42
you know, sort of quite minimal resources
10:44
and making it look as good as it can,
10:46
but also just, you know, flow and work is a challenge.
10:48
And I wanted to ask for the both of you,
10:50
like what kind of challenges did that present?
10:52
And also I guess for you, Samuel,
10:54
it's specifically like playing
10:56
all those different versions of yourself.
10:58
There are shots, why shots?
10:59
Where there's like 14 of you in the same shot.
11:00
I mean, what was that like, you know,
11:03
to put together in the challenges that faced as well,
11:05
but also more broadly?
11:06
Yeah, no, I mean, like thankfully,
11:08
we'd done this short ahead of time.
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So I kind of knew, I already knew what we were getting into.
11:13
And just kind of how Stimson work works
11:16
and how these effects are going to have to work
11:20
to pull off the magic trick of me talking to myself.
11:24
But obviously because of the scale of it,
11:26
I just learned very quickly,
11:28
I had to compartmentalize or outside go,
11:30
nuts, with the short, I kind of learned the whole thing,
11:35
you know, whatever I remember,
11:37
you had a panic day of the short
11:38
if you realized you'd memorized it the wrong way of the short.
11:43
Some like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:44
And I had it, the whole short, like,
11:48
page one to the end, perfectly memorized.
11:53
And I was like, all right, well,
11:54
this, that is not possible with this,
11:56
this 90, you know, three-page, 95-page script.
11:59
I have to break it down into bite-sized pieces and figure it out.
12:02
So basically, what I did is I just became extremely familiar,
12:06
obviously with the plot, the progression of the character
12:10
and his affiliated cells.
12:14
And then I just literally just broke it down
12:16
to like one day at a time.
12:18
So the night before a day,
12:21
I would just refresh just what we were shooting for that day.
12:26
And just that dialogue and just where I was coming from,
12:29
like, whatever, like, every scene that we were shooting,
12:31
where I was a moment before that in the script.
12:34
And, you know, it's like, it's kind of typical actor stuff,
12:37
but like, but doing it on such a scale
12:39
that like, I had to do this for not only myself,
12:43
but then five other six other selves.
12:45
And so that was kind of what I did on a personal prep level.
12:51
And then on the day, basically, it was me, Stimson,
12:54
and our script supervisor sharing a brain,
12:58
and I should, yeah, three parts of one mildly operating brain.
13:04
And so if any of us got any one of us got confused
13:07
as to what was happening, the other could yell,
13:10
like, just yell out, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa,
13:12
like, is this the dumb Tim or the smart Tim?
13:14
And then some of the, it's the dumb one.
13:17
Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay.
13:18
And so like, it became, you know, kind of as simple as that,
13:22
because until the end, all the Tim's are relatively similar,
13:26
because they're just one guy separated by a few minutes.
13:28
But also that means that their tiny little differences
13:32
are a little harder to pick up in the lines of dialogue.
13:35
So that means that sometimes, like I said,
13:37
we'd have to like, literally yell out to each other,
13:39
like, wait a second, whoa, whoa, whoa,
13:41
I know the name of this one, the letter,
13:43
but I know I can't remember the context.
13:46
Somebody please help.
13:47
And then obviously by the end,
13:49
the larger differences have existed,
13:52
and you, they're almost different characters at that point.
13:55
Well, I think the other part of how we did it,
13:57
like writing wise, is the Tim's do not get equal billing.
14:01
Like, there are basically two Tim's who are hero Tim's,
14:04
but there's maybe six Tim's who do 90% of the talking,
14:09
even of the non-heroes, there's maybe six supporting Tim's
14:12
who do 90% of everything.
14:13
So in any given scene of somebody speaking,
14:16
it's one of those six.
14:18
There is the asshole Tim, there is the Tim
14:20
who everybody ships on all the time,
14:22
there is the smart Tim, and there's the horny Tim.
14:24
There's a lot of a unequal billing among our Tim's.
14:27
And for you, Santa, I guess you've kind of almost got
14:29
a channel a bit of Jeremy Irons,
14:30
and dead ringers when you do that.
14:31
Those little meticulous nuances,
14:33
and like, they give the subtleties of behavior
14:35
that you've got to just do to separate each
14:37
of those sort of main Tim's.
14:38
And actually, on that front, I want to ask,
14:40
you know, this being a genre film, a science fiction film,
14:43
by what kind of films and filmmakers
14:44
were influencing Eustensen in the making of this film.
14:46
And also for you, like, Sam,
14:48
what kind of actors or performances
14:50
did you, were you kind of thinking of it
14:51
if any, when you were performing the character?
14:53
For me, influence-wise, believe it or not,
14:55
nothing can travel related.
14:57
I wanted to do my own thing.
14:58
My creative influences for projects like this
15:01
always go back to the seed of everything calmly
15:04
for me, which is red dwarfs.
15:06
For me, red dwarf is absolutely the comedic DNA
15:11
right down to some of the visual style choices in this film.
15:14
I can actually see that even in the kind of grunginess
15:16
of the, yeah, the warehouse and the production design,
15:18
there's a real sort of, it does parallel, actually,
15:20
now you say that really strongly with red dwarf.
15:23
Oh, yeah. That is the actual strongest influence.
15:26
It's funny because people always assume
15:27
there's some sort of time travel influence.
15:28
I was like, no, not really.
15:30
Not really, but I wanted to do my own thing.
15:32
But red dwarf, oh, that's all over this.
15:34
Fantastic. I mean, I'm a huge red dwarf fan,
15:35
so that's really great I find to hear,
15:37
especially as red dwarf these days,
15:38
sometimes it doesn't get its due,
15:39
it's for how pretty it is.
15:40
That's really great to hear.
15:41
Oh, absolutely.
15:42
Yeah. And how about you, Sam?
15:44
Again, I don't really have a great answer.
15:46
Like, it's funny.
15:46
I like you brought up dead ringers,
15:48
and I don't think I even watched that until about a year,
15:50
a year and a half ago is a weird blind spot
15:52
for me, Kronenberg wise.
15:54
And I think the whole time I was watching it,
15:56
I was going like, you only had to play two guys.
15:59
You never hear me.
16:03
So Jerry, on side, you got me in knighthood for that.
16:06
Come on, man, I'll joke on the side.
16:08
Yeah, I mean, and then people bring up
16:11
like, multiplicity to me.
16:13
I've never actually seen multiplicity,
16:14
which everyone's always just sort of shocked by.
16:16
And I'm just like, well, I don't know.
16:19
I didn't do any homework.
16:20
I was like, I did the short, and that went over well.
16:24
So I was like, just keep doing your thing.
16:26
And then like, because it's a, not to say like,
16:30
there's no benefit in like looking at other movies
16:33
where people play multiple roles,
16:34
but I'm sort of like, I don't know at the event of the day.
16:36
I'm sort of like, yeah, but how is it different
16:37
than any other acting other than there's just a lot of work?
16:40
I mean, like, how is it different than like, you know,
16:42
all the marble movies where people are talking to golf balls
16:45
on, you know, on sticks.
16:46
And then they'll get Chris Hemsworth in a week later
16:49
to talk to the other side of the golf ball, you know?
16:52
So like, like people are doing this kind of stuff
16:54
all the time and still make it compelling and make it work.
16:58
Also, just like this sheer daunting amount of work
17:00
I had, I was also like, I don't have time
17:02
to like worry about channeling some other something.
17:05
I just need to get the lines out of my mouth
17:07
in a convincing way so that we can move on to the day.
17:11
I will say also grew up massive Red Door fan.
17:14
So there was some kind of dialogue there.
17:19
Maybe it was, you know, subliminally or something,
17:21
subconsciously.
17:22
I mean, we're talking about 10 travels, obviously,
17:24
but now that you've mentioned Red Door for me,
17:25
and I'm curious to ask, I mean, you guys,
17:26
but we've seen like fans, we do have a favorite episode
17:28
of Red Door for a favorite series, perhaps.
17:30
You know, that's a, maybe that's a tricky question,
17:32
but like, I mean, there's so many great ones.
17:34
I always tend to go towards series six in series four.
17:37
A lot, I love when they're trying to start a bug
17:39
and just start a bug for the full season.
17:42
And it's hard to pick an all time favorite episode though,
17:45
like that's not.
17:46
I would agree those minutes do all of those seasons,
17:47
I think, are really some of the best for me.
17:51
Coming to mind is like, you only go to the backwards world.
17:54
That one, always have one one.
17:57
I remember I was in kid, I was just like genius.
18:00
Yeah.
18:02
Really good.
18:04
Yeah, the polymorph, it was always a winner.
18:07
Yeah, it was a great one.
18:09
Dwayne Dibli, yeah, I've caught you wrong with that.
18:11
I mean, back 10 is back, back was basically just 10
18:14
at playful apps, you know, and it's so even better.
18:16
And even that, yeah, we should be slagging on 10
18:19
it more often for just stealing perfectly good idea
18:23
that was more fun and took less time to go through
18:26
the whole thing.
18:27
Tell me about it.
18:29
I always love backwards because there's this wonderful
18:31
behind the scenes clip of the restaurant odor shouting
18:34
at him backwards.
18:35
But yeah, this in the behind the scenes forward,
18:38
it's him going, I'm not talking to you.
18:40
I'm actually talking to the sad person who is no light,
18:43
who is going to report this and play it backwards
18:45
just to hear what I'm saying.
18:47
And in the 90s, that would have been,
18:49
I would take an hours and hours of work to get that copy
18:51
that over, real surreal to it like a tape
18:53
and rewind it and get imagining it.
18:54
And then you hear that, you're like, what am I doing my life?
18:58
I think that would make me, I would feel seen.
19:00
I think if I put that much work into hearing
19:02
what the person said, only to discover
19:04
that they were directly addressing me
19:07
and acknowledging the work I had to do to do this.
19:09
Like, I mean, I know who I am.
19:11
I'm a weird, I'm a weird nerd.
19:13
I would feel seen.
19:14
I would feel very seen at this moment.
19:16
Well, I got to throw one more.
19:17
Throw one more out is, as I forget,
19:20
it's not the polymorph episode,
19:21
but it's the one where Lister fights the Vindaloo monster
19:25
when he's just, you know, his DNA robot cop.
19:27
DNA, yes.
19:28
Yeah, yeah, that's a cracky episode.
19:30
That's a crack.
19:31
And that one's one of, basically any episode
19:32
where you get something big and goopy
19:35
and they're using some sort of like over the top SFX
19:39
going on low budget SFX, I'm like, those are the best.
19:42
Yeah, low budget effect, because I love that
19:44
when you see people with absolutely no budget,
19:46
because at its height, it still had no budget.
19:48
And what they're getting away with it.
19:50
If I had to pick a favorite episode,
19:51
it's when they go to the Simon,
19:53
where the entire planet becomes rimmer, psyche.
19:57
It's only because of the dip.
19:59
It also because it's just,
20:01
well, also just because it gives Chris Berry,
20:03
he gets to do so much acting in that episode.
20:06
Because he's not just playing himself,
20:07
he's playing different psychological versions himself.
20:10
He's the voice of the monster that is Chris Berry
20:14
gets to do so much acting.
20:15
You're also something here with a connection back to the duty.
20:18
Oh, yeah.
20:18
Oh, my God, yeah.
20:20
I was on the side.
20:21
I actually might float out that if I was to say
20:24
there was an inspiration,
20:25
rimmer might be about as close to like an analog as I go.
20:29
Not that I did this intent,
20:30
that there's no intention to do so,
20:33
but just talking about it now,
20:34
I'm like, that is not a bad corollary.
20:37
Are they by any means?
20:39
What is basically me?
20:40
It's basically me too, that episode,
20:42
but like time's 20.
20:43
It's like, you know, it's like,
20:44
20 rim is 20 Tim Travis.
20:46
Oh, yeah, and all that, you know,
20:48
well, I mean, that actually is a direct inspiration.
20:49
The episode when rimmer copies himself
20:51
and he feels bullied by his other self,
20:54
we have one Tim, we call Delta Tim,
20:56
who is specifically the Timming that all the others just bully.
21:01
I'll be honest, guys,
21:03
I didn't expect to be good diving
21:05
quite so deep into Red Dwarf for VeeChap.
21:06
Slide on the chat.
21:07
But I'm here for it.
21:08
I'm loving it.
21:09
Go for the door.
21:10
Go for the door.
21:10
I have to throw one more out there
21:12
because now that I'm thinking about it,
21:13
because this was actually a conscious one.
21:15
The whole genesis behind the film's villain,
21:18
which is one of the Tim's,
21:19
and I won't reveal who,
21:20
but it's one of the Tim's is the idea
21:22
because the whole film is about learning
21:24
to love yourself and low self-esteem.
21:26
The legitimate fear that if I was trapped in a room
21:29
full of dozens of other me's,
21:31
I would somehow still be the least popular one.
21:35
And that is very much the core of the psyche
21:37
behind the film's principal antagonist.
21:39
You see, like we put Tim Travis in a completely new context
21:41
for me now,
21:42
because now I'm just totally seeing that Red Dwarf.
21:44
I'm kind of unconscious or unconscious, you know,
21:45
or so conscious.
21:46
But acting wise, I think Sam had on something there,
21:48
like, what would Rimmer look like
21:51
if he was actually insanely competent?
21:53
Still his neurotic self, but an incredibly obvious,
21:57
not so much version.
21:58
That's Ace Rimmer, not too tough.
22:00
Yes, but Ace Rimmer is actually a nice guy.
22:03
We never see the nice guy, Tim.
22:04
Yeah, so what if he was also a trick?
22:06
I mean, now you've got to do the sequel to Tim Travis
22:08
where you have the opposite,
22:09
I won't let he break into the multiverse
22:11
and you have Ace Tim and regular Tim.
22:13
So it's a buddy movie.
22:14
There's a buddy movie with two Tim's, one Ace.
22:17
What?
22:18
Well, in that logic,
22:19
we obviously cannot make the film
22:20
if we can't convince Chris Perry to camp you.
22:23
That's right.
22:24
I'm sure Chris will be up for it.
22:26
It's sticking with the acting now.
22:27
I mean, I guess this is a more general question,
22:28
but like the cast that you guys assemble for this film,
22:31
I mean, I don't know whether they're Red Dwarf fans
22:33
or not as well.
22:34
I mean, that's another question.
22:35
But like, the shoulder tail is.
22:36
Yeah, the shoulder tail is.
22:37
Okay, great.
22:38
We've got one.
22:39
And then obviously you guys have got Felicia Day
22:40
and Danny Treho, these incredible, you know,
22:42
screening presences.
22:44
I mean, and you're both in the movie.
22:45
I mean, I think I mentioned it earlier,
22:46
it's simply like you,
22:47
you obviously feature in the movie
22:48
as this kind of bounty hunter antagonist
22:50
kind of killing his way up the, you know,
22:52
through the various Tim Travers.
22:55
And what was it like for the both of you as actors
22:58
and also as filmmakers, you know,
22:59
with those guys on sex,
23:01
obviously those guys have got so much experience
23:03
and like, you know, the, like,
23:04
surely had some great stories like,
23:06
what was that like?
23:06
I was really worried about being incredibly intimidating,
23:09
but we were blessed.
23:11
These were all just extremely kind,
23:14
Jamie old people to work with.
23:15
And after maybe 20 minutes of the celebrity factor
23:18
wearing off,
23:20
it was like working with anybody else,
23:21
just really competent, kind professionals.
23:24
I think one of the memories that will always stay in my heart
23:28
as a beautiful moment was when we were filming
23:31
one of the only scenes in the entire film
23:33
that Sam is not in.
23:35
And there are very many that was.
23:38
And it was even a full day.
23:39
It was like a half day.
23:41
You were, you had a half day,
23:43
but Keith David came to set that day
23:45
and I didn't have a chance to go meet him
23:46
because we were in the middle of the scene.
23:48
And when we wrapped the scene,
23:49
I went over to go introduce myself and meet Keith
23:52
and I got over to his dressing room
23:54
to just to find him, Sam and another one of the actors
23:57
running their scene together.
23:59
Like they were already right in the middle of the scene
24:02
and I remember entering the room,
24:04
not saying anything, just leaning against the wall
24:06
because I wanted to let them finish
24:08
and just watch it like that.
24:10
That was as a director, a heartwarming moment for a mate.
24:14
And they were all like this.
24:15
We were so lucky with the people we had to work with.
24:18
I bet.
24:18
And then as we say, you know,
24:20
the movie was made quite quickly.
24:21
I mean, I want to say it was a 17-day shoot.
24:23
17-day?
24:24
Yeah, so very efficient.
24:26
You know, you've got to get, you know,
24:28
you're doing really complicated stuff.
24:29
The perv, you know, you've got to get it done.
24:31
I mean, and as to say, you're also sharing scenes together.
24:33
You know, you're both, you know, playing off of each other
24:35
as actors.
24:36
I mean, what was it like working together as actors
24:37
and also by the end of this shoot,
24:38
did you, I guess, did you actually want to kill each other
24:40
by the end of this shoot?
24:41
Because it sounds like it was such a pressurized, you know,
24:43
shoot, obviously, and busy.
24:44
Like, what was it like working together on that front?
24:47
Well, I can't speak for Sam,
24:48
but I loved working with him.
24:50
And I loved working with you too, sweetie.
24:53
No, no, no, like, and I'm not just greasin',
24:57
greasin' his wheels, a make of that, what you will.
25:00
Interesting word choice, all right?
25:02
Let's just get a dance right by that one.
25:04
Well, here's the thing is that I had so much work
25:07
and going on in my head every day, as it's Stimson.
25:10
But like, that I really didn't have time
25:14
to worry about much else other than my stuff
25:18
and what I was just like, if Stimson was happy
25:22
and we moved on, great.
25:23
I'm not asking for another take, I'm not asking for it.
25:26
Like, you know, I wasn't really feeling that one.
25:28
Like, it's just like, no time.
25:30
If it lands and he's happy, we're good.
25:34
And that is, I think, one of the biggest testaments
25:37
I have to fully trusting him as an artistic collaborator.
25:42
So I was just like, well, I don't have to worry
25:44
about if he's getting the best of me
25:47
because he knows exactly what he wants.
25:50
And that is such a wonderful, safe blanket
25:55
to be working with.
25:56
You don't have to worry about anything but your own stuff.
25:58
And especially with something that's like,
26:01
this amount of work, it's just like that.
26:04
You need something like that.
26:05
So it made like every day very simple.
26:09
I mean, like the task at hand was not simple,
26:11
but work when Stimson was, yeah, it was cakewalk is lovely.
26:14
Well, I am trying to grease your wheels,
26:16
but the, the feeling was mutual.
26:19
There's so much I'm trying to keep track of.
26:21
Like, most of the crew acknowledged that
26:23
because the effects were so weird on 90% of the shots,
26:26
if I said we're good, they would just take my word for it
26:29
because they had no idea what the hell we were doing.
26:31
But of every, I've always felt very bad about this.
26:33
And I felt like I ignored Sam for much of the production
26:37
because there was just nothing I needed to do there.
26:40
He knew the character, he had this right.
26:42
He took notes very sharply, very fast
26:45
of all of the list of things I'm trying to balance
26:49
in my head to manage.
26:51
Sam's good, unless he needs something from me,
26:53
there's just not really much for me to check in on there.
26:56
That must be such a great feeling then,
26:58
as for the both of you, you can trust your co-pilot
27:00
and be like, you know, they've got this.
27:02
And you don't even have to think about it,
27:03
worry about it, that must be, yeah, especially on,
27:05
like say, like it's such an intense environment
27:08
as a film set, that must be just a great feeling.
27:10
The biggest problem, and we were very lucky
27:13
because it wasn't just Sam and I,
27:14
although Sam was a joy to work with.
27:16
Across the board, we had an unbelievably easy
27:20
to work with team of people who have no drama whatsoever.
27:24
They're all happy to be here, they're all game.
27:27
They're all, maybe they're laughing at us secretly
27:30
off the side wondering what the hell are these two doing,
27:32
but they were still nevertheless perfectly polite
27:35
about it and willing to play ball.
27:37
So our only real enemy on this set was just time
27:42
because the sheer amount of material we were trying
27:46
to film in the time we had was insane.
27:49
17 days for a normal film would be ridiculous.
27:53
17 days for a film where every time Sam is on screen,
27:57
we have to reshoot the shot as many times
28:00
as there are teams in the scene.
28:02
Yeah, it sounds like such a hurtful effort.
28:05
I mean, that's off for, you know,
28:06
being able to accomplish it, you know, so officially,
28:09
you know, I guess on what we've what you had,
28:11
but I mean, honestly guys, this was such a blast chatting to you.
28:14
I mean, like I've discovered two, you know,
28:16
fellow Red War fans, you know, out there, you know,
28:17
which is fantastic.
28:19
And I didn't expect it in this conversation,
28:22
but it's fantastic, I'm here for it.
28:24
And yeah, thank you guys so much for coming
28:26
on half the picture of such a pleasure to chat to you.
28:27
And thanks for the movie.
28:29
I really, really enjoyed it.
28:30
And I'm really excited to see what you guys get up to next.
28:32
Thank you so much.
28:34
Cheers guys, take care.
28:35
Cheers.
28:36
Hey everyone, thanks so much for listening to my conversation,
28:48
with Stimson Sneed and Sam Dunning.
28:50
Remember to like and subscribe to the podcast
28:52
so you never miss an episode.
28:53
And stay tuned for more exciting interviews and guests
28:55
coming soon on half the picture.