Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 389: From Short Films to Narcos with Josef Kubota Wladyka

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BPS 389: From Short Films to Narcos with Josef Kubota Wladyka · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network.
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  Speaker 2: For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three eighty nine.
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  Speaker 1: I can't afford to hate anyone. I don't have that
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  Speaker 1: kind of time.
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  Speaker 2: Akirakusawa broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when
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  Speaker 2: we really should be working on that next draft. It's
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  Speaker 2: the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business
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  Speaker 2: of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
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  Speaker 1: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host,
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  Speaker 1: Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now.
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  Speaker 1: Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
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  Speaker 1: on the kind of project you are and the goals
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  Speaker 1: of the project you are, so we actually break it
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  Speaker 1: down by three categories micro budget, indie film, market and
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  Speaker 1: studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a
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  Speaker 1: reader that used to reading tempole movies when your movie
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  Speaker 1: by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Well,
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  Speaker 1: today on the show, we have filmmaker Joseph Vladika. Now,
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  Speaker 1: Joseph has a pretty remarkable story on how he went
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  Speaker 1: from shooting short films to directing Narcos on Netflix, one
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  Speaker 1: of the biggest television shows in the world at the time.
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  Speaker 1: He literally didn't even know what went on on a
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  Speaker 1: television set and had to scramble to be educated as
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  Speaker 1: much as humanly possible about process before he walked onto
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  Speaker 1: this massive set, the biggest set he'd ever worked on.
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  Speaker 1: And we had a fantastic conversation about his career as
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  Speaker 1: a director, his new project, Catch the Fair One, which
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  Speaker 1: is being released theatrically on February eighth, and Joseph and
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  Speaker 1: I had a fantastic conversation about his journey in the
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  Speaker 1: film business. So, without any further ado please enjoy my
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  Speaker 1: conversation with Joseph Vladika. I like to welcome the show, Josepha.
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  Speaker 1: Fuck it all right, Vladika Vladika okay, three two one.
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  Speaker 1: I like to welcome the show, Joseph Lottica. How are
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  Speaker 1: you doing, Joseph.
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  Speaker 3: Doing well nights? Thank you so much for having me.
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  Speaker 3: I first just want to say this is a great,
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  Speaker 3: great honor what your podcast stands for and continuing the
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  Speaker 3: indie hustle of filmmaking and the array of different types
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  Speaker 3: of people you have on the podcast. It's great. So
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  Speaker 3: I'm just I'm just very grateful to be on. So
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  Speaker 3: thank you for having me.
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  Speaker 1: Oh Man, thank you so much for coming on. And
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  Speaker 1: I appreciate those kind words. Man. You know, it's I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to create something that, you know, that can help
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  Speaker 1: filmmakers along this insane path that is being a filmmaker
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  Speaker 1: and and try to just try to warn them before
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  Speaker 1: the boulder comes and crushes them. So just like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: just so let them know that the boulder is going
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  Speaker 1: to come and they can run away from it or
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  Speaker 1: doc inter something. It's very Indiana Jones style. But most
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  Speaker 1: people don't even know that their boulders lying around.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, big boulders, the big bulers. I appreciate
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  Speaker 3: this is you really kind of shine a light on
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  Speaker 3: how each individual person's journey is different. You know, there's
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  Speaker 3: no there's no right or wrong way of doing it,
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  Speaker 3: and just to hear everyone's different experiences and how they
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  Speaker 3: kind of survive it, you know, I think is a
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  Speaker 3: great tool and a great asset for for indie filmmakers
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  Speaker 3: and I need it. We need indie films more now,
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  Speaker 3: more than ever, you know, so.
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  Speaker 1: I agree to one hundred percent. I think most people
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  Speaker 1: focus on the idol and not on the boulder that's
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  Speaker 1: going to come down.
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  Speaker 3: Across them, right exactly.
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  Speaker 1: So Joseph, how did you and why did you want
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  Speaker 1: to get into this insanity that is the film industry?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? Man, well, I'm you know, since I was a
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  Speaker 3: little kid, I was always obsessed with films. I think
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  Speaker 3: the influence definitely came from from my parents. My mother
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  Speaker 3: was from Japan and my father from Poland, so they
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  Speaker 3: were both Cinophiles, you know, arguing over Kislovsky and andre
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  Speaker 3: Vaida and Ozu and Kursawa. So that sort of residue
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  Speaker 3: was always around me and my brothers. I'm the youngest
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  Speaker 3: of three brothers. And you know, my mom really always
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  Speaker 3: tried to get us to watch different types of films.
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  Speaker 3: She would take us if seven Samurai was screening in
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  Speaker 3: like Washington, d C. She would take us there to
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  Speaker 3: watch it. But you know, we, me and my brothers
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  Speaker 3: would want to go see Terminator too, and sneak on
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  Speaker 3: our bikes and sneak and soon multiplace. So so you know,
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  Speaker 3: it was always there that influence. And you know, we,
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  Speaker 3: me and my brothers used to take like little VHS
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  Speaker 3: cameras out into the woods and make these silly little
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  Speaker 3: films where we chop off her head and roll a
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  Speaker 3: can cancel up into the camera and cutting all in camera.
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  Speaker 3: And in high school, you know, I was I was
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  Speaker 3: a pretty terrible student in high school, and so a
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  Speaker 3: lot of the times and the writing papers and stuff,
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  Speaker 3: I would just make sort of like these really bad
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  Speaker 3: VHS little short films. And also our morning announcements at
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  Speaker 3: the time we're on or on TV. You know, he'd
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  Speaker 3: come in to class and much more announcement. So I
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  Speaker 3: used to like make little videos for that to promote
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  Speaker 3: the school dances. So so. But forth, but then you know,
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  Speaker 3: the reality set in when I went to college. Uh
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  Speaker 3: that First of all, like I didn't. I never thought
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  Speaker 3: that filmmaking was something that I could actually do make
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  Speaker 3: a living doing. You know, I grew up in northern Virginia,
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  Speaker 3: outside d C. So there was there was no one.
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  Speaker 3: I wasn't around any artists, you know, I wasn't around
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  Speaker 3: anyone who who just made films or was a part
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  Speaker 3: of that world at all. And so I was just
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  Speaker 3: kind of like follow following the status quo. You know.
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  Speaker 3: I went to I went to college, and I studied
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  Speaker 3: business because that's what all my friends were doing. And
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  Speaker 3: I figured I would just you know, come back. I
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  Speaker 3: would graduate college and get a get a nine to five,
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  Speaker 3: and sort of I guess that's what my life is
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  Speaker 3: supposed to be. And then when I got an internship
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  Speaker 3: once summer doing a job like that, I got to
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  Speaker 3: work and I quickly realized that this is absolutely something
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  Speaker 3: that I do not want to do, and I need
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  Speaker 3: to figure out what I really want to do, you know. So,
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  Speaker 3: oh there was an opportunity after college. A friend of
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  Speaker 3: mine was making like an indie film, a little budget film,
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  Speaker 3: and I had the opportunity to work on that as
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  Speaker 3: like an assistant in a p PA and that was
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  Speaker 3: the first time I saw the whole process really in
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  Speaker 3: front of me, you know, of a film being made.
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  Speaker 3: And I think I was twenty two at the time,
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  Speaker 3: twenty three. And once once that happened, you know, the
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  Speaker 3: bug bid me and it was it was over. And
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  Speaker 3: ever since then, I've just been obsessed with trying to
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  Speaker 3: make films, you know. So you know I got I
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  Speaker 3: bought Rebel Without a Crew and the Gorilla Indie Filmmaker Handbook.
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  Speaker 1: It's right back there. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I moved back. I moved to DC, and I was
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: a I was walking dogs during the day and waiting
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  Speaker 3: tables at night, saving up money. And I bought a
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  Speaker 3: you know, a DVX Panasonic DVX two hundred or whatever.
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  Speaker 3: It was great.
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  Speaker 1: It was a one hundred A. That's why I shot
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  Speaker 1: my first short on. It was beautiful twenty four p camera.
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  Speaker 1: Oh it's so great.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, man, those games looked great, still look great. I
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  Speaker 3: think to this day they have such a great look
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  Speaker 3: to them. Oh yeah. And then I just started the hustling.
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  Speaker 3: I just started saving up money to make my first
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  Speaker 3: like short film. And I did that for for a
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  Speaker 3: few years, and I was a very you know, I
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  Speaker 3: was a person that was very adamant about not going
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  Speaker 3: to film school.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 3: I was part of the like a fuck film school,
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  Speaker 3: you know, I'm just gonna do it myself and so
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  Speaker 3: on and so forth. But for me personally, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: everyone's journey is different. You know, if if some people
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  Speaker 3: have there's some people that just have an amazing talent
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  Speaker 3: and skill, they really don't need to go to film school,
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  Speaker 3: you know, like a PTA or something like that, you know,
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  Speaker 3: But for me, I just I kept making these short films,
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  Speaker 3: but I found myself sort of hitting this wall of
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  Speaker 3: I don't know, just like I just knew that there
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  Speaker 3: was more to it, and like I didn't I just
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  Speaker 3: wasn't making anything that interesting. I didn't know anything about
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  Speaker 3: working with really working with actors, you know, and all
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  Speaker 3: that stuff. So and also my mom, you know, education
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  Speaker 3: is very important to my mom, and she's Japanese, and
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  Speaker 3: my polest brother's a doctor, so on so forth. So
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  Speaker 3: you know, that's when I started to think about going
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  Speaker 3: to film school. So and then you know, I started
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  Speaker 3: to kind of look more closely at some film directors
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  Speaker 3: that I admire, and I was like, well, hold on
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  Speaker 3: a second, Like, you know, Aeronowsky went to a FI
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  Speaker 3: so Grcesan and Spike went to n YU. You know,
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  Speaker 3: there are people that went to film school, so maybe
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe this is something that maybe this is
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  Speaker 3: what I need, you know at this time. So yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I had made all these shorts there. I knew there
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  Speaker 3: was only one film school grad film school that I
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  Speaker 3: was going to apply to, which was ny New Grad Film.
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  Speaker 3: One of the main reasons is because it's the only
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  Speaker 3: film school that doesn't make you take the gr RS.
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  Speaker 3: So I understand, I.
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  Speaker 1: Understand, I understand Thisten bro My. My high school transcripts
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: were horrendous. When I got to college, I was like
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: first in my class. But when I was like I
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: went to film school, I was I think I was
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: first or second in my class. And then I went
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: back to college just for fun, just to learn, Like
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I went to a community college just to take philosophy
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: courses and psychology courses and stuff. We'll be right back
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: after a word from our sponsor and now back to
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the show. And people like, what's your major. I'm like, ah,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I'm just here for fun, and they're like, what do you?
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Why are you what? So I get it. Trust me,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: does I say seasons juries have.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: The terrible standardized test tager guy a thousand. Then they
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: tease like, so I knew there was no way, you know,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: all those other pillms that I was like, if I
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: take the gr pez forget about it. And then you know,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: a jury is always always a dream of mine to
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: live in New York City and to be like the
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: filmmaker living in New York City with all the like
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: the legendary iconic directors that have come from there. So
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  Speaker 3: I applied, Then why you grad film? And uh, and
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know how or live sometime I I didn't
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: out of the thirty five thirty five and the students
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: that they accept, and then I think, you know, that's
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: when you know there's a real pivot in terms of
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: I just kind of, you know, really at trade and
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: slipt cinema for that amount of time when I when
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: I was in school and I was around other great
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: talented classmates and artists and just studying film, and it
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  Speaker 3: was really it was a tough time in a lot
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: of ways, but a really really special time because that's
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: all I really had to worry about. Now, obviously, you
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: start to crew a lot of student deads, but which
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: is another thing which we can get to later later
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: down the line. But but yeah, that's that's that's basically
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  Speaker 3: you know, I went to film school, I started making
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: shorts and then I made my first low budget feature
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: film in twenty thirteen, film called Monosusias and that actually
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: that was my thesis film from school. So so yeah,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: that's kind of the kind.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Of the general the general Like, I have to ask you,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: what did your Japanese mother say when you said I
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: want to be a filmmaker.
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  Speaker 3: You know, my mom is amazing, she has she a strong,
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  Speaker 3: strong Japanese I didn't we didn't really have a bunch
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: of relationship with our father. We were raised by a
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: single mother, me and my brothers, So you know, just
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: raising three boys on your own, there's already a sort
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: of toughness to her. But I think because she loves
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  Speaker 3: movies so much, you know, and she she's, uh, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: she just she appreciates the art. She's a she was
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: like a ballroom dancer, professional ballroom dancer for a long time.
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  Speaker 1: So she gets it. She gets she got it.
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  Speaker 3: So she totally got it. I mean, I think she
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: was very extremely worried for me many times, many many
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  Speaker 3: years along the way. But you know, my oldest brother is,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: you know, an a radiologist. So she got the doctor.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: So that's good, you know. So so I guess that
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: could happen on my young us.
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  Speaker 1: Is like, you can have your it's it's your you
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: can have fun. You're the artist. You're the artist. You
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: got I have the doctor. I can have the artist
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: as well. It is the best of both worlds. No,
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  Speaker 1: I get it, man, I get it now. Was there
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: a film that let your father, that let your flame
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: for this? Like, was there a movie you saw and
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: you were just like, man, I gotta, I gotta, I
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: gotta do something. I gotta I gotta go shoot some movies.
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  Speaker 3: Oh man, I don't know. Man, it was like it
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: was it was all of them, you know, Like I
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: was a nineties kid kind of like I kind of
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: feel like every filmmaker there's like a window of their
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: their life maybe say from like eight to like twenty
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  Speaker 3: two or something in the films that were sort of
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: coming out in that time really really impact you, you know.
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  Speaker 3: And so for me, yeah, it was like you know
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: the call. I mean when I saw Fargo for the
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: first time, I was like holy shit, you know that's
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: a movie. Can you know, dude?
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I was I was in I was in college and
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: pulp Fiction came out. I was in film school and
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I went to the theater down the street to go
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: see Pulp Fiction. I literally remember falling out of my
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: chair laughing at some of the scenes that were just
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: so not because they were they were they were funny,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: but the audacity of what the filmmaker did and how
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: he was writing. And I was just like, what just happened?
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: And I've had that moment a few times watching a
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: movie like Fight Club, The Matrix, Shawshank. There's certain movies
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: that when you see them, they just like I just
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I think things have changed. Like Pulp FICX is one
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: of those movies you had No Country for old men, Jesus, Like,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: you know, if you want to go down to Coen
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Brothers filmography.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: That's yeah, yeah, I mean that's the perfect film. It's
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: the perfect film, like that is, like, I don't know,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: it doesn't get any better than that. Man. I love
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: that movie, unconditionally, loved that movie. Yeah. So, I mean
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: it's all those films and then it was kind of
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: like a golden era of cinema in the nineties. You know,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: people were doing their things. Spike was doing his thing.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: Coen Brothers. Yeah, the Matrix came out in ninety nine.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I didn't. Fight Club and the Matrix both
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: came out, and but ninety that was a great year
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: for movies. If I remember, there's a bunch of other
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: movies that got released that year. They're just like Jesus,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: like that was a good in the nineties went out
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: with a bang. That time period for me was the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: eighties and up until probably like the mid nineties, up
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: until I was around that time, and those are the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: movies that you know. Terminator too.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Very probably the film I've watched the most in the theater,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: I think because me and my brothers would sneak, sneaking
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: that you can watch it over again and uh and
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: actually my mom took us to see that, and I
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: remember my mother crying when when when Arnold's getting oh
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: no harm, that's camera down.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Cameron one of the most underrated writers of his generation.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I think he's a He's not an underrated filmmaker of
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: his generation, but he's an underrated writer. They don't talk
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: much about his writing, but he is one of the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: best writers of his generation. He might not be as
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: flashy as some of the other more known screen writers,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: but man, you look at you look at Terminator man
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and people listening. If you were a kid, if you
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: saw a Terminator do in the theater, you like, I, dude,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I had I still I think I still have in
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: my mom's house the card, like the sporting card collection
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: of the Terminator movie cards. I had everything do. I
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: bought everything Terminator to the books that think. It was
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: just such a phenomenon when that movie came out. It's
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: just it. It made Arnold Arnold, I think that was
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that was the one that really made him explode.
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  Speaker 3: It's a great film, man, it's a great film. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: But then I would say, you know what it was,
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: you know, there was something like, you know, I had
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: studied business, and you work, if you do one of
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: those jobs, it's like you're working like you don't really
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: know what you're really your job, what are you contributing to? Really?
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  Speaker 3: You know? And for for me, like filmmaking was tactile
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: in the sense of like, you know, I write something,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: you know, a ten minutes short. I write it and
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: then I shoot it, and I edited and then I
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: can't remember what program I used to put it on
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: a DVD, you know what I mean, And then I
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: can and I can show it to people. You have
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: a product and that you know that Seeing that whole
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: system like that made sense to me, Like it was
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: very simple. You know, you write something, you make something,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: and then you try to show it to people. And
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: when I was waiting tables, I would I have stacks
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: of my bird DVDs of like really shitty I'm talking
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: really shitty short films and I would just give them
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: out to like people that would come into the restaurant,
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: you know, and so so I think that was a
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: big part of it. It was like the first thing
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: in my life that I I just understood. Obviously there's
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: the complexities and how deep it goes was I was
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: so naive, you know what I mean. I was just young,
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: just jumping off the ledge and doing whatever. But but
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: just something about you know, you you write something, you
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: shoot it, and you make it and it's there. It
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: was very I don't know, I just it made sense to.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Me, no, without question. And I mean I've had I
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: actually had like a nine to five as an editor
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: in that corporate environment, multiple times, and you just feel
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: like you don't I don't know you it's a paycheck,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and it's nice when it's a nice paycheck, but it's
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: not really fulfilling your soul in many ways, you know,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: definitely a creative self. So I'd rather sometimes be broke
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and having fun, especially when you're younger. When you're younger,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you could do things like that. When you get older,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: it's a little tougher.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Into these things. Yeah, totally.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: But when you were saying like, oh, yeah, it was
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: a really great time, but a tough time when I
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I basically all I had to think about
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: in school was film and you just absorb yourself in
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: watching movies, talking about movies, making movies, learning about the process.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And that was what film school.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Was for me.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Like I literally had three or four hundred VHS tapes
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that I brought up to college with me and I
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: just watched them and I would rent stuff and it
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: was just five six movies a day. It was insane.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: It was just it's just something that you don't get
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: an option. You don't get an option to do as
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: much anymore the world we do live in now. You
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: also mentioned about school debt. You know, I've had multiple
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I've had multiple conversations with filmmakers who one poor guy
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollars in film school debt had to
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: call up yeah, and it was like and he's like,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm never going to get that. That's I'm done.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I can't ever pay that off. You know, sometimes it's
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: all a value. It's a conversation. I'd love to hear
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: your point of view, because I'm sure you still have
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: a little bit of student debt. Maybe you've been lucky
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: enough to pay it off. I was lucky to pay
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: mine off pretty quickly. What minees was like eighteen twenty
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: grand for my entire film course. I went to a tech,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a tech film college, and I was able to pay
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it off within a few years. But some of my
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: friends just still around their nick. So what's your opin
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and on it. We'll be right back after a word
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: from our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't, man, and it's tough. I've
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: been really lucky and fortunate to uh have been able
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: to sort of establish myself as a as a television
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: director and an episodic television director. But there was some
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: really dark times especially like after I was just done
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: with brad School and basically, uh, you know, you could
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: at the time in the program, you could keep matriculating
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: and taking out loans to live and you know, I
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: don't know how how good it is, like, but you know,
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: I like in terms of like being responsible. But basically
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: what I was doing is I would say out of
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: loans and then I was going on like research trips,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: and I was, I was, I was, I was trying
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: to uh make my my first feature film, you know.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: So you I think you could matriculate for like two
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: to three years, uh and then you have to make
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: your film and then you have to graduate. So so
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: I did that and I and I went and so
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: I took a big gamble, you know, and I went
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: into a lot of a lot of debts, which is
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: it's really really, really terrifying. And then there was a moment,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: you know, after I made my feature film and it
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: got into film festivals and stuff like that, right, and
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I and I had a manager and I had agents
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: and stuff, but like I was, I had no idea
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: how I was gonna how I was gonna make money,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: you know, And so I was, yeah, I was thinking
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: about moving back in back home, and like working at
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: the restaurant. I used to work there before I went
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: to film school, and like, you know, it was it was,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: it was. It was very very dark and I and
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: also what was happening at the time was I was
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: getting a lot of you know, script set to me,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: you know, and different projects sent to me. But I
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: was saying no to everything because, to be honest, the
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: stuff that was being said it was really bad. You know,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of bad ship out there. And you know,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: I'm not Scorsesey, and I'm not gonna get fucking Sorkin
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: fucking scripts sent to me. I'm gonna get the fucking
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, pieced together fucking's been rewritten like twenty times,
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: generic fucking programmer script and they're gonna want me to
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So yeah, there was a rough.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: There was a rough like year there, and then what
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: actually ends up happening is my mom because it's a legend,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: you know. She was like basically like, well, you need
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: to u you need to stop saying no to all
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: the ship. It was like, you need to fucking work.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: She was like, I don't care if you think you're
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know who you think you are, you know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: but you're not.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I was, I was thinking that in my head. I'm like, look,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I get you, man, I feel you because I was
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: said crap too, but it's like like I would rather
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: direct crap to get my geting home, the off the ground.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And then and instead of work, we uh, you know,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: working at you know, waiting tables. I mean, look at Tarantino.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I'm at Tarantino Scorsese. I mean he worked with Corman.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Everybody worked with Corman, you know, every day, you know
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: camera did Piranha too, I mean, like it's it's hard no.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: And then and then she was like I think I
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: think it was. It was probably like I can't remember
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: those two thousand and fourteen or twenty fifteen, but basically
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: it was new year reson.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: I was worried and shit. And my new resolution after
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: talking to her was it's like, you know what, I'm
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: gonna say say yes to everyththing. I'm gonna fucking say
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: yes to everything. I'm gonna go up for these films,
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna sewing so forth anything that comes. Just let's
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: let me read program my mind. And it's amazing how
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: much everything changed once once I did that because you know,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: so I started going up for these studio films and
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: stuff that I'm on. You know, I'll save you which
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: films they weren't stuff like that, but but you know,
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I was pitching to Michael de Luca, who was the
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: head of Sony at the time. I was meeting with
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: all these people. I was, you know, my my people
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: were seeing me, and I was practicing a big tool
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: that's part of being the director, which is basically being
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: a salesperson of yourself, you know, pitching and all stuff.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: And it is one of the one of the things
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: that they really didn't teach us that much in film school,
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: which I I mean, I don't know how you prepare
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: for that. You know, it's kind of like you just
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: have to be thrown into it. So I just started
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: saying yes to all the stuff, and like, you know,
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: more and more things started. I almost got you know,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: I never I was like meet between me and one
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: of director, but the other director had made all this
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: money for us bidos no so no. But what came
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: out of that was just more opportunities and they finally
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: there was an opportunity meet in my writing partner, who
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: I wrote my first feature film with There was an
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: opportunity to write a pilot for HBO for the director
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Tim van Patten, who's the legend. You know, he's directed
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: the most of the episodes of Soprano, who was the
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: pilot for Game of Thrones, And so that was our
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: That was our first paid gig and at the time
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: we're like, oh my god, we made it. That lots
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: of lots of lessons to learn about going through that process,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: because after you're on your tenth rewrite of it, maybe
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: you're not getting paid as much as the pick. You're
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: getting paid when you see the first initial number, you know.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: So uh so that came and then and then really yeah,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: and then uh and then the opportunity to direct Narcos came,
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: and again I was in this like, yes, period of
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: my life.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It was that season jump, it was that season two.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was season two.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So Narcos was Narcos at this point already.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah Narcos. Well a man, it's so crazy, we're going
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: in the time machine. I mean, Narcos was I think
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: you know, Narcos was one. I mean, there was House
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: that cars. Narcos is one of the first original Netflix shows,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: you know what I.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Mean, like one of it was one of if I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: remember correctly, it was in that first group. I mean,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: House of Cards obviously is the one that crashed the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: door open. But Narcos was then one of the I
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: think within six months Narcos was announced, is like the first.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Ten Yeah, and yeah, I mean, and I think the
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: I think when I was interviewing for it, like the
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know if the season had even really come
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: out yet, so they didn't know that it was gonna
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: be this like huge, sort of global like it was.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: It became their like biggest show internationally for for a
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: little while there. So but when I was interviewing Florida,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: you know, it was just I didn't I didn't really
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: know about it.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: So did you know about Pablo? I mean you obviously
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: unheard of Pablo as Barnifish.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean the whole and I mean, and
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: this is why, you know, for all the filmmakers up there,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: like you, just you you just have to make stuff.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: You have to make stuff, because that's if you don't
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: have stuff to show people that you got nothing. And
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: the only reason why I got Narcos is because my
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: first feature film, which I shot in Colombia and Bteventura, Columbia.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: It touched on you know, it was it dealt with
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: the drug trade, but in a very very different way.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: It's sort of the people that are most exploited by
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: the drug player drug trade. But because I had made
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: that film, my Colombian producer on that film was friends
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: with the producing director on Narcos. His name is Andy Bayis.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: He's a he's a wonderful director, Columbian director. And he
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: showed my film. I had never met him before, but
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: it was like his favorite film that he'd seen in
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: a while. And uh, and then he showed it to
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: the showrunner, Eric Newman, and then Eric Newman liked it,
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: and I was on a you know, Skype interview moon Forward.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: That's basically I mean, yeah, that's basically how how it
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: all started.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: So then so then you were on the plane down
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: to Colombia, you shout they shot Columbia, right or they didn't. Yeah,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: they should shout in Columbia. So yeah, I mean, I'm
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I was fairly obsessed with those first few seasons. I've watched.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Oh God, I love But because I've I have I
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: have family, who are you know who are Colombians, and
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, deep friends and family that
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: were Colombians. I'm Cuban, but uh I you know, I'm
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: fascinated by Pablo.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Huh yeah, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say Cubano, Cubano,
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Cubano in Miami.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Uh you know, so I it was, it was, I mean,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: it was such an amazing thing. And you didn't just
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: direct one. You directed like five episodes, so like you
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: were how many very five episodes?
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Right? I directed uh five of Narcos and then the
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: first two of Narcos in Mexico, So I was, you know,
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: a resident director, and you know, again, I'm very very
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: grateful for It's amazing that whole experience. And and also
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: I was the only I'm the only gringo to ever
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: direct Narcos. They they they all the other directors are
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: these incredible Latin Latin American director There's like Jose Padilla
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: and you know Andy, obviously I'm not Escalante. All these
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: really really amazing filmmakers. So for me, I was the
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: lone gringo, which which I'm very I'm very great.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, so I made my tie little film right for
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: like nothing. Basically we shot on c three hundreds that
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: were donated to us by Cannon and uh in this
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: in cinema Lendas had just come out, the Cannon Cinema Lends,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: and then my DP had two light panels for my
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: to shoot my whole entire first feature. I was the
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: only lighting you had. And now I'm on a plane
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: correct line down to do this ginormous television show with
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: the crew of two hundred people.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Mike, We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show. So I gotta ask you.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: So I got to ask you, man, all right, So
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: how do you walk on the set the first day?
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I always love hearing these stories because when you walk
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: on the first day of set and you're like, I mean,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty intense scenario, even for a season professional,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty intense scenario. And there's Narcos and yeah,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it's all a movie, but there's still you know, people
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: around who are not nice guys, you know, so there's
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: that stress as well, you know, where are you Like,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: I'm sure security is off the chain on that place,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: on the set and everything. But when you walk on
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: the set and you're talk you look at the cast,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: you had, you know, working in that second season, how
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: do you walk on that set? And like, what was
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the feeling you had with the day one of shooting? Liked,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: what was going through your head?
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: Man? Man? I mean I was just it's interesting because yeah,
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: sort of my I need today was in a way
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: was a gift now that I'm directed like six hours
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: of television now, so like I know what it's really
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: all about, you know, But I gotta say I just
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: I was really really lucky. And I mean, I'm sure
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: you know all the people you have on your show.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: It's like you gotta work hard and you gotta be ready,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: but you gotta have be lucky too. And for me,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: what I was extremely lucky about with Narco's my first
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: this was my in mind. You I tried to, like
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: you interview for it, right, and they're like oh yeah.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: And then you know, in like four months or whatever,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: that's when you're gonna go shoot. So and you don't
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: hear and you don't sign anything. You won't hear anything.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: So then I was like, oh, I guess maybe this
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: isn't happening or something. And then and then it's like,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: you know, about a couple of weeks or a month
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: out and then they start engaging again and I'm like,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: holy fuck, I'm I'm I'm what what am I getting
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: myself into? So I do like a mad frantic email
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: to my team and I say, you know, is there
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: you know you're the biggest fucking agency, because there's someone
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: that I can like shadow here in New York just
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: for a day, just to see, like, because you know,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: I have no idea what it's like, you know. And
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: then they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean nothing nothing
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: came out of that.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, of course, of course, of course seat
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: man is shooting this thing and maybe you get on.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: And I was like, but but I think you know,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: it was too It's not on them, you know, it
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: was me. It was I was just too it was
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: too late. So luckily, again all these little seeds of
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: things that happened along the way. Because I had written
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: or wrote that pilot for Tim van Patten, I had
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: established a good relationship with him, and he's basically kind
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: of become my ment TV directing mentor like when I
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: when I'm in a in a pickle or a tough situation,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: I always call him and he gives me the most
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: I mean the most wise, amazing, amazing Yo Yoda advice.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: He did it. So it's about a week out and
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I'm like terrified, and and I and and I go
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: over to his go over to his house and sit
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: with him. And he's very patient and kind, and he's like,
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: just ask me anything. There's no dumb questions, you know,
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: there's no nothing. And so, you know, I sat there
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: for three hours, you know, asking the dumbest, dumbest questions.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: You know, I didn't know what, you know. He he
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: taught me what a tone meeting was and like what
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: you do like in your first weeks of prep and all.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: And I was all of this totally. I didn't know
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: any of the stuff, you know. So so that helped
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: just kind of at least get me the courage to
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: get out on the plate. But then again, once I
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: flew down there, I was very very lucky because I
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: had an incredible first AD. His name is Oscar far
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: customs Colombian, but Columbian American, but we're very very good
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: friends to this day. And then Luis Sansan's was the
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: DP that I wore with, and I was lucky because
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: they were really really patient with me. They were really
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: you know, I was very honest with like where I
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: was coming from in my experience, you now, and so
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: so they really they really kind of just helped kind
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: of hold my hand. There's a whole process which is incredible,
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: you know because for example, like my film, my films,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: both my films really, but I've I've made with non
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: actors basically, So from my first film, you know, I
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: had built this relationships with these kids that acted in
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: my film for months, you know, months, and then we
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: were in like a four week rehearsal camp before we
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: started shooting. So what are basically family? You know, on
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: a TV shoot, you show up, you shake the actor's hands,
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: and you block the scene you start shooting. So for this,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: for me, was all the other stuff I could figure out,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: you know, like where to put the camera and you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: all that type of stuff. That's yeah, that's like that's
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: the uh, that's just second nature. And then at the
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: end of the day you realize it's all the same shit.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if you're on a go jillion budget
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: thing or a no budget it's what's happened, what's the
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: life in front of the camera, right, that's everything. So
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: for me, that was the real big mystery part was
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: like working with the actors because you don't you don't
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: really know them, you know what I mean, Like I'm
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: used to having this close like relationship with them, so
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Oscar my ad was like, you know, acting really dumb
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: questions like you know, so like what has it? It's
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: like so they come and like, uh, you know, do
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: we rehearse for a long time or or like what
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: are you? And he's like he's like, uh, you're here.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: What do you do? Uh? You know, usually read the scene,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: read the words, and then you know, kind of third blocks.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: This is insane. This is insane, Like how could like
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: a multi million dollar production is bringing bringing you in
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: and they're like you like schooling you along the path
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the process, And it's wonderful that they did that. But
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I find it so fascinating that the show runner saw
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: enough talent in you and said he'll figure it out.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: We've got to support team around him. He'll figure it out,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: but I want his vision in my show. That's that
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: was what good show runner does.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's that's the magic of Eric Newman,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: you know, he is, that's he he finds these amazing
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: filmmakers and and at that time, what was so amazing
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: about Narcos is they really empowered you to try stuff,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So once I got comfortable
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: and once I figured out, you know, I mean, it's
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: all like I said, a couple of days into shooting
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, you very it's it's you get it.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: It's the same process, you know. But I remember in
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: one of my episodes, we we did this crazy one
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: shot sequence of it was like a three minute one runner.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: And this was my, you know, my first time doing
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: television and and normally you have like you know, three
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: weeks to rehearse and prepare that. No, none of that.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: It was chaos, There was none of that, but we
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: still managed to pull it off.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: It was so great about Eric, like I said, is
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: he's the type of showrunner that if he pitched it
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: to him, and he and he and he likes it,
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: you know, then then he'll fully support you for doing it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: And for this particular one, you know, I was I
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: wasn't trying to do a cool Wonner for the sake
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: of being a cool Wonner. It was actually the first
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: time that Pablo's family was actually in the line of
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: fire in danger for the first time in the whole series.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: So I wanted to ground the audience subjectively with his
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: family in this house, as everyone from around was sort
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: of closing in, so we're stick sperience with them through
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: this one shot. But again, you know, Eric was one
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: hundred percent on board and supported it, and and yeah,
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: I got really lucky with that whole team. Sanson's the DP.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: There were just amazing, sweet, sweet, really really great people
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: and uhh yeah. And it's like, you know, I had,
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: I had spent a long time in Columbia, I had
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: I've shot shot with a lot of cruis in South
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: America and all that stuff. So it was a fun
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: loving everyone. It's just you know, vun everyone's happy. It's
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: it had that kind of love, very very good vibe
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: to it. In Van Grimora, the actor who plays a Pablo,
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: is just like, I mean, amazing, amazing to work with.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: You know, he watched my film the first the first
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: time I came on set, actually we were we were
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: we were scouting, but they were shooting, and so I
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: went to kind of say hi to some of the
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: people and he was like so nice man, gave me
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: a hug, and he's like, I loved you, he watched
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: my film all this stuff. I was like, what this is?
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: I think I'll be okay, And I still wasn't okay,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: But so so let me ask you because I love
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: asking this question, because I think we all as directors
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: have this day. Is there a day on that first
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: season of Narcos that you felt like everything was coming down,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: crashing around you, you losing the sun, the camera doesn't work,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: something happens. And what was that day for you if
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: it wasn't every day? And which happens? And how did
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: you break? How did you get through it? How did
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: you figure it out? Yeah?
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean yeah that I mean yeah in television,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, television is a different beast. You know, that's
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: the that's the first thing. You're shooting seven to ten
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: pages a day. It's it's it's it's a totally different
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: than like when it's like your film, you know what
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: I mean. And so there was a lot of days
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: like that. I mean, there was one particular day where
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: we were shooting this like huge set piece, you know,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: of course daylight depending of course we're behind scheduled, the
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: fucking sun setting all that shit. And it's like a
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: three convoys of like different uh like military and Los
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Pepez and everyone's converging on this one spot and we
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: had to block off this whole fucking thing and like
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: in like.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: And you know, the scene was just ill was written
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: and we were like, oh, man, I'm not I just
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: I just knew, like I was like this it wasn't
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: clearly like laid out, you know what I mean. And yeah,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: and petro busca Autus fucking just a gym man the gym.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: I was kind of emailing him ahead of time, you know,
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: like you know, what do you think about this, Like
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: I don't know about this? This is and he's like,
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: you're right, You're right. We'll talk about it when I
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: got out and someone and so we just, uh, we're
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: running out of time. We're trying to work out the
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: scene to just make it make sense. And I remember
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: we were shooting it and we just we had to
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: put three cameras up this one on an eighty five,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: you know, one long and the you know, and just
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: kind of just hose it down, which is not idea, but.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: I love that term it owes it down that I
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: first thought, I've heard owes it down before. I love that.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, but but in that chaos because a lot
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: of the times the chaos makes its way that energy
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: into you know, and it's that classic thing. So showing
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: it I was saying that, I was like, call fuck,
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: this is like, this is gonna be the fucking worst.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: And then when I saw the editor's assembly of it
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: for the first time, I was like, oh, hey, this
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: works this way. And then we worked on it in
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: the morning and it ended up being like actually one
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: of the parts of the episodes that I really like.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: So there you go. So there you go.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: You never know, now what was you know, what was
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: the biggest lesson you learned working on Marco's you know,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: as a director, as a person, as everything, Because I
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: mean that's a pretty you know, trial by fire scenario.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: You know, you're kind of tossed, you were tossed into
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the deep end of the pool on you know, on
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: one of the world's biggest television shows. The second season
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: coming back, so everybody was waiting to see what happens
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: to the pabble. We all know what happens to babble,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: but like the story and everything, what was that What
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: was the biggest take what you had from that's working
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: on that first season?
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: Hmmm, I mean, I guess. I mean, there's so much
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to I'm trying to think, trying to jump
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: in the delore and then go that the time about
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: what I was thinking. I mean, I mean, I think
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: a big thing I learned is what I said earlier,
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: is that when you jump to something bigger and scale
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: the every you have more tools at your disposal, right,
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: but the but the process is still the same, you know.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: And and again the life in front of the camera
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: is that's what's the most important thing always. So I
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: think that that after I did Narcos, it it gave
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: me a confidence in terms of like knowing what's really important.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: And obviously, as I as that went on, as I
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: continue to especially in television direct and television, you kind
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: of you learn how to kind of dial in what
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: what you need to focus on, because when everything is
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: at your disposal, it's easy to get lost and like,
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: oh my god, I can I can do a drone shot.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: I can do this, you know. But but again, the
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: drama and the life in front of the camera, and
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: what's what's the story, and what's what does the characters
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: want and what are their obstacles and all that stuff
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: is all that matters. It's the same, and it doesn't
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: matter what size production you're on. Yeah, and it's it's good,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: it's no.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like it's like that old saying, like
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: baseball is a simple sport. You throw the ball, you
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: hit the ball, you catch the ball, and it's for
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: for filmmaking is like there's an actor, there's a camera,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: there's a lens, and there's light and a and a location,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: and it could be a thousand million people on the set,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: or it could be just you and the actor and
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: you hit the record button and you're doing everything. As
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: long as what's in front of the lens is impactful
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: in the storytelling, that's all that really matters. One thing,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I think the Hollywood is gonna lost its way up.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: It's you know, they have a lot of spectacle, but
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: at a certain point spectacle like we've look when we
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: first saw a Terminator too Man, Terminator two had a
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: lot of spectacle. But there's so much heart, yes, so
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: much heart, so much story, so much character in that
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: movie Jurassic Park. You watch it, you're like, oh my god,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: there's a dinosaur. No one's ever seen a dinosaur before.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: But the movie was good, the story was good, the
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: characters were good. At a certain point, spectacle, we're just like, eh,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: like I really at this point, where at this point
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: and where we're as of this recording, how what else
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: is there to be put on screen that's gonna make
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: us just go oh wow, like.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: The less video game less and yeah, Avatar, like the
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: Avatar spectacle without drama is nothing, right, Like it's so
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: the reason why Terminator two is incredible is because the
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: fucking the set pieces and the action are grounded in
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: the dramatic experience of what the characters are going through.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: So it's not just spectacle for the sake of spectacle,
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: you know. And I mean, yeah, I mean this. We
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: could talk about this for five hours, but yeah, movies
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: now are I don't even know, man, there's a lot
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: of spectacle.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of there's a lot Look, there's a
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: lot of spectacle. And we could talk about, you know,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: what's going on in Hollywood and all these kind of things,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: but and it's all you know, corporations have taken over
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: and filmmakers aren't in control anymore to a certain extent,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: and then nay kay. And then you occasionally, you know,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: give Marty two hundred million dollars to make something, or
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: you give you know, James Cameron, or you give Spielberg,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: and you give these guys or pt or somebody a
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: little bit of money to go off and do what
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: they do. But I'm not seeing a lot of the
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: new generation of those like we're still we're still we're
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: still squeezing the juice out of the seventies, eighties, nineties
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: and early two thousand filmmakers. But there really isn't I mean,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, but obviously there's a lot of
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: great new filmmakers like yourself and others. But you know,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, you know, people, when
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Quinnin makes a movie, everyone shows up. You know, when
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: pet makes a movie, everyone shows up, like we're Speeza
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: and you know, all these kind of stuff. But they're
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: they're becoming rare and rare unless they're on Netflix and
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: then and.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: Listen and like and those all those people, all those
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: great directors, Jane Campion and all those you know, all
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: of them. They're they're they're they've been grandfathered in, you
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: know what I mean. They're they're they came in a
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: totally different generation. I mean the conversations I have all
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: the time with like my colleagues that are filmmakers and
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: stuff like that is just like it's just totally different.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: It's a totally different time. You make your first feature
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: and you know you cannot you either. You know, you
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: can become an episodic television director. And mind you, I'm
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: not saying any of this is bad or you jump
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: to like a two hundred million dollar huge movie.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: There's no one between, but but the the yeah, Like
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: it's just I'm constantly fighting with myself, like how do
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: you how do you differentiate yourself?
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: How do you make yourself build a body of work
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: as a director, you know, And it's hard. I think
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: it's just I think it's a it's a it's a
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: harder time right now. But that's why I give a
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: lot of props to like this podcast and this this
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: full idea of keeping the indie film fight going, because
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: what I always come back to is we just got
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: to make our movies. We just got to make our art.
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: We got to make bold movies and take chances, and
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: like look the streaming wars and the void that they
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: go into. Yeah, I don't fucking you know, who knows
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: how they're going to be seen. But if we don't
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: make them, then we're really at a loss, you know.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: So I think just people got to keep pushing through
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: and trying to make their weird little indie films, and
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: we need it more now more than ever. But like, yeah,
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: the days of like your film premiere at Sundance and
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: you get a three picture deal and like you're in
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: the Weinstein Company is gonna, you know, give you fifteen
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: million to make your little drop. They don't make those
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: movies anymore, you know what I mean. If it's a
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: genre film, yeah you have a chance. Like if it's
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: a horror film, you know, or an action yeah, action, yeah.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: But you know it's just that we're in a I
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: don't know, it's a it's a totally different that there
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: is to be the next Pta. I don't know, I
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: don't know.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: What I love, I love to I love this is
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: just two film geeks talking now. But you know, like
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: would if pt and Quintin show up today as twenty
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: somethings do they go into episodic? Is that is that
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: the is that the route is? That is that the
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: route they go because they're not gonna get you know,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna get There's no way pulp fiction gets
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: produced by a studio. There's no way. It was barely.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: It barely got produced then because it was because of
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: the because of Merrimax. Mirra Max had the juice at
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: the time, and there was probably it was a certain
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: time period that those kind of films were being made,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: but no major studio was gonna do fiction. It was
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: it was read by a bunch of major studios and
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: they didn't do it. Or Boogie Nights. Can you imagine
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: doing a movie about pornographers in today's world, like you know,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: or Taxi Driver? You know, try to get Taxi Driver
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: made by Sony today, which is what who owns it now?
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine these kind of films? These films don't
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: get made anymore. It's very very rare for those to
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: get made. And so many filmmakers now think that it's
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: still the nineties and they're making their films thinking that
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: that's what's gonna happen. Like all I need to do
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: is get into Sundance or south By or Tribeca, And
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I'm like, noah, Man, I've talked to all those guys
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: and gals. It ain't no rainbows and butterflies. Even if
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: you get that, it's just it's.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: Just not you know, there's a way for competitions now. Man,
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: there's so many filmmakers now, I mean, there's numerous filmmakers.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: I know that films are premiered at a huge festival
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: and they still you know, they still haven't gotten distant,
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: or if they do, if it's some streamer, you know,
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: they offer them like that nothing nothing, you know, like
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: a five G and a five thousand mg or something.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Like we'll be right back after a word from our
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: So it's a different time, Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know how we can. I don't know. Again,
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: like I said, I just, I just I'm gonna keep
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: trying to fight the fight and keep trying to make
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: my films. And I'm very grateful and lucky that I
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: have television to help pay my bills and so on
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: and so forth. Oh so, getting way back to the
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: debt question. So long story short, so I did Narcos
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: had all this debt, and then I was like, basically,
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna do I think I did. And this was
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: a really rough time, like six or seven. Anyway, I'm
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: gonna do like seven episodes of television all in a
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: row and to just pay off all my debt at once.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: And that's what I did.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, God bless you, brother. I mean, listen. And the
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: thing is that most filmmakers don't get that opportunity, you know,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: they don't get that chance to do. Look, dude, I
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: threw down fifty grand on my commercial demo reel shot
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: on thirty five back in the nineties, and I'm like,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: I've arrived. Everyone recognized my genius and I set my
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: demo reel out and it was a rough go for
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: a bunch of years, and I went into debt, and
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I wrote a whole book about the Darkest
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: time where I almost made a movie for the Mob,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: and that whole time and that old craziness that I did.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: But you know, it took me a long time to
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: be able to get back out of out of all
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: the debt that I put myself in. It might have
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: not been film school debt, but it was just debt
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: trying to chase that dream. And I've had people on
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: the show who've lost their house, you know, with families
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: and things. So you've got to be smart about this dream.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: It's unfortunate that we have chosen an art form that's
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: probably one of the most expensive art forms on the planet.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: And I wish, yeah, I wish I could. No, I
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: wish I could just pick up a guitar and I'd
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: be like, Okay, I played for three or four hours
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: today I feel fulfilled, Like I wish I could do that.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: I wish I could draw, you know, but it's just
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: not the not not my I got bit by that
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: damn bug early on and I can't get rid of
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: it now.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: It stuck with me.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Now, what I wanted to ask you about your new film,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Catch the Fair One Man. How did you because you
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: wrote and directed it correct, yes, how did you come
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: up with? Like how did that movie come to be?
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like a film that everyone's jumping to
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: throw three hundred million dollars at, So how did you
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: get the whole thing off the How did you get
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: it off the ground? How did how did you come
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: up with the script and.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: Everything, and yeah, it's a lot. I mean again, it's
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: a five year journey to get to get this this
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: one made. And in between doing television, I kept making
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: sure Chasing the Dragon, Like I got to make my
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: second film, I got to keep plightning. I gotta keep planning.
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: So I actually I wrote the script, but the story
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: I came up with the lead in the film. Her
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: name is Kaylee mcquennan, a Greese, and she's a professional
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: Indigenous world champion boxer. And I meant her when was
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: this two thousand and five years five years ago. I
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: actually found her through social media through my friend's boxing gym.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: I myself was really getting into boxing, and I started
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: following her, and you know, I just she was a
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: great advocate and artist and she uses her platform to
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: touch on things that she wants, you know, to bring
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: awareness to. And I was researching and studying learning more
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: about like the Missing ur Indigenous women epidemic in North
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: in North America and all this stuff. So something in
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: my gut just like reached out. I was like, I
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: want to meet this person. So I reached out to her.
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: I borrowed my friend's little my friend's Hyundai Sonata that
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: barely barely works. I took my DSLR and I went
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: up there and I just started spending time with her,
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: started hanging out with her and telling her, you know,
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: I have an idea about this film, about this this
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: woman who's you know, looking for for searching for her sister.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: And I want but you know, I want you to
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: I want to see if one if it's something you
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: would be interested in acting with, and can I just
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: hang out with you? And and she was. It was
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: one of those things where it's similar to my first film,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: where like I drove up there at the time. She
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: because she's a like legit world champion boxer, she was
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: she was training for a fight, so she had to
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: go to the gym and the train in Providence, Rhode Island,
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: right pigs six box teams. So I was like, can
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: I just can I just go with you? Can I
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: can I hang out with you while you go and
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: bring my camera? And she's like, yeah, it'h su sure.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: So we go into this artypical boxing gym right that
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: has like, you know, all these jacked, splitty dudes and
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: like ex champion Golden Glove champions there, dude's talking shit
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: in the corner and everything, and you know, people are talking.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: She's the only woman in there, people talking shit to her,
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: and she's like, you want to go a couple of
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: rounds whatever. She's like, yeah, yeah, we could spar a little,
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: and she takes her piercings out, she gets in the
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: ring and she just starts sparring these dudes. And it
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: was in that moment the inexplicable thing of filmmaker. I
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: was filming it and I was like, all right, this
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: is I don't know exactly what this movie is, but
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: but there's no turning back. You know, We're gonna go
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: on this journey. So cut to many many years of
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: us spending time together, working together. She we developed the
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: story together. I for many years prepared her to act
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: in it. And yeah, and then we shot. We shot
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: this crazy film, and we shot it in twenty nineteen,
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: right before the right before the pandemic, so we literally
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: finished it right at the end of twenty nineteen. And yeah,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: it was you know, in terms of you know, she's
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: not she since she's not a star, it's the classic
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: indie you know, it's it's the classic indy story. Like
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: we had to piece mail and hustle to find the
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: money to make the film, and we I'm not gonna
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: say how much, but it was you know, we didn't
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: make the film for a lot of money. But I
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: was lucky to have you know, amazing producers on board
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: with me, two of which I went to film school with.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: I like, I constantly try to keep working with my
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: colleagues from film school because I feel like that's really important.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: And yeah, you know, there was a lot of no's.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of ups and downs. There was
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of I should just give up on this,
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: you know, all that classic stuff.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like how like that's the thing too. I
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: always love asking as well, is like how do you
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: keep going? Man? Because so many people listening right now
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: have a project they've been trying to get I'll get
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: off the ground that a lot of them probably are
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: in year five right now. You know. It's take I mean,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: I remember I was hustling my you know, a couple
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: of my projects for years and it's like, how do
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: you just keep going? How do you not get defeated
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: by all the nose because it's constant no, it's just
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: constant nos.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I'll say, you know, one thing, that, so
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: you know, I get inspired by real people, right, and
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: so like the one beautiful thing about making a film,
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: and it's similar to how I made my first film.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: So for me, writing and dreaming the film before everyone
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: gets invited over to your dinner table, you know what
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, is amazing. I love you're just dreaming the movie,
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: you know, and you haven't you haven't gone out and
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: you know, started to ask people money all that stuff.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: So like I love that part. Then when you transition,
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: this is the part that I'm not I don't love,
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: but it's necessary, right, is when you have to turn
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: into the used car salesman or whatever whatever it's right,
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: and you have to start putting your film out there,
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: getting your script out there, you know, your deck and
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: all that, and you have to start getting no's, but
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: not just nose. You get all the criticism and feedback
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: and all that stuff. And so and then like you know,
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: time will just it just starts flying by, you know,
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: and then again to to to to stay afloat, I
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: have to go do a couple episodes of television and
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: then come back. You know, but I'm building this relationship
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: with this real person. But what was for me? What
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: I love about that process is at any moment during
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: this time, which is like the worst time for me.
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: It's like finding the money basically up until you're greenlit
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: and then you're gonna go into pre production. At any moment,
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: I can grab my kid, I could grab my camera.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: I could go meet up with Kayley. I could bring
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: my friend who's an actor, and we could work on
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: these scenes. You know, we could shoot these scenes, we
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: could explore these scenes, we could change the script, you know,
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: we could keep working on it. And for me, I realize,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: like I think I do that subconsciously because it makes
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: me feel like I'm making it feels it makes me
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm making the film, even if it's like
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: no one is gonna you know, this is just for
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: for us to explore. But I feel like I'm being
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: a filmmaker. I have actors, I have a camera, and
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: we're working on the material.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: Sure, so that kind of so that kind of it
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: makes you feel like you're doing something because you're working
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: and you are doing something, but you're not there just yeah,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: but you're doing You're working on it, you're beating up
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: the material, you're you're you're you're you're putting the You're
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: putting paint to canvas if you will. It might not
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: be the big canvas you want, but you're practicing essentially,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: which is just very me.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm being a filmmaker as opposed to
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: just like a salesperson, you know, begging everyone to make
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: your film. Which I said again is that is a
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: necessary part of the process.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately, unfortunately it is, my friend. It is now
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: after watching the film, and how did you stay sane
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: as a filmmaker and as a creative making a film
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: like this that's so dark and it has so many
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: dark scenes, and you know, the subject matters rough, and
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: there's the scenes. Some of these scenes are just like
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: I just didn't want to be in the room, which
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: is great. It's a testament to you as a filmmaker,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: because I'm just sitting here watching it. I'm just like,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be here. This is just I'm terrified.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be here. How did you, as
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: a filmmaker and an artist stay sane during that process?
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Because I see it for four minutes, but I know
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: what it took to make those four minutes, So how
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: do you stay sane doing that? Process. Man, We'll be
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: right back after a word from our sponsor and now
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: back to the show. Because you don't seem like a
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: dark dude. Maybe you were working some stuff out, Joe.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but I mean because when the first
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: got on the when I first got on the call
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: with you, I was like, this is not the guy
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: I expected who made this film. Like he seems like
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: such a nice, well balanced dude. So I don't know
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: how you made this film, dude.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: it was a lot through the collaboration with Cayley, and
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: you know, it was it was one of the best
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: artistic collaborations with with someone that I've worked with before. Like,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: and I think, like, you know, from very on when
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: we were just talking about trying to make this film
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: together and everything we and just the themes and stuff
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: that it was touching on, and you know, she has
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: a lot of experience going around and she's met people
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: that's lost loved ones and so on and so forth,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: and like her perspective was so important to me, and
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: you know, she was like it's got to be dark,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: you know, she she you know, she was like, we
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: if we're gonna go into this world and we're gonna
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: fictionalize it. It's our artistic interpretation. Well, then we gotta
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: fucking you gotta kind of rattle the audience a little bit,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: you know, you gotta you gotta make people feel uncomfortable.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: And then of course as a director, I think, you know,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: for me, just with the tools of being a filmmaker,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: when you're in there constructing scenes that make the audience
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: evoke something, you know, it can be you know, laughter
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: can be as as gratifying, but also you know, uh,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: suspense and terror is also really really fun using all
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: the different tools, using the sound, using the music, using
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: how you shot it, you know what I mean. So
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: so yeah, but I will say it's been. I've lived
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: with this, It's it's has been.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: The next movie is very very just slash the common
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a sequel to Airplane, got it, that's
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: what you're doing. Ready, I'm ready to now, and.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: Trust me it is. It is very, very different. It's
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: another film that will be impossible to finance. The lead
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: is a sixty old sixty year old Japanese woman who
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: loves to dance ballroom dancing.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Oh that's huge that's very eye concept. Bright. You'll be
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: able to get two three hundred million easy for that.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: But we keep fighting this side, right, that's great film.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: And that's the insanity of what we do. I mean,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: that is the insanity of being in this business. And
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: I joke about the I call it the beautiful sickness
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: or the beautiful illness, because that's what it is. We're
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: we're not well, I mean an artists, aren't, you know.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: That's why we're we're not wired the same as everybody else,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: you know. And and it's this this compulsion to create
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: that drives us in our lives. And it's something very
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: difficult for people who aren't artists to understand.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: And we're we're ailing, and yeah, it is.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: It is a compulsion. It's almost like it's a sickness.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like this thing that you just kind
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: of keep doing it. But it's beautiful in the same set,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: in the same breath. So that you're going after that
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: storyline is awesome. And I can't wait to watch that
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: movie and you get it, you know, get and you'll
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: get the financy for it, and you'll get it made up,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: you know. But I it's it's it's so yeah. And
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: that's the funny thing to you. You just finished a
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: really difficult movie and you're like, instead of like, you know,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: picking a maybe a little low fruit, like going a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: little you know, just something like hanging like low hanging
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: fruit that you might be able to pick off, I'm like,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: maybe I won't make the main character completely impossible to
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: cast or finance. But you, as an artist, you're like,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: this is a story I want to tell, and that's powerful.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: That's a powerful that's that's a powerful.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, I grew up with like, I grew
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: up in a very diverse area with all different types
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: of people, and you know, it's it wasn't the type
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: of people that I was hanging out with my friends
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: and that I did, you know, it wasn't really in
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: the movies and on TV, you know. So it was
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: just one of the first things I said when I
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: became a filmmakers, that's one thing that I'm always gonna
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: try to do, is just it's just to put you know,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: more diverse people in lead, you know, and because once
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: you do it, then people will be more open to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: once they see a movie, you know, with someone then
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: it's they're more open to it, and then we can
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: continue to keep making more. You know, it just opens
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: up everything. And then it's, like I said, it comes
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: back to just making stuff. You just gotta you just
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: gotta make you just gotta make this stuff. And and
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: and yeah.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: I know I was running. I was I remember running
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: around town with with my project. And then had a
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: female lead as an action star, and people like, nobody
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: wants to see an action start an action movie with
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: with female Nobody wants to see that. And I'm like, guys,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: can you please? I mean, and then kill Bill came
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: out and then and then slowly but surely, hey, women
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: could be bad ass. It's it's but it's just the
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just it's just the world that we
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: live in. But listen, I'm gonna ask a few questions.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Ask all of my guests. What advice would you give
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: a filmmaker trying to break into the business today.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: Mm hmmm, mm hmmm. Yeah. It's tough because I still
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm very inexperienced in green, So take my
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: advice with the green assaults.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: But enough, fair enough.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: I would say there's a few things I'm thinking, but
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: I would say, don't get caught up in the result,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: enjoy and embrace the process. I think when I was
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: younger and I was starting out, I was just fixated
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: on the end result of my short film that would
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: then get into some huge festival, and just thinking about
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: all the stuff that it could do for me. But
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: that's not the real work. The real work is being
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: present and working through the process. So I think, you know,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: it's easy to get fixated, especially now with like I mean,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: it's so hard now because like with like social media
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: and all this stuff, and like, how's who's going to
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: see your movie? And is it going to be is
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: it ever going to get distributed? And those are valid
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: things to think about, but if you really want to
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: do it, you gotta just not think about that, and
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: you got to make the film, because I mean, how
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: many filmmakers do you know that I've been talking about
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: making their first film for years and years and years,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: And I think what happens is when you're thinking too
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: much about the result of things, it paralyzes them and
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: they don't make anything, you know what I mean. So
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: you got to be an artist and you got to
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: make second piece of advice I would say is you gotta.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: You gotta experience life to a certain extent. You have to,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: you know, fall in love, get your heart broken, go
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: travel to backpack through South America like I did, Go
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: learn a language, see the world, rob a bank, whatever
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: it is. I mean to kind of mess up your
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: life a little, gain some experience, because your perspective and
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: your point of view when you're directing is kind of
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: it always falls back on that. You know it's going
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: to come through subconsciously. So the more life that you've experienced,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: the more you understand other people and human behavior, it's
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: just the stronger and more empathetic. And I think filmmaker,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: you'll be so I think you gotta you know, obviously,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: make your movies, make all your stuff, but you know,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: don't just sit in your apartment all day. Get And
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: it's ironically, it's horrible to say now because that's what
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: I've been struggling with, that you can't fucking go anywhere,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, because of the pandemic. It's like,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm a I'm a drifter man, you know
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: what I mean? And I was I was lucky enough.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: I just shot for seven months in Japan and this
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: television show during the pandemic, which was really hard, but
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: in retrospect that was so grateful for it, because otherwise
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: I'd just be sitting here in my studio apartment for
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: for six months. So yeah, sorry, sorry, I went on
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: along tangent.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: No Where's nowhere is nobody. I agree with you. So
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: many times young filmmakers, their first movies they could put
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: out are just basically rehashed stuff that they've seen. And
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: that's what you do as an artist when you first start.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: You know, you draw, You draw what you've seen, or
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: you paint what you've seen, or you play music of
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: the music you've listened to. That's how art starts. But
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: you have to find that voice, and that voice is
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: found by living. Now mind you not robbing it back.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: But everything else you said.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: Joking, I take that up.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: Take that. Hey man. We live in weird times, brother,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: we live in weird, weird times. But I agree with
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you one hundred percent. It's that you you have to live.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: And you know I'm getting you know, I'm forty seven,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: so I've been around the block a little bit. I
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: got a lot of shrapnel in me, and I remember
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: the stuff that I was writing when I was in
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: my twenties. I look at it now, I'm like, this
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: is this is this isn't. That's no idea what he's
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: talking about. Like you can tell right away where I
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: was in my mindset there. And as you live life
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: a bit more, you become a more more you know,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: fully formed soul that you can actually put into your work.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: And some people have that. Look, some people have that
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: right out the bat and their mass, their anomalies, you know,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: but others exactly. But you can't. You can't, and everyone listening.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: You cannot compare yourself to masters. You cannot compare yourself
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: to Tarante, you know, like, oh, I can't write why Quentin?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Nobody can write like Quentin. No one can write like
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Sorc and no one can write like Jane Black. Like
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: these guys are who they are. We'll be right back
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: after a word from our sponsor and now back to
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: the show. And don't feel bad, just like I can't
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: make I can't write music like Mozart, Like, don't feel bad, man,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: It's okay.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: Let me tell you. I have a little post it
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: up on my wall. Here's what it says. Comparison is
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: the thief of all joy. So you can't if you
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: compare yourself to all these other filmmakers and every every
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: every filmmaker does it. Oh, this person made their first
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: feature when they were like twenty six.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: And it starts with Orson Wells. It starts with Orson
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: Wells at twenty three. Then you're like, okay, how old
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: was Spielberg? Oh okay, So.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: But then what ends up happening is like I said
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: that all that sort of going down those rabbit holes,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: all it does is paralyze you and you don't make
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: your stuff. So I think another thing that this all
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: ties into is, like you're saying, it all comes down
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: to patients as well, because you want it all at once.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: You know you want it, you want to break through,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: and it's a it's a long journey. It is a
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: long erathon.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: It is, man, it is, it's it's it's it's a
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: it's a miracle that anything ever gets done. It truly is.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: But we love it because we're crazy. And that's the way.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: That's what that is. Our plight in life is to
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: be artists and filmmakers. And last question, sir, three of
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: your favorite films of all time? Oh Man off, Today off,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Today Off, today.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well yeah, every you could tell me this
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: question tomorrow and it could be three different films. I
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: would say one that's always on the top of my
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: list is Milosh Foreman's Ama Dais. That's so one of
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: my all time, all time favorite films. My mom had
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: it on laser disc camera for me and my brothers
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: used to watch the tone of it. It's hilarious. F
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: Abra Murray performance is incredible, the production design, It's just
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: such a watchable film, like and and I love films
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: that have a lot of music involved in them, into
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: the editing and the visual language. And that's a film
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: where it just blends everything so well. And I also
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: love classical music. So that's that's one of my all
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: time favorites. Hmmmmmmm, it's tough to stuff. I think, uh
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: my all time one sock film would be Good Fellas. Yeah,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: you know, if the one sock fit. What one sack
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: film is?
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: No, I don't know what a one socker film is?
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: What is a one sock film?
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, So I might be quoting this wrong, but so
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: I don't remember when this was, but at some point
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: I think it was Gearmel del Toro. I could be wrong.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: He tweeted or wrote that that was the film. I
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: think he was saying Zodiac was a one sock film,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: and then he'd explained what a one SoC film is.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: So one sock film is your TV's on, right, the
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: movies on, you're getting ready to leave, right, and you're
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: putting all your clothes on, right, and then you put
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: one sock on and you're watching the movie. And then
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: you just sit there with one sock on and watch
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: the rest of the movie.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: Great, So that's awesome. Good Fellas is a one sock
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: filmy without question.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: Good Fellas is my one sock movie because it doesn't
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: matter where I am, I just watch it. And when
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: I'm on a flight and there's all these other movies
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: that I should watch, I usually just watch Good Fellas.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: And again, I think, you know, the energy and the
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: filmmaking that Scorsese, the language he uses, it's just so watchable,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. There's just an energy to
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: it that like, sure, it's it's low. And then third film,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I feel like I have to do
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: like something classic. Probably uh do.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Whatever you want it. Oh, great Tokyo Yeah, Tokyo Star
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: is amazing.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: I gotta I got to use some love to the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: Japanese though, I'll go Lozi.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: My friend. It has been an absolute pleasure talking to
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: you today, and I know we can geek out for
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: another two three hours, but I appreciate you coming on
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: the show man, listen to continued success. When does the
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: new film come out?
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: So IFC is distributing it, much loved, I see you,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: Thank Ka. It's been amazing working with them. It comes
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: out February eleventh. There it will be in theaters and
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: on bod at the same time. Fantastic and certain cities
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: they are still I think they're still figuring out all
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: of the exact cities and you know, but yeah, February eleventh.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you brother, continued success, man, and thank you
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: for Thank you for taking me down the journey with you.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: It was fun.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, thank you, I really really appreciate it.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Joseph so much for coming on
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: the show and sharing his journey with the tribe today.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Joseph. If you want to get
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: links to anything we talk about in this episode, including
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: how to watch catch the fair One, please head over
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot TV Forward
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Slash three eighty nine. Thank you so much for listening. Guys,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: as always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: to you soon.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: Screenwriting dot tv.