Latest / Indie Film Podcast / Building a Film Career Outside Hollywood: Budgets, Burnout & Day Jobs

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Building a Film Career Outside Hollywood: Budgets, Burnout & Day Jobs · Indie Film Podcast

0:00
We all kind of grew up believing in the 90s path of indie
0:03
filmmaking and Tarantino and the Cohens.
0:06
I'd love to talk to somebody back then and see like, who's
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the guy that shook their hand and went, we're going to make
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you a star, you know? I want to know where that guy
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is. Harvey Wines, he's in prison.
0:17
It's Harvey Weinstein. Quick Idaho pop quiz Chuck, What
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do people think is our number one commodity?
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Potatoes. Oh, so close.
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It's actually film makers who were told to move but didn't.
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Well, that's actually good, because today we're going to be
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talking about building a career outside of a major filmmaking
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metro. Welcome to a special live
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recording of Indie Film Podcast as a part of the first annual
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Idaho Filmfare at Jack's Urban Meeting Place in Boise.
0:43
I'm Vic. And I am Chuck.
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We're talking about decentralization of film and
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video production and why great stories no longer need to just
0:53
come out of New York City, LA and London.
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That's because the barrier to entries drop significantly.
0:58
Cameras, lighting gear, even editing tools are faster,
1:02
cheaper and more accessible than ever.
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And the democratization of video has allowed film makers from
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small cities and small towns to find their voice without the
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need of a major film hub. Or a local B&H.
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And with that, we have a panel with us today.
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We're going to start with you, Dylan.
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And I want just everybody to introduce yourselves and talk
1:22
about the lowest budget production that you're proud to
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have worked on, because I'm sure we've all done some free or very
1:29
low paid work that we're like, oops, but something that you're
1:33
really proud of. Hey, I'm Dylan Hammer.
1:36
I'm a local film maker and man the aside from Zero, I would say
1:42
that my last three productions range anywhere between 3:00 to
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$5000 for a short film and I'm very proud of them.
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So Man in the Hats, Son of the Morning and recently The Rabbit
1:56
kind of fall within those budget lines.
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So I'm very proud. Of this and the Rabbit is going
2:00
to be playing at the Film Festival.
2:01
Yeah, the rabbit will be in. I think it's 7:00 block today
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here. Is me.
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Yes. Hi, I'm Christy Lussier.
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I'm a local filmmaker and screenwriter.
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And I think probably my favorite is was, well, $200 and it was
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our short horror film called Hinsdale, which we did in our
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bedroom. So it was me and my partner, and
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on a whim, we just decided let's do this horror short for a
2:31
contest for New Line Cinema and pulled it together in a week.
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And it's probably the thing I'm the most proud of because we had
2:39
so much fun kind of having the creative ability to shoot every
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night. And then if we were going to
2:44
change something, it's like, oh, let's change that thing we shot
2:46
last night and then let's use Home Depot lights and Lee's old
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Canon T2 I that we shot on. Because you don't need a budget.
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You just need to have a great story and have fun doing it so.
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And that's online, I believe. Hinsdale is online?
2:58
Yes. It's on YouTube and Vimeo.
3:00
We'll put a, we'll put a link in the description, Mason.
3:03
Hi, I'm Mason Dodson. I'm a writer, director,
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filmmaker. I've done, I've acted, I've art
3:10
directed and I've been making films since I was 13.
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And something that kind of came to my mind thinking about low
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budget was a film I made in college called Going Over Home.
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And we probably spent $50 overall, took a couple weeks to
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film it utilized free location, stuff like that.
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And I'm proud of it because I school wasn't giving me enough
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film to make. They weren't giving me
3:39
assignments. So I would skip class to make
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this film and work on this film. And it ended up, you know,
3:46
bonding me and my friends closer together.
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And anyways, I'm really proud of that one because I feel like it
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showed that I wanted to make film no matter what, even if
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school wasn't giving me giving me the assignment.
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So yeah. Nice.
4:03
I'm Haley Jackson Boucher. I'm mostly a writer, director,
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but also actress, producer, art director on occasion.
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I went to film school. So like we were working on
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projects all the time that were funded by coffee and a dream.
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But in most recent years, I'd say the lowest budget project
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that I'm proud of would be a short film called The How.
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It's a short horror film. Also for a competition.
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And the competition deadline was just coming up.
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We weren't going to submit anything.
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So me and my husband who worked together a lot, we were like, we
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got to make something. So I threw a script together
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that was like a found footage. These two guys go camping, they
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go missing, they find their phone and it's like all the last
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videos that were taken on that phone kind of reveals what
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happened to them. So I mean, yeah, the cost of
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going camping. So it was like food, gas and
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shot on an iPhone. Nice.
4:56
I'm Drew Garcia. I'm a film director.
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I've worn pretty much every hat except acting.
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I don't do that. But the the least expensive
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production other than all the $0.00 ones that we've done over
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the years was one called Hoddle. And it's about a a dim witted
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guy who inherits a bunch of Bitcoin, doesn't know what to do
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with it. And we had just a bunch of
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volunteers do it. And I think we said that the
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only thing we had to buy for the film was the energy drink he's
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sipping on the whole time, which was $1.87.
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Wow. So.
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That's a very low budget. Yeah, pretty low.
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You win. Can I give you an anecdote about
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the most money ever made? Yeah, well, yes, it won't be
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relatable to any of us here. It's not a brag and it's not
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related to any movie I've made, right?
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So back in 2015, my brother Nate and I, we decided to take six
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months and try to make a living entering video contests, right?
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And, and we did for about 6 months.
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But there was one particular back then there was a, a social
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media app called Vine, right? And it was 6 second videos.
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So Heinz ketchup put out a, a contest where they wanted you to
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put together a six second Vine. My brother and I dreamed up a
6:13
concept, shot it in an hour and uploaded it and won.
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And they paid us $12,000. Wow.
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For six seconds. For six seconds.
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So we made $6000 an hour rate. 6000 an.
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Hour we we both were invited to join SAG.
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We got our SAG letters from WOW Wow.
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Total fluke though. Oh man, probably.
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That repeatable? Yeah, but that's that's one of
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those always shoot your shot moments, you know?
6:44
Yeah, absolutely. OK, well, you know what?
6:49
We're not going to start with Drew for this one after that
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moment. No, I'm kidding.
6:53
OK, so the Boise metro population right now, we're
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hovering at about 900,000. So in your experience making
7:00
movies here, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages
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of working in a town of this size?
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And bonus points for anyone who can kind of compare.
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Contrast that to being in a larger city or a larger
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populated area. And this is just all free for.
7:15
All Oh yeah, you don't have. To just pop in, say something if
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you have something to share as far as working in about the size
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of community. Because personally, just to get
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everyone started, my favorite advantage of working here is
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that it has taught me to try new things.
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Because as soon as I fail spectacularly at trying
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something new, which inevitably happens, and that's fine, I get
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a lot of people reaching out, offering to help fix it.
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So when I screw up costumes really bad, I think that's How I
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Met Heather Horner. She reached out and said, oh,
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let me help you dear, let's just take you under my wing.
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Everyone here is very encouraging and supportive.
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So I do really like that. So that's one story.
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I don't know if I would get that in LA.
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People might just make fun of me.
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Well, I mean, I, I moved here five years ago from LA.
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I'm not from there originally, but I lived there for a couple
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years and that was one of the first things I noticed out here
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was how welcoming the community was and how willing everyone was
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to just help each other and work for free.
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Because we love making films. And in LA you would run into
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people where it's, it's, it becomes work, you know, and I
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don't blame anybody, but it becomes a job and you work for
8:29
different people that you don't know, trying to make their
8:31
vision come true. It's just much different when
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you have a tight knit community of passionate film makers who
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want to help each other succeed. We all know what it's like to,
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you know, we're, we're not in LA, right?
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We're in a place that we, we're, we're so close to like bursting
8:47
out. Boise is so close to becoming
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such a cool hub for film. I mean, it already is, but a
8:52
bigger one, right? More money coming in and it's
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really cool to be on like the the first layer of that and help
9:02
form that foundation. Yeah, Boise's been an amazing
9:07
place to meet people in LA It's not that there's not great
9:11
people there, but it's competitive, I guess.
9:15
Yeah, you've got to fight for every single job and position
9:18
and and getting your own work made.
9:21
It's probably not as likely to happen.
9:23
Yeah. Very tough for me.
9:25
Yeah, I think one of the cool things here is that people
9:27
aren't like burnt out on film. It's very unique.
9:30
And so when you're trying to get locations and stuff, you can
9:32
usually get locations for free or for very cheap because people
9:35
are just really excited to help you and think that film is so
9:38
cool and unique and they want to support creatives.
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Whereas LA you're like, you knock on a door and you're like,
9:43
hey, can we shoot at your house? And they're like, yeah, for
9:45
$1000 an hour. And it's like, it's just that
9:47
barrier. Like they're so used to it.
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They turn a corner and there's like shooting on the road and
9:52
they're like, not this again. Whereas here we were, we were
9:55
shooting like in the North End a couple months ago and this lady
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like pulled up and I was like, what are you doing?
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Oh my God, this is so cool. Where can I watch it?
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And like, that's just kind of the response you get here versus
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LA, which is like everybody's trying to do it.
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There's a lot of competition and everyone is like tired of it I
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guess. The burnout is real.
10:13
Yeah, the burnout is real. Not.
10:15
Real. And to piggyback off of that, I
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think that what's really cool about where we are located is
10:20
that you can drive 30 minutes in any direction and have a
10:23
completely different environment, right?
10:25
So like, I mean, if you, if you are writing something that takes
10:30
place in a desert, you don't have to go very far.
10:32
You're writing something that takes place in more of a
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mountainous setting. You don't have to go very far.
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Boise itself is the most convincing city you can see.
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I mean, we got buildings everywhere, right?
10:43
So I mean, again, you don't have to travel very far to get to a
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really cool, unique location. So yeah, in addition to going to
10:52
a laundromat and being like, hey, I want to make a movie here
10:55
and the guy's like sick. You know, you can, you can make
10:58
anything you want. You don't have to drive very
11:00
far. So YC is super diverse
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environmentally and the surrounding areas.
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And I think that gives us a lot of creative freedom to make
11:08
unique stuff. Adding adding scope to your
11:11
films inexpensively with the environments that we have.
11:14
I think that. Because, Drew, you actually
11:16
filmed something at the Bruno Sand Dunes a year or two ago,
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right? Yeah, back two years ago now.
11:22
So that was, I mean, we have this giant, I don't know if
11:26
people actually sand board there still, but that was a thing for
11:29
a while. Yeah, yeah.
11:30
I kind of stood into Tatooine for a we were making a film
11:33
called Fan Film, and it was sort of a, you know, our version of
11:37
what a Star Wars fan film would be.
11:38
So yeah, we went, I think it's what, an hour drive to get out
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to the sand dunes? Yeah.
11:44
I haven't shot anything like downtown Boise for quite a few
11:48
years. But is it still the case that we
11:50
don't need permits to shoot here?
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Or what's the permit situation? The permit situation if I
11:55
remember correctly is that you do need to get a permit, but
11:57
they're very flexible based on the size of your crew and the
12:00
turn around is pretty quick because there were there was an
12:03
issue there was there was an issue that happened that the
12:07
police. Were.
12:08
Alerted properly about things that were happening.
12:10
So unfortunately, but the, the it's, it's pretty simple, you
12:14
know, and obviously outside of the city, your your gold.
12:17
Just take your camera and as many people as you want and just
12:19
yeah, mess up as much of the environment as you need to in.
12:22
This case that aspect. I can get back out please.
12:24
That aspect alone, I think is a really huge difference between
12:26
shooting in a big city and here. It's just the permitting
12:29
process. Yeah, 'cause like we, we, we
12:32
shot a, we shot an ad in LA once and it was like the permitting
12:35
was in the 10s of thousands for a 32nd ad.
12:39
Oh, wow. Yeah.
12:40
And I feel like here it's pretty easy to just, if you have an
12:43
idea, most people have the equipment or you can get access
12:46
to the equipment. And if you're like, I need to
12:47
get something done or I want to get something done this
12:49
afternoon, there's a lot of people that would that are
12:52
interested in doing that. And there's not really any
12:54
barriers to to getting that stuff done.
12:57
You're just shooting something for four hours, seeing what you
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get. To play devil's advocate real
13:03
quick and and present some disadvantages to being in Boise
13:06
versus LA. You know, I was on looking at
13:10
peer space in Los Angeles a couple days ago and there are so
13:15
many locations built and ready to go.
13:18
Like if I needed a 1970s hospital room, I could go rent
13:22
it in LA. Here I'm going to have to search
13:25
or build it myself. It's going to become costly and
13:28
it is costly in LA to rent those spaces too.
13:30
But there's anything you could think of an airport hangar like
13:34
any sort of set. And I think Boise is kind of
13:36
missing something like that for sure.
13:37
More opportunities like that as well as like an official prop
13:42
house, costume rental house, like we all kind of go to
13:45
Heather Horner, Amanda Fitch, like to help us with our
13:49
costuming props. Like I have a storage unit just
13:52
full of props, but I would love eventually to have yeah, prop
13:58
house here, costume house. Like those are the things that
14:01
in LA where they're everywhere, it's easy to rent costumes.
14:03
It's easy to rent props. I don't have to fill my storage
14:06
unit buying from the thrift store all the time.
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Then again, it's one of my favorite parts of making a film,
14:12
so I probably still would. But anyways, yeah, I.
14:15
Actually have a question about that.
14:17
So I feel like I suddenly got louder the compromises, right.
14:22
I feel like because we do have limited access to certain
14:26
things, we are remote here. Like I guess Salt Lake's bigger,
14:30
but that's another four or five hours away.
14:34
What are some of the, what are some of the compromises?
14:37
I guess we lost that. What are some of the compromises
14:39
some of you all have made as far as story is concerned to get
14:44
your project done? You know, using what you have
14:47
available to to make the film and not letting it stop you.
14:52
Can I jump in there? Yeah, I think this is where
14:56
writing and story really kind of comes into play, because I know
15:01
a lot of us here are all writers in our own way, and we have
15:04
these great ideas. And so we kind of write these
15:06
scripts and we write and then we try to go out and figure out how
15:09
to make it work versus what can I write around that I know I
15:13
have access to And then be able to kind of build from there.
15:17
Which, yeah, I mean, I would love to be able to go like some
15:19
of the shorts that I've written, I would love to be able to go do
15:21
them, but they're going to be ten $20,000.
15:24
How can I pare that down so I can do a $2000 shoot if that
15:29
comes down to kind of how you craft your story and your script
15:31
and your writing and being willing to, like you said,
15:34
sacrifice or compromise. So for example, we chatted with
15:37
somebody yesterday that wanted to do a script and he's got like
15:40
30 or 40 extras in it. And so now he's just like, I
15:43
can't shoot this. It's going to be too expensive
15:45
and too many people. And it's like, well, do you need
15:47
30 or 40 extras in that big of a location?
15:50
Can you readjust so that you don't have to put yourself in
15:54
that spot? I think kind of scripting and
15:57
story wise, you just have to learn how to to roll with the
15:59
punches and be flexible. I like that.
16:04
I think our casting pool is pretty small.
16:07
We've got an amazing like actors in town and a lot of talent, but
16:11
there's also a big lack of diversity.
16:13
We've noticed you often have to fly people in for certain types
16:17
of roles that we just can't fill here.
16:20
I was casting a film two years ago, and I just needed, like, a
16:24
woman in, like, her mid 40s. And I reached out to every
16:27
single one in town, and they all had a scheduling conflict.
16:30
And so I ended up just casting down, casting a woman that was
16:33
like 29 and just making the character younger.
16:36
But it's like, yeah, when you know all the actors in town and
16:39
they aren't available and you can't afford to fly anybody out,
16:43
that can definitely be a challenge.
16:44
OK, I'm. Not going to leave.
16:49
Technical difficulty. That never happens on this show.
16:52
No, no, absolutely not. I have no idea what's going on
16:55
there. There's like a wireless
16:57
microphone that's also connected into the sound board, so we
16:59
might be getting some. Oh, well, that's kind of
17:01
exciting. I really hope somebody in the
17:03
audience has it and it's just going to pop in with a surprise
17:05
at some point during this podcast.
17:11
All right, so here's a really fun, exciting one for all of
17:15
you. It's not necessarily focusing on
17:17
projects that you're working on or have worked on in the past.
17:19
It's more looking to the future. What are you personally betting
17:23
that the next frontier for filmmaking is going to be?
17:25
So this could be AI projects. This could be verticals.
17:28
This could be, if you think, I don't know, we're going to get
17:31
another big zombie push or if that's going to come back and be
17:35
cool again. I, I hope not, but what do you
17:37
think, Drew? You might be working on a
17:43
feature. For you, yeah, it's going to be
17:47
both. It's going to be both AI and
17:48
vertical for sure. Because if we, if we back way up
17:54
like my, my thinking on it for the last decade has been as
17:58
because the last decade has really been my own personal
18:01
foray into Hollywood and made one movie in the studio system.
18:07
And my, my big take away from all of my experience has been
18:11
movies got to be a lot cheaper to make for this to be
18:13
sustainable. Yeah.
18:14
Especially since we've got such a different landscape ever since
18:19
COVID with the with the theaters.
18:23
And. With the theaters.
18:27
Any filmmaking, everyone? Perfect.
18:30
This keeps things excited. It's the AI taking over.
18:34
Oh no. And, you know, people just kind
18:39
of less and less moved by celebrity in general, right?
18:44
There's so many talented actors out there, right?
18:47
You don't have to have an actor that you pay $20 million to for
18:51
your movie to be successful anymore, right?
18:52
The Tom Cruise model's kind of gone away.
18:55
So movie's got to be cheaper. The streaming platforms, you
18:58
know, it's just a different model of making money.
19:01
So in order for costs to come down, that means that small
19:04
teams are going to have to be able to tell big stories.
19:08
And so where are people? Where's all the attention right
19:11
now? Where's all the energy right
19:12
now? It's not in the theaters.
19:13
I mean, sometimes you have a movie that pops off, but
19:15
everybody's attention and energy is on social media, it's on
19:19
YouTube, it's on TikTok. So those platforms are really,
19:23
really important now for getting your stories told.
19:26
And, you know, it's kind of like, for me, it's been a, a big
19:30
paradigm shift growing up with my favorite films being the
19:33
Spielberg and George Lucas movies and having a particular
19:37
thing in my mind of the trajectory my film career needed
19:41
to go on. For me to be a success over the
19:44
last several years, I've had to kind of undo a lot of that
19:47
thinking and work with what what I'm given, right?
19:52
You know, work within this context.
19:53
So yeah, I think that social media is going to be a big part
19:57
of it. And I do think that AI, as much
20:00
as it's a dirty 4 letter word to a lot of artists right now, when
20:04
it's used properly, when it's used correctly, it actually
20:07
empowers artists to be able to tell stories they weren't able
20:12
to tell even two or three years ago.
20:14
So the big thing that AI is going to do is it's going to
20:19
help in animation. And it's going to help in VFX.
20:23
And those are both have been very cost prohibitive parts of
20:26
storytelling or mediums of storytelling.
20:29
And they're possible to do now. You know, the, the thing that I
20:32
think everybody thinks about when they hear AI is that you're
20:37
just replacing the creative process wholesale with
20:40
prompting. And anybody who's done any work
20:42
with it knows that that's just not the case.
20:44
It's simply a tool. And, and I believe it needs to
20:47
be used correctly and it needs to be it needs to be trained
20:49
correctly. But when those things are in
20:52
place, then it's a very empowering tool.
20:54
So I could go on and on about it, but yeah, that's fine.
20:57
Can I jump in on this? Yeah, So my, my take on and and
21:04
I know this isn't like an AI podcast, the thing that I find
21:07
really challenging. Not yet.
21:11
We're just hosts. We can be.
21:12
Just wait. Just wait for that next.
21:13
As long as I RIP my face off. Yeah.
21:17
Sponsored by Sora Yeah from. The future.
21:18
So I think what's challenging about AI, and I'm sort of in the
21:24
middle with it where I do think that tools are useful and things
21:27
like that, creating content, like Drew said wholesale with
21:31
AII think that's wack as shit. Like I'm sorry, like that's just
21:35
my take. And I think that the thing
21:38
that's going to be challenging though, is how are we going to
21:45
how are we going to judge what we feel is the line meaning?
21:51
Drew said it great. He said, hey, these are tools
21:53
that empower people and we don't want it to be a lazy process for
21:58
people. But like your average viewer,
21:59
like how are they going to know that?
22:01
How are they going to be able to watch something and say, well,
22:06
that person only denoised using AI, They're not going to know
22:09
that. So it's like, I think in the
22:11
video game industry right now is a great example where studios
22:15
that are using AI are getting really big pushback.
22:18
And it's because it is an art form.
22:19
And I'm not saying people that use AI are not artists.
22:22
But Drew, maybe you can answer this 'cause you have a lot more
22:25
experience than me. Like, what do you think the how
22:30
do we police that? Because The thing is, is if you
22:34
go to a theatre, you're not going to know if, oh, this was
22:36
just VFX or if that dialogue piece was AI.
22:41
Like it's, it's we can't, we can't self police because some
22:47
people are more down the slope than others.
22:49
What do you think about that? I think the market will will
22:58
answer that question really. And that's the you have to, you
23:03
kind of do have to differentiate between the art and and what you
23:07
as the artist feel is important to the process.
23:12
And the other part of it, which is the capitalistic side of of
23:16
filmmaking, which is that movies need to make money.
23:18
So the truth is that AI is going to be used as much as the
23:23
studios or as film makers deem necessary, as long as it's going
23:29
to help their bottom line. So you as a filmmaker can decide
23:33
to what degree you want to use it and how much of A purist you
23:36
want to be that that's really what it comes down to.
23:39
But yeah, I mean, it's in two or three years, this stuff's going
23:43
to be so invisible, right? Even performances will be nearly
23:48
invisible that it's really, we can't really rely on, yeah, the
23:53
studios or anybody who's like a big shot caller to be self
23:59
policing, as you put it. Yeah, the transparency.
24:01
And then just one last point I want to make, because this is
24:03
something I think about a lot is to answer the question you guys
24:08
had about what's coming down the pipeline.
24:11
I think Drew's completely right that it's like inevitable.
24:13
But I also think that somewhere down the line past that, I think
24:17
there will be a renaissance to not use those tools.
24:22
And I, again, I know it's a slope, right?
24:25
Like you can use Topaz to, to denoise your footage and that's
24:29
using an AI algorithm. But The thing is, is like you're
24:32
already seeing this, this, this pre roll on films that say was
24:37
not used or not was was not made using generative AI.
24:40
So The thing is, is like, I do think there will be a
24:43
renaissance down the line and there will be people that sit in
24:46
a niche that choose not to go that route.
24:48
That will be appreciated just the same.
24:51
So. I think unfortunately the
24:53
general public won't care. You know, I do think you like
24:59
humanity will win at the end of the day, we will defeat the AI.
25:04
But I do think that like general public who go to watch movies,
25:08
like a lot of people don't, I don't know if they're going to
25:10
care too much and that makes me sad.
25:15
Outside of the AI topic, I just wanted to bring up something
25:17
that I where I see the trends going for film makers and it's
25:23
building your own audience and the trend's been going this way
25:26
for quite a while. I'm terrible at it.
25:29
I don't really love, like, I don't like using social media to
25:34
market myself, but it is such a great tool for it.
25:38
And nowadays in almost any field, it's about building your
25:41
brand up. It's about gaining an audience
25:43
so that people, like, know you care about you, and then they're
25:47
going to pay to watch your movie in whatever form.
25:49
And there's other influencers that are talking about this.
25:52
I know, like Haley, we've talked about it before.
25:55
And Haley's really good at the social media thing and building
25:58
the ad audience. But yeah.
26:01
Yeah, no, that's true. I think that's true.
26:04
I think that's the tool of social media.
26:06
I mean, it is hard because it can get so distracting from like
26:09
all the other work. We, I run a Dungeons Dragons
26:12
podcast and we recently had to like have a meeting as a team to
26:15
be like, we need to re evaluate what is important to us because
26:20
we got so down into the let's make content.
26:23
Let's make content that that's all we were doing and we weren't
26:25
making the show anymore. And so we had to re evaluate and
26:28
be like, OK, we've built this audience and that's wonderful.
26:30
Let's like pivot back to doing the thing we want to do, which
26:33
is the the D&D show. And so, yeah, it's kind of a
26:37
balance of like, you want to promote yourself, you want to
26:39
build your audience, you want to build your Patreon community,
26:42
all of these things. But you don't want that to
26:44
distract from like the real work that you want to do, which is
26:47
filmmaking. I also wanted to say I think
26:50
that something that I'm really excited about, I think we're
26:53
stepping back from like formulaic storylines for sure.
26:57
With the rise of like a 24 and other studios like it.
27:00
We're seeing really unconventional storylines that
27:04
don't follow, you know, the Beachy of like Marvel and these
27:08
bigger studios that we've all gotten burnt out on that worked
27:10
for so long and it made lots of money.
27:12
But now we're seeing like all all these really artsy, unique,
27:16
like character based stories coming to life.
27:19
And I mean, you look at what is getting Oscar hype right now,
27:21
like they're all weird and off the wall and very different than
27:26
what we've been seeing for the last 10 years.
27:27
So that's something that really excites me because I like dark,
27:30
weird, unconventional stories. And so I'm hoping that people
27:34
keep enjoying those. And along those lines, I think
27:36
we're starting to see some that don't play out as a full story,
27:41
a character exploration, which is someone who also enjoys
27:44
performing. I love getting to see that.
27:46
And you get to see so many actors really push outside.
27:50
And to Drew's point, would also probably help get rid of, you
27:55
know, that famous person type, the Tom Cruise model.
27:59
Can I? Counter Haley really quick.
28:01
Not I love what you just said because you're absolutely right.
28:04
No hands down. But I want to prep people for
28:08
the fact that there's also the very opposite.
28:10
And if nobody's following what's going on in the industry, that's
28:13
exactly why there's a big hubbub about Warner Brothers, Netflix
28:16
and Paramount kind of this bidding more for buying Warner
28:20
Discovery. And it's because those companies
28:25
and those big streaming services, they want to buy up
28:28
data because how they make their content and how they build their
28:32
slates and their platform is truly based on formulaic
28:36
algorithmic numbers and percentages and data.
28:39
So for example, how many people will rewatch a Jason Statham
28:43
movie, which is me because I watch them all the time or you
28:47
know Adam Sandler I do. I really love Jason Chandam or
28:51
Adam Sandler has a first look deal with Netflix or Shonda
28:54
Rhimes. They brought on because Shonda
28:55
Rhimes had the popularity that she did with her with her
28:58
studio. They have all that data.
29:01
They know how many people will rewatch an Adam Sandler movie or
29:04
a, you know, Bridgerton episode 10 million times.
29:08
And that's how they're basing their green lighting of their
29:11
content and their their content strategy.
29:13
So while like studios like a 24 and neon are doing this amazing
29:18
thing where they're really letting these artistic rate like
29:22
film makers shine. You know, if, if we are still in
29:26
the mindset that like, I want to see my project on Netflix or I
29:28
want to see it on whatever, me as a screenwriter in the screen
29:31
writing world. And I know that my, my peer
29:33
group is dealing with this. We'll get leads and it'll be
29:36
like we're looking for this story that could have this kind
29:39
of action * that's 25 years old that takes place in Europe, that
29:42
what they follow a formulaic beat sheet.
29:45
And if you can't check all those boxes with your scripts or your
29:47
projects or your pitches, they won't pick you up.
29:50
So I want film makers to kind of know and understand that there
29:55
is the one side and then there really is this other.
29:58
And you kind of really have to decide which route you're OK
30:00
with or you want to go because it is a data war right now.
30:03
So that is that is why there's a big deal about Netflix and
30:07
Warner and Paramount. They don't care about the
30:09
content. I don't people can say that's
30:11
what it is. It's not.
30:12
They want everybody's data. They want to know what you're
30:14
watching, how many times you're watching it, how many seconds
30:15
you'll flip on an episode. Low risk.
30:17
That's what they want. Pay.
30:19
Off content pretty much I. Kind of like Taylor, your point
30:21
about about building your own audience though, which I feel
30:24
like is an alternative route. And then as you were saying, you
30:27
got lost in the woods trying to crank out more content for your
30:31
social media channels. It's like the algorithm and
30:33
Victoria. And I have felt that too with
30:35
this podcast because we go through and then we cut vertical
30:38
videos of all these podcasts so that we can hopefully garner
30:41
audience to the actual thing that we've made and the thing
30:44
that we recorded, Right. But that algorithm is like
30:47
working on us in some weird way as well.
30:49
Not just the the users, but the creators where it's like, oh,
30:53
OK, you do this certain thing and certain number of people are
30:56
going to see it. We're going to give you Internet
30:58
points and then you're going to be more likely to do that same
31:02
thing again, even though it might have been one of those
31:04
things like, oh, I don't want to keep doing that.
31:06
Yeah, totally. Have anybody else had experience
31:09
where you've like sacrificed like your creative outlook
31:14
because you knew that like, OK, this might not go over well or
31:18
or adjusting like you know? Might hurt your Internet points.
31:23
Yeah, exactly that you're willing to share?
31:27
Yeah, well, I mean we have a screen writing podcast.
31:29
I'm a Co host of the successful screenwriter and for a number of
31:32
years in episodes my my host, he would go out and interview
31:37
independent film makers, large studio heads, big writers.
31:40
And while the view count was great and we would get a certain
31:42
number of subscribers, he just noticed that like his 20-30
31:45
minute episodes weren't, weren't working, even though he wants to
31:48
talk to those people. We want to be able to provide,
31:51
you know, insight as to how a showrunner got a show off the
31:54
ground or something along those lines.
31:56
We had to flip the switch. Like we had to really kind of
31:58
flip the game. And about four or five months
32:01
ago, we're like, let's just go live and let's, like, talk about
32:04
industry news and, like, bad screen writing advice and go
32:07
really, like, pulpy and kind of pop culture.
32:10
And our view count and our subscriber count went through
32:13
the roof. And it wasn't the formula he
32:15
wanted to do, but it was the sacrifice of, like, how do we
32:18
get more writers and people involved?
32:19
So that's just one example of what for sure, yeah.
32:25
Sacrifices. Sacrifice.
32:28
For our art. No, we're just all offended that
32:30
you've boiled down my job to just collecting Internet points.
32:33
That's what we're upset. And my Wii?
32:35
How many? Internet points that determines
32:39
your value to society now. Well, I will say one other thing
32:42
too is like with casting, it's something big to think about is
32:45
like you get cast a lot if you have a big following and that
32:50
sucks. It might not be about talent
32:52
like this person might be better, but this person has
32:54
100,000 followers. And so we know that we can
32:56
market through them. We can have those seats
32:59
watching, you know, the films. And that's just like, I don't
33:03
know, I've never known how I feel about it because it is what
33:05
it is and you want to use those tools and maybe that actor is
33:08
pretty good, but sometimes, you know, someone with no follower
33:13
count is better. That's that's such a really good
33:16
point. And I want to ask, like with
33:17
that, do people really go to theaters to see social media
33:22
actors? Like legitimately, I know you're
33:26
going to do. I know you're going to see, I
33:28
know you're going to see like Tom Cruise or Jason Statham in
33:32
your case, but it's like, I don't know, some Tik toker makes
33:37
it into a a studio film. Is that like gonna make them
33:41
their budget and then some back? I think it's a miscalculation
33:44
sometimes. I I think it depends.
33:45
I mean, like we were talking about building your audience.
33:47
If Mason Dodson makes a film, I'm gonna go see it because it's
33:51
Mason. Right follow you, Mason I.
33:52
Thought I like all your movies too No, but like if you have
33:57
people you like and appreciate, you're gonna go see their thing
34:00
yeah. Unfortunately, there's like, the
34:01
TikTok bait of, like, people that Just Dance for the camera
34:04
and then they get contracts that they don't deserve.
34:07
But like, for me, I don't know, bands like musicians.
34:10
If a musician that I love does the score for a film, I'm gonna
34:13
go see it. And Goblin, yeah, that's the
34:17
pro, I think. One example that I can think of,
34:19
I didn't see the film, but Five Nights at Freddy 2, somebody was
34:23
telling me that they took their younger brother to it and they
34:25
played the game. It was based on a video game and
34:28
they took their younger brother who loved the video game.
34:30
And the whole film was just full of like different influencers
34:33
and characters from the thing. And you had to be in the know to
34:37
really understand it and appreciate it.
34:40
And so I think it's just when it comes to influencers, I feel
34:43
like it's not our generation personally.
34:45
I feel like, you know, whatever it is, Gen.
34:49
Z. Yeah, Can I, can I jump in right
34:51
there? Because that's the point I was
34:52
going to make as somebody who is a parent of should we call them
34:56
the six, seven generation? Yeah, that's the best way to
35:02
describe them because because that is their world and they
35:07
they've come up in that world. And so like, I'm a millennial,
35:10
but even like Gen. Z might not get it the way that
35:14
that kids that are coming up in it.
35:17
And, and that's what we have to be thinking about is, you know,
35:19
in 10-15 years when the kids that are, you know, 5 to 12
35:23
years old are the adults in the room, right?
35:27
The ones that are driving ticket sales and all of that.
35:29
You know, it, it's such a different world at that point,
35:32
whether you're talking, I mean, my kids will sit and and watch
35:34
AI slop videos and laugh their heads off on on YouTube, like,
35:39
and I look at them, I'm like, what are you watching?
35:41
This is turn it off, you know? But for them, it's just, it's
35:45
part of their world. So yeah, it's, I think it's hard
35:48
for us to wrap our heads around it, but things are going to be
35:49
so different in 15 years because of the way that they're all
35:52
coming up and social media being an integral part of their lives.
35:56
Yeah, and I will say this, I went to the opening night of
35:59
FNAF, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 because my kid played the games,
36:05
loved it. We went to see the sequel.
36:07
That is probably the first time in years, probably since End
36:11
Game Avengers End Game that I have seen the theater that
36:14
packed and like the line was out the door and around the corner
36:17
and those were all 13 to 18 year olds.
36:20
So that driving force of the influencers and the game people
36:24
and the games got all those 18 year olds to come out of their
36:27
gaming hovel and go buy. Tickets to a theater movie.
36:31
And yeah, it's a big studio film, but I mean, Lee and I were
36:35
like standing in the audience or in the in the lobby, just like,
36:39
I'm amazed that these many people were in the theater and
36:41
it was so cool. So in that regard, I do think
36:45
there's a benefit to that because if it is going to drive
36:47
many, many kids to go, you know, Bloom houses like Dollars
36:50
dollars, it's going to drive them to the theater, you know,
36:53
put up, put 10 million Youtubers in your movie, who cares?
36:56
I think that was true for the Minecraft movie as well.
36:58
Same. Same.
36:58
Yeah, exactly. And I think Cinema United
37:01
released their their big data dump for the end of the year and
37:05
said that the there is a huge uptick in people going, well,
37:09
huge. It's like up 7% total theatre
37:12
attendance year over year is almost back to like pre pandemic
37:17
type levels. And they're attributing that to
37:21
10 to 24 year olds, which is a huge range, but it is 10 to 24
37:24
year olds. Human interaction, though, I
37:27
feel like going to the theater and, and talking about it, it's
37:31
that, it's that thing. We've all had that experience
37:32
where somebody takes out their telephone and their smartphone
37:36
and they're like, you need to see this video because it's
37:38
like, I need to share this with someone and nobody's responding
37:40
to my text messages when I see it, it's like film.
37:44
I think it's important that it's a shared experience, especially
37:47
when it's well done and it's enjoyable.
37:49
And so I, I feel like, you know, there's hope there.
37:52
Yeah, and that it's immersive. I don't know about all of you.
37:54
I want to like not be on my phone and not be distracted by
37:57
other things when I'm watching a movie that I can do at home.
38:00
I put a movie on at home and I pull out my laptop and I'm like
38:03
doing other stuff while watching a movie.
38:05
I love going to the theater because you're just there.
38:07
You're in it, you're watching it, you're immersed, love.
38:10
It finally getting lost in a story again makes you feel like
38:13
a kid, yeah. Speaking of the younger, the
38:16
younger kids or younger generation that might be
38:18
listening to this, does anyone have advice that they would give
38:22
themselves if you could go back in time and maybe redo some
38:27
things or just make those younger people that are
38:31
interested in film, you know, not make some of those mistakes
38:34
that maybe you tripped up on when you first got started?
38:39
Don't. Don't try to be a screenwriter
38:42
when you're 20. Ain't going to happen.
38:44
No, I don't know. You're going to starve for a
38:47
while. I would say like two things,
38:51
like 1, I don't know, man. I, I think back to like a long
38:57
time ago when I started doing like the local stuff like the
39:00
I-40 eights and things like that.
39:02
And I, I saw the Garcias and I saw like different people making
39:05
amazing stuff. And I would just sit in my seat
39:07
and be like, damn, I suck. You know what I mean?
39:10
And you're just sitting there and you're like, you, you show
39:13
something that you're like delusional and you think is
39:17
awesome. And then a Drew Garcia movie
39:19
comes on right after that and you're just like, Oh my God,
39:22
what did I do? What?
39:23
Did I tell you, Drew? What did I tell?
39:25
You no, it's like, but show yourself grace for that and like
39:30
know that it's OK and it's actually beneficial to have
39:33
people around you. Like I see the stuff Mason does.
39:35
Like they, they're so stylish and I get like borderline like
39:41
jealous watching your stuff. That's how I feel watching your
39:43
stuff. Dude I'm just like amazed and
39:45
it's inspiring but like get to know those people that you know
39:49
are better than you and pick their brain and build community
39:53
with them and support them you know?
39:55
And 2nd with that I would say suck until you don't suck, but
40:01
even when you don't suck you still are always going to feel
40:04
like you suck. So the stuff that you make that
40:08
you know, down the line is going to embarrass you is integral to
40:12
your growth. You know, when you go out and
40:15
you make something and like 10 years later, you look back and
40:20
like, God, that was garbage. It it got you to where you are,
40:24
you know, So don't be afraid to make crap.
40:29
Don't be afraid to be delusional.
40:30
And in the moment think that you're making like the dopest
40:33
movie anyone has ever seen. But then later, you know, you're
40:35
not going to feel that way. Yeah, it's it's OK to not be
40:39
good at something and to continue to do it and continue
40:43
to feel embarrassed and inferior to other film makers until you
40:47
get to where you want to be. I'm sure I'm not alone here, but
40:51
I don't think it matters how good of a quality of something
40:55
that I've been a part of. It's always after you've watched
40:58
it so many times and you've spent so much time trying to fix
41:02
these 12345 different things that are wrong with your film.
41:05
And then when you go back and watch it, that's the only thing
41:08
I can focus on during the entire screening.
41:11
And so like to kind of like, you know, pivot off and, you know,
41:15
add to what you're saying. Like it, it doesn't end there
41:18
and nobody probably notices that at some juncture, right?
41:21
But it's like that's, that's just part of it.
41:23
That's like part of sharing your work, I feel like, is just
41:26
having those moments where you're like, oh boy, here we go.
41:29
Here's that one mistake that's going to be popping up on screen
41:31
again. I'm going to get to watch it for
41:33
the 40th time. It'll keep haunting you in your
41:36
dreams, though. It's fine, yeah.
41:37
Well, and, and what brings you peace, knowing that you're
41:39
screening at a local festival or something, is that that person
41:42
in the chair is watching it one time, you know?
41:46
What I mean? So that little like that little
41:48
like fart noise that somehow ended up in the audio, you know,
41:51
you're like, well, they're not going to ponder on it because
41:53
they're only seeing it once. There's some grace there to jump
41:59
off of that I I so badly when I was younger.
42:04
I I wish I could tell myself when I was younger.
42:07
Learn how to take criticism. Don't take things personally.
42:11
Be open to feedback. I remember being in college and
42:14
and I had a friend who I made a music video just for fun and he
42:20
like sent me some messages giving me critique for it.
42:22
I didn't really ask for it and I don't love like someone giving
42:26
me advice when I didn't ask but I took it so personal and it
42:31
just crushed me. Same with like I put a film out
42:35
on Reddit once on film makers and I was in high school and it
42:38
was awful and they destroyed me. But like, but I, I, it took me a
42:45
long time to learn how to, how to not take it personally and
42:49
realize, Oh my gosh, these people are so talented and they
42:52
have great advice and great feedback and they're just trying
42:55
to make the film better at the end of the day.
42:57
And so, you know, you learn to cut those scenes out that aren't
43:00
working, and you learn to rewrite whatever for the sake of
43:05
a better movie. So yeah, just don't take it
43:08
personal. I want to piggyback off that
43:10
because that's getting feedback is so essential to everything
43:14
that I do now. It is just part of my process.
43:16
I write the worst draft known to man and immediately send it to
43:19
Mason and go tell me what's working, tell me what's not.
43:21
And then I can kind of go from there and get feedback.
43:24
I was kind of the same way as like a young, like immature
43:27
filmmaker. I would take it personal.
43:29
I would feel really defensive. I felt like I had to be this
43:31
like auteur that like, I get what I'm trying to say and you
43:34
just don't get it. And then I, I kind of learned in
43:37
college, like because of all all of our different classes, you
43:40
constantly get torn apart by your peers.
43:41
I mean, we were in classes where people would just raise their
43:44
hand and be like, I like this, I think this needs work, whatever,
43:47
whatever. And you had to take that
43:48
feedback. And the other thing that I
43:49
learned with that is that you don't have to take it all.
43:52
And so just nodding and being like, yeah, thank you for that
43:54
thought goes way further than trying to fight somebody who
43:57
like, clearly just like doesn't get it.
43:59
It. It's OK to be like, OK, thank
44:00
you for that opinion. And then you don't have to
44:03
implement it. You know, that was also a big
44:06
thing for me because I felt like when I got feedback, I had to do
44:08
it at all. And that's what I was like
44:10
fighting against. You can take some, you can leave
44:12
some. Yeah.
44:16
Yeah, that I would say to my younger self, a line that I
44:21
heard Mark Duplass give at a South by talk he gave me 7 or 8
44:25
years ago, which I thought was just so appropriate, which is
44:29
the idea that the cavalry isn't coming for you.
44:32
Yeah. And you know what, when you're
44:36
when you're setting out on your film career or your acting
44:38
career or whatever it is, you always kind of set these own
44:42
like your own milestones for yourself.
44:44
Like I got to do this. And then that's going to lead to
44:47
that because there's like we as, as people like narrative, we
44:52
like narrative structure. And so we like to try to like
44:55
put everything into a neat pattern that's supposed to
44:58
unfold for us. Just not the way that it works,
45:00
though. And so, you know, I, I kind of
45:03
thought that, yeah, this is how it's going to work for me.
45:06
And I'm going to, I'm going to get my film into this festival
45:08
and I'm going to get noticed and I'm on and on.
45:11
And you kind of. Handful of people that that
45:12
actually. Happened right?
45:14
Yeah, I'm just going to use the Kevin Smith path.
45:16
Yeah. Exactly.
45:18
Exactly. And, and what you realize is,
45:21
is, you know, sometimes there's really exciting moments that do
45:24
happen for you in your film career and, but they don't
45:27
necessarily pan out the way you, you think they will.
45:30
And then when you get hindsight, you look back and you go, oh, I
45:34
can trace how the film that I got to direct for HBO was
45:38
because we decided to do an I48 in 2015.
45:42
And that idea that we did there turned into a short film, which
45:46
went onto YouTube, which got the attention of somebody, which
45:49
allowed us to pitch to, which allowed us to make the movie.
45:52
It wasn't the path that you thought it would be.
45:55
So it's like, yeah, be ambitious and and do the thing, but but
45:59
like, just put your art out there work and just it's a war
46:03
of attrition really. Just like, keep going and just
46:07
don't try to figure out how it's all supposed to unfold for you,
46:11
because it's always going to be wrong and it's always going to
46:14
be something you never expected. I like that flexibility, so
46:17
important. I love how inspiring and
46:20
motivating all of your advice is to your younger selves, because
46:22
I think my advice to my younger self would be yes, you do need
46:25
to learn how to light a scene. At some point it would come up.
46:33
I have one more, if I may, backing off of that, which is to
46:38
like let go. In the process of making a film,
46:42
there has been so many times when a location falls through,
46:45
actor falls through, this thing happens that I'm like, oh, what
46:49
a colossal mess. Let's just not even do the film.
46:52
But then a replacement will come in that's even better than the
46:55
thing we originally had lined up.
46:56
A better actor comes in and takes the role.
46:59
A better location presents itself.
47:01
And so I like, spent three days, like, crying in my room for no
47:04
reason because the film gods are real and they're usually on your
47:08
side and just let them do as much as you're trying to do.
47:13
I think I've really learned that over the last year, like making
47:16
Trial 670 this year, I had my heart set on this location.
47:20
It's supposed to be a hospital set.
47:22
It's supposed to be grimy. It's a horror project and we
47:25
lost it two weeks before the shoot and I'm like, what do we
47:28
do? I'm so heartbroken.
47:30
It was perfect. It was the color scheme.
47:32
It was exactly what I wanted. And my sister who's a
47:35
photographer was like, well, worst case scenario, just use my
47:38
studio, which it's an average photography studio.
47:40
It's white blank walls and some windows.
47:43
And so I'm like, how are we going to make this work?
47:45
Well, my art director comes to me and was like, well, what if
47:47
we just pivot a little bit? We change the like vibe of the
47:50
film that we want. We go with like a more antique
47:52
look and kind of create this like old, almost 50s looking
47:56
hospital. And it turned out so much better
47:59
than the other location could have been.
48:00
And we had full reign over this location.
48:03
Like it was everything you could imagine.
48:05
So I think a big thing that I'm learning right now over the last
48:08
year is like just let go. Everything's going to happen how
48:11
it's meant to be, open to any doors that present themselves
48:14
and just go through it. Got to have faith as a.
48:17
Filmmaker. In the process, yeah.
48:20
Yeah. I'd love to hear if anyone else
48:22
has any stories, positive or negative, where you thought you
48:25
were getting into something and it turned into something else
48:29
that either led to other opportunities or you thought
48:33
this was going to be a great opportunity.
48:35
And it's like, Oh no, this didn't lead to anything at all.
48:41
There was that, you know, casting talent agency that that
48:44
came through the mall once a year when I was a kid.
48:48
But like Disney *. Like ours.
48:52
Modeling agency. That was gonna be my big break.
48:55
It turns out no. No.
48:58
Just walked you into JC Penney and you got your head shots
49:01
taken. Yeah, and all denim, actually.
49:04
My dad's. My dad is here today.
49:05
He can vouch for this. He nervously shrinks in the
49:09
background. Does anyone want to talk about
49:15
working as a filmmaker, doing the creative work and then doing
49:20
the stuff that pays the bills? And I, I'm pretty sure all of us
49:24
here are working, doing like for money, the thing that we also do
49:28
for our passion. Does anyone want to talk a
49:31
little bit about how you balance that?
49:34
You have to just do it. Those vertical videos.
49:40
No legitimate, no legitimately cuz like man, like this past
49:44
week I had five shoots this week that I just did and they were
49:49
like all day right? And I was exhausted and our cats
49:54
freaking sick. And I'm tired at 8:00 PM and I'm
49:58
like, man, I wanna go to bed, but I know that the cat's gonna
50:01
puke. So we have to feed them a
50:02
certain food and there's all those things happening.
50:05
But then once that's done, I know I have to go into my office
50:09
and I have to work on my screenplay.
50:10
Because The thing is, is if I keep putting it off and putting
50:14
it off and putting it off, it's never going to happen.
50:17
And there's a million, there's a million reasons why it shouldn't
50:20
happen. But the one reason why it should
50:22
happen is because you chose to make it happen.
50:25
No matter how tired you are, no matter how unappealing it seems
50:31
or that it's not going to work out.
50:32
Like, you know, you have a hospital that just falls
50:34
through. You have to do it.
50:36
You have to do the thing. Otherwise it's never going to
50:39
happen for you, right? So you, you're not always going
50:42
to feel inspired, you're not always going to feel energetic.
50:44
You're not always going to feel even stoked on an idea.
50:47
You might write something and halfway through it you're like,
50:49
Dang, this idea sucks. I don't even know if I want to
50:51
make it anymore. Or you're on set and you do one
50:54
of those pivots and you feel like the whole thing's different
50:57
because you're like, man, this is not as cool as I imagined.
51:02
But then like the result and the pride you feel is so much more
51:05
worth it than not doing it at all.
51:07
So no matter how tired you are, just fuck up and do it, you
51:11
know? Carry your own cattle prod and
51:14
use it on yourself, yeah? Put it and.
51:17
Stain. Yourself with it.
51:20
I would say cattle prods are another benefit of Idaho film
51:22
making, yes. We have plenty, they're readily
51:24
available. I think there's a, it's easy to
51:29
say we're, we're all in this boat.
51:32
There's a balance that you really have to kind of learn to,
51:35
to master because I, I mean, I know a lot of us Mason was just
51:39
talking about he's, he's getting ready to do a commercial
51:41
project. And while it's fun and there's
51:44
a, there's an artistic element to it, It's it's the day-to-day
51:47
job. So it's, it's the get up and
51:49
like the nine to five got to do all this stuff kind of thing.
51:52
I think it's just important to remember that you can still put
51:56
a little bit of your, of your voice and your artistic touch on
51:59
that, but it's never going to define you.
52:02
So the work that you do that you have to do on the day-to-day,
52:05
the commercial work, the corporate work, it's, it's just
52:09
kind of the, the means to the end kind of thing.
52:11
So you, you want to make sure that you always keep in your
52:14
mind this, this is not defining me.
52:16
This is not going to be the definition of me as an artist or
52:19
a filmmaker. This is not, I don't have to be
52:21
cemented into this. This is what I do each day
52:24
because it gives me the money to go buy the 20 million lights
52:28
that we have to buy every time we want to make a movie or
52:30
something. Like it's, it's how you pay the
52:32
bills until you're at a point where you're full time doing
52:36
what you want to be doing on your own, on your own terms.
52:38
But it's just a balance You really have to kind of learn to,
52:41
you might be able to speak better than this than me.
52:43
I mean, yeah, you're, I think you're right.
52:45
It is a balance. You know, there's no greater
52:49
motivator than like having to work on something you don't want
52:52
to work on to get you to. I push towards that, that
52:55
creative project you do want to do.
52:58
I work like 9 to 5 basically five days a week at an office
53:02
job. And I get to write commercials
53:06
and I get to direct commercial maybe every like two or three
53:10
months. And then if I'm not directing,
53:12
I'm art directing or assistant directing.
53:15
And so like there's so much or acting.
53:18
Yeah, they definitely get their money.
53:22
Worth out of. Me, there's so much I've learned
53:26
from the job. I've been there about a year and
53:28
there's so much on the like business side of things,
53:30
building pitch decks and like working in Figma and all this
53:34
stuff that I hate and can't stand.
53:37
But it's like part of the film world.
53:40
It's like part of the business, especially if you do want to be
53:42
successful in it. And so for me, like coming home
53:47
every day at, you know, five, 5:00, it's difficult to sit in
53:52
that office and, and write, especially on a, when it's a
53:56
busy week and you've poured all your creative energy into
53:59
something else. But you got to take the time to
54:01
do it. You got to take the time to get
54:04
out of where you're at, right? I, I see my job as a stepping
54:08
stone to the next opportunity. And I wanted this job so bad.
54:12
Like I needed it and I got it. And I'm a year in and I'm like,
54:16
I want out of the show. Somebody Get Me Out of here
54:21
anyways. Yeah, yeah, it's a balance.
54:25
And I think doing those creative things, like every time you do
54:28
it and you're back in that role, whatever it, whatever it is on
54:31
set, doing that thing you want to do it like fills you up
54:34
again. And I can't go too long without
54:37
doing that. Yeah, I think having a creative
54:40
community around you is super important because that'll keep
54:43
you motivated when you're burnt out from all the commercial
54:45
work. Mason and I and our buddy Chance
54:48
Owen, we get together as often as we can, a couple times a
54:50
month to have writing meetings. We just sit in a coffee shop,
54:53
We'll trade scripts, we'll talk about what we're working on.
54:55
And that is like, it keeps you going.
54:57
You know, you can't show up to the next meeting and not have
54:59
done anything. So that's really motivational.
55:02
So having people around you that like are trying to do the same
55:06
thing as you that are on, you know, some kind of trajectory
55:09
with you has been really beneficial for me to not just
55:13
get drowned in all the commercial work and get lost on
55:17
on my way. I love.
55:18
That that's so cool. It's the accountability thing
55:20
that really, because it's so easy, like you guys were saying
55:23
to go home and just like, I just want to sit in front of the TV
55:25
and do whatever, which we do sometimes it happens.
55:28
But yeah, that that level of accountability is is awesome.
55:31
Yeah, Mark, you can watch movies.
55:33
It's yeah. I can watch stuff on my phone,
55:35
it's fine. It's an interesting edit there
55:37
research. I like how they lit that.
55:39
Something that always motivated me was that the the Wachowskis
55:43
wrote The Matrix while they were working construction jobs.
55:45
So talk about the most labor intensive job you could have
55:48
working that all day. And then they lived together.
55:51
They would come home, sit together and just write all
55:53
night. And that's literally how they
55:54
wrote The Matrix, was just being accountability partners for each
55:57
other and not giving into the I'm tired today problem.
56:01
Yeah. You know what a good motivator
56:03
is, too, is when you're taking a break from something and you see
56:09
all the stuff that everyone around you is making and you're
56:11
like, damn people, everyone's gonna forget about me.
56:14
I need to make something. Spite is always a good
56:19
motivator. Like that one grows on you
56:23
actually on the subject of the construction job one there is
56:26
one thing that I I do I heard recently on a shoot and I really
56:30
wanted to emphasize is that yes, it's fantastic if you're doing
56:33
the work you love commercially and creatively.
56:37
And that's phenomenal. And yes, it is a struggle and
56:40
you don't always love what you do, even though you sure wish
56:43
you did. But it's also OK if your other
56:47
job, if your commercial job, your actual paying work, the
56:50
thing that keeps food on your table and roof over your head
56:52
has nothing to do with filmmaking.
56:54
It's completely OK. Like there's nothing wrong with
56:57
it and there's nothing wrong with it going in phases and
56:59
stages. And sometimes everything's
57:02
coming up aces and you're booking work and you're getting
57:04
gigs and you're making the commercial thing and this is
57:06
your life. And then sometimes you're back
57:08
to working at a nine to five office job or you're connecting
57:11
with a temp agency or whatever it is that you're doing.
57:13
None of these things are make you less than or a failure or
57:17
less than the filmmaker you are. Yeah, completely.
57:21
I think we should just compare ourselves to Kevin Smith all the
57:23
time. I do daily.
57:25
Max out credit cards, you know the major film festivals and
57:28
become famous. That's how you're supposed to do
57:30
it it. Sounds responsible.
57:32
Or a victorious thing. And eventually have a heart
57:34
attack and almost die. Let's end with one last question
57:39
here, and that's we sent these out to you guys ahead of time.
57:43
As an indie film maker, if you could bend the ear of someone
57:46
with influence in any of the film making realms, who would
57:49
you talk to and what would you tell or ask them?
57:52
Does anyone want to start there? A part of me, a part of me wants
57:58
to talk to either the marketing person at Netflix when they were
58:03
first going to streaming and how they figured out how to market
58:06
something that nobody knew they wanted yet because that was
58:10
brilliant, or the person at Google who saw YouTube in 2006
58:15
and was like, yeah, 1 1/2 billion should do it.
58:18
Now it's worth like over $500 billion.
58:20
Like that is a great ROI. I want to make investment calls
58:24
like that. How did they know?
58:25
I don't. Yeah, I don't know.
58:32
I mean, there's there's film makers that I absolutely just
58:36
cherish and envy. And if I had five minutes to sit
58:40
down with them, I mean, probably wouldn't even get 2 words out
58:42
because I'd just be like, Oh my God.
58:45
Yeah. I mean, James Wan is probably my
58:50
biggest filmmaking inspiration right now.
58:52
And David F Sandberg, which if you guys don't know, James Wan
58:55
did Saw and The Conjuring films and he's big into horror.
58:59
He also did Aquaman, which he doesn't really want to say.
59:04
I, I really would love to, I have just a 5 minute
59:07
conversation with him because I just think he's such a
59:11
visionary. And sometimes even for me, I
59:14
just lose sight of the vision. I get so wrapped up in the, the
59:19
technical or the, is it possible or the just the everyday and I,
59:25
I miss the, just the having the visionary aspect.
59:28
I get to really now luckily work with somebody everyday and Drew,
59:32
because I'm working with Drew now, who kind of has that
59:35
sensibility. He's just such a visionary.
59:37
And so that's inspiring to me. So if I could ask somebody
59:40
something, it would be James Wan.
59:43
Also, why the warns and why The Conjuring universe?
59:46
Because I'm obsessed with it. So how do I get in?
59:48
How do I get in on that? That would be my other question.
59:51
It's cheesy, but. I sorry, I was just, I think
59:57
that and I think Mason and Haley actually talked about this
1:00:01
earlier, there are people that have.
1:00:04
Redefine the model. You know, you mentioned Kevin
1:00:07
Smith, that was like a huge deal.
1:00:09
But then we get to the Youtubers of today that are crowdfunding
1:00:14
their projects and then they're selling them to Neon and like
1:00:17
things like that. I would love to learn more about
1:00:21
crowdfunding because even in filmmaking I've always been like
1:00:25
reserved and asking for other people for money.
1:00:28
Because The thing is, is like, I'm that dude, that's like, I'm
1:00:32
going to tell you this, you're probably not going to make
1:00:34
anything from this. And then they're like, you know,
1:00:38
but having a great crowdfunding campaign and the model of what
1:00:43
that looks like today, having good copy, having, you know, a,
1:00:48
a great enticing introduction video, making sure that it gets
1:00:53
seen and out to the publications that it needs to get out to that
1:00:56
it reaches the audience that it needs to reach.
1:00:58
It's like such an art form. And it's not just about like,
1:01:02
hey guys, I have a big idea. Would you throw money at it?
1:01:06
It's like, no, you really have to like cater it to the people
1:01:09
that want to donate to it rather than just friends and family.
1:01:12
Because I promise you, unless you're real lucky, you know,
1:01:15
asking your aunt and uncle is not going to get you to
1:01:18
$1,000,000. So I think that's cool.
1:01:22
That's so cool today that people have an audience and then they
1:01:25
crowdfund and they do a great job and then they distribute.
1:01:29
It's awesome. It's a great model.
1:01:31
I mean, you kind of have to like even the guy.
1:01:33
I mean, it's been a long time now, but Jim Cummings, who like
1:01:36
won Sundance with his short, had to kick start his feature, like,
1:01:41
you know, crowdfund his feature. That, that, that path that we
1:01:46
all kind of grew up believing in the 90s path of indie filmmaking
1:01:49
and Tarantino and the Cohens and yeah, that's out the window.
1:01:53
I, I guess I'd love to talk to somebody back then and see like
1:01:58
who's the guy that shook their hand and went, we're going to
1:02:01
make you a star, you know, I want to know where that guy is.
1:02:05
Harvey Wines, he's in prison. It's Harvey Weinstein.
1:02:09
Yeah. I wasn't going to say it, Dylan,
1:02:15
but you. Did he's locked up?
1:02:19
No more applications. Yeah, we could succinctly say
1:02:27
goodbye. Anybody.
1:02:29
Else. Bless you too.
1:02:31
I can't think of. It OK.
1:02:33
Well, with that, we will succinctly say farewell and
1:02:35
we'll stick around and do Q&A with anybody that has any
1:02:38
questions about it. So goodbye,