Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 343: Can You Make Money with Short Films. (Vidiverse) with Alex Proyas

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BPS 343: Can You Make Money with Short Films. (Vidiverse) with Alex Proyas · 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 ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
• 0:14
  Episode number three forty three. If your goals don't scare you, they
• 0:19
  aren't big enough. Anonymous broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when
• 0:25
  we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
• 0:30
  showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make
• 0:33
  your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome
• 0:40
  to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host Alex
• 0:44
  Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now.
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  Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of
• 0:56
  project you are and the goals of the project you are, so we actually
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  break it down by three categories, micro budget, indie film, market,
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  and studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that's used
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  to reading temp pole movies when your movie is going to be done for one
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  hundred thousand dollars and we wanted to focus on that at Bulletproof Script Coverage,
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  many more. So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional
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  readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot com. Well, guys, today
• 1:34
  I have a treat for you. We have returning champion, friend of the
• 1:38
  show and all around just great guy, Alex proys And for any of you
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  who don't know who Alex Proyce is, he is the mastermind behind the classic
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  films The Crow, Dark City, I Robot with Will Smith, Denoing with
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  Nicholas Cage, and many many more. Now, we had Alex on a
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  while ago, and he's one of the best episodes of the show and very
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  very popular. And I actually just recently reached out to Alex to see if
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  he wanted to be back on the show because Alex has seen the same problems
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  that I have and many other filmmakers have, is the distribution model. The
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  traditional distribution model is broken for filmmakers, let alone for short filmmakers, and
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  Alex wanted to build something to help filmmakers, to help filmmakers to get the
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  word out, to help them get attention, to help them generate revenue with
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  their short films and in their work in general. And Alex decided to do
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  something about us. So he created and developed a new platform called vidi Verse.
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  Now vidi Verse is about to launch. It's not launch yet as of
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  this recording, but they are accepting submissions for their new platform, and it
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  is unlike anything I've seen before, and I really wanted to kind of shine
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  a light on what Alex is doing and talk a little bit more about it.
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  So, without any further ado, please enjoying my conversation with Alex Proyus.
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  I'd like to welcome back to the show, returning champion, Alex Proys.
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  How you doing, Alex, Hey, Alex good, how are you
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  doing. I'm good, my friend, I'm good. Thank you so much
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  for coming back on the show. I was excited to have you back because
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  of the cool stuff that you've been working on. I've been following you on
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  social media and seeing your shorts and seeing all the you know, the cool
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  stuff that you're doing, and it just it just tickles my heart to see
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  an artist creating and not waiting for someone to give them permission to create,
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  and I you are a champion of that. So at first, before we
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  even get started, thank you for being that inspiration to so many people out
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  there. Well, you're very very welcome and toe to you. Thank you,
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  my friend, Thank you. So we're gonna be talking about your new
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  streaming platform, vide Verse, which sounds amazing, and I really wanted to
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  promote what you're doing because I know it's coming from a really great place.
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  But before we jump into that, I want to want to kind of go
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  out a little bit. In your opinion, what are the major issues filmmakers
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  have with getting their work seen and then also getting paid to get that work
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  seen. Yeah, well I think it's kind of pretty impossible. And you
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  know, YouTube seemed for a while to be a kind of a way through,
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  you know the fact that we could put our content on We didn't have
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  to ask anyone's permission. It didn't matter how good, bad, or indifferent,
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  how much money we'd spent, how much money we hadn't spent, whether
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  our friends or family were in the cast. You know, it didn't matter.
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  We could get our films out there and get people to see it.
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  But unfortunately, you know, YouTube seems to have kind of developed a stricter
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  and stricter policy about who derives any income from such content. You know,
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  and look, you know that, you know, there's always the success stories
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  of people who managed to stream their content and get millions of views, but
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  you know, most people's situations are and there's some good films out there,
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  I know because I've been looking, they get very few views. They just
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  don't know how to get their their films through the sort of you know,
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  YouTube algorithm. You know, so it's really hard for those people who you
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  know, to keep building their their films through that platform. And you know,
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  there's obviously platforms like Vimeo which are can be much more specifically targeted,
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  and you can you know that your films look better on Vimeo, et cetera.
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  But you know, there's really nothing between those two ends of the spectrum
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  where you know, you can your films can get seen by people and maybe
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  you can derive what little small amounts of income you're film might generate. You
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  know, YouTube seems to soak it all up through advertising. You know,
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  they make their billions, but the filmmakers very rarely see any of that,
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  you know, I think that as a general statement, I think that's I
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  mean, going back to when the United when a United artist opened up,
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  when Chaplain and Pickford and Flynn got pissed off from the studios not paying them
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  that they opened up their own studio. I think that is. Isn't that
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  kind of the way it works with with Hollywood and generally just the big business,
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  I think, big business in general. When business and art get together
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  in any art form, the artist always seems to get the short end of
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  the stick, no matter what medium it is. Is that fair to say?
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  Yeah? Always? I mean, you know, the entertainment industry and
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  not just film, music and everything else, you know, work on the
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  fact that it's the endless streams of exploitable young people coming through who want to
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  be exploited. You know. I wanted to be exploited when I was when
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  I was a young pup, you know, I was like, yeah,
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  come on, exploit me, let me do this stuff, pay me some
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  sort of you know, pittance of money, just so that I can do
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  my thing, you know, And that's kind of always been the way and
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  the industry, you know, the corporations have always kind of you know,
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  succeed based on that cannon fodder I call them, you know, and it's
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  still the same to this very day. I mean, you know, you
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  know, Hollywood would rather work with some young pup right now than some schmuck
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  like me who's cynical and who gets how the whole business model works and wants
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  to change it, you know, because it's just easier for them, you
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  know, and they'll make all their money. And so YouTube, you know,
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  is a sort of a you know, an offshoot of that. It
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  just works on the same sort of exploitable principles. You know. Yeah,
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  give us your free content, give it to us for nothing. We'll show
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  it, you know, that's what you get out of the equation, and
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  we'll make billions of dollars out of it. I mean, what is it
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  about that business model that works for the filmmakers, you know, right?
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  And you know, it's fascinating because even in the eighties, nineties, even
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  the early two thousands, a studio would have never given a young pup two
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  hundred million dollars or one hundred and fifty million dollars to make a temp pole
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  film. But that seems to happen much more now because of what you're saying,
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  like, specifically Marvel and a lot of they have a machine basically,
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  and I've talked to people who've worked within the Marvel machine and they just kind
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  of just they just it's like almost the insert director here. Yes, they're
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  guiding the process, and certain directors have more say than others, but generally
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  speaking, they're giving. Like I remember I read an article with really Scott.
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  Really Scott's like, I don't even understand how this is, Like why
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  would you give a twenty five year old one hundred million dollars and that give
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  really Scarf or yourself one hundred million dollars to do it? And you're right,
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  is because you guys know how the game is planning. They don't want
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  to deal with you. Yeah, and it's also because you know those films.
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  Not to spend another session ragging on Marvel. But no, no,
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  we do enjoy it, right, I certainly enjoy them as well. Those
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  those movies kind of make themselves, you know, and it's arguable how important
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  the director is. It's kind of like a long running TV series. Everyone
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  knows what they're doing, you know, and certainly the producers of those movies
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  know what they're doing. They've made many countless successes, so they'll just you
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  know, it just kind of rolls along when the director comes in and talks
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  to the actors and you know, hangs out with the actors. I guess
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  is what the role is. You know, we'll be right back after a
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  word from our sponsor and now back to the show. So I'm not my
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  not my idea of filmmaking really, but you know, look good on them.
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  I just I just feel like, you know, we need to be
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  thinking about the other ways forward, you know, yes, especially for for
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  not only young filmmakers, for artists in general, filmmakers in general, that
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  they need to get not only the work scene but paid for. But I
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  have to ask you, do you have any stories of your misadventures in Hollyweird
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  with with falling prey to Hollywood accounting or something that you know you were like,
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  what, like, at what point did you know? I'm so I'm
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  assuming somewhere in your journey you got you got to check and you said,
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  I'm sorry, what, Yeah, No, it happens to me on a
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  on a weekly monthly basis still to this day, from movies that you've done.
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  I received a you know, there were these things called residuals you know
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  that we used to get, which were actually really great. They kept us
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  a lot between movies, you know, because the fact is as filmmakers,
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  you know, even if you're very successful as a filmmaker, you know,
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  you get your payday once every few years, and you get paid. You
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  know, I was paid very handsomely, but then that money has got to
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  stretch out over many, many years, and it starts to become less significant,
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  you know. So I was reliant on residuals to keep me alive,
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  as were many filmmakers, many filmmakers that I knew, that I that I
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  know very well. And unfortunately the residuals, you know, Netflix and the
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  streamers don't pay residuals, so suddenly they've dropped in the last few years two
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  very small amounts of money to the point where, you know, I'll get
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  a check for I've got a check for Dark City a few months ago,
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  which was which was you know, of note enough to post on my Instagram
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  account for seven dollars and thirty six cents, you know, which which is?
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  You know, that's a that represents a quarter of the all the total
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  residuals that I received for Dark City. Now that's just kind of insulting personally,
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  I'd rather just not get the check. I'd rather they just held onto
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  it. I keep meaning to call the authorities that deal with the residual say
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  just hang on to them in your bank account. Maybe they can earn a
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  little bit of interest until they amount to something over at least over fifty or
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  one hundred dollars, you know, because quite frankly, it actually costs me
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  more to cash that check because a US dollar it cost me twenty five dollars
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  to cash it. So I actually I actually lose by doing that. You
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  know. Oh my god, it's like that Seinfeld. It's like that all
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  Seinfold episode where he got like, you know, one hundred or five hundred
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  one cent residual checks you had to sign all of them, Like what am
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  I doing? That's exactly right. So that's where that's where we're at,
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  you know. And and you know, cut to a few years ago,
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  and you know, we could survive between movies on what we were getting from
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  residuals every every year. You know, it would pan out to enough to
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  keep your pay your mortgage and feed your family. You know. So so
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  that was great so you could work on your scripts and work on your projects
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  and not be beholden to to the you know, the bank manager and the
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  wolves at the door, you know. So yeah, it's it's not a
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  it's not a good situation. We're being pushed into. Creative people are being
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  pushed into these more and more untenable scenarios, you know, at the moment.
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  That's been going on for some time. Yeah, I mean, if
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  I always tell filmmakers, if you want to see what's going to what's happening
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  and it's going to happen, was just look at the music industry. I
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  mean, music has turned into it's worth, it has no worth. It's
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  like literally pennies, pennies. We follow fractions fractions of pennies. Yeah,
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  it's all about you know, data rates, and we basically follow where music
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  goes, film follows, you know, which is exactly what's what's going on.
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  You know, the streaming the music streaming services are doing very well,
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  as are the film streaming services, you know, and the labels and the
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  label yeah of course, yeah, as as it's always been you know,
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  and so of course you know, we're looking at all this and it's only
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  been exacerbated as we as we said, it's only been exacerbated by the by
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  the pandemic, It's become more and more extreme. You know, I went
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  from dreaming of owning a theater one day, like I wanted to, you
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  know, I've all wanted to own like my own cinema, you know,
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  like a paying sure, you know, movie house. And I've gone from
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  that to dreaming of owning a streaming service because I've just got to face the
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  writing on the wall. It's like it's just not you know, we're just
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  not there at the moment. You know, we're not when you know whether
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  whether or not we'll get through this, this pandemic and another some God help,
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  if something else will happen and we'll be locked down again. Who the
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  hell knows? Who can predict the future now? You know? It seems
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  like the only certainty right now is on the internet. Yeah, and I
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  think that's where everyone's going to eventually. I think hopefully cinemas won't go away
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  like the Way of the Dodo, but I think it will be much more
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  specific, very much like Broadway is. You know, ticket tickets will be
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  better, it will be we will still want to have those events but going
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  to see an independent film in a mass way other than if it's an arthouse,
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  it's not going to happen. It's just too much content. I agree,
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  And I think that's really the most pertinent point that you've put so so
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  well is it's more, you know, the cinemas will survive, sure,
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  but I think they'll be servicing the marvels and the and the and the streamers.
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  You know. I think there certainly is a demand for that big screen
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  experience that will probably never go away, as a few recent you know,
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  releases have shown us. But what about everyone else? You know, I
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  think we have to sadly embrace the well not sadly, you know, optimistically,
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  and hopefully embrace the the the internet medium and try and make that our
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  own at least, you know. And there are and there are. I
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  remember hearing about radio Head, you know, when when the music streaming first
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  started hitting hard a few years ago. I remember hearing about radio Head releasing
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  an album in that way, only available over the internet, and I'm like,
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  gee, that's kind of a weird thing to do. But now,
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  of course I go, well that was prophetic. You know, they were
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  really trying to wrestle control back into into their camp as individual artists, you
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  know. And I think that's that seems to be the sort of place where
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  filmmakers are out at the moment. But I think but the thing is that
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  it's because, like you said earlier in the conversation, every filmmaker could put
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  their movie out and on YouTube it's tomorrow and anything could go out. But
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  unfortunately, just like the musicians, they have to not only be artists,
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  but they have to be business people, marketers, web designers. Sometimes they
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  have to have so many other things other than being just the artist to be
• 16:57
  able to survive, as just to be able to survive and if you're not
• 17:02
  lucky enough to be a radiohead that built their entire viewer, their fan base
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  on the backs on the dime of the label that got them to be that
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  big, you know. Like and same thing with same thing with filmmakers.
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  I mean I've said this many times, like, yeah, you know Kevin
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  Smith, a Spike Lee or you know Martin Scorsese. We know these names
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  because they've been working within the studio system for so long and that got their
• 17:26
  name up there. But like the indie guy who has one indie and didn't
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  have like, you know, studios pushing it. It's hard to get that
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  name going unless you build your own thing up, you know, by yourself.
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  Yeah, exactly right, that's exactly right. It's you know, and
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  it's arguable, you know, whether through the current system, will get any
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  more of those names coming out of the woodwork. You know. It's a
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  very very it's becoming increasing increasingly rare and and I feel like that's why it's
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  something to for a new, a new way forward, you know. You
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  know, the the the the auteur has been kind of watered down over the
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  years. You know, we've been made to the commercial concerns have tried to
• 18:15
  diminish the importance of the auteur. You know. I've actually read so many
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  articles about why the auteur theories is wrong. And you know, I grew
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  up with the auteur theory. That's what I They're the sort of filmmakers that
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  I've followed as a kid, and that's the sort of filmmaker I wanted to
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  become, you know, and you know, it's been you know, a
• 18:37
  pretty difficult road to get to that point through the commercial system, you know,
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  So I think it's it's it's it's it's very important that we hang on
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  to that original creator kind of approach to things. And it seems to me
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  that the indie world is where those filmmakers appear these days, you know,
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  the ones that are already the mainstream auteurs that are already there, I think
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  have done their dash. You know, I don't know that we're going to
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  get that many new ones appearing through that system, and I think the indie
• 19:11
  world is where they're going to be coming from in the future. I mean,
• 19:15
  I think the only way that happens is an indie person gets a shot
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  of a big studio movie. That big studio movie makes a lot of noise,
• 19:23
  and then they can go back and start doing their own indie stuff.
• 19:26
  Like again moldol Toro was a good example of that. But that's still we're
• 19:29
  still going back ten fifteen years. But Tehiki, the guy who did Thor
• 19:33
  and Thoranda Rock Tahiki. I can't a necropronounce the New Zealander. Yeah,
• 19:38
  yeah, wonderful, wonderful. That's a new name that kind of popped up.
• 19:42
  He was an indie guy, got Thor and then and then now he's
• 19:47
  he's But even then, we're still talking about handful. We're talking about maybe
• 19:51
  two, three, four. We'll be right back after a word from our
• 19:55
  sponsor, and now back to the show. But the days of the nineties
• 20:03
  when there was like, you know, Robert Rodriguez Bike, you know,
• 20:07
  all these names just started popping up every month. It was insane. Those
• 20:11
  days are gone. Gamo is not. Gamo has been around as long as
• 20:15
  I have. I mean, he's not He's not a fresh No, he's
• 20:18
  not. He's not you know, he's not a fresh puppy at all.
• 20:22
  But he started off in the indie world. But he's he came up in
• 20:25
  the nineties and he didn't really pop until in the two thousands. But he's
• 20:30
  been around for a long time as well. So it's it's it's it's it's
• 20:34
  disheartening for and I think a lot of creators listening now who didn't grow up
• 20:40
  in the eighties, nineties and the early two thousands don't understand what that world
• 20:42
  was like. You know, to have someone like yourself do The Crow and
• 20:48
  then do The Dark City, and to do I Robot in these kind of
• 20:52
  films, it's just you know, I don't know, it's just a it's
• 20:56
  sad it's just I think we may have talked about this on the last podcast
• 21:02
  we did, but the you know, in those days, you know,
• 21:06
  I was like, Hey, I'm going to do a film based on an
• 21:08
  original underground comic book, you know that no one's heard of. And it's
• 21:12
  like, yeah, great, sounds like a great idea. You know,
• 21:15
  here, have money to make a movie, you know. You know,
• 21:18
  it was like there was no question about it, wasn't you know, the
• 21:23
  industry was still interested in original stuff, you know, with Dark City in
• 21:30
  particular. You know, Hey, I'm going to make a film based on
• 21:33
  nothing, based on something that came out of my head. You know,
• 21:36
  in this weird world, it doesn't exist. You know, Yeah, it
• 21:38
  sounds like a great idea. Let's go, let's do it, you know,
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  I mean this stuff just doesn't occur now, not it's that sort of
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  budget range at least, you know. So it's yeah, it is definitely
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  a new, new, whole new world right now. And I think the
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  only one really doing it, the only one out there who could be the
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  tour and also work within the studio system, is Christopher Nolan. And he's
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  the only filmmaker I know that has the juice that he's got right now.
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  I mean, I don't know if you saw the details of his deal,
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  but I was like, Jesus, he's got he wants everything. I think
• 22:11
  this is fantastic. Give that man whatever he wants. Yeah, yeah,
• 22:15
  that's pretty funny. Yeah No, it's like, you know, he's a
• 22:19
  very rare exception. I don't think anyone is in that situation. But look,
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  you know, I mean, we're you're only as good as your last
• 22:26
  movie, really, correct you, no matter who you are. I'm sure
• 22:30
  his Warner's deal was probably even better than the one that's just been publicized.
• 22:37
  I think he's probably taken a little bit of a step backwards based on the
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  box office of the last film, you know. So you know, it's
• 22:45
  it's no one. No one's bullet rarity, no one's bulletproof. There was
• 22:49
  a moment in time where I heard people saying, oh, it's over for
• 22:53
  Spielberg. He's done, because he did a couple of bombs back to back,
• 22:59
  and then of course he am out with Jurassic Parkinschindler's Less in the same
• 23:00
  year and said and shut everybody up. He's like, oh, really,
• 23:06
  let me do this for you guys. But that's just the way the game
• 23:08
  is played. That's the way Hollywood is. But I wanted to ask you,
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  you know, we talked about YouTube a little bit. Is there a
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  because obviously there's a lot of people making money on YouTube, and you can
• 23:18
  make money a living is another question. But you can't make money on YouTube
• 23:22
  with a massive amount of content or a very specific niche. But I haven't
• 23:26
  seen filmmakers make money on YouTube, like I haven't seen short films, the
• 23:32
  real stuff. Yeah. Yeah, And that's you know, like what you
• 23:34
  do is perfect for YouTube, and you know, doing commentary, doing reviews,
• 23:40
  et cetera, et cetera. It seems to be an information based success
• 23:45
  story YouTube, you know. And I know from the sort of stuff that
• 23:48
  I watch on YouTube, I very rarely go, hey, let's check out
• 23:52
  someone's short films. I'm only doing it now because of what I'm proposing,
• 23:56
  you know, But it's not the place to go for short films, you
• 24:00
  know. Having said that, some filmmakers that I know have had you know,
• 24:03
  one off huge successes. Suddenly their short film takes off. You know.
• 24:07
  Often that's you know, that's supercharged by you know, groups like dust
• 24:14
  or these these these these sort of ideas that basically promote you know, genre
• 24:21
  based content, you know, uh, you know, but it's it's not
• 24:25
  it's not a perfect model. And it's and it's partly because and nor is
• 24:29
  nor is Vimeo a great model, because you never know what you're going to
• 24:33
  get. You know, you never know as a as a viewer, what
• 24:37
  you're going to get when you, you know, buy a subscription to two
• 24:41
  to Netflix, you know, it's it's a little less of a crap shoot.
• 24:45
  I mean it's that's a bit of a crap shoot. Still people don't
• 24:48
  consider it as much because there's so much more available, but you know,
• 24:52
  there's a certain quality control that goes into what you're going to be able to
• 24:56
  tune into. And a lot of it's very heavily prom an advertise, so
• 25:00
  you kind of know what you're getting. You're getting, you know when you
• 25:03
  subscribe. You know, YouTube could never be that because it is a completely
• 25:07
  scatter, random, scatter shot kind of approach to to content. You know,
• 25:11
  so you know it's always going to be that little thumbnail that grabs your
• 25:15
  attention. Someone being angry about something usually is what grabs your attention, and
• 25:22
  off you go, and you're going to watch the first thirty seconds before you
• 25:25
  realize, you know, you don't want to watch this thing and go to
• 25:27
  the next thing. You know. That's the YouTube viewing for you, not
• 25:30
  conducive to watching a story being told, you know. So you know,
• 25:36
  look, that's I think that's really the key, and that's why it doesn't
• 25:38
  seem to work for people other than you know some as we say that some
• 25:41
  of the stories that can be you know, a guy watched you playing,
• 25:47
  you know, playing computer games, you know, and it's like, well,
• 25:49
  you know, I don't know, I don't being you know, someone
• 25:53
  who wants to watch a story being told. It's not really my cup of
• 25:59
  tea, but it's obviously the couple two of many, many millions of people.
• 26:02
  You know. Now, you know, you've had the privilege of working
• 26:07
  on in indie projects as well as giant studio projects, all feature films,
• 26:12
  but you tend to keep going back to shorts. I wanted to ask you
• 26:17
  your opinion on shorts as a medium in general. Do you think it's something
• 26:21
  that is a valuable not only for artists to express themselves, but valuable for
• 26:26
  filmmakers to either grow their careers or experiment or what's your feeling on shorts as
• 26:32
  a general statement, I think absolutely everything you've said. I do think they're
• 26:34
  very valid. I mean I equate them to being like, you know,
• 26:38
  as a writer, you write novels and you write short stories. I mean,
• 26:41
  people don't turn away from the short story form once they've written a novel.
• 26:47
  It's just as valid a form of you know, creativity. And I've
• 26:52
  always liked short films. I like watching them. I've been the many juries
• 26:56
  to judge short films. I've been to, you know, in festivals all
• 27:00
  over the world to judge short films and features. But I think they're just
• 27:03
  as valid an art form. And the only reason they haven't been considered by
• 27:08
  the mainstream is avalo is you can't make any money out of them as a
• 27:12
  as a as a producer, or as a as a studio, you know.
• 27:18
  So that's that's really the reason. It's I believe the art form has
• 27:22
  have already taken off, But as an art form, it's completely valid.
• 27:25
  As a filmmaker, you learn, you know, there's a real art to
• 27:29
  telling a six seen story, grabbing someone and grabbing an audience and holding an
• 27:33
  audience for that short period of time. Is a huge art form, and
• 27:37
  it's one that you know, I discovered making TV commercials and music videos way
• 27:42
  back when, you know, and one that I continue to explore an experiment
• 27:48
  with in you know, narrative short story, short short filmmaking, you know,
• 27:53
  and I encourage everyone to continue doing it. It's actually interesting, I've
• 27:57
  noticed a few filmmakers a few feet your filmmakers recently because I've had I've had
• 28:03
  a short pop up in a few festivals around the world, and I've noticed
• 28:07
  others. There's some other feature filmmakers out there like me who also have been
• 28:14
  you know, sending their short films out to festivals to to because it's one
• 28:18
  of the few sort of outlets for short filmmakers, you know. So it's
• 28:22
  it's kind of interesting. I think if a few other people are probably think
• 28:25
  feeling the way I do about them about the medium right now, you know.
• 28:29
  Yeah, it's always you know, monetizing shorts has always been the problem.
• 28:33
  I've been able to do it a couple of times, but many times
• 28:36
  I've failed being able to recoup my money or actually make a hefty profit.
• 28:41
  It's rare to be able to do if you have something that's focused on a
• 28:44
  niche audience maybe things like that, But it's tough. It's tough, and
• 28:48
  I've seen so many people try to figure it out, you know, which
• 28:53
  brings me to video Verse and what you're doing with video Verse. First of
• 28:57
  all, what is video verse? And when did this idea come up to
• 29:02
  you? When you? Was it when you just when the idea came to
• 29:04
  you? Was it when you decided I can't buy a movie theater anymore.
• 29:07
  That's just ridiculous. I need a streaming service. How when did this come
• 29:10
  up? And what is it? Oh? Look, it's been on It's
• 29:12
  been on my mind for many, many years. And in fact, I
• 29:17
  actually tried to create a filmmaker's website twenty years ago called Mystery Clock, which
• 29:27
  was, you know, with the view to eventually do what we are now
• 29:33
  embarking on with with video Verse. It's taken all that time for the technology
• 29:38
  to get to the point where you're not watching postage stamp size. Oh god,
• 29:42
  it was so bad films, it was so bad. Yeah. Yeah,
• 29:47
  but you know, I built a future proofing my my my world,
• 29:51
  my filmmaking world going this is where it's going to go eventually. Back then,
• 29:55
  I had that sort of prophetic vision. We'll be right back after a
• 30:00
  word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And I knew
• 30:10
  that it would take some time. I just didn't realize how long it would
• 30:11
  take, you know, So that sit sadly failed eventually. But here we
• 30:17
  are now in twenty twenty one, and this stuff is doable. And I
• 30:22
  think, you know, for me, the idea came from the fact that
• 30:29
  you know, we can't. You know, it was a multi prong thing.
• 30:33
  You know. One is vidi Verse wants to eventually be streaming features and
• 30:37
  everything, you know, but we're starting with shorts because shorts to me,
• 30:41
  seemed the real weak point for independent filmmakers, you know. And as I
• 30:48
  say, because I've been judging so many short film festivals recently, a lot
• 30:53
  of isolation type style film festivals because of the pandemic. I mean, I've
• 30:57
  been blown away by the quality of the work. It's really outstanding, you
• 31:03
  know. And I just did one a few months ago here called Flickerfest.
• 31:07
  That's a big, a big deal in Sydney. We managed to sneak in
• 31:11
  between the lockdowns and it was a live event. They did it in a
• 31:15
  in a sort of open air area on the beach near the beach in Sydney,
• 31:21
  so we could all, you know, occasionally pull our masks down and
• 31:23
  drink our beers as we were watching the shorts, and it was an awesome
• 31:27
  It just reminded me again of not just this power of theatrical presentation, but
• 31:33
  more so the power of the short film medium. You know, the audience
• 31:36
  had a great time watching, you know, a two hour program of short
• 31:41
  from all over the world, different genres, different different ideas, different narratives,
• 31:48
  but the one thing they had in common was there was a quality to
• 31:51
  them all. They were all of really high quality and it was actually really
• 31:56
  really hard. I watched maybe I was judging the international program. Over about
• 32:01
  a couple of weeks. I think I watched maybe seventy movie short films,
• 32:06
  and it was really hard to pick winners because there were so many great ones.
• 32:09
  You know. We actually end up creating awards prizes for specific films that
• 32:15
  were the prizes didn't exist because we liked the quality of the film so much,
• 32:20
  you know, I think that process I started thinking, you know,
• 32:22
  it's just criminal that these films are not seen by a wider audience beyond the
• 32:28
  sort of the the you know, the film festival circuit, and I started
• 32:34
  thinking more and more specifically at that point about creating a streaming service that could
• 32:38
  program a bit like the way a film festival works program a series of short
• 32:45
  films that were maybe even more had more common threads to them, maybe genre
• 32:52
  or stylistic threads that could bring a program of six, seven, eight short
• 32:59
  films together, and then whether there was some way to monetize that for the
• 33:05
  filmmakers and also of course for the for the platform to exist, to create
• 33:10
  a market and a and a for the for this content, you know,
• 33:15
  but basically saying okay, well we are me And as I said to you
• 33:22
  at the beginning of this call was you know, at the moment, I'm
• 33:23
  looking at all the films myself because to me, the curated aspect of this
• 33:29
  is really important that you know, I initially and hopefully eventually others at vidi
• 33:35
  Verse can maintain a standard of curated quality so that that then we do have
• 33:42
  that guarantee to an audience who are coming into it and paying money to watch
• 33:47
  these films that may or may not be available in other parts of the Internet.
• 33:52
  That we're saying, if you come to us. We guarantee that you're
• 33:54
  going to get a package of great content, great film, film, film
• 34:00
  making, you know, and that's really the whole sort of you know,
• 34:02
  origin of this of this idea so so video verse at the moment, well,
• 34:07
  accept you're accepting short films, you're looking at short films. Is there
• 34:12
  eventually going to be a financial you know, arrangement for the filmmakers as far
• 34:17
  as you know, profit sharing things like that, or right now, is
• 34:21
  it just purely an exhibitional platform. No, there is. We want to
• 34:28
  to have a you know, a licensing scenario, and we're not We don't
• 34:31
  want to exclusively license because for me, it's all about I don't want to
• 34:36
  limit filmmakers ways of making money if they if they're making money from their films
• 34:43
  in other ways. I don't want to get in the way of that,
• 34:45
  you know. And some of the films that we're dealing with yet they are
• 34:50
  already on other platforms, you know. So we're not about exclusively licensing,
• 34:54
  but we are about packaging short film content with other like commanded short film content
• 35:01
  to kind of supercharge their potential to make money. You know. You know,
• 35:07
  we'll be cutting trailers that are not just one person's film, but a
• 35:10
  series of short films that are all part of the program. And that way,
• 35:15
  as I say, a subscriber, a or a user of this platform
• 35:22
  can at least get a you know, you know, if you like one,
• 35:25
  you'll probably like the other's kind of approach and watch a program that's not
• 35:30
  just ten minutes long, but is feature length long, you know, or
• 35:36
  maybe even longer of short films. But they're buying into the program as such,
• 35:42
  and any funds that are generated, because you know, the reality is
• 35:45
  this is all highly speculative, whether or not much funds are generated or not,
• 35:51
  of course, you know, is remains to be proven. But all
• 35:54
  those whatever funds are generated will be split between vidi Verse and the filmmakers involved
• 36:01
  with each with each package. You know, so is this at least that's
• 36:06
  at least that's what we're embarking upon. And then if we go when we
• 36:08
  get into features and we get into you know, we want to get into
• 36:12
  like if we like specific filmmakers, we want to get into programs of specific
• 36:17
  filmmakers work. You know, many of these filmmakers have created more than one
• 36:22
  short film, so if we like one, we'll probably like more so,
• 36:24
  we're investigating that with a few filmmakers at the moment to basically monetize their brand
• 36:30
  and make their brand something in this quest for the your teur, the new
• 36:36
  auteur, to create a kind of brand identity within video verse for individual specific
• 36:42
  filmmakers. Now, is this going to be? Is this t V s
• 36:47
  v avid I want to say those transactional? Is the subscription or is it
• 36:51
  advertising based? Well, it's probably going to be a combination of things.
• 36:55
  And we're still we're developing it. So we're still trying to up through the
• 37:01
  logistics, let's say, and you know, and we're also trying more specifically,
• 37:10
  but it is a process we're going through right now. And part of
• 37:14
  the reason we're still kind of you know, working that stuff out is because
• 37:20
  we're not certain right now how big a platform we want to launch. You
• 37:24
  know, this Alex has started off from me going, I just want to
• 37:29
  get my own stuff out there on my short so I want to take it
• 37:31
  off YouTube and get it onto a platform. Let's just launch that. And
• 37:36
  I've got this project called Mask of the Evlaporation, which is doing very well
• 37:39
  in the festival at the moment. Use that as a way, let's just
• 37:44
  try it and see, right. So when from that, and like all
• 37:46
  my other mad projects, it starts off at a very crude, fundamental level
• 37:51
  and then evolves into this monster. And so we're in mid transformation into the
• 37:55
  monster right now, with more and more. And I was saying, I'm
• 37:59
  a bit fearful about talking to you and you getting the word out because I'm
• 38:04
  fearful of how many more short films I'll actually have to watch, you know,
• 38:07
  and how and how much less of a weekend I'll have with my family.
• 38:12
  So we're trying to balance all those factors before we go. Yes,
• 38:16
  it's subscription model, and we don't want people to come and be disappointed by
• 38:22
  how little content there is, you know. I'm saying, it's like it's
• 38:25
  a balancing act, you know. So it may launch, I want to,
• 38:29
  you know, personally, and there are other people involved, other partners
• 38:34
  involved with this venture who have their word as well, but personally, I
• 38:38
  want to see this launch as soon as possible. My feeling is to launch
• 38:44
  it with whatever we have, you know, and make it like a sampler
• 38:47
  and maybe give people, give subscribers a kind of early adopter discount, if
• 38:53
  you decide to subscribe with the small amount of content that we have, knowing
• 38:58
  that it's going to grow into something much bigger, so it will probably end
• 39:01
  up being something along those lines. You know, fair fair enough, and
• 39:07
  you know this seems first of all, this has been fantastic. I love
• 39:09
  the idea of what you're doing. I love that you're doing it, and
• 39:14
  your taste and your curation is doing this, which is what I love.
• 39:19
  Because there's been a lot of other streaming services that pop up. I get
• 39:22
  contacted by streaming services new streaming services on a weekly basis. Hey we got
• 39:25
  this new streaming service. Hey we're for the independent filmmaker. And I look
• 39:29
  at their sites and it's just like I can't even you know, I've been
• 39:32
  offered like would you buy our streaming service? Like no, Like no,
• 39:38
  I don't want to buy your streaming service. But the but when I saw
• 39:43
  you doing it, I was like, Okay, this is something more interesting.
• 39:45
  It just takes everything up to a different level when you're involved. Because
• 39:50
  I'm such a fan of your taste. We'll be right back after a word
• 39:53
  from our sponsor, and now back to the show and and of your filmmaking.
• 40:02
  They think what you're bringing in I think you're your I guess your your
• 40:09
  lens. Everything's being funneled through your lens, and that's what's exciting. I'm
• 40:14
  like, Okay, he's going out and bringing in this amazing content. I
• 40:19
  think that's a big selling point for what you're you're doing. But I'd love
• 40:22
  to ask what do you what do you what's the what's the goal five years
• 40:24
  from now, ten years from now? Do you you know? How big
• 40:28
  do you want to get? What do you want this to eventually be for
• 40:30
  filmmakers? I hope this can be a real thing. I really think I
• 40:37
  I you know, I hope that we can make it a viable industry,
• 40:43
  that people can actually create their content, uh, put it on this website
• 40:49
  and earn enough from their content that is, you know, that makes it
• 40:54
  viable for them to keep making content. You know. I mean, we're
• 40:58
  trying to us the board with everything we're doing right now is re evaluate the
• 41:04
  economic structure of filmmaking, you know, from producing to making to develop,
• 41:13
  from developing to producing to distributing right and VIDI verse for me is the sort
• 41:19
  of final prong of the of that triangle of creation which allows filmmakers to get
• 41:27
  their stuff seen by people. Because, as we've always said, if it's
• 41:30
  one thing to make your film, will this wonderful technology that makes it affordable
• 41:35
  and easy to do, If no one sees it, then it's like the
• 41:37
  tree falling in the forest, you know, So that this distribution part of
• 41:43
  this is absolutely essential. So I hope this is the final part of that,
• 41:47
  you know, that can make make it a viable, a new viable
• 41:52
  way to make films and to survive and to earn a living making films.
• 41:57
  You know. Now, that's a lofty goal, and I only I think
• 42:00
  that's a few years off because I'm not guaranteeing that any individual filmmaker who's you
• 42:07
  know, submitting their work to VIDI Verse at the moment. You know,
• 42:12
  if I if I managed to get them a check for a few bucks at
• 42:15
  the end of every quarter, I'll be like, yeah, that's a success
• 42:19
  story. You know. But I hope we can build on that. I
• 42:21
  hope it's more as we get more subscribed, as more people interested, we
• 42:24
  can keep building this as an idea. You know. Now, but will
• 42:29
  the residual check be bigger than your Dark City residual check? Is the question?
• 42:32
  Well, you can't guarantee. But the hope is that you look at
• 42:38
  it on those terms, Right, isn't that scary when you when you look
• 42:43
  at it on those terms? You know. I I've just made this film
• 42:46
  called Mask of the Evlaporation, which is going to be one of our first
• 42:49
  launched so called vity Verse originals. Right, We're going to launch it and
• 42:54
  say you can buy this short film by this this Schmarck Prayers for you know,
• 43:00
  two ninety nine or whatever whatever, you know, fifty cents or whatever
• 43:02
  we're going to put on it. We don't know, you know, or
• 43:07
  subscribe and you get it for free or whatever we're going to say, you
• 43:08
  know. And honestly, I would be amazed if you know, there have
• 43:15
  been so many people reaching out to me from my own followers, going,
• 43:19
  how can we see this film? Yes, we'll pay for it, Yes,
• 43:22
  let us know, and we we're there. And that's maybe a few
• 43:24
  hundred people, and maybe there's more people out there, you know, and
• 43:28
  maybe some of those people are lying. Maybe they won't pay for it when
• 43:30
  they see the trailer. But it's going to be more than seven ninety five,
• 43:37
  you know, I mean I am going to get a little bit more,
• 43:38
  I know, so there you go. The model already I believe work.
• 43:43
  It's already working. The bar is lower seven ninety five. The bar
• 43:51
  is fairly low that you've got to break for this to be a success.
• 43:54
  Yeah, you should frame that. You should frame that. Check in the
• 43:59
  office is a video first, like every day, guys, every day.
• 44:01
  That's where we're going break that seven ninety five. Yeah. Now, so
• 44:07
  when is this when you're releasing this to the world. Well, that I
• 44:10
  can't speak about. Either we're hoping before the end of the year or early
• 44:15
  in the new year. And again it's about reaching that critical mass where we
• 44:20
  go, yeah, this is great, and you know we're building the site.
• 44:24
  Again, we have no there's no financing behind this. It's all me
• 44:29
  waking up one day and going, yeah, I'll put some own dollars into
• 44:32
  that idea, that stupid idea. And I've got my Heretic Foundation colleagues who
• 44:37
  are helping me create this this thing. So it's a it's a somewhat unplanned
• 44:44
  there's an it's an unplanned business plan right now, So you know that's why
• 44:50
  it's a little has to remain a little flex of course, of course you're
• 44:53
  still trying to figure this all out. But I think the intentions are good
• 44:58
  of what you're trying to do, and the uh, the idea is solid,
• 45:00
  and I can't wait to see what the what you guys come up with.
• 45:05
  I really can't and I'm still I'm so and can I and can I
• 45:07
  ask? I'll just be clear though, the start is is open for submissions.
• 45:15
  You know, we are actually accepting submissions from anyone and whoever, whoever,
• 45:19
  wherever they are. We're getting submissions from all over the world right now,
• 45:22
  and language is not an issue for us as long as there's English subtitles
• 45:27
  on the project. We're getting really cool stuff out of Europe and and Mexico
• 45:32
  and all sorts of great, great filmmaking centers, and so you know,
• 45:38
  we're open for business in that respect, at least to create what that library
• 45:45
  is going to be before we launch. You know. That's that's awesome.
• 45:47
  I'm I'm excited to see what you come up with. I mean, I'm
• 45:52
  so I'm so happy that, you know, filmmakers like you are still going
• 45:55
  up to the plate and taking the big swings were many many don't. Many
• 46:00
  just stick to their own work and their own art. But you're actually trying
• 46:04
  to help other filmmakers and try to give other filmmakers voices in the next general
• 46:07
  reason, a way to keep doing this and the way that you know,
• 46:10
  you and I were able to do it when we were you know, coming
• 46:14
  up. It's like, you know, a way to sustain ourselves as artists.
• 46:16
  So I'm so I'm so happy that you're still taking those wings, my
• 46:20
  friend. Well, thank you very much. I mean, I think we
• 46:23
  have to. It's it's a it's a kind of existential crisis that we're all
• 46:28
  in. You know, we're all in together in that respect. So I
• 46:31
  feel like it's it's it's got to be done, you know. And you
• 46:37
  know, I think what you know, what you mentioned earlier on is important
• 46:40
  that you know, my my, you know, you are seeing stuff through
• 46:45
  my lens. I've always said over the years, people always ask me when
• 46:49
  I think about people's other filmmakers work, and I guide that I never want
• 46:53
  to be a critic or a reviewer of other filmmakers work because I don't care.
• 47:00
  It doesn't matter what I think about the work. Every film is hard
• 47:02
  to make. It doesn't matter whether it's good, bad, or different.
• 47:06
  You know, they should be you know, they should be, uh you,
• 47:12
  encouraged because they've made a film, you know. And it's the same
• 47:15
  with with every with every level of filmmaking, I believe, you know,
• 47:21
  And it's kind of this is kind of my opportunity to encourage films that I
• 47:24
  really like, you know. It's it's for me, a really specific way
• 47:30
  of doing it. I'm not criticizing other films. All I'm saying is these
• 47:35
  films are ones that I think are worth looking at. And you know,
• 47:38
  they're the the the quality varies, the the the budgets very wildly, the
• 47:45
  resources are going into it, the acting quality, whatever, and it's just
• 47:51
  stuff that I think is cool. You know. That's really at the end
• 47:53
  of the day, you know what, what what comes through all this this
• 48:00
  this stuff, and I hope that we can carry that through as we move
• 48:05
  forward. You know, stuff that's cool. You know that to me is
• 48:08
  the so you know, and something that holds you, that engages you,
• 48:17
  that makes you want to watch. Maybe it's because it's doing something really something
• 48:21
  you've never seen before, something that's weird, it's interesting, it's unusual,
• 48:23
  or just it's a very it could be a very you know, small you
• 48:29
  know, real world story that is being told in you know, without any
• 48:32
  genre, kind of influence or whatever. I mean, it really doesn't matter.
• 48:36
  It's all about just something that is, as I say, cool,
• 48:39
  you know, the cool factor, the cool factor. Now, I really
• 48:45
  love you to talk a little bit about what you're doing at the Herodic Foundation
• 48:47
  and and your virtual production studio that you're building in Australia and everything, because
• 48:52
  I'm I'm a huge fan of the technology, but you you've really kind of
• 48:55
  spearheaded this technology. So can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah,
• 49:00
  Yeah, we built this studio it's close to a year and a half,
• 49:04
  two years ago now, which was it's a virtual production facility. Basically,
• 49:09
  it's a way to create well it's actually a bigger idea than that.
• 49:15
  It's a way to bring all the aspects of filmmaking under the one umbrella.
• 49:19
  You know, I say ironically now because we've actually just moved into our own
• 49:23
  VFX facility, which is a kind of a sister company to Heretic. It's
• 49:29
  still Heretic Foundation, but it's like where all the VFX get done, you
• 49:32
  know, because we're growing, you know. But it's a way to use
• 49:37
  virtual production to streamline how films are made to still be able to bring enormous
• 49:45
  great production value, but at a lower budget range. You know, when
• 49:51
  you don't have to move around, when you don't have to go to multiple
• 49:53
  locations, when you don't have to build big sets, et cetera, et
• 49:59
  cetera. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
• 50:07
  back to the show. And you can work faster and more expedingly. You
• 50:13
  can bring the cost of the production down, or more importantly, you can
• 50:20
  elevate the production value of lower budget indie films, which is kind of the
• 50:24
  real key for me. You know, now that we've actually we've just completed
• 50:30
  or we're completing our first feature, my not my film one for another director,
• 50:36
  a guy called John Curran. It's a film called Mercy Road, which
• 50:39
  is it's basically it's a road at night. It's set in real time,
• 50:45
  a guy in a truck. It's a thriller. It's a bit like Duel,
• 50:49
  but it's kind of more gothic and sort of dark and spooky, you
• 50:52
  know, And we've created the entire world for this film. We've made the
• 50:58
  all this. You know, he's in the truck a lot of the time.
• 51:00
  That he gets out, and he goes to various different locations. The
• 51:05
  whole world is basically been created by by Heretic in virtual space, and we've
• 51:10
  shot it with a combination of LED screens and green screen in numerous situations as
• 51:19
  well, and it's looking fantastic. It's really quite wonderful what the material that
• 51:24
  I'm seeing at the moment. So that to me is a great example of
• 51:30
  elevating a fairly low budget thriller, indie thriller to a level where the visuals
• 51:39
  are ones you would associate with a very expensive, you know, studio movie,
• 51:46
  you know, And that to me is an exciting success story already of
• 51:54
  Heretic foundation, and one we hope to keep building on. We have numerous
• 51:59
  other projects lining up. That one is a World War two film set on
• 52:05
  a battleship, which again, you know, they wouldn't even consider doing it
• 52:08
  on the budget that they have, and in fact, they've they've tried to
• 52:13
  raise a larger budget and been unable to. And it's the technology that we're
• 52:17
  able to bring to it that's making the film actually achievable, you know,
• 52:22
  And that's a really exciting world to be in, you know, now when
• 52:27
  you say for a Black people listening virtual reality virtual it's not virtual virtual production.
• 52:32
  You know, when I think of virtual production, I think of the
• 52:34
  Mandalorian and then the volume and stuff have you have you created similar volumes and
• 52:38
  using green screen, so you have a volume and then you also do some
• 52:42
  elements in green screen as well, so it's a hybrid, if you will
• 52:45
  correct, that's right, yeah, we heretic. We're currently building a LED
• 52:51
  volume, a large LED volume with a in cooperation with a with another company,
• 52:58
  and we've been doing only green screen. Our studio has green screen.
• 53:02
  I mean it's quite a small small stage. I mean, our studio is
• 53:06
  really designed as an R and D stage. But we're building We've just done
• 53:12
  this one film at another volume, but we're building a dedicated LED volume.
• 53:16
  It will be LED and green screen because it's the combination of the two that
• 53:21
  works so well. You know, there are some things that a La Mandalorian
• 53:27
  led screens are not actually that great at doing. When your scenes are very
• 53:32
  dark, there's a lot of black in frame, it's not a not as
• 53:37
  good, you know as green screen can actually work a lot better. But
• 53:43
  you know, it's certain things. It's you know, ideally you have both
• 53:46
  at your disposal. We have our our guys who are running the virtual sets
• 53:52
  in the middle between a green and an LED volume and you literally move the
• 53:58
  cameras backwards and forwards, you know, depending on what shot is serviced by
• 54:02
  what tech tech tech take, you know, And and that's the location ultimate
• 54:06
  that's the ultimate goal. And then yeah, that's where you are. You're
• 54:08
  there for the duration of the production. Rights that's your company move exactly.
• 54:15
  That's you're just moving left or right, that's your company move. That's I
• 54:20
  mean, honestly, that's having for a filmmaker. I mean, anyone who's
• 54:22
  ever been out and you know, on location and you're like, oh,
• 54:25
  we only could do one company move today because we in the middle of the
• 54:28
  desert, you know. But you know, but you could. On this
• 54:30
  kind of production, you can do that and a lot of things also in
• 54:34
  virtual production. I've had friends of mine who've worked on the Mandalorian and you
• 54:37
  know the press about you know, you just poot the camera and you shoot
• 54:40
  to a certain extent. That's true. But and I love to hear what
• 54:44
  you think. But there is cleanup work. There is seam you have to
• 54:46
  see clean up seams you've got to do, so there is it's not like
• 54:50
  you just shoot in the can you're done. Yes, you get a lot
• 54:52
  more done than you used to, but there is still a visual effects hand
• 54:54
  that's going to touch it and clean things up a little bit. Is that
• 54:58
  true. Yes, it's very true, and you don't hear that from Mandalorian.
• 55:02
  The pr of Mandalorian makes it seem like it's it's a really easy to
• 55:08
  walk in the park. And let's not forget that they have huge budgets,
• 55:14
  you know, like I've put this together again from my own bank account at
• 55:17
  least up until this point, you know, and you know, it's very
• 55:22
  different to having, you know, Disney and ILM behind you. But look,
• 55:27
  you know, I'm grateful to the Mandalorian team because they've they've made this.
• 55:32
  Everyone goes, oh, it's a Mandalorian, you know, and they're
• 55:37
  all, you know, it's created a whole sort of mini industry and it's
• 55:39
  helped my company enormously. So I'm very grateful to you all. They're at
• 55:44
  Mandalorian Land. But this is not the You don't need to do all that
• 55:50
  stuff to make a work, as we've just proven on a very low budget
• 55:53
  movie. And we're continuing to prove it's ingenuity. A lot of it's ingenuity
• 56:00
  the the but but yes, to be clear, there is a lot of
• 56:06
  clean up work, but it's but you have to be clever about how you
• 56:10
  do it. Some shots work perfectly well and other other shots, as we
• 56:16
  say, you swing around and you're on the green, and they will work
• 56:20
  better on green. And the one thing that you have to remember is that
• 56:27
  it's a double edged sword having your having your dailies. They're done in the
• 56:32
  can on an LED screen because if you haven't had the time in pre production
• 56:39
  to to get your set, your environment fully specked out the way you want
• 56:45
  it, you're stuck with it. You know. In the Mandalorian's case,
• 56:49
  they're not because they can just replace it later on. You know, in
• 56:53
  our case, it's prohibitive to do that. So we have to make sure
• 56:58
  that we have it to a level of finish that we're happy to have baked
• 57:04
  in to the to the to the dailies. Otherwise we'll shoot it on green,
• 57:07
  and that's our way of keeping costs down, you know. But you
• 57:13
  know, look, if you do it right, if you if you do
• 57:15
  the right kinds of shots, on l e g. You shouldn't have to
• 57:21
  do any cleanup work afterwards. You know, it's it should be done.
• 57:25
  It is possible to bake it all in and get it all done. For
• 57:29
  example, in this film that we've just there, we're finishing at the moment,
• 57:34
  a lot of the stuff out you know, in all the car stuff
• 57:37
  with the guy inside the car outside the window is one hundred percent led volume
• 57:44
  because there's there's so many shots to finish. All those to composit all those
• 57:47
  shots in green would have been really a pip expensive and expensive prospect. So
• 57:54
  we've only stripped out the shots that are absolutely essential that we do on grain
• 58:00
  screen. There's quite a few of those, but it makes it a much
• 58:04
  more manageable thing. It's just on the Mandalaurian they wouldn't care. The Manalaurian
• 58:07
  they do it and they go, I didn't work out, and we'll do
• 58:08
  it, and you know, we'll do it the other way, you know,
• 58:10
  because they can afford to. So yeah, though, the rotoscope out
• 58:14
  the shot and clean up and do whatever and do it and whatever they want.
• 58:19
  No, it's it's it's pretty amazing technology. And uh yeah, I'm
• 58:22
  always I'm always fascinated by all that. And you know, the thing that's
• 58:27
  also really interesting is a lot of people think that you have to do if
• 58:30
  your virtual production has to be this big sci fi world building thing. But
• 58:35
  no, you're the story you're talking about, the film that you're talking about
• 58:37
  is not it's it might be genres off, but it's not a sci fi
• 58:43
  world creating dark city style project, which you know, something like rear projection.
• 58:50
  This is basically just really nice rear projection with with with being able to
• 58:54
  move the camera in the camera following the parallax on it. But I can
• 59:00
  only imagine what Stanley Kubrick would do with this technology. Yeah, well he
• 59:04
  liked he did it. I mean, he did it with That's the funny
• 59:07
  thing about the Mandalorian claiming to have invented I don't know whether they ever did,
• 59:12
  but other people claim that they claim virtual production. Yeah, I been
• 59:17
  around since the day one, you know. And look, the thing about
• 59:21
  virtual production is that what really is the key. It's not so much of
• 59:25
  the screen or whether it's led or green, is the marrying a computer generated
• 59:32
  model that's to the to the live camera, and as you move your camera,
• 59:38
  the model will move accordingly, that is what virtui production is. And
• 59:44
  in fact, I know exactly who invented that, and I can't say that
• 59:47
  it was me. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and
• 59:57
  now back to the show. But it was almost me because the first two
• 1:00:04
  films that were done using a very early version of a virtual production was I
• 1:00:14
  was Spielberg's AI and My I Robot. That were the first films to actually
• 1:00:20
  use the technology. We you know, at the time that we did I
• 1:00:27
  Robot, I didn't know that this stuff actually had already been done. But
• 1:00:32
  I was like, I had a scene with Will Smith running around a thousand
• 1:00:37
  robots, and I didn't have anything real. I only had Will Smith and
• 1:00:43
  one robot which was used as a stand in. So I go, how
• 1:00:45
  do we do this scene? How can I move my camera around and know
• 1:00:50
  what I'm seeing through these rows of robots? You know? Do we put
• 1:00:53
  a thousand cut bits of cardboard maquettes or something? And they came up with
• 1:01:00
  this thing called it was called encoder cam, which was the early rudimentary virtual
• 1:01:06
  production thing where we had had the model on the stage, my camera on
• 1:01:10
  a techno crane could move aroundund and I'd see this sort of you know,
• 1:01:15
  very rudimentary three D model move as my camera moved, and I was like,
• 1:01:20
  wow, this is awesome, this is incredible. You know. So
• 1:01:24
  that that really was the origins of virtual production. And then now that's been
• 1:01:30
  combined with, as you say, rear screen project, a new form of
• 1:01:35
  rearscreen project. Right, because when I Robbot was around, the LEDs not
• 1:01:39
  so much, not that affordable. Maybe this big, this big was about
• 1:01:45
  ten thousand dollars. Yeah, it was all plasma back then. Hey,
• 1:01:51
  listen, I still got I still have a plasma TV from like fifteen years
• 1:01:53
  ago, and it still looks fantastic and it's still still rocket at seven to
• 1:01:58
  twenty p. Now. One other thing I wanted to talk to you is
• 1:02:04
  a little Birdie told me that you might be working on a series for Dark
• 1:02:09
  City. Is that true? I have no idea where you heard that information.
• 1:02:15
  Look, I mentioned it to one to one person and on a podcast
• 1:02:22
  a bit like this, and I mean, it was great to see so
• 1:02:24
  many people picked it up as a story. So much of the the sort
• 1:02:30
  of genre based you know, industry picked it up as something of note,
• 1:02:36
  which is great. It just showed me that there's a lot of and you
• 1:02:38
  know, I kind of knew there's a lot of you know, interest still
• 1:02:42
  strong there in the in the in the wings for a Dark City continuation in
• 1:02:49
  the Dark City story. But of course, you know I mentioned it way
• 1:02:52
  earlier than I should have. We're still you know, I should have said,
• 1:02:57
  and I'm trying to sell a dark City rather than and I'm making a
• 1:03:01
  ducks as opposed to like, so when is it streaming and when when it's
• 1:03:07
  coming out November? November? People assume it's like it's happening already, and
• 1:03:10
  it's you shut it. It's been in the can. You're just imposed.
• 1:03:14
  I've had so yeah, I've had so many actors applying to screen tests and
• 1:03:19
  writers applying to right episodes, et cetera. So so this is kind of
• 1:03:23
  me saying, you know, let's let's all take a breath and wait a
• 1:03:28
  moment before, you know, before I say anything too much more about it.
• 1:03:32
  Look, the only thing, because I like you Alex so much as
• 1:03:36
  you know, the only thing I can say about it, and no knowing
• 1:03:38
  that's the caveat that we're just where we're working it out at the moment.
• 1:03:44
  We're not we don't have We're not we're not green lit. We're far from
• 1:03:47
  it, you know, we haven't. I haven't even written any of it
• 1:03:50
  yet. I've we're still working on our on our pitch, on our concept,
• 1:03:53
  you know. But what I will say is it is very much a
• 1:03:58
  continuation of the original movie. It's it's not a it's not a reboot as
• 1:04:06
  a as a more more of a sequel to the original movie. So that's
• 1:04:12
  something that that maybe will you know, it is one bit of information that
• 1:04:16
  is people would would want to know about, and you know, I'm trying
• 1:04:23
  to I mean, it is, it's you know, obviously, in doing
• 1:04:26
  a TV series, we have to appeal to a bunch of an audience that
• 1:04:32
  maybe don't even know about Dark City. They've got no idea of this film
• 1:04:35
  Dark City, And there's plenty of those people around. But at the same
• 1:04:41
  time, every year that goes past, more and more people become Dark City
• 1:04:45
  fans. You know, this has been going on since the first original release.
• 1:04:50
  So many people have come to come to it every year going wow,
• 1:04:55
  we never knew this movie existed, this is great, and become new fans,
• 1:04:59
  you know. So I'm also trying to create a story that that makes
• 1:05:04
  those people happy, you know, and me is faithful to the original fans
• 1:05:12
  of the series and works into what they would want to see, you know.
• 1:05:16
  So I think I think we're there. I think we've come up with
• 1:05:19
  a with a concept that will work for for both sides of the spectrum and
• 1:05:26
  and also, as I say, bringing you hopefully bringing new a new audience
• 1:05:30
  as well. You know, well, that's exciting news. And I I
• 1:05:33
  want you to have that that canvas to play with and visit that world because
• 1:05:39
  of such a wonderful and rich world and God, I would love to see
• 1:05:44
  it. So I wish you nothing but the best. But everyone listening,
• 1:05:45
  calmed the hell down. It's he's not in post, everybody, He's not
• 1:05:49
  in post in it already. It's not coming out for Christmas. Everyone needs
• 1:05:54
  to calm the hell down. Sadly that's the case. And look, you
• 1:05:58
  know this also feeds in to the technology that we've just been talking about,
• 1:06:01
  because you know, Dark City was made at the time and I barely could
• 1:06:06
  afford it even then. They didn't give me a huge budget, but they
• 1:06:10
  gave me enough where I built the entire thing. We had these massive sets
• 1:06:14
  built in this kind of aircraft hangar size space in Sydney. We built the
• 1:06:19
  entire street that we kept reconfiguring, much like the film was, to service
• 1:06:24
  all our different scenes, you know, and you know obviously that the time
• 1:06:30
  has gone, you know, when you could do that on a film like
• 1:06:35
  that. But now, of course, this new technology is enabling me to
• 1:06:42
  make that world in an even better way. I believe I don't have quite
• 1:06:47
  the fun on the set of hanging out on those in those cool spaces,
• 1:06:51
  but beyond that, you know, the virtual production gives you a world that
• 1:06:57
  looks every bit is great. And again, I'm not having to limit my
• 1:07:01
  imagination because even on something like this series, which will hopefully be financed by
• 1:07:08
  you know, a legitimate studio with the money to throw at it that that
• 1:07:13
  it necessitates, there's going to be a limit there. I'm gonna you know,
• 1:07:15
  they're not gonna let me go crazy. But in the virtual world,
• 1:07:19
  I can I can do whatever I want. I can visualize it however I
• 1:07:25
  want to, and and and so I think it's the right time for continuing
• 1:07:30
  the visual aspect of Dark City in a in a new in a new form.
• 1:07:36
  You know, I have to ask you just out of curiosity when when
• 1:07:42
  you're going to pitch a show like this, obviously there's gonna be a lot
• 1:07:45
  of concept art, but would you create like a sizzle wheel, like using
• 1:07:48
  your technology, going, look, this is what we can do because iind
• 1:07:51
  of Rubber rodriguezid that with Sin City and and you know, like when there's
• 1:07:56
  new like technology, like look, guys, I know it normally would cost
• 1:07:59
  a hundred million dollars, but we could do it for five And this is
• 1:08:02
  what we could do, and this is how we do and look what it
• 1:08:04
  looks like. Are you gonna are you planning on doing something like a little
• 1:08:06
  sizzle reel or something? No, because the movie is a sizzle reel,
• 1:08:10
  you know, so there's no real reason. So so if there are any
• 1:08:15
  executives who have my fate in their hands, I say to go and watch
• 1:08:23
  the movie, you know. And you know, look, fortunately I have.
• 1:08:28
  I'm I'm involved with some people who are who are big fans of the
• 1:08:32
  of the original movie. So so that's that's really that's really key. But
• 1:08:39
  but you know, yes, if it wasn't for that that movie existing,
• 1:08:43
  absolutely, you know, that would be the the first thing to do.
• 1:08:46
  I've got a film called sister Darkness that we are that we're trying to finance
• 1:08:51
  at the moment, that is, we're doing just that with you know,
• 1:08:55
  we've created We've actually created a little a little trailer and all that sort of
• 1:08:59
  stuff, and it's all ver production just to show people the kinds of the
• 1:09:03
  way it's going to look, you know. So so yeah, absolutely,
• 1:09:10
  it's nice having a studio at my fingertips for such things. Yeah, very
• 1:09:15
  helpful. I've been. I was in post for most of my career,
• 1:09:19
  and I loved having the ability to just like, oh yeah, i've got
• 1:09:23
  my VFX team, I've got my post team. I can just you know,
• 1:09:26
  do whatever I want. I never even on the budget. This so
• 1:09:29
  funny. Whenever I do a project, but the budget line for for posts,
• 1:09:32
  I just never even include it because I used I'm like, hey,
• 1:09:36
  I'm going to do the post. I'm going to edit it. I'm going
• 1:09:38
  free, of course, that's free. I'm going to call I'm going to
• 1:09:41
  colle it, grade it, I'm going to master it. I'm gonna output
• 1:09:43
  it. For deliverables, oh that stuff. So I never even think about
• 1:09:45
  even scheduled, like how much does that cost? Jesus Christ I've got a
• 1:09:48
  lot of value. I should charge more for this. Now, where can
• 1:09:53
  people submit to video verse and and submit their films. We'll be right back
• 1:09:59
  after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. It's
• 1:10:06
  vidy verse dot com. That's the I d v I d a verse v
• 1:10:13
  I d I diverse. Yeah, vidy verse, I expect you. You'll
• 1:10:18
  get to run it underneath me. I'll put it in the show notes.
• 1:10:21
  We'll put it in the show notes. As you do this, I will
• 1:10:25
  have my I will have my team. If the team is listening to it's
• 1:10:30
  do it one more time, doing more time? So viy vidy verse verse
• 1:10:33
  dot com. Yeah, I'll make sure. I'll make sure they do that.
• 1:10:39
  And yeah, so it's all self explanatory. I hope on if you
• 1:10:43
  go to that website, it explains exactly what what is required of you,
• 1:10:47
  and yeah, please send us your films and uh and and we can do
• 1:10:55
  something great together. You know, Alex, I appreciate you being on the
• 1:11:00
  show again coming back. I appreciate everything you're doing with vide Verse. I
• 1:11:03
  love that you continue to take big swings at the play for everybody. And
• 1:11:09
  you also have a fantastic first name as well. So thank you, my
• 1:11:13
  friend, for doing all that you do, and thanks again for coming on
• 1:11:15
  the show, my friend. Thank you Alex. It's being a pleasure again,
• 1:11:19
  and hopefully we'll do at least one more time, at least when the
• 1:11:26
  Dark City Dark City series releases come back and then we talk about it.
• 1:11:30
  Then, thank you, Thank you, my friend. Yes, mate,
• 1:11:34
  I not only want to thank Alex for coming back on the show, but
• 1:11:36
  also for taking the time to build vide verse and what he's trying to do
• 1:11:43
  with it. I really greatly appreciate it. If you guys want to check
• 1:11:45
  out anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes
• 1:11:49
  at bulletproop Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three forty three. Thank you so
• 1:11:54
  much for listening, guys, As always, keep on writing no matter what.
• 1:11:58
  I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast
• 1:12:01
  at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.