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IFH 844: How to Turn a YouTube Idea Into a Feature Film with Patrick Epino · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: forty four. Cinema should make You forget. You're sitting in
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: a theater, Roman Polanski.
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  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
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  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we showed you how to survive
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  Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
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  Speaker 1: the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: I am your humble.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
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  Speaker 2: the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
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  Speaker 2: a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
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  Speaker 2: independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory
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  Speaker 2: a profitable business. With case studies examining successes and failures.
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  Speaker 2: turn your passion into a profitable career. If you're making
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  Speaker 2: a feature film, series, or any other kind of video content,
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  Speaker 2: the Film Entrepreneur method will set you up for success.
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  Speaker 2: The book is available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook.
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  Speaker 2: If you want to order it, just head over to
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  Speaker 2: www dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Showing me today is Patrick Inpino. Patrick is an actor
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: and producer and he's known for The Void, Mister sad Man,
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: and of course Awesome Asian Bad Guys. Patrick is a
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: graduate of the University of Chicago and he earned his
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: MFA in Cinema from the Film program at San Francisco
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: State University. Patrick, how are you, sir.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Good good Dave?
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: How you doing pretty good? It's pretty hot here in
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Philadelphia right now?
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, how hot are you talking?
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I well, I don't have an exact temperature, but I
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: put my head out the window and I was like,
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: oh my god, what the hell is going on here?
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: So I've got like you can't see it obviously, but
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: there's like I have my air conditioner kicked on like
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: before I was talking, Like right before we started this interview,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I ran out to like make sure my air conditioners
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: down even lower.
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: Oh man, Yeah, it's it is it like humid out
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: there too, very humid.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: That's what's killing me right now. It's just how humid
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: it is.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I just I just can't do the humidity. Man.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: I mean it was hot here. It was like nineties
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: for a while, but it's like a dry heat, you
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: know what I mean, not so oppressive as the as
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: the humidity out there on the East coast. But uh
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: you know, hopefully hopefully it passes.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's just one of these. The worst part
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: is whenever I do these the podcast, I can't actually
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: have a fan on anywhere near me, so like it's
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: if I'm like depending on that central air to pump
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: in some cold air. Uh so just you know, but yeah,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: it's just one of those humid days. But thanks for
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: everyone for listening to me talk about the Philadelphia weather.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: I'm just I'm just kick killing everyone's time right now
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: talking about the weather here in Philadelphia.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: But you know, uh, to get to something more interesting, Uh,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: you know, Patrick, could you just give us a little more,
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: a little bit more about your background, you know, and
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: how you got started in film.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area. I
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: was born uh in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and went
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: to college in Chicago, came back, went to uh went
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: to film school sco State, and moved to LA and
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: then just you know, started making like films, independent films,
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: short films. And then fast forward to twenty eleven and uh,
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  Speaker 4: I met this dude, Stephen Dipianca, who became my partner
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: in a YouTube channel slash Media studio that we started
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: called the National Film Society. We started, we became part
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: of PBS Digital Studios, which is an online a YouTube network,
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: and then we decided one day to make something called
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: Awesome Ation Bad Guys Is, which is what WORP which
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: is out.
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  Speaker 3: Right now, you know, So you know, I wanted to
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: I always ask this because you you actually went to
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: film school. Yeah, getting out. Now, what are your thoughts
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: on the whole film school debate?
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: What's the debate?
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: The debate is the debate is you have some on
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: the on this side that's say that film school isn't necessary,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: and then you have the other ones who say, yes,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: it is necessary. Everyone has the reasons why, but I
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: just wanted to get your you know, your own experiences
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: and opinion on the matter.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think it's necessary. I think it's helpful
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: in a lot of cases. But I also think, like,
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: you know, like there's no reason that you have to
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: go to film school. Both Steven and I went to
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: different film schools. He went to n y U. And
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: you know, and I've known a lot of people to
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: go to some of the bigger film schools like usc U,
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: c l A, cal Arts and stuff like that. And
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: you know, there's there's been people who have like positive
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: experiences and negative experiences. For me, I I went to
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: San Franco State because it was in all honesty, I
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: didn't want to take a standardized test again ever in
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: my life. So I looked for schools that didn't require
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: like the gre So Man, I also look for schools
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: where I wouldn't have to go into HU Debt. But
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: you know, and I loved it. I love the experience.
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: I think like for me, it was something a place
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: where I could really have a lot of fun and
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: like exercise some uh some stupid ideas, get some bad,
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: bad ideas out of my system, you know, bad films
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  Speaker 4: out of my system, and uh and and try to
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: learn something. You know. That being said, like you know,
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: when you get into when you go to film school,
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: a lot of it is like you know who you
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: end up working with and knowing afterwards. So you know,
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: you hear this all the time, like uh oh, you know,
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: make friends with people and and and I guess create
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: like that network. And I think those are things that
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: I've found from other people who have say gone to
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: some of the bigger film schools that they've been able
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: to fall back on. It's not true for everybody, but
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: I've known people actually to go to some of these
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: schools just for the network, you know.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: And that's actually one of the things that gets brought
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: up a lot, is the the networking opportunities for you know,
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: A couple episodes ago I had on Richard Walter, who
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: is you know, teaches at U c l A. And
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: he mentioned that, you know, for their network alone, it's
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: worth the price of the tuition.
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: And he and he points to any of his graduates,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: some of his graduates different movies. For Steven Spielberg are
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: the ones who are doing this and that. So that's
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: you know, that's one of the things that he uses
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: to to sort of you know, say, yeah, you should
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: go to Well again. Like you said though, that they
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: have the bigger programs and you see at usc U
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: c l A.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's all about the opportunities and you know,
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: like like like what you make of them. I mean,
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: that's that's that's kind of like something you do. You know,
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: people's parents tell them, right, and all of a sudden
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: you realize, oh, yeah, it is what you kind of
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: make of it. Right. So you know, for those people
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  Speaker 4: who don't really want perhaps like the structure of a
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: school or like to have to quote unquote answer to
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: some like assignments or professors, then maybe it's not for you,
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: and you can find out that, you know, you create
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: your own work and you create your own network in
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: other ways, right, like obviously like some of these kids
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: who grew up on YouTube.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: Uh, they a lot of them.
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: I have no idea, but I assume none of them
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: have gone or not none of them that many of
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: them haven't gone to film school, but they've developed developed
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: their own networks from what they've done. And so, you know,
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  Speaker 4: I think it's all about, you know, there's a million
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: ways to get to the same place, and I think
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: it's it's about, like, you know, the best and the
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: best way for an individual to get somewhere. You know,
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: if you're very like driven, then you know, maybe you
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: have the personality where you don't have to be in
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: school for it. But if you really thrive on structure
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: and kind of like you know, slowly learning the ropes
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: of how to do things and being in a being
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: in that kind of environment, then uh, then maybe film
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: school is for you.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, that's a very good point to make.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: And you know, and again, you know, I know, oh
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: that's uh, you know the trade Parker Matt Stone. You know,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: they they came from Adammssetta nowhere because they went to
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: school in Colorado, and I mean the school that they
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: went to they didn't have like a very well known
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: film program, at least of my knowledge. I might be
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: completely wrong, but uh, you know, and they and look
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: what they've did. I actually the reason I bring those
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: up is bring them up is because I actually been
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: reading a book by their producer for Cannibal the Musical,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: which they actually made while they were in college, and
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: he actually talks about where they got the money. It's
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: called it's called Spadwinkle. I don't know if you've ever
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: the book is called that. I don't know if you ever.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you've ever seen Cannibal the Musical,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: but I haven't. It's a it's hysterical, and it also
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: if you like South Park in any way, shape or formula,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: like Accountable the Musical. Basically, it's a it's a musical
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: about Albert Packard, who was a real life guy who
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: actually went camp into this expedition deep in Colorado and
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: ended up know, eating some people.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: I think I know that story. I think I've heard
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: that somewhere in my lifetime. I will look it up.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: I will, I will look it up. Indeed, is it so?
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: It's a movie musical or it's actually on like live performance.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: It's a movie musical, but right now it's actually coming
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: out now as its own stage production as well.
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: Oh sweet. I saw a Book of Mormon and that
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: was fun, So I will have to check out something
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: about a cannibal that should probably be even better. Yeah.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: A Book of Mormon, I think is going to play
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: until the Earth goes into the sun. So yeah, I
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: think I think.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: That is probably the best musical I've ever seen in
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: my life. Out of the two musicals I've seen in
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: my life. It was better than Cats.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Was very good. I'm usually not a musical guy. I'm
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: more like a David Mammot type guy, but even I
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: agree like that was that was very well done and
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: it was hilarious.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So you know, just you know, just to
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: sort of before we move on to talking about your
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: other projects. When you were in college, you know, create
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: you know, and you were saying you to get some
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: of these projects out of you, uh, you know, when
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: you were creating some of these projects or your entire
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: time there at college, you know, did you sort of
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: see what what you had at your disposal, meaning like locations,
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: stuff like that, and then work backwards or did you
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe for your last project, try something a
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: little more ostentatious and to try or something more ambitious
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: and try to to do something that was like you know,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: you know, we'd have to really you know, uh go outreach,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: you know, reach out to get some stuff that maybe
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: that I've had before, if you know what I mean.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: I I tended more just to kind of see what
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: I had and then work backwards, you know. I mean
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: when I was in college, like I I wanted, I
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: thought about making films, but then it wasn't until after
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: I really got out of college and before film school
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: and then going to film school. A lot of it
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: was just uh you know, like I remember my thesis film.
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: It like I think everybody had this, you know, like
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: this idea what a thesis film was supposed to be,
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: and it's like this big you know, big production, and
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: you know you really kind of go for it and
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: you shoot on like real film and all this other stuff.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: I made mine, like for five hundred bucks, like on
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: you know, like one of these really old like one
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: of these canon digital cameras that came out in the
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: early two thousands. You know, I was really of the
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: mindset of just kind of like taking an idea and
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: then just trying to get it out as as as
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: quickly as as possible, you know, Like as I've as
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: I've moved on, it's like, oh man, you see what
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: you can do and what other people can do with
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: with like the big fun tools and stuff, and i'd
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: love you know, like those are awesome. But I think
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: just starting out, it was like, you know, let me,
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: let me just see, let me like a kind of explore,
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: and then you could be like quickly like oh man,
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: that was garbage and just you know, throw it away.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Uh.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: You know when when you look back now you can
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: see a lot of the mistakes. You know, like I
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: look back at stuff I've made and now it's you know,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: the mistakes. You you can see that more mistakes, even
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: more than other people. Uh, because you know, I'm sure
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: you know you've shown when you show things for people,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: sometimes they don't even notice other things. And then but to
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: you it's like standing right out in front of you
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: know what I mean.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean, uh, you've seen something like
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: a thousand times, you know, and you you know, like
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: things that you try to fix. You've you've poured hours
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: into it, and so you can't help but see like
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: the the flaws. But I mean, I think that's the
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: beauty of you know, putting it out there and letting
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: it go finally because other people can see it. And
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: you know, most most people don't notice those things, you know,
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: and they just kind of want, uh, they want like
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: a great entertaining story, something that they had engage them.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: You know, they're not right off the bat trying to like,
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: you know, look for all the fixes and like the
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: and all the places you've screwed up, right, that's for
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: that's for later down the road. But yeah, I think
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: uh uh lost my train of thought.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Sorry, it happens all the time on this podcast.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: I've done that on camera with lots of times.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: So you know, uh, so you know now that you know,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: just I want to just sort of move on and
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: talk about uh you some of your other projects, you know,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: uh and particularly Awestimation Bad Guys. Now, I wanted to
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: ask you, you know, how did you just starting at
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: the beginning, and the beginning is the script obviously, so
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you how did this script or
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: this actually I should say this concept idea come about?
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: Well the concept so, like I like I mentioned, me
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: and my my friend Steve had this have this YouTube
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: channel National Film Society, and like a month into it,
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: we made this video called excuse me called we made
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: this video called Awesome Asian Bad Guys where we just
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: talked about our favorite Asian villains from movies and TV
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: that we grew up watching in the eighties and nineties,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: and you know, we realized that, like, you know, the
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: this is like a thing in movies, right, Like there's
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: always like an Asian dude who's a bad guy, who's
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: like he's like, you know, badass. He can fight, he
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: can shoot guns, he can like cut you up with
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: swords and everything, and he doesn't say much, if anything
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: at all, and then he just dies, you know, he
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: gets killed by the hero in some really just egregious way,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: you know, like like getting blown up by an exploding
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: tip arrow in Rainbow two, or or like getting killed
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: by an ice cream cone or something, you know, and
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: and we were just like, oh, this is kind of fun.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: We made this two minute video and at the end
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: we were like, it would be awesome if if if
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: somebody made something with these guys like the Expendables, but
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: instead of like old action heroes, old Asian villains, you know,
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: Asian bad guys, and we kind of just threw it
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: out there. It was like just something to wrap up
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: the video. And then you know, we got some good
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: responses from it and people were like, oh, yeah, that's
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: a good idea. And then all of a sudden, we're like,
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: you know, when we decided like, oh let's make something,
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: We're like, let's make this, you know, and so we
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: Steve and I reached out to some friends and supporters
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: and stuff. We pulled on a few producers, this guy
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: Milton Lou Diana Williams, Phil you and Milton was our writer,
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: and we decided to kickstart the thing and it was
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: kind of like a different process because we didn't have
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: a script. We had like a concept and then we
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: just like made a kickstarter video. And Phil our producer.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: He our executive producer. He has like this really popular
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: Asian pop culture blog called Angry Asian Man, and you know,
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: once he got kind of like on board, it was
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: a lot easier to get people to like buy in,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: and that we you know that Steve and I weren't
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: just like these you know, crazy lunatics who had this
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: ridiculous idea, and we did a kickstarter. We raised fifty
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: four grand, like at in October of twenty twelve. We
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: shot in twenty thirteen, screened it around twenty fourteen, and
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: now it's out, and.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: You know, that is an awesome story. I want to
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: you know, how everything sort of came together. I'll you know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I actually have heard of that blog, by the way,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: the Angry Asian Man, and I didn't understand if that
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: was like if he was serious or if he was
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: like this is sort of like a parody account, So
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: could you is it?
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: Is he?
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Is he serious? Patrick? Or is this like a is
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: like a parody account?
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Phil you He's not that angry of a person. He's
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: had this blog for a long time. It's not a
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: parody at all. But like the name is just like
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: you know, it's a pop culture blog and he talks about,
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: you know, things that are important to like, you know,
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Asian Americans, whether it's like political things like you know,
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: current events, or entertainment type stuff like those are all
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: things that kind of like cover the scope of his
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: interests and everything. Like he has a film background, like
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: a journalism background, and so it's just all kind of
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: combines in one place. So he's not necessarily angry. It's
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: just the moniker I believe that he came up with.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: And a lot of people think like, oh man, this
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: guy's just what this guy mad about? But he's not
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: really that angry. He's a good dude, very good dude.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's good to know, because I was wondering if
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe he screams all his blogs or something
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: or whatever.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: But no, no, not at all, not at all.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, Well, you know, off to check out a site
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: then sometime, so you know, just to sort of I
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: can step back talk about crowdfunding. Awesome as bad guys.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to ask you, how did you
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: put together your whole campaign? I mean that's sort of
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: like a million dollar question, right because everyone always wants
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: to know what was the secret? Sauce was a successful campaign?
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: So you know, could you give us you know, a
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: little uh, you know, any tips or any insight to
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: your successful campaign?
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: Sure? I think a lot of it was just putting.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: Putting a lot of the kickstarter right, like it always
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: starts strong and then there's like those weeks where it's
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: just flat and UH. And then maybe if you're lucky
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: like you, you finish off and you and you get
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: your goal. But during those weeks, they were stressful because
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: what you really don't want is to like, you know,
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: no one wants to like kind of fail in public,
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: right and because you also like tell everyone you know,
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: you're doing this, and then all of a sudden, if it
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: kind of goes could put then you're like.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't really you know, ignore that that happened.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: But you know, a lot of it was just constantly
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: UH an outreach, you know, creating content, whether they were
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: graphics or videos. We did a lot of like these
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: webathons where we would do things like, you know, take
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: take shots of alcohol for money if people pledged during
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: that span, we would sing songs just goofy, goofy stuff
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: and you know people and also we we brought like,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: you know, some of our cast on because a lot
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: of the people that were into UH, that were part
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: of a lot of our backers were like, you know,
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: super stoked to see some of the people that were
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: in UH and taking part of the project, and I
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: think a lot of it also helped that you know,
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: Steve and I had been making YouTube videos for about
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: a year at that point and just kind of like
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: the shameless self promotion of getting people to try to
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: like watch our videos, and also, uh, you know, it
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: kind of melded well you know what I mean, It
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: was like it just it didn't miss a beat, but
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: it just kind of ramped up a little bit more.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: And uh, you know it helped like having again like uh,
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: like a big like a big team, a strong team,
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: constantly pushing because you know, people know is what I
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: know what it's like when it's just kind of you
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: hustling an idea, but when you have like a team,
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: it's it's a it's it's way more, way more effective.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, I've done crowdfunding myself,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: and the first two times were in two thousand and nine,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: and that's when Kickstar wasn't around that it was just
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: indiegog right, And believe me, it was like the the
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: the question I had to answer every single time was
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: what is crowdfunding? And the second is what's indieg go.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: Like is this is this legal? You know is this,
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: why are you asking for money? You know what I mean?
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: Who does that? Right? But now now everybody does it,
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: and you know you get all the kickstarter like posts
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: and emails on Facebook and stuff.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how you know when you're you're in the
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: film ministry. Now is your entire timeline and Twitter timelines
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: are just nothing but kickstarters and all sorts of other stuff.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: And you know, I sometimes I'm just like, my god,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: you know, I open up my Twitter on my phone,
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: I'm like, geez, it's just you know nothing. But you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: new film projects from you know, what really gets me
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: to Patrick is when they don't even introduce themselves. Like
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: I meet random people all time on Twitter, and they
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: don't even introduce themselves or say hey Dave, what's going on?
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: They just go right into, hey I need money, give
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: me now. And You're like, what the hell.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: Right, right, because we're already at a point man, we're
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: like everybody's so so inundated with those right that Like that,
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: you know, there's kind of a craft to it, right,
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: because you really have to get through people's filters at
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: a certain point. You know, there's like there's like a
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: little bit of a you know, sometimes there's different people
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: at different times crowdfunding like fatigue, you know, and it's
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: it's I don't know, like i'ven't done a crowdfunding you
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: know campaign in a while or or or helped with one,
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: So I don't know if it's like tougher now and
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: then it was a few years ago because it's more
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: popular now, but there's just so many more of them,
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: So I don't know. It's it's it'll be interesting if
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: it one I have to do one again.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, a lot of I want to word
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: this correctly. I think a lot of people have sort
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: of seen this and seen other people do it, and
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: they said like, hey, that seems easy, and then they
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: get into it and it's like, oh my god, this
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: is a full time job. So not only do I
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: have to work my other full time job, I got
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: to come home and do this full time job. And
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: you know, I've seen so many crowdfunding campaigns crashed and
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: burned and immediately that person's back up on Twitter or Facebook.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Crowd funding doesn't work. This thing's all rag.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've seen some things and it's it's one of
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: those things too, right, Because like if you've done one
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: and you put the work in, Like when someone else
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: is like, okay, it's so we you know, they it
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: seems like they're just kind of like they believe it's
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: so easy just to put it up, you know, do
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: a little video in your computer and ask for money
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: and then like it'll come, you know, Like I've seen
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: people do things and like I'm like, you know, are
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: you are you serious? You know, like you know there's
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: there's great projects. But then sometimes you get a couple
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: like the ones I think you're referring to, or maybe
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: you've seen before, where they just don't understand, like they're
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: not like you know that there's there's something, there's a
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: give and take, you know what I mean, there's an
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: effort that has to be made. You actually have to
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: see that effort right for me to care about what
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: it is that you're doing. Like I've seen people who
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: who will like uh uh, you know, do a a
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: Actually I'm not going to talk about it. It might come
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: up with somebody else, but but you know what I'm saying,
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: It's like when they don't put the effort in, you're
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: just like, oh, you know what, not I'm not even
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: watching this?
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right, you know. And it's some
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: some of the things that I've seen on some of
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: these crowdfunding campaigns, whether it's you know, they don't have
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: a video, or I look at their perks and it's like,
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: you know, hey, ten dollars gets you a thank you tweet,
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: fifty dollars gets you a postcard or something. I'm like,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: what the hell is this? Like who created this? Like
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: you as like a thank you tweet is just should
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: be anyway that should just be common courtesy, you know,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: And it's just some of this stuff, and then you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: it's just eventually, you know, that's why I know anyone
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: who ever comes to me privately and just asks for
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: any help, like I've given some people help before, and
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: I'm always like, look, networking is the first thing, and
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: then sales is like the second thing, because what I
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: mean by that is you have to have if you
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: have a list of people that you know and have
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: talked to, they're more open to hear your sales pitch
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: than some random stranger you know, who you've never met before.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely, Yeah, And I've seen some of those,
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: some of those campaigns, the where the the perks or
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: rewards or whatever. It's like, oh, for ten grand, like
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: you get a credit and you can visit the set.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: Flight not included, you know what I mean. It's like
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: these it's just random, random things, and it's like, really,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: are you really that kind of like full of the
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: lack of perspective, you know what I mean? Sometimes and
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: it's like I don't mean to sound like like.
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: A crotchety old man, but like I'm like, I'm like,
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: come a, no, no, you got to be the crotchy
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: old man sometimes, so you got to be like you
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: damn kids, get off my lawn.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: But trust me, I'm that way sometimes too. Patrick. I'm
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: just like, you know, I'm you know, after you get
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: hit up with so many crowdfunny campaigns, you're just like, look, guys,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: this is how you're scrowing up and this is how
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: you're doing it, you know what I mean?
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, oh man.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: And uh but you know, I'm glad you guys were successful.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: As a side note, I actually saw your project and
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: I did not remind myself to contribute because I would
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: have obviously I'm a huge Asian movie fan, and obviously
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: I would have contributed to this. But I just completely
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: forgot to remind myself to contribute. So the next one, Patrick,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: I'll owe you one.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Okay, awesome, So we'll make a note of that.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: You put that in the bank and then you know,
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: sometimes you can you know, charge me ten grand to
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: come to the set, like not included, right, yeah, lodging
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: not provided, right, I'll just drive there and sleep in
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: my car exactly exactly, so you know, so you know,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: I want now let you you know, we're funded in everything,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: you know, in this whole process of creating awesomation. Bad guys,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: you know we're we're about did you actually reach out
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: for casting? I mean, I know you have some pretty
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: cool actors involved in here, so you know, how did
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: you go about reaching out to all of them?
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: Well, we'd actually made a couple of YouTube videos with
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: Randall Park and Aaron Takahashi, and you know, the Asian
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: American like entertainment community is pretty pretty uh. A lot
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: of people know each other, you know, because they'll kind
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: of run into run in the same crowds, and like,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: you know, a lot of people go out for the
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: same stuff, you know, and so a lot of folks
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: knew each other, and I think like U. For us,
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: it was kind of like going after going to one
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: person in the next and the next and again. Like
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: like like I said, having having a strong team and
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: having Phil on board was was important because in all honesty,
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: like it gave us more legitimacy. And you know, people
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: had seen some our videos and that was helpful too
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: because it was like who are these clowns? And then
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: they would kind of be like, oh, let me click
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: on this link and you sent me and see what
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: and they're like, oh, okay, they don't seem like complete idiots,
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: you know, so now they I think it was a
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: process of just going like after one person and getting
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: like them to buy in and then the next person.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: Then it's like kind of a snowball effect and you know,
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: the whole the whole time, it was a big I
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: had like a big family vibe to it, you know,
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: on set during that table read before we shot everything,
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: it was it was, it was, it was very cool.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: And then you know, that's great when you can actually
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: get that synergetic effect U for the for the cast,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: and I mean, and that's awesome too. Again you know,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: back to network and we're just talking about that, you know,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: and that's that's amazing. You were able to, you know,
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: to reach out to them. So so, you know, I
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: don't want to say easily, but you know, you I
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: guess you could say had less obstacles let's say, to
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: reach out to some of these people.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: You know, we'll be right back after a word from
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a different path, you know, like because
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: I guess in the traditional sense it's like, oh, you
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: write a script and like, oh, you go to some actors.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: Maybe you have to go through their agents or maybe
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: like if you know somebody who knows them, you kind
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: of like ask them to to talk to you or
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: like ask for contact INFI you know. So again, like
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: I think just by having made like, you know, so
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: many videos and being out there and and it was
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: it was definitely, it was definitely positive. It was definitely helpful.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: It would have been a lot harder if we were
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: more anonymous and we're just kind of like trying to
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: reach people in a more indirect way. So I think
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: that was Yeah, that was that was hugely helpful. We'd
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: probably still be trying to get cast if if we
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: hadn't made all those YouTube videos. We'd still be doing
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: it now.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: And you know, that's a great point to make. And
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: if there's one thing that I would definitely take away
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: from from that, it is you you guys really had
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: a built in audience. But also to add to that
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: that you which means you guys really had the pre
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: launch lockdown, meaning that you had you know, I always
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: say a three monthly time at least for a project.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: That way you can just it's talking about it to people,
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: it's building up an email list, it's building up a
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Twitter list, it's building up all that good stuff, and
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: then when you finally do launch the thing, it's not
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: a surprise to everyone. Some people will always be a
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: surprise too, but you know, at least you know your
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: core group, there will not be a surprise.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Right right, we were we were already kind of out
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: there and we did we'd been talking about the project
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: and we shooting videos to update everybody and keeping like
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean, that's that's a huge load of work,
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean, to keep churning out like
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: the content and just keeping in touch with everyone who
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: is like generous enough to support us and to believe
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: in what it was. We were trying to do so.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: You know, uh, now that you you have the scripts
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: and you had everything casted at this point, you know
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: when it was the first you know, if we could
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: go to the first day of filming. You know, I
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: know that you and Steven actually co directed this, So
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: you know, how how did that directing style works? I
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: know sometimes you know we could sometimes you know, you
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: could see things white. He could see things as black.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: So you know, how did you guys work together co
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: directing this?
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: It was terrible. I hate that, dude. Now it went
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: it went well. I mean we've been working together for
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: by the time we shot, I believe we've been working
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: together for almost two years, and you know, we developed
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: a good shorthand of how we of how we do things,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: and we we talked about that actually ahead of time
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: because we also know, like it's it's difficult to have
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: to you know, the two headed dragons sometimes and you know,
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: a lot of it was just kind of talking about
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: like you know, maybe one of us would focus on
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: something on one day and then maybe we would like
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: kind of just switch off, you know what I mean,
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: I want to do this scene, I want to do
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: that scene. Something you just kind of work out ahead
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: of time because I guess, you know, like it's a
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: year enough stories and it's like, oh, we should actually
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: you know, address this and tackle this and prepare ourselves
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: for like, you know, any anything that might come up.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know, it's just it was helpful.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: You know. We we we're good friends and we work together,
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: well we have you know, we're very similar, but like
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: you know, also very different. You know, we we work
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: hard and we love what we do. But like you know,
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: he's he's he's he's his own person. I'm my own person.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: But it's just one of those things like if if
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: we hadn't again, like I keep mentioning, like the the
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: two years of working together and building up this body
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: of work, but man, you put those like hours in
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, it just, uh, it just
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: kind of you know, comes along, not necessarily seamlessly, but
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: it's it's a much much smoother ride now.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Just to ask a stupid question, but how much did
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: you storyboard?
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: Oh we didn't. We we did, like, uh, we did,
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: we didn't. What do you We did like overhead maps,
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: you know, for with our cinematographer NASA, and we we
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: thought of storyboarding, but it was just quick, quick and
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: dirty storyboards, you know, like stick figures and just when
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: we needed to, we were just trying to map out
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: like uh, camera moves and and just uh blocking and
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: stuff like that.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, Uh, I mean you know, I since you and
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: Stephen worked together so much, I'm sure where you know,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: a lot of that was you know already figured out.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: You know, you had a lot of I'm sure you
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: guys had all your notes you work with the DP,
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: and you know you were able to You said you
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: were able to work together so much beforehand. I'm sure
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: you know it wasn't such a such a shock, you
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: know what I mean?
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean you know, like, uh, I don't
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: think we storyboarded that much, but yeah, I mean it was.
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: It was a question of just like you know, getting
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: the covers we wanted, and you know, we knew that
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: even we knew that we couldn't like do crazy crazy shots,
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: you know, and so we were just like, okay, we're
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: going to be in this place. We scattered the location,
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: we looked at how we were going to make it
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: appear to be something else, and then we would set
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: things up and then we would just kind of like
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: get our shot list from that.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, and you know that that's you know, uh,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: you know very again you know going back to you,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: you guys able to work together so much, but U
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: and which is good, you know. I I mean sometimes
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: you know, I I have to storyboard like a madman,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: and you know it's it's I don't know, it's it's
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: just it comes down to whatever I think you're most
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: comfortable with, uh, because sometimes I've worked with like more experience.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: Like one thing I've learned on film sets is always
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: get a experience DP. And some some dps are like
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: don't worry, Dave, I know what a medium shot is
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: going to look like.
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: You know, it's right right, Yeah, I mean you know,
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: like I all storyboard things where like you know, it's
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: it's getting a little bit more complex, you know, all
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: storyboard like a sequence if it needs to be storyboarded.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: I mean like like fight scenes you know sometimes need
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: to be storyboarded. And that whole that whole like experience
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: was like completely new to me. And and and so
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: that was that was uh yeah, that was kind of
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: that was a trip.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, I mean yeah, doing some fight scenes,
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: I always I always left it up to my my
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: fight center hier Ferks. I did a fight sequence like
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: that a couple of years ago, and uh uh for
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: this film project we did, and uh I I ended
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: up like we were choreographing this thing first way too long.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: And then you know, it's one of those times where
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: just like literally day's got away with you, away from
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: you so quickly, and yeah, I mean and as you know,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: as as most things do a filmmaking right, So right,
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: So you know I wanted to ask you, you know,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: in casting Awesome Asian Bad Guys, I meant to ask
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: you this, was there anyone you tried to get but
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: you couldn't get?
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, I mean they're like, there's.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: I guess, can I guess? Can I guess one of them?
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: Yes?
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: Go for it was one of them? James Hang, Oh.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, man, absolutely, James Hong, like a
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: lot of people that we know know him, and so
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: I always joked around that, like, uh we asked him
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: four times if he would do it, if he would
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: be part of Awesome Asian Bad Guys, and four times
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: he turned us down. And I kept joking that we
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: kept asking him because he's so old. I thought he
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: would forget and say yes, but but no, he's a
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: really sweet, sweet sweet guy, very very like good dude.
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: He was shooting a movie at that point, so he
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: you know, like at a certain we're just like, oh, okay,
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: it's not gonna work, like maybe next time, you know,
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: And but he he's rad. You know, we want definitely wanted,
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: you know, uh LoWPAN, you know, I mean, come on,
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: big drumble. All the hn is one of the all
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: time greats.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: Favorite movie all time.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and so I think, yeah, he was he was
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: super cool. I think he was shooting like r I
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: p R I p R I p D or something that. Uh,
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: and yeah, he just he just couldn't couldn't make it.
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: But we also wanted Bolo. Uh do you know do
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: you remember that guy? Oh yeah from the Sport and
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: yeah bull mhm, yeah, yeah, we wanted him. And it's
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: kind of funny like we were searching for him, you know,
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: because it's like people knew him or knew where he was,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: and there was like he apparently he works out at
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: like a gym I guess, relatively close to where Steve lives.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: And so the idea was that Steve was just going
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: to go to the gym and try to like uh
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: solictit him for for awesome Asian bad guys ask him
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: for he would want to do it, but it never happened,
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: Like I think he probably would have gotten his neck
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: snapped in half. But it was he definitely was something
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: that we that we were hoping to get as well.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: Uh, you know that was funny. That's actually the first
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: two guys that came to my mind was James Hang
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: number two was Bolo. Number three was going to be
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Gerald Okamura.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Gerald, we we we know him, We've met him,
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: he's come. He's a he's a very good dude. He
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: uh lives down here out here in l A and
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: uh uh yeah, like he's he's awesome. I mean, would
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: would love to get him for the next one.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Cool. So you know, at some point down the line,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: would you ever do a sequel?
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, I mean would love to, man Like, in
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: all honesty, it's like, you know, as we work on this,
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: it was like, oh, you know, we'd love to make
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: like uh because there's so many bad guys, right and
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: there's so many things you could do with it. We
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: had an intern who made like went through IMDb and
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: made list of bad guys and it was like, man,
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: I don't even know whose people are. You know, there's
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: like NonStop you know, and and yeah, I mean would
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: love to make a sequel and would also just kind
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: of love to like play off of like the Marvel
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: universe in the sense and create like our own awesome
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: Asian bad guy in universe where it's like and even
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: like you know, awesome Asian bad girls, like because there's
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: also like you know, like Lucy Lou, like Maggie Q.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: Just there's tons of of bag girls and so it's like, oh,
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: it's like you could be Avengers and Guardians of the
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: Galaxy type thing, you know, and then have the meet
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: in some like huge you know, epic Asian badness movie
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: or something. And yeah, definitely something that we we want
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: to explore and keep it moving forward.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that would be a good idea. Awesome
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: Asian bad girls you could do, like you know, there's
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: go Go you Bori from kill Bill I forget her
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: name to my head, but but that but that you know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: when you do make a sequel, let me know, because
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: I think that'd be awesome though. From what I've heard,
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: by the way, Bolo is apparently just an absolutely awesome guy.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, wow, how did you hear.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: That just from people working on film sets? Instead of
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: awesome boy? Boy? Did you hear something else?
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: No, no, silence betrayed me? No, no, no, uh no,
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: because I think I just have this vision of who
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: he is, right, I have his vision of him from
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: the movies I watched as a kid, and have this
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: witch led to the vision of you know, saying to Steve, hey,
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: maybe you shouldn't go to the gym. He might kill you.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: You know, don't ask him if he needs a spotter,
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: you know. But uh yeah, I'm sure you know, tight
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: knit community and like I'm sure he's a good day
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: to everybody here. Everybody here seems to know everybody else,
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: and it's like, oh do you know this person?
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Okay, got it? Yeah, I'm very used to like growing
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: up my teens, I did kung fu, and like I
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: met like a lot of the old school kung fu guys,
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: Like I mean old school. Uh We're like, you know,
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: you have guys over here, women over here. You don't
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: get a water break, you don't talk during class unless
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: you're absolutely spoken to. Uh. So I'm like Houston, the
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: old uh strong fisted, iron fisted kung fu master type deal.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: So maybe those guys I knew who work with Fellow
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: were kind of that way too.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Then they did martial arts from when they were before
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: they could even walk, you know, so you know, maybe
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: that's maybe maybe that is maybe he did make a
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: good idea, but not having Steve go in and it's like,
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: I'm mister Yung, can I talk to you?
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: But you know, I mean it would have made for
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: a good YouTube video if he got his God is
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: uh God is an ass kicked.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: But you know, I mean the man has fought Bruce Lee,
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: So I.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: Know, I know that's that's impressive. I let beyond words
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: how impressive that is. Uh?
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: You know, Uh, I wanted to ask you too, you know,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: what was you know the hardest part of filming Awesomation
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: bad guys? You know, was there any particular day that
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: was particularly hard or had just an absolute obstacle you
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: guys had to overcome?
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean I think like there were, you know,
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: just a couple of things because we shot it in
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: like seven and a half eight days. I think shooting
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: some of the fight sequences took some time because it
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: was like you know, those always take time, and you know,
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: also adjusting to like people's schedules, you know, to be honest,
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: like a lot of you know, like we raised fifty
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: four grand on Kickstarter, A lot of times we a
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: lot of times like our some of our actors, you know,
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: they had other like other commitments would come up, and
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: that was we understood that. We knew that was going
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: to happen because these guys are talented and constantly working
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: and it's not like we were paying them much if anything,
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: and so they you know, part of it was like
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: writing around their absences, you know, our our our producer,
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: writer Milton lou you know, he would kind of you
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: would find out that oh, so and so could make
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: it the next day, so we'd have to kind of write.
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: He'd have to write around them and you know, put
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: them somewhere else and give them a reason why they're
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: not going to be in the main, you know, in
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: this particular scene anymore, you know. And I think that
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: to me is always like difficult, especially when you're on set,
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: you know, doing the producing stuff, and then you have
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: to figure that stuff out like like during like during
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: like you know, there's some downtime or overnight on your
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: own time.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and and you know that's that's one of the
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: things you know, I always say is producing is a
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: skill of in itself. Uh, you know a lot of times,
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: I mean and this is this can be even you know,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: sort of parallel to crowdfunding. People will see other people
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: do it and it's just sort of like, oh, anyone
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: can do it. And then suddenly it's like, oh my god,
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: it's all this uh, and you just want to and
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: you know, then you know there's people usually go, I'm
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: so sorry. Uh, I know this was all this entails.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: Right, right, It's like you know, like right the typical
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: question like what does a producer do? I mean, like
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: on a set like this, everything like that's that's just
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: how it works, you know. And uh, it's it's not
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: for the not for the fainthearted, for sure. Yeah. Absolutely.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: And you know, Uh, I wanted to ask you to Patrick,
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, what's next for you? And and uh
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: and Stephen.
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: Well, we were focusing a lot on just getting this
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: out and you know, like getting it out. We worked
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: with a company called film buff out in New York
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: to to get Awesome Asian Bad Guys Out on on
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: digital VOD platforms like iTunes and Amazon Xbox. And now
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: it's like, you know, we're still pushing it, and like
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: I said, for me, it's uh uh you know, I
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: really think it's time now to like start thinking about
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: the ideas of of moving it towards like a sequel
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: or an awesome Asian Bad Girls version, and when we
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: could actually turn this, turn this into and really have
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: some fun with it. And you know, there's there's some
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: other ideas to to kick around as well, but I
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: think those are things that that are kind of at
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: the top of the priority list. Okay, very cool.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: Uh you know, uh, you know an inclosing, Patrick, you
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: know we've been talking for about, you know, forty minutes now.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: Is there anything you know that we haven't discussed or
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: anything I can cover that you would have liked to
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: say in closing?
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: I don't think so. I don't think so. Uh no, no, no, man,
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: Like sorry, like the end of a Monday work day.
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: I think you covered a lot of stuff, just like
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: you know, I guess I could talk about where people
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: can get it.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: Uh, that's actually my next question, okay, and scene, So Betrick,
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: what people find Awesome Asian Bad Guys online.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: They can get it on our website Awesome asanbag guys
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: dot com, where you can also get like the deluxe
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: version and like, you know, some some cool T shirts
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: like bad Guys T shirts, Bag Girls t shirts there,
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: and you can also get it on iTunes, Amazon, Instant Video,
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: Xbox and Google Play and maybe voodoo is it voodoo
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: or viewdoo? I think it's voodoo voodoo right, So you
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: know check it out there and you know, share it
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: with your friends and tell your friends.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: And where people find you at specifically online Patrick?
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: Uh, they can find me on Twitter at at Patrick
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: Epino awesome.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: And do you have a website or anything.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: Uh. Yeah, it's Awesomation bad Guys dot com, which actually
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: is also National Film Soociety dot com. It forwards, so
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: you can check us out there.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Very cool.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: And everyone, By the way, I will link to all
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: that good stuff in the show notes like I always do,
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: so it's very easy to find all all that stuff
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: and just click on it. Uh. And you can you know,
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: talk to Patrick and uh and check out Awestimation Bad
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: Guys and uh that was a joke by by Patrick.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: I wasn't big serious.
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: I got so much money for crowd funding campaigns.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: It's I just actually when we were talking, somebody like
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: my phone went off. It's on silent, but I looked
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: over and it's just like, hi, Dave, check out my campaign.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: Like lout that's all it says. I'm like, who is
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: this person?
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Uh?
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: I swear man, It's it's becoming like more and more prevalent.
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well you know it's it's uh the name
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: of the game. I guess forward me that guy. I'm
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: gonna give him some money.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: Now there you go. We' we have cracked the code
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: of crowdfunding right here exactly. Patrick. I wish you the
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: best of luck and again, when you make awesomeation by
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: guys part two, please please give me a heads up about.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: That, definitely will Dave. Thank you so much for having
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: me no.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: One anytime, my friend anytime. Uh, Patrick, I wish you
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: the best and have a good night, buddy, you too,
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: take care, buddy.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Indie film muscle
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: dot com Forward slash eight forty four, and if you
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: really helps us out a lot, guys.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: Thank you again so much for listening to guys.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: Indie Film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: E F I L M h U S T l
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: E dot com.