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Behind the Film: Road to Everywhere with Michael Paradies Shoob and Joe Mealey · Indie Film Weekly

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to Indie Film Weekly Behind the Film, where we talk with filmmakers behind independent films that make their way to theaters.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Glenn Reynolds.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Jason Connell.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're joined by writer-director Michael Paradise Schub and producer and story collaborator Joe Mealy.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Their film, Road to Everywhere, follows Los Angeles cab driver Jason Schuyler, who accepts a long-distance fare from Jake, a casino dealer returning to the Navajo Nation after 30 years away to see his grandson compete in a Native American rodeo.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: So this one has a pretty remarkable story in that 30 years ago, Michael made the film Driven based on his own experiences driving a cab in Los Angeles.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: And Joe shot it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: He was the DP.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: And Whip Hubli played Sky.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: And now they've all come back, along with several other members of the cast, to see what happened with those characters and where they ended up.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: As someone who's been making movies or working on movies for 30 years, I find the whole idea both fascinating and a little terrifying.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I think they really pulled it off.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's a really good movie and well worth checking out.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: After its theatrical road show, Road to Everywhere comes out September 15th on Amazon, Apple TV, and other T VOD platforms.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: So check it out.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: So let's meet Michael and Joe and go behind Road to Everywhere.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: So Michael Joe, great to have you both here.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: You made Driven Together almost 30 years ago now, and you're back with Wib Hubbley again, playing Sky.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's an awesome story.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: I can't wait for you guys to share with the audience.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: We kind of always start off with the same question.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can answer this a lot of different ways, I'm sure.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: But Michael, start with you.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Every film starts somewhere.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Where did Road to Everywhere start for you?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Road to Everywhere probably starts way back when Joe, Mealy, and I were at the AFI, which is in the early 80s.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we began working together.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Joe was a cinematography fellow.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was a director fellow.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we made a number of films together.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then we made a short film, and then we got together and did Driven in 1996.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Joe was the DP on Driven, director of photography on Driven.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that film, conceptually, I think it's important to indicate the difference between that film and Road to Everywhere.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was an Altman-esque, I would say, multi-character movie about cab drivers in LA.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Whip Hubli was one of those cab drivers, as was Dan Roebuck, who's in the new film.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cut to 30 years later, in the meantime, Joe had gotten married, had a child, had twins, actually, and they went to college, and I couldn't really get him to work on any kind of sequel during that period.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we were sitting down, his kids were about to go off to college, and we started talking about doing a film together, and we both discussed what if we did driven 30 years later?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Where are these guys?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that was at Arts Deli in the Valley, and that's where it began.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Joe, do you want to elaborate a little on that?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, in between the two, we did a film called Bush's Brain, which was a political doc that came out in 2004.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: It was a kind of an expose of Carl Rove, who was a political consultant for George W.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: Bush.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know why, but we were just sitting there thinking it would be fun to do an interesting to do an update on Driven with one character.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: That one character originally was going to be Tony Todd, and we had talked to him about it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: He agreed to do it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it turns out he was really sick.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: We didn't know that.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure how much he knew it, and he just couldn't do the film.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I would say if one of the leads in Driven was with probably the main lead in it, and you asked him if he would do it, and he immediately said yes.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: And all of a sudden, three weeks later, you're writing the script, and here we start shooting.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: It was kind of a quick turnaround because they had completely different characters.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the movie was completely different than it would have been had Tony been the lead in it.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: It was just a different type of character.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: There wasn't, I think, the romance that Diane Delasio brings with they like each other in the movie.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't think Tony's character in Driven and his wife, ex-wife in the original film really did like each other.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a it just completely changed everything.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Michael, I was fascinated to learn that you yourself rode a cab or drove a cab and dealt with people.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this is in the 90s in LA.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that obviously led to other things driven and such.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: But what was that experience like and how did that shape this idea?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was a cab driver probably way back before I was at the AFI, so probably late 70s, early 80s.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that experience really stayed with me because I think I saw something Glenn wrote about the film, and he said that there's an intimacy that's created when people aren't looking at each other.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that was a really interesting observation.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it actually happened to me in real life in the cab, that people would get in for literally 15 minutes and I would know the most critical part of their life.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: They'd get out of the cab.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was like everything was like a short film.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I really felt, I really came alive as a cab driver.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I really felt loved being in LA and on the streets at all hours, four in the morning, picking up in West Hollywood at four in the morning where the bars emptied.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: They made us stay out till all the bars emptied for on the weekends.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: But it was just, it was a life-changing experience for me.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was a very cinematic experience.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I could go on and on about that.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that that became a great HBO show, Taxi Cab Confessions, because it's exactly true.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: They get in and they just start sharing.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And this is before Uber.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a great observation, Glenn.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and yeah, so when you were doing this, did you think everything's a short film?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then you started to kind of work the idea.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of came from there.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I would I had a uh little writing tablet uh beside me in the cab.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember one guy got in and I picked him up at over on Olympic, somewhere a little slightly seedy area toward downtown in a kind of beaten-up chiropractic office.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he got in the cab and he said, Those people, I know they they aren't sick, but if they tell me they're aching, I write down whatever's wrong.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever they tell me, I write down.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: That ended up being the beginning of Driven.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: That almost word for word, I went back to my book and found that.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And an actor named Joseph Culp, the son of Robert Culp from iSpy, played that character in a chiropractic outfit.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it kind of all of this sort of in all of the original cab drivers in Driven were based on guys I composites, I would say, of guys I drove with, except for in ironically, the character Whip, who probably was more of a Romanoclef for me in some way.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny, I was doing a little bit of research last night on sequels, and I come up with about a dozen sequels that have been 30 years plus, but it's always been like completely different director and cast or different director, like the top gun is not is Tom Cruise, but it's not Brittly Scott or Tony Scott.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: But though there was only one I found that's longer, no, that's more than 30 years with the same actor and the same director, and that was uh Beetlejuice, is 36 years.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: So you'll only you're only beaten by one film out there, but definitely the number one indie, true indie.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: I can't think of another example at all.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: But uh I was wondering, Joe, what made you want to revisit this world when you guys sat down and I kind of get from Michael the whole driving the cab thing?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you were the DP on the first one, but what made you want to produce this one?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: I like the story where it was going that Michael was writing and we were talking about.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: And honestly, for me, I this was sort of my uh not for Michael, but for me, this was kind of like my going out.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_03: I retired, I live in New Hampshire now, and I just wanted to do one more, take one more shot at it, I would say.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: And in filmmaking, the business of film changes every couple of years.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just wanted to see what it was like now and see if we could do it.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we did, but it was a challenge.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you guys have had probably a different kind of partnership on the first one than the second one.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: What keeps that partnership working 30 years later?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: I would say trust.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: We both value each other's opinions.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: And when one of us feels strongly about something, I think the other pays attention and listens, and then we come to a group decision on that.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Would you agree, Michael?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or yeah, I would even add that I've been telling this story at the QA's, but here's what to me Joe brings as a producer, having been a DP.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we're shooting the rodeo scene in the film.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, not the rodeo, but the location of the native rodeo in the movie was adjacent to a house.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: We were going to shoot the scene between Robert Miraball and his daughter.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we're all set to shoot the scene.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, we're literally 20 or 30 minutes from shooting that scene with where he confronts the daughter and they have their scene.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Joe said, I found something.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's about 400 yards.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Take a walk with me.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we walk past this house and we see this sheep corral in this vista with cows, this magnificent vista.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, What do you think of shooting that scene here?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And literally, we I'm looking at this thing and saying, Wow.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of rewrote the scene a little bit on the spot so it would accommodate who she was.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: But all of a sudden, we find her at the sheep corral, and you know everything about her.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: It just expanded the whole idea of her, and not to mention that it opened up the movie profoundly.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what Joe brings.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I thought he changed the whole movie with one idea.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I appreciate that, but I also think that's one of the advantages.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: There are plenty of disadvantages when you're making a low-budget indie film.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: But one of the advantages is you it's not that hard to move the the battleship to and just right, you know, a giant Hollywood movie.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: That's a very big deal to say, oh, let's shoot it over here, unless you have tons of money and time, which it's really difficult.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: And here we were able to do it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, making a movie is tricky, but you guys took 30 years in between these two bookend movies.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: What was the big difference as a filmmaker?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Were you shooting on film on driven?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And what did you see technology change-wise that you guys tackled?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: We did shoot on film.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: We actually were one of the last uh movies I that I know of that edited on film.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we posted on a flatbed editing on a camp at Raleigh Studios.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the technology had changed, but the biggest thing for me personally was that I had I felt like I had changed.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think on Driven, I really wanted to prove myself as a director and make my mark, you know, and that was what the characters in the movie wanted to do in Driven.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And 30 years later, I was kind of surprised.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, you're excited every day, you're slightly nervous every, but I felt a level of, I don't know if tranquility is the right word, but a certain level of calm 30 years later and more confidence.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I enjoyed the process every day more.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I wanted to say is, and probably this has been said before, but we had such good people, and it's become a cliche that filmmakers say how great their crew was.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we had a bunch of older guys, maybe because of the strike, we got very seasoned people.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as ultimately for a line producer, for the DP, uh, for the editor.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it was like uh you're driving a Rolls Royce or a Mercedes, you know, as a director.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: On a low budget film, you have these very sophisticated, thoughtful people, and I could sort of relax into it, which was really a pleasure.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, Joe.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, Michael, was it your choice to do the black and white now and the color and the memories?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Was that your choice?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I actually wanted to shoot driven on black and white and in black and white.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Joe will acknowledge that he and the producer talked me out of it, and I've regretted it.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: And let me add, and I've regretted it ever since.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: I've always wished I had shot it on black and white, and we got a second chance.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: No arguing the second time.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing it.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: But from a filmmaking point of view, I've in the last probably 15 or 20 years become a huge fan of noir filmmaking, black and white filmmaking.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Probably The Last Picture Show was always one of my favorite films when Bogdanovich decided to do that in black and white in 1970.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was revolutionary at that moment.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like black and white, Glenn, gives you a gravitas in the film that I heard someone talking about this the other day, and they said that like the ideas of the film, everything becomes more crystal clear in some ways in black and white.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea of doing using the flashbacks in color, the idea behind that was the idea that we always seem to what would be the word, colorize our memories, that we look at the past with rose-colored glasses, romanticize a bit, yeah, romanticize it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I sort of used that idea to do the flashbacks and think it really worked well.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And also it was a way to incorporate driven since we brought, I guess, is it four of Joe of the actors back?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or of the actors, correct.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Was that everyone's homework, cast, and crew?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Watch driven, and then you guys bring back set.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would hope so.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I think all all the people we hired watch driven and got a sense of it, I think.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And sense of what we were wanting to do.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the actors on Driven, I think you both know that when on independent films, I think the actors, in many cases, maybe most cases, loved the process and they love the fact that they're making something they believe in.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So they were all anxious to come back.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Joe, you shot driven.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: So how did it feel watching Bruce Green shoot this one?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: I hadn't been a director of photography for about 20 years.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not riding a bicycle.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: You have to keep up with the technology.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: And it was kind of a pleasure.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: And we were lucky.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: Bruce not only is a longtime Hollywood steady cam operator, and he brought that to the film that gives it a real classic look, that is a very subtle look.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: But he also is a uh black and white still photographer whose work has been in galleries throughout Los Angeles.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: And so he has a real black and white eye that came across from the film.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: Another interesting thing about Bruce is he shot seven movies for the president of Ukraine when he was a movie star in Russia and in Ukraine.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Zelensky, President Zelensky.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's probably the only DP in Los Angeles who can say that he shot a film for the black president.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure yes.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm a huge fan of the movie Collateral, which is a lot in a cab, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I watched a whole special of Michael Mann lighting it, and it was so invasive and just so tricky.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: How did you guys tackle that?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Shooting in a cab is tough.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's intimate, but it's hard.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: Shooting on film was very hard.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: We had a process trailer, and you would drive the cab with police on each side down the road.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: And when you drive five miles, you've got to turn around and start over again because you can't just go in circles.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: It has to be a little bit in the same direction because of sunlight and street lamps and a million reasons.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: But here we actually, you asked about technology.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: The technology now is easier to do that.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: And and I actually learned that on driven, that simple is better sometimes.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: And shooting people in cars simply sometimes is this was not a film that needed a lot of fancy shots.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: It was and Bruce bought into it and understood that and focused on getting great shots of the actors.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then Bruce and I went out and we did second units for about, I'd say about two months to get that footage that you use for it.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: Right, Michael?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: We all went to Arizona and the Navajo reservation and film long before we started filming the actual principal photography.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was also curious as to why you I think I know why, but love to hear from you why the title Road to Everywhere and not the title Driven to Electric Boogaloo.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's catchy.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I actually wrote the behind the scenes special on Electric Boogaloo, just so you know.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'd forgotten about that.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are you really curious?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is crazy.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is crazy.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't drop.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I worked for I had a movie fall apart, and I went to work for a company that did the behind the scenes for Canon films.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I wrote all the behind the scenes.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Canon, yeah.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: That was breaking to Electrical.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Michael, just take credit for naming it Electric Boogaloo.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's like the most famous sequel title ever.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Shabadoo.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Shabadoo.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I don't know, obviously, but I certainly didn't want to call it driven to.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So Road to Everywhere.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: With titles, I sort of just work with a level of whimsy on titles.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I kind of feel when you're writing, your unconscious sort of speaks to you in it later, maybe your conscious mind makes something out of it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes with titles, I think you go out of your unconscious a little bit and just see.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I still not sure what that title means, honestly.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: If I had to write an essay, I think I could justify why it says road to everywhere.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was looking for the idea.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I should probably address this, which is Driven was about guys in their 30s, probably worried that they would ever make it in life.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Would their life turn, how would their life turn out?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Would they have any success, particularly in American terms where having kind of a blue-collar job is often frowned upon?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: This movie is really about what did I do with my life?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what kind of mistakes did I make?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're all related to the movie business, one thing it gives you is plenty of opportunities to experience frustration and angst and self-doubt and all of that.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to explore all of that I had gone through.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you do with the passage of time?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: What have you done with your life?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything left?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: If I've made mistakes, is there redemption for those mistakes?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or do I have to just accept them and go on?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Road to everywhere, kind of implying that maybe there's still options, you know.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Their lives aren't finished.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've read in recent years that people felt frost road not taken.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: The road not taken was misinterpreted.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: But really, what he was saying was not, oh, I took the road that I was meant to take, and therefore my life worked out.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was saying you could have taken either road.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever route you took would be okay.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would be your life.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to explore the idea that we all at a certain point in our lives, later in life, still have options.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there's life left.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where that title came from.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's very hope.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's very hopeful.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's like kind of the opposite of Road to Nowhere, right?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Talking heads.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Also a good title, but maybe that's for the third one, the trilogy.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you finish the movie.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: You finish this 30 years later, the sequel.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then it turns into your distribution strategy is more of a traveling movie concert event.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe speak to that a little bit because I was just, you know, informed about that.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's fascinating to me.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: One of the lead actors, Robert Mirabal, is a Grammy winning musical artist.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: He's now 60, but he's been performing around the world since he was 17.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: He actually lives on the Taos Pueblo and lives a traditional life there when he's not traveling to New York and all over.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: But we thought it would be an interesting way to open the movie by showing the film and then having him perform with his band for a few songs and then do a QA with Michael and occasionally Whip and Robert, and then finish up the evening with some more music.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: And it's worked out really well.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: We opened in New York that way and Los Angeles and throughout the Southwest.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just a way to promote the movie.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: Something you have to do with your indie filmmaker now is to get people to show up in a theater.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it worked, actually.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: And who were the audience reactions across the board?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: Audience reactions to the film have been fantastic.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: And the roadshow, and people, he has a real fan base, and people he puts on a really good show.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: And he also has a lot to say about how the film relates to him and his life as a Native American.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do you guys ever double bill it and play driven beforehand?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'll admit I wanted to do that.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Joe says too much for people.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Too much.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Too much.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of movies.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to do that.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe we'll have that opportunity.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think we will.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's not going to be another chapter.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is it another chapter?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking about a road to everything.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean a yeah, a third movie.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's interesting.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: In Houston, I got that question.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: But in a few audiences, people have asked that.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'd love to do another one, but I feel like I'm thinking of doing a different kind of film.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, it becomes kind of a Greek chorus of anything I'm writing.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a way to ground a movie, and I know that cab driver.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that cab driver is an observer.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that if you looked at Tennessee Williams and when he's has his narrator, I'm not sure that's not like a cab driver.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's something, it's a great device, I think.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And your point, which I'll go back to, is the intimacy that's created in that back seat.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I got a number of questions from people.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: They said, like getting to know each other, one they why didn't he sit in the front seat?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't look good in the front seat.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Frame.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: We got it in the backseat.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, I don't think that we ever thought of even breaking that because that was the relationship.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and you wanted to break that.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I love that back seat, front seat.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like a psychiatrist's office, sort of, you know, and great basis for storytelling.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone wanted to do that with me, I absolutely would, but probably not next.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Glenn knows all too well about distribution of movies.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he should probably ask this.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I am curious, like, how did you find a distributor?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: You worked with Glenn, obviously, and who did you wind up with?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: Glenn was our sales rep, as you know, and he brought it to the world.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: And we had a choice between two, and we went with twin engines global.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: We felt they they got the movie, and so far they've been doing great.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: They're distributing it digitally.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: And in fact, on September 15th, it opens up for TV, transactional video on demand.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_03: But we decided as a way to promote the movie for that so that it has what they call longer legs, we would do a uh a small-scale theatrical distribution.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: And we hired a booker, his name is Ronnie E.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_03: Kong of Cinemarketing Services.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: And the contract said for the money we paid, you he had to book 10 theaters in 10 cities.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: And it turns out he booked 26 theaters in 21 cities.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: He just worked tirelessly for it.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: We were just blown away how well he did.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: And on some of those places, we did the road show with Robert beforehand, and some they opened traditionally, but it's been all over the country and we're thrilled about it.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there's an interesting kind of thing that happens, which I think happened with Driven as well, is there's some way in which this particular film, I guess film all filmmakers would say this, but this particular film really works with an audience.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's really designed.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Joe likes to say that it's a movie, the kind of movie the studios used to make.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And what made me fall in love with movie making was the idea that people would see the movie and then go out and talk about it afterwards.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what audiences are writing to me.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're telling me that I showed the film in Atlanta.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I got a text from a guy, and he said that he and his wife have been up all night talking about the film.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I wanted to do with my life.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's been very gratifying.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the kind of right now, sort of the tragic element of where theatrical distribution is, that so many of these films, if we could get audiences there, which we did in this case, they'll really have a very special experience and want to talk it.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to talk a long time in QA's with us afterwards.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: They want to talk about the film at home.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is what movie making, I think, should be.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a great transition, Glenn, to this next section if we want to segue in and tell them about it for sure.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so guys, this next section is called Quick Cuts.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: We kind of move from you guys as movie makers to moviegoers, and we have 10 quick questions.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: Don't overthink it, just your first instincts, and maybe we'll have Michael chime in first and then Joe chime in second so we don't talk over each other too much.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: And Jason will start with the first question, and here we go.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Popcorn or candy?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: Popcorn.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Popcorn.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: Butter or no butter?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: Butter.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Extra butter.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Isle seat or center seat.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: Isle seat.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: Isle seat.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: What's the ideal number of trailers before a movie?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Two.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: Four.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Matinee or late night screening.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Matinee.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: Matinee.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: And what's your favorite movie theater either now or growing up?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Now it would be one of the Lemley's, probably, at this point.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: Oh gosh.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: I've only been there once, but the Lenzick Theater in Santa Fe is an amazing theater.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: What's the first movie you remember seeing in a theater?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Mysterians, which was, I think, a Japanese dubbed a horror film that my grandmother took me to at the Lowe's land theater in Atlanta.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: First film I saw in a theater was Old Yeller.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: Way before your time.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: Seeing it.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: And what I was and then what I the one I remember is Dr.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Great films.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the name of movie you saw in a theater like over and over again.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: The Conversation.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, good movie.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm struggling with this one.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Was it the first one you saw in the theater?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Did your grandmother drag you back there a few times?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was Swift's Family Robinson.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, there you go.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: All right, this is an easy one.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: What's the last movie you saw in a theater?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Aside from Wrote Everywhere?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we go all the time to the Lemmley, and I can't remember the titles of these films.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: There are foreign films that I cannot remember the title.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think my answer would be that I'm hard pressed to remember, although we go to remember titles of the a lot of these films, they haven't left a lot of impact with me recently.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Joe?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: The Odyssey.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I think with Michael, the answer to this question is thumbs down because the question is thumbs up or thumbs down on the last movie you saw.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: But Joe, what's your answer on the Odyssey?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thumbs down for me.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Huh?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know a lot of people loved it, but it just didn't work for me.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're not alone.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard that too.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: So there is one more question, and this is called the Final Cut.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And Glenn, take it away.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: So 30 years ago, the two of you made driven together.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: If the filmmakers you were then could sit down and watch Road to Everywhere today, what do you think they would recognize and what would surprise them?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're the same guy.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think my younger self would be very pleased that I was still working and doing stuff.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: He'd be gratified the guy's still going 30 years later.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Still driven.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Still driven, exactly.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'd say for me, I specifically, I'd say, oh, I've learned a lot over the last 30 years.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: So then last thing, guys, before we let you go, remind everyone where they can see Road to Everywhere coming up and where maybe they can follow the film online.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: Well, on September 15th, they'll be able to see it on Apple, YouTube, and Google Play.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Amazon as well.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: And Amazon.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And thank Glenn for all his work with us over the last four years.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Really a pleasure.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, absolutely.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks, Michael and Joe.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a pleasure.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks for everyone.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jason.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks to everyone for watching and listening.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: This has been Indie Film Weekly Behind the Film.