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IFH 806: Shooting Sharks in Your Living Room: The Art of DIY Filmmaking with Ron Bonk · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Host six Cinema should make You forget. You're sitting in
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  Speaker 2: a theater, Roman Polanski.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
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  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
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  Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
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  Speaker 1: the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I am your Humble host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is
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  Speaker 2: sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur How to turn
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  Speaker 2: your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today
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  Speaker 2: than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with
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  Speaker 2: That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: host Dave Bullis.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: My next guest is a filmmaker and founder and the
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: head of the distributor SRS Cinema. His latest film, House Shark,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: is an Amazon prom prime Right now, Yes, I said
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: House Shark with guests Ron Bank.
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  Speaker 4: You know, I grew up liking making up stories, knack
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: them out with friends. Didn't have a you know, a
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: film camera or a video cameras before you know, video
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: before camp quarterers really came along, and I had always thought,
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: you know, like that would be the dream to direct movies,
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: but didn't really take it serious. You don't think it
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: was feasible basically, so you know, went off to school
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: for a variety of other things. But after doing it
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: for a while, long story short, decided that, hey, you know,
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: I took the wrong route. The thing I wanted to
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: do was to make movies. Meanwhile, though I had already
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: you know, I had a bunch of years in college,
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: you know, didn't want to continue in college, wanted to
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: you know, I didn't want to accumulate any more debt,
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  Speaker 4: and so started looking into what, you know, how I
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: could do this, And in the process of being self trained,
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: you know, I was learning about film and how expensive
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: was to make a movie and it's looking at a
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: minimum like one hundred thousand dollars to you know, uh
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  Speaker 4: to shoot anything on film according to like the best
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: you know sources, which obviously it has been done for cheaper,
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: but that's what I was you know, hearing, you know,
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: pretty much caught across the board at the time, and
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: then eventually came across the idea of shooting at you know,
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: cam quarters, which would become more prevalent, and they were
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: still pretty expensive and and uh, you know, not as
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: user friendly, you know, as they would they would come
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: to be, but they you know, I think of the
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  Speaker 4: first one I got was twenty five hundred and thirty
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  Speaker 4: five hundred dollars as PHS camp quarter. I mean it's
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  Speaker 4: really it was a solid machine, did a good job,
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  Speaker 4: but it you know, created an option for me. Maybe
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: it wasn't that much. He's just been so long. Maybe
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: it was like a thousand to fifteen hundred, But anyways,
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  Speaker 4: I got that and started making the movies on video
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  Speaker 4: and you know, proceeded from there. I've only shot a
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: little bit of stuff on film ever. Anything that was
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: released was a little bit in my college, you know,
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  Speaker 4: and in my college years when I decided to become
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  Speaker 4: a filmmaker, I took a few film classes, but for
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  Speaker 4: the most part, uh, you know, went from the analog
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  Speaker 4: video to digital nowadays, shooting on HD for She Kills
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  Speaker 4: in four K for House Shark.
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  Speaker 3: So when you were in college, ron, you know, did
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  Speaker 3: you actually try to film on campus at all? Like
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  Speaker 3: did you try to like grab any any of the
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  Speaker 3: equipment from like the av studio or anything, just try
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  Speaker 3: to film anything there.
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  Speaker 4: No what it happened is I had I mean I guess
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  Speaker 4: a little bit what I had shot or I'd been
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: to school for four years and I have been had
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: an associates in accounting. I was working on a criminal
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: justice degree when I decided to switch over to film.
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  Speaker 4: So for I went to a fifth year of school.
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  Speaker 4: But it was just like men A College. I had
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  Speaker 4: a TV and uh, well basically TV classes there, so
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: you know, we were I was using their camp quarters
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: and their VCRs. You know, they like high end decks.
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  Speaker 4: May have been shooting on some beta cam for the
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: TV stuff, you know, like the studio stuff. But you know,
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  Speaker 4: I was able to borrow their camp quarters to shoot
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  Speaker 4: on vhs off campus. But I also took there was
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  Speaker 4: a that was a Monroe Community College in Rochester, but
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  Speaker 4: at Brockport nearby. I took a single film class each
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: semester and we were shooting on film for that. So
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  Speaker 4: they had bowl x sixty milimeter camera that we can borrow.
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  Speaker 4: But the two things I shot on film, they both
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: I think I shot them almost exclusive within the apartments
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  Speaker 4: I was renting at the time. So uh, and then
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  Speaker 4: the stuff I shot with video, I remember doing some
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: exterior stuff of like the apartments, you know, I was renting,
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  Speaker 4: you know, running I think a different one each each semester. No,
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  Speaker 4: maybe it was one over both semesters. But I didn't
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  Speaker 4: really get down into the school unless you know, there
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  Speaker 4: was stuff we were doing for the TV classes around
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  Speaker 4: the school, So it was a very short period. Didn't
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  Speaker 4: really do a lot there. I mean I really didn't
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  Speaker 4: get out there with a camp Quorder until I was
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: out of school, you know, working full time and the
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: antique business, and had invested in the camp Quorder and
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  Speaker 4: I shot like an instructional video first it was down
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  Speaker 4: in Florida for half the year, and then once I
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: got back, I shot my first feature. And that's when
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  Speaker 4: I really for the first time got out and was
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  Speaker 4: being artistic with a camera, you know, on a regular basis.
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  Speaker 3: So so Ron when you were made a change from
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: accounting and with a criminal justice background to to you know,
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: wanting to do wanting to just go into film, you know,
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: where people like say, what do they say that? Run
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: your nuts ers? Or like you Ron, what the hell
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  Speaker 3: you're thinking?
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  Speaker 4: More so back then, but nowadays not so much. I
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: mean there's still you know, for this area, there's still
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: people will be surprised, but Syracuse has grown, uh that
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  Speaker 4: the film community has grown, and there's there's you know,
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: it's not that uncommon for there to be a sizable
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: production in the area, you know, a few times a year.
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  Speaker 4: So if I say, you know, I make movies, you know,
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  Speaker 4: I produce and distribute features, I don't get Like when
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: I start off, I'd always get like, oh, pornos, you know,
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: like now another they're logo tot you know, horror movies,
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: and a lot of people weren't educated or still aren't
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  Speaker 4: even educated to the fact that you could shoot on
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: Assumer brand you know, VHS cameras and distribute those movies,
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: you know, during the eighties, you know, late eighties and nineties.
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  Speaker 4: But nowadays, like I said, if I mention it, you know,
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  Speaker 4: it's still true with surprise, you know, maybe a little
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  Speaker 4: bit of skepticism, but most part it's it's more like
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  Speaker 4: oh yeah, cool, and then I'll usually get a follow up,
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  Speaker 4: but like, are you're part of this production that they
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: might have read about recently, you know an area or
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  Speaker 4: something like that.
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  Speaker 3: That's where you should say the hell, yeah I am,
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  Speaker 3: you know, because like when I used to fill in
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  Speaker 3: parks and stuff like that. Like people would you know,
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  Speaker 3: they see you with a camera whenever you and I'm
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: not talking about like a DSLR, but I'm talking about
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  Speaker 3: like anything that looks like a camporder, you know, like
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  Speaker 3: a bigger variety of the camporders, whether it be mini
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  Speaker 3: TV or digital. People associate that with like professional grade cameras.
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  Speaker 3: As soon as they see that, it's like, oh my god,
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  Speaker 3: this this guy must know what he's doing. But you know,
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: when they're talking to me a little bit, do they
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: know that I'm a complete lunatic. So what happens is
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  Speaker 3: so when I when I you know, when I'm out
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  Speaker 3: filming stuff, you know, no matter what it was, people
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  Speaker 3: would stop and they'd say, oh my god, you gotta
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: are you filming some kind of movie? And I would
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: just say, oh, hell yeah, Micky, you know, no matter what,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: you know what, I'm just like, yeah, I mean why not?
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we just just to the h You can almost
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: feel like a chameleon, you know. He So I'll adjust
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: to whatever the setting is. So if i'm just you know,
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: say I'm meeting someone in a cab setting, I'll be
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  Speaker 4: more clear about what I do. But if I'm out
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  Speaker 4: at the park and someone seems interested, I might be like, yeah,
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: I'm shooting a movie, you know, or I'm shooting a documentary,
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: or yes, I am part of this group, or or
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: for a years they can get away with like, oh
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: it's a it's a college film, you know. You know,
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: if cops are interested, you know anything, so yeah, you
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: kind of It's kind of like, you know, he's equated
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: to the Edwarod movie when he was trying to you know,
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: get the church to you know, fund his production, and
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: he would tell him whatever they needed to hear in
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: order to get that money. Basically, tell people whatever you
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: think they need to hear in order to be able
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: to keep shooting. You know.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so true. And you know that's one of
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: the benefits of being in college or just out of college.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: You can always say, hey, I'm just shooting a student film,
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: and usually everyone's kind of cool with that and like, oh,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: now you're a student, all right, we'll be a little
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: more lenient on you.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: And now back to the show.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: What if you call location up and you're like, hey,
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: you're almost senior in college, I need some help with this.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: You know, people are you know a little more willing
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: to help. You know, you try to got it you
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: have to do. You should want to get away with
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: that and use that card as much as you can.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: Sure, Yeah, I told my nephew's getting ready to he's
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: a finishing camp his senior year and he, uh, he's
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: getting ready to, you know, he wants to get up
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: and do his first feature. It's called blind Cop two
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: and there's no blind Cop one. It's just called blind
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: Cop two. And I told him to use that as
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: much as possible. And he was like, really want people like,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: you know, have you that as being professional and stuff?
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: And I told him the same things that you know,
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: you you tell people you're doing a college you know,
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: your college, making a college you know project or working
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: on a college show the assignment, and you know they're
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: going to be more forgiving, more willing to work with
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: you more, you know, will and let you get away
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: with more as opposed to being like, no, this is
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: a professional feature. Then suddenly you know it could change
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: anything like oh, okay, well how much you're gonna pay me,
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: you know, to use my location or or whatever?
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: You know, And he also has to build an excuse
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: too of I don't know. So somebody goes, hey can't
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: you can't you can't be filming Blonde Cop two out here,
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: and he can go, hey, I'm sorry, I didn't know.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I'm just a student. So it's like it's such a
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: great get out of jail free card.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I definitely it works with the you know everywhere,
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: from like you said, building businesses to the police, you know, like, hey,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: you got to permit, you know, do a permission to
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: go into there. Oh I thought it was public area.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: I'm just a college student. Yeh. And then most of time,
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: you know, you can get away with it, so you
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: can you can take that risk and hope, you know, hey,
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: i'm gonna you know, I'm going to give it a
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: try and get in out there as quick as I
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: can and get some cool production values.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right. And then you can always say you're
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: shooting a documentary. So it's kind of like I'm just
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: shooting this documentary. But you know, when when you were
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: in college and you were you know, filming things in
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: your apartment and just using the locations you had, you know,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: what point did you you know, start to say because
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I know you you mentioned you were the antiquing business,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: and you kind of you know, bought the camera. So
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: what point did you start really taking this seriously?
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: I mean I was taking this seriously when I was,
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: you know, in college. I hadn't yet determined that, you know,
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: that last year college, I hadn't yet determined that I
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: was going to start making movies on cam quarters. I
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: remember even talking to someone in college about shooting on
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: camp quarters, and they immediately you know, like a fellow student,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: but they'd been taking it for a few more years.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: You know, they're actually in film class and there, oh no, no,
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: you can't shoot on camp quarters. So I pretty much
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: dismissed it. But I mean I was, you know, looking
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: at it. It's like, Okay, how can I go out
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: there and uh turn this into a living and also, uh,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: you know, make the movies that I wanted to make,
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: you know, because I could ease had gone down the
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: root of you know, shooting pornos or shooting wedding videos
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: every weekend, you know, and and both potentially I have
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of you know, like a good income in them.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: But they weren't, you know, something that's true to my
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: heart so I wanted that was like, how can I
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: turn still living? And you know, initially it was I'm
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: going to make some so amazing that you know, Hollywood
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: be paying me to sit out in Syracuse, New York
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: and make indie films that I wanted to, you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: with the stories I wanted to tell to, you know,
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: reaching the point after the first one was done, being like,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: there's not really you know, any distributor I want to
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: give my movie to that I would trust that I
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: ever see another penny out. So I need to become
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: a distributor too, and and release my own stuff. And
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: and that's how it's gone ever since. You know, I
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: might license out parts of the movies or or or
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: certain media rights, or do my own initial release and
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: then a why to release of someone else, but you know,
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: you know, I still well make my movies and then
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: do the initial launch on my own. And lately with
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: the last couple of you know, pictures, the initial launch
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: is at least paid for the production, you know, if
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: not more.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: You mentioned, you know, people who like shoot wedding videos
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: every weekend. You know, I had a friend who used
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: to do that where he he would do it part time.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: He called it. You know, he would just go shoot
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: a couple of things on the weekend, and he would
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: always be like, hey, look I'm gonna make a movie
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: this and that, and he never ended he ended up
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: where the wedding video gave ended up becoming his full
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: time job. And he you know, he was just go
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: every weekend he was shooting a new wedding and he
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: never actually made a movie. So it's very easy. It's
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: gonna be probably aworided that trap because it's very easy
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: to kind of get you know, sucked into that, you
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: know what I mean.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you can go right down the rabbit hole and
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: it's hard to turn away from that kind of money.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: And the you know, the weddings are weekends. You know,
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: that's usually ideal time to shoot if you're doing low
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: budget you know features is you know, people of you
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: have the you know, usually you have weekends off. People
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: you want to work on the movies have weekends off.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: You know, so you know, unless you're going to take
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: you know, uh, you know, three or four weeks stretch
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: off from weddings and just shoot a feature, and it
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: seems like it's doable. It seems like it's something should
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: be possible if you really want to make a feature.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: But it's like you know, having a job, you know
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: and pay, you know, regular job, paying your bills every day.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: It's it's easy to be like, well, I won't work
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: on movies today because I need to you know, all
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: my bills aren't paid this month, or I want to
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: be able to on vacation, or my kids need new
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: clothes or whatever. You know. So it's it's it's easier
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: said than done.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, very true. And you know that that's why,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: you know, and I'm glad you didn't go that route.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: And I also, you know, I had an option to
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: go that route, and I was like, hell with that.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: I've made many many mistakes in my life, ron, but
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: that's not one of them. Us. So, uh, you know,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: just to sort with you know, with your career, you know,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: just starting back with like you a City of Vampires
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: even to now you know, making you know, She Kills
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: and House Shark. You know, what if some of the
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: strategies that you've used, you know, when you're approaching about
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: you know, not about you know, writing and producing these films.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: There's strategies. Let me think, I mean, most of the
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: movies that I've made, I mean, primage all of them,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: you know, start off with an idea that I liked
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: for some reason, you know, within the story, and said, Okay,
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm going to write this out and is
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: is you know. And there's been scripts that I've written
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: that I've never made, uh, and some I've always dreamed
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: of maybe didn't have the money. Some you know, I
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: wrote and just said, you know, you know I wasn't
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: into or later, you know, I plan to come back
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: to and decide I was no longer into or want
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: to tell that story. But uh, if I finished the
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: script and I really was happy with it, then I
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: was like, Okay, this is the next thing I want
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: to make. And then you would go through the process
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: of making. So there wasn't necessarily I mean, nowadays, sometimes
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: i'd look for the strategy as far as like the
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: stuff I produce, where I'll go, Okay, if I'm gonna
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: put money into this, I want it to sell, you know.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: So if it's a movie I'm producing from afar, then uh,
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: you know, there has to there has to be more
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: of a financial basis behind it. If it's a movie
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: I make for myself, then it's more of like, hey,
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: this is a story I want to tell and I
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: don't care if it fits financially into anything. And and
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: you know, you're lucky when that stuff crossed over. It
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: doesn't always, but you know, sometimes you just rely on
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: a movie to you know, hopefully come out extra cool
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: and it build its own fan base and and does
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: recently well generates you know, at least a modest profit.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: And I've been lucky with you know, the last two
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: She kills a house Shark that they both were able
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: to do that. You know, she kills with a grindhouse movie,
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: you know, when there had already been a lot of
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: grindhouse type movies out there, so the market was pretty saturated.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: I'd made it a few years earlier, I would have
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: had a lot more potential, you know, it would have
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: been a bigger release than it was. But it's still
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: you know, people responded to it well. I had people
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: were at fans of my work for years, but this
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: was something vastly different than I'd done before. But they
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: you know, you know, the fans spread, you know, good
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: words about it, and you know, continues to sell and
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: continues to build and was able to you know, recoup
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: before I went even into the wide release and howse
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: Shark people loved the idea and they had to be
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: the most marketable idea that I had come up with.
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: But I'd always wanted to do a JAS movie, so
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: I wasn't doing it because I was like, oh, you know,
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: this is gonna be a big money maker. I was
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: doing it because it was just, you know, it was
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: a story I wanted to tell, and it was definitely,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: you know, the most expensive movie that I directed myself,
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: and I was lucky that the campaign basically made enough
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: money back to cover the cost of making it, and
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: then thanks to some mouth sales, I was able to
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: cover the cost of running all the media. Because people
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: don't realize that you do, like an Indigogo campaign, yeah
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: you might make say you got twenty I had like
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: twenty one thousand House Shark, and we did like twenty
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: two thousand, so you know, with all their fees and stuff, Yeah,
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: the production was paid for, but then it was like
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: another ten grand. I think it was actually twelve grand,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: and all the stuff that had to be made for
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: the campaign, we end up doing you know, full printed
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Blu rays and DVDs, you know, fully replicated vhs, and
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: all these extras that I kept adding to stretch goals
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: like stickers and pins and patches and stuff like that.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: And you know, once I got all that done stuff done,
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: the extra you know sales I had were like, okay,
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty much back to even. So whatever it didn't
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: sell from the campaign, I keep selling this bonus money.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: And that was lucky enough to get it like into
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Walmart and stuff and have it do well and wide release.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: But I mean it came out in August of last year.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: now back to the.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Show, and just a few weeks ago I actually got
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: my first check from the wide release. So I've had
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: like this modest profit from but then I finally got
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: the first check from like the Walmart deal and and
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: all the other sales around there. Because all the money
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: it costs to release it, and all the money to
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: get into Walmart and stuff like that basically ate up
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: all my profits, you know, for like half a year
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: that I had come and you know in distribution, so
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: I was living off you know, all the limited releases
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: I do and all the stuff I do direct with
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: fans and any additional house Shark sales and the other
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: movies that I made and stuff like that, and then
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: to finally see in so much it was eating up
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: it was still worth it overall. But it's it's just
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: kind of diverged from your strategy question quite a bit,
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: but that's kind of where it starts to start with
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: that initial strategy of of you know, the twofold approach.
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: Is a movie I'm making for myself, then I'm not
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: worried about making something that sells as much, but I
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: still try to make sure it'll sell. You know, I
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: don't want to lose you know, like if how share
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: it cost me twenty one thousand and I want to
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: lose twenty one thousand on it. I was a matter
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: of fact, I was sweating. So it's great to get
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: all that money back and have a successful Indiegogo campaign
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: pretty quick there. But if it's a movie that I'm producing, uh,
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: you know, strictly as a producer to put money into it,
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: letting a filmmaker and you know, to reach his own
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: vision and bring his own vision to life with some
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: you know, financial for me, then I go, okay, but
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: this has to be something that sells for me. If
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: I'm going you know, it's almost guaranteed to be a
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: good seller if I'm going to put money into it.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I've actually done a few inegog campaigns myself,
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: and you know I did it, you know, before it
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: became like a thing, like it became like the word kickstarter,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: crowdfunding became you know, part of the lex A con
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: And basically I always told people like, you know, you know,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: once you start, you know, making the perks you know
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: that are part of your campaign, you know, you're starting
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: to realizing this is a big you have to kind
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: of add that in beforehand. You know, you have to
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: actually start to calculate up all those numbers and add
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: them into the budget. Uh, and then what you have,
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: you know, what you need, what you really need, all
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: that all that good stuff, and uh, you know that
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: that's something that you know. I'm glad you brought that
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: up because it's always a good reminder, you know about
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: that that that stuff, because it's so easy to forget.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: You know, you're you're focused on making a movie and
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: you're like, oh, ship, now I gotta you know, but see, Ron,
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: that's where your accounting degree comes in handy.
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: Sure it does. It does help a little bit. You know,
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: it's been it's been a long time since uh, you know,
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: taken accounting classes. But you know, coming out of uh
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: you know, coming out of those and going almost right
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: into business. You know, for myself immediately, Uh, it helped.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: It made it easier for me to do at least
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: my own bookkeeping. I won't do my own taxes. You know,
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: that professional accountant handle that because they're they're up to
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: date on the tax laws and all that sort of stuff.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: But it does help, you know, with the with the
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: book keeping and going okay, is this something I can
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: apply to the business and how should it be applied?
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: That's true, Ron And if they can get al capone, they.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Can get anybody, true exactly.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: So you mentioned, you know, some of the grindhouse movies,
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: and you mentioned the you know, some of the oversaturation
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: of the market and you know sometimes you know, maybe
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: the market's a little sugar saturator, what have you. You know,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: what are some of the grindhouse movies that you saw
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: maybe when you were releasing you know, she kills that
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: you were kind of like, you know, maybe there's too
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: many out there, because I mean I remember when HBO
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: with a Shotgun came out, I was, you know, maybe
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Machet da you know, I'm really glad to see movies
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: like that, By the way, get like a wider release.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know how many like, you know, kind of
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: clones of those that came out. But did you start
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: to see like a lot of movies sort of you know,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: in the space of where you were like or we're going,
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: you know, in the Walmart space.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: Well, I didn't expect She Kills again to Walmart, and
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: I didn't necessarily see too many of the grindhouse movies
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: in the Walmart stores. But I think when I was
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: really since She Kills, Machete Kills had come out around
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: the same time and hadn't done really well at the
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: box office. But I mean, I'd seen so many low
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: budget movies at least using that look, even if they
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: didn't really have the you know, the they didn't they
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: weren't really trying to be grindhouse movies, but they liked
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: that look, so they'd all the grain and scratch and
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: stuff like that, but weren't really capturing the spirit of
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: those movies. And then I had also noticed a lot
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: of movies that were trying to be grandhouse movies were
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: really more like eighties, you know, horror movies or action movies,
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: using like a seventies grindhouse look by adding again like
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: scratches and grains and stuff. And that's not really what
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: the grindhouse movies looked like. They were very unpolished. But
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: I mean what movies. I mean you mentioned about a Shotgun.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: It was a good example, you know, that was a
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: movie that had done really well. Father's Day was another
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: one that had that grindhouse look or at least aesthetic
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: that people were associating with it. But outside of those
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: and trying to think what other ones I saw before that,
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: I don't remember the low budget titles. I just remember
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: seeing that looks so much. So I don't know if
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: that really helped. That really answered your question.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, you brought up some of what I've
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: seen a lot of recently, is they're kind of like
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: the throwback to the eighties. Now. I love the eighties,
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: you know, I love the eighties horror, and you know,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: I love all that stuff, But now I think there's
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: so many attempts by filmmakers nowadays to make something look
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: like the eighties. You're starting to get this kind of
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: oversaturation of the market, you know what I mean, And
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I think we kind of capped out as stranger things,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: and I think, you know what I mean, I kind
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: of think now it's starting to get a little uh
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: I want to say, repetitious.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: So it could be on its way out for sure.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: I mean I've noticed that. I think I saw, like
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: my first article on like nineties horror, you know, we're gaining,
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: you know, in popularity. Uh. The thing with eighties horror, though,
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: is it's one of the most I think iconic decades
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: for horror. So if you make a cool horror movie
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: that has you know, awesome you know or uh horror
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: practical FX in a you know, cool monster carries that
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: just sort of the vibe. You don't have to necessarily
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: be like, hey, let me throw you know, like nods
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: to video games or uh, you know, our video arcades
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: or the clothing or whatever, you know, into that. But
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: you could still there's a lot of great horror movies
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: that capture the eighties vibe without you know, looking like
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: they were made in the eighties. So I mean, I
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: think that's something that could never you know, get old
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: if it's if it's done right. But but overdoing. The
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: nostalgia can certainly you know, burn itself out on any
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: you know, before the eighties and seventies you know movies,
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: not just the Grindhouse, but you know, seventies horror in
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: general was uh, you know, it was the hot topic,
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: you know, and then I see, uh, it was a
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: little more prevalent a year or so ago, but it
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: still comes up. People were shooting movies on cam quarters,
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: old camp quarters to kind of capture that nineties you know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: Shadom video feel for their movies, and it was amazing.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: You could shoot on a you know, an old camp
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: quarter and you know, and and come pretty close with
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: just that alone take capturing that sort of vibe. But uh,
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: it's all revolving. You know, there'll be another you know,
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: five ten years with people you know in low budget
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: and then eventually moving up to big budget doing nods
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: to two thousand horror movies, and then you know, the
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: twenty ten horror movies, and then it'll come back to
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: the seventies again, or you know, it's just uh, these
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: feds and then rages hit and sometimes it's you know,
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: based on the current status of of the world or
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: the country, it could be politically motivated. It could be
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: it could be anything. You know, if we're facing war,
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: you know, we're facing climate change, you might see more
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: and more horror movies about that. You know, but there
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: you got the seventies or eighties or nineties, you know,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: setting to them.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very and I think you're going to start seeing
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of horror movies come out just about the
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: political climate. And I'm not saying that like any particular party.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying. What I'm saying is the kind of
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: diverse uh, how diversive, diverse way, how divisive the nation
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: is right now? You know how that That's what I'm
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: trying to say, you know what I mean, just trying
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: you know that that I think is going to be,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Which is why I think when the first Purge came out,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: I think that was you want to talk about, you know,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: wish fulfillment. I think a lot of people, you know,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: not that they would, but maybe maybe they kind of
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: wish they could, you know, one night, we just kill anybody,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: Uh, it's an extension. I don't know, it's possible, you know.
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: I mean when you're when you're a director or actor,
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: or you're working in the creative field. I think he
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: had to be a little bit crazy. But but I
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: think a lot of horror filmmakers are more closer to activists,
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: you know than anything. There a lot of times they're
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: trying to make a statement against you know, these things
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: that anger them, you know, uh, lack of gun control
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: and mass shootings, you know, the Trump government, the the
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: worries over climate control, you know, the the abandonment of
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: the arms treaty with Russia, you know, raising the risk
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: of you know, potential war again. And uh, you know,
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: we used to have the nuclear war used to hang
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: over you know, I grew up in the seventies, you
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: know and into the eighties, and and the threat of
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: nuclear war was always there, you know. And and that's
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: you know, people, a lot of young people, they don't
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: realize like how heavily they hungover society. So yeah, and
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: you're seeing it in this, you know, like the Jordan
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: Peele horror movies.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: and now back to.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: The show, you know, you know, addressing social issues, you know,
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: or back to the forefront. So yeah, it does. It
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: does reflect the time the movie Apostle I thought was
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: a really good movie. I hope I'm saying that right.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: I've heard other people pronounce it different. Looks like Apostle
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: to me, the one on Netflix, you know, addressed climate change.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: You know, so so yeah, people again, I think, like
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: I said, the horror horror filmmakers are are very much
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: trying to make a statement as much as they're trying
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: to tell you a story that you know is entertaining,
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: it scares you or makes you laugh whatever. But in
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: the end, you know, a lot of them make you think.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: You know, and I mean, and you did one that's
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: a very good, uh, you know, horror movie genre that
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: to to kind of put you know, political or cultural uh,
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: you know, protests or examination. And that's the you know,
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: the the not only just horror in general, but but
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: also the the zombie genre, the sub genre sub genre
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: of horror. And I mean, you know, if you look
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: at Romero's you know first three zombie films are all brilliant.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Uh you know, you did Empire, State of the Dead
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: and uh and by the way, I want to say,
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: you know, this is a great idea because I you know,
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna be one of those guys right now. Ron
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: I had an ideal, an idea years ago similar where
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: you take a bunch of different directors and you put
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: them together, you know what I mean, Each one makes
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: a segment. But I think that's a brilliant idea man
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Something with that, you know, just to yeah, we should
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: have done a little better, because I would have done
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: you know, like a United States of the Dead start
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: of a movie in the World of the Dead or something,
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: or you know, encourage more shorts from other filmmakers, and
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: maybe one day I will. But I you know, I
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: was seeing so many people taking shorts and putting together
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: and the shorts didn't really have a common theme among them,
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: and just turning into anthologies. And I felt, what, you know,
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: we need, you know, someone needs to do this with
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: a with a wrap around. And I wasn't first movie,
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: you know, producer or director ever to do that by
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: any means I'm saying, you know, it was being done,
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: you know, VHS. I think for the most part, was
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: trying to tie all the stories together. But I want
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: these to have a very direct theme. So when you
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: put them all together, it felt like you're watching one movie,
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: not a movie by a bunch of different filmmakers with
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: a bunch of storylines and when they're each direction, and
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: felt I want each story to kind of propel the
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: or each yea, each individual short kind of propelled to
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: propel the story forward. So and then and then I
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: saw what I had to work with them. From there,
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, what's the wrap round story I
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: can make? So I game set rules which basically, for
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: the most part, Filo the Romero zombie rules set up,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: you know, base of was happening in the timeline. What
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: they couldn't you know, go on to explore like it
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: was early on and the zombie apocalypse that couldn't make
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: it seem like it was like you know, deep into
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: it or far end of it or whatever. And from
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: there I was like, and I had the base idea
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: I would do something like soldiers, you know, trying to
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: keep order and using those as cutaways. And and it
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: was a harder one to think of a you know,
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: a theme for because I mean all my movies do
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: have like a subtext to them almost you know, straight
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: across the board. But this was a harder one because
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: I wasn't you know, it's only contributing as you know,
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: a small portion of the you know, the full project,
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: but just the idea of the you know, the battle
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: of the classes that would kind of emerge between you know,
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: the you know, basically the government and the individual factions
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: that would rise up. And you know, we pretty much
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: addressed one, but but they're one of the other shorts
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: kind of had you know, its own like roving gang
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: in it, and uh uh you know where this battle
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: power might you know, might lead to or or or
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: or evolve into.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and uh yeah, you know. And that's a great
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: idea too, because you see some of the shorts that
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: really don't have anything you know that that kind of
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: ties everything together.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the one short, the girl in the apartment,
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: you know, faced with the the the monumental decision what
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: to do with her sister who's died and you know,
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: was turning into a zombie, was very isolated. Even the
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: one you know, when they were taking refuge, you know,
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: basically in the in the room h and find that
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: the dead body in there, you know, very very isolated,
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: U very you know, small, uh, you know, centered stories.
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: You know, in many ways those actually were you a
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: little easier to plot out as opposed to the wider
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: you know, expansive type of uh plots, you know, some
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: of the shorts, but uh, it gave it gave a
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: wide the guy gave a wide range of of uh
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: basically you know, UH situations that the populace was facing
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: in the in the uh in the face well facing repeating,
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: facing in the threat of this emerging zombie virus in
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: in society falling apart.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: And you know, when when you're released it, you know,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: did have the type of interception that you were hoping for.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the reviews, for the most part, seem
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: to be positive. Uh. You know that there's all you know,
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: everyone who worked on it, you know, from the directors
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: down and you know to the you know, the actors
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: and so forth, you know, all seemed to enjoy it.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: I was overall pretty happy with it. Uh, some of
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: the stuff with the shorts, you know, with the with
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: the wrap around stuff I was shooting. It doesn't always
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: come out the way you wanted to. You're you know,
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: tighten money, tight end time. I think that's the biggest one.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: Usually you're you're stuck, you're tight end time. So you
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: shoot it one weekend and something's not quite working right.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Don't have the option to go back and fix it.
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: Kind of pretty much make the decision to fix it
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: on set and hope it comes out okay. So it was,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: it was, it was a fun project to do. I
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: enjoyed it wasn't uh, you know, one of the ones
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: that was as you know, close to my heart as
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: the others. But uh, I was pretty happy with it.
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: And I'll usually start with that because I you know,
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: sometimes you know, the audience might not like it as
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: much as you did, but if you felt like you
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: told the story you wanted to tell, you know that.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: I'm still pretty satisfied with that, you know. So, But yeah,
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: I mean what, I've people like you who have told
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: me that they they really enjoy it, and I'm always
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: glad to hear. You know, any movie that I've made
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: resonates with the fans. You know, my first movie, City
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: the Empires, I still think it came out horrible. And
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: it is not just because it's not the movie that
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: I wanted to do, you know, because it's because I
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: was falling apart along the way. My first movie, first feature,
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: you try to take on way too much and lack
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: the skill to to shoot that movie right. But I'll
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: still get people who will tell me that they love it,
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: and I'll I'll just look at it and be like,
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: I don't. I don't know what you love about it,
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: but I'm glad that you do, because, you know, I
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: would feel bad that you went out there and bought
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: this movie and watched it and we're like, oh, it's
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: a piece of shit. You know, I'm happy to hear
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: that you went out and bought it. Hopefully you bought
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: it and watched it and got enjoyment out of it
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: and continue to get enjoyment out of it.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, and you're you know, you're very
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: welcome and for the you know, everything, and it's just
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: you know, I have a friend of mine who made
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: a zombie film and it did not hit with a
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: zombie genre, and to him, I was like, dude, I
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: was like, that's that's your key demographic right there.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: Man.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: If you fail to get that, yeah, forget it. You're done.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think if you're gonna go something specific as
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: a zombie movie, then you do have to cater to
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: the fans. Now you could, you could try to set
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: them off balance and go in a different direction they've
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: seen before and usually most fans will appreciate that. But sometimes,
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: you know, you gotta be careful. You know, there's there's limits,
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: and you know. But anyone who goes out there and
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: really tries to do something different with a genre or subgenre,
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: I applaud them. Even if the fans didn't get it,
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: even if I didn't like it personally, I always appreciate
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: that they at least try it, because at least it
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: gets you thinking about your own work.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: You know, yeah, exactly, And I mean, you know, especially
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: making something like specifically a zombie film, you know, you
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: have to there is a specific expectation for audiences and
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: you know, and that's true, you know, and that's why
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: I think they maybe missed. But but you know, it
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: is what it is.
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: But if you go out and make a zombie movie
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: with say no zombies and there are no you know,
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: brutal zombie killings, then yeah, you probably run the risk
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: of like, there's certain things you gotta you gotta put
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: in there, you know, So if you don't do that,
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: then yeah, you you run the big risk of your
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: audience just being like, oh that sucked. I love zombie
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: movies and he didn't have you know, one good zombie
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: gutting or something in it, you know, So, yeah, I
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: agree with you there.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I had a friend, this is a true story. I
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: had a friend who pitched a zombie film that had
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: no zombies in it, And I.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: Said, what is the what's the idea of when what's
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: the zombie angle of it? Then if there's no zombies
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: in it?
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: You hear them, so they're outside, you kind of hear them.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: They allude to them, but you never see one. And
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: I said, is there at least a kill anywhere he goes? No,
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: there's no killing by the zombies. And I'm like, I
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: don't think anyone's gonna you know what I want to buy.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: I don't think any producer is gonna be like, yeah,
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: that's great. I mean, maybe they'll save money on makeup,
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: but I mean, would they really want to invest in
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: something like that? I mean, so it was like a
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: one location movie with zombies like surrounding the place, so
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: you're hearing them scratched.
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: Maybe as a short or something. I mean, I could
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: see it being real spooky, like a bird box, you know,
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: type of thing or something. But but yeah, it's a
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: it's a it's a it's definitely a fine line. I'm
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: not sure if it would were.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: But but but I loved the idea of you know, audience,
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: you know, filling in the blanks, and they've certainly seen
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: enough zombie movies that they could you know, they could
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: picture it. But yeah, that's a that's a fine line.
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: You got to really be skilled if you're gonna pull
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: that off and make it effective.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's newss to say he never made it. I
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: think I think it was gonna be such a fine
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: line to walk. I I don't really The only person
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: I think they could have pulled that off would have
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: probably been somebody like Georgia Merrow, because you know, he
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: went you know, full tilt the first three. Maybe he
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: made Land of the Dead. Maybe he you know, and
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: the rest of those. Maybe that was the next evolution.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but you know, I think I.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: Was gonna say, take like a Hitchcock or something. I
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: think the pull that off because he you know, it's
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: you need you definitely need a master of you need
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: someone who was a master of not showing the monsters,
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: someone playing with you everything else the sounds and and
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: uh uh and and having the audience filling you know,
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: fill in the blank, building up the suspense and tension,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, or maybe even somebody like Christopher Nolan or something,
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: somebody like that, just somebody to kind of yeah. So
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: uh but but you know what I just you know said,
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: I know we're running out of time, but uh, you know,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: the one movie I wanted to talk about which actually
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: got us talking is is House Shark?
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: You know, I saw the trailer was up to like,
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: what is it almost a million views?
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: Now? Uh yeah, past a million views? I think like
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: a week or so ago. I was right around the
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: time I announced that it was getting close and the
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: suddenly it was over like really quick. So uh yeah,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: that was I mean, it was in part due to
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: the fact that movie Web covered it, hosted and everything.
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: But it was cool to have a trailer reached that milestone.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: So uh and congrats, by the way, that is huge,
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: thank you. Uh so, Ron, like, where was the impetus
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: for House Shark in writing it? You know, because I
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: know you're you wrote, you wrote it, you producing directed it,
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: so you know, where was the impetus or sort of
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: that idea to come up with this.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: Well, I'd always as I mentioned earlier, I think as
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: part of this conversation, I was saying how I'd always
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: wanted to do a Shark movie. I always was like,
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: I want to come up with the Jaws sequel. That's
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: a you know, that is the awesome sequel, you know, uh,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: I mean I loved I love all the Jaws movies
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: in cheesy ways. For three and four, I wouldn't put
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: it in my top movies, but two definitely is one
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: of you know, I think is a is an underrated
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: uh movie. But but I was trying to come up
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: with a plot like how can I do, you know,
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: bring bring Jaws back and make it very cool and
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: and even you know, like a year or so before I,
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: uh start working on how Shark, I thought like, you know,
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: we have a Lake Ontario near me which you can't
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: see across. I was like, make a shoot on Lake
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: Ontario and make it look like an ocean. Try to
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: come up with a simple idea, you know, that was
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: still effective that could be done within a budget, you know,
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: within my budget levels, and make you know, a cool
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: shark movie. And then it was actually during the winter
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: time Uh. And I tell this story all the time.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: It's not like a great story, but this is really
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: how it came across. Is we had this It had
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: been freezing temperatures for like a week or two straight,
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: and all this ice had built up on the roof
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: of the houses and and my house particular, get these
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: loud booming noises, and so I looked up. I found
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: out it was like the ice actually cracking, you know,
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: on the roof. Uh. And I made a comment online
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: about it, and uh, and some you know, some of
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: my fan friends on Facebook were making comments back, and
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: we're joking back and forth, and eventually I made this
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: joke of zombies on an ice, zombies on a roof,
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: you know, a movie that was basically like there's a
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: zombie invasion, but all the zombies basically, I'll just live
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: on live on the roofs of your houses, so they
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: weren't really much of a threat. But as soon as
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: I said that, I came with there that popped in
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: my head was house shark, shark in a house, you know,
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: And and it hit me right there. I remember I
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: texted my producer, I said, I got the title for
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: my next movie. It's cole House Sharks Shark in a house,
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: but it's done like, you know, like a shark out
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: in the water, you know, except it's within a house.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: I was like, holy cow, I could do my shark
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: movie that I've wanted to do and I can control
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: the location, you know, which is a big It was
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: a big deal, you know. Uh, you know when we
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: worked this low budget and you know, you lack funds
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: to have places, you know, unlimited stretch at the time,
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: or even necessarily a very long period of time to
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: be able to shoot it. Look at it, cut it
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: together real quick. Okay, what's wrong, and go back and
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: fix it, you know. So and then, you know, in Syracuse,
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: I forget how crazy the weather can be here because
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: you know, we'll have days that are super hot and
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: no clouds, and so you get these heavy shadows and
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: it's so hard to shoot outside, you know, especially comes
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: around midday out here, you know, without phill lights and
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: bounce like, so you can't really just go on location
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: and shoot, you know, running gunna quick. It takes a
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: little bit more effort than that. You can't necessary shooting shadows.
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: Everything's blown out, and then and then you'll have tons
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: of rain for days, and then you'll have you know,
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: be super cold and snowy and heavy snow. And then
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: when you want the snow, you know, we'll get like
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: a crazy early thaw or series of warm days. It's
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: just all over the place. It's you know, the weather
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: is just a nimer. So be able to shoot inside
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: a house and control it, you know, it just so
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: much was appealing about it. But I thought it was
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: a fun idea. I completely ran Originally, it's gonna be
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: more like a kid's movie. My son had always, uh
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: give me a hard time about not being able to
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: watch any movies, and I was going to make a
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: movie that was safer to watch. And it was going
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: to be done very much in the in the style
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: of that that Super eight shot like a super A show,
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: but like the Super eight short at the end of
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: Super eight that they showed, you know, very cheesy, you know,
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: going for a lot of humor, completely playing off the
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: idea of what it is. It's a shark in a house.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: I wasn't going to take it that serious, but I
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: didn't shoot that first summer I was intending to, and
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: over the course of the next year of revisiting it,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: I made it more and more grown up, but it's
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: still maintained very much that sort of kid sense. I
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: wanted it to feel like a movie I was making
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: if I had had a film camera or a cam
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: quarter back in you know, the late seventies or early
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: eighties and got all my friends around the neighborhood to
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: come and help me make a shark movie. You know.
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: So it started as that and then just rolled from there.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: So when did you actually, you know, decide that you
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: you know, to put the all production dates together and
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: stuff like that. I mean, I imagine you kind of have
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: to say, I'm shooting this in my house. I can
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: control location, but you know, I'm sorry, are you married?
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: No, I'm not?
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, So that actually, okay, that actually helps out. Then
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: I was like, I was just thinking. I was like, hey,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you were or not. And I
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: was like, okay, because I can imagine that would have
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: to That's a whole other conversation, you know, of being like,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: well I had to tell my wife that you couldn't
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: come home.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, hopefully you're with someone who doesn't mind you doing that.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: And I mean, when I have you know, been shooting
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: and was dating someone or with somebody. I never really
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: ran into many issues with that for the most part,
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: pretty clear early on, like I love making movies, and
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: this is what I'm going to be doing, and you know,
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: in most cases they would actually be in set or
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: trying to help out and that sort of stuff. So
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: that hasn't been a big issue. And originally I wasn't
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: going to shoot it, you know, in my house. I
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: was trying to find a house to shoot at, and
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: eventually it just made sense. I was like, you know,
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: if I shoot at my house, I don't have to
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: pay for a location. We're all there. We literally get up,
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: go downstairs, start shooting it, you know. So all that
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: sort of stuff just kind of came together throughout the
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: throughout the process. But I don't remember what year, you know,
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: I don't remember what year I shot of the time
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: I had a d have to go go and look.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: But I know, like I said, the summer before I
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: was gonna start shooting it, and things weren't coming together
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: fast enough for me to feel like, Okay, I'm comfortable
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: shooting right now, So let me take a year off
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: and just develop it some more and take some more
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: time to you know, get the things I need, and
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: and like I said, a lot just changed, you know,
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: in that process. But once you do set a day,
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: and eventually somewhere along the way, I set a lot
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: doing like the three separate chunks of shooting. We shot
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: in August, then we shot in March, and then we
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: shot in August again. So shooting of the course of
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: a year, which was you know, fairly stressful because you
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: always worry about, you know, losing an actor or something
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: along the way. You know, the people I work with,
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: you know, they're always trying to get their acting gigs,
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: so there's a chance they can move so far away
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: you can't get them or whatever, you know. But it
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: allowed me to also make the movie a little more leisurely.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: It was a bigger project. It was a much bigger
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: project than original Attendai. I was gonna do it for
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: a few thousand dollars, and that's always the plan, you know,
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: with every movie. I'm going to make this cheap and
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: quick for a few thousand dollars. And then as you
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: play around with and work with and expand on it,
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: you know, the budget heeps growing and growing, and the
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: ideas grow and grow, and suddenly I went from having
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: you know, basically a very simple shark to a more
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: elaborate shark and more scenes added to the movie, and
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: and and it was very much like almost being back
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: on City. The Vampire is going like, okay, I have
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: to do too much stuff on this set. You know,
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: I'm lighting it, and I had people help with the lighting,
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: but I was still in charge of the lighting. And
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: when they weren't there, which you know, people weren't always there,
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: I still had to go out and move the lights.
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: So when you're setting up the camera, sim up the
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: shot and you're like, all these lights are perfect, and
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: we're putting all the lights outside and Shiningman, I'd have
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: to go outside go around adjust them. If I have
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: someone to check them on the inside for me, we'll.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Be right back after a word from our sponsor and
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: now back to the show.
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: Then I have come back in and recheck them. Or
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: if someone I was sending outside who was supposed to,
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: you know, adjust them, wasn't getting it right. You know,
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: I'd be looking to the camera. I'm trying to, you know,
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: tell them you know, where to adjust it to, and
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: sometimes it's just not getting it, you know. Between that
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: it's just physically exhausting, focus so much on the shots,
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: you're not always focused on the acting, and just uh,
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's when you're doing these low
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: bunch of movies. It's, uh, you wear a lot of
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: different hats and and it's exhausting, but it's still fun.
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, we a great time in that set, and
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: that's another big reason to enjoy doing it, definitely.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: Ron And then you finally gets that spot where you're like,
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: what the hell, Why the hell did I start doing this.
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: It's always those first couple of days where I'm like, oh,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: I made a horrible mistake, and you're like, I'm in
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: way over my head. Let me just cancel this production, regroup,
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: and I'll you know, restart and you know, another week
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: or two, and then you just like, now I got
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: to push forward. And then you hit your you know,
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: you start hitting your stride, you know, three four days
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: in and then suddenly you know everything's going smooth, and
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: you write only stuff off quick and you're going back
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: and fixing some of the stuff you know you did
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: wrong early on, and you and actually you know it's
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: all done, and and then you fall into depression. Is
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: you're not in a movie set anymore, you know, yeah.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: Right, And you know because when you're on the movie set,
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: you're like, you're actually doing it. There's no thinking like
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: am I actually making something? No, because you are. You
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: can feel it, you know what I mean.
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're really kind of like living the dream at
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: that point. You know, you don't have to. I mean
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: most cases, I still have to do like a little
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: work every morning and keep things going. But in most
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: part you're able to get away from your regular job.
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: Beanna say, you're laughing at you with your friends. You know,
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: you're eating you know, a good food all day, and uh,
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: it's you know, it's just it's like being on vacation,
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: you know, except you're with a you know, with a
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: camquarterer and you're telling people what to do, and then
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: it gets all done and then you're like, oh, shoot,
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: I got to go back to sitting in front of
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: my computer every day.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: Right, exactly right, You're like, I need this high again.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: How the hell do I get there?
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah? And I need to make back all that money
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: I just spent. Yeah, make more money to pay bills,
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: you know, and so yeah, just it'd be great. You know,
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: someone paid for the production and paid for you to
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: then take the rest of your you know, what are
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: the chances.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's that's where you're really living the dream man,
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: that's what you know, you've made it. Uh, you know, Ron,
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: I know we're we've we're almost at a time. We've
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: been talking for about an hour now. Uh you know,
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: so Rod, just to sort of, you know, just sort
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: of put a period to end of this conversation. Do
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: you have anything you'd like to just to say that
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: kind of finalize everything.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: If you're looking for like a last minute advice or something,
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: I guess I've done that so many times. You could
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: definitely look up old interviews and stuff. But if you
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: wanted to track me down and stuff, look, you know,
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: srscinema dot com is the website you can definitely follow
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: me on. Facebook is probably where the most active Instagram too,
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: and uh uh and if you if you if you
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: my personal profiles maxed out, it's tough for me to
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: you know, uh uh friend request everyone. But the srs
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: Cinema Facebook pages, you know, great spot to stay up
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: to date on what I'm doing. There's also like a
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: house shark and she kills individual pages and trying to
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: else a little bit on Twitter, but any of the
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: social media places work and looks up see I release
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: a lot of other movies from filmmakers all around the world.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: And so not only are you supporting you know, my
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: little distribution company by picking up these movies and checking
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: them out, you are also supporting these filmmakers because you know,
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: the more stuff. If I do well with them, I
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: can license more works from them. In some case, I
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: can pay them to make movies. And you're helping other filmmakers,
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: you know, sometimes hundreds of filmmakers you know, live live
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: there a little part of the dream too.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: And you know, and that's a very good point, Ron
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: and everybody. I'm gonna link to everything Ron and I
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: talked about in the show notes. I know how Shark Hey,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: my pleasure, Ron, I know how Shark is actually on
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: Amazon Prime right now. I'm going to make sure to
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: link to that in the show notes as well. By
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: the way, Ron, I don't know to your poster, but
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: that's exactly what the poster should have been. That is
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: on the money, because you know why, it's intriguing. It
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: explains the movie, and it stops people in their tracks
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: and goes, what the hell.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: Is that it does. Yeah, it catch a lot of attention.
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: I had to. I actually paid a lot of money
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: for the work to get done, but I knew there
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: was a chance of getting into Walmart and it really
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: needed killer or to make it happen. So yeah, so
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: sometimes you just you got to put it out there.
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: But I try to apply it to the project. I
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: think the project is. I wish I do the illustrated
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: artwork for the limited edition release that we do, and
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: I do a lot of those. You know, it's only
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: fifty one hundred or two hundred units, you know, sold
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: directly from the site, pretty much exclusively. Sometimes I'll list
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: them the leftovers on Amazon and might move you know,
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: five ten more copies there or something like that. But
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: for the most part, you know, you get them from
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: my site with the illustrated art, because that's what the
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: fans that are closest rs like the best. But then
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: we'll do the what's called like the real art, you know,
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: with the actors or in case I'll short of the
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: shark in the real house and stuff for the wide releases,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: because that's what the retailers like, they have on their
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: story on their shelves and stuff. So you know, you
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: just like I said, you apply a strategy to teach release,
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: you know, depending on what you're doing with each release
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: at the time.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, you're you're always trying to you know, get
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: as much eyeballs as possible. And I think, whatever, and
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: again this poster is is does exactly that because I remember,
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: remember a couple of years ago, I actually had a
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: friend of mine who when he went to he went
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: to like AFM in all those different places, and he
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: was talking about pitching and he goes, Dave, if there's
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: one thing I learned, He's like, if you don't have
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: a killer poster that sums up the movie and just
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: one image, He's like, you're sunk no matter what it is.
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you got to start there, the title and the image,
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: and then they they want a good, you know, short synopsis.
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: Having a killer trailer, like a one minute like trailer
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: just shows the you know, the money shots from the
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: movie and then they might not even ever look at
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: the movie. If they love your artwork and they love
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: your trailer, you can be in red Box. You know,
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: you could be potentially in Walmart or Family Video or
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: Best Buy or whatever based off of just that stuff.
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: You know and also help if you know you have
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: a genre that they like, like Walmart does real well
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: with these sorts of movies. We're our red Box. Howse
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: Shark hasn't gotten in the Red Box probably never will
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: because red Box like more serious horror, you know, So
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: if you have a serious like a paranormal horror movie
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: with killer artwork and a great trailer, then you increase
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: your chances of you know, getting it out on red Box. Yeah.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: Right, And again, you know we talk about all those
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: different streaming platforms and what they're all looking for, and uh,
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: you know, but I guess you know, we know what, Ron,
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: Let's say that for the next conversation. You know, whenever
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: your next film comes out, let me know what you
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: come back on and we'll sounds good, We'll keep this
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: conversation going wrong.
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: Sounds good.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Ron Bok, Thank you so much, buddy.
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at indie film huscle
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: dot com Forward slash eight O six and if you
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: so much for listening. Guys, as always, keep that hustle going,
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: talk to you soon.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 58:32
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• 58:35
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• 58:38
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