Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 417: How I Got My Film Directing Off The Ground with Sean Mullin

Transcript

BPS 417: How I Got My Film Directing Off The Ground with Sean Mullin · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifagpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, episode number four seventeen eight.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Ain't over till it's over.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Yogiberra broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: we really should be working on that next draft. It's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: and the goals of the project you are, So we
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: actually break it down by three categories, micro budget, indie film,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: market and studio film. There's no reason to get coverage
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: from a reader that's used to reading tempole movies when
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: your movie is going to be done for one hundred
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars and we wanted to focus on that At
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Bulletproof script coverage, our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: w MEE, NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: and many many more. So if you need your screenplay
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: or TV script covered by professional readers, head on over
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: to covermiscreenplay dot com. Now, guys, continuing with our Tribeca
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: coverage this week, we have on the show writer director
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Sean Mullen, who is the director of the insanely good
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: new documentary on the great late Yogi Berra eight Ain't
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Over Now. Sean and I talk about his hustle for
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: close to a decade to get off the ground as
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: a writer director, getting his projects made, how he was
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: able to get his first independent romantic comedy off the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: ground which went on to do amazing business and win
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: a ton of awards and really launch his career, and
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: how he's been working in documentaries lately, including the great
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: new film he has it Ain't Over. I had a
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: chance to watch it, and my god, it truly touched
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: me to my core. It is a wonderful, wonderful film,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: and this conversation really is chock full of amazing nuggets
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: for all you filmmakers out there. So without any further ado,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: please enjoy my conversation with Sean Mullen. I like to
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: welcome to the show Sean Mullen, Hay and Sean Great.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I'm good man, I'm good man. Thank you so much
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: for coming on the show.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Brother.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about your new film Eight Ain't Over,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: which is of the late great Yogi Bearra and I
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: learned so much about Yogi watching it, and when your
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: pitch came across my desk, I was like, well, I
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: got to see it, got it. I don't want to
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: wait until it's the mainstream. I got to see it now,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and I fell in love with it, because, as I'm
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: sure you know, you probably fell in love with it
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: making it, making you fell in love with Ogi, just making.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Absolutely no, it's definitely a surrogate grandfather through the pandemic
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: for me and a lot of a lot of folks involved.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: So absolutely So before we get before we get down
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: to your latest project, I wanted to go back back
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: into the archives. So why in God's green earth did
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: you want to get into this business?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I I don't think I wanted to. I
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: think anybody who wants to. I don't know, I'm a
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: little skeptical of maybe I don't. Yeah, I don't. You know,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: it's I just was more of a I mean, it
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: just came out of me. You know, I just felt
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: like it was something. As a kid, I was always
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: writing short stories. I was always the one kind of
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: getting people together and telling jokes in the corner class.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: I got in trouble a lot obviously for that. And yeah,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: I just was always a storyteller. And I got a
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: k when I was at you know, I ended up
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: going to West Point for college, and you know, I about
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: a video camera and I recorded on my buddies telling
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: stories and all that stuff and so and you know,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I just always wrote and always you know, they just
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: kind of, I don't know, came came out pretty organically.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: So I just feel like it's it's who I am
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: really instead of like who I wanted to.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Be fair enough, because I agree with you, if somebody
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: wants to be in this business, you got to look
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: at them a little especially now that if you've got
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: some especially if you've got some shrapnel on you, you know,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: literally like you know, battle hardened through through this business
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: it's you look like do you really do you? You
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: want to go down the like I was. So my
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: son wants to be in the business, I go run away.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Is there anything else you can do? If there is,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: and you love.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: It, I do that. That's I've been teaching on and
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: off for the best decade, and that's one of the
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: first lectures I give is like, listen, if you can
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: live with yourself doing anything else, to do that. But
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: if you can't, if it's a calling, if it's something
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: inside you, well then you're screwed. And just you know,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: good luck, you know, go go after it. But but
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: but but but be passionate, don't give up, and work
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: hard and you know, collaborate and all the things you
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: need to do, uh to to to create great work.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: I call it the beautiful illness because it's, uh it's
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: it's a thing. You're stuck with it. You can't get
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: rid of it. It's it's with you for life. No
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: vaccine is going to get rid of it. And it
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: can go dormant for decades, but it always I have
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I have sixty year olds coming on like I was
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: a doctor. But what I really want to do is
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: direct grab a camera, grab grab a camera, doc and
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: you can finance your own project.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Now I have to ask you, you had a very
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: interesting start to your you know, your career, if you will,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: outside of the film industry, where you were in the military,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: and then you were also one of the nine to
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: eleven first responders. Is that correct? I?
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, I was in Manhattan. I was the plans officer
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: for the New York National Guard on the morning of
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: September eleventh, so uh before before the attacks, we didn't
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: need too many plans, and then we needed a lot
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: obviously that day, and so I ended up ended up
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: spending the first two weeks full time, and then I
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: was kind of part time for a couple of months.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: And then in January of two, it would have been
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: they they gave me a new title and promoted me
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: to captain and put me in charge of the soldiers
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: at ground zero from uh from like January until August
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: of two, and I was I was in charge of
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: the bridges and tunnels Manhattan and Ground zero, just making sure,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: you know, everything was running smoothly. So and at the
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: same time though I was, I had I had moved
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: to New York City, I had left active duty and
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: moved New York City a couple of years prior and
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: become a stand up comedian and doing There was a
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: new theater who had just opened up Our Assistants Brigade
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: You see Me theater open in ninety nine, and so
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: I started doing improv theater and I was so it
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: was kind of a weird double life of working at
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: ground zero and doing comedy at night. Kind of yeah,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: it was.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: It was a shame. It's to even say a joke.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Back then. I remember like, yeah, remember that Saturday Night
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Line episode, like.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, can we be funny? Kobe be funny?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Absolutely? Yeah, Juliana, I wonder whatever happened to him? I
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: but yeah, I mean I don't think I did comedy
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: for until probably at least October November. You know. It
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: definitely took about a month or so off and then
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: it was hard. It was hard time. It was a
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: crazy time in the city, but very formative time for me.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: And then while I was at Ground zero, I applied.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: I said, screw it, you know again, this is what
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: I this is what I'm going to do with my life.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be a storyteller. So I applied to
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: grad school and I got accepted spring of two into
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: Columbia's MFA program for film directing, and so I left
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: the military summer o too and went right. I mean,
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: I was in my uniform one day as last day
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: I shaved, actually is August fifteen, two thousand and two,
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: and I and I went to Columbia the next day
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: for grad school.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I'd imagine that the work that you did at Ground
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Zero and also in the military prepared you to be
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: a director in many ways because of just organizing large
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: groups of people making sure things get done.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, no, no, it's interesting. The first thing some people
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: will hear, you know, or some people say it me
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: when I tell them I, you know, I'd gone to
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: West Point and all that, They'll be like, well, how
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: are you know? How are you a filmmaker that those
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: are so completely different worlds, And I, you know, I jokingly,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I was interviewed by a West Point magazine did a
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: little piece on me after my first film, and I
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: was kind of tongue in cheeks at West Points the
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: best film school in the country. I mean, I obviously,
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: you know, a little bit of a joke there, but
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: leadership is really what it's all about. And being able
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: to command your unit and you when you have a
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: film set, it's the same thing. Creating this environment where
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: everybody where you're inspiring people. You're not You're not just
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: telling people what to do, you're actually inspiring them, inspiring them.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, I think there's so many parallels
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: to being a good leader in the military and and
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: a director who can get the vision across while also
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: you know, navigating all the obstacles that arise during production.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Now, I was going back into your IMDb and I
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: went all the way back to the bottom. Okay, where
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: you get that first PA gig? Yeah, sure, what was
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I'm sure, I'm sure you have stories.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I do. I do. Yeah, the Best Thief in the
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: World was the name of the film, and I was
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: a PA. They found out I had come from ground zero,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: and so they put me in charge of all walkie talkies.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: They put me in charge of anything even remote, all logistics.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: I mean I was running all the truck I was
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: doing everything. I but it was great experience and it
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: was Yeah, it was the summer that would have been
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: summer three. That was my first real on set gig.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm assuming, of course you were paid very well handsomely.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, still living off it, actually still living off the interest.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: No, But so what was the biggest lesson you learned
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: on those days, those first days on set? Because I
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: remember when I was I was a PA. I was
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: just absorbing everything, like I just absorbed what the director
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: was doing, with the production was doing. I worked in
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: the office, I worked on set. I was just absorbing
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: as much. What was that lesson THO was the thing
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: that you learned that first those first few weeks. We'll
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: now back to the show.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: I think the biggest lesson for me was I had
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: just finished my first year of grad school, so I'm
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: on on a real set, and and I had interned
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: for the production company that produced the movie in the spring,
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: and so I had been involved in read the script
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: and got to meet the director and everything. And I
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: I think for me, the biggest thing I learned is
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: that I can do this. Like I I pictured myself
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: in the director's chair and I felt confident. I mean, yes,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: I was a PA, uh you know, but I felt
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: it didn't feel like such a far stretch. It demistified
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: the process a lot, and it actually got me really
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: excited that I knew, you know, once I had the uh,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: the funds and the ability to make a first feature,
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: I would be able to I felt confident I'd be
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: able to pull it off.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Isn't it funny that most PA's are sitting there going
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: I could do better?
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but I could, you know, But I just
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: it didn't, you know, I didn't feel like it was
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: beyond the reach of my capabilities. I felt like I
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: felt good. It felt like vindication, like, Okay, I see
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: what he's doing. I see he's got a shot list,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I see he's got this stuff, and I can just
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: talking actors. I know that world too a bit. So yeah,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: it was really it was really kind of an exciting
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: time to be honest with you, and.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: As well as when you're a stand up, because I've
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: worked with a ton of stand ups throughout my career
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: and it is, I mean, it is of such an
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: art form and it's so hard to do good stand up,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: like it's one of the hardest things in the planet
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: to do, honestly, and knowing that you were a stand
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: up as well, that you got up in front of
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: that mic and everything, what did you bring from that
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: to your directing, because there there are some skills that overlap.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: But what was it that it was there anything you
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: brought over?
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: I think the biggest thing was just being in the moment,
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: because even you know, being in the moment as the
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: director is the most important thing, you know. I mean
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: all this years and years of headache and sweat and
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: tears and blood that go into like getting a script
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: in the right place and getting over the attach and
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: getting the money. All that matters is what's between action
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: and cut, right, And you've got to really really be
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: locked in and I'm extremely focused, uh right there in
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: the moment, and that that's always a stand up till
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: you had to be. But you also have to react, right,
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: You have to react to the audience, and you have
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: to you know, and stand up. And then you know
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: on set is the director you have to you have
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: to really listen to what your actors are doing and
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: see what they're doing. If they're doing great, stay out
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: of their way. If something's rubbing you the wrong way,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: you got to investigate. And and and so I think
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: that's probably the biggest thing I got was just the
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: ability to really be in the moment and and receptive
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: to shifts in tone or you know, anything else that
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: might throw off the story.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, to be fair, I mean directing is compromise.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: I mean the whole thing is constantly compromised. I always
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: love I always coming to set with this obscene lips
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: shot list, and I gave it to the first a
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: D and the first AD is like, you know, we're
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: not going to make it. I'm like, I'm there, it's there.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Just in case, Jessica, I know, I have fifty shots
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: before lunch. I know I got it. I got fifty lunch.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: I know we'll get to five case.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: I like I add a lot in grad school because
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: again the military. You know, I'm the six foot five
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: military guy, you know, so that everybody was like, oh,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: he can tell people what to do without being a jerk.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: And so so I did a lot of AD and
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: that really helped. That helped him for my directing as well.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm very selective with my shot I'm much more
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: I'd rather have less set ups and more takes as
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: kind of my approach.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: So yeah, exactly, Now, how did you get your first film,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Amra and Sam off the ground?
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's a definitely a long story,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: but it was just, you know, it had been about
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: seven It took me seven years from the time I
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: got my MFA and six till that time we shot.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: We shot summer of thirteen, and it was just a
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: real struggle. I had written some other script I had
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: worked as a screenwriter. I had gotten hired to write.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: I got hired to write two scripts pretty quickly out
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: of grad school, one for Britney Spears, which was pretty insane,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: working with her for a year, to say the least.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: And then another one and another script that couldn't be
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: more different, a military drama for an Oscar nominated documentarian,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Henry Alex Rubin, who had murder Ball. That documentary murder
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Ball I wrote, I wrote. I wrote a screenplay for him.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: I actually got hired to write that screenplay when I
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: was in grad school in five and the film actually
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: got made fourteen years later. It came out about two
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: years ago. It's called semper Fi. And so that that script.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: So I was working as a screenwriter, I was doing
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: other things. My creative partner from Columbia, Mike Connors, is
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: my best friend and we have a crush. Coming out
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: here in La he Uh. He made a feature that
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: I produced called Allegiance in twenty twelve, and so producing
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: his feature, I really started understand you know what it
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: takes that really, if you're going to make an independent film,
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: you've you've got to especially you don't come from any means,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: you know, you know you've got to you got to
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: figure you know, figured it out. I mean, last thing
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: my parents ever you know, bought me was a one
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: way playing ticket to West Point, you know. So I
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: I you know, I've been I've been out here huston
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: trying to scrape together stream together money, uh, to to
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: get things made. And so yeah, we just I was
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: able to kind of get I got. I landed with
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: a great production company. I got very fortunate to be
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: introduced to a fresh company. Matt Miller and Eric Loachner
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: at the time have a company called Vanishing Angle and
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: they actually fast forward there that they are they Vanishing Angle,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Uh is the production company on it ain't over as well?
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: So uh, these are it's just a good a good
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: you know, lesson in keeping up relationships. But at the
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: time it was it was Matt and Eric. Now it's
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: run by Matt and Natalie. Matt Miller Nellie Metzker. But
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: but yeah, so we I got you know, we got
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: the script. I got the script to them, We we
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: got some money together. We thought we were gonna make it.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: For six hundred k. We went out, made offers. We
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: got Martin Starr attached, which was incredible, was really exciting.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: He had never been the lead in a uh in
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: a in a in a feature film before, let alone romantically,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: let alone Special Forces, uh you know, uh, you know
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Green Bray, So it was really something different for him,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: a real departure. But he he was really drawn in
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: with the script and I think I was able to
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: sell him over over a lunch and and and we
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: got him attached. And then and then we got Dina Shahabi,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: which was like this incredible, incredible actress. She was still
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: in grad school at the time, getting her MFA at
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: n y U and acting. She's since blown up, she's
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: doing a million things. And she was just on this
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: archiv Et one which was a big Netflix thing, but
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: she did Jack Ryan and all this other stuff. She's
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: an incredible actress. But this was her first film as well,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: so lead role. And yeah, so it was just and
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: we killed ourselves. You know, and then and then half
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: the budget, you know, half the money felt you know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: we had We thought we had six hundred, We had
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: kind of verbal commitments for six hundred, and then by
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: the time we're shooting, we had three hundred. So I
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: had to cut another week OSTs, so it was instead
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: of a four weeks shoot, it was a three week shoot.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: And it was just a mess. So we shot ninety
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: seven pages and sixteen and a half days, which was
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: a real, real, I mean, a real difficult, difficult thing.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: But you know, through all the through all that, through
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: all that trial and tribulation, we ended up having a
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: really wonderful premiere and we ended up winning winning awards,
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: you know, over ten film festivals, and we got you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: picked up by alamal Draft House. Tim League saw the film,
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: watched it, bought it and put it out in Alamo
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Draft else theaters, which was really exciting. And I got
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: signed it an agency and all that stuff. So it
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: kind of it served its purpose of what I needed
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: to do. And I also just obviously love the film,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: so it means love.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating that, you know, I'd love to hear this
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: kind of stories of like we had six hundred. Then
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: we really only had three hundred. Now you kept going.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Is a testament to your ability and every in your
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: team's ability to just make it happen, because it's it
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: happened so often, and so many filmmakers coming up they
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: don't understand, like when the money drops, that the concept
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: of the money dropping until it's in the bank, until
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: it's an escro that you can pull a check. It's nothing, that's.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Nothing, no, no. And when I said we had six hundred,
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: I think we had ten grand in the bank. I
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: mean we had six hundred and then then money. And
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I mean Meg Jarrett, I mean, she's the real angel
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to that project. She was, she was She wrote the
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: first check. And then actually Peter Soboloff, who ended up
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: producing being one of the lead producers, Peter and Mike Sobloff,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: who were big producers on the Yogi doc. They actually
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: you know, came in as well and brought some money.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: And so it was just nervous and we were raising
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: money all the way up through prep and it was
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: a nightmare. I still fine locations. It was a real mess,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: but at that point in my life. Also the film
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: in the film is anything that I would you know,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's too much. I think I cramped too
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: much into it. I just I was like, this is like,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: this is my shot, this is it, this is the
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: only film I'm you know, this is this is the
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: only film I'm ever going to get to make. It's
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: been seven years since grad school and it was really tough.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: I was married, had a young daughter. You know, I
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: was like, what am you know? This is it? This
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: was my shot and if it and so I just
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: you know, there was no way I was backing down.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: And if it didn't if it didn't succeed, I you know,
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know what I would have done.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: As they say, you went up to the plate, sir,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: and you you were and you took and you took
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: a swing. And that's I mean, I've been there, brother,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I've been there that you know, You're like, this is
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: my shot. I got this has to go. The train
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: is left is leaving the station on this.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Day, it's over.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Regardless of what happens, we're making something.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: If I'm following, if I'm following Martin and Dina around
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: with the camera, you know, for you know, a few weeks,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: we're going to get something. But everything fill in the place.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: I just had incredible, incredible support, and Terry Leonard was
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: a producer who who really came on and really helped
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: out with that. And my cinematographer, Danny Vecchioni. Danny also
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: a cinematographer, worked with him on multiple projects since, and
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: he shot the Yogi doc. So again, a lot of
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of my key creative relationships were started with
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: that film.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Now, as you know, many times when we're on set
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: as a director, h there's that day, that moment that
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: you're losing the sun, camera breaks, the actor can't get
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: to set. What was that moment for you on that
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: film and how did you overcome it?
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: I mean there were there were about thirteen of those
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: every day, so every day every day. But now, I
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: mean there's one in particular that Dina still brings up
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: to because I'm still really close. I mean, Dina and
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Martin and I we get together for dinners all the time.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: We're really still close, and we really bonded during that
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: you know, again that's another kind of similarity to the military.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: But you bond through the stress, right and.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: And so there was one so we you know the film,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: you know, there were different days. You know, we were
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: averaging over seven pages a day, so that was pretty tricky.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: But there was you know, one day where we had
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: there's a long scene that takes place in a bed,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: which is like a ten page scene, so that was
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: not we got like fourteen like we got like twelve
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: or thirteen pages that day, which is huge. So but
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: we had an action day where we had all our
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: boat scenes and all of our motorcycle scenes, which were
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: it was just our kind of most logistically challenging day
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: and we had the weather had to be right and
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: everything had to just be perfect, like we had didn't
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: have a minute to spare, and we couldn't. When we
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: got on the boat to shoot the boat scenes, we
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: didn't have enough people was myself, DP, producer, sound and
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: then the actors. That's all we could fit on the boat.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: And on one of the take we you know, on
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: one of the takes it was a perfect take. I
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: loved everything, but Dina had left on her jean jacket
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: because she was cold, and so the continuity it wouldn't
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: cut it all and it was a big medius part
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: of the scene and I just I almost broke. I mean,
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: that was the closest I came to breaking, because we
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: I didn't know if we could do it again, so
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: we had to circle back around because everything has to match.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: And then the weather and then I've got this motorcycles
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: waiting for us, which We've got to get to them
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: in time to get the sunset motorcycle shots. And I'm
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: on the boat, and it's just so that that was
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: probably the closest I came to kind of breaking. I
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: mean there's a lot of emotional moments. I mean, the
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: most emotional moment making it though, was when you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: when we had told all the agents and everybody there
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: was a six hundred thousand dollar movie. That's what went
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: out to Martin and everything like that. And for Martin
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: started was like, oh, that's not a lot of money.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: I can't believe it. And about two thirds of the
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: way through the shoot, we were shooting the scene at
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: this mock police station, and Martin pulled me aside, and
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: we had been through a lot at this point and
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: he and he said, uh, you know, I don't know
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: how I go Sean. I just need to tell you,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know how you guys are pulling this off
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: for six hundred thousand dollars and I just and I
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: just started I just started crying. I just started crying.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Tears came out of my eyes. And he's like, he's like,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: what's up. And he gave me a hug and I said, Martin,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: we only have three hundred thousand dollars and uh, and
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: he hugged me back and he started crying. And we're
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: just there hugging, crying each other outside this you know,
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: made up police station. Uh that we you know, you know,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: a shot somewhere. So anyways, moments like that, it's it's
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: a lot. You know, it's a lot.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Now, is there something that you wish somebody would have
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: told you at the beginning of your career, piece of
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: advice or something.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: Man, I don't know, you know, I'm not a you know,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: I'm not a big like regret guy. I looked back. Guy,
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: I don't you know. I just I'm never good at that.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: So no, I mean, I you know, I'm sure. Yeah,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: I mean they could have told me. There are a lot
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: of things I could.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Like, Hey, you're not going to get You're going to
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: get through.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're going to three hundred. I mean, you know,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: just how you know. I mean I think I was ready.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I think I was prepared for how hard it was.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, I you know, it's just been it's been
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: very different. It's been very difficult on even personal relationships
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: and stuff, and you know, it's just been hard. It's
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: been a hard, hard road.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: And that's the thing that so many young filmmakers coming
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: up don't understand that this is not an easy path.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: This is the the artist path is not an easy path,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: but the filmmaker path is even more complex because we
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: cost so much frust and and we have to convince
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: other people to come along with us. It's very difficult
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: to do it all by yourself, if not impossible. So
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's I always like bringing these kind of
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: stories up so filmmakers listening, especially young filmmakers, understand what's
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: ahead of them, not to scare them off, but just
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: to understand the rules of the game. M hmm.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You almost have to just be possessed, you know, yeah,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: which is you know, for better or for worse. But uh,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: but you need a lot of collaborators, you need a
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: lot of support, You need people to vouch for you.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: That's why I now, you know, vouch for younger filmmakers
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: and whenever I can and help out. Have had interns
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: over the years. I've got another one this summer, Giselle Denia.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: She's really great and so I'm looking out for her,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: trying to you know, trying to pass along any advice
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: I can. And actually I teach a class I teach.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: I teach two classes over at a f I uh
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: if I the MFA program and directing I teach you
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: in the fall. It's like a directing one O one.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: It's a fourth semester program I teach. In the fall,
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: I teach a like a directing one O one class
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: shot shot selection, shot progression, you know, kind of basic
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: directing class, intro to directing. And then the fourth semester
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: I teach a class called the first Feature where we
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: go through and we do case studies of dozens of
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: first features and you know what works what doesn't. So
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: I'm doing my best to pass along any knowledge I've
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: gotten over the years to make things a little bit easier.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: But it's it's it's never gonna be easy for anyone.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, you could you could tell somebody don't put
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: your hand in the fire because it's gonna it's hot.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Until you get into that fire, baby, you don't, you
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: really don't. You really don't know.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: That's true. That's so true.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Here are all these stories by us old timers sitting around
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: talking about it. But until you're in the until, as
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: they say, you're in the ship. Uh, you, you really
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: won't know what's going on.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: When I was looking at through your your your filmography,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, so he did this amazingly wonderful romantic comedy.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: How does he go from I know, a romantic comedy
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: decemp for five, which is completely one eighty you know,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: obviously much bigger budget, you know, a bigger cast and
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: action and different tone. How did you get like as
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: a as a as a creative and as a director.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I don't really when I'm looking at stories,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: I don't look at genre or you know, even or
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: even you know, I don't really necessarily pay attention to format.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm doing more docs now, but it's really
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: about to me, it's about character and story, and for
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: for me, the stories that have resonated the most are
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: are stories where there's some sort of tension between perception
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: and reality. So for Amir and Samo's, you know, the
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: perception and reality of a veteran returning from war and
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: an a ROCKI refugee. It's this kind of star cross
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: lever thing where where there there's a tension there. And
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: with Yogi, I mean with Yogi the perception of Yogi
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: versus the reality of Yogi. So for me, that's what
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: I'm really keyed into is every story I've gotten involved
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: with as some sort of tension between perception in reality.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: And so I don't really you know, whether it's a
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: comedy or drama or doc or scripted. I don't think
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: any of that matters it to me. It's about kind
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: of you know, the story and the characters and if
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: I can undercover some sort of tension that is compelling.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: How did you approach the action because you hadn't at
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: that point. Have you shot on the action at that point?
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: Are you talking about for Semper five?
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: So actually, so I did not direct Semper five. So
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: now you wrote out you wrote no, no, no, no, no,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Yeah. So Henry Alex Rubin, who did a
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: murder ball Oh he ended up no, no, he directed it.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: So I was just a I was a co writer.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: I co wrote the script with him, and then I
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: was a co producer on as well, because I was involved.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's I mean this. I had a one
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty five drafts over fourteen years, and not
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: one dime until until until we until you know, the
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: first day of shooting.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Really so so at that point you shoot like, kid,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I'm want to be involved a little bit.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: Well I tried to. Yeah, I tried to be as
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: involved as as they'd let me go.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Now, I when I saw your fest and it was
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: really interesting because I love the way you shoot docs.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: It's very interesting, very cinematic. It's you know, there's some
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: documentarians who shoot it like a documentarian, but you seem
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: to shoot it like a documentary with a cinematic eye.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: And Kings of Beer are you talking about.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: I just had I just had j on the show.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Oh yeah, he was Now Jay was amazing. No, No,
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: that was fun, those little those Yeah, that was my
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: So my first documentary was called Kings of Beer. And yeah,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: I tried to bring again. I brought my DP. It
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: was a really incredible you know, cinematographer Danny Bechioni and
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: he he's got a real cinematic eye. And so we
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: you know, we visually tried, we tried to visually design it,
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: you know as kind of you know, to make it
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: look kind of, I don't know, as cinematic as possible.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I'm glad. I'm really proud of it. That
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: was my first doc. And you know, it's also it
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: got a little bit had a little bit of a
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: stink on it, I think for some people after the
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: release because it was financed by Budwiser. So a lot
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: of people are like, oh, this is propaganda, this is stuff.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: But I was like, listen that, you know, I did
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: get paid the first time my life. I got paid
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: really well. First I was like, oh, this is what
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: directors get paid. Oh, this is like this is this
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: is this? Yeah exactly, I got I mean, and and
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: so I understood. I understood that end of it. So yeah,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Budweizer did finance it, but they weren't involved, you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: they weren't super involved with the editor or any of
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: the stuff. It was really up to me. And I
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: was really again when after care and when after Perception
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Verse Reality, when I again, this is a Kings of
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: beer is probably one of my best examples where if
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: I tell you who are the top five groom masters
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: at Budweiser, you know you probably like, well, first of all,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: you didn't know they had multiple Budweisers there's but you
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: probably like, oh, they're heavy set, white bearded, white dudes
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: from the Midwest, like just pressing a button Homer Simpson
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: taking a nap, right, No, I mean it was. It
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: was the five top brewmasters. There's sixty five brewers around
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: the world of brew butt, and the top five that
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: I followed for a year were after American, female, African,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: American male h a Chinese man from Wuhan went to
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Wuhan actually, which was crazy shot there right before everything happened.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Uh didn't speak any English. And then another woman, UH
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: from Canada who brews in in New Hampshire. And then
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: and then this uh, this white dude who was an
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: army combat bet which which was like really fascinating story.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: So you know, again flipping flipping people's perceptions of what
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: a brew master might be. And and I'm really proud
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: of the film, and it taught me how when I
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: was finishing up post with that is when I got
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: the call from Peter Mike Sobloff saying, Hey, we know
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: the bears, we've gotten into them. Would you be interested
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: in directing a documentary about Yogi? And I was like,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: I actually my initial reaction was like, well, let me
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: give me and me because I Yogy seems too perfect,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Like what's the drama, what's the tension? Right? And then
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I started reading. I read some books and I went online.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: I watched some videos and I was like, oh, oh no,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: there there's there's something here. There's there's a real tension
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: between who he was and who people thought he was.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: So I dove in.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So so let's let's talk about a and over
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: because we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show. I agreed with you,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Like when I watched the film, I knew Yogi is
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: a pitch man. I mean I knew him as a
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: baseball player obviously, but I really didn't understand the impact
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: that he had had on the Yankees, and not only
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: on Yankees, on the baseball, on baseball itself, and how
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: he was not respected as or put in the light
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: that he should have been in because he was as good,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: if not better than any of those guys on those
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: teams that he won ten championships.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: There's one stat that's and this is just the baseball
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: people out there, but there's one stat that we didn't
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: We couldn't show her in the movie. You know, you
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: have ninety minutes to tell this guy's incredible, you know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: ninety year journey, and so we couldn't fit everything in.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: But there are only two players in the history of
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: baseball to finish in the top four of MVP voting
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: for seven straight years, and that's really tough to do
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: because it's really about consistency to finish that high in
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: MVP voting. I mean, Yogi won three of them, but
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: he finished in the top four seven years in a row.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: The only other player to do it with Mike Trout.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: So you know, he's not talked about though in the
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: same same kind of levels as some of these guys,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: and so that was definitely something we were we were
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: going after it. He's also and again just from the
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Yankees legacy, I mean he's the only I mean, if
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: you look at his life and we kind of we
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: cover this on the dock, but like you know, he
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: he came up as a as a as a rookie
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: and met Babe Ruth and shook hands with Babe and
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: got to know him a little before Baye passed. And
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: then and then he he was mentored by DiMaggio, and
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: then he was a you know, he was a teammate
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: of Mantle. And then you know, of course he's a coach.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: He's a coach, yeah, in Maris of course, and and
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Whitey and the whole crew. And then and then fast
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: forward to he's a he's a coach for you know,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Gidrey and Willie Randolph and and and Reggie and and
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: then and then he's the manager for Mattingly and then
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: he mentors you know, uh Jeter and Girardi and that
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: whole crew too. So there's no Yankee. There's nobody who's
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: done that. From from shaking hands with Babe Ruth to
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: mentoring Derek Jeter, there's you know, he really is theol,
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: the backgbone of the Yankees. Yeah, it was.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: And then you know that whole fourteen year bit with
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: him and George Steinbrenner, Yeah, yeah, I mean that that
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: was insane. Do you know that when I was down
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: in for Lardo watching spring training, I got George Seinbrenner
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: to sign my baseball.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Well, there you go, I got it.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: He was signing baseballs, and I made it out to
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: ESPN like even some kids were looking for George slibren.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean he was an interesting guy. I mean,
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: you know, I think Bob Costas put it well in
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: the in the documentary, and he was a polarizing figure.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: But but you know, he did love the Yankees, and
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: he did love Yogi. They had they had obviously a
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: bit of a falling out. But we were able to
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: interview George's son, Hal and he was He couldn't have
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: been more kind and just really wonderful about things he
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: had to say about Yogi. So it was really nice
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: to be able to talk to so many wonderful people.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, you saw the interviews. We got some great ones, so.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Oh no, some amazing ones. Yeah, but I have to
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: ask you, so when when and I've had other people
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: on the show have tackled large you know, you know,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: just kind of like big shadows of people, just massive personalities,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: how do you approach someone's legacy like this, Because I
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: know you were doing it with the help of the family,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: so that actually helps obviously that you're not doing it
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: against the wishes of the family and everything, But how
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: do you even approach telling that story? I mean the
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: pressure on you, Like people are going to look at
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: this documentary. This is gonna be what people go back
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: and look at about yoga, because there really isn't a
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: definitive documentary on yogi.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: I mean not yet. I mean there is no there
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: is June eleventh, Yeah, there will be. No. We were
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: really proud of it and no, the family was incredible.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Like the biggest concern from day one was to not
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: make it some sort of like hagiography, some sort of
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: puff piece, some sort of that's documentaries that just put
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: their subjects on a pedestal and then I call these
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: things and this is very I was very upfront with
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: my producers on day one. I said, I don't want
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: to do called a Wikipedia doc, a Wiki doc where
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: it's just like they were born, they did this, they
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: did that. There's a difference between emotion, right, which is
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: what I'm after, and information, which is what you can google, right,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: And so I I I'm really really it had to
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: play emotionally. I think it does play. I don't know.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: I let you lead if you don't.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Agreed, agreed. I teared up a few times.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and if it doesn't have those
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: emotional that emotional component to it, I'm not interested in
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: directing it. So I was very upfront with that from
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: day once. So it was like, how are we going
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: to tell the story in a way that is going
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: to really get to the heart of audiences and so
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: but at the same time without you know, without it
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: being you know, just too much of a like I said.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Like a puff piece. You're absolutely right, because some documentaries
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: are just very informative. They just always like Wikipedia style.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: You're right, like the Wiki doc. I know what the concept.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just I'm working on two docs right now
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: to other docks and and and yeah, that's just my
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: that's my number one thing is what can what can
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: we offer people that is actually truly cinematic, that is
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: actually going to engage them in a way emotionally, you know,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: and lives right here instead of living up here, you know.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the whole I did a new Yogi bear.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I knew that whole backstory, but I didn't know how
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: deep it went. Why he was called Yogi. I was
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: wondered why he was called like that's obviously not his.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: It'sal your name, right right. Yeah, there was one. There
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: was one piece in the in the documentary that blew
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: my mind. I just could not believe that that happened
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: because he's I think he was the first. He caught
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: the first no hitter in.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: A perfect game. He caught the only game. Yeah he caught. Yeah,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: he called. He called all ninety seven pitches. So like
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: you know, so Larsen was just like locked in, like,
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: tell me Yogi what to do, and.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: He never and he never called, and he never did.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: He didn't check him off. He didn't check him off
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: once in ninety seven.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: So he got so then and then yeah, decades later
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: he makes up it's Yogi Bear to day.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: Well you can't.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Yankee Stadium.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: You can't. Well it's that, you know. It's the type
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: thing in a documentary too, where I'm always looking at
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: where if I were to script it, Oh yeah, it
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: would the producers would throw it out. They said, this
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: is ridiculous. And that's when you know, I think you
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: got a doc that really works, is when there's a
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: moment that is so unbelievable that you couldn't have scripted
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: it and that definitely that moment you know, had that,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: you know, and it's also a great example of that
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: information has been out there forever, Like you could have
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: read that on Wikipedia and you could have read it
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: and bullets and books. It's a fact that he was
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: part of these two you know, these two perfect games.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: But but until you see it, until you are involved,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: until you're experiencing it through everything he had gone through.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: That's the difference between again, you know, kind of you know,
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: a cinema treatment and just a you know, just a
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: little wiki doc thing.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Now, on a business standpoint, when you know, because I've
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: studied docs for you know, most of microd I'm a
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: big fan of docs. But on a business standpoint, it's
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: I always find it so interesting when filmmakers work on
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: docs to have a building audience, So especially when it's
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: a larger than life figure like Yogi. How hard was
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: it to get the financing to put this whole thing together?
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: All that because people think like, oh, you're making a
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Yogi Barrett Dog. I mean, the money must have just
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: been rolling in.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Well no, I could listen, listen, that's a whole nother
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I was extremely, extremely fortunate that
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: from day one. Peter and Mike Soboloff, who were the
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: first two. They were the ones who put the whole
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: kind of project together at the very beginning and called
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: me and asked me to direct. They went out and
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: raised the budget themselves, I mean, the two of them,
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: you know, they and I. I mean, I couldn't have
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: been more fortunate to work with, you know, two more supportive,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: you know, you know, just bold, you know, uh producers.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: And the first thing that they did, they went out
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: and you know, they were out while they were out
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: raising the money. I went and I turned right back
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: to Vanishing Angle Matt Miller and Natalie Mesker again, who
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: produced my my first feature of Meir and Sam, you know,
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: years ago, And I said, hey, would you guys want
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: to team up with the sobloss Is to be a
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: good team. They can kind of go out and raise
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: the money and lead that front. You guys can handle
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: the production side of it. And then I got my
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: old editor Julian Robinson from Amir and Sam, who's incredible
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: editor of the film. Is very well edited, I mean,
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: and all the archival he had he had to dig
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: through and all this stuff. So and I got Danny
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: and my old cinmhotographer. We kind of put the band
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: back together and and and made it happen. But as
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: far as raising the money, fortunately, you know, Peter has
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: really good ties to a lot of folks who are
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: huge Yankee fans, and he's a big finance guy in
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: New York, so he was able to, you know, him
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: and Mike were able to to make it happen somehow.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Right exactly, because I mean, yeah, if you tap into
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: there's a certain pool in New York.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, no, it was nice. Well, the craziest thing,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: the craziest thing is, over the course, over the course
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: of making this documentary, uh, Peter and Mike have gotten
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: involved in it are now minority owners in the Yankees actually,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: so they actually own a piece of the Yankees too,
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: which is which is totally totally aside from the dock
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: just happened. So so that's pretty cool. Yeah. They Yeah,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: they're great, they're they're they're a great team.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So and and then you've gotten to trybeca obviously.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: So what was it like getting that call?
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: Man, It was wonderful. It felt like the right place,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: you know, it just felt like this is where we
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: this is this is where we wanted to premiere the film,
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: so we knew it. We knew it. We were hoping
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: and they called us right away. And they called us
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: super early, back in like November, like I think November,
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: you know, way way early. I mean yeah, before they
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: even closed you know, before they even you know, closed submissions,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: and they're like, hey, we want this, we want this,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: and uh, we got excited, and then we were able
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: to get an incredible, incredible you know, if you know
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: the indie film business, you know you need a great
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: sales agent. And so we you know, we started at
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: the top and we took a stab at John Sloss
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: at Senetic and and he, uh, you know, he flipped
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: for it and he's been so incredib him and the
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: whole team of Senetic have been really incredible. So they're
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: selling it. So that's great. So yeah, I just started
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: to put all the all the all the pieces together.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Man. I really hope it gets out there because you know,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: for for any baseball fan out there, I mean, Yogi's
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: just I mean, even if you're not a baseball fan,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: if you're a certain age, you know who Yogi is.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show, purely because he did
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: thousands of commercials. You know, I don't know, yeah, conmersals man,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: it was given the doc He's like, I don't know,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: I'm doing some it was AFLAC or something like that.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Was like Amtrak, AFLAC. Yeah, he didn't know which one.
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: It was like, it's one of those. Yeah, I'm getting
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: a check.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: It's fine.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: But he seemed like such a sweet guy man, and
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: such an authentic kind of like it. It's one of
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: those people that you just they don't make souls like
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: that anymore, Like they truly don't.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: He just I mean, this is what I tell people
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: about the film. It was a real, real honor and
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: pleasure to tell a story about someone who just always
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: did the right thing. He just always did the right thing.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: He just that was it. He just at every turn,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: whether it was you know, uh, you know, breaking the
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: color barrier and help you know, helping, you know, befriending
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: you know, Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby and all these
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: guys who are coming into the league, who you know, whatever,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: just at every turn. It's really the film is really
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: about a life well lived, and it's broader, you know,
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: we you know, one of the kind of templated films
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: we looked at when we were looking at these docks
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: was the Mister Rogers Dock, you know, had come out
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: one thing, and that was one of the films that's
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: that actually sparked the Sobolofs to call me they could
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: they be cause actually I got the call from them
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: in July of eighteen, So it was the summer that moved.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: This project's be going on four years, you know, And
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: I got the call in July of eighteen and they
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: had just seen that doc and they were like, we
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: need to do something kind of in that vein for Yogi,
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: and so yeah, just a real I mean, I was
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: extremely honored, and you know, and and just the fact
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: that you know, Lindsay's happy with it, the great granddaughter,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: she's incredible. She narrates the film and and I'm just
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: excited for the rest of the bear. The biggest audience
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: to have seen the film so far has four people,
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: and we're premiering in a thousand seat theater next Saturday,
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: So it's gonna be it's gonna be something.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Now. A really important question is, though, did was Jackie
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: safe you know.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: What's the craziest thing. I mean, you can you know, yeah,
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: did you like that little piece of the film that
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: back and forth thought, Oh a lot of fun it was.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about Jackie Robinson's there's a very famous play
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: at all, a play at home plate, where Yogi thinks
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: he got him, but Jackie was ruled safe. Jackie, the
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: great Jackie Robinson, and to his grave.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Oh is he great? He wouldn't never, No, he would never.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Even even when you saw frame by frame. I was
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: watching it and I'm like, what do you think I
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: first saw it. When I first saw it, him like, nah,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: he's he got him out. Then there was like that
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: one sequence for the other angle, and I'm like.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what's really great about it. So from the
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: front angle he looks out and then but from the
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: reverse angle he definitely looks safe. So but he I mean,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: it's it's safe. It's great. I mean what it's what's
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: great about baseball too, right is that? Yeah? That was
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Game one of the fifty five series, and it was
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: a really big deal and Yogi was at his height
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: and Jackie was you know, I mean, these were these
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: were characters who were larger than life, you know, and
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: to have that massive play at home plate in the
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: steel of home, and who steals home anymore? So it
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: was just it was a real It was Yeah, it
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: was really great. But no, if you look at that's
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: the great thing about it. If you look at U
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: from one angle, he looks clear, clearly out, and another angle,
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: you know, he looks safe. So that's great.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna ask you a couple questions, ask all
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: my guests, sir, sure, what advice would you give a
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: filmmaker trying to break into the business today?
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: What advice you know? That's uh, you know, start making films,
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: no matter how how big or small. Just start start shooting.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: Start learning learning, learn the craft, Understand what a shot means.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Understand when you're a subjective it means something. When you're objective,
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: it means something. Learn how to compress, learn how to elaborate,
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: learn how learn the fundamentals? Uh, you know, just through
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: you can shoot. You know, one of one of the
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: classes I teach today if by and I taught at
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: usc for for a few years before as well, They've
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: got a great program there, and you know, I I
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: just would run my students through these like very basic
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: exercises like character A wants something from character B. And
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: you know, create a story no dialogue, and just how
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: do you articulate beats? So just like learning the basics
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: of like how do shots add up to you know,
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: an emotional impact, you know, with with an audience. And
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: so I would I would just say, start shooting, you know,
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: just on a video came on your phone, on whatever,
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Start telling stories, start writing. You know, if you can write,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: You've got a leg up as a director. I'll tell
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: you that. If you can write, you really do, because
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: nobody's you know, nobody's gonna just give a director a
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: great script. You know, the great scripts are few and
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: far between, as we all know, and so nobody's going
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: to give one to you if you're starting out. So
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: if you can write, that's great. If you can't write,
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: find a writer, team up with a writer, co write
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: with a writer. You know, Adapt to short story. It's
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: amazing how many first features are adaptations of short stories
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: or something that exists. So don't be afraid to grab
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: a piece of material from somewhere else. Tarkowski's you Know,
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Iva's Childhood is one of the great all time great
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: first features. It was an adaptation. So yeah, anyways, just
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: that'd be my advice, is just to go out and
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: hold the craft. It's the same thing with acting and
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: some actors, oh I want to act well, like do
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: some theater like get learn how to act, like learn
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: the craft and you know, before you know, you try
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: to make it big, you know, So that that'd be
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: my advice.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Now. And what is the lesson that took you the
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: longest to learn, whether in the film industry or in life.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm still I mean, I don't know, man, I'm
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: still learning. Just uh, the lessons taken me the longest
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: to learn. Gosh, i'd say, you know that, I don't.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: You know, Gosh, that's a good one. You know, I
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: don't know. I'm still I mean, I think I've learned,
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: you know, I've just learned so much, you know, I
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: think just like you know, I guess just how you
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: know how important relationships really are, relationships and collaborations. I think,
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: you know, I knew it. I knew it kind of instinctly,
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: but looking back at the past fifteen years, starting to
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: see you know, people pop up again again on my
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: prom and just knowing that, like it's really building this
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: kind of again to use a you know military term,
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: you know unit, you know this this this kind of
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: you know brigade or whatever you want to call it,
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: of supporters, uh, and and cultivating support from other filmmakers,
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: but also just you know, financiers and just champ you know,
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: understanding that it takes a lot of people to believe
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: in you in order to make it through this, and
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: being very respectful of that. Anytime anybody does believe in you,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: really honor that and be grateful for it. And yeah,
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: I think that's that's the biggest lesson that I've I've
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: taken away.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: And three of your favorite films of all time?
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, three of my favorite films. Well, let's see,
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, I don't. I don't know if
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: I have a favorite, but I definitely there are a few.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: There's there's a there's a Russian film from nineteen fifty
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: nine called Ballot of a Soldier, which I think is
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: probably one of the all time great great films. I
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: recommend it's also a film not a lot of people
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: have seen, so I highly recommend tracking that one down
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: for anyone out there. I love the fifty five movie
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: Marty Pettetreewsky's Marty is really high up on my list
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: as well. And then goodness, I mean, I'm oh, man,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: I'd say another one I throw out there. I'm a
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: big yam cheer fans of Rapriz. His first feature is
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: one of my favorites too. So I don't know, I mean, jeez,
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: I could you know. I could name I probably about
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: fifty favorite films, you know, but those are three that
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: just popped off my head.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Sean. Man, I appreciate you coming on the show, brother.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: Congratulations on a great, great film and I look forward
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: to seeing more stuff from you in the future, brother,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: And thank you for bringing Yogi out of the shadows
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: and showing showing who Yogi really is in your film. Brother.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: So I appreciate you, man. Thanks again.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, thank you for the time. I really appreciate it. Yeah.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Sean so much for coming on
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: the show and dropping his knowledge bombs on the tripe today.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Sean. If you want to get
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: over to the show notes Atproofscreenwriting dot TV. Forward Slash
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: four seventeen. Thank you so much for listening to guys,
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: as always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: to you soon.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: dot tv.