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BPS 326: Horror Filmmaking Masterclass with Danny Draven · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
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  Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three, twenty six. I'm happy to do anything
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  Hollywood when we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof
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  Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
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  to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
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  Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble
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  by professional readers, head on over to cover my screenplay dot Com. Enjoy
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  today's episode with guest host Jason Buff. We're continuing our interviews with horror filmmakers
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  with Danny Draven. This is one of this. This is like a masterclass
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  in horror filmmaking. Danny is not only a horror filmmaker, but he's also
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  the author of the phenomenal horror filmmaking book called The Filmmaker's Book of the Dead,
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  and it's now in its second edition. If you want to learn filmmaking,
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  horror filmmaking specifically, go get that. I think it's available on Amazon.
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  Check it out. It's full of pictures. It's it's really like over
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  the top in terms of like all the value, all the great things that
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  are in this book. Let me get going with Danny. This is a
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  huge interview, about two hours, so I was going to break it up
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  into two different episodes, and I just decided to go ahead and put it
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  out there as one and you can kind of listen to the first half when
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  you have time, or maybe if you have a two hour car drive or
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  something. You're gonna get a lot out of this episode. I certainly did
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  and learn a lot about how the indie film making world works, especially the
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  indie horror film work. So check it out, hope you enjoy. Like
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  I have all these questions that I've just been coming up with on my own,
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  but what I was thinking we could do was just kind of go through
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  the different parts of the first book, just I mean, going strictly on
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  the the table of contents and just kind of do a brief description of kind
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  of those different aspects of making a horror film and then just kind of go
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  from there, you know, and just use that as the framework. And
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  obtusly, I don't want you to go, you know, so far into
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  it. I mean, the thing that I found is that usually the more
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  into it you get, the more interested people get in you know, buying
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  the book, and like, you know, sure, anyway, I did
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  have one guy I talked to not too long ago who was like, yeah,
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  you know, if you read my book, I'll tell you all about
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  that. You know. It's like, come on, dude, I hear
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  I hear you. No, totally, I'm happy to I don't. I
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  don't do that. I just you just ask me whatever you want. I'll
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  tell you whatever I could, whatever comes to mind. You know, if
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  they buy the book, great, If not, it doesn't you know,
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  when I when I get a twenty dollars royalty check in the mail, it
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  doesn't you know, it's not about the money. So it really isn't this
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  this book. I'm that this the the first edition is actually very simple.
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  I mean the second edition is just enhancements to the first. So it's only
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  you know, it's about one hundred and I don't know, a hundred and
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  forty pages more than the first edition, and a lot of that is just
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  newer interviews, and a lot of the information has been updated, so the
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  chapters are all really the same. I only think I only added really want
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  it's just the information was updated considerably because it was out a day because it
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  was five years old. But and and a lot of new really good interviews
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  with people like Nick Garris and Kate Hotter and all these other dudes, and
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  which is just pretty much the big difference, and it's got a really good
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  overhaul as far as like a lot more artwork was added, like a lot
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  of really cool like grindhouse art just just for I candy, really stuff like
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  that. So it's it's a fun it's it's the it is by far the
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  definitive best edition of that book and probably the last. And and and it'll
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  it'll has a hardcover edition, which is which is really cool and it's a
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  little it's kind of expensive, but it's they do have a hardcover one that
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  which is kind of cool for it. But but anyway, yeah, so
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  it's it's very so whatever we we ever talked about with the book, it's
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  it's very similar to the second it's just more updated as all. Well,
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  I mean, that might be a good jumping in point. What what do
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  you consider the major things that have changed from the first book to the second
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  book? What technology and distribution mainly because you know, the film filmmaking process
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  is really still it has been kind of the same for you know, one
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  hundred years. It's just you know, just the technology has has has changed
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  to the point you know where particularly in my in my book, it has
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  to do when I change was the distribution chapters, which is that's different with
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  digital distribution and everything, and uh and particularly uh some of the stuff in
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  the production because because the cameras have gotten better, bigger, smaller and shoot
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  higher, higher quality, you know. And so I think it's just mainly
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  the technology stuff in the book is the biggest update. And and the interviews,
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  because I added about well, I don't know, maybe ten people I
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  think. I mean, I mean, there were really good interviews because these
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  guys are working professional filmmakers. I mean, I got Mick Garrison, I
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  sat down and had a great lunch and we just we we had this like
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  two hour interview, and I think in the book it's like eight nine pages
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  and there really good insightful questions. I had an awesome, awesome interview with
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  big time composer John Outman and editor we and that's like a ten page interview
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  is really good. John Debney, the composer John Debney, and Tboard Takas,
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  the guy who directed The Gate and Spider's three D. And he did
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  a really good one too, because I know him. I edited a movie
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  for him years ago for Sci Fi Channel, and I remember when I was
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  editing it with him. He was checking his phone and he was making Mega
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  Snake at the time, and he was showing me some of his stories.
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  He was showing he was showing me some of his storyboards, and I was
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  like, because we were just sitting in the editing and I was like,
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  oh, that's pretty cool. You know, this is pretty cool storyboards.
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  So then like literally like, well, I don't know if it's eight years
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  later when I decided to interview him. I was like, hey, man,
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  you still have those Mega Snakes storyboards because that was for you. Those
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  things are really well done and I should put those in the book. And
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  so so that the there's this one scene where the snake eats this guy and
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  it's the exact storyboards that they did for their show for the film. So
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  you get his interview and then you get like, you know, the six
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  pages of these really beautiful storyboards that they did for it, and then you
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  get the frame grabs from the movie when how they actually shot it, and
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  and yeah, just stuff like that. I got a really good interview with
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  some other producers, Mark Rodeski and doing fleming from they did Exists. You
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  know, the big big flip movie that Eduardo Sanchez did they were producers on
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  that, and and there's uh, Mike Mendez, he's sitting there now,
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  director of Big Ass Spider and all right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah, he's a he's a great guy. And I'm oh boy, Kane
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  Hotter, Michael Berryman and I know, I think I'm probably missing a few
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  people, but but anyway, it's it's it's think. One of the things
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  people, one of the things that people really enjoyed about this book is is
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  the interviews, especially from the first edition. I mean, all the information
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  there is is great anyway, but but the interviews really kind of drove it
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  home for people because you're you're you're hearing really good advice from people who were
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  actually, you know, working out and working professionals in Hollywood. So it
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  was a favorite in the first edition. So I decided in the second one,
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  I just want to add a lot more. So that's what we did.
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  You have the same interviews from the first book as well, or is
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  it like, okay, now, I know you interviewed James One and the
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  first book, right, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, he's still
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  he's still in there, all of I think you want to keep him in
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  there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's actually edited him before
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  he you know, back when he was making like I think it was the
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  first Instidious or something like that. It was a while ago when we when
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  we talked about it, right, So he did a really good interview,
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  and uh, everybody's the same. It's it's I think I had to remove
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  one person because it was just what they were talking about was like so outdated
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  that I just had got removed. But other than that, it's all the
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  same people, plus you know, can or twelve people that I've added.
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  So is there anything that kind of sticks out at you, like something that
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  just kind of blew your mind with an interview or somebody who just kind of
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  like, you know, said something to you that you didn't really know beforehand,
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  or I don't know, just kind of like you know, sometimes you
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  talk to one of these filmmakers and it's just like, oh wow, you
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  know that's something Yeah, surely, sure, absolutely, I mean we I
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  mean when you when I talking, when I talked to say, like somebody
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  like mc garris or somebody, and I'm asking any specific questions about how he
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  how he directs actors and what his process is like and all that's it's different
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  for everyone you know, but but you know, his his answers were were
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  very insightful and uh and you know, not all of them made him into
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  the book, but the ones that did, I thought were the we'll be
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  right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show,
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  we're the most insightful ones. And it just it's just really even even as
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  the the interviewer, I mean, I'm I'm like, oh, wow,
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  I didn't that's that's interesting. That's how you do, that's how he works.
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  And then I see how how how somebody like uh t board works or
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  some or or or or what what Kane Hotter was thinking when he when he
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  decided to uh uh play the character of Jason and what he did to make
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  it a scary character. And he would answer that question and things like that,
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  because the guy's usually the guy's like Kane Hotter and Robert England and Michael
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  Berriman and all these guys that have played uh, you know, monsters,
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  I always ask them what their process was like as an actor to really develop
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  that character. It's because it because it's all great horror movie monsters are more
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  than just you know, guy sticking a mask on or a guy in a
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  glove. There's a lot more behind it, and to understand their process was
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  was very insightful. And and that's what I that's what I think you get
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  when you read these interviews in this book, as you really see like,
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  wow, Robert England really, you know, he really had a method to
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  how he portrayed Freddie, you know, and same thing with Jason, and
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  the same thing with Pluto and Hills have Eyes you know, and all that
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  stuff. So so it's it's it's it's it's a good it's a it's a
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  fun conversation. It's just kind of like two guys out, you know,
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  sitting at a bar having a beer talking about there making movies. And that's
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  kind of the style of the of the interview. But can you share a
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  little bit about the health of that, like what what you know or just
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  the whole concept of directing actors in a you know, a horror movie,
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  whether it be the the Good Guys or the monsters or whatever, the whole
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  the whole idea of of of directing the monsters for for I'm sorry, what
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  you what you mean? Like the uh, well, what is your approach?
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  What and what what did you learn from these people. What is your
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  approach and what are some things that you've learned from talking to directors about directing.
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  You know, monsters are directing actors in general? Oh, I sewage
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  that. Well. I think I think it's it's it's it's it's certainly going
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  to be different for every director, But I think instinct has a lot to
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  do with it. You know when when when when directing actors, you know,
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  it's it's instinctual. It's uh, it's it's trying, you know,
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  not not my styles. I'm very much like an actors director, and I
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  I don't I mean, I have the technical background, no doubt, you
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  know, because I want to post company and I've been an editor for I've
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  edited more movies than I care to remember. But but when you combine the
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  sort of technical background with the actors, uh, when you win you understand
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  actors, I think it really can make you a very strong director. Because
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  a lot of people they come out of films school or they come out of
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  they get into their first film and they they they're they're they're scared of actors
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  and they're scared of of the of the process. It's kind of like,
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  okay, well, just they just talk to an actor like they're like they're
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  they're a puppet, Like, okay, you will you say this line and
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  you stand here and then you walk over here, and then the camera's gonna
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  push into your face and and then you're gonna walk off screen. Okay,
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  you got it, and then you act just like oh okay, and then
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  you know they can, they can, you know, do it and do
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  what you're talking about. But that you know that that's not really directing,
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  you know, that's just technically you know, you're choreographing the scene. You're
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  just blocking the scene at that point. So so you know, my process
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  has always been to to really take care with the actors and to really you
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  know, spend a lot of time with them and and just be there for
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  whatever they need because you know, and and and and give them what they
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  need from a director so like they can play the scene properly and uh and
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  and have the technical understanding to communicate to the crew and to the So that's
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  my that's my process. It's kind of you know a little of both.
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  Some people are just completely technical. You know. It's just like they hire,
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  you know, I'll certainly it's always going to hire the best actors you
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  can afford, and you just kind of most of the time if you hire
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  an actor of that caliber that you don't they don't need to do much at
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  all. It's just sit back and watch it happen because they're so amazing and
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  they get it, you know. And other times, you know, they
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  need a lot more and they do need that push and that technical direction.
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  You know, maybe maybe it's their first film. They don't know how to
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  hit a mark, you know. So so yeah, So what do you
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  do if you get in a situation where you've hired somebody and everybody's there,
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  you know, the whole crew, and everything's lit, and the actor just
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  isn't giving the right performance or it's just not working. Is there any like
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  trick you have or what what goes through your mind as a director? Oh?
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  Well, well, I think if everything you look, if you're on
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  the set, everything slit and then the actor's coming out. It's a lot
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  of times it's the first time. You a lot of times there's no especially
• 15:05
  in the budget movies, there's there wasn't really any rehearsal. It's it's,
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  uh, it is the first time that you're doing the scene, and uh,
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  what sounded good on what sounded good on paper, what sounded good in
• 15:15
  your head is certainly not what's happening. And so, you know, you
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  get there and you see him do it, and you're like, oh,
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  oh Jesus, you know. I mean I've been I've been a situation where
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  I'm like, I was like, I don't I don't even think we cast
• 15:26
  the right person. So so then you're so then you're like, oh,
• 15:30
  man, okay, but well, you know, what are you gonna do?
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  You're you know, you're already hired. They were there in front of
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  you, You got Drew and everybody there, and you you're kind of like,
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  yeah, he probably wasn't the right choice, but this is what I
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  have to work with. So let's let's do the best we can with what
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  we have, you know. So, I mean, I've been definitely been
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  in that situation. But I think, you know, if if you're in
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  a situation where they're where they're not an actor's not giving you what they want,
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  the best thing to do is to pull them aside, you know,
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  don't talk in front of the whole crew, but to pull them aside,
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  you know, and and talk to them about what you're certainly do you know
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  do don't criticize, don't yell, don't be an ass. But is to
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  to set the person aside and just tell them what you're looking for in the
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  scene, and don't overdirect them. Just tell them what the intention is in
• 16:17
  the scene, what what how their characters relate to one another, maybe what
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  what the scene is about, you know, and let the actor be the
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  one that interprets what you're saying and adjust their performance based on what based on
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  that. The worst thing you can do is to go up to an actor
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  and give them a lineary No, I want you to a line like like
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  this, you know, I mean the actor looking at you like little bag,
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  you know what I mean? Like? You know, they're not They're
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  not puppets. You know, they're not marionettes. You know. There's not
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  people that you can just you know, a program, you know. So
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  a good direct thing is is just really understanding the process, their their process,
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  respecting their process, and being able to communicate to them in the actors
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  language. And if you can do that, you're you'll be you know,
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  you'll want one. The actors will love you forever and too, You're gonna
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  you're gonna have a you're gonna have a great performance, and the worst thing
• 17:15
  you could do in that situation is to is to try to go out there
• 17:19
  and act it for them. It's like, no, okay, let me
• 17:22
  show you how to do it, and then you go no, you come
• 17:23
  over here, and then you say this line, you say it like this,
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  and then you turn around. You know what I mean. It's like,
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  that's not that's not how it gets. So yeah, I mean,
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  I guess that would be my sort of advice for for for handling a situation
• 17:37
  like that. Okay, now you know this. The podcast is primarily geared
• 17:42
  towards people who are most likely outside of LA and want to make their own
• 17:47
  feature film, and a lot of people you know, and I also think
• 17:51
  that one of the best plate ways to get into the industry and have one
• 17:55
  feature you know, that actually has some success financially is to try and make
• 18:00
  you know, horror film, just because there's a built in audience and there's
• 18:03
  you know, you don't necessarily need the biggest stars and everything. So what
• 18:07
  I was hoping we could do is just kind of walk through the process of
• 18:10
  where things begin, what you need to get started, you know, maybe
• 18:14
  more towards the producer's side of it. You know, when you're coming up
• 18:17
  with a project, I mean, how much are you do you go to
• 18:22
  like somebody in distribution and like pitch ideas or how does it all work so
• 18:26
  that you know that at the end of the whole thing you're going to know
• 18:30
  kind of where that production is going to go. Well, yeah, that's
• 18:36
  a great question. I mean, that's that's yeah. I mean every every
• 18:40
  every project that you do. I mean, like if you're if it's your
• 18:41
  first one thing you have to understand, if you're if you're getting into film
• 18:47
  and filmmaking and a periods, you have to understand that it is a business.
• 18:51
  You know, it's a it's a you know, you're there, you're
• 18:55
  making a picture to to get take with the intention of of it being seen.
• 19:00
  It's a business. It has to be something marketable and sellable and and
• 19:04
  and of high quality. If you're now, if you're coming out, if
• 19:08
  you're doing something on your own and you want to do like a little movie
• 19:11
  that you're it's just for yourself and maybe it's an art piece or something like
• 19:15
  that, that's fine, and you can do whatever you want. But uh,
• 19:18
  and in my in my book and the stuff that I'll talk to you
• 19:21
  about today is from an entertainment perspective, from a business perspective of of of
• 19:26
  if we're making a movie, we're making it. Yeah, we're making a
• 19:30
  movie to tell a great story. We're making a movie to to make a
• 19:32
  cool movie. Though all that is there, but we're also making a movie
• 19:34
  that we're we're going to be able to get distributed and seen because at the
• 19:40
  end of the day, we want people to see and like our work,
• 19:42
  and and and and hopefully make sequels, you know, after sequel. So
• 19:48
  with that in mind, you know, you're you know, always think that
• 19:52
  you're you're you know, remember that it is a business. So start out
• 19:56
  with something that will be right back after a word from our sponsor and now
• 20:06
  back to the show. You know, a horror is a great genre to
• 20:11
  start, in no doubt because it's a it's kind of an evergreen genre.
• 20:14
  It's it's something that is always has always been successful at the box office.
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  I mean, you know, whether people, you know, turn their nose
• 20:25
  up to it or not, the fact is is that horror does extremely well
• 20:29
  at the box office. And you know that can be seen with movies like
• 20:33
  The Conjuring or you know how many other horror movies that have come out that
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  have just really done well. So so you know, if you're if you're
• 20:42
  starting out, I think that coming up with one an original great concept to
• 20:48
  start with, and you don't you don't have to. It's it's a it
• 20:55
  is a good idea to think about distribution and think about what you're where you're
• 21:00
  going to go with it, you know, early on, because you don't
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  want to get too too far into to pre production or production and start not
• 21:07
  even knowing what genre you're in. You're kind of like, well, I'm
• 21:10
  not sure. It could be a horror comedy. It could be a comedy,
• 21:11
  it could be just horror. You really want to have a definitive plan.
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  Okay, we're making a low budget slasher film, we're making a zombie
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  comedy. Okay. And you and then you know what you're you're you're you're
• 21:23
  making. You do your research, you do your homework, you watch,
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  you see all the films that have been made on that subject, who they've
• 21:30
  been distributed by, that sort of thing, and you and you just you
• 21:34
  you you really come up with you really know what's out there and what the
• 21:38
  market's like and uh, and you make and you make the film, you
• 21:42
  know, I mean you now what Let me ask one a quick question,
• 21:47
  sure, just just out of curiosity, is the primary where's the primary place
• 21:52
  that you do research of that nature? Is it IMDb? Or is it
• 21:56
  just you know, do you have some other place that you see you know,
• 21:59
  all the different horror films that are releasing, how much you know,
• 22:02
  who's the distribution company and all that. Is it just IMDb or is it
• 22:04
  you know, somewhere else that you look for that. Well, there's a
• 22:07
  lot of places that you can look, especially with the Internet. I mean
• 22:11
  you certainly the IMDb is a great resource. You know, read you know,
• 22:15
  read the trades, you look I mean I read the trades. I
• 22:17
  read you know, Hollywood Reporter and Variety. You know, you know who's
• 22:19
  making what they're making what what, who's who's remaking what you're coming down the
• 22:25
  line if you've been from the studio level, you there's a home media magazine
• 22:30
  that's a really great resource to see like kind of what's coming out on DVD,
• 22:33
  what's coming out on Blu ray. You know, that's a good one
• 22:36
  to read and see what's performing well. What's you know on home video that
• 22:40
  sort of thing, you know, and and and the internet and IMDb.
• 22:44
  I mean those are really you don't think you read to need to get you
• 22:47
  don't need to go crazy with it. But you know, if you just
• 22:48
  get an idea of of of of Okay, are there any zombie movies coming
• 22:52
  out anytime soon or what you know, what what's how are they doing?
• 22:56
  And is it uh you know, are they are they being distributed? And
• 23:00
  if they are, who buy you know that sort of thing. So yeah,
• 23:03
  you just do do do your research before you go out and uh and
• 23:07
  make one. Because if there's if there's something coming out or some some other
• 23:11
  guy and it happens so often, so many people are making movies like all
• 23:15
  that guy I made that one that's just like mine, damn it, you
• 23:18
  know, and you know it's it's so it happens, but it's good.
• 23:22
  It's it's good to have more than one idea too. So if you if
• 23:26
  you're like, well, maybe it's not a good time we could make the
• 23:27
  film, but maybe it's not a good time to make it right now,
• 23:30
  you know, maybe we'll make it like next year and then the meantime we'll
• 23:33
  make this other project that we had in mind, you know, and let
• 23:36
  let the let it, let the let it cool off, because you know,
• 23:40
  if that the movie comes out and and everybody hates that that sub genre
• 23:44
  of horror, I mean, I mean, you know, then you know,
• 23:47
  probably not a good idea to go out and make another found footage movie.
• 23:48
  You know. So look, I mean I made a found footage film,
• 23:52
  and the whole and honestly the whole reason we made that. I didn't
• 23:55
  want to make a found footage film. I didn't. I never intended on
• 23:57
  making a found footage film, you know, not not I It was just
• 24:02
  it actually was a project that came to me and it was like, hey,
• 24:06
  we need to make a found footage film. And I'm like, found
• 24:07
  footage film. I was like, you know, well it didn't Blair Witch
• 24:11
  to do that. Why why would we make a found potashelm Well, you
• 24:14
  know, it's kind of really popular, you know again, you know,
• 24:15
  because you know, I got paranormal and you know, a peronal activity and
• 24:18
  you know what the reck wreck movies were and all that stuff. And I
• 24:22
  was like, yeah, those are great, those are like, you know,
• 24:25
  million dollars. I mean, not Blair, but you know, rack
• 24:27
  and stuff like that. I mean, you know, they had they had
• 24:30
  pretty big budgets for the for those found footage films, and and uh it
• 24:36
  was like yeah, but the market was was doing it was hot for those
• 24:40
  at that time, and we had some inside you know, uh uh contacts
• 24:48
  for when when it came to distribution, and it was kind of like,
• 24:52
  hey, you know, so we make this found footage film, it's it's
• 24:56
  gonna get distributed and it's gonna do it's it's a good time for it.
• 25:00
  So we end up making so and that's how kind of really that movie Filmed
• 25:03
  Realiable or now aka Spectors was made. And and uh so did they come
• 25:10
  with did they come to you? Like I was just talking to uh,
• 25:12
  Scott Kirpatrick about how they build a project and then they'll hire you know,
• 25:18
  a screenwriter, they'll hire a director and everybody else. I mean, they've
• 25:22
  already kind of sold the project to the distribution company before they even you know,
• 25:27
  put together the screenplay. Is that pretty common? No? I don't
• 25:33
  think it's I don't I mean, I don't think it's common in the lobo
• 25:36
  on the low budget kind of level. I don't think it's that common to
• 25:38
  really sell the project, like like sell the project as far as like distribution
• 25:45
  rights, I mean, and didn't go make the movie, you know.
• 25:48
  I mean I think it used to be like that, maybe back in the
• 25:51
  nineties and stuff, where they would sell foreign you know, you sell these
• 25:55
  pre sales, you know, based on artwork like Full Moon used to do
• 25:56
  back in the day. You know, it'd be like, hey, here's
• 25:59
  an art working at title. You guys interested, and then they'd be like,
• 26:00
  yeah, we love it, and then they would you know, advance
• 26:04
  advance most of the budget that they would need to go make the film.
• 26:07
  But these days, you know, especially at on the lower budgeted level,
• 26:11
  it's it's uh, you know, especially if you don't have it, if
• 26:15
  you don't have a star attached to forget it. I mean, who's gonna
• 26:18
  Who's gonna The distribution companies like who's in it? And they're like, well,
• 26:21
  nobody, my my brother or my sister. You know, they're not
• 26:25
  gonna You're not gonna get money from a distributor. Now if you come to
• 26:27
  them and say, you know, Nicholas Cage is attached to it, yes,
• 26:30
  you know that, but you're talking about a whole different level of filmmaking
• 26:33
  at that point. But I'm talking on an indie level with with with that's
• 26:40
  just safe for the sake of this conversation, that there's no stars in it
• 26:42
  and you're just making it with you know, some talent, talented actors that
• 26:45
  you find, but there's no there's no recognizable name in it. Your money
• 26:51
  is not most likely not kind of be coming from your distribution from a distribution
• 26:55
  company, unless you're self distributing, but in that case, it's coming from
• 26:57
  you anyway. So you know, yeah, it's it's it's not common,
• 27:03
  it's it's more what's more common, is you? I mean, look,
• 27:10
  I mean it's the company. The distribution company is often sometimes on the lower
• 27:15
  budget stuff that the distribution company is often the financing company as well, so
• 27:21
  it's kind of their own project anyway, but they're the one making that.
• 27:25
  It's general what kind of movie they're making. I mean like Full Moon for
• 27:27
  instance, Fullmen Pictures. I mean, they're they're kind of their own distribution
• 27:32
  company, and they will now especially now because they have Fullmen streaming dot com,
• 27:36
  which is where they stream all their latest projects. But I mean,
• 27:38
  his that whole business model is kind of like you know, they make their
• 27:42
  own product and they distribute their own product. You know, they make a
• 27:47
  new film and it comes out through their their website, their streaming website.
• 27:49
  And that's a that's a big thing now too with with like the BMEO in
• 27:55
  demand and all that stuff. Is you can you can go out and make
• 27:57
  a film and put it up on a site like Vimeo on demand and people
• 28:03
  and you can send people there and they can pay to stream your movie or
• 28:06
  they can pay to download your movie. And it's a great it's a great
• 28:10
  distribution method. But you know, you still you can you can you can
• 28:15
  lead the horse to water, but you can't necessarily make them drink it,
• 28:18
  you know, so you still have to have a higher quality product for people
• 28:23
  to uh to want to go there and stream it and buy it. You
• 28:27
  know. So yeah, I'm answered a little bit of your question there.
• 28:32
  Yeah, No, it's perfect. You know, I just I get obsessed
• 28:34
  because you know, I always try to put together this magic formula for you
• 28:40
  know. You know, I've talked to some people that work in distribution and
• 28:42
  they're just like, yeah, man, it's just so oversaturated now. And
• 28:45
  I know all these people who have lost tons of money because they went out
• 28:48
  and they made these you know, horror movies for like, you know,
• 28:52
  half a million dollars, and then they got to the distribution and it was
• 28:56
  like they you know, they just lost everything because it wasn't like the right
• 29:02
  thing. So so one of the things that I try to help people with
• 29:06
  and also myself, you know, is like figuring out you know, maybe
• 29:10
  we can talk for a second about you know, budgeting and how much money
• 29:14
  you know, more or less kind of what things are you know, should
• 29:18
  be priced at, because I know people who go out and make their first
• 29:19
  movie for you know, one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand dollars, and
• 29:25
  you know, I've heard other people like, you know, just do it
• 29:26
  as cheap as you possibly can, because at the end of the day,
• 29:30
  if you don't get distribution, then you haven't lost your shirt, you know.
• 29:33
  So what does your take on that in terms of just like budgeting save
• 29:37
  somebody in you know, Middle America whatever you know, is like wants to
• 29:41
  make a horror movie and wants to try and like maybe take it to AFM
• 29:45
  or something or whatever. You know, what kind of advice, what what
• 29:48
  kind of budget range? How how should that all be broken down when they're
• 29:52
  first starting out and trying to produce a film. We'll be right back after
• 29:56
  a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. Yeah,
• 30:04
  sure, yeah totally. But just just to add to to your distribution comment
• 30:12
  about the people who made who've lost money, I mean, believe me.
• 30:15
  I mean, I I know so many people that have have have lost a
• 30:21
  lot, you know, I mean, including myself. You know, when
• 30:23
  I've I've pulled out the credit cards and you know, I've done the whole
• 30:27
  massive, massive credit card debt for films, you know, for years trying
• 30:32
  to pay them off, and for ship that wasn't even my wasn't even fine.
• 30:36
  It was just stuff I I wanted to pay for out of my own
• 30:38
  pocket to make it better. And I didn't even own the rights to it,
• 30:41
  and I was paying for stuff. I mean, I mean, it's
• 30:42
  just really stupid stuff like that early on. But but I mean that,
• 30:45
  but but but yeah, people have lost a lot when it comes to distribution.
• 30:49
  So when when it comes to I mean thinking that Okay, well we're
• 30:53
  gonna spend all this money, but we're then we're gonna go out. Yeah,
• 30:56
  We're totally gonna get it distributed. I mean especially now, I mean
• 31:00
  it doesn't it's just not like that anymore. I mean, it's it's it
• 31:03
  is absolutely oversaturated. It has been for a long time. So you know,
• 31:08
  your your product needs to stand out if you're going to even have a
• 31:12
  have a really good chance of of of a really good distribution deal. And
• 31:18
  and you know, just just going out with some friends and shooting a splasher
• 31:22
  over the weekend, you know, and you you max your credit cards out
• 31:26
  for forty grand or whatever. You know, you really can't expect to be
• 31:29
  getting that back, you know. And and I always say, you know,
• 31:33
  look, don't don't invest. Don't invest more than you can afford to
• 31:36
  lose, because it's a very very big possibility that you'll lose all of it
• 31:41
  or you or you might get it distributed, but you won't necessarily get the
• 31:44
  money back. I mean, because you know, when when a company and
• 31:47
  distribution company takes over your your movie, they might give you a little bit
• 31:49
  of an advance. If you're lucky, it give you a little bit of
• 31:52
  advance like say, okay, well we'll give you two grand of the advance
• 31:56
  and then you'll never see another dime ever again. And that's happened to me
• 32:00
  on on on films that I've done, and it's like, we you know,
• 32:02
  the company goes out of business and it's like, hey, what have
• 32:05
  you know what happened to those guys? Oh, they change the name of
• 32:07
  their company again. It's like, oh, well, we need to see
• 32:10
  statements, We need to see a producer statement. No, you know,
• 32:14
  we can't do that for you. So all the money that you've seen is
• 32:16
  is you know, the advance, you know, And and it sucks for
• 32:21
  the filmmaker because you know, at that point your movie has already been distributed.
• 32:25
  You know, you can get yeah, sure you can get the rights
• 32:28
  back and try to re redistribute it and everything at that point, but you
• 32:32
  know, it's it's kind of used goods at that point, you know what
• 32:37
  I'm saying. So yeah, I mean yeah, So when you're when you're
• 32:40
  going out of the gate, I mean it's it's just really be careful with
• 32:45
  the amount of money that you're you're committing to something, and uh and I
• 32:51
  think you'll you'll you'll live after your life and when you if if something,
• 32:54
  if something doesn't work out the way it's supposed to, when it comes to
• 32:57
  distribution. But coming going back to your your your your budget question. You
• 33:04
  know you asked me how how to how to what's some you know what some
• 33:09
  budget tricks are for for uh, for somebody to want coming out definitely.
• 33:16
  Well, first of all is uh is if you're if you're is to spend
• 33:22
  it trying to spend as less money as you possibly make can. I mean
• 33:27
  you really have to kind of be don't be annoying, don't be a moocher,
• 33:30
  you know, but but whatever, you have to sit down and on
• 33:35
  a piece of paper and write down all the things that that you, your
• 33:37
  friends, your family have available that you can use for free. Then then
• 33:43
  what you do You sit down and say, okay, well I have a
• 33:45
  I have my parents house, I have a lake. There's some public lands
• 33:51
  that they're they nobody cares that we shoot there. There's that old abandoned building
• 33:53
  that we could totally shoot at. You know, we have a boat,
• 33:57
  we have a car, you know, we have my mom's a teacher,
• 34:00
  and maybe I can shoot at the school or something like that. So you
• 34:04
  write all those things down on a piece of paper, of all the things
• 34:07
  that that that that you have for free, and and it can be other
• 34:09
  things too that you can put in the scene, like oh, uncle Bob
• 34:13
  has a Lamborghini or someone still say, uh, you know has a has
• 34:19
  a an AK forty seven or so, I don't know whatever it is.
• 34:23
  And you write all those things down and then and then what you do is
• 34:25
  you look at all that stuff. You put it up on a board,
• 34:28
  and you can look at all that stuff and say, what kind of movie
• 34:30
  could I make with all of these things? What kind of story? Or
• 34:34
  maybe I already have a story, but it so if I already have a
• 34:36
  story, can I look at all those elements and say, how can I
• 34:38
  incorporate all that into my story? Can my story take place at that house,
• 34:44
  at that at that on that boat, in that car? Can I
• 34:47
  can? I can? I you know, can I rewrite it for that?
• 34:52
  And I think if you can do that, and if you're willing to
• 34:54
  compromise whatever it is to to adjust your story to what you have available,
• 35:00
  you can get for free. I think you'll save a lot. You'll save
• 35:01
  a ton of money. I mean, I I was. I do that
• 35:05
  pretty much for every film. But it's it's it's it's a process that's kind
• 35:08
  of like you know, hey, man, you know, let's not let's
• 35:13
  not spend where we don't need to spend. And uh, one of the
• 35:15
  big, one big expense on low budget films is the location, particularly if
• 35:20
  you're in LA. You know, when you get out of LA, you
• 35:22
  can pretty much get a lot, a lot more for free. I mean,
• 35:24
  people are so much more. So there's just they're happy to work on
• 35:30
  a movie because it's exciting and you know, you're not taking advantage or anything
• 35:35
  like that. You know, these people are are are I believe I shot
• 35:37
  in like Fresno, and it was like you couldn't you couldn't tell these people.
• 35:40
  You had to push people away like, hey, no, I think
• 35:43
  we got more than we need, you know, thank you. They were
• 35:45
  just coming I mean they were coming out in the in the hundreds to be
• 35:49
  extras and and and it was it was actually overwhelming, I think a lot
• 35:53
  of times. And but in La a whole different story. I mean you're
• 35:57
  like, you know, you're shooting at a location people or people are being
• 36:00
  dicks. You know, people are you know, turning their lawnmowers on.
• 36:04
  So you'll go over and tell them, you know, to turn it off,
• 36:06
  and then they'll they then then they'll they'll try to extort money out of
• 36:08
  you to do it, you know, like, oh, I'm not going
• 36:10
  to turn it off unless you pay me. And I was like, oh,
• 36:13
  okay, I've had people shoot beaty guns at me before. We were
• 36:16
  at we were at a location and the ad went over and asked politely if
• 36:23
  we were shooting a scene in an alley and we didn't have a you know,
• 36:25
  we didn't have a permit to be shooting there anyway. But the one
• 36:29
  of the ads asked them and they would you guys, mind just just for
• 36:31
  just for like, you know, five minutes, we just we need to
• 36:32
  grab this quick shot so on something. And they just like went totally like
• 36:37
  psycho and they're just like, you know, fuck you, but we're not,
• 36:39
  fucking dude, bubble. And they got on the roof and they started
• 36:42
  shooting beaty guns at the crew members. Nice you know, I mean tons
• 36:46
  of stuff like that, you know, and you know, extorting money out
• 36:50
  of out of us. I've had. I've had that happened before. I've
• 36:52
  had you know, fire departments showing up and trying its threatening to shut us
• 36:55
  down unless we paid them immediately, would pay. I'm like, I forget
• 37:00
  some kind of some kind of fee to get the permit, but like right
• 37:02
  on the spot. So that's like, you know, that sort of thing,
• 37:05
  and you know, cops, neighbors showing up telling us that their generator
• 37:08
  was causing health problems and stuff and they wanted money, and it's just it's
• 37:13
  ridiculous. I guess it's what I'm getting at. But so anyway, I
• 37:15
  guess what I'm going with that is that if you're shooting in LA it's probably
• 37:19
  a little harder to get certain locations like that for free. And uh,
• 37:22
  but when you're since most people are probably listening to your podcasts are outside of
• 37:28
  LA, I think you really need to utilize what you have. I mean,
• 37:31
  you know, the movie making world isn't isn't just in Los Angeles,
• 37:36
  you know, So if you're living in Kansas or Ohio or wherever it is,
• 37:40
  I mean, there's there's a lot of great locations with with with amazing
• 37:45
  production value that you can get. So you just just just utilize all that
• 37:50
  stuff, and I think you'll save big in your in your budget. I
• 37:54
  think that's one of the biggest money savers on a low film is the availability
• 38:01
  of stuff you already have. Now on the other side of that, what
• 38:06
  are the things that you absolutely can't be cheap about? Oh well that that
• 38:09
  that goes without saying. There's one thing you don't want to be cheap about
• 38:15
  is the quality of your film. And what and first and foremost the actors.
• 38:20
  Don't be cheap with your actors. Pay for good actors and you will
• 38:23
  you will, you will not be sorry. Pay for good good a good
• 38:28
  camera. I mean, look, you know, let me look within reason.
• 38:30
  I mean, not everybody can shoot on the AX. Not everybody can
• 38:32
  shoot on the Red Weapon, you know, but if you have I mean,
• 38:36
  but now, I mean, look, I mean the film that's Sean
• 38:39
  Baker they shot. He shot on an iPhone five s with an anamorphic attachment,
• 38:45
  you know, it using a nine dollars APP or eight dollar app you
• 38:49
  know, and that got a theatrical release, you know what I mean.
• 38:51
  I mean, there are other ways to do things, but you know,
• 38:54
  and then you have the black Magic pocket cinema camera, a thousand dollar camera,
• 38:59
  you know, you have you know, the Alexa has a mini now
• 39:02
  you know, the Alex of Mini just came out. I was looking at
• 39:06
  that this year and then at the NAB Show, and there are other other
• 39:10
  options. But don't be cheap with your camera, you know, don't don't
• 39:15
  don't be cheap with your camera. Don't be cheap with your key crew members.
• 39:19
  And you know what I mean by as your DP credibly important for obviously
• 39:22
  if you'll look at your movie, don't be cheap with lenses, don't don't
• 39:25
  be cheap with the camera. Don't be cheap with lenses, don't be cheaper
• 39:28
  with the DP, don't be cheap with production design. And put the money
• 39:31
  on the screen. You know, at all times, I think if you
• 39:34
  just go into it and say, look, if I'm where I'm spending money
• 39:37
  in this budget, I need to make sure that this money is going up
• 39:40
  on the screen. So you know, if I'm spending money for silly stuff,
• 39:45
  you know, see if you can cut that stuff back, We'll be
• 39:49
  right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show,
• 39:58
  and redistribute that money into something that the audience is actually going to see
• 40:01
  on the screen. And that can be anything that I just listen, I
• 40:05
  just mentioned, you know, and more, you know, right, so
• 40:08
  yeah, I mean, don't you know, don't don't be cheap on that
• 40:12
  stuff. Yeah, it will show. It definitely will show. And post
• 40:15
  too. Don't be oh my god, don't don't be cheap on your post.
• 40:19
  And don't say I'm going to fix it in post either, because as
• 40:21
  an owner of a post company for ten years, it's it's kind of cost
• 40:24
  you. I have love a lot more money to fix it in posts than
• 40:27
  it would have been to get it right the first time. And and a
• 40:30
  lot of that has to do with sound. Usually, so is probably the
• 40:32
  biggest problems that I have coming into my post company. People have just hired
• 40:37
  the worst sound people known to man, and it's just like a disaster,
• 40:42
  you know, the usually so yeah, so don't don't be cheap, right,
• 40:50
  Well, that that's one of the big things that I think a lot
• 40:52
  of people don't understand. And I always try to like kit that over the
• 40:55
  head, you know, as much as possible. In terms of sound.
• 40:59
  People will be like, oh, yeah, We've got you know, this
• 41:00
  amazing four K camera and whatever, and it's like it's like, yeah,
• 41:04
  that doesn't really matter at all, you know, if you don't have good
• 41:07
  sound, if you don't have a good DP work in the camera, if
• 41:08
  you don't have all the things you know what I mean. So I always
• 41:13
  try to make sure that people understand, you know, and I've heard from
• 41:15
  some people that like the sound guy and the the catering guy or sometimes the
• 41:21
  most important guy on the set, you know, Yeah, don't don't cheat.
• 41:24
  No, I mean, don't be cheap with your food too. I
• 41:27
  mean, you really don't. I mean, you really got to get you
• 41:29
  know, these people are coming there and working hard, and you got gotta
• 41:31
  take care of your As a producer myself, you gotta take care of your
• 41:35
  people. Definitely takes you, not the whole like okay, hamburgers for everybody,
• 41:38
  and there's coke and the thing that that's not that's not a proper diet
• 41:42
  for you know, most people, you know what I mean. You have
• 41:45
  to, uh, you know, spend the money into feeding eating people and
• 41:49
  giving people options and to what to eat on set. You know, don't
• 41:53
  don't take everybody out to McDonald's. That's that's that's not catering, you know
• 41:57
  what I mean. That's that's that's actually punishment. Punishment, you know.
• 42:02
  But but I was gonna say something else there. You're you're tracking on something
• 42:07
  there, and I headed in my head, but then I went off on
• 42:09
  some stupid McDonald's rents when you were talking about well sound sound, sound,
• 42:16
  cater but the DP too. I mean, look, I mean, here's
• 42:20
  the Here's one of the biggest things I see I see happening to a lot
• 42:22
  of times is that these cameras have become so amazing and so cheap that oftentimes
• 42:30
  filmmakers will just say, man, you know what do I need a DP
• 42:35
  for? I just shooting myself, you know, just just point and shoot.
• 42:37
  You know, we'll just use the zoom lens. We'll point and shoot
• 42:38
  and it looks good to me. I turned the camera and the you know,
• 42:42
  the cameras can can shoot and and with a candle on in the room
• 42:45
  and it actually still looks pretty decent. But that's not you know, that's
• 42:50
  not again, it's not the that's not cinematography. That's not you know,
• 42:54
  real filmmaking. You really want to get you know, get somebody in there
• 42:59
  that's dedicated to that department, right, you know, and and not the
• 43:01
  direct because I vped and directly before and so it's all god, it's it's
• 43:05
  crazy. But if you but you know, you really want to hire a
• 43:08
  DP that comes in and can really give you the look that you want and
• 43:12
  makes the right lens choices and and uh and and give you something because it
• 43:16
  will absolutely show in your movie when you're done. You can tell. You'll
• 43:20
  look at a movie and be like, yeah, movie's not bad, but
• 43:22
  you know, god, they must have shot at all of the zoom lens
• 43:23
  or they just shot it with some cheap lens, or you know that they
• 43:27
  just kept moving around and then you see another film that could be then you'll
• 43:30
  shot on the same camera, but you're like, oh my god, this
• 43:32
  looks fantastic. What did they do? Oh my god? They were using
• 43:36
  like they were They had this amazing set of prime lenses that they were using
• 43:39
  and a really good DP that actually knows how to light. You know.
• 43:43
  It's one of the things I learned from Mac Alberg. Mac was a guy
• 43:46
  that Mac just so those of you don't know, Mac Alberg was a He
• 43:51
  was a DP that I worked with on two films, and he shot re
• 43:53
  Animator and House and Beverly Hills Cop three and all these big Hollywood movies,
• 44:00
  big big horror movies. He's also worked with Stewart cording a lot. And
• 44:05
  anyway, Mac and I were were good friends, and he shot two two
• 44:07
  movies, but I remember for me and then he shot two movies, and
• 44:12
  we used to talk all the time about cinematography and he goes all the way,
• 44:15
  but he was a really older guy. He goes all the way back
• 44:17
  to Ingmar Bergman. He shot he shot one of the I think one shot
• 44:22
  in the seventh seal in Bergman's movie, and he was so proud about that,
• 44:27
  and of course that's like movie to even being involved in that. H
• 44:32
  Anyway, one of the things he would always I learned from him was he
• 44:36
  always would like he won his first film on digital I think was with me
• 44:43
  and I made me mistake of but I think it was with me. And
• 44:46
  he would like the digital like it was film, and it would look and
• 44:51
  it would look so good and he you know, and it wasn't one of
• 44:53
  those things where he just would flip on the camera and be like, well,
• 44:55
  we're singing an image, so yeah, that's great, that'll work.
• 45:00
  It was really cool to watch him, watch him work and how he just
• 45:02
  hes still lit the digital like it was film and gave it the right exposure
• 45:07
  and everything and it's just the stuff really looked fantastic. But I mean,
• 45:09
  you know, to get a guy like that special. But now, I
• 45:14
  mean, you know, you just got to really make sure that you you
• 45:15
  get somebody on board who's gonna he's gonna do a really good cinematography job for
• 45:21
  you, because I'm telling you, man, it shows so much you know
• 45:23
  when when you when you don't have that, you know, right, and
• 45:28
  so yeah, spend the money on that. Now, who are the key
• 45:31
  when you start working you know, we're still a little bit in pre production.
• 45:36
  Who are the people that you really are kind of like your you know,
• 45:39
  who do you go to for like putting together the budget and who are
• 45:45
  your key kind of players and who do you need even you know talking about
• 45:50
  you know, lower budget features, But who would be the people that you
• 45:52
  needed to kind of like to make up your team aside from the DP,
• 45:57
  like people like the assistant director production manager you know who? Sure anyway,
• 46:01
  yeah, sure, sure, No, I got you and I totally got
• 46:05
  you, Okay. Well, one of the and that's one of the things.
• 46:07
  This is another thing that you don't want to be cheap on it and
• 46:09
  and it is the the the the management of your crew or the management of
• 46:15
  you I'm sorry, the management of your film, you know, upper upper
• 46:17
  management of your film. You you do not want to take on all the
• 46:21
  responsibilities yourself. Believe me, don't do that, you know, delegate,
• 46:25
  delegate as much as you possibly can afford, particularly when it comes to having
• 46:30
  having an experienced line producer, particularly when it comes to having an experience the
• 46:36
  UPM and the production manager, particularly when it comes to, uh, you
• 46:40
  know, having I'd say those two, If you have those two, you're
• 46:46
  you're already uh, you're already doing a pretty good at that point. But
• 46:52
  you know, just I think it's very important for you to just to install
• 46:55
  an upper management team start. You know, it's starting with your line producers.
• 47:00
  Your line producers is really going to be your you're, you're, you're,
• 47:04
  you're your buddy. Can you can you describe some people that don't completely
• 47:09
  understand what what exactly the line producer's role is on the film? Sure,
• 47:14
  sure, Well a line producers just one oh one, they're not sure Yeah,
• 47:16
  I mean they're they're not They're not really in a creative role on the
• 47:20
  film. They're more in the in the role of you know, a line
• 47:25
  producer is more like the guy who the producer that really does all the work
• 47:30
  the great work Like he's the guy who makes sure everybody's showing up. Make
• 47:35
  sure you know things are you know, people are getting hired, people,
• 47:38
  you know, the things are on, people are moving on schedule. Sometimes
• 47:42
  they deal with the they deal with the studio. If there's a studio,
• 47:45
  they they they're really the the the that like the central, uh producing element
• 47:54
  in the film. So what I'm producing a film. I won't produce a
• 47:59
  film without breaking line producer, you know, and producing. For me,
• 48:02
  it's more, it's more I'm more of I want to be more of a
• 48:05
  I'm more of a creative producer. So it's more like, you know,
• 48:07
  I can get I get the I can get the I get the idea,
• 48:12
  the script. I work with the writers' creatively developed the project. I usually
• 48:16
  get the money or the funding for it. And then once that happens.
• 48:20
  First one of the first things I do is bring on all one once we
• 48:22
  were ready to go into production, and one of the first things I do
• 48:23
  will bring on a line producer, and the line producer will take that,
• 48:27
  they'll budget it, they'll break down, they'll break down the script. Oftentimes
• 48:30
  they'll they'll they'll they'll handle they'll they'll do a schedule oftentimes, although you're sometimes
• 48:37
  you're a D is more involved than that later on, but often the line
• 48:40
  producer does the initial budget and initial schedule. They'll deal with SAG, they'll
• 48:45
  deal with all those other elements. So there, there, there. It's
• 48:50
  important to get an experienced line producer on board because it'll it'll really help things,
• 48:54
  especially on low budget stuff. And then you have you know, other
• 48:58
  upper management like you're a you know who's and I mean, I've made plenty
• 49:01
  of movies without an AD because they'll usually the lying producers like, oh,
• 49:05
  we can afford an a D, so I'll be your A D. And
• 49:07
  I'm like, oh right. But to have a dedicated a D is a
• 49:12
  real godsend because they really do you know, they help, They help you
• 49:15
  run, They help you run the set, and they let allow for you
• 49:19
  to concentrate on being a director and just just directing and not having to worry
• 49:22
  about where are my freaking actors? Why do I have to go find these
• 49:25
  guys? You know, that's the job of your A D. And they
• 49:28
  do to help you stay on schedule and tell people to be quiet when they
• 49:30
  need to be quiet, and and that sort of thing. So you know,
• 49:35
  those those those upper upper management team is super important to install and quality
• 49:42
  and get qualified people if you if you can afford it, if the budget
• 49:44
  allows people who have experience in that level of movie making, it's always a
• 49:47
  good thing too because they get low budget. If they get low budget,
• 49:51
  they understand like, hey, we you know, we can't be spending you
• 49:53
  know, uh, two hundred dollars on a refrigerator. I mean I did
• 49:57
  a friend of mine. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:06
  and now back to the show. A well known director friend of mine
• 50:09
  gave me a budget one time, and he's like, he's like, you
• 50:15
  know, you just made this movie for thirty five thousand dollars, and like,
• 50:19
  you know, this movie though I'm doing, it's like, it's not
• 50:21
  that much more complicated than one they did that. They just gave me a
• 50:22
  three hundred and fifty thousand dollars budget, and he's like, can you you
• 50:25
  think you could look at this for me and see if you could, you
• 50:28
  know, shave off one hundred grand or something like that. So I did
• 50:30
  it for me, and I looked at it and I was like, I
• 50:32
  was my eyes were bleeding I couldn't believe the stuff that they were paying for
• 50:37
  in there, and I just went through it with think. I'm like no,
• 50:38
  no, no no. He was just looking at me like h and
• 50:42
  I was like no, no, no no. I was like, dude,
• 50:43
  you have somebody actually budgeted for you to have a two to go out
• 50:47
  and buy a two hundred dollars refrigerator for your production office. I'm like,
• 50:52
  what is that? What movies have you been this guy been working on?
• 50:55
  This is a low budget moving on two hundred dollars for refrigerators. I mean
• 51:00
  just things like that. It was it was absolutely ridiculous. So I shaved
• 51:05
  off like one hundred and fifty grand for him. He was really happy.
• 51:07
  But yeah, I mean things like that, you just it's like, oh
• 51:10
  jeez. So so yeah, so I hope I answered your question there.
• 51:15
  But yeah, So when you're when you start directing the how how important is
• 51:20
  it that you can just like kind of be do you have kind of that
• 51:22
  laser focus on Okay, we have to get this scene. Then we're moving
• 51:25
  to that scene, and you know, are you just like visualizing where the
• 51:30
  camera's going to go or you have you worked it out most of it before
• 51:32
  you get on the set or do you kind of do it while you're there.
• 51:37
  Well, I think on this on when you on the I've done it
• 51:43
  both ways. But honestly, on the films that I've done, they've they've
• 51:49
  been done in such a hurry that you know, I mean, I got,
• 51:52
  you know, look really really well. I shot in six days,
• 51:54
  okay, I mean, and you know we were doing seven seventeen fifteen pages
• 51:59
  a day in Atlanta Vista Hospital, East LA, running around this freaking giant
• 52:02
  hospital, the whole thing. But at sixteen a sixth day movie. And
• 52:07
  you know, I think when you're doing something that quickly, a lot of
• 52:12
  people, a lot of people, and they should they like, people should
• 52:15
  be prepared. They want to come in prepare like, hey, you know,
• 52:16
  I know every single shot that I'm doing, I'm gonna come in.
• 52:20
  Everybody's gonna be like, Wow, you're the most amazing prepared director I've ever
• 52:23
  met. Blah blah blah. And then they get there and they're like,
• 52:25
  and your life page comes up to you and say, oh yeah, the
• 52:30
  location or says we can't shoot on that floor today, there's another crew coming
• 52:32
  in and the deal we may but blah blah blah. So you can't shoot
• 52:35
  there, and you have to shoot on another floor. And then and then
• 52:38
  immediately your your shot list is gone. It's it's you just gotta crumbled up
• 52:42
  the third way. You're like, well, it ain't gonna work here,
• 52:44
  so now we gotta we gotta shoot on a completely different floor, completely different
• 52:47
  look, and we have to roll with the punch. So now all that
• 52:50
  prep you did doesn't matter. So I mean, like really Evil, like
• 52:53
  I you know, I mean obviously a lot of the films, but particularly
• 52:57
  really Evil. I remember because I just was like just show up and I'm
• 53:00
  like, okay, you know, what are we doing. It's like,
• 53:01
  okay, here's the saw. And I would I literally would look at the
• 53:04
  schedule and just say, okay, we're shooting that. We're shooting, were
• 53:06
  shooting that. Okay great, And then I would go I go in there,
• 53:08
  I grab the actors, I'd read over the scene, and I would
• 53:12
  just start cutting the scene together in my head like okay, you know,
• 53:15
  but I mean I have the experience from as an editor, so go in
• 53:19
  and I already know what it's going to look like. So I'm like,
• 53:21
  okay, well you come around the corner and the camera's here, the shoot
• 53:22
  it this way and then boom, we're done. So for me, it's
• 53:25
  very fast and to the point, and we don't waste footage. We don't.
• 53:29
  I don't overcover, I don't shoot too many takes. I know when
• 53:32
  I got something when I don't got somebody. But that comes from a lot
• 53:36
  of experience with editing, so you know, I mean, I maybe I
• 53:40
  can do that kind of stuff. I'm sure other people can do that kind
• 53:43
  of stuff. But if you're maybe if it's your first project, it's always
• 53:46
  a good idea to be prepared, you know. I mean, because even
• 53:49
  if you do the prep work and you come in with a plan, most
• 53:52
  of the time you can execute it. But not all the time. You
• 53:55
  can. A lot of times you can't shoot that direction, or the sun's
• 53:58
  in the wrong, you can't shoot that direction how you plan it, you
• 54:00
  know, so you have to shoot the other way. Well that kind of
• 54:04
  changes your your blocking plan or your your shot plan, you know, and
• 54:07
  you just have to be able to roll with it, you know. And
• 54:10
  if you can do that, then I think, you know, you're you're
• 54:13
  on your way to uh You're directing and directing a lot, you know,
• 54:16
  because it certainly doesn't always turn out the way you had it on paper,
• 54:22
  right, So, so what is the key? Talking specifically now since this
• 54:25
  is going to be for our October scare Athon, I don't know what it's
• 54:30
  going to be called, you scare Athon, but what what is the key
• 54:36
  to? You know, horror is very different than every other genre, you
• 54:38
  know, because you have to really affect the audience, like you have to
• 54:44
  scare the pants off of them, you know, and if you're a successful
• 54:47
  horror movie, you have you know, maybe not jump scares, but you
• 54:51
  have to scare people. What what do you think are kind of the key
• 54:53
  ingredients for creating a successful horror film and making people feel like they got what
• 55:00
  they wanted to out of it, you know, scaring them or whatever.
• 55:02
  Well, yeah, yeah, they're a great No, great question. I
• 55:06
  think that I think it comes down to having, you know, having one,
• 55:13
  having characters that you really care about, that that are are compelling,
• 55:15
  you know, the people that you you want to watch, people that you're
• 55:20
  gonna you're gonna actually give a shit if they're coming up against a monster or
• 55:24
  a threat of some kind, you know, you you So, so that
• 55:30
  definitely number one is your story and your characters. But as far as like,
• 55:35
  you know, the monsters and what things like that, I mean,
• 55:38
  yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean, look, I mean
• 55:42
  monsters like like not monsters, but somebody like like a leather face or or
• 55:46
  or a Jason and Freddie. I mean, those guys have been around for
• 55:51
  a long time for a reason. You know, they were compelling monster,
• 55:55
  compelling horror movie bill. I mean that that's why they've lasted this long.
• 56:02
  And I think if you can come up with a monster or a disease or
• 56:08
  whatever it may be, you know that that that is compelling enough to to
• 56:12
  to to do a lot of sequels hopefully, uh that they should go with
• 56:16
  it, you know, but you know, you know, you really,
• 56:22
  I know it's hard now though too. It is hard, you know,
• 56:23
  because there's you know, things how everything seems like everything's been done. But
• 56:29
  that doesn't that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that you know, you can't do
• 56:30
  another It certainly doesn't mean you can't go out and make your own slasher just
• 56:34
  because there's been a billion slashers made. You just need to go out and
• 56:37
  make a slasher that is your own point of view and is that your own
• 56:43
  interpretation of what you think a slasher movie should be like, and hopefully that
• 56:47
  translates into your vision and to your your aesthetic and your brand and your your
• 56:55
  unique style of movie making. So I think if you look at it from
• 57:00
  point of view, you can't really you know, you can, you can.
• 57:01
  You might be able to get inspired and say, hey, you know,
• 57:04
  well, you know I always wanted to make a slasher on a submarine
• 57:07
  or I own just like a slasher in a treehouse or whatever the hell it
• 57:09
  may be, you know, And and I have a unique way that I
• 57:13
  think it's going to work for doing it, and and that's what you should
• 57:16
  do, you know. And uh so there really, I mean, there
• 57:19
  really isn't. I mean, you can you can study. You can study
• 57:22
  horror movies all you want, and you should. You absolutely should, particularly
• 57:24
  in the classics particularly there's a lot, so many great movies that have been
• 57:29
  made in the eighties and the eighties and the seventies certainly certainly today too,
• 57:32
  but I think more so in the in the in the earlier years. You
• 57:37
  know. But do you have any specific films that like stick out that kind
• 57:42
  of really affected you? Oh yeah, I mean, look, when I
• 57:44
  when I made Stuart Gordon was a big influence for me because he was my
• 57:46
  kind of my directing mentor. Really we made a movie together many years ago
• 57:52
  and uh thirty five thousand dollars movie called Deathbed Stuart Gordon Presents the Death Bet.
• 57:57
  We were going to do a whole series of these things Stuart Cordon presents
• 58:00
  this and that and then the whole deal. But the first one we made
• 58:04
  together, and he was the executive producer and his name was above the title
• 58:07
  and the whole deal. And I just watched a bunch of the outtakes from
• 58:12
  that because it's on YouTube, behind the scenes footage of you guys shooting that.
• 58:16
  That's really kind of cool. Yeah, that was a fun one.
• 58:19
  It was. It was. It was fun. But I mean I learned
• 58:21
  so much on that film. I mean it was it was so low.
• 58:23
  I mean we again, it was we shot it for twenty five grand and
• 58:27
  it was posted for ten and we shot it. This is pre twenty four
• 58:30
  piece, so like this is before like the cameras were like they are now.
• 58:32
  This is this is when we would shoot on digital video. We shoot
• 58:36
  on DV cam and we would film look it through after effects plug in or
• 58:40
  or the company in Burbank called film Look. They would actually take take it
• 58:44
  and remove the telesmi and try to make it look more like it was shot
• 58:46
  on film. And that's why we were doing a lot of stuff in the
• 58:49
  in the early two thousand before the twenty four pe cameras came out. So
• 58:52
  anyway, we made this film and and I remember before we made the film,
• 58:58
  Stewart I went up Stewart went over to Stewart's house with mac Alberg r
• 59:01
  DP and and we we He's like, hey, let's watch some let's watch
• 59:06
  some horror movies to him, and so we watched one of my favorite,
• 59:10
  uh classic horror films, which is called The Innocence, and uh, that's
• 59:15
  a really great one for you to watch. And then we and I kept
• 59:17
  seeing that what is what is that? Who's when that? That is?
• 59:22
  What's the lady's name? That is? Uh, it's a black and white
• 59:25
  film, it's it's god, my brain my brain just completely went brain dab
• 59:30
  dab. I think it's dead bro Oh yeah yeah, because she was the
• 59:34
  one who was in Poultergeist, right, oh yeah yeah, but just okay,
• 59:37
  I remember, yeah, that was really good. It's amazing. It's
• 59:39
  a fantastic you know, it's like a ghost movie. Yeah, that that
• 59:44
  was amazing. I remember I saw that last year. Yeah. It's a
• 59:45
  classic. Man, just just I mean that's that. You can't go with
• 59:49
  innocence. Yeah, okay. And the other film that that I think is
• 59:52
  very well certainly was very powerful and very that pretty much Stewart Gordon says it
• 59:55
  was his horror film school is Rosemary's Baby. We'll be right back after a
• 1:00:02
  word from our sponsor, and now back to the show and Rosemary's Baby.
• 1:00:12
  The original Rosemary's Baby. I don't know if they made a TV series or
• 1:00:15
  something. Who knows, but you ever try to pretend there's not another one.
• 1:00:19
  Lass Rosemary's Baby was absolutely I know for Stuart certainly was was his film
• 1:00:25
  school or and I watched it with me when we watched it together, and
• 1:00:30
  he was pointing out things and I was like that, you know, I
• 1:00:31
  never really thought about it like that. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
• 1:00:35
  And so we watched it together and really took it apart and it was
• 1:00:39
  like, it was so cool because you don't hear I have sitting with freaking
• 1:00:42
  you know, Stuart Gordon, you know, breaking apart Rosemary's Baby, and
• 1:00:46
  it was like amazing. So I think you know that Rosemary's Baby and The
• 1:00:51
  Innocence, I mean, there's there's a lot of them, but I think
• 1:00:52
  those two in particular really certainly stood out class because we were we were specifically
• 1:01:00
  looking at a sort of more round that style of filmmaking, sort of like
• 1:01:05
  ghost stories, and well, I think you can learn so much about directing
• 1:01:08
  and screenwriting from Rosemary's Baby just by itself, you know, because you watch
• 1:01:13
  it, you can watch it five or six times. In the second time,
• 1:01:15
  what you've seen the whole thing, and you watch it again and you
• 1:01:19
  see what's kind of going on, Like so much of that movie takes place
• 1:01:22
  away from the camera, you know what I mean. So it's like you're
• 1:01:24
  you're learning all these things from uh, you know, the neighbors and everything
• 1:01:30
  and there you know, all these things that are going on, and you're
• 1:01:34
  kind of seeing everything through the point of view of a woman who you know,
• 1:01:37
  seems like she's kind of losing her mind, but it's actually you know,
• 1:01:40
  it's actually something's actually happening to her. But it's just brilliant that and
• 1:01:44
  you know, I always like that in Chinatown. You know, Planska's two
• 1:01:47
  movies back to back that were just incredible. Those are like filmmaking schools on
• 1:01:52
  there. They're absolutely absolutely man Plansky. I mean, he's a he's a
• 1:01:57
  he's a master filmmaker. There's no, no, no question about that.
• 1:02:00
  I mean, looking the Shining too. The Shining is a great example.
• 1:02:01
  There's a really good book actually I've been reading. It's called it's called The
• 1:02:07
  Shining Studies in the Horror Film by Daniel Olson, edited by Daniel Olson,
• 1:02:12
  and it's just this big old freaking book about the making of The Shining and
• 1:02:15
  it's just a really, really really interesting if you're interested in that. So
• 1:02:19
  there's also one on The Exorcist too, Studies in the Horror Film Series that's
• 1:02:22
  really good. I mean, of course, The Exorcist, there's no question
• 1:02:25
  that that's, you know, one of probably one of the best poor films
• 1:02:28
  ever made. But I meant the Shining and one of one film that I
• 1:02:34
  was actually I was just talking about it last night was as a film called
• 1:02:37
  The Entity with Barbara Hershey is one of the films that's scared to freaking shit
• 1:02:40
  out of me. It was really, really really scary. And The Changeling
• 1:02:45
  is an amazing not that Angelina Jolie thing, the the the Changeling, the
• 1:02:50
  old the classic one with George uh, George Got, the guy who played
• 1:02:59
  Patton Forgot. I'd say Georgey Scott anyway anyway, So yeah, but he's
• 1:03:05
  in this film called The Change, Like, oh man, it's such a
• 1:03:07
  great such a great ghost story, just classy and just offic just awesome film,
• 1:03:14
  really amazing film. But I mean, you know, I mean I
• 1:03:15
  could go on, we could go on all day about that. That's a
• 1:03:17
  whole another podcast, I think. But the this, but this, this
• 1:03:22
  is so important to to do, is to really look at these films and
• 1:03:27
  really study these classics, and certainly Hitchcock. If you Hitchcock is probably one
• 1:03:30
  of the best film schools that you could ever have. Is to just watch
• 1:03:35
  Hitchcock and study Hitchcock. I mean, he's just it's just it goes without
• 1:03:38
  goes without saying that. That's a that's a good one too. So yeahright,
• 1:03:45
  so love me. Let's let's move slowly just so. I mean,
• 1:03:49
  I know you don't have a whole lot of time. Just whatever, I'm
• 1:03:52
  here for you, So just love me. Just keep Okay, well we'll
• 1:03:54
  be here for another four hours. I haven't another big deal just uh so
• 1:04:00
  moving into well, let me ask you something about just the actual creating of
• 1:04:09
  creatures. Do you go to just like a creature workshop? How is the
• 1:04:14
  creatures designed? How does that whole process work? And who owns at the
• 1:04:17
  end of the day. Say, for example, you create you know,
• 1:04:21
  you've got a screenplay, You've right, you've got this character you have you
• 1:04:26
  know, artists working on it or whatever. Do you own that creature after
• 1:04:30
  they create it? Does the company that make it own those rights? You
• 1:04:32
  know? How does that all work? Well, yeah, it's gonna be
• 1:04:35
  whoever owns the whoever owns the the film. I mean, because you're you're
• 1:04:41
  creating a you're creating a likeness of a character. So I mean, you
• 1:04:44
  know you're creating us say it's a I don't know, some kind of weird
• 1:04:50
  pumpkin creature or pumpkin head, but I mean some kind of whoever designs that.
• 1:04:55
  I mean, if you if it's in the film, I mean you
• 1:04:57
  whoever owns the rights of the film is going to own that that likeness of
• 1:05:00
  that creature. I mean, of course, it depends on how the legal
• 1:05:04
  paperwork was all worked out too. I mean, maybe they could have licensed
• 1:05:09
  the image if that they didn't necessarily own it, you know what I mean.
• 1:05:12
  But more than the chances are that whoever, whoever made the film,
• 1:05:16
  the cruisers that made the film are the ones that actually own it and can
• 1:05:19
  license it out and make T shirts and you know, masks and all that
• 1:05:25
  thing and that sort of thing. Because I've actually had masks made from my
• 1:05:29
  film dark Walker. They made two masks out of it, two Halloween masks,
• 1:05:31
  dark Walker WOL one and dark Walker two. Of course there was never
• 1:05:34
  a dark Walker two, but they made a mask called dark Walker two and
• 1:05:39
  you can look it up. Actually, if you look it up on it
• 1:05:41
  it's a see it's it's a fantastic mask. I saw it research. It
• 1:05:45
  looks way better than the one in the movie, and it's like, it's
• 1:05:49
  like, man, I mean that should have been the creature in the film.
• 1:05:53
  What happened? So but I mean, if you can just buy one
• 1:05:56
  and make part two real quick. You know what's funny is I was in
• 1:06:00
  I traveled to I think it was in Indonesia, and I had a I
• 1:06:04
  found I found you know, I'm always interested. I'm very interested in foreign
• 1:06:08
  horror. I love foreign horror films, particularly Asian horror. But I found
• 1:06:12
  this film and I picked it up off the shelf, and it was some
• 1:06:14
  Indonesian horror movie, and I was looking. I was like, oh,
• 1:06:15
  it's some kind of weird ghost movie thing. Because I flipped over to the
• 1:06:18
  back and I was like, what the fuck. They had bought the mask
• 1:06:25
  for my movie Dark Walker and used it in the movie as if it was
• 1:06:30
  I that was the creature in their movie. And then on the back cover
• 1:06:33
  there's a picture of the mask, the guy wearing the mask, and then
• 1:06:38
  you know, they just added a little blood on it or something to make
• 1:06:40
  it look a little different and have a different suit. And then I was
• 1:06:42
  like, I was like, what the hell. I mean, Yeah,
• 1:06:45
  so anyway I thought, I mean, I didn't care. I thought it
• 1:06:45
  was funny, you know, to me, I don't wantever, you know,
• 1:06:47
  go do it. They want to do that. It's flattering, you
• 1:06:49
  know, but I just thought it was hilarious. I was looking at this
• 1:06:53
  movie, like, what the fuck. So, yeah, I mean,
• 1:06:57
  it happens, but in that case, it's certainly in that particular case,
• 1:07:00
  we own the likeness of the mask of the pressures needed it. So,
• 1:07:04
  but I think as far as as far as how it gets created, that
• 1:07:10
  is usually a conversation with the director. The writer can write it one way,
• 1:07:15
  but the director might have a different vision of how it looks. So
• 1:07:17
  usually the director talks with the either the makeup artist and and says, hey,
• 1:07:23
  I want it to look a little a little like, uh, this
• 1:07:26
  and this and this, and then the makeup artists will usually do a Sometimes
• 1:07:29
  they'll do a drawing. They could do a drawing for you. Sometimes you
• 1:07:30
  could have an artist do a drawing and then you just give it to the
• 1:07:33
  makeup artists. I want you to I want you to do a model of
• 1:07:35
  this. I've done I've done it both ways. Sometimes the the makeup or
• 1:07:42
  the special effects artists would would would do a mock up for you. You
• 1:07:45
  know, let's just say come in and they do a they do a you
• 1:07:48
  know, a sculpture of it, and then you can do, you know,
• 1:07:51
  do some adjustments there, and then once you're satisfied with it, then
• 1:07:55
  they mold it and and there they make the prosthetics that they need to make
• 1:08:00
  and you're done, you know, and uh and uh, you have a
• 1:08:02
  you have your your new character. So that's kind of really the process with
• 1:08:05
  it. It's it's kind of a colla definitely a collaborative process. I mean,
• 1:08:10
  if you have something super specific in mine, it's a good idea to
• 1:08:14
  hire a u an artist to draw it for you to do, even if
• 1:08:18
  it's just a simple pencil drawing to somebody to draw what you have in mind
• 1:08:23
  and hand that to somebody who can execute it as a as a prosthetic,
• 1:08:28
  uh or or whatever you know, particular effect you're doing. So that's that's
• 1:08:32
  kind of how that that whole thing works. Yeah, Now would you say
• 1:08:35
  that's a lot more effective than I mean, not effective, but a lot
• 1:08:39
  more economic if you're trying to do a creature I mean, is there any
• 1:08:45
  way you can do CGI or something like that in these low budget movies?
• 1:08:49
  Oh yeah, no, totally. I've done it several times to fix bad
• 1:08:53
  makeup what I've had. I've did it on Ghost Month, I did it
• 1:08:58
  on Real Evil. What I call I call it digital makeup, and what
• 1:09:01
  it is is you know, you go, you know, I had a
• 1:09:03
  situation where, you know, we did some makeup tests and I thought it
• 1:09:09
  was going to look better than it did. And then we got to set
• 1:09:11
  and the guy came out, and I was like, what the fuck did
• 1:09:15
  they? I mean, it just looked it looks so bad. I mean,
• 1:09:17
  it happens a lot on the little budget movies. Happens to me,
• 1:09:20
  seems seems like a lot in my earlier movies. It was like a lot
• 1:09:24
  of times it would be the first time that I had actually even seen the
• 1:09:28
  makeup. Would be when I'm on set. We we would hire somebody,
• 1:09:30
  then we would we just didn't have the bunny and the budget and the time,
• 1:09:33
  and it would just be they would come out and say here's the vampire,
• 1:09:36
  and I was like, Okay, what Halloween store did we go to?
• 1:09:41
  Right? And so so I would spend all this energy trying to figure
• 1:09:45
  out how I'm going to cover this, How I'm gonna not show this person
• 1:09:47
  because it looks so ridiculous. So a lot of times they'll be in shadow
• 1:09:50
  or you don't you don't stay on them too long, and it was just
• 1:09:54
  like, you know, always like that. But I remember one film it
• 1:09:57
  was like, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 1:10:04
  now back to the show. The guy came out and I was like,
• 1:10:10
  I was like, what, you know, he looks like he looks like
• 1:10:14
  powder, you know, the guy from the Powder picked herself. It just
• 1:10:16
  it just looked terrible. And I was like, it didn't look at anything
• 1:10:19
  like. So I was like, okay, well, let's change. I
• 1:10:21
  talk to the DP. I was like, look, you know, we
• 1:10:24
  got I gotta shoot this because there's no there's no where in the middle of
• 1:10:27
  the desert. There's nothing else we can do, so we you know,
• 1:10:30
  I said. I talked to him about changing the lighting up and changing in
• 1:10:33
  the way we're gonna shoot it and how I'm gonna shoot it and that sort
• 1:10:36
  of thing, and and you know, it helped. And then when I
• 1:10:40
  got it into post, because that's kind of one of my things specialties is,
• 1:10:44
  I was like, I gave it to a friend and I said,
• 1:10:45
  hey, you, let's do some digital makeup on this guy because he looks
• 1:10:47
  ridiculous. So I had his face morph into like a SkELL Thiner and you
• 1:10:50
  know, and I had the other girl's face morph into this weird like Corpsey
• 1:10:55
  looking thing and so on and so forth, and it worked great. And
• 1:10:58
  after that I was happy because I was like, oh, good, because
• 1:11:00
  it looks a little more supernatural now because their face is actually morphing from some
• 1:11:03
  some one one state to another state. So it looked a little bit it
• 1:11:08
  was fun or to use. But but yeah, I mean that's happened,
• 1:11:11
  and to me, several times I did it on Real Evil too. There
• 1:11:14
  was some stuff where the it wasn't that the makeup was necessarily it wasn't that
• 1:11:17
  the make ida it wasn't happy with the makeup on that when it was more
• 1:11:20
  that I thought it could be scarier, so we added the digital makeup onto
• 1:11:24
  it to make it even scarier. So so yeah, that's uh, that
• 1:11:29
  definitely, uh, definitely happens. And you can roll roll with the roll
• 1:11:34
  with the punches with what you gotta work with. But sometimes you can fix
• 1:11:38
  the stuff like that in post if you have the know how right, you
• 1:11:42
  believe in the idea, that's better not to see the monster. You know
• 1:11:45
  that it's more scary. You know. I'm I'm a huge fan of Jaws.
• 1:11:48
  That's one of my favorite movies. So I'm always like you know,
• 1:11:51
  and and you know, Spielberg's big influence was a movie called kat Eyes,
• 1:11:56
  you know, and so he he was like, well, I don't know
• 1:11:58
  how to tell the story. The sharp is terrible. So we got to
• 1:12:01
  find a way to shoot this movie without showing the shark. So, you
• 1:12:04
  know, he was talking about how this movie Cat Eyes, you never ever
• 1:12:08
  see the creature. You're the monster, the cat or whatever. Yeah,
• 1:12:14
  so I would think that's another way to kind of, like, you know,
• 1:12:17
  and even if you have a cool character, to kind of keep it
• 1:12:19
  in the dark, you know, until maybe towards the end where you do
• 1:12:24
  like a reveal or something like that. Yeah. No, absolutely, I
• 1:12:27
  think I think I'm a firm believer in that. Absolutely, And it's it's
• 1:12:30
  a closed door is way scarier than than to not know what's behind that door
• 1:12:38
  or what's in that darkness. But you know, something is there is such
• 1:12:41
  a great technique, a horror movie making technique that you know that be the
• 1:12:45
  mind of the audience just goes goes crazy, you know, and you know,
• 1:12:51
  and I think that's it's a great that those are the kind of films
• 1:12:55
  that I prefer to make. You know, I'm I'm totally like more of
• 1:12:58
  a classical or guy like I like to make movie like a Rosemary's Baby or
• 1:13:00
  you know, or all the ones I mentioned before. You know, those
• 1:13:03
  those are the films I like to make. But you know, when you're
• 1:13:06
  making something for higher or for as a producer for higher director or higher oftentimes
• 1:13:13
  you don't really have those options. A lot of times they you know,
• 1:13:15
  the companies are the distributors. They want to see a lot more because it
• 1:13:18
  makes a great trailer, you know, where it makes a great piece of
• 1:13:23
  art, you know, or that sort of thing, you know, which
• 1:13:25
  of course is obviously completely business related, not artistic related. But but you
• 1:13:30
  know, I mean, you know, it's entertainment businesses like that. It's
• 1:13:33
  it's the combination of art and commerce, you know, and and you it's
• 1:13:40
  just finding a way to still get your vision on the screen, but understanding
• 1:13:45
  that you have to walk down a wavy you know, a sort of a
• 1:13:51
  wavy way of trying to get get the commerce out of it, but still
• 1:13:56
  trying to get the art out of it at the same time, you know,
• 1:14:00
  and being able to compromise and still get get a good movie made at
• 1:14:02
  the same time. You know. It's it's it's it's it's difficult to do,
• 1:14:05
  no doubt, I mean, so so yeah, well, a lot
• 1:14:09
  of the people that I've talked to who are you know, producers that a
• 1:14:12
  lot of them are like, you know, we need to package it in
• 1:14:14
  such a way that people are gonna want to watch it in the first place.
• 1:14:16
  Yeah, but sometimes you have to hide a good movie within a movie
• 1:14:19
  that's more commercial, you know, so it's like I want to watch this.
• 1:14:23
  You got to get that initial click and then it's like, oh,
• 1:14:26
  this is actually a good movie, you know. Can Jaws to me is
• 1:14:28
  always the perfect example of that. It's like the perfect you know, popcorn
• 1:14:31
  movie, but inside of it, it's an amazing movie obviously, you know
• 1:14:34
  what I mean. Yeah, totally, man, I mean absolutely, And
• 1:14:36
  that's that's a great way to look at it. But I think I think,
• 1:14:40
  I mean, Jobs, of course was made you know, thirty whatever
• 1:14:43
  year, forty years I think now, right four years ago, but and
• 1:14:45
  that was that was such a great time to be making movies back then,
• 1:14:50
  you know. But I think with now, I mean, with the distribution
• 1:14:54
  being changed so much, what's happening, uh, I certain, Look,
• 1:14:58
  I mean just happened on a movie I just did, so, you know.
• 1:15:00
  I mean they change the artwork in the campaign and everything. But a
• 1:15:03
  lot of it has to do with when it comes, especially with digital distribution,
• 1:15:08
  it has to. It comes down to, like you only get a
• 1:15:12
  moment for somebody to be browsing through their Netflix que or or browsing through their
• 1:15:15
  Hulu queue to stop and say, hey, that it's kind of cool.
• 1:15:18
  You know. The title's good if it's usually higher up on the higher up
• 1:15:24
  on the list. Sometimes if it's alphabetical. Sometimes it's good to have,
• 1:15:27
  like something that starts with an A or a B, or a C or
• 1:15:30
  a D. You know, there's just something that starts with a Z,
• 1:15:31
  you know, kind of thing. There's little little things like that that can
• 1:15:34
  be taken to consideration. But certainly artwork and trailer are are you know,
• 1:15:41
  it's so key to to to getting people to to click on it, you
• 1:15:45
  know, to watch it, I mean and uh and in the case of
• 1:15:49
  a company like say Hulu, you the filmmaker gets paid per click, so
• 1:15:55
  every time somebody clicks on that, they get x amount, you know,
• 1:15:58
  so you know, it's it's important to get people to to to watch it.
• 1:16:01
  And if you can, if if if that means you know, putting
• 1:16:04
  together an amazing piece of art and amazing trailer, then that's what you gotta
• 1:16:08
  do, you know, right, So, but but the movie still has
• 1:16:13
  to stand you know, on its own too. After you get you can
• 1:16:15
  get people to click on it, but you can't necessarily get them to watch
• 1:16:18
  it. So you still got to make a good movie. But you can
• 1:16:20
  have a good trailer or a good movie, good art. You know,
• 1:16:24
  you're you're, you're, you're on your way, you know. Yeah,
• 1:16:27
  it just seems like nowadays, you you know, especially with Netflix, if
• 1:16:30
  you go into the horror section, it's like they put all this money into
• 1:16:34
  the graphic design of the poster and then you start watching it and it's like,
• 1:16:39
  oh, yeah, this is terrible. Yeah, it's like they just
• 1:16:42
  kind of made it. I mean, it must have been bought as part
• 1:16:44
  of like a larger package or something, you know, but the movie just
• 1:16:46
  completely there's nothing to it. It's badly shot, you know. So,
• 1:16:51
  you know, we've gotten into this world I think where it's almost kind of
• 1:16:55
  like social media. People are trying to figure out how to get more stars
• 1:16:59
  on things. People trying to just like get things shared around. But you
• 1:17:02
  know, the quality a lot of times isn't there. You know. Sure,
• 1:17:05
  I probably made one of two of those that you could I mean you
• 1:17:11
  no, you're absolutely right. I mean you'll click on I mean, look
• 1:17:13
  I I click on this stuff, and I'm like, what the fuck,
• 1:17:15
  you know, and then it just that's why I just like to watch classics
• 1:17:18
  my private main. But I mean, yeah, yeah, totally. It's
• 1:17:24
  it's in they're bought as packages, they're bought as other deals or licensing deals
• 1:17:28
  with guy who knows. You know, there's Voodoo and Hulu and Netflix and
• 1:17:33
  all these other distributors that the Amazon and Prime all that stuff. Yeah.
• 1:17:39
  Yeah. So one of the things that I try to do kind of with
• 1:17:42
  you know, the podcast is you know, trying trying to find that kind
• 1:17:45
  of line between Okay, there's people I talked to a lot of people who
• 1:17:48
  are just doing purely you know, art films that are like you know,
• 1:17:54
  stories of tragedy and things that have you know, I mean, and they're
• 1:17:58
  probably going to be really good movies. Sure, they're never going to be
• 1:18:00
  able to sell them, right, It's like it's never going to go anywhere.
• 1:18:02
  So I'm always kind of like, okay, well there's got you know,
• 1:18:05
  like the stuff that I write is more you know, in the horror,
• 1:18:09
  you know, monster movie kind of thing. But inside of the movie,
• 1:18:13
  there's like stories, characters, and there's like an actual you know,
• 1:18:17
  hopefully you know, an actual good movie inside of that. You know.
• 1:18:21
  So I always try to tell people, you know, try to do something.
• 1:18:24
  I mean, it's good to make a movie about you know, you're
• 1:18:27
  growing up in a small town and this and that, and but you know,
• 1:18:30
  you have to connect somehow. If you can connect with your own audience,
• 1:18:34
  you know, good, good for you. You know, go ahead
• 1:18:36
  and do that, and that's great, but you know, you do have
• 1:18:40
  to have something that you know, think about Netflix or iTunes. What are
• 1:18:44
  people going to click on? You know, absolutely, I mean again it's
• 1:18:46
  art and commerce because I mean, so many people I I I know,
• 1:18:49
  I know certainly happens a lot with me when when people find out I'm I'm
• 1:18:54
  a producer and director or whatever that's and especially if you're not in the business
• 1:18:57
  too, all of a sudden, they're like, well, I would go
• 1:18:59
  out of story for you. And then they start telling me their life story
• 1:19:02
  about this and that and and and and you know, and for them,
• 1:19:05
  yeah, it's it's their own story. But they what they don't understand is
• 1:19:10
  everybody's got a story, you know, but not, you know, not
• 1:19:13
  not every story makes a good movie, you know. So you know,
• 1:19:15
  I mean there's plenty of stories out there like yeah, at the time that
• 1:19:18
  my my uh boyfriend did this, wouldn't I make it a great movie?
• 1:19:24
  And you're just kind of like, well, not really know. I mean,
• 1:19:27
  you know, it's deeper than that. I mean, it's a lot
• 1:19:30
  deeper than that. And a lot of that has to do. I mean,
• 1:19:31
  it's gonna it's gonna do with the the certainly, the the the the
• 1:19:35
  premise you know of it is has to be compelling, and the characters have
• 1:19:42
  to be compelling. The story, the telling has to be compelling. The
• 1:19:45
  writing has to be compelling. I mean, before you even get to all
• 1:19:47
  this stuff that we're talking about, we'll be right back after a word from
• 1:19:51
  our sponsor, and now back to the show. I mean, we just
• 1:20:00
  you need to rewind and go back to the to your to your your premise,
• 1:20:04
  your concept, and then and then if you have a great premise and
• 1:20:08
  a great concept, then you you you know, work up a treatment.
• 1:20:11
  You work up a treatment, you work out some bugs, you work up
• 1:20:13
  the script. You know, then then you got more time to work on
• 1:20:15
  that script. You keep working, you keep chiseling that down to to the
• 1:20:18
  way it needs to be. And if you know kind of what budget level
• 1:20:21
  you're going to shoot it on, then you need to limit the locations and
• 1:20:25
  limit the amount of people that are in the in the scenes. And uh.
• 1:20:29
  And then when you once you get that all nice and polished up,
• 1:20:32
  give it to a few people that that don't read scripts for a living and
• 1:20:35
  and see what they think. And then and then do one more pass on
• 1:20:38
  it, you know you and then and then at some point around there,
• 1:20:42
  then maybe it's time to start, you know, getting the money to do
• 1:20:45
  it and put it in actually green light it and put it into and put
• 1:20:48
  it into production. But I think a lot of people don't spend enough time
• 1:20:50
  on the script. And so I'm certainly guilty of that. I it's certainly
• 1:20:55
  guilty of films that I've made that were just like, you know, you
• 1:20:59
  you add, you're just like, the script's not ready, Oh well we're
• 1:21:00
  shooting next week, oh you know, and you try to roll with it
• 1:21:04
  like, oh, maybe there's something I can do to make it better,
• 1:21:06
  and you know, and you're like, no, not really, because if
• 1:21:10
  it's not on the page to begin with it's not only so much you can
• 1:21:12
  do with it, you know. So yeah, it's it's trying, and
• 1:21:15
  you don't want to go into production with something that's that's not ready. But
• 1:21:19
  yeah, I mean it's so it's it's it's it's such important, it's it's
• 1:21:23
  actually one chat one section in this book that I wasn't able to because it's
• 1:21:27
  a whole different book. I mean, I can't. I can't write like
• 1:21:30
  twenty five pages about about screenwriting and storytelling and everything. So I just there
• 1:21:34
  was kind of an overview in my book about getting started and how to you
• 1:21:39
  know, combine mosters, you know, stuff to inspire to get it going.
• 1:21:42
  And then the rest is about actually making the film, production and distribution
• 1:21:45
  and everything. But the screenwriting aspect of it, which it's it's a whole
• 1:21:49
  another book in itself. But if you're you know, if you're starting filmmaker
• 1:21:55
  and you really want to get some really good books on screenwriting, there's there's
• 1:22:00
  so many out there. Certainly Story by Robert McKee is probably one of the
• 1:22:03
  best ones. There's a an endless amount of them that have been written.
• 1:22:10
  I wouldn't say all of them are good, but I would say uh,
• 1:22:14
  there's some. There's certainly some that have been written on on specifically on horror.
• 1:22:18
  I think the one guy writte one on the genre filmmaking. Can't remember
• 1:22:20
  the name of the author, but but just yeah, I just take a
• 1:22:24
  look at what's out there, and uh, well you'll you'll see. But
• 1:22:28
  one of the what I find that's even that's even better than that. It
• 1:22:31
  means great, it's great to do to read it. And you know,
• 1:22:33
  and if you if you understand, agree, if not, you know that
• 1:22:36
  you know, read read more. But one of the best things to do
• 1:22:40
  is to actually read screenplays. To to get horror screenplays if that's the genre
• 1:22:45
  of your choice, certainly is there's a lot of them available out there,
• 1:22:49
  excuse me, on the online is to you know, to get them and
• 1:22:54
  to read them and to study them and look at the formatting, look at
• 1:22:58
  the way that that that it's that written, and and and really really study
• 1:23:02
  the screen the screenplay page. I mean, I'm a writer myself, so
• 1:23:05
  I have an extensive collection of screenplays. I mean I have a whole shelf.
• 1:23:11
  I mean just just like literally like a thousand screenplays that are on my
• 1:23:15
  shelf. And and you know, and I just go over when I want
• 1:23:17
  to and say, oh, I'm going to read the script for you Turn,
• 1:23:19
  or I'm going to read the script for Knocked Up or whatever it is.
• 1:23:23
  I mean, those are horror films, but I mean I have I
• 1:23:26
  have the script for hell Raiser and you know, and I have the script
• 1:23:29
  for you know, House on Haunted Hill with script notes. You know that's
• 1:23:33
  right, and and and you know that's that's really I think one of the
• 1:23:36
  most powerful ways to learn how to how to how to how to write is
• 1:23:42
  to read great other writers that are really great and study them, you know,
• 1:23:45
  right, Yeah, I think it's kind of like through osmosis in a
• 1:23:48
  way. I remember I used to read the Aliens screenplay all the time,
• 1:23:54
  you know, and it was just like I would read it over and over
• 1:23:58
  and over again, and then when I would go back and actually watch the
• 1:24:00
  film, I would remember kind of how it looked, you know, on
• 1:24:02
  the on the page, and how it kind of came to life, and
• 1:24:05
  you really realize how kind of succinct that has to all be. You know,
• 1:24:11
  screenplays have to be completely just tight. There can't be one, you
• 1:24:15
  know, moment in it that doesn't have a reason. You know, and
• 1:24:16
  if you read those screenplays, you know, especially the you know, the
• 1:24:20
  classics or even just good movies, you know, I think you kind of
• 1:24:24
  just see, uh, you know, you don't have It's not like a
• 1:24:27
  book where you have a lot of pages that you know probably could be left
• 1:24:30
  out. But let me ask you one more thing about that, because a
• 1:24:33
  lot of screenwriters listen to this. Do the companies where you've worked for,
• 1:24:40
  the production houses, do they regularly I mean where are they getting their writers
• 1:24:45
  and screenplays from? I mean do you find that they're mostly people that are
• 1:24:49
  in town or do they ever, like just find people outside of town submit
• 1:24:55
  screenplays and stuff like that. Oh? Yeah, sure, I'd be happy
• 1:24:57
  to answer. Before I do, I wanted to add to your your Aliens
• 1:25:00
  comment on the screenplay. There's there's actually a really cool book if you haven't
• 1:25:04
  checked it out, it's called Dan O'Bannon wrote it. It's Dan O'Bannon's Guide
• 1:25:09
  to Screenplay Structure. Oh really, I don't think i've ever seen. Yeah,
• 1:25:12
  he actually wrote a book on on his sort of methodology to how he's
• 1:25:16
  how he he writes, particularly Alien, and he has a very it's it's
• 1:25:21
  it's it's an interesting read. He's a very unorthodox way of doing it.
• 1:25:25
  But I think, I think if for screenwriters that are reading this, and
• 1:25:28
  certainly for me as a screenwriter myself, I found it. I found it
• 1:25:30
  really really insightful to see how somebody like Dan O'Bannon, who of course wrote
• 1:25:34
  Aliens Alien it works A Night of Living Dad, Sorry, Cheez night Live
• 1:25:41
  Return to the Living Daddy wrote Returning Living Dad too, of course. Uh.
• 1:25:45
  And it's really it's a it's a it's a cool it's a cool little
• 1:25:46
  it's a cool read. So you should check it out. Yeah, the
• 1:25:51
  ready to do it. But certainly, uh, I think most filmmakers would
• 1:25:57
  agree that. But one of the best ways to learn how to make movie
• 1:26:00
  is certainly to one watch movies but watch them, not watch them just to
• 1:26:04
  watch him once them once, just to watch them, but watch it twice,
• 1:26:08
  to study it, you know, and to really break it apart,
• 1:26:11
  and to to to read screenplays. I'm always amazed how many people I meet
• 1:26:15
  that that. And I asked him like, like, what do you have
• 1:26:18
  a screenplay? Like you want to be a screenwriter and you don't have any
• 1:26:23
  screenplays in your house? You know, you don't read screenplays. Who know,
• 1:26:27
  it's just just my own you know, like okay, you know,
• 1:26:30
  so so are you gonna be are you gonna make your own music but only
• 1:26:33
  listen to your own music? You know? And it doesn't make any sense.
• 1:26:36
  You have you know, you have to you know, if you if
• 1:26:39
  you're a screenwriter and you don't have like either a folder on your computer with
• 1:26:44
  a bunch of PDF screenplays that you you bought, you know, to to
• 1:26:46
  to to read and study, or actually have a lot of screenplays in your
• 1:26:50
  own personal library, or if you don't even have a personal library and you
• 1:26:54
  want and you're a writer or a screenwriter, you know, it's like,
• 1:26:57
  you know, yeah, it kind of might be gone of a good idea
• 1:27:00
  to do something like that. I mean, Newmarket Press is probably one of
• 1:27:03
  the most well known publishers that published screenplays, and I would highly recommend checking
• 1:27:06
  out that particular publishing company. They publish a lot of that stuff. But
• 1:27:10
  there's a lot of that out there that that that you that you should that
• 1:27:14
  you should should get out and study. So anyway, with that said,
• 1:27:17
  uh, that transitions just into the screenwriting question. And I'd hired plenty of
• 1:27:24
  writers and as a producer us. Certainly I hired them for a number of
• 1:27:32
  reasons. But usual sometimes it's because I'm I just don't have the time to
• 1:27:39
  write it myself. Because as as a writer myself, usually I want to
• 1:27:42
  write it myself, but I'm kind of like, oh God, I just
• 1:27:43
  don't have the time, and I need to spend the time on the producing
• 1:27:45
  and getting money to even make the thing and that sort of thing. So
• 1:27:48
  oftentimes I'll have I'll have I'll hire a screenwriter, and it's usually it just
• 1:27:55
  depends, you know, what it is. But usually on the low budget
• 1:27:59
  level of things, screen scripts are written as work for hire, which means
• 1:28:03
  that the writer actually doesn't omit. You're writing it for me as a job,
• 1:28:08
  so you know, you you're you're getting paid X amount. You know,
• 1:28:12
  it could be it could be as ridiculously embarrassingly cheap as fifteen hundred dollars
• 1:28:17
  to four thousand dollars or five thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars, you know,
• 1:28:20
  depending on what the budget is. Usually usually a writer gets a screenwriter
• 1:28:24
  gets somewhere around like two percent of the budget for what for the script.
• 1:28:29
  I'm just saying, in general, it's just throwing that around. So two
• 1:28:31
  percent. So if you're making one hundred thousand dollars movie, or the writer
• 1:28:33
  m may have got two grand, may have got four grand, depending on
• 1:28:39
  you know, how generous the producer is. Me particularly, I'm kind of
• 1:28:41
  generous because I'm a writer myself, and I know how hard it is to
• 1:28:45
  do that, to write anything and then to have to turn it over,
• 1:28:47
  you know, but sometimes you have to do that in order to get get
• 1:28:49
  it made, especially if you're an unproduced writer. You know, sometimes that's
• 1:28:54
  the best way to get started. I mean, you know, if you
• 1:28:57
  give me a script and you have no credits at all, and I'm like,
• 1:29:00
  well, hey, I can make this movie. We're gonna make it
• 1:29:01
  for a hundred grand, but I can get it made. Yeah, Now
• 1:29:04
  you're going to get paid a little bit, but you know, the production
• 1:29:08
  company takes it over, they pay you, they own the scripted, but
• 1:29:10
  we actually make the film, and then that helps you get another gig after,
• 1:29:15
  you know, that sort of thing, right, But but you know,
• 1:29:17
  it just depends, you know, I'm with the low budget stuff,
• 1:29:19
  you know, usually yeah, it's usually kind of a standard case where it's
• 1:29:23
  two percent of the budget or or and usually the writer it's it's it's a
• 1:29:28
  work for higher kind of situation, you know. And I've I've hired plenty
• 1:29:31
  of different writers, all different kinds of writers, and a lot of times
• 1:29:34
  they use alias. Sometimes they use aliases for what for their for all kinds
• 1:29:39
  of reasons. Other times they're they who knows you know what what what what
• 1:29:45
  it is? But U and and you you know, they usually have a
• 1:29:49
  very short amount of time to write it. So usually I tend to hire
• 1:29:53
  writers that can write quickly. We'll be right back after a word from our
• 1:29:58
  sponsor and now back to the show. But but with quality, you know,
• 1:30:06
  so I would like for instance, so I just I hired a write
• 1:30:09
  or not too long ago, and I gave him I think I gave him
• 1:30:13
  a week to work up a treatment, and then we worked out notes on
• 1:30:15
  the treatment. I think he had. I think he gave him for three
• 1:30:18
  or four weeks to write the first draft. So I think he did it
• 1:30:23
  in three. I think he did in three, But I've had people do
• 1:30:26
  it in two, you know, And then you know, and then we
• 1:30:29
  would we would certainly do do several other drafts after that, But the first
• 1:30:31
  draft, you know, because once you work out the initial story in the
• 1:30:34
  treatment and stuff, the drafting part of it can come a little quicker.
• 1:30:39
  But and that that's kind of how that that process works, at least with
• 1:30:43
  with some of the lower budget of stuff. The studio levels a whole different
• 1:30:45
  ball game, a whole different Just ignore everything I said, because it's a
• 1:30:49
  whole you're just you're dealing with like executives and you're you know, you're you're
• 1:30:56
  dealing with a whole different group of people. So I'm speaking to you just
• 1:31:00
  as an independent filmmaker that has hired people to write films that have been made
• 1:31:04
  in the under one hundred under two hundred thousand dollars range, and what a
• 1:31:08
  typical scenario may be like. So that's that's what I'm telling you here.
• 1:31:12
  So it's not so if you're a screenwriter you're like, oh, fu,
• 1:31:15
  coming enough for two grand for the rest of my life be broke and my
• 1:31:18
  kid's gonna eat that sort of thing. Now that's not really that's not the
• 1:31:21
  case. But if you're looking to get it something that you have that's already
• 1:31:26
  you know, that that you think could be good for a low budget situation,
• 1:31:29
  yeah, I mean, yeah, you can you can do something like
• 1:31:31
  that? So right, But yeah, I mean I've had people, I
• 1:31:34
  get people submitting all the time for scripts. Uh Oftentimes they're just ridiculously too
• 1:31:41
  complicated, or there's just way too many locations and way too many characters too
• 1:31:45
  to execute. You know, it's usually the case. But you know,
• 1:31:48
  sometimes people come in with stuff that's just really well well written, well executed,
• 1:31:53
  and it's simple, you know, and and and those are the ones
• 1:31:56
  that I tend to to to like as far as making on on a low
• 1:32:00
  on a lower budgeted level. So so yeah, but but you know,
• 1:32:03
  if you have something that you're as a writer, though, if you have
• 1:32:06
  something that you're that you worked on for like twelve years and it's like your
• 1:32:10
  baby, don't sell it to some producer for two grand, you know what
• 1:32:14
  I mean. I mean, I'll be the first one to tell you.
• 1:32:15
  I mean I would if you gave it to me. And I'm like,
• 1:32:16
  man, this is amazing. And I was like usually I was like,
• 1:32:19
  dude, I can't give you two grand for this. No, No,
• 1:32:23
  I mean I just but I mean, you know, look, I mean,
• 1:32:25
  just just if you have something that's like really your your your baby,
• 1:32:28
  I mean it, don't hang on to it and it don't just don't just
• 1:32:31
  let let it go for pennies unless you really unless you're part of the project.
• 1:32:35
  Oftentimes I've made deals with writers too were oftentimes there they were producers,
• 1:32:41
  so they wrote it. The deal was that they they're involved in the percentage
• 1:32:45
  of the any profits, if if any, usually there's none because movies barely
• 1:32:49
  make money. And uh, but they're they're they're more involved in the financial
• 1:32:55
  pie if there is a pie. But often if somebody's always eating the pie
• 1:32:59
  and there is no pie and they're they're sometimes there's no crumbs either from the
• 1:33:02
  pie, so uh, you know, but but you know, it's sometimes
• 1:33:08
  you can make make arrangements like that. Sometimes it's two percent plus a percentage
• 1:33:12
  of them in the back end. And you think it's a good way for
• 1:33:15
  people that are just like trying to get their start and build up some credits.
• 1:33:18
  Can I think it's a great way to start. Yeah, I mean,
• 1:33:20
  I mean, I think it's better if you're if if if you're the
• 1:33:25
  writer and director, because I think like when you if you're just the writer
• 1:33:28
  and you get it to another director, they're gonna have you gotta Remember this
• 1:33:30
  is an interpretive art form here we're talking. Yeah, So so it starts
• 1:33:34
  with you, it starts with the it starts with the idea, it starts
• 1:33:36
  with the writer. It starts it's an that thing. But it ends it
• 1:33:41
  ends in the editing room with some guy like me that's going, well,
• 1:33:44
  what the hell is all this dialogue? Let's cut this out? You know,
• 1:33:46
  it ends, It ends with the editor, It ends with the director
• 1:33:49
  at the end kind of your script down, So like, let's get rid
• 1:33:54
  of this whole Indianapolis speech. This is telling me about it. Man,
• 1:33:58
  you see the ship that I've got out of the movie. It seems that
• 1:34:01
  they shot and they're just like, this scene is so freaking boring. That's
• 1:34:04
  just cut it out. We call the hold. They move on. But
• 1:34:08
  you know, I think I think if you have the knack for it,
• 1:34:12
  if you have the personality to be a director, and you're and you have
• 1:34:15
  a script that's you're really passionate about, you should consider doing it yourself,
• 1:34:19
  you know, being the writer director, or if you do get a production
• 1:34:23
  company involved with it, that you you you are the direct you in the
• 1:34:27
  terms are that you you get to direct it, even though that's that scares
• 1:34:31
  producers. I honestly, it scares them a little bit because, especially on
• 1:34:35
  this level of filmmaking, because you know, to have a first time anybody
• 1:34:40
  when you need to pull stuff off in eight to ten days is very It
• 1:34:45
  can make the producer very nervous because it's like that you know what he's doing.
• 1:34:47
  You know, that's the director behind the camera. That sort of think.
• 1:34:51
  But but but if that's the case, you know, hey, you
• 1:34:55
  know, kickstart it yourself or something, go out and make it yourself.
• 1:34:58
  You know. You know, I've always encouraged people like, hey man,
• 1:35:00
  look at you got your You've got your own script, and it's great,
• 1:35:03
  and you think it's something you can do for a low budget. You know,
• 1:35:06
  there's there's there's nothing that says you can't go out and and either what
• 1:35:10
  you could do, you yea kickstart or whatever. You know, it's it's
• 1:35:13
  a crapshoot with that too, but you know, you could try to do
• 1:35:15
  some kickstarting. You could maybe hopefully you're financially well off yourself, maybe you
• 1:35:19
  could you know, uh, sell your your ridiculous comic book collection because you're
• 1:35:25
  in your fifties now and maybe maybe you don't need to have that anymore,
• 1:35:28
  and and uh sell your comic book collection like I think Kevin Smith did to
• 1:35:31
  make clerks and uh, you know, raise some money, you know,
• 1:35:35
  and and say, hey, I you know, look at I can I
• 1:35:39
  have a I have thirty grand that I can put into something, you know,
• 1:35:43
  and instead of that that midlife crisis car maybe I invest in a in
• 1:35:48
  my movie and you go out and do it yourself, and you you maybe
• 1:35:51
  you produce it yourself and you direct it yourself and you do it. And
• 1:35:55
  I think I think for me, that's always been the best way to do
• 1:35:57
  it, is to kind of carve your own path with it, because certainly
• 1:36:01
  it's it's a little bit more sure that it's going to happen, But don't
• 1:36:09
  go into it without at least doing your due diligence and research and thinking about
• 1:36:13
  about about how to make movies. I mean, I mean, certainly,
• 1:36:16
  you know, you can read the books, you can read, you know
• 1:36:18
  all you want, but there's nothing like experience, you know. And uh
• 1:36:25
  and you will get experience doing it yourself that way, believe me. So
• 1:36:29
  so yeah, man, I mean, I don't know, I think that's
• 1:36:30
  a good way to to start and yeah. Yeah, so well, can
• 1:36:36
  we can we move into post production? Because I know that your big thing,
• 1:36:41
  and I you know, I know you guys talked about it a lot
• 1:36:45
  on Dave Bullis's podcast, so I recommend everybody you know check that out too.
• 1:36:49
  But I wanted to talk to you about post production and you know,
• 1:36:55
  what, what are the important aspects of that and what what do people need
• 1:36:59
  to you know, plan for when they're beginning. You know, one of
• 1:37:03
  the things you guys even talked about was, you know, you have to
• 1:37:08
  have enough budget to do your post production, and you know, you can't
• 1:37:11
  just put it all into shooting it and then you know, expect to just
• 1:37:14
  like do the post production aspect of it, you know, without any money.
• 1:37:18
  You know, I think people get kind of stuck with that, you
• 1:37:20
  know that they they do everything in production and they get to post production and
• 1:37:24
  they've run out of budget. Oh yeah, totally no, Yeah, I
• 1:37:27
  can totally totally give you some good, good advice on that. Well.
• 1:37:32
  I think I think when you before you look, before you get involved in
• 1:37:36
  your when you start, when you're ready to start shooting your film in pre
• 1:37:41
  production, you need to start thinking about post production in pre production because everything,
• 1:37:45
  you kind of always have to kind of work backwards. I mean,
• 1:37:47
  certainly even from distribution. I would say I always say start, start from
• 1:37:54
  where you want this film to end up. So if you're like, okay,
• 1:37:56
  I want this film to be theatrical, okay, well, if you
• 1:37:58
  wanted to be theatrical, probably shouldn't be shoting on your phone. You know,
• 1:38:01
  you might want to. You might want to even though that's happened when
• 1:38:03
  you're wrong. But if you really wanted to be a theatrical release, or
• 1:38:08
  even have the possibility of being a theatrical release, you want to start deciding
• 1:38:12
  on your your your cameras, you know, and say, okay, well
• 1:38:15
  maybe we should shoot with the Alexa. Maybe we need to shoot at four
• 1:38:16
  K so we can get a four K DCP that we can take out to
• 1:38:21
  screen in theaters and so on and so forth. So you you, you
• 1:38:25
  and start thinking about your deliverables, like, okay, we want to be
• 1:38:29
  able to sell this fore end. We want to be able to you know,
• 1:38:32
  do a full delivery on this too everywhere. Well okay, that's that's
• 1:38:35
  great. I'm glad you're thinking about that in pre production, because what you're
• 1:38:40
  gonna need to do is you're gonna It's like I said, you're gonna think
• 1:38:42
  about what camera you're shooting on you guys, start thinking about your your how
• 1:38:45
  you're gonna you know, because you need to budget that stuff out, Like,
• 1:38:48
  Hey, we're gonna need M and E tracks, We're gonna need five
• 1:38:50
  point one We're gonna need five point one M and ease, We're gonna need
• 1:38:54
  uh, We're gonna need to do the stems. We're gonna need to do
• 1:38:58
  close captioning. By the way, you can't even get a movie on iTunes
• 1:39:01
  unless it's closed captioned, and and so on and so forth. So I
• 1:39:06
  mean you you really need to start thinking about that kind of stuff early on
• 1:39:12
  and budget for it, because by the time you get to post, people
• 1:39:15
  are like, what you mean, I gotta have that? How much is
• 1:39:16
  that gonna cost? Oh? I gotta do five point one M and e
• 1:39:19
  What the hell is that? You know? I gotta do? I gotta
• 1:39:23
  do what you know? I gotta do. I gotta do QC. What
• 1:39:26
  the hell is QC? You know that sort of thing? And how much
• 1:39:29
  does that cost? Oh? My god, that costs like five hundred dollars
• 1:39:31
  to do that, and all of a sudden, you're you're you're just like
• 1:39:33
  you're overwhelmed and in your movie doesn't your movie doesn't get finished because you couldn't
• 1:39:38
  sell it. Because you didn't you weren't able to deliver it. And if
• 1:39:42
  you're not able to deliver your movie, you're in trouble, man. I
• 1:39:45
  mean, you're gonna spend you know, your because you know, these guys
• 1:39:46
  aren't gonna wait around forever. When you get a distribute, when you get
• 1:39:48
  a distributor on the hook and they say, we like your film, it's
• 1:39:51
  really good. We want to make a deal with you, blah blah blah,
• 1:39:55
  and then you start looking at the contract and you're like, oh my
• 1:39:56
  god, I can't deliver all this stuff. We'll be right back after a
• 1:40:00
  word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. I didn't shoot
• 1:40:09
  on set stills, or I didn't shoot I didn't I didn't I didn't do
• 1:40:12
  this, or it doesn't pass QC because it has to you know, normally
• 1:40:15
  has to pass a QC process. And you have all these post issues,
• 1:40:17
  you know with God knows what you know, and they they're like, hey,
• 1:40:24
  you know, look, we you know, we're interested in your film.
• 1:40:26
  But if you can't pass QC, and if if it's not, if
• 1:40:28
  you don't, if you can't deliver what the contract says that we need as
• 1:40:30
  a delivery, we can't. We can't take your film. I've seen that
• 1:40:34
  happen several times with people, you know, they they their movies just undeliverable.
• 1:40:39
  It's not it's bad, it just they couldn't deliver it the way the
• 1:40:42
  distributor wanted it, so the distributor had to pass on it. What would
• 1:40:45
  cause a film not to pass QC? Oh, so many things, so
• 1:40:48
  many things. Actually, it's one of the things. I have a really
• 1:40:53
  good chapter, probably one of the only ones that are in print, I
• 1:40:56
  think, in a book about about the whole sort of the process of delivery,
• 1:41:01
  you know, mastering and delivery and all that stuff. And I have
• 1:41:04
  a little bit and there on QC and QC For those of you don't know,
• 1:41:08
  is it say, it's quality control, and it's it's a process.
• 1:41:13
  It's a very subjective process. And what happens is your movie goes to a
• 1:41:19
  lab. Let's just say like like, I don't want to mention any laugh,
• 1:41:23
  because let's talk to me after this. No, you say your body
• 1:41:28
  goes to a lab and you for a QCING process. What they do is
• 1:41:30
  they take the master and they they run it through the ring or they they
• 1:41:34
  they they look at the video, the levels, the gamma, all all
• 1:41:42
  these things. They run through a machine and and and they run it through
• 1:41:45
  this machine. This machine, I'll say, oh, this movie's out of
• 1:41:47
  uh the gamma does this. And there's there's a dead pixels on these shots.
• 1:41:53
  And there's a this shot is out of focus, or there's a there's
• 1:41:58
  a there's a C stand in the shot. I mean, I mean literally
• 1:42:00
  stuff like that, Like there's a C stand in the shot, you have
• 1:42:02
  to that's that's a QC flag or a dead pixel, which can happen,
• 1:42:08
  you know on digital cameras sometimes it's just a dead pixel in the middle.
• 1:42:11
  Very hard you know to get rid of those sometimes us if you're shooting on
• 1:42:15
  film, it could be film scratches, you know, all the way to
• 1:42:17
  uh uh uh stuff being out of focus and so and so whatever. And
• 1:42:23
  it's it's grated like a by a number system, so you have like one,
• 1:42:29
  a one, two, and a three Like a one is like kind
• 1:42:32
  of they're just letting you know, kind of thing it's not. It doesn't
• 1:42:34
  won't cause you to pass. Two is kind of like not really enough too.
• 1:42:39
  It's bad, but it's not that bad. Three is like absolutely,
• 1:42:42
  you have to fix this kind of thing, you know. So it's it's
• 1:42:44
  grated on scale. In my book, I put in I think two examples
• 1:42:48
  of what a QC report actually looks like, and ones that have passed and
• 1:42:53
  ones that have failed. And they'll they'll pick out all kinds of stuff audio
• 1:42:56
  chances, particularly audio. They'll they'll pick out things like the folly is off,
• 1:43:00
  or she has a bracelet on, but we're not hearing the bracelet,
• 1:43:03
  you know, on the M and E track. I mean, stuff like
• 1:43:05
  that, lips mats, you know, I mean just the most ridiculous stuff
• 1:43:09
  that you're just like, oh my god, you know, what is wrong
• 1:43:11
  with these people? So yeah, but but it's a very real and a
• 1:43:15
  very important part of the selling of the film process. So it's like,
• 1:43:19
  if there's just too many things in there, then you fail to QC chest
• 1:43:24
  Okay, there's only two outcomes to QC okays and fail. There's no in
• 1:43:29
  between. If you fail, forget about your distribution. I mean, you
• 1:43:32
  have a chance to fix it. They'll say, Okay, well it failed,
• 1:43:34
  so you need to fix all this stuff. But if you go back
• 1:43:36
  and like, I can't fix it, there's no there's no way I can
• 1:43:39
  fix it, well, you're probably not going to get the distribution deal at
• 1:43:41
  you just you try to get because nobody, no distributor wants to take a
• 1:43:45
  movie that's failed QC and certainly for TV for television. You know, like
• 1:43:48
  my film Ghost Month premiered on NBC Universal's chill or TV. It's a main
• 1:43:55
  television network, so you see, you know, but it had to pass
• 1:43:59
  a QC and it did as I shot it on thirty five and I did
• 1:44:01
  the post so I made sure it passed. But it had, you know,
• 1:44:03
  it had it's it's share fair problems. But I was able to fix
• 1:44:05
  it, and they weren't They weren't too horrible. But you know, is
• 1:44:10
  there is there any way to test it yourself before you send it over or
• 1:44:14
  I mean, are there ways? Not? Really, because it's subjective,
• 1:44:17
  because you're you're you're giving it to a lab that that's got some dude in
• 1:44:20
  there that's getting you know, eight bucks an hour to sit there, run
• 1:44:25
  it through a machine and and watch it and to say oh, oh yeah,
• 1:44:29
  it's the levels or the you know, there's there's really not a hundred
• 1:44:32
  percent way to say, you know, yeah, this is definitely gonna pass,
• 1:44:38
  you see, because I did it myself. But you you certainly can,
• 1:44:42
  You certainly can look out for things like and I can tell you firsthand,
• 1:44:45
  you know, if your shot is ridiculously out of focus, it's probably
• 1:44:48
  gonna get flag. If you have a C stand in the shot, it's
• 1:44:51
  gonna get flag. If you're if you're not, if you're One of the
• 1:44:54
  most common things as the levels are falling out of the legal you know,
• 1:44:59
  so the legal zone for levels, but oftentimes that can be fixed with filters
• 1:45:03
  and final cut or Adobe Premier and stuff like. You can add a filter
• 1:45:06
  to that and you can get the levels back into what they call it a
• 1:45:11
  legal illegalized area. And titles are out of title safe zones, that sort
• 1:45:16
  of thing you said. There are some There are things, if you know
• 1:45:19
  a lot about post production that you can look out for, like I can
• 1:45:23
  look at a movie and tell you if it will pass QC. Usually from
• 1:45:27
  visually audio not as much because you have to really they really have to listen
• 1:45:30
  to it and really QC like the M and E tracks and make sure like
• 1:45:35
  there's footsteps filled in and although there's fully where it needs to be. That
• 1:45:40
  sort of thing, there are different different labs or you know. Sometimes you
• 1:45:45
  know, I've I've had stuff that they've told me to fix and I went
• 1:45:49
  back and said, yeah, I fixed it, no problem, and I
• 1:45:51
  didn't fix it. I was just just bullshitting them, and then they passed
• 1:45:56
  it, you know, and it happens. It happened like two a few
• 1:46:00
  science too, because I'm like, yeah, oh yeah I fixed that,
• 1:46:01
  Yeah, yeah, all that pixel that you said, Yeah, I totally
• 1:46:03
  fixed it. And then they come back and they go okay, great and
• 1:46:05
  then they get then they pass. So that's why I'm saying it's a very
• 1:46:08
  subjective process. You can have it go, you can have it past one
• 1:46:11
  QC house in the United States, and then you can give it to a
• 1:46:15
  foreign place that that q sees it and you'll get a whole the list of
• 1:46:17
  problems that they did. Pay So it's it's a really weird, a very
• 1:46:23
  frustrating process for a filmmaker to to to get past that stage. But but
• 1:46:27
  I will say it is one of the big hang ups for people, especially
• 1:46:30
  on a low budget movies, because you don't really a lot of times have
• 1:46:33
  the money to get it fixed. So that's one thing you really need to
• 1:46:36
  be careful with and watch out for. Okay, so can you walk us
• 1:46:42
  through the process Okay, you know, just editing the film and everything,
• 1:46:45
  Like what what the processes? You know? Are you typically editing as they're
• 1:46:50
  shooting or can you give me just an idea of how that all you know
• 1:46:55
  comes together? Quick idea? But I mean typically typically no, I'm not
• 1:47:00
  not really editing as they're shooting. It depends. I mean, if I'm
• 1:47:04
  full moon. Sometimes we used to do that and we're making public Master ten
• 1:47:08
  and stuff like that. Sometimes I would be editing as they're shooting. They
• 1:47:10
  would give me. That was just the editor they would Charlie Van would give
• 1:47:14
  me the material and like a daily basis, I'd be cutting as we're going
• 1:47:17
  and that sort of thing. Some you know, so that that can certainly
• 1:47:19
  happen. But sometimes if it's your own picture, you're not really thinking about
• 1:47:25
  that right now. You're probably just more concerned about getting a shot. So
• 1:47:28
  usually what happens is after you get it all shot, then you then you
• 1:47:30
  then you meet you either, if you're not editing it yourself, you'll meet
• 1:47:33
  with an editor and excuse me, you'll you'll go over with it. You'll
• 1:47:42
  go over with the editor. You know kind of what's going on. The
• 1:47:45
  editor will you know, of course, give the script usually what's called a
• 1:47:47
  line a line script that they had if you had a script supervisor on set,
• 1:47:51
  and they'll get an idea of what the coverage is like and what takes
• 1:47:55
  you like, that sort of thing, if if you even had one.
• 1:47:58
  A lot of times a little budgets, they don't even have a script supervisor.
• 1:48:01
  And then and then it's pretty much up to the editor. At that
• 1:48:03
  point, you have a conversation a couple conversations with a director and you stay
• 1:48:05
  and start cutting away, and then you just goes through a process of of
• 1:48:11
  you know, an assembly and a director's cut and producer's cut oftentimes until you
• 1:48:17
  until you get it locked. And then once you get it locked, and
• 1:48:19
  then you you head onto sound from that point forward. But the editing process,
• 1:48:24
  though, one thing I will tell you, and this is another area
• 1:48:27
  that you really should spend the money in is Look, if you're a great
• 1:48:31
  editor yourself, fine, but if you're if you're just you know, a
• 1:48:35
  guy that cut a few commercials together, a few car commercials together, a
• 1:48:39
  Dorito's commercial, it's not a feature film editor. You really got to look
• 1:48:44
  at who you're hiring as an editor, because editing is so important to the
• 1:48:48
  process. And I've I've edited so many feature films, man, I mean
• 1:48:55
  over, I think I'm like a hundred and something now. Feature films,
• 1:48:58
  now, I mean a lot of them are this blah, but I mean
• 1:49:00
  the the one I mean, I mean, I edited for Sci Fi Channel
• 1:49:05
  for people, and it's just such important right out of the editor h experience.
• 1:49:15
  And I'm losing you a little bit. I can't really hear you.
• 1:49:21
  You're you're dropping out a little bit. Are you going through a tunnel?
• 1:49:26
  Yeah? Yeah, So what I was saying on an experienced editor, because
• 1:49:33
  in the long run, they'll really save you. It's just have a really
• 1:49:36
  good DP or anything else, because a really good editor can make or break
• 1:49:41
  your movie. They can I can cut a scene eighteen different ways and get
• 1:49:45
  completely different meanings every time in the scene. But but you know, so,
• 1:49:48
  so that's what I'm saying. I mean, an editor is just important.
• 1:49:51
  It's not just a matter of slinging together a bunch of coverage. We'll
• 1:49:57
  be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
• 1:50:03
  show that's not editing. Editing is a craft like anything else, just like
• 1:50:10
  you know, cinematography, just like production design. And it's it's the end
• 1:50:15
  part of your film here, you know. So it's it's everything. It's
• 1:50:18
  timing, it's it's it's a performance. It's whether or not to show the
• 1:50:24
  knife yet or to show it at the end. If I cut a scene
• 1:50:27
  and I show you the knife too early, the scare is gone. The
• 1:50:30
  scare might be gone. But if I show it at the end, you
• 1:50:33
  know, the scene could play a completely different way. So that's an enormous
• 1:50:38
  amount of power to have over a movie as an editor. So that's why
• 1:50:42
  that's why I'm just really, you know, saying like, hey, you
• 1:50:44
  know, it is an important part of the process, and and really get
• 1:50:46
  somebody that knows how to cut feature films together, and and uh uh,
• 1:50:50
  if it's yourself, great, But if it's just somebody with no experience,
• 1:50:54
  you know, I would really advise against it. So fay way, you
• 1:50:58
  edit, after you get that done, and you a new, beautiful edited
• 1:51:00
  thing together. And you can move on. Then you lock the picture,
• 1:51:03
  which means no further changes to the to the to the picture. Uh,
• 1:51:09
  and then that can be given at that point over to the sound department,
• 1:51:13
  and the sound starts and the and that's also when the composer usually starts,
• 1:51:17
  and CGI and everything else starts at that point, titling and all that.
• 1:51:21
  Right, So, are you able to have like composers for these I mean,
• 1:51:26
  is that some point that's within the budget? Yeah? Absolutely, Well,
• 1:51:28
  my wife's a composer, so I'm lucky. Okay, that's right.
• 1:51:31
  I forgot about it. She's she's she plays for guitar for Blueman Group,
• 1:51:34
  and she's also a composer, a film composer. She she scored a lot
• 1:51:39
  of my my films and everything too. So it's convenient. Yeah, definitely,
• 1:51:44
  definitely a convenient relationship. Right, So, yes, composed And let
• 1:51:49
  me let me tell you here too, because this is also extremely important.
• 1:51:54
  One of the one of the things that's very common that seems to be like
• 1:51:58
  a plague these days, because that's what any of you there, I can't
• 1:52:05
  hear you. Let me trailer call them back. Hey, we're back.
• 1:52:13
  I just keep going, don't want me to call you back, is it?
• 1:52:15
  Okay, he's the connection. Okay, yeah, the connections. Good.
• 1:52:18
  You were you were saying. One of the plagues. Okay, maybe
• 1:52:20
  play is not a good word, but one of the one of the real
• 1:52:26
  mistakes. I think that that I see some filmmakers doing these days is the
• 1:52:33
  the the use of music libraries in place of an original film score. Now
• 1:52:41
  I'm talking. I'm not talking about trailers and and I mean, look,
• 1:52:44
  I mean, if you trailers or documentaries or whatever and you need to find
• 1:52:47
  you need to pull a piece out or a song out or whatever. Okay,
• 1:52:49
  fine, because they you know, libraries can have their uses for for
• 1:52:54
  certain for certain things, for certain you know, corporate videos or or commercials,
• 1:53:00
  and you know, you know that that that that's great. But this
• 1:53:02
  is of course my personal opinion on the matter. But for me, as
• 1:53:06
  a filmmaker like I would never pull out music from a library, absolutely not.
• 1:53:12
  And there's a reason for that. I mean, amusing a film is
• 1:53:15
  an original piece of work, you know. I mean, it's like a
• 1:53:17
  paint thing, you know. I mean, you're you're you want to have
• 1:53:20
  an original composer come in and do an original score to your film, because
• 1:53:26
  your film is unique. It flows a certain way, it's edited a certain
• 1:53:29
  way, it's it's it has a certain esthetic, it has a certain sound
• 1:53:32
  to it, it has certain instrumentation that you want to enhance the performance of
• 1:53:38
  the characters. You're not going to get that from a library. You know
• 1:53:41
  what you're going to get from a library. You're going to get the same
• 1:53:44
  queue that nineteen thousand other people just used in a car commercial and a feature
• 1:53:47
  film and something else that people just are using over and over again. So
• 1:53:53
  it's really to your advantage as a filmmaker to hire a composer on your feature
• 1:53:59
  film and get an original score. The audience will love you for it.
• 1:54:01
  You'll love yourself for it. And there are lots and it's not look,
• 1:54:05
  it's not expensive. Lots of composers out there that are hungry looking for work,
• 1:54:10
  that will even do it, that'll even do it for experience, just
• 1:54:13
  to to to to to work on it sometimes, you know, I mean,
• 1:54:15
  just you just need to find those people and reach out to those people
• 1:54:18
  to do an original score to your movie. It is absolutely worth it.
• 1:54:21
  And do not cheap out on the music, because I mean, even George
• 1:54:25
  Lucas will tell you that sound is fifty percent of the movie. So you
• 1:54:30
  know, and it's true because you know, we see with our eyes and
• 1:54:32
  we smell with our nose, but when we hear with our ears. But
• 1:54:34
  since we're not in smell a vision, you know, we're seeing and hearing.
• 1:54:39
  So it's like kind of a fifty fifty experience. So sound and sound
• 1:54:43
  and music and all that stuff is such an important part to your film.
• 1:54:47
  Don't cheap out on it. Do you use a temp track when you're editing
• 1:54:51
  or whatever, Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, to look, if you're
• 1:54:55
  editing and you're editing and you're and you're using al Alan Sevestree temp track because
• 1:55:00
  you just want to give the composer an idea or something, Yeah, that's
• 1:55:03
  fine. But I'm just saying at the end of the day, you know
• 1:55:05
  you have to uh certainly a temp temp tracking is very common. Yeah.
• 1:55:11
  You you people are just putting in music just to get an idea, you
• 1:55:14
  know when they're cutting, but the end result is something completely different. Uh.
• 1:55:18
  So that's that's that's that's actously a good way to to to to do
• 1:55:23
  it. But when you I have a whole chapter in the book about the
• 1:55:26
  music of horror films, and I interview I interview some amazing composers you know
• 1:55:30
  in there, I mean John, John Ahman, John Debney, you know,
• 1:55:32
  I need to you know, some great folks and they I really get
• 1:55:38
  into it with them about that stuff. And I think it's very insightful for
• 1:55:41
  you to for for the readers to read that chapter on music and sound.
• 1:55:45
  It's really it's really a good one. It's actually one of my Actually I
• 1:55:47
  think it is my favorite chapter in the book. It's very it's actually quite
• 1:55:49
  extensive to the interviews. But but you know, but music though too,
• 1:55:55
  I mean, you know, it's uh, there are there are just so
• 1:55:58
  many elements to it, uh between instrumentation and and uh and the overall feel
• 1:56:04
  of scenes and everything. Music really helps the audience. It really helps direct
• 1:56:10
  the audience to the emotions that that they want to feel in a scene.
• 1:56:13
  And and for you to just like pull something out of your hat, you
• 1:56:15
  know, it's it's it's it's a shame. It's too bad, you know,
• 1:56:18
  And I think that it can be you can really improve yourself if you
• 1:56:21
  if you hire a composer. So so did they come in during as the
• 1:56:27
  you know, you lock the picture, it goes over to sound posts.
• 1:56:30
  They're doing the the you know fully, and the designing and everything. Does
• 1:56:35
  the soundtrack come in at the very you know, after all that happens,
• 1:56:39
  or is that kind of going on at the same time. Well, well,
• 1:56:41
  sometimes sometimes you can have Sometimes you can get depending on your relationship with
• 1:56:45
  the composer. Sometimes you can get if you're married to the compomer. But
• 1:56:50
  if you sometimes if you're if you're like before you even like unreal eval like
• 1:56:55
  I had, I had the music music ideas before we even start it.
• 1:57:00
  I am you know, like I said, hey, you know, I
• 1:57:01
  want this kind of style, and it was able to start kind of getting
• 1:57:03
  going on the music early on, you before we even shot the film.
• 1:57:06
  So I mean, I think sometimes you can if you have that kind of
• 1:57:09
  a relationship with a composer, you can say, hey, I'm kind of
• 1:57:12
  thinking I want to do this kind of thing. You know, maybe you
• 1:57:14
  start coming up with some ideas and then they can start doing that early on.
• 1:57:17
  But but what normally happens is this, you you you shoot the movie,
• 1:57:21
  you cut the movie, you you lock the movie, and then and
• 1:57:25
  then it goes to the sound stage. The sound the sound uh, not
• 1:57:30
  an actual sound stage. I mean this sound the sound editing process, so
• 1:57:33
  the music process, stage of production, and what the director, what the
• 1:57:40
  director should be doing at this at this point after after the picture is locked,
• 1:57:44
  is you need to you need to sit with usually three different kinds of
• 1:57:48
  people, usually your sound designer, your composer, and your your CGI artist
• 1:57:55
  if you have one, which a lot of times you don't, but sometimes
• 1:57:58
  you do, and you'll need to sit with it and talk about the special
• 1:58:00
  effects shots that you need to do. But more commonly, you're probably on
• 1:58:04
  low budget. It's probably going to be just your sound and your music.
• 1:58:08
  So what you're gonna do is you're gonna sit with you You're gonna hire a
• 1:58:10
  sound a sound designer and a sound editor, and they're gonna you're gonna you're
• 1:58:15
  gonna do what's called spotting. You're gonna spot with these guys. You're gonna
• 1:58:17
  you're gonna watch the film from beginning to end, and you're gonna give them
• 1:58:20
  notes. You're gonna say this scene, I would like to hear metallic sounds
• 1:58:25
  coming from there, and I want more of a Bobcat growl on the monster,
• 1:58:29
  and I want this and blah blah blah blah, and they'll just make
• 1:58:31
  notes as as you're going along, and you'll and it'll it. Believe me,
• 1:58:35
  they'll thank you for it because it helps them, saves them time,
• 1:58:39
  saves you time. Everybody's on the same page of what kind of sound design
• 1:58:43
  you're looking for. Then you do a spotting session with your composer, and
• 1:58:46
  it's the same sort of process, but you're talking more in terms of music.
• 1:58:50
  You're saying, I'm I'm thinking more like you know, you know.
• 1:58:56
  Depending on how detailed they get with you and what your understanding is of music
• 1:59:00
  and how it works, the conversations can be very detailed, and they can
• 1:59:02
  be very generic. They can be very much like, well, I don't
• 1:59:06
  know, I think there should be some music here, but I'm not really
• 1:59:09
  sure what. And then the composer will say, okay, cool, I'll
• 1:59:11
  do something there. But I have a I have a little bit of a
• 1:59:14
  music background. So when I talked to my wife and about composing, we
• 1:59:16
  have like a nice conversation about like, I don't know about you know,
• 1:59:19
  the horns, and maybe the D minor is better, or maybe some piano
• 1:59:24
  work here, that sort of thing. So it's a little bit more detailed,
• 1:59:28
  but I think in general, when you're talking to a composer, it's
• 1:59:30
  better to give them, give them the emotion that you're going for in the
• 1:59:35
  scene, like this scene is sad, this scene is scary, this scene
• 1:59:39
  means, this scene is a really big moment, and I don't want to
• 1:59:43
  hear any music at all until we see the knife at the end. You
• 1:59:45
  know, that kind of direction for your cons And and again the composer will
• 1:59:49
  thank you for this, and they have a clear idea, of clear direction
• 1:59:53
  of where they're going with that. And then the same thing happens with the
• 1:59:56
  CGI you do. The same thing will be right after a word from our
• 2:00:00
  sponsor. And now back to the show. I sit with them, and
• 2:00:10
  you spot it and you tell them what kind of special effects you want.
• 2:00:12
  You know, I wanted to glow, and I want the guy's face to
• 2:00:14
  morph into a lizard or whatever it is, and I want it to be
• 2:00:16
  green and that sort of thing, and uh and that, and that's really
• 2:00:20
  kind of in the in a in a really quick nutshell, the entire part
• 2:00:24
  four of my book, And that's kind of what you're what you got to
• 2:00:28
  do there at that stage, right, And I got there. Any typical
• 2:00:31
  mistakes that you see, like if people want CGI in a scene, are
• 2:00:35
  there any things they need to make sure they have for you to to do
• 2:00:40
  that? Absolutely, that's the that's the last chapter. Actually it's pit falls
• 2:00:44
  of post production. There are many. But but to answer that specifically,
• 2:00:48
  yes, Uh. The oftentimes, like I did a lot of movies that
• 2:00:54
  I that I had come in and had one of their biggest problems is shooting
• 2:00:59
  the wrong plates. You know, like they think that, oh, well,
• 2:01:01
  we'll just remove the background and then we'll just throw some green some green
• 2:01:05
  ship behind him and then we'll take it out and after effects and it'll be
• 2:01:08
  great. And then they come in and then I mean, I've had that
• 2:01:11
  stuff come in to me and it's like, yeah, just take out his
• 2:01:13
  take out the background. I'm like, guys, you didn't light the freaking
• 2:01:15
  green screen right it? Look you just put up you just like put some
• 2:01:19
  green cloth behind the guy. You got him too close to it, he's
• 2:01:25
  casting a shadow on it. How am I supposed to pull him out of
• 2:01:28
  that background and make it look believable? You know what I mean? Like
• 2:01:30
  that sort of stuff that happens all the freaking time, or you know,
• 2:01:33
  somebody will be in front of a green screen but they're wearing like a green
• 2:01:38
  shirt. You know, it's like shot this right, you know, and
• 2:01:42
  you know it happens, man, I mean and uh, you know,
• 2:01:45
  just little things like that. You know, there there's and there's book.
• 2:01:47
  You know, there's plenty of books out there on green screen too, if
• 2:01:50
  you're if you're doing green screen work. But that's one of the big things
• 2:01:54
  I see coming in as people that are want to do green screen work on
• 2:01:57
  the low budget level, but they don't shoot it right. They shoot it
• 2:02:00
  very They think just because it's green, that's good enough, and it's not.
• 2:02:03
  Believe me, there is there is a very special way to do that
• 2:02:09
  to get it looking good, and you know, it can be a million
• 2:02:12
  other things too. Bad sound is also a very common thing. You know,
• 2:02:15
  just you just had bad sound on set and nobody seemed to notice,
• 2:02:18
  and now I've been problem. Or if there's voice over, make sure you
• 2:02:24
  get it recorded on set if you can, because the last thing you want
• 2:02:28
  to do is to be having to bring back actors and especially if they have
• 2:02:31
  to do a dr and replace their dialogue over bad over badly recorded dialogue.
• 2:02:38
  It looks terrible first of all. Most of the time, and oftentimes they
• 2:02:41
  you lose the original meaning of the performance. That's what I'm saying, right,
• 2:02:45
  So, I mean I think it was Cubrick that didn't do a DR
• 2:02:50
  at all because he was like totally opposed against it. At least I think
• 2:02:54
  that's what I heard from Full Metal Jacket or something like that they wouldn't do
• 2:02:57
  a DR or something like that. And you know, and I'm with you
• 2:03:00
  with that. I'm it's like, it's because it's a man, you know,
• 2:03:02
  a r socks. It's like, no, there's a match stick that
• 2:03:08
  happened on the set, and when you have to replace it in the studio,
• 2:03:11
  it's just not it's not the same. It means not the same.
• 2:03:14
  Yeah, So you get it, I can so yeah. So I mean
• 2:03:19
  there's there's other things. You know, Slating is a big issue out of
• 2:03:23
  times for you know, people that just horrible, horrible people that just don't
• 2:03:27
  slate. You know, I was like, what's wrong with you? Slating
• 2:03:30
  is is just inexcusable. You really need to do a good slate for the
• 2:03:34
  editor and for your own sanity. And there are apps on the iPad and
• 2:03:40
  the iPhone. I can't reme. I mentioned in my book, but I
• 2:03:43
  can't remember what it's called the top of my head. I think it's called
• 2:03:45
  movie slate or something like that. Just look at on the iTunes store and
• 2:03:48
  I think it's like twenty bucks or something, and it's it's just it's it's
• 2:03:51
  it's amazing. You know. It's just an I an iPad or an iPhone
• 2:03:55
  app and you just put the iPhone in front of the camera and you just
• 2:03:58
  click a little button and it goes clear like that and it slates it for
• 2:04:00
  you. You know. So it's a it's a good high tech way to
• 2:04:03
  do all that stuff. You know. Now when you're when you're dealing with
• 2:04:08
  these higher end cameras, I do you have a high end audio track that's
• 2:04:13
  going into the camera that you've got or are you still just having to sink
• 2:04:16
  all the audio? Well? What I do, this is what what I
• 2:04:21
  do is I make sure that my sound people are doing two things. That
• 2:04:27
  one one, they're running a line into the camera. Okay, so you're
• 2:04:30
  getting it recorded on camera, but they're also running into a backup, a
• 2:04:34
  high quality backup that that is usually running into a recorder that that can record
• 2:04:40
  it at way high quality, at a way higher quality than the camera actually
• 2:04:43
  can. So usually the audio sounds better on their recorder than it does on
• 2:04:46
  the camera. So what I do is I actually resink. I resink the
• 2:04:50
  films, so I I bring it in. I use the the the audio
• 2:04:54
  that they that they did, that they recorded on their their their high end
• 2:04:59
  recorder at a higher bit rate, higher like I usually do, usual to
• 2:05:05
  do, like ninety six k twenty four bit recording super high quality audio right,
• 2:05:13
  and then I rethink it with the material that way. Now, is
• 2:05:17
  that the most common way. No. Most people just take it right off
• 2:05:19
  the camera, and oftentimes that's fine, so you know, you but if
• 2:05:26
  you take it right off the camera, it's always a good idea to have
• 2:05:28
  a backup too, you know, because if the audios fucked up on the
• 2:05:30
  camera. I had a movie that came in one time, and I kid
• 2:05:34
  you not fifty percent of the movie they thought they had the audio on the
• 2:05:38
  camera and it was all distorted because somebody didn't set the level right going into
• 2:05:42
  the camera. So he was monitoring he was monitoring it okay through his mixer,
• 2:05:46
  but the output from his mixer going into the camera the camera was set
• 2:05:50
  at a different level, so it was distorted. Everything that it was being
• 2:05:54
  recorded on the camera was restorted, and there was no backup, so everything
• 2:05:58
  that came in it was I don't like that the whole time, and they
• 2:06:01
  were, they were totally devastated, totally pissed, fired the fucking sound guy,
• 2:06:06
  and uh and it was we had they had the adr like fifty percent
• 2:06:10
  of the movie and it looks terrible. It's it's dreadful. And because you
• 2:06:14
  couldn't even hear what the guy said to begin with, because you couldn't even
• 2:06:18
  tell what he was saying, you had to look at his lips, you
• 2:06:20
  know, versus like normally a dr at least if it's bad audio, you
• 2:06:24
  can kind of hear what they said to match it. So so yeah,
• 2:06:28
  I mean that's a big problem. Sound is a big problem at posts.
• 2:06:30
  So they pay a lot of attention to that, and you won't be sorry.
• 2:06:35
  Do you typically have a love on every actor and the boom or how
• 2:06:39
  is that? Like? Usually one of the most difficult sound sound shows that
• 2:06:45
  I directed was real evil, And the reason for that is, like they're
• 2:06:49
  swinging around three sixty running down halls. It wasn't it was. It was
• 2:06:54
  actually one of the most difficult technically to shoot, and a lot of that
• 2:07:00
  has to do with the camera, the sound, the audio. And I
• 2:07:02
  was hiding in drawers and final balls and laying on ground the ground, I
• 2:07:08
  mean, I was hiding all over the place. But sound on that was
• 2:07:12
  very difficult. And I knew it because I have the post experience. So
• 2:07:14
  I told the producers and so I said, hey, man, you got
• 2:07:16
  to hire this sound guy, this one sound guy I've used before. And
• 2:07:18
  I said, you know, he's got the gear. We need to lab
• 2:07:21
  all these actors. You need to run the audio into this mixer and all
• 2:07:27
  this stuff. Otherwise we're gonna have a We're gonna have a a cluster fucking
• 2:07:30
  post sound wise. Luckily they listened to me, and we so, yeah,
• 2:07:33
  really evil when you know, we everybody has got a lab on.
• 2:07:38
  They're running around the sound guys ducking around in rooms and whatnot, and uh
• 2:07:42
  and that's kind of how that was made, you know. But usually it's
• 2:07:45
  usually it's just a few labs and a boom, you know, and it's
• 2:07:48
  and that's that's plenty for what you're doing. But you know, when you're
• 2:07:51
  found footage is a little a little harder to make because you're because of the
• 2:07:56
  you're not shooting in just one direction, and then you can move the cast
• 2:07:59
  and crew video village all the time. You know, you're swinging around three
• 2:08:01
  sixty you know, seeing everything. And it was also a lighting challenge too,
• 2:08:07
  So lab labs is always a good idea, and and that do you
• 2:08:13
  have to light the whole thing, like, I mean, do you light
• 2:08:15
  everything and just like start shooting or do you actually light individual stuff, individual
• 2:08:20
  shots. Well, since we were we were shooting in a practical location,
• 2:08:24
  an actually abandoned hospital, we couldn't light from above. You now, wreck
• 2:08:30
  the movie wreck that that whole house, that whole building that they're in that
• 2:08:35
  was a sound stage. That thing they that's like a two stories down stage
• 2:08:39
  that they lit from above so they could swing around no problem because they had
• 2:08:43
  lights already rigged. Now in our case, we're shooting in practical locations,
• 2:08:46
  so we had to hide the lights a lot of times. And then there
• 2:08:50
  was some story element, like there was this film crew shooting, so we
• 2:08:54
  lay left the lights around and saw and stop forth. And that was one
• 2:08:56
  of our sort of cheap ways to try to be lights in the shot and
• 2:09:01
  I sort of have some sort of meaning while they're there, and and but
• 2:09:05
  you know, for work. But now we have to pre live the scene
• 2:09:07
  so we can say three sixty as much as we wanted. And that's how
• 2:09:11
  most of that movie was shot. But it was it was a difficult shoot
• 2:09:16
  technically speaking, uh, for a lot for those reasons. So okay,
• 2:09:22
  let me ask you one more thing about post production. And when you're talking
• 2:09:26
  about budgeting, if we're saying, okay, let's say, for example,
• 2:09:30
  we're trying to shoot a fifty thousand dollars film, how much of that is
• 2:09:37
  going to be needed for post production? Like how much do you need to
• 2:09:41
  have to have you know, an editor, sound mix, and you know,
• 2:09:46
  a score. I know it's always different, but just to get people
• 2:09:50
  kind of an idea a fifty thousand dollars budget. We'll be right back after
• 2:09:56
  a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. Yeah, well,
• 2:10:07
  I would say i'd say somewhere maybe around I don't know, maybe maybe
• 2:10:13
  maybe seventy thirty maybe seventy for your for everything, your production actors, everything,
• 2:10:20
  and then maybe thirty for your post budget. You know, possibly somewhere
• 2:10:24
  in that range, maybe thirty five, maybe even forty, depending on what
• 2:10:28
  you're doing. But I would say I would say somewhere around seventy thirty.
• 2:10:31
  Maybe it could could work for you because he's that ridiculously low or is it
• 2:10:37
  like on Porro? I mean, I don't even know where that falls.
• 2:10:39
  It's not it's not. I wouldn't say I guess this is this is gonna
• 2:10:43
  be. Everybody is going to be a different answer on that, because I
• 2:10:46
  mean I have a lot of resources for posts too, so I it just
• 2:10:50
  depends kind of what you have, you know, what you have to work
• 2:10:52
  with, you know, I mean editing software is incredibly cheap these days,
• 2:10:56
  but it's not the software where it's the person you're operating it. So you
• 2:11:00
  know, you could buy final cut for three hundred bucks, but you can't
• 2:11:03
  really get a good editor for three hundred bucks, you know. So,
• 2:11:07
  but if you're already a experienced editor and you can cut the film yourself and
• 2:11:11
  save money, yeah, you're gonna save five grant in your budget or whatever
• 2:11:13
  it may be. But I would say fifty grand. You know you're not
• 2:11:18
  you're fifty grand budget. You know you're not paying you know you're probably paying
• 2:11:24
  somewhere, you know. Yeah, I would say somewhere maybe in the maybe
• 2:11:28
  like sixty forty to seventy thirty, third thirty and forty being the post end
• 2:11:33
  of things. It shouldn't post. Shouldn't be as much as your production budget,
• 2:11:37
  I guess, is what I'm saying. You know, your production is
• 2:11:39
  going to be the chunk of the money is going to go to your production.
• 2:11:43
  All right, that's gonna do it. For today's show, we the
• 2:11:46
  phone kind of got funky there and we were having some technical difficulties and then
• 2:11:50
  we talked for a little bit more, but it wasn't really part of the
• 2:11:52
  show, so I'm just gonna end it there. I want to thank Danny
• 2:11:56
  Draven for coming on the show. Don't forget to check out his book,
• 2:11:58
  The film Maker's Book of the Dead, Absolutely the Bible of horror filmmaking that
• 2:12:05
  you know, go to Amazon and get it today because it's a really if
• 2:12:09
  you want to be a horror filmmaker. There's like just tons and tons of
• 2:12:11
  information in there. Okay, so thanks guys. I want to thank Jason
• 2:12:16
  so much for doing such a great job on this episode. If you want
• 2:12:20
  to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to
• 2:12:22
  the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward Slash three twenty six.
• 2:12:26
  Thank you so much for listening to guys as always, keep on writing no
• 2:12:30
  matter what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof
• 2:12:33
  Screenwriting podcast at bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.