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IFH 768: Writing & Directing an Independent Streaming Series with Aram Rappaport · 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 ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, Episode number seven
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: sixty eight. Create your own visual style. Let it be
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: unique for yourself and yet identifiable to others orson.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Wells Broadcasting from the Back Alley and Hollywood. It's the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of the film biz.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your
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  Speaker 2: humble host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise
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• 1:50
  Speaker 2: That's film bizbook dot com. Well, guys, today on the
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: show we have writer director aarm Rapperport and Aam's latest
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: film project is The Green Vale starring John Legazamo, and
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: he was just on last week, so I decided to
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: bring Am on to not only talk about that amazing
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: project that is premiering or has premiered at this point
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: at the Tribeca Film Festival, but we had this amazing
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: conversation about the directing craft, about the realities of directing
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: on set, how you deal with actors, how you get
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: money for your projects, the politics of a set. It
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: was truly, truly a fantastic conversation about just the stories
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: from the directing trenches. So, if you are a filmmaker
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: looking to direct a project, this is an episode that
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I think you're really going to want to listen to. So,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Aaron Rappaport.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I'd like to welcome to the show, Aaron Rapperport.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Hey doing aarm I'm good, Thanks for having me.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on the show. Brother,
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. We had one of your compadres on
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: last week. Uh, mister, a little guy. You new guy
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: coming up, John Legazamo.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Arch nemesis, my arch nemesis. I hope I never speak
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: to him again. But he's semi talented, so you know,
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: I put up with him.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: You put up with him, and he gets the financing sometimes,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: so you know.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, sometimes you know, I mean, don't give him a
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: big head. He's gonna watch this and think he's powerful.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Or something exactly. But uh, but I appreciate you coming on.
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  Speaker 3: Man.
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  Speaker 2: You've had you've had a heck of an adventure, you know,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: coming up to up the ladder as well. You've got
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: some shrapnel as well.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, without.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Question, some indie film, some indie film, shrapnel along the
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  Speaker 2: way as well. So first questions, brother, how and why?
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: God screenee? Did you want to do this and get.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: The business in general?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Oh?
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  Speaker 3: My god? What a what a what a good question
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  Speaker 3: I've never asked myself.
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  Speaker 2: I think I never did either.
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  Speaker 4: But I mean such that you're you're just like, wait
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: a sec like now exstentially I have to think about things. No,
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  Speaker 4: I mean, my my, you know, originally I wanted to
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  Speaker 4: to to act and be an actor, and so you know,
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  Speaker 4: I grew up in La My dad was a writer
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  Speaker 4: and then he ultimately, uh, you know, taught screenwriting as well.
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  Speaker 4: So when I was you know, growing up and sort
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: of training as an actor and you know, went to
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: a lot of class and did that. You know, he
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: had always said you should really write for yourself because
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  Speaker 4: that's going to you know, be a.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Mechanism to help you you.
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  Speaker 4: Get things made and and and so you know, organic
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  Speaker 4: that I sort of moved into writing a little bit
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  Speaker 4: and then I realized, you know, it just feels better
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  Speaker 4: to sort of control the narrative from behind the camera
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  Speaker 4: and and and really you know, I was so interested,
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: you know, and being on set, I you know, I
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: did a couple of little things, and I would always,
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: you know, what are we shooting? Now?
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  Speaker 3: What's next?
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: You know, the director would always but you know why
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: you just stand over there until it's your turn to
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: you know, say your lines. But it sort of interested
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  Speaker 4: me to be more uh you know, mechanically, uh you know,
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  Speaker 4: involved in the process. And so I think organically for me,
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  Speaker 4: you know, directing just helped control the narrative. And I
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: think throughout the years, like I've sort of learned that
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  Speaker 4: my skill set is really just uh, you know, helping
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  Speaker 4: everybody else who's actually talented, like see the vision, you know,
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  Speaker 4: and motivating them too, uh to to ultimately.
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  Speaker 3: You know, put they're all into a project.
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  Speaker 4: And I think sort of the only place for someone
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  Speaker 4: like that that is inherently like you know, not talented
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  Speaker 4: but like can rally the troops would be you know,
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  Speaker 4: that leadership role you know, to put in mathematically, but
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: that that's so that's you know, that's where I ended up.
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  Speaker 4: And I I you know, I love it, and I think,
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: uh you know, my, my, my trajectory sort of odd.
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  Speaker 4: You know, you have started with indie film, you know,
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  Speaker 4: did a few films and then and then sort of
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: transitioned into commercials aggressively. And did you know, for the
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: last ten years we're doing a lot of commercials and
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: founded uh an agency called the Boat House where we're
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: an agency studio hybrid and so we do you know,
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: we do a lot of commercials. And that's really uh,
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  Speaker 4: you know where I've like honed my skills both on
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  Speaker 4: the storytelling side as well as really like you know,
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  Speaker 4: from a production standpoint. And now this project the Greenville
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  Speaker 4: is like the first uh I mean outside of Latin instruments,
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  Speaker 4: but this is really the first sort of like narrative
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  Speaker 4: driven thing I've done in quite a while.
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  Speaker 3: So it was a really interesting transition back into that.
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  Speaker 2: There is an insanity, isn't there for us to do
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: what we do? It's it's because look at the beginning
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: of the at the beginning, it's at East. Look when
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: everything's going well. Issue, it's never well all the way,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: It's never never, never every like the doors all open,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: the money just flies in. All you have is time
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: and money to make your projects that doesn't happen. But
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: when you're coming up though, it's so hard, it's and
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: and there's so much no, no, so many knows against you.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: The grind is so hard you don't even there's no
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: guarantee that anything that you're thinking of doing is going
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: to actually come into life.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, how did how did.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: You keep going in those early years, like when you
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: were just grinding out short films and trying to just
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: get your stuff seen and made and just get just
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: try to get your foot in the door.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, so you know, I never went to college.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: I never, you know, I my mentality has always been
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  Speaker 4: sort of like, you know, just get on the horse
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  Speaker 4: and pen you can ride, and you know, see what happens.
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  Speaker 3: So, I mean I admittedly made a lot of.
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  Speaker 4: Mistakes, right, I mean, I mean I would, you know,
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  Speaker 4: have always been very good at sort of pitching the
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: vision or selling the vision, scrapping together a little bit
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: of money, raising money, you know, pitching people on this
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  Speaker 4: sensational thing that we're going to do, and then really
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: falling on my face, uh in the product, in the production.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: Element, because I just didn't know what I was doing.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: So I think for me, it's a little bit backwards, right,
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  Speaker 4: Like you know, a lot of people like you know,
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: I went to film school, I really honed my craft,
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: and then I had a hard time getting into the business.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: I was sort of the opposite.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: I was very bullish in raising money and finding ways
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: to produce things in a scrappy way, and then fell
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: completely flat on the execution because that's where I was learning.
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  Speaker 3: I'd never done it before.
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  Speaker 4: And I was just like, I'm you know, this sensational.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna direct and do a movie and do this
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  Speaker 4: and do that. Sort of usurped the craft itself. And
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: I think that, you know, on my personal journey has
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: been like really important, you know, moving away from this.
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: You know, I want to do it because it seems
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: cool to you know, this is a craft, and like
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: what am I trying to say with.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: These uh, you know, with these projects?
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: So you were you were you were flying the plane
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: where you're building a plane while you're flying.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: It absolutely no question And I mean we all are right.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm sure you have stories where you're just like,
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: I have no idea, How'm gonna shoot this this scene,
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: but like it might work, it might not work.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: It's you know, isn't it fascinating, dude? Because so many
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: of us and you know, and again I've had the
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: pleasure of talking to some really insane legendary filmmakers, of course,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: of course, and I talked to them and I asked
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: them director questions. Just question is that only a director,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: don't matter what level you're at. You could be a
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: short film director or you could be a two hundred
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: million dollars Oscar winner, it doesn't matter. But that what
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: you just say is so indicative of a director, like Okay,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: we're here, Yeah, I don't know how we're gonna do
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: this today, Let's let's go. Because everyone thinks of the
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: director as like Hitchcock or like Fincher, that like did
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: the shot fifty thousand times in Previz, and he's just
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: basically just shooting with real people get the shot because
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: he's already shot the whole movie and edited the entire
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: movie in Previz over a year, right, and then he's
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: just like executing his vision. There's like no wiggle room.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And that's basically that's the new generate, the twentieth first
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: century Hitchcock in the way approaching the project. But so many, most,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: if any, if not almost all. There's always scenes that
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: just like, oh, well the sun's not sull's not where
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: it needs to be. Oh we lost we lost the location,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: so all my storyboards are gone. So you just have
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: to kind of sit there and figure it out. But
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I wanted to kind of demystify that for people listening
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: because a lot of young filmmakers think that, oh, you
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: must be you're working with you know, John, and you're
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: working on these big projects with these big stars and
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff, and you have it all
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: figured out. And I and I know that you walk
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: in with a plan, we'll be right back after a
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: word from our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: But the fit hits the shad, bro, you got a roll.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: And that's what makes a director is how to adjust
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: and compromise and move through the stuff that's thrown at
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: you all day correct totally.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: And I think it's like, you know, it's crisis leadership,
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: right like, and you know you you it's it's you know,
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: everything's gonna go wrong and that's okay, Like we really
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: have to embrace that. And I think the thing that
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: I've learned, you know, in the beginning, you walk on
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: set and you think it's really exciting and sort of
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: like it's a drug to have the powers. Yes and right,
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, I mean you want you walk on and
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: you think everybody's asking me things, everyone's listening to me.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I have all the answers.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: But but but then as you as you get very
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: bad reviews on things and people really sort of bring
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: it back down to earth. Afterwards, you realize, you know,
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: this is such a collaborative process that it's okay to
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: to bring those trusted sort of pieces together, whether it's
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: a cinematographer, productions on it, whatever, and be like, I
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: know what I'm trying to say with this scene. I
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: don't know how we're gonna get there. Let's all talk
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: about it. And I think that's the biggest lesson that
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: I've sort of learned over the years is this.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: You know, if if you as a.
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Director have have have leadership and vision, but you can
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: still be humble in execution, you know you're gonna thrive
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: in a different way than if you have to pretend
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: that you know everything, because no one does. Everybody says
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: they had no idea how to. I mean, Spielberg has
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: stories about how the sun was in the wrong spot,
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: and he's like, I don't know, and he's obviously a
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: genius on a different level where you think, you know,
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: even though that sun was in a different spot, he
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: probably had eight ideas and you know, he ran them
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: by his cinematographer and one of them was like the
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: thing that they were going to do.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: But I think at at all levels, I mean, especially
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: for young directors, it's.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: Like, you know, rely on the people that you're hiring
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: and and say, you know, I don't know.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: This is my vision though that I'm steadfast than how
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: do we get there? You know? And you're still going
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: to be well respected.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: I love that this that you said, the addictive kind
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: of drug of the power my god, look and I
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: have I'll tell you a story real quick. When I
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: was coming up, I made a short film that got
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of attention around town and all that kind
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: of stuff, and I had I was like one of
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: the first to shoot like which airsoft guns. So I
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: was using airsoft guns. It was an action movie and
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff, and I was using muzzle
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: flashes and posts and stuff like that. So another filmmaker
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: another crew found out about us and like, hey make
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: can we rent your guns, and we're like sure. So
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I went down to the set. This is in Florida,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: like in the middle of South Florida somewhere, went down
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: one night and I had a bag full of.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: A bag full of weapons.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Oh no, no, this is early early two thousands. So
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: I'm walking and then we go into the trailer where
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: the director is and the amount of pomp pompous like
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: arrogance of this guy. He was three three step shorts
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: of just having a monocle and a frickin bullhorn. I'm
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: not joking, like he was so far gone. So when
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I brought so, I brought in and he didn't know
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: that I was a director or anything. He was just
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: talking to me like was a PA, which was like
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: even more disrespectful. But I just let him play it out.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: It's his set.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Whatever, I don't care. You're gonna give me some money
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: for these guns for the weekend.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Sure, I don't I'll take the cash.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: So he took the shotgun. I shit, you not, dude,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: took the shotgun, pulled out a view finder. I'm not
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: get a view finder, and pointed the shotgun at himself
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: and said these will do. And I'm like, oh my god,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: even then I was still coming up. But I even then,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: I knew this guy's out of his mind, right.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Right, right, right right right.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Oddly enough, the movie didn't go anywhere, but but it's
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: but it's just it's just the.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: The Do you want to call him out by name?
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: I wish, I wish, I wish I did miss. I
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: didn't even give the Memory bank a space for his name,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: the name of the movie, none of it. I don't
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: remember anything other than like a couple of things that
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: happened that night. But I never forgot him. I'm like, okay,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: so that's an example of what I don't want to be.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Totally totally so.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: So all right, so when you got your so you've
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: been making these short films and then you get your
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: first feature off the ground, how did you get that
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: first feature, which is always the toughest one to get
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: off the ground. Who how did you convince someone to
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: give you cash?
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: So? So, you know, I think.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: So the first thing that I did was this, so
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: so I I had a friend Thomas Decker, who's an actor,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: and he was in I forgot what.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Uh. There was a show called The Sarah Connor Chronicles
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: on far for.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: The terminator stuff, yeah, the terminator thing, right, yeah, and
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: he played he played John Connor.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: And this is like right when that show was coming up.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, yea, of course I love that show.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I used to love that show.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: It was a great show with Lena Heaty. It was
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: like very it was a very exciting thing. And he
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: had he had wanted to be a director, and he
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: is a director. He directs a lot of like very
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: cool stuff. And he he went out, we had served
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: this group of friends you know in l A growing up,
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: this sort of creative little think tank, and he said,
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm going to go make a feature. I'm
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: not gonna do a short. I'm just gonna make a feature.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: I have no money, I'm gonna direct. I'm just gonna
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: get a bunch of my friends and we're just all
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: gonna be in it. And he did that thing, and
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: he put me in it, and you know, I think
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Megan Fox was in it. And it's like there's some
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: Brian Austin Green at the time, like some very like
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: cool people all did this thing. Who knows what happened
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: to it, but it was super inspiring to see him.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: You know, he did that thing, and I was like,
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: oh yeah, wow, Like he just pulled favors and you know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: asked his friends to be in this thing. And it
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: was that was my impetus for saying, you know, oh yeah,
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: I want to go and pull these same favors and uh,
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: you know, and see if I can do it also,
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: And so you know, sort of to a lesser degreem.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: And I didn't have a show like he did, but I,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: you know, I was able to pull some favors with
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: people and and uh, specifically you know Leonard Malton's daughter Jesse, who's.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: You know, a great friend who I've known forever.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: You know, she really like supported it and was like
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: you know what, I'll do makeup on this thing, and
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: like you can use my house and like, well, you know,
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: this is like right out of high school. And she
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: was just so supportive like the process and really like
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: brought in some some cool pieces. And that was like
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: the first thing that was like how I did a
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: first sort of feature. I brought in a cinematography. It
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: was also sort of coming up and and and wanted
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: a feature. You know that That's also another like sort
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: of piece of advice. Is this, you know, a lot
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: of people do short films, right, Like why not just
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: do like a really shitty seventy five minute short film,
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: and then people want credits and they want to be
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: a part of it. You know, no one needs to
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: be a part of a short film, but everybody needs
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: to be a DP on a on their first feature.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: So like those are you know, thinking outside the box
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: in that way, like is super helpful leverage. So I
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: think that that was my first real thing where I thought,
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: you know, let me try directing and I'll figure it out.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: And you know, it totally totally stucked. And then there's
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: the thing that sucked and another thing that sucks.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Dude. It's like my when I did my first feature,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: I did the exact same thing. Got a bunch of
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: my friends over in La. Yeah, this insane cast together
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: of all these comedians, shot the whole damn thing in
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: like eight days. I was like, you know what, I'm
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: gonna dep this thing myself.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and you have to, you have to.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: And I just like, I'll figure it out. And I'm like,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: if I could get it down the middle, I'll fix
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: it in post because I'm I'm I'm the colorist, so
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: I'll do the and you just and you just kind
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of go for it, and at the end you're just like, hey,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: you know, I got it made. It was like it
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: was just me proving to myself I could finally get
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: a feature made after like so many years of doing commercials,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: the music videos and other.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Things that I've done.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I was just like, screw it, and every and then
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: it just worked out. But but yeah, you're absolutely right,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: And that's a big tip for anyone listening. Shorts no
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: one cares about, truly, no one can. It could be
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: honestly the an Oscar nominated or winning short film No
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: one cares. But on IMDb it says feature it adds
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: a lot more value to people, and they will, they'll
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: they'll work for you for free, They'll work for you
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: for a cheap discount just for the shot. It's a
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: great piece of advice. And it feels like it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: Feels like now there's just so many more mechanisms to
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: create something that's feature length or episodic length versus just
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: doing something because shorts are great, like and you know,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: there's some fabulous shorts that are insanely cool. Oh but
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: I don't, But I don't know, and I don't know
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: enough about that world, but you think, like I feel like,
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: you know, even ten years ago, you know, there were
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: shorts that would come out of Sun Dance and be
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: greenlit at a feature, at a Mini major or something
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: where you would do like a Fox search Light.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: You know, based on it feels like that just doesn't
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: happen anymore.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: It was like at a time when it was hard
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: to get a short made, it was like, wow, that's
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: a proof of concept. Now you're kind of like, it's
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: this weird aggressive you know, we're at this place in
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: indie film where you were, you know, excited. It's exciting
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: you can get things made for cheap. It's also equally
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: as hard. But I think it's just it's it's you
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: have to be so relentless and that that's such a
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: good point, Like, you know, if it's a feat, there's
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: like some great talent that just will want to be involved.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: And that's what happened on the Green Vail.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: Actually, we had the cinematographer that I shot a lot
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: of commercials with.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: He hadn't Luca, he hadn't done Luca Fontine.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: He hadn't done a feature yet, or he hadn't done
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: anything in the narrative space and ours was a show,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: but it's still it was. It was a narrative, and
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: he just thought, I need I need this right now,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: like I need this. I'm gonna kill it. My agents
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: are gonna have you know this is this is gonna
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: bring me to the next level on them on the
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: feature side. And so he you know, and we paid
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: him a lot less than we would pay him on commercials,
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: and you know, any and he did it. And I
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: think that and that's why you know exactly what you
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: just said.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Because he needs it. And I think nowadays the feature
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: is the proof of concept. Right, anybody can make a short.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: And when shorts were hard to make, than that was
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: a thing. But now that anyone can make a short
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: at a very high level, now you've got to like
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: just keep going, just keep Like I was at a
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: festival once I saw forty five minutes short, I'm like,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: what's wrong with you? We'll be right back after a
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just keep going, you keep going. Twenty more minutes, come.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: On, DoD just just break seventy minutes, like sixty eight
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: to seventy minutes.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: And your totally officially call yourself ah, totally totally keep going, dude,
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: totally and I I you know what. My first thing
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: that we just sort of, I guess, got distribution was
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: this thing called The Innocent that, uh, you know, I
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: was kidnapped true story in Chicago when I was eighteen,
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: and I turned it. I adapted it into this single
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: take thriller that did Alexa Vega, the girl from Star
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: Spy Kids was Star Wars Spy Kids. She started and
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: it was this one take thing and we did it
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: in Chicago, you know, and choreographed it and I learned
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: how to use steady cam and I shot it. And
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: that's something where I'm like, it's going to be a feature.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: You watch it and you're like, this could have been
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: a short.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: Like it could have been. It could have been ten minutes,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: it could have been fifteen minutes, it would have been brilliant.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: It was eighty minutes and all fell asleep. But you know,
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: I learned. I learned through that process. You know, That's
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: where I was like, you know, I wanted to be
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: a features and by the way, we had so much
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: support because there's the features, this one take thing, and
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, yeah, yeah, you built you built up.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Look.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: It's like it's just like when you do some of
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: these these indie projects, it's kind of like you're building
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: up the carnival. So you're you're you're the Carnival Barker.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: So when I did my first big short, I had
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: like nobody and nothing. It was all like like, dude,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: it's all visual effects. It's gonna be a action thing.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: And I had like these storyboards and I had our
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: concept are and I made it look like it was
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: the next X Men, you know, and everyone's like I
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: just want to see how if this guy could even
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: pull this off. And that's how many people jumped on
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: board to work for free. They're like I just want
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: to see you either fail or make it.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: Either one's going to be fantastic percent.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: And it's like it's like you you you It is
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: like a traveling circus because you're like you're on location
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: with people you will never spend for carnies.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Before carnies, dude, we're car so totally and you.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: Think like we're like sort of like high falutin society,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: societal you bourgeois carnies, but like it's bullshit, like we
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: go out there and we don't shower for a month.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: You're like eating shitty food, you know, you like like
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: your grandma's catering with bagels that you found in the
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: back of a If.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: You're lucky, If you're lucky, if you're lucky, you get that.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: No, it's true, it's it's it's true. It's so true. No,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: but it's it's But it's.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: So exciting because you're like, you know what, it's so
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: much fun, dude.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: And and and every step of the way, you think,
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: like the only people that go through that process, you know,
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: the only people that really not not not if the
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: film's good, who cares, Like if it's good or not?
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: Like if you can get through the process, like it's
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: because you believe that your vision was like absolutely unequivocally
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: untold in any other way, and like that's the thing
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: that gets you. Whether it's true or not, who cares?
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: You know, there's reviewers, there's this, there's distributors. But the
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: fact that you can just get through that process means
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: that you had such like resolute power to be able
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: to not give up on that thing, and that that's
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: like the most fun to me is challenging yourself where
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: you're just like, we shot knights.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: We you know, it's a twenty hour day.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Do I try to get one more take when everyone's
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: exhausted because I feel like.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: I need it?
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: Or do I or do we just go home and
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: give up and say, you know, this was good enough,
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: it's probably going to cut, you know.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: And it's those moments to.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Challenge you on such an emotional level and a physical level,
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: you know, and you think you get through that, and
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: there's such a rush at the end of production where
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: you're just like, we did it, Like we did that thing.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Who knows if it's good, but we did it. You know,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: we got through it.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: And that's like when Cooper, you know, would say, he's like, hey,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: you know, we're all here, they built the sets. It's
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: stay until we get it right totally.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Eighty five takes later, we can move on totally, totally totally.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: And that that's like, I feel like the one thing
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: I've learned in commercials is sort of how to cut
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: and how to you know, sort of maintain the sanctity
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: of like those performances and like, you know, protect the
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: actors in that process in a way that you know,
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: especially for this most recent thing when we shot like
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: eight episodes and you know, five we shot like two
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: hundred and fifty three hundred pages, so we were shooting
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: fifteen to twenty pages a day with a single camera
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: and it all looks really pretty.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: I mean cool, you did a single on this, a
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: single camera.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, why we were well because so
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: so this is another thing. So Luca our DP really
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: did not want to shoot with two cameras are done
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: fair enough and and he wanted to you know, and
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: by the way, like I would challenge him on that
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: because I'm like, we're never going to make our days
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: if you're trying to light a single frame.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: You know, we need to cover this the right way.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: It turned out that he was just so.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: Fluid in the way that he lit, and these images
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: look like I don't know if you've seen any of it,
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: but the images.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: Look like like, yeah, they look like Norman Rockwell painting.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: You're right after you were in my mind, they looked
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: like paintings. He did a fantastic job. And the production
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: design in the in the wardrobe and the way it
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: was all laid out of it.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a gritty, it's it's a gritty world.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: And you think, like, you know, that was one of
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: those things where I just thought, you know, I'd worked
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: with this guy in commercial so long.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: I know how we were.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, we have a short hand, you
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: know if I'm trying to sort of cut in my head,
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: and and we we can maybe make it work with
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: one camera, you know.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: So that's that's.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: The That's the other thing that a lot of filmmakers
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: don't understand too, is like let's say you're a young
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: filmmaker and you got your first project out, and let's
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: say there's a DP he just super advanced, has done
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: ten million dollar, fifteen twenty million dollar movies, and he's like,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: you know what I'm gonna do your one hundred thousand
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: dollar movie. Don't like the story that is a death
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: sentence because they it's a death sentence. Right. I've been
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: there too, Because if they're used to those kind of resources,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: they don't understand how to make one hundred thousand dollars
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: worth of resources work. You can go the other way, yeh,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: it's really hard to go back. So, like, you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: you can't give James Cameron one hundred thousand dollars to
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: make a movie like he's incapable of telling it. He
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: actually I actually I knew somebody who worked with him,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: and he was talking to somebody on a A and
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: the and the guy said, oh, yeah, I just made
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: my features. Like oh great, man, great, you know what
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: it is? He goes, yeah, yeah, I just you know,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I grabbed one hundred thousand bucks and I meant to
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: make it. And you could see Cameron's face just the
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: computer started to crack. He couldn't understand.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: He's been so far, he's been so far, so long,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: James Cameron, that he couldn't grasp the idea of one
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: hundred like it's just what and.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: By the way, we should all be so lucky, like
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: I would love to not grasp the idea of don
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: I don't work around ideas that.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Like I don't like what I'm like, You've you've been
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Jim's cammeron for thirty years, so you don't understand these things.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: You've been rightly Scott for thirty years and you've shot
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: ten thousand commercials and like.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: I was about I was about to mention that because
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: you know, going, you know, having done commercials for a while,
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: now you know, whether it's like you know, for Apple
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: or Victoria's Secret or whatever.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, those everyone says they don't have any money.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: But when it comes to selling product, if if a
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: client believes that that's a if there's a piece of
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: creative that's gonna help, the money will be there. It's
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: so different, you know, when you go back to doing
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: something on the independent level where you just think, I
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: can't convince anybody that this crazy one, or is that.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: I need to tech, that I need the technical praying
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: for five days.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, we can't.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: We can't do it.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: So that was but that was also super exciting to
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: me because for me, it was like you know, having
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: having I don't want to say it's a sterile world.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: It's a very exciting world being doing commercials. But like
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: you know, you're reporting directly to a purpose.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: You know, it's it's it's they're.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Selling product, brother, you're selling product.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: That's it's commerce. I mean, that's that's that's the thing.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: It's not art.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: So it's a different it was a totally different mindset,
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: which was such a rush to be like back in
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: that space and be like oh yeah, no, I don't
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: have as much money but I also can just do
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: it the way I want to do it.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: I can just I can go do this.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Thing and I don't have to spend you know, eight
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: hours lighting a bottle.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, exactly exactly.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: It's like, and it's it's one of those things where like,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: you know, it plays into I feel like, you know,
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: I always try to like double down on like what
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: what's my purpose? Like why why do I want to
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: do this? Why I'm you know, and like at the
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: end of the day, you know, you you want people
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: to really connect with what you make. And I feel
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: like that that's been a through line for me in
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: terms of, you know, any commercial I do. There's the
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: really good ones that like people are like, wow, that
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: was a good commercial. There's the really crappy ones that
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: still perform well and you think, oh, I'm glad it worked,
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: but oh I just wish it would have creatively better.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: And those are the moments that remind me that like,
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: oh yeah, Like I want to be a storyteller, Like
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: my my number one goal is not just to do
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: a job or facilitated thing. It's like, you know, I
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: want to be able to tell narratives that like, really
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: you know, really really hit. So it's it's uh, you know,
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: that's why it's nice. You know, it's fun to fight for,
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: you know, anything to you know, to create anything.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Lineally, I mean, and it's a miracle that ever gets paid. Period.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: No, it's a mirror. I mean, it's a miracle. I mean,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: it's impossible, especially in COVID now and COVID now it's.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: It's even it's even more impossible to get anything made.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: It's it's impossible. And John reminded me of that every
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: day as he was getting rammed up the nostril with
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: a COVID test, telling me that, you know, he was
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: doing this for me, and you know, so you know,
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: I thought he was gonna walk every time he got a.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: You know, I said, we.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: Could move to the you know, the anal COVID tests
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: if he wanted. But he, you know, he's stuck with
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: the nose.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: He stuck with the nose.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: But you know that's that's you know, that's John. But
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: uh yeah, I'm just saying Meryl Streep would have done
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: whatever it needed to be. I'm just saying she would
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: have done whatever. Dangel Day would have done whatever it took.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: I'm just saying, can you follow up with John on
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: that actually, because that's a very good that's a very
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: good point.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: I mean I heard Daniel Day and Denzel they were
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: had no problem with whatever was John. What.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: I tell this story a lot just because I like
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: the article exists.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: But you know, in China, like during you know, during
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: the Olympics, I read some uh, there was some article
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: that said, you know, China brings back you know, anal
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: COVID swah for tourists.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: At the airport manual, anal covid swabs.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: And I and I brought this article to set and
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: showed it to John, and I was like, John, this
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: is the new this is the new norm. So we're
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: swapping out the nose for the you know, the anus.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: And and then I just walked out. And I walked
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: out and I said, you know, yeah, I told you that.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: I'm like, it's not today today, you know, we're still
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: doing the nose, but tomorrow the hospital is going to
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: bring in the guys to do the an. It's a
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: different crew. And you know, I just wanted to let
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: you know, and you know. Anyways, great day, I'll see
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: you out there. And then his assistant came running out
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: and he's like, is uh is that are we?
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Are we doing the anals? Is that is that a thing?
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I'm like, no, it's not a fucking thing. What do
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: you till? Of course not.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Why would we ever do that?
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: That's crazy. I'd rather get COVID?
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: What do you mean?
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: So that was? That was? That's my relationship.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Huh oh my god, that's amazing. Oh that's the best story.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna use. I'm going to tell that story everywhere.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: That's but it is that you can google it exists.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: I'm not just like something.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: No, no, but but your story with John?
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's an exclusive. That's the exclusive.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: So are we are we? Are we doing the anole swamps?
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Are we?
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: I'm like, tell him, yes, you should have done.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: No, you should have You should have you should have
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: kept that going for a little bit.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: I should have filmed it the next day and had Yeah,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: you should have.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: No, you should have done You should have done a
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: whole jackass thing like they can't we brought it a
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: bring and bring the like get one of the grips
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: that John didn't see him being the guy.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: Doing it, Like, meanwhile, we're doing this like super deep dark,
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: you know, fifties drama on oppression, and he's standing there
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: in his like you know, fifties garb, like wait, am
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: I getting anal swamp?
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: Like what what's happening here? You know that's okay, listen
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: all right.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: So as directors, when we're on a set, there's always
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: that one day that fits the shan the it's not there,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the camera breaks that, the there's anal swabs onto on set,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: something happens that that you you feel like the entire
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: world's coming crashing down around you. On on Greenville or
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: on any project. What was that day and how did
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: you overcome it? As a director?
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: You know, that's a good question. I mean I think
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: that obviously. You know, there's different types of people. You know,
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: some people thrive under, you know, the immense pressure. You know,
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: some people don't. I think that, you know, whether I
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: make the right decisions or the wrong decisions, I usually
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: I enjoy that level of pressure. So I think for me,
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: like you know, I sort of expect those there's a
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: level of anxiety where I just expect everything everything go wrong.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: So when all the two things go wrong, it's like,
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: well that was a great day. So I think my
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: mindsets a little bit different. But there's always you know,
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: I mean I've had instances where actors have like, you know,
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: disagreed with a note and walked off and we've had
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: to shoot coverage of his his female counterpart by yourself.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: You know. We've had instances where I had an actor
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: fire our first a D because he hated him on something.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: Some years ago, and we were sort of left picked,
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: you know, choosing between an actor and the AD. And
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean there were just I feel like
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: there there have been some sort of crazy instances where, uh,
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: you know, everything that I've sort of done on like
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: the Linear Space has been you know, a passion project.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: So like when people come to do that, it's because
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: they're passionate about it. So when you challenge that or
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: change the vision or aust or it's not what they thought.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: Like there's emotions run really high, you know, and that's exciting,
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: but it's also terrifying because I think when you're whether
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: it's a DP or a production designer, or an actor
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: or or a costume designer, if you sort of show
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: up and tell us me, you know, we can't afford that,
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: or we lost the light.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: We're gonna have to shoot it differently.
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: You know, as a director, all you can do is
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: really maintain like this and keel positivity around, even though
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: you know that it's probably a complete fuck up. You're like, no,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: it's gonna work, this is gonna work, this is the
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: right thing. You know, let's let's keep going. And and
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: you know that sort of like resolute need to like
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: keep the troops marching is really important. And I don't
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: know if there's any one specific thing. It feels like
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: every day or everything. Every day there's always something that's
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: so I mean, we've lost you know. I think the
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: biggest thing has always been, you know, working on on
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: this latest thing. I think you know, this was like
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: a drama that also had you know, tonally was sci
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: fi as well as you know, there was some levity
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: to how the characters interact.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: You know, John would call it a play. You know,
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: it was it was the dialogue was.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: Sort of like repetitious, and it did you know, it
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: felt lyrical and so I think a lot of that
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: was worked out on set and rehearsal, and we had
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: no time to rehearse. So those were the things that
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: were the most challenging were sort of you know, we're
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: shooting eighteen pages today. If you rehearse that scene one
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: more time, everything was pertinent. You know, we lose another
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: valuable scene at the end of the day where we
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: have to get an insert on the gun.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: If we don't, no one knows she has a gun.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: And that's the tension, you know, So things like that
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: would I think we're the toughest where it was sort
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: of like, okay.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, what are we going to compromise on?
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: It's still collectively if I step back, you know, this
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: world still works. I mean, you silly people that believe
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: that this thing works. And I think those those are
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: the sort of things I felt like I've learned over
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: the years. It's sort of like when to really compromise
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: and when to vocalize that we need to get it right.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's the other thing too, man, is like
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: that they don't tell you, especially when you're coming up. Man,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know if this happened to you or not,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: but you get you know you normally. I remember when
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: I was the youngest guy on set. I'm sure you
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: do as well.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, anytime. I'm twenty and a half, at
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: least twenty and a half. So, but when you're the
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: youngest guy or you're just starting out the crew most
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: of the time is most of the time it's a
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: little bit more experienced than you. Sometimes the actors are
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: more experienced than you, and that's when.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: And that's and by the way, often right like I mean,
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: there's always going to be someone that's more experiencing it.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if you're who you are, really like
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: you to a.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Certain to a certain extent, absolutely, yet you're always going
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: to be But this is when. This is what they
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: don't teach you at film school, which is who's testing
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: you to see how far they can push you. And
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: that's the actors. And that's also with key crew people
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: as well. I mean I've had dps who were interested
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: in their reel and that so much interested in what
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: I was doing. They just wanted to get their shot
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: because they knew that was going to be in the
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: reel and they didn't really care about working. They took
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: the project because they're like, oh, we're going to be
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: on this location, I'm going to get the techno crane
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to do this and this, oh, I'm
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: going to fight for this shot because this is going
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: to get my this is going to be on my
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: demo reel?
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: And how did you handle that? So?
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: How did you like?
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: How would you? You know? A lot?
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: So first, so the first time it happened, I didn't
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: know what the hell to do and I had to
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: like kind of you know, the very first time it happened,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: I had two man I told the story before, but
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: I'll tell it again. My very first time I spent
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: on my demo reel. When I shot my thirty five
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: milimeter commercial demo reel. Wow wow yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I'm that old I shot. I shot. It cost me
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: about fifty grand back in the day, all right, And
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: I hired a DP team. So problem number one. Have
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: you worked with a DP team? No, nobody does because
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: it doesn't exist. But with these guys, they had they
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: had a grip truck, they had access to the film camera.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: I needed a high speed film camera. We were shooting
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: at ninety frames. You know. I was doing some like
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: really fashioned commercial stuff that I was doing. You know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I had a model who was a friend of mine
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: and we were doing this whole like sports model thing,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: and they were. So they were mostly industrial guys and
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: sometimes commercial guys and not La sometimes commercial guys this
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: is Florida, sometime commercial guys. So that means that they
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: didn't have the same experience as a California Sorry anybody
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: living in Florida. I know a lot of good guys
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: down there, but you know what I mean, It's just
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: they just didn't have the experience that that the cruise
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: on the other side have a lot of times. So
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: they came in and I was so terrified that they
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: didn't know what they were going to do with this
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: film stock because we were shooting reversal stock.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, oh my god, I can't see. That's I I've
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: never shown some in my life, the anxiety. I can't
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: even Oh so shot.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Shooting a reversal stock because I wanted to do that
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: whole like Mick g nineties.
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: Blown out, It's.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Fast, I wonder. I love that. It's still one of
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: my favorite things I ever shot. So it was, it's
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: it's so, it's it was. We shot this whole thing.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: But I was so terrified because I'm like, this is
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: with with the with reversal stock, you've got a half stock.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah latitude, you can't you can't jack you can't jack around?
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: So I like literally printed out an entire packet on
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: how to shoot reversal stock. I was so terrified for
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: the yeah, and gave it to them. Dude, they they must.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, we shot it and we got it in
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: the can, but they they took forever to light. They
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: both of them are running around with their light meters
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: like clicking every fricking corner.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Anxiety, anxiety, and then and then wait and then high speed.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: So then you hear that film cam go oh my,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: and you hear that sound, and all I'm hearing is
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: like five dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars exactly. It was
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: just flying by, and I'm like, please don't snap, pleto stap,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: pleto stack because of snaps. Oh my god, we're done.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: And I didn't have like.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: Rolls and rolls exactly exactly. How are you even going
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: to get more roles if you're out like that's it was.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: It was insane. It was insane. So those guys. I
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: then I then we did another spot the next day
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: and they were so bad. We'll be right back after
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: They were trying to like muscle their way into what
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: I was doing, and I was looking at what they
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: were doing, I'm like, this is not good. And I
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: just at the end of the day, I scrapped the
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: entire thing. I burned the negative.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Wow, I literally burned it.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: I burned it, and then I rehired a new DP
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: and I spent another twenty thousand dollars and shot the
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: spot that I wanted the way I wanted to do
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: it and got it done right. So but with that,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: those days, those guys, I was just like, I was
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: just constant and I was yelling out, we're a half stop,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: we're one four. Like I was the one constantly yelling out,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I know what we need to be at here, and
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: I was I was on them, on them, on them,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: on them, because I was just so insecure.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah they did.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: You know, by the way, first day one, the entire
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Grip team walked off within ten minutes. That's how ridiculous.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: That's my first day. First day, I'm spending all my
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: money and the entire Grip department walks away in the
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: first ten minutes because they were so on professionals, they
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: didn't know what to do. So I was just like,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: oh my god, So that's that extreme. But then I've
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: had other TVs who are like older guys who just
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason wanted to like wave their you know
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: what in my face and just right right, No, no,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's the way the shot is going
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: to be. So then that's the point where you as
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: a director have to go, look, man, we're gonna have
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: a have a kind of conversation and it's not and
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: and but that's how you get tested. And then actors
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: test you within the first five or ten minutes, and
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: they test you just to make sure that they feel
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: comfortable and safe and safe. If they feel safe, they'll
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: give you the world. But if they don't feel safe,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: that's when the problems start.
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: You agree that that's like, you know, that's why we
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: did this project is because John and I having worked together.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: You know, we've shot two things.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: You know, we shot a movie, we shot the Netflix special,
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: and then you know we've got a handful of commercials together.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: Did he start in Uh, that he's brought me in
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: on to direct, which has been amazing. But there was
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: sort of a level of trust that was there. And
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: the trust wasn't you know. That's what people sometimes, you know,
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: they hear that and they go, oh, he trusted you
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: to make it, to make him the best he can be.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: It's really it wasn't about that. It wasn't about the
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: final result. It was trust to explore, you know, and
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: this trust right to be able to take risks and
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: and own those risks. And that's the thing that you know,
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: you'll find a lot of actors will either you know,
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: really don't want to do They're going to give you
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: what they're gonna give you because they don't trust that
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: when you're in the editing room you're not going to
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: completely fuck it up.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: You know. Or there's the other ones.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: There's the actors that just go totally crazy and need
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: you to hone them in linearly, you know, and remind
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: them where we're at in the arc. And if you don't,
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: you know, you're not going to have a project you
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: can piece together, you know, from a from a story
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: beat perspective. But I think with with John, like the
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: thing that I you know, admire about him so much
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: is that you know, we sat down and I pitched
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: this thing to him, and you know, he said, you know,
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: as a character I never played before, and he wanted
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: I mean maybe he talked about already, but but you know,
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: to be able to get on set and watch him
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: do something different every take that still was in the world.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: They were different decisions, you know, based on different you know,
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: sort of like organic uh, you know, justifications, you know what,
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: whether it was an action or you know, you know,
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: linearly he thought, oh maybe I should be at a
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: different point in my journey here, let's try two things.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: The fact that he was so open to explore that
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: is why this ultimately works and is successful because we
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: block shot, you know, three hundred pages and he was
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: shooting you know, seven dinner scenes back to back from
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: episode one, episode eight, back to episode three, episode seven,
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: and you know, if we didn't have that trust to
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: to to sort of stumble through it together, you know,
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: I think it would be like a very different projects.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: I think he you know, he's one of those rare
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: guys that you just think, like like you've you've done
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: everything in your career, You've you've been everywhere, worked with everybody,
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: and you're still just trying to be.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Better, like better at everything. You know, and and he's
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: doing it. I mean every step the way he bests
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: the the last year of his career.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: You know, it's it's it's interesting that that that concept
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: of allowing the space to explore, yeah, is so important
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: to actors. And John spoke about it in the interview
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: that we had that He's like, let me bump around me,
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: keep me. There's a box.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: I might not know where the end of the box is. Yeah,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: but that's your job to bring me back in if
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: I'm going too far off or I gave the box
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: that we're putting in. But let me play within the box.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: And don't just try to throw me down the middle,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: because that's when you stifle me. You stifle me. You're
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: not gonna do anything out of me totally.
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: And you think that, you know, this is a guy
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: that's like a Tony winning playwright, you know, I mean,
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: this is a guy who has a Smithsonian Like. You
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: can't put him on set and say you got to
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: do this one thing.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, he give him a line reading, give him
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: a line reading, see what well?
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: And he has stories about that from a from from
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: certain movies where he goes you know, a directors giving
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: me a line reading and it was like the three
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: worst months of my life. I just showed up. I
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: was a robot. It's like, that's just some people like that.
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, there are actors that want to go to
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: work and just do the one thing and go home.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: Like He's just not that guy, you know, And that's
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: what you know, that that's what I yeah, I mean,
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: that's what I love about working with. It's the most
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: incredible thing in the world, between that and his activism
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: and this sort of like I mean he he I
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: don't know if he sleeps one hour a day or what,
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: but like you know, I mean he just was like
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: put on this earth.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: To make waves in that way, and you can't.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Stop him, no, and it's it's really interesting to see,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: you know. And we won't turn this into a John LoveFest,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: because then he his head's gonna get too big and.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: It already is it already is useless trying to no.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: But no, but but in all honesty though, like you
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: look at it, you look at an actor like him
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: who's done so many different varieties. I mean, Mulan Rouge
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: and Julia and Casualties of War and and then just
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: and then that the list just goes on and on,
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: and just like you know I was. When I was
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: preparing for his conversation, I just went back through his
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: IMDb in his filmography. I'm like, Jesus nice, Like, there
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: was so many movies that you're just like, that's right, Carly,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: it goes way, Yes, that's right. Oh he was in
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: that too. Oh my god, that's right he was. And
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: you just go back and you know, like I brought
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: up Spawn because I'm like, no one ever, never, no
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: one ever calls out Spawn the clown. It's one of
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: the best performances, one of his best performances ever. I'm
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: like insanity. And then he told and that he said
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: they need to know what he had no idea what
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: he was going to do up until the director yelled
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: action for this entire time. Did you believe that? I
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: believe yeah.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: And I mean we were talking at some point about
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: the voice of the Sloth and ice age and how
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: he tried a bunch of stuff and also didn't know
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: what he was going to do and and and the
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: studio liked what he did or something like that.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: I might be telling this story wrong. But then eventually,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: you know, he got behind the mic and did something
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: and it was like, no, that's it.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: That's the thing, you know, and it's it's it's incredible
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: to see that. I mean, I hate him as a person,
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: but he's a talented guy.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: I mean he's a horrible human being.
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: As an actor, he's he's phenomenal to watch enamoring.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: No, but but to be as a to be as
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: a performer. And this is also the way it is
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: with directors. Are certain directors who work this way that
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: work kind of like on the Like my last film
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: I did, I shot in four days at Sundance about
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: filmmakers trying to sell a movie at Sundance. I stole
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: the I stole the entire movie. I got there and
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: I just like, let's roll and let's see what happens.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my god, this is like
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: what it feels like to be an actor in many ways,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: because we were all as a collective, creative collective figuring
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: it out along the way to the point where when
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: we got on the where we're on the plane, like,
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: so do you have it? I'm like, I don't know.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we don't know. Yeah, we'll put it together.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: I have no idea if we have a movie I
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: have no idea if we have a movie. I think
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: we have a movie.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: My experience said.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: But it was in such a little budget and it
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: was just kind of like me just experimenting, having fun
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: that you were just like, oh my god, this feels
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: so you feel so alive, as opposed to being on
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: a commercial set where you're working with a client and
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: that has its own energy and its own thing. But
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: this you feel like, oh my god.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: There's immediacy to it. There's such an immediacy to it.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Right, like the Duplas Brothers or Johnsoo Joe Sondsberger who
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: did these kind of like you know, mumblecore films back
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: in the day that they're just kind of like, here's
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: an outline, let's all figure it out today.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, totally exciting.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: As hell to do that.
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: It's terrifying, but it's so yeah, it's exciting, totally totally.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: It's more exciting if it turns out.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, if it did work out, it's like yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: you're like, oh, we went through that, Okay, I don't
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: know if I'll do that again. But so, is there
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: is there something that you wish you would have told
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: yourself if you had an opportunity to go back at
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: that first the first beginnings of your career, to tell yourself, listen, Adam, this,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: this is you gotta watch out for this.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good that's a really good question. I
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: think you know there was this, Uh I did a
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: movie some years ago called Syra with Amber. It was
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: with Amber heard Shallow Fernandez.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Never heard of her.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: I never heard of her, never heard of her, never
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: heard telling lots of few other people. And it was
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: based on a book and it was you know, it
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: was it was probably like sort of the first like
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: bigger thing that I did was an indie you know,
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: but it was it was.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: I saw, I mean, it looks, it looks amazing, it
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: looks and you were talking to camera, you were talking
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: to cameras that they had a little vibe to it.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they talked to cameras.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: But you know, but it was it was also from
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: a structural perspective, was problematic. You know, we had to
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: go back and do reshoots and we had to you know,
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: it was That's one thing I've also learned just asn't aside.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: You know, there's a script that can read really well.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: But but but with experience, you learn what's going to
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: play to an audience. Sometimes that that that isn't on
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: the page.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: And I think that's that's the difference between those really
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: really good directors they can see, they can read a
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: script or or or a writer director who can write
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: something that they know is going to translate. Because that
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: was one instance where we wrote a lot of direct
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: to camera, uh, talking at the audience in the fourth Wall.
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: We started, you know, testing it, and we realized that
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: like audiences don't want to be talked to, they want
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: to be shown things.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: And so it read really well because it was this
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: sort of flipant, cheeky dialogue about marketing, and people read
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: through the scripts. Agents loved it, actors loved it. I mean,
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: it was you know, it was a beloved script based
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: on a great book. You know.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: We went and shot the script and and and we
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: were excited about it. I was excited about it.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: And then we watched it and it was like, wait
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: a second, we got to go back and rework things
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: because it just doesn't it doesn't we're not rooting for
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: these characters in the same way. But I you know,
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: back back to your what was your question, I don't
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: even remember.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: If there's something that you wish you would have told
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: your younger self.
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so so so I screened this this film
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: for for a producer and and she said, you know,
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: it's not there, but trust me when I say it's
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: not going to be your last movie.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: You're gonna be fine.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: And uh, and I was wrecked. You know what I heard.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: You don't know you'll work again.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: Literally you're working.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: And that's like I mean, because I always try to
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: be like it is really honest about this thing. Like,
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: you know, I've made a lot of shitty, like very
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: very bad things because I that's how I learned to
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: to try to make better.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: And hopefully my work is getting better as we go.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: And this is hopefully not the best thing I'll ever do,
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: and hopefully there'll be more that's better. But you know,
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: I think there are those guys that are those you know,
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: those filmmakers that just you know, they pop onto the
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: scene and that's like they.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Their first movie is like a hit. You know.
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: That was like definitely not me, you know, And and
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: that was the biggest piece of advice I wish I
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: actually took in was this notion that like every time
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: I did something bad, I thought, well, this is the last,
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: this is the end. It's never it was never a
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: learning experience. It was always like, this is shameful. You know,
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: I'm shamed. No one all over talked, and you know what.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: And you know what, and you know, look that that
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: stopped me from making my first future for almost fifteen
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: twenty years because.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Exactly right there you go, there, you go, exactly exactly.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Because of that energy of the the if I got
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: to make a movie, it's got to be reservoir dogs,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: It's it's gotta be a Mariachi, it's gotta be paranormal
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: like Tivy. It's gotta be something that explodes out of it.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: And that's the and then that's the mentality that was
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: the kind of the kool aid that I drank from
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: the nineties coming up, because that's what everything was like,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: you had to do this huge thing.
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: And those were those zingy indies where it was like
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: the only indies you heard about were those indies that
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: were just the best movies that had ever come out
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: in those years like periods.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and the directors all went off to have insane careers.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: So that was what I thought I had to do.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, if I'm going to make something,
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: it has to be like, yeah, it has to be
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Reservoir Dogs. But then then you look back and you go,
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: nobody else made a Reservoir Dogs. They all made their
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: own things. Kevin made Clerks, link Letter made Slacker that
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: they all did their thing. But and they were right time,
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: right place, right product, all that kind of stuff as well.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: But at a certain point you just got to just
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: do it. That's when I when I finally hit forty,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: I just said, screw it, I'm just gonna go make
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: a movie. And from the moment I came up with
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: the idea to the when we're done with production was
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: two months.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, well and and and that's what happens, right.
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: You just you get that motivation and you just go
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: and do it, and you have to be sort of like, uh,
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: you know, theronic about it and blinded by it.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: No.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: I did it so fast so I couldn't talk myself
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: out of it, because if you sit six months, eight months,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: you're like, oh, well I need this camera or I need.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, right, I need this cast.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to give myself. It's always like an
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: experiment on myself to just go, I'm just going to
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: get it done, to proof to myself that I could
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: tell a story and I can sell a movie in
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: and did all that. It was it was fascinating. Now
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: we've been we've been dipping around or towing around the
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: green veil. Tell me about the Green Veil and and
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: it's really interesting. John talked a bit about it, and
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: in his interview. I find it fascinating that you guys
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: kind of did an indie series, uh, you know, self
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: financed indie series. Then now you're out in the marketplace
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: trying to sell which is something that doesn't get done
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: often has done been done, but not at this level
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: that I know of it. Yeah, yeah, with this kind
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: of cast and this kind of production. So tell me
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: about the project.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean so so we you know, I knew,
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: having been in commercials for a while, I knew that
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: I wanted to try to get back into like some
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: linear expression, you know, some content that we you know,
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: whether it was serialized content, whether it was a film
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: or whatever. So we you know, just because I launched
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: this agency and studio, we sort of had the facilities
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: to launch a television film uh division as a financier.
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: You know, we've sort of been blessed with our clients
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: and subsidized that film Intellivision production with money that we
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: you know, made on the agency side. And so this
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: was sort of that first project for me that was
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: like a proof of concept as a quote unquote like
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: studio that's financing, just to kind of prove that we
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: could do this. So I think for for us, it's
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: like we knew that we wanted to be in TV.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: We've never done TV before. You know, we could pitch
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: for years and try to figure that out, or we
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: could just go out and do something and sort of
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: stumble through it. That's sort of always been my approach.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: Obviously hasn't made many points of in this interview.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: You know, it.
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: Works for you, and if you learn anything, it's don't
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: do it this way. I'm sure there's an easier way.
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: They'll take your lesson. But but but but no, But
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, so I having worked with Jon before,
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: John and I were just coming off the Netflix thing
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: that it was a lot of fun and you know,
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: received well, and and John I was reading these articles
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: about alien invasions that happened in the fifties, and it
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: was this very sensationalized period when there was a lot
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: of you know, repression and oppression from housewives to you know,
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: Native Americans, to immigrants, to to to everybody really you know,
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: was very oppressed in a certain way.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: It was post World War two.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: Women were working during World War Two and they were uh,
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: you know, really running things while men were off at war.
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: And then they came back and there was this reckoning
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: you know, where women were now suddenly housewives again. Men
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: were trying to like recommand control of their families, and
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: you know, there was this insane eradication of sort of
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: like Native Americans. So anyways, I wanted to put all
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: that stuff together because it just it felt like if
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: we could sort of sensationalize, you know, a story that
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: sort of is grounded in this sci fi.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: Element where there were these you know, these these.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: Sort of like true reported UFO sightings with you know,
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: the themes of assimilation and oppression in the fifties, it
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: would make for like a really interesting world.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: Like at that time, I.
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: Didn't know what it was going to be, but it
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: just felt like it was a really interesting you know,
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: let's do an anthology on oppression in America with a
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: really interesting tone that feels like it's not just a
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: drama and it's not just preachy that it's you know,
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: we've got a hook. So I looked John in and said,
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: you know, can you play this like all American dad
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: who's like Latin, but we don't say that he's Latin
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: and there's these really hidden, bizarre undertones of his patriotism.
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: And John was like, you know, I've always wanted to
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: play like a self loathing, self hating you know, Latin.
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: I mean what he called is you know, like a
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: Trumpian lat Latin Trumpian, uh, you know supporter, you know,
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: Latin supporter or something.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: Got it?
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: And and so you know, he was always fascinated with
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: like the leader of the Proud Boys, who's like this
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: Latin guy and he's like what what is he doing?
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: Like how is that real? You know? And and and
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: and and so you know we.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, I got He's like, did you ever see the
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Dave Chappelle bit where he was the blind ku Klux plan?
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, he was like, yeah, he was completely God So
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: something like that is what you said.
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: It was literally it was literally that you know, and
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: and and so that's what we you know, I said, well,
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: you know, why don't you play this all American guy who, like,
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: you know, obviously there's some like you know, deeply rooted
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: like systemic issues there. But you're tasked with you know, assimilation,
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: like native assimilation at the FBI, and you're you're an American,
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: You're an American and a patriot, and and let's let
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: you reckon with those issues. And he's like, I've never
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: played that role before. I trust that we can have
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: fun with this and see where it goes. And from
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: a from a you know, not a therapeutic standpoint, but
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: like as an actor, it was something that he like
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: you know, wanted to embrace and that that was the project.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: So we thought, you know, let's root it in this
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: family with you and sort of like see where this
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: thing goes. And that that's the Greenville. It's a story
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: of Gordon Rodgers, who's played by John Leguizamo, and he's
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: tasked with Native assimilation in the East Coast, which is
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: is something that happened was rampant, you know, in in
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: the US and in Canada, as you know evident by
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: the you know, discovery of these boarding schools and you know,
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: these mass graves under these boarding schools that we just
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: found in Canada recently. But you know, John's character is
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: making way for a pipeline and there's a lot of
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: nefarious things he's doing, and his wife finds out that
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: there was some you know, he was investigating an alien
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: invasion that may or may not be an alien invasion,
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: and you know, shit hits the fan from there, and
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: you know, John's character ultimately is forced to sort of
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: reckon with you know, who he is and you know
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: and where he's going, you know, in this in this world.
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: And that's and that's that's how we got to eight episodes.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: That's amazing. And you got to try back at the
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: discreen yet or not.
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: It's yeah, it screened on Monday night, and it's we
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: had an online thing on Wednesday, and then we just
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: screened last night was our our our second screening, and I.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Was like, how is it being received? It was great.
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was received really well.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: You know, we got a couple of really positive reviews
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: and you know, people seem very into it, and I think,
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: you know, the challenge for us is obviously you know,
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: educating a marketplace on an independent TV show, and that's
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: something that is you know, it's it's you know, we
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: know the sort of indie model of acquisitions.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: And you know, it's fun, isn't it is that fun?
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Isn't it the fun part.
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: It's just it's a lesser known you know, it's a
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: lesser known reality. But I think, like you know, it's
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: it's something that we feel really passionate abou. I don't
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: think we would have gotten this show made had we
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: not you know, financed it and and developed it with
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: John in a way that just you know, he wanted
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: to play this role, and that's and that's what we did.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: And I you know, he's I would never want it.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: That's something I've learned is that, you know, working with new,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: exciting actors is great, but working with like your best
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: friends that you trust and who trust you is the
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: best thing in the world.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what the project is.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: And that is because because you go because you've gone
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: into war together, ready, man, Yeah, you just you just
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: you see, you've been in the ship, you've been it's
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: in different level.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: It's a different level of trust that you just can't
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: uh overestimate, you know.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely absolutely the DP I took the Sun Dance
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: with me, he was I'd done a couple of projects
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: with him, and I'm like, I could I just knew, shoot,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: just shoot, I know it's gonna be done. And it's
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: like I don't have to worry about that because you
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: just know they're going to get they got your back.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: And then when you work with actors again and again,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: you're like, yeah, I know that they're bringing that toolbox
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: with them today and yeah, yeah, yeah, and they got
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: your back. And when you're going into you're going into
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: the war man, it's like for metal Jacket man, you've
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: just you know, you know, are you joker?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Or you just want to do better work.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: Also, when you're working with challenge you to be back,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: you know, that's the thing, like you know, yeah, I
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: mean there's something about I mean that was always my
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: thing with John is like he has always just challenged
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: me to like, you know, let's make it a little
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: bit better, a little bit better, let's look to someone
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: else for notes, let's go.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: You know, And he's always had to work.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, he's been vocal like he's had to work
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: harder than everybody else to get to where he is.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: And that is you know, that was the thing I
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: reckon with on Latin History for Morons, right, like you know,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: I'm a white Jew from the valley directing Latin history
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: for morons, you know. I mean that was something that
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: I would have conversations with him about and be like,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: am I the right guy for this? Am I are
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: you sure you want me to?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: And he would always say, you know, yes, you're the
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: right guy because the vision that you your vision is
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: what I want within this project. And like that's allyship
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: and it's okay to be an ally and it's okay
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: to still support and try to be.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: The best you can be.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: And so I feel like our you know, something about
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: like you said, going into battle but with really dissonant
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: views on things and then challenging those views and sort
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: of coming together with like you know, a common narrative
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: is a thing that you know I love.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: Most and sort of cherish about that relationship.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I really I really hope you do
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: well with this, uh and.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: This thank you?
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: I hope this is a new model for a lot
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: of people out there, because look, man, it's it's it's
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: a tough loot doing in the films man, you know,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: and I mean it. I'm in the trenches every day,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: talking to people every day about it from every aspect
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: from the script all the way to distribution. I know
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: what's going on with that, and this might be another
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: avenue where creative. I mean, look, all the indie guys
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: from the nineties, most of them have gone into television
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: right right exactly, all the early two thousand, like all
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: they're all in because that's where the cool stuff. That's
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: why television is. It's so cool, yeah, so good, because
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: the writing is so good and and it's just.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: You know, I'll be able to explore a story in
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: like multiple episodes, and.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: You may take your time and build it up and
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: all that stuff.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: It's I've never done anything like that's incredible.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: So I'm gonna ask a few questions, ask all of
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: my guests, sir, what advice would you give a filmmaker
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: or screenwriter trying to break into the business today.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: A filmmaker is going to trying to break into the business.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: I mean again, just do it and see how it
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: works out. I think you just got to do it.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: And so I mean there's like you know, uh, you
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: just got to do it. I mean, you just got
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: to do Like if you have a vision in a
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: story that no one else is told, you know that's
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: something worth risking everything for.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: So go do it.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: What did you learn from your biggest failure?
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: What did I learn from my biggest failure? You know,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: to just dust it off and get back up and
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: shrug it off and do and and keep going.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: I mean I think that's that's always. I mean, this
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: is like such a brutal town, you know.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, like you know, if a movie's bad, an
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: agent won't get you a job anymore.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, actor won't work with you whatever. But it's all bullshit.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: Who cares?
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Like right, everyone everyone's you know, when you're hot, you're hot.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: When you're not, you're not, and it's like next. But
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: then five years later you write something that everyone wants.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 6: Now, and they're like I did Ben Affleck, I think
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: when he wanted his Academy award, Uh, not the first one,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: but like the second time, like after yeah, have his
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 6: resurgence or whatever.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: I think you know he said it best. He's like
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: you know, this business is about.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: Like just not holding grudges, forgiveness and just you know,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: that's just I.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Mean, it's a person don't take it first.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: Can't pick it.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: But because again, like you're like as creators, like we're
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: throwing everything into these projects emotionally, and no one else is.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: The agents are not, the executives are not, no one's
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: no one is throwing themselves into these things. Like so
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: we take everything personally of course, like we're going to.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, like you know,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: you have to just expect unexpected. If it doesn't work,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: you know, you get up and you do it again,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: if you were meant to do it, if it's truly
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: what you have to do to survive, like you're going
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: to do it again.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: I heard. I was watching an interview with Taylor Sheridan
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: this last weekend, and I'm just the biggest tailor Shardan
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: family in the way he's like so amazing what he's doing.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: He's working at a level that all the credit to
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: be working at right now. And he said, you know,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: I've been in this town for a long time. I've
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: never seen anybody bump their head against the wall or
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: crash their head against the wall for twenty years and then.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: Pop Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: I was like, wow, that's such a profound comment, man,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: it really is. Because he goes, I've seen eight years,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: I've seen ten years, seen twelve years, but I've never
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: seen twenty years. And that's when I decided, I'm always
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: going to be the eleventh on the call sheet. I'm never
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: going to be number one on the call sheet. I
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: should write. And that's what he did, because you know,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: and he's working on and when he wrote this, when
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: he wrote the pilot, the first thing he ever wrote
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: was the pilot for Mayors of Kingstown. And after he
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: wrote the pilot, he's like, damn it, I wish I
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: would have been doing this fifteen years ago.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: I wasted all that time just just trying to make it,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: hacking it out as an actor, and I really wanted
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: to do this is where I needed to be. So
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: and he goes, and this is something I think everyone
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: listening to that, I think you might agree with this.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: The town will tell you what you are supposed to
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: be doing to a certain extent. To a certain extent,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: it's like, I'm never going to be a leading man
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna be Tom Cruise. I'm not built to
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: be Tom Cruise. I don't have the talent nor the
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: looks to be Tom Cruise. But if my mind I
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to be the next Tom Cruise,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: the town's going to tell you maybe you're not Tom Cruise.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: But I appreciate that, sir, thank you. But but but
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: you could be something else that is actually going to
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: make you happier and actually more true to your path.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: So that you just got to listen, keep the ears
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: open for that kind of stuff. Now, what is the
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: lesson that took you? What is the lesson that took
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: you the longest to learn, Whether in the film industry
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: or in lights.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I've learned it yet. What's the
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: lesson that has taking me the longest to learn? Uh?
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: You know, to not try to do everything?
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: I think that would probably be the biggest lesson.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, it's easy for people on the
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: outside to say, you know, well why don't you you.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: Know, delegate?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: Uh, And it's easy for us on the inside to say, well,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: we don't have enough money, we don't have enough of this.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: I have to do it. I have to do it.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: When you have the right support team around you, it
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: is exceptional. Like the things that you can accomplish are exceptional.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: No matter how much you want to control everything, you know,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's umblement. And sometimes you know you have
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: to you have to do multiple things, so you have
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: to wear multiple hats, and that's fine. But I think,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: you know, early on, I always felt like I really
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: had the control things.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: Well because no one's going to do it better than you, right.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: Right, right, or no one knows, or it's proving the
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: narrative that I'm the director whatever it is, you know.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: But I think like as you as you you know,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: as you grow, you learn that the best thing you
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: can do is let everybody else thrive and then just
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: take credit for I you know what.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: The masters have said that so many times.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: You're like, that's all you can do.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: Just you know, whoever you're going to get the credit
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: at the end of it, just let it all.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: That's what That's what I say. That's what I always
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: say to the crow. I'm like, you can give me
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: if if you want to, you know, overwork to give
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: me all these ideas. I'll still take credit for it.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: So that's fine, work hard, give any ideas. Let's go.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: I'm just joking.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: I mean it is.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: It is. I mean, you know, to be humble and
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: to be able to say, you know what do you think?
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: I don't know what this is going to look like.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: Let's let's talk about is I think the biggest lesson.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: But that also but also takes you a minute to
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: get to that point.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: You know it does it? Does?
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: You have to?
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: You have to.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: You have to go through that process. I don't know
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: if anyone on their you know, their very first movie
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: was like, you know, oh yeah, I am going to
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: just ask for everybody's advice.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: Because you're like, I'm not the director anymore. And then
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: you get that chip on your shoulder like am I
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: the director? I have to have to prove that I'm
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: the director. I have to have my name as a director.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: I can be only directed only and written by only
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: and and I have to do everything. At the beginning,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: you have to feel that way. But as you get
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: older and you get more selled into your and more
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: comfortable in your own skin as a director, that's when
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: you just go best idea wins.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: Right, right, And I think and I think also not
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: over directing is also another big thing, not over controlling,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: you know. I mean there's there's there's actors that you
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: just need to set the camera and just watch them
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: surprise you. And then there's actors that you really have
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: to work with, and then there's actors that are somewhere
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: in between you on a little bit or whatever. But
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: like really recognizing that with actors with behind the camera talent,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: with the production design team, with whatever, like, there are
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: there are people that will feel more empowered and do
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: better if you let them, you know, And I think,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: you know, really understanding how to lead different departments, you know,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: in unique ways is something that that that is super
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: super important and and and it's like, you know, I
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: always tell people like just ask, like you know.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: Ask how someone likes that. I mean I talked to
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: John about the first day, you know, how do you
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: want to work? Like, how are you most successful? Like
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: that's gonna be. Is it one take? Do you warm
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: up with three? And then we get into it on four?
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: Do you want me to stop you.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: In the middle of it takes?
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: Do you want me to let you complete even though
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: we know it's wrong. Like there's so many different avenues
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: for how.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: To to lead a set, and I think, you know,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: very early on, it's like, you know, I'm going to
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: do it this way and this is what I'm doing.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: It's it's it's my show and blah blah.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: And now it's like, you know, it's you know, really
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: understanding the mechanisms that help people thrive is just the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: biggest thing that you can do, you know, as as
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: a director. And I think and there were multiple times
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: I think Donald Petrie told me once he directed like
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: miscon Geniality and how to Lose a Guy in ten
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: Days and heat, he said, you know, you know, don't
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: be afraid to ask for help, like, don't be afraid,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: and he was, this is after this is I think
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: I was going to Syrup in New York and I said,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: you know, what, what do you have? You know, I'm
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: shooting in New York and blah blah, and he said,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: you know, don't You've got to ask for help. You know,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: when you need help, you have to. It's going to
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: be more endearing when you say I don't know how
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: to shoot the scene. Let's talk about it. And people
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: are gonna work harder for you than if you just
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: stumble through it and just pretend you know what's going on,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: and everyone thinks, I don't know if this is right,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: And that was like a really you know, a really
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: powerful thing.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: And then I was shadowing Rodrigo Garcia, who did a
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: bunch of really cool movies, and he was doing this
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: thing with a net Benning and I, you know, I
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: think I was just shadowing him a couple of days,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: and he said, you know, he just let her work,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: you know, he let her dictate everything, and he covered
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: the scene in a way that would let her roam
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: around if she wanted to pick up a cup, if
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: she wanted to. You know, he knew he played to
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: her talent, you know, And that was like such an
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: important lesson also, which oh yeah, like you know, if
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: you've got a great actress like you have to support
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: what they're trying to do.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: You can't box them in, you can't you can't like, Okay,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: hit Mark A, hit Mark B. But if she wants
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: to flow.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the thing they don't.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: Teach you, man Like sometimes when you and especially when
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: you work with these these actors who are at a
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: different level, like John or a net and you know,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: and I've had the opportunity to work with some actors
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: as well that have just you know when they when
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: you when you have an Oscar nominee on set, you
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: just go, oh, oh that's how that's done.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you just feel the difference.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: You're just like, oh, okay, so how do you how
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: do you want to work? How do you want to
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: do this? How do you flow? It's it's it's a
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: it's a remarkable experience when you get to work with
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: really really talented people on all levels, on every every
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: every every crew member and actors.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I feel I think you learn how to
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: you know, in film score whatever. I don't know, I
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: didn't go, but you learn you could learn how to
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: technically lay a mark or you know mark, you know.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: And this and that or whatever.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: But like the reality is you get to set and
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: like that actor is not gonna want to hit that
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: mark and they're gonna want.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: To have freedom, they're gonna want to do so then
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: what do you do? Like what happens? Then?
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: You know? And I think that's that's the thing that is,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: It's so important that you got and do it not
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: just like within your community, but like with random actors
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: that you've never worked before, with a lot of crazy personalities,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: because that's the thing that's going to get you honing Kraft.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: Now, last question, sir, three of your favorite terms of all.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: Time through Oh my gosh, okay, uh Big Fish is
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: I think my number one favorite movie of all time.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: I I just there's just.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: Something so magical about what Tim Burton was able to John.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: I had John on the show, John August on the show,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: Oh did you really? I talked to him at dude.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: It was just such a beautiful It's one of my
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: favorite Tim Burton movies.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: Same, same, same, I know, I know, it was just something.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, he tapped into something so magical with that
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: film and the way that he tried to think I
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: love most is the way he tracked that narrative, those
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: those those there were multiple narratives, and by the time
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: you get see that, it paid off to such like I
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: was sobbing, you know in the movie.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to do.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: My whole life is just make people cry in that
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: way and like be rooting for something, and you think
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: this is the you know, beautiful.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: That was number one. Number two. Uh, cider House Rules
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: is a movie that.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: I really love night and I just just something was
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: so you know, so moral, and there were these multiple
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: storylines that just really fit what they were. Michael Kaine
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: was in that too, right, Michael Kaine was He played that,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: and Charlie Stron was in that as the young Charlie.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: Charlie. Yeah.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: And then and then I the the last movie, uh uh,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: Pirates of the Caribbean. I just I love a spectacle, man,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, I just love it. Like there's just something
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: so powerful about Like like everyone asked me, you know,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: what do you want to do like tour this I'm like, no,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: I want to direct like Pirates of the Caribbean eight
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: That's like that's where I want to be. That's great.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: You know, you never know who's listening. You never know
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: who's listening. So if you want to, if you want
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: to make the pitch now for Pirates of the Caribbean eight,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: you know, I've got the pitch. Let's wait a couple
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: of years, let's see what Johnny. You know where Johnny lands.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: But you can't do without you can't. I don't. I
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: don't care what you did.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: You can't do with that. No, but I've been I mean,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: Pirates was just I mean, Gord Verbinski.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: He's again, he's one of those directors where you just
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: this is a guy who's like cutting these scenes in
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: his mind. Well, and he came from commercials and he
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: cut me and he's out there and he's shooting and
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: he only shoots the things that he knows are gonna
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: make it, and then he moves on and you just.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: Think, this guy is so efficient in the way that
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: he is crafting scenes.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: And it's it's it's you know, it's it's incredible, like, well,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: you love the movie, hate the movie, it's you know,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: it's popcorn movie whatever. But it's just, you know, the
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: way that he sort of put that movie together and
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: was able to get Disney over the line with what
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: you know, Johnny Depp was doing, and you know, it's tonaling.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: It was just very cool.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: And I and I have to say, and I'm just
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: gonna say it out because what Johnny did. I've never
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: seen an actor basically take an entire franchise on his shoulders. Yea, yeah,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: he built it without Johnny, without Captain Captain Jack Sparrow.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: It's another it's another movie based on a ride from Disney.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: He and Gore working together really transcended that to a
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: place where it's made billions and billions of dollars and
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: he's beloved throughout the world because of this character. And
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: he was able to tap into something I don't remember
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: another man, another actor who has done that.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: And it was also like no, and if you if
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: you break it down from like I'm gonna go back
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: to marketing, but like a marketing perspective, like from a
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: from a from a purely business perspective, like he was
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: playing an inebriated right, like you imagine you imagine that,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: Like if I was an exact I'd be like, well,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: he can't do like, there's no way he can do that,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: Like it looks like he's popping pills. And then they
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: rolled and then he forgot his lines, Like what like
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: you're watching dailies from that and you're just thinking, how
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: this does not fit into like our cinematic universe. So
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: I just think it was just so like how whatever
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: happened there was just the most amazing.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: Did you hear did you ever hear the story about
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: the gold teeth from Johnny.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: So he when he was doing Jack. This is before
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: anybody knew what he was going to do with Jack,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: he already had it in his mind and he's like,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: I really wanted five gold teeth in my mouth for Johnny.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: And they were like gold teeth how much? So he
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: walked in he goes, I need twelve gold teeth and
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: they're like, oh, you can't give you twelve, john that's
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: too much. He's like, all right, five. He's like, okay,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: you got five. And that's how he got.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: His five gold teeth for Jack Sparrow back.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: Well, the five gold teeth were offensive. I mean, he
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 4: shouldn't have had those.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: I mean obviously, I mean, obviously, come on, obviously it's.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: A very offensive and nobody, You're right, on paper, it
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: makes no sense why that character should work in a
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: movie of that magnitude, based on the property and the
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: ip it was for a company like Disney, like, it
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: doesn't make any sense.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: Right, Well, and yeah, and you're like, so you're gonna
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: test that with twelve year olds and they're you know,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: oh their parents, you know, would you let your kid watch?
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 4: You know, this misogynist pirate who's drugging dudes stumbling around
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 4: drunk all the time.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: Would that be endearing for you? What do you think? Like, No,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: it would have never.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: I mean that's crazy, you know, I don't even I
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: would love to hear the story of how like after
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: day one of shoot, like when the dailies came is
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: not good.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: I mean I heard that they were freaking out. I'm sure,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: like why who wouldn't but they were.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: But the ship but the train left the station already
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: and john and Johnny was a star and they're like, look,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: we're here, we're shooting, We're in the Caribbean. We're going
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: to make this movie. And he just he just kept going,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: and Gore was with him, and he's like, no, man,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: we're rolling this.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: We're parted the dailies for long enough for them to
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: not up the reshooters, saying because you think like that,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: you think that's what a crazy No, I would have
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: loved to know what if you interview him, you gotta
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: let me know, you.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: Know, when I get john When I get Johnny, he's
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: a little busy these days. I think everybody the world
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: wants to talk to him. Yeah, but but I hopefully
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: I'll get Gore on one day I'd love to talk
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: to about but there's arm Listen. It's been a pleasure
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: talking to you, brother, it really happens. I feel like
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: I feel like you're I feel like you're a brother
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: from another mother.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: I think we've we both got the shame similar shrapnel
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: in our in our in our totally totally tell how
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: we do our things. Brother. But this will make congratulations man,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: congratulations on the project on the green veil, and I
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: hope it does amazing for you and continued success. Brother.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. And and don't let John push you around. Brother, seriously,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: just you know sometimes you know, just slap over a round.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: I think I blocked his number.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: I blocked.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: He's impossible, impossible. He made me promise not to tell
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: the antal swab story. I told it because I'm just
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: so bitter about him, you know, right now, because he
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: always wants to work with me, he says, you know,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: I need to work with you.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: I hate all these other directors. You know, you're the
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: only one. I want to do everything where and I do. John,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: calm down, you're.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: A little little needy. We'll be right back after a
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: He's me, he's desperate, you know, I you know, I
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: don't know. He's not busy, he's not working. I don't
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: know what it is.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: But he just sits at home just waiting for you
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: to call.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: That's how he did.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: No. We weren't impressed for this thing last week and
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: on Friday and they're asking him about seven other projects
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 4: and he's opening up musical the same day, and I.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: Have like whiplash. I'm like, what do you mean you're
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: doing all.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: This He's like, yeah, I'm doing this moving with de Niro.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: I'm like, of course, yeah, yeah, yah, I know, right
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 4: right right, Well that was That's the other thing. I mean,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 4: he was in Greece on Tuesday, flew in. He said, oh,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: I did this great thing with de Niro. De Niro
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: was amazing. It was this beautiful scene and Bubba and
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 4: I'm like, wait, you were in Greece with de Niro yesterday, Like,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 4: what's happening right?
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: And then he's opening a musical and.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: Arm this is That's a different world, brother, that's a
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: different world that you and I get the get it.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: Get to dip our toes in every once in a while.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: No it's a difference, it's.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: A differ existence of life.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: And I hope people see this because he literally did
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 4: slaying that he's never done before. And I think that
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: that's the thing I'm most proud of, is being able
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: to champion that performance for.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: No He's amazing and I would and I hope nothing
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: the best for you in this project. Brother, Thank you
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: again for having Let's do this again, man anytime, anytime.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Arem so much for not only
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: all of his knowledge bombs he dropped on the tripe today,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: but for the laughs. I mean, my god, I hadn't
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: laughed so hard in an interview in quite some time.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: It was a fantastic, fantastic conversation. If you guys get
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: a chance to watch The Green Veil, absolutely watch it.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: He did a fantastic job with it, and John Leguzamo
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: is absolutely genius in it, without a question. Now, if
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: you want to get links to anything we spoke about
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: in this episode, head over to the show notes at
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: any film also dot com forward slash seven sixty eight.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: If you haven't already, please head over to Filmmaking Podcast
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: dot com, subscribe and leave a good view for the show.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: again so much for listening to guys. As always, keep
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: that hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: and I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:22:14
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• 1:22:17
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• 1:22:20
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