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Indie Filmmaking Overload: Wearing Every Hat from Script to Screen · Indie Film Podcast

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Welcome to Indie Film Podcast. This week we have a very special
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guest, writer and director Bradley Elliot Norton of Lower
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Gentry Studios. On his IMDb you'll find 3
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feature films, 2 separate web series, and all of them produced
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on either non existent or shoestring buzzing.
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He's also my brother and my mom makes me do movies with him.
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And she like, insisted that you interview me today.
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Yes, otherwise I wouldn't have at all, no.
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No, not at all. Thankfully, Bradley has a wealth
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of experience from live theater all the way to music videos, and
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today he's here to talk about the chaos and validation that
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come from directing what you've written.
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On that note, I'm Chuck. And I'm Vic.
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And let's talk about films, because other than being a
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filmmaker and my brother, you're actually a giant film nerd.
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Yeah, and you've been helpful in correcting my mistakes in
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podcasts previously when I maybe misquote something about a
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movie. So let's start with your
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favorites. What's your favorite indie film
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script as a writer? And what's your favorite big
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budget Hollywood film script? Yeah, I guess because you guys
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had said that you were going to maybe you're going to maybe ask
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this question. And I actually had trouble
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delineating between what's indie and what's studio.
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OK, very valid. Because indie films are now
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considered things up to like $6 million budgets and I don't know
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if I would include that. Yeah, even like historically
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though too. Because like Empire Strikes Back
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is is an indie film. Oh, and so is Return of the
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Jedi. In.
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Yeah, I think it's self financed by George Lucas.
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Yeah, I guess, James. Bond.
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Those are all indie films. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And then like some of the ones that you think are indie are
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actually studio, like the before the Before trilogy is kind of
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studio. And then a lot of like the indie
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film boom in the 1990s and early 2000s is all under, you know, a
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lot of it was under Miramax, but then a lot of it was also under
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kind of like these signature select subsidiaries of major
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studios like Warner Brothers Independent.
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Oh I do remember hearing about that actually.
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A bunch of the studios started making their like little smaller
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ones so they could start calling them indie films.
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Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, So a lot of like the
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big our tours from that time period were more or less studio
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entities, but we kind of associated them with indie film.
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Like even somebody like Kevin Smith, obviously he made his
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first movie like Clerks on his credit card.
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But then after that he is more or less a studio entity until
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Harvey Weinstein cut him off and then now he's independent.
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Now he's been independent since, you know, before the Me Too
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movement, movement and everything.
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But so now he's like independent but.
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Before the timing to separate yourself from him though, good
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job. Yeah, way to see the writing on
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the wall. Yeah.
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So I don't think so. I think he would have probably
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stayed with Harvey Weinstein just for the money.
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I don't think that that's like a moral.
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Let me have this. Anyway, yeah, unless you have
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something else to say there, Kevin Smith, you're like, sorry,
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we'll get into that. Sorry, what was what was the
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actual question? About indie film.
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But thank you for confirming my report of you being a film nerd,
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because that was an excellent breakdown.
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So I guess first we need to delineate the difference between
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a a big budget Hollywood film and an indie film.
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Yeah. So I think I think we should
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probably just say low and high budget because when I think of a
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good indie film, I think that's more of like an aesthetic, OK.
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Like if you and I and Victoria and Zoe and Danny could make the
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movie and the limit is only, like, our imagination or our
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ability to organize ourselves, like, we could make the Before
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trilogy. Yeah.
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You know, because it's like most of it is just two people
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talking, you know? What is the Before Trilogy?
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It's before sunset, before sorry, before sunrise, before
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sunset, and before midnight. It's Richard Linklater trilogy.
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So I'm going to say that since I just mentioned it twice, that in
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terms of that, that trilogy of movies was really important.
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Especially the 1st 2:00 because the third one came out when I
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was about 26, but the first two had already been out for a while
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because they made them once every nine years and they
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followed this one couple. Like the same couple?
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Yeah, yeah. They're, Oh yeah, absolutely
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cool. Yeah.
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It's Ethan Hawke and then Julie Delpy and then so that one's
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good. And also Scenes for a marriage,
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Igmar Bergman, scenes from a marriage, because that's kind of
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the same thing. It's like almost.
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It could be a play maybe, or it it, it could be just something
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that you shot in a room where you shot it, you know, minimal
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locations, minimal actors. And then the thing that's really
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shining is the writing and the acting, yeah.
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And that's, that's that's when I think of like indie film
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aesthetic. That's what I'm thinking.
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That's. Something that indie film makers
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can make or B horror. Yeah, exactly.
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I'm always going to vote for B Horror.
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Yeah, B horror, yeah, but like even, you know, even with with
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the B horror. Yeah, I'm trying to think like
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what's good like indie horror movies, I guess.
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Yeah, like like something like Nightmare on Elm Street, I guess
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you could, you could probably make that now.
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Some of the special effects are a little.
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Some special effects are, but you can do a lot with special
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effects software that's available to just your average
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consumer. Not even prosumer, just consumer
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now. Yeah, for sure.
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That's a lot different. And then in terms of like big
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budget movies, in terms of writing that I really like, I I
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think I would have to say the Fugitive.
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Does anybody? Oh yeah, really?
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The. Fugitive is a great movie.
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I mean, I like a lot of those 80s and 90s action movies in
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general, but The Fugitive is a really, I really like that
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movie, other than the fact that you have to get over the fact
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that he that he survives the jump off of the dam because that
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part's really stupid. Have you seen The Fugitive?
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I have actually seen the fugitive, which is a surprising
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thing that we're talking about. Yeah, so he survives the jump
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over the dam. Yeah, that's dumb.
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But once you get past that, it's really awesome.
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It's a really well written movie.
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It's it's it's also interesting because when you watch the
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behind the scenes, how they wrote the movie, they just wrote
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it on the fly. Like literally they were like, I
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think there should be a train thing that happens.
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The train should get derailed and that's how we should escape.
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And then they just like literally were making it up.
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So they were just burning money all the time as they would just
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shut down the set and be like, what's going to happen next?
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I don't know. Wild, yeah.
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So I think the fugitive and also, wait a minute, can I say
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something about the fugitive? Yes.
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Is it the fun scrub story from The Fugitive?
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There's a scrub story from The Fugitive.
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Yeah, it's OK. Go ahead.
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Your story's probably way more interesting.
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No, no it's not. It's actually like a realm of
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analysis. The reason that I like The
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Fugitive so much is because the, the, the arc, obviously there's
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like the Richard Kimball arc, which is Harrison Ford where he
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slowly learns that, you know, the, the conspiracy behind his
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wife's murder, right? So that's like an arc, but the,
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but the arc that's really important in that movie is Tommy
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Lee Jones 'cause you have like the character marker at the
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beginning is like, I don't care that whether you killed your
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wife or not, I'm just here to catch a guy, right?
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And then at the end he's like, I know you're innocent and I'm,
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you know, I'm, I'm, I'm on your side now.
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But the interesting thing about that arc is that there's no,
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they don't cue the audience in to his.
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There's no like, there's no epiphany moment.
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There's no like, point where like all of a sudden it's like
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Tommy Lee Jones is like, you know, I learned this bit of
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information and now it's I got it.
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Yeah. So it's like the audience learns
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the information as the character Tommy Lee Jones is is learning
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it. And then the film makers are
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smart enough to just assume that the audience is going to assume
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that he's on their side. And then you don't really quite
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know. So there's like a little bit of
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attention being of like, oh, is Tommy Lee Jones intelligent
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enough to like get all this information?
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And maybe he's not. And then you finally are
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released full of like meaning and surprise when he says,
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Kimball, I know you're innocent at the very end.
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And like a few other movies have done that before.
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I kind of call him like a, it's like an unspoken I, I, I don't
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call them anything actually, I just realized, but like.
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It's OK now that I'm not finding the word for this, maybe I
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don't. Know it's like a dude on a
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podcast. Just be authoritative, it's
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fine. Just make up the work.
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Well, no. It's like an unspoken, like
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character change. It's like it's never really
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telegraphed like other movies that like Schindler's List does
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it really well. OK, right.
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Where like all of a sudden Oscar Schindler goes from like he's
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like pro, he's not really pro Nazi, but he's like a
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industrialist and he's like pro making money.
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And he doesn't really give a shit about Jews or killing them
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right or taking advantage or exploiting their labor at least.
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And then he goes from literally saving Jews.
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And you can't really point between like at what moment
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exactly he made the change and the movie doesn't Telegraph
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that. And and another movie does it to
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1957's Billy Wilder movie Ace in the Hole does a similar thing.
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You watch that one. That's one with Kirk Douglas.
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Stuck in the where? The guy stuck in the bottom, and
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then he's trying to use that. The journalist is trying to use
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that to create like, a big carnival around him.
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And at some juncture, he, he like, grows A conscience, but
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you don't know at which point it is.
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Yeah. And that's like, really.
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That's really smart. And it's like complicated
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writing because you have to constantly like, give the
8:30
character a piece of information.
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And then you have to have the character kind of act in a very
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like, hedonistic or selfish way that makes you think as an
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audience member, like, oh, shit, he didn't learn the fucking
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lesson, you know? Oh, can I can, I swear on this?
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Absolutely. Yeah, but it's kind of like the
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opposite of Law Abiding Citizen then where like he starts out
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and you kind of agree with him and all the vengeance and
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everything that he's after until suddenly he's killing a lot of
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people that had nothing to do with what happened to his family
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and he's just kind of completely off the rails.
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Yeah, yeah, I guess. Yeah, it would be the opposite
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in terms of in terms of the moral.
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Yes, the morality scale flipped, yeah, from right to left.
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Yeah, exactly like the moral scale, but I can't remember a
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lot about in Citizen if you I think you know why he's going
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off the isn't there a point where you're just like, oh, I'm
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no longer with this character? It actually, I really love that
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movie because that point changes for everyone and it's really fun
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to watch it with people. And then you can decide how good
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of a person they are or not. Oh, gotcha.
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Judge them OK. Yeah, I guess it's kind of like
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a Breaking Bad scenario. It's like everybody, nobody's
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with Walter White after he after he lets Jane die, right?
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Like no I wasn't with him and after episode 3.
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No, no, that's what I'm saying though.
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But but certain people are with them for longer.
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They're like, well, you know, I mean, he had to kill that one
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guy and then he. Had to, he had to sexually
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assault his wife. But, you know, other than that,
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it's fine. Yeah.
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Exactly. So it's like, but then nobody's
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with him at the at that. Point by the end, so yeah.
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By the end of Season 2 and then you have three more seasons,
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which is great. I love that show.
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I'm not sure you're not but but yeah.
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It is a great show. Better Call Saul?
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I don't know. I think I would argue Better
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Call Saul might be better. Though Better Call Saul had
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better cinematography. I don't agree with that
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actually. Loved the cinematography and
10:06
better. Call No, I love, I love a lot of
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the cinematography in both shows, but I don't like the
10:10
lensing as much. And and and Better Call Saul, I
10:13
think they I think they go to like like smashed sandwiches
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lenses too often. And I think it messes up the
10:19
visual grammar where Breaking Bad never made that mistake, I
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don't think. I love the Super wide angle
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lenses. I thought that was so great.
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They were great. I loved that they actually cared
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about the composition of the shots a lot more.
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And Better Call Saul than Breaking Bad like they were very
10:36
well done shots, but the composition was just there was
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more time and energy put into it for.
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Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, like the the, the
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production schedule when you look at it is obviously way
10:48
different. They like they spent a lot more
10:49
time on Better Call Saul. Well, they had more budget, they
10:51
had more following. They already, I mean, they were
10:53
set up for success because it was going to be a successful
10:55
spin off of an already wildly successful show.
10:57
Like yeah, you would hope it would be better in certain
11:01
aspects than the original. For sure.
11:03
It has to be. Yeah, the, the only thing that I
11:05
just don't like is just like the I guess.
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Yeah, it's the, it's the, it's not that, it's the ultra wide.
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I think we went through shot by shot a sequence.
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Once. Oh yeah, we did.
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And then I was just like, do you see what I'm what's bugging me
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about it? Because what it is, is that like
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it's not the fact that they shoot, shoot it super wide.
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Is that that when they cut they inner mingle the Super wide with
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like different lenses. And I, I don't know.
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There's something about my eye that I just don't like that.
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Like when you're shooting, when you're shooting a scene like I
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sometimes I'm like, all right, well, you got to you got to stay
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within like a certain millimeter like spectrum or else or else it
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like it's feels like different worlds to me because it.
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Yeah, I felt like it. It added like that jarring sense
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to a lot of really weird, like, especially inside the brother's
11:43
house. They would do that a lot.
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Yeah. And I liked it.
11:47
It made it feel very uncomfortable and disjointed to
11:50
me, which his house was. It was very.
11:53
Yeah. But then like I but why wouldn't
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you just use the same lens for the wide and then just use it up
11:57
close? I mean, I guess you would have
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like refracting problems where it would be like you would see
12:00
the curvature of the lens, which I guess maybe you would want to
12:02
go away from. You might not want that.
12:04
But I mean, Kubrick did it on Cockrich Orange and it was fine.
12:08
Good point, good point. Should we should we shy away
12:11
from some of these famous things and.
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Very oddly specific, yeah. Because let's, let's, let's talk
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about writing, OK? Because that's definitely your
12:20
strong suit, Bradley. How does one begin to write
12:24
better for film? I think like part of it is, I
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mean, for me personally, it's been trying to understand that
12:34
there is no such thing as being a good writer.
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There is just only good writing. OK.
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And. I'm sorry, I'm already going to
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stop you. Can you elaborate?
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Like, because like, there's no personality or style that makes
12:48
you a good writer. Or do you mean like, cut
12:50
yourself some slack? Not everything you write is
12:51
going to be gold. Yeah.
12:52
Well, I mean, I think it's, I think it's the latter mostly.
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I think it's just like it doesn't you're only, it's kind
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of like the cliche, you're only as good as your last thing.
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But but it's I think it's better than that.
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It's, it's more like basketball where every 24 seconds, like I
13:04
could, I could splice together a real and make Michael Jordan
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look like the worst basketball player ever.
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Like, you know, because in the end, like every single, the,
13:14
every game is divided in these 24 second little segments and
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you can like brick a shot and you miss like 50% of your shot.
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So I, I just like, think of it as just, if I fail at something,
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it's like, well, that was just that one thing and then just
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move on to the next thing. So I think the secret to it.
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And then also, if you're getting jealous of people that haven't
13:32
been writing as long long as you and then they write something
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amazing, it's like, OK, well, he just hit the three pointer, you
13:39
know? Oh, just walked onto the court
13:41
for a shot. He.
13:42
Might have an 8 talent. He might, you know, it's just
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like there's, there's just good writing.
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That's it. And you can fall into it.
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It can be arbitrary, it can be accidental, it can be luck.
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But in terms of like kind of respecting the writing gods,
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the, the, the best way to increase the likelihood that
13:58
you're going to write something good is that you have to just do
14:00
it all the time or is do it as much as you possibly can.
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And then for me, I've kind of like wax and waned as I've, you
14:08
know, grown older. Like in my 20s, I went, I went
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through like a year and change where I wrote 500 words a day.
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No matter what, even if I was like hungover or drunk or
14:16
whatever, I just wrote 500 words a day.
14:18
It didn't matter. 500 exciting words to read a few days later
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when you're like, what was? Yeah.
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Yeah, Yeah. So you just, and then, and then
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I kind of fell out of that as we've been because obviously
14:26
during production time, I don't really do it.
14:28
And then during, during other times I didn't really do it.
14:31
But then like lately, since I, you know, especially I've been
14:34
lucky enough in the last couple of months to not have a day job,
14:37
you know, I've, I've been very like resolute, like it's 1000
14:39
words of a day no matter what. And sometimes those 1000 words
14:43
suck. Sometimes they go in the wrong
14:44
direction. And then it's just, if you just
14:46
do it all the time, what happens is that you're more willing to
14:48
throw things away and you're more willing to understand that
14:51
if you're feeling it, it doesn't mean that the product is good.
14:59
Like it's very easy to sit down and just be like, man, I got
15:02
emotional. I cried while I was right in the
15:04
scene. But that doesn't mean that the,
15:06
that the audience is going to cry when they watch it, you
15:09
know, And then so it's easier to then Kill Your Darlings because
15:11
then you, you, you're, you're more, you can more easily
15:14
reconcile what you think is there, which with what is
15:17
actually there. So your view becomes a little
15:18
bit more objective as you do it more often.
15:21
You've just become better at objectively assessing your own
15:25
work and your own writing. Yeah, exactly.
15:27
So I think that's the only way to do it is just kind of do it
15:29
as much as you can or just be like a genius.
15:32
And I don't know what that is though.
15:34
Like, I don't know, like I've, I've met people that are like
15:37
really good and they can just write really good dialogue, but
15:39
then you know, but you can't mimic that, you know, that's not
15:43
like a practice. So I guess approach it as a
15:45
practice as much as possible and not worry about the output as
15:48
much as you were going to. But The thing is, is that what
15:51
brought you to the desk anyway in that blank piece of paper was
15:54
your own neurosis. So you're never going to get rid
15:55
of that. There we go.
15:58
That's good advice. I was going to say one of the
16:01
things that I love the most about your writing, which to be
16:04
fair, there is a lot to enjoy about your writing.
16:07
Just on the whole you write really solid stories.
16:10
But I love that your characters are whole ass people and they
16:17
all behave different and they sound different and they act
16:20
like you actually put the intention into building these
16:24
characters in the script. You're not just leaving it all
16:27
to the actors to have to do it, and it's really cool.
16:30
Is that something you sort of just developed on your own?
16:32
Was it something you saw in projects you really liked?
16:34
Like where did that kind of come from?
16:37
Yeah, I think that like in terms of because dialogue is always
16:40
tricky, because it's really easy when you're sitting down to
16:44
write, it's really easy to to make it almost like a acting
16:47
improv with yourself. You know, where you're just like
16:50
this guy says Baba doopa doop and this guy says boopa doopa
16:54
Doo. And then they end up just
16:55
sounding like you, just talking to yourself.
16:56
Yeah, see. Such good writing.
16:58
Listen. Yeah, exactly.
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And then I don't, I don't really think that that's necessarily a
17:03
bad thing all the time. I mean, if you read scripts by
17:06
like David Mamet or even Quentin Tarantino, it's not like, it's
17:09
not like they never necessarily like every character has like a
17:12
different voice. I think what they do is they
17:15
kind of like almost lends it a little bit where they just they,
17:20
they create different syntaxes, which I try to do.
17:23
So like certain people are more prone to speak in like kind of
17:26
clipped declarative sentences. And then other people are more
17:29
prone to like write in or sorry, speak in run ONS.
17:32
And then you just kind of change the filler words.
17:34
And then you also kind of base their lexicon on whatever their
17:39
job is. So obviously like a doctor would
17:42
speak with different terminology.
17:44
Maybe a little more eloquently than.
17:47
I don't know, yeah. Then a pawn shop person, you
17:49
know, like, but then like a pawn shop person might know like the
17:52
cost of something, you know? I don't know.
17:54
They might know the cost of a VCR, you know.
17:56
Or this microphone. Of this, yeah, these
17:58
microphones. If we ever need to quit this
18:01
podcast and I need to pay the bills there we.
18:03
Go sell them off. Yeah, but I think the big thing
18:05
like the big realization was me was there was a after brown
18:10
truck, our first feature film, I was very like despondent and sad
18:15
about it. Not because the not because of
18:18
the like the technical quality of the movie was bad, which was
18:22
OK with me to be honest, because I just knew that it was going to
18:26
be bad. The.
18:26
First feature film. It was rough.
18:28
Yeah, it was. Rough it was where is it just
18:30
you being disappointed in your brother's acting and.
18:34
Actually, you know what I wasn't disappointed in that I was
18:35
disappointed in. Of course you weren't.
18:39
Yeah, it was amazing. First feature film acting.
18:42
I had a bad crying scene there. I keep hoping that one day it'll
18:45
get chopped into a vertical video, but since Chuck chops the
18:48
vertical videos, it hasn't made it into I.
18:50
Did turn it into a GIF once. I do have that.
18:52
OK, good. But no, I was very despondent
18:57
because I looked at the I was, I was starting to look at the
19:01
project objectively because it took us a long time to actually
19:03
edit it together. It took us like a year, which
19:05
now we can actually get it done pretty fast.
19:07
Yeah, but I had to like, teach myself Adobe Premiere and then
19:10
you had to like learn how to do audio stuff and.
19:13
Yeah, neither of us knew how to do any post production.
19:15
Essentially, we shot an entire feature film.
19:17
And then we just were sitting on the footage for a really long
19:19
time. OK, there are so many film
19:21
makers who do that anyway, and it's not because they don't know
19:23
how. They just, they're going to
19:24
wait. Yeah, for sure.
19:25
But anyway, like, as I got like more and more kind of mileage
19:29
or, you know, more and more perspective on it, I realized
19:32
that the problem wasn't just, you know, it like, yeah, there
19:34
was amateur, some amateur acting and certain people maybe, maybe
19:42
it was a little over their heads.
19:44
When your mom listens to this episode, she's going to be so
19:46
proud of both of you for being so nice to each other.
19:48
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
19:50
And then there was like, you know, technical problems, there
19:52
was coverage problems, but it was mainly just like, oh wow,
19:55
the writing is bad, then that. And then that was.
19:57
That really bugged me. Because you can get if the audio
20:00
is OK and the pictures fine. You can get away with a film if
20:05
the story's good. Yeah, exactly.
20:06
And I was, and I was really annoyed by that.
20:08
And then I, so I watched it and then I kind of figured out that
20:12
there's a couple scenes in Brown Truck that are actually OK, that
20:16
are actually that are not involving the plot at all.
20:19
Yeah. They were just we had.
20:21
Cute little vignettes on their. Own Yeah, exactly.
20:23
They're actually OK And then I was like, well, why are why is
20:25
this scene better than this other scene?
20:26
And one of them was this interview scene with Zoe where
20:29
she goes and tries to get a job. Oh, yeah.
20:31
And then I realized like, well, what why is that?
20:33
And then I started to realize that like, Oh, well, characters
20:36
need to have a goal in a scene. Like they need to have like a
20:40
I'm because in brown truck, there's a lot of like, let's
20:43
hang out and let's talk and hang out for a while.
20:46
And then like there's tension, but the tension is not really
20:50
involved in like any sort of any sort of goal.
20:52
And there's no, there's no obstacle.
20:53
And that that was the thing that I started to realize like, OK,
20:56
the all characters need to have a goal, especially if you're
20:58
seeing the scene from their point of view, and there needs
21:00
to be some sort of obstacle to that goal, right.
21:03
And, and then so that was the first thing.
21:06
And then I slowly, when we started writing, we speak, which
21:09
is the second one. And that was like the major leap
21:11
forward, at least for me, where I started to like really like
21:13
think about dialogue. If you have characters that have
21:17
a shared history, have them always not talking about
21:20
something like purposefully like they're making a decision.
21:23
So what what ends up happening is, is that you before a scene
21:27
might be like a little too earnest where the characters are
21:29
saying exactly what they want to say.
21:32
And what you instead do is you end up having the characters
21:35
talk at each other or through each other or around each other.
21:38
And then language becomes like a weapon.
21:41
And that just makes more interesting dialogue.
21:43
And there's a there's a good, there's a good summation of it.
21:45
I can't remember if it's Mamet or Tarantino or one of those
21:47
fucking writers. I don't know.
21:48
But like he says, like all all dialogue needs to needs to be an
21:53
action of attacking someone or defending yourself no matter
21:56
what. So.
21:58
There's no supporting or caring for people.
22:01
No, no, because that's not interesting to your ear.
22:03
So like so I, so I've developed like little rules like if, if 2
22:07
if two people are in love, I have them never say I love you.
22:10
I just think of another way of saying I love you that, that
22:13
that then makes it attack or defend.
22:15
And then if they don't love each other, and then because this is
22:17
actually worked in stocking a Table Rock, then I use I love
22:19
you all the time, just in different tones.
22:21
It's like, I love you can be a way to get you to shut up or I
22:25
love you, yeah, or I love you could be wait to kind of just
22:28
put some balm on this burn that I just gave you like I love you,
22:31
though. But you're an idiot.
22:34
But I love idiots. Yeah, exactly.
22:36
So those types of rules are kind of fun to, you know, just like
22:40
always. How do you like amp just like
22:42
the the moment to moment tension and the moment to moment
22:45
conflict. Like obviously, like universally
22:47
your movie needs to have conflict.
22:49
There needs to be like a big goal and a big arc and a big
22:51
plot. But then like moment to moment.
22:53
That's what helps the dialogue go.
22:54
It's just like instead of instead of somebody just like,
22:57
Hey, how you doing? Then you just immediately like,
22:59
why did you park there? Like, you know, like that's just
23:02
immediately, like you shouldn't be parking there.
23:04
What do you mean? I always park here.
23:05
No, no, I told you that there's A and all of a sudden it's just
23:08
like a media conflict. It's like the opposite of of
23:12
stand up or not, sorry, improv comedy where you say yes.
23:14
And with writing, it's always between the characters.
23:16
No, but like it's just like, no, but you're an asshole or and
23:20
then that doesn't mean that everybody needs to be mean to
23:22
each other all the time. It's just like that's the way
23:24
that like the wilt of the dialogue needs to go.
23:26
OK. Yeah.
23:27
And you, you actually wrote a scene recently that I thought
23:30
was was pretty cool because we're working on the next the
23:33
next film. And we were talking about having
23:37
somebody just come in to like fill out their like boarding,
23:43
onboarding paperwork at a job. And it was like, this is the
23:47
scene. And we wrote it down like in the
23:49
block, like this is what how we want to start the movie.
23:51
And then what you did was you made it instantly like a, a
23:55
miscommunication and salary. And so all of a sudden the scene
23:59
was interesting. Because it's not just somebody
24:02
like. Here's yeah, what do I, here's
24:04
my onboarding paperwork. Like let's fill us out, sign on
24:06
this line. It's like, oh wait, I thought we
24:08
agreed on X amount of dollars. And it's like we cleared that
24:12
up. And when you wrote that up, it's
24:14
it made the scene instantly interesting.
24:17
Yeah. So it had its own like I, I
24:20
guess that wouldn't be like a three act structure necessarily,
24:23
but it did have that conflict and that problem and that goal.
24:26
Yeah, exactly. And then both characters in that
24:28
in that situation have a goal and then they're obstacles to
24:30
each other. So one wants to sign.
24:32
That's like in acting classes. If you ever.
24:33
Yeah, you've gone to acting classes where it's just like,
24:35
make him wordlessly make him do that.
24:38
You have to convince somebody to do to get what you want, but
24:41
they have their own other little goal that maybe you do or do not
24:44
know about. Yeah, for sure.
24:45
Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, like that's
24:47
and then obviously like anytime it's money, then people are like
24:50
interested in that too because the difference between $48,000
24:53
and 60 is, you know, that's a big deal.
24:55
That's a big. Deal.
24:56
That's $1000 a month. Yeah, yeah.
24:58
So let's talk about, I'm going to shift gears here a little bit
25:00
because we did cover writing, but how do you keep yourself
25:05
motivated because it's been a busy 12 years for Lower Gentry
25:10
Studios and then our subsequent like our most recent project
25:14
Stockton to Table Rock, which is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
25:18
Yes, and. What a good movie that is.
25:20
Yes. That one you can find a direct
25:22
link to in the show notes and our YouTube description.
25:25
And I know Chuck hates it when I say that, but I'm saying it
25:28
because it'll be there. That went that project took
25:33
three years with the festival run.
25:36
Yeah, yeah, it was a long time. I mean does that include the pre
25:39
production and the writing too? Well, the writing I started in,
25:42
I started the actual writing in 2019.
25:44
But like we, I, I put it away, picked it back up, you know,
25:47
because there was the pandemic during that time we started
25:49
writing, we, we were putting together like a horror film at 1
25:51
juncture and then we started writing like a dystopian thing.
25:55
So I think like the actual earnest work of it started in
25:59
January of 2022. Yeah.
26:02
And then and then we ended up shooting in 20. 2022. 2022 post
26:07
production up through the beginning of 2023, which was
26:11
actually pretty quick, but then we were sitting on our hands
26:13
with the festival circuit cuz we screwed.
26:15
That up, I remember we made our last edits in December of 2023,
26:18
though. But like, yeah, I just sat in a
26:20
sat in a hard drive for a really long time.
26:22
Yeah. So I want to talk about that.
26:24
How do you how do you avoid creative burnout in film?
26:29
Because it is one of those mediums where the payoff is so
26:35
slow in a lot of ways, like the final product takes a long time
26:41
for you to realize. Yeah, I guess I mean films kind
26:44
of nice because you because you do, I do enjoy like every I
26:47
guess phase of it. But the writing phase is it's
26:50
own thing. And then you're you end up with
26:52
a script, which is nice. And then the productions phase
26:54
is it's own thing and then you end up with a bunch of unkempt
26:58
video and footage that you have to then.
27:00
Throw on a hard drive and forget exists for a few months, yeah.
27:03
Exactly. And then when actors are like,
27:05
what's happened to that movie, then you're like, I don't know,
27:06
I guess moving on to this different one, this different
27:09
thing. I'm just kidding, I don't.
27:11
Do that. No, don't.
27:14
Don't be one of those indie film makers that you love to be on
27:16
set but you hate all the post production work because it takes
27:18
three times as long to get finished and you don't have
27:20
anyone behind you brought in you and cheering you on.
27:23
Yeah. You can be one of those people,
27:25
you just either have to have a friend that you don't mind
27:27
taking advantage of to do the edit for you, or somehow someway
27:31
find the money to hire someone to do it.
27:32
If you don't want to edit, I don't think you should edit.
27:34
Oh no. No, for sure, for sure, but
27:36
don't shoot something that's really long and then just.
27:39
Unless you have to. Figure not finish.
27:40
Yeah, unless you have the editing figured out, yeah.
27:43
I mean, I do think, I think that like I don't know, I guess state
27:46
ways to stay way just to say motivated.
27:48
I don't know. I guess I just like every phase
27:50
of the production. I've never really had a problem
27:51
with like the motivation part, I don't think.
27:55
I guess I do have, I do get a large degree, probably larger
28:01
than others, a degree of satisfaction just sitting around
28:04
by myself and then watching something that I've made, which
28:06
is maybe not the most mentally health healthy thing, but like
28:10
I. Feel like that's actually maybe
28:12
a more mentally healthy way to look at your creations and your
28:16
work than to sit there I. Mean I don't, I don't watch them
28:20
after like they've already been like, I don't go back and watch
28:22
like chit chats or but I do have this like idea of myself when
28:25
I'm like 75 or 80 and then I will have made 15 movies and
28:30
then I'm just going to sit and watch like brown trek through
28:32
all of them. And then I'll be like, yes, I've
28:35
earned my place on this planet. I do like I do like think of
28:38
that always as like my major goal.
28:41
Yeah, where? And that'll be so nice.
28:43
Maybe, but I have to. We've done 5 so just need 10
28:46
more. 10 more, yeah, and then you'll just sit on your deathbed
28:49
and watch the films and then breathe your last breath.
28:51
Yeah, exactly. 3rd of the way they are right, you're crushing
28:54
this. Yeah, for sure.
28:55
Yeah, I'll be. I'll be dead by 60.
28:56
That's right. There it is.
28:58
Well I mean if we backtrack and make the films the quality of
29:01
Brown truck you could probably be dead in like 3 years.
29:04
Perfect. I don't know, it depends how
29:07
long you sit on the edit this time.
29:09
I don't really want to know the results of the next presidential
29:11
election, so maybe I'll do that, yeah.
29:12
There we go. I'll just do. 7072 minute
29:15
Warner. Yeah, 1072 minute Warner They.
29:18
Did it for 1917. Yeah, exactly.
29:21
Three of three of these films can be found footage.
29:23
Yeah, ohh, smart. There you go.
29:26
All right. Well, do we have any final
29:28
questions? I actually kind of do, because
29:32
you write. Obviously you've spoke.
29:36
Spoken. Yeah.
29:38
Spoken quite a bit about writing.
29:39
Jesus, I shouldn't talk. But you also direct.
29:44
Yeah. And you direct primarily your
29:47
own writing. Yeah.
29:49
Do you have any experience directing stuff that isn't your
29:51
own writing? Only in the theater.
29:53
OK. And.
29:54
Yeah, when I was, and that was when I was younger.
29:56
I haven't the the last play I directed was Fiddler on the Roof
29:58
and I was like 19 at the time so.
30:01
That is young. So much younger than most people
30:03
who direct Fiddler on the Roof, though, to be fair.
30:05
Oh, I was way over and over my head.
30:07
It was not, it was not good. I did not know what was going
30:10
on. I mean, it was, you know, I
30:13
don't know. I do have a DVD of that that
30:14
will not be a part of my 75. Year old that's already a free
30:18
one, you've got it. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to
30:21
be revisiting that anytime soon. But, but no, I don't think of, I
30:26
guess I don't see a reason for me to direct something.
30:28
I think of directing as actually an extension of writing.
30:31
Yeah, in terms of movies. I think I was going to kind of
30:34
going to ask like along those lines, if you didn't write it
30:38
but you were directing it, do you feel like as the director
30:41
you would want to sort of change kind of how the story plays and
30:45
goes? I mean, yeah, I mean, basically
30:48
because I was actually getting in trouble at the Lewis and
30:50
Clark Theatre Company for changing the script.
30:54
People will be like, no, you're you're not allowed to do that.
30:56
I'm like, why? It's aren't, aren't I?
30:58
Aren't I coming up with something better, though?
31:02
Which, you know, to be fair, Fiddler on the Roof in that
31:05
second fucking axe really drags. Yeah, I was like, I don't know
31:09
if anybody's going to argue that.
31:11
Yeah, exactly. I don't think anybody's going to
31:13
stand up here and defend Fiddler on the Roof.
31:14
And also like the the townspeople should leave at Ana
31:17
Tevka. They shouldn't leave like in
31:19
this weird way, like at the end where they just kind of like
31:21
just cipher out. I don't know, They just like
31:24
kind of waddle out of the theater.
31:25
They needed the background dancers.
31:27
Oh yeah, I guess so. Sit down.
31:29
Couldn't leave yet. I know.
31:31
So I mean, yeah, I don't think, I don't know.
31:33
I've never directed something since I don't know.
31:36
It's just yeah, OK. It's also like film is film is
31:39
weird though, too, because it's like, it's not like theater
31:41
because it's not like there's just scripts like floating
31:43
around that you can do. Oh, I mean Shakespeare.
31:47
I guess you can do. Shakespeare, you gotta adapt it,
31:49
but. Yeah, But, you know, but it's
31:51
not like, you know, in theatre you like, you literally like,
31:52
I'm gonna purchase a David Mamet player, I'm gonna purchase
31:55
Arthur Miller play, and then I just do it.
31:57
And then it's all like all of that work is kind of done for
31:59
you. And film, it's a little bit.
32:00
It's just a different medium. You just play them, play the
32:03
movie you want to see. You know there's no cover
32:04
movies. Yeah, exactly.
32:06
Yeah, Well, there's nothing there.
32:07
Oh, brother. Oh brother, where art thou?
32:10
I guess that was kind of a cover.
32:11
Yeah, well, there's nothing ephemeral about movies.
32:13
It's a dead medium, right? Yeah.
32:15
It's like you, you always have the, you always have the thing
32:17
itself, so you can remake it. But then that would be a choice
32:19
and you have to make it different enough.
32:20
Are you saying film is dead? Well, that means it's a dead
32:23
medium, you know, it's like a recorded.
32:24
It doesn't change, you know. So great.
32:28
Cool. Well, thanks for the insights.
32:29
Shall we just succinctly say farewell?
32:33
That works. Excellent.
32:35
Bye, bye, bye.