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Balancing Roles in Indie Film: When You’re the Crew and the Cast · Indie Film Podcast

0:00
Welcome to Indie Film Podcast. This week we have a spectacular
0:03
guest, actor and producer Zoe Kelly, who is known as the lead
0:06
in several feature films, countless shorts, continuous
0:09
live shows. Zoe Kelly kind of does it all,
0:12
and she's recently been the lead on production as well for a
0:17
coming of age drama by Lower Gentry Studios called Stockton.
0:20
Today Will Rock, based on scenes from her own life.
0:22
And from stellar live theater performances to managing a micro
0:26
budget feature, Zoe is no stranger in wearing too many
0:30
hats. Well, thankfully I have a great
0:32
face for hats. Zoe's here to walk us through
0:35
the balancing act of lead acting combined with being a producer
0:39
and taking a closer look at performances from Indies to big
0:42
budget studios. On that note, I'm Vic.
0:44
And I am Chuck Zoe, talk about micro budget features and larger
0:51
budget sets that you've been on and how maybe volunteering
0:55
acting effects performance versus getting paid.
0:59
Can we start there? Yeah, great question.
1:01
Thanks, Chuck. I think that whenever I look at
1:05
projects that are passion projects that are working with
1:08
volunteers versus a budgeted project, whether that's a big
1:13
budget or even a little bit of a budget, I always think of
1:16
Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?
1:19
And the archetype of the suffering artist that has been
1:23
around for a millennia. And everybody knows very well
1:26
now, yes. And I got to tell you, you guys,
1:28
I'm not falling for this propaganda that you have to
1:31
suffer and starve for your art. I think that artists deserve to
1:35
be paid. And at least from like a
1:37
psychological standpoint, researchers have consistently
1:40
shown that economic security, like stable income, it, it
1:46
seriously impacts working memory, your attention control
1:51
and executive functioning, things that all people on set
1:55
and actors must have. So I think even a little bit of
1:59
a budget goes a long way in overall performance and morale
2:04
on set. Bringing, bringing science.
2:07
Bringing science to this. I know I'm podcast.
2:09
So you're positing this radical notion that if people's basic
2:13
needs are needs are met, they might be able to excel more in
2:18
those any outside project? It's a funny thing, like when
2:21
you're not hungry, you can think about the lines you memorize.
2:25
Shit, when you know where you're sleeping at night, you can all
2:29
of a sudden do things a lot better, you know?
2:31
Has our government heard about? This.
2:32
No, this. I'm just coming up with this
2:35
right now. So can you, can you talk about,
2:40
well, let's just let's just talk about Stockton a Table Rock a
2:43
little bit because you have been acting for a very long time and
2:48
Stockton to Table Rock was a feature film that was based on
2:52
scenes from your history and you basically were the lead producer
2:58
on this feature film. And I believe that was the first
3:02
time you were basically spearheading production.
3:04
Can you talk about that aspect of basically producing a micro
3:09
budget, almost 0 budget feature film and the difficulties that
3:14
you ran into that you didn't expect to run into that might
3:16
help people out there that are trying to make art without any
3:20
money? Yeah.
3:21
I firstly want to say the reason that I did produce, help produce
3:26
Stockton to Table Rock is because we didn't have anyone
3:29
else to do it. So the fact of the matter is,
3:34
and the hill I will die on is if you want to tell a story, if you
3:37
have a story to tell and you're not sure how to do it, 9 times
3:41
out of 10 just do it. Like start before you're ready,
3:45
start before you know everything and take the gumption, take the
3:50
the initiative to just start and learn on the fly.
3:53
Because if you don't do it, maybe no one will.
3:57
You're also here to be kind of a motivational speaker.
3:59
We didn't know that when we were bringing you on.
4:01
Thank you. Well, let's, for any artist
4:03
that's feeling down right now, Please remember that if you
4:05
don't make your art, nobody else will.
4:06
And that's really sad. Your art should be made.
4:09
Let's let's be a little bit more stressful then and a little bit
4:12
less motivational. Let's let's talk about let's
4:15
talk about finding a school for a Stockton to Table Rock.
4:18
And do you have a story to share there about the difficulties of
4:22
getting a location for a film that's set in a school?
4:25
I do have a little story. Thank you Chuck.
4:29
So Stockton to Table Rock, one of the main locations is a high
4:32
school and I didn't know this at the time.
4:36
I'm a lot of guts and not a lot of brain.
4:38
I was like, this will be easy. Look at my pretty face, who will
4:41
say no to me? And I contacted every single
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school within like a 100 mile radius of Boise, ID.
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And out of the, I don't even know, hundreds probably of
4:53
schools 2 got back to me. Everyone else hung up the phone
4:58
and said we're not interested. I mean, it was brutal.
5:02
And so we were fortunate enough to tour 2 school locations.
5:06
So we did have options, kind of. That sounds like options.
5:10
It's options accounts and we chose a location that will
5:14
remain unnamed. And two weeks before production,
5:17
we sent over the contract and we were about to send over the
5:22
deposit we had agreed on verbally.
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And I couldn't get a hold of anyone.
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And I started calling, hunting, trying to get a hold of my
5:29
contact. And finally I got a hold of this
5:32
individual's boss, who I guess the individual I've been working
5:36
with had got COVID and her boss said this isn't what I want to
5:40
deal with. We're about to go on summer
5:41
break. We're not interested.
5:43
And we lost our school two weeks before shooting began.
5:47
Luckily, we did have one other option.
5:49
We pivoted and the other school worked out.
5:52
And you know, I am a firm believer everything happens for
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a reason. Because the initial school we
5:57
chose, the one that ended up dropping out, they were we were
6:00
going to have to not only pay a location rental fee, we were
6:03
going to have to pay to have a staff member on site with us to
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babysit us. And there were just a lot of
6:08
other constraints they were putting on us, which we were
6:10
willing to work with to high school school.
6:12
Yeah. And it was a beautiful school.
6:16
However, the school we ended up getting, they gave us two key
6:18
cards or four key cards, I can't remember and said have at it
6:22
kid. And it was going.
6:24
You know it was. Awesome.
6:25
It like so everything happens for a reason and but there is
6:29
that time constraint, you know, two weeks out from production we
6:32
got the writer saying, well, I'll just rewrite the script
6:34
where there isn't a school involved.
6:35
And I was like, no, thank you. Because how many?
6:40
I mean how? How long is the script?
6:42
I think it was 90 ish pages. Yeah, it was right around the 90
6:45
page mark. OK, so that's months of prep
6:48
work for all your actors and then you want to rewrite
6:51
everything two weeks before, which, don't get me wrong.
6:53
Bradley Elliott Norton, your husband.
6:56
Full name. Yes, I am getting it right.
7:00
Yes, you are. I'm not saying it backwards.
7:03
Would have been able to do that, right?
7:05
Yep. No, no doubts.
7:06
Yep. But how much as the producer,
7:12
not even just as the lead actress in it, because we know
7:15
how much that would have changed things for you.
7:17
How much additional stress would have been happened because of,
7:20
you know, all the changing for the actual schedule and your
7:23
insurance costs and actually getting food and catering for
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all the people and how many new characters that may or may not
7:29
introduce. And yeah.
7:30
Well, I think that would have cut a lot of characters.
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Honestly everyone in the school would have been cut.
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So they don't think they would have been replaced with anything
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else to help carry the story anywhere else.
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Well, the, the preliminary discussions we had, he was going
7:43
to set it so that Rory was 27, her mom was however old that
7:47
would make her. And this was like a, an adult.
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It would no longer have been a coming of age story.
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I mean, it would have changed everything.
7:55
Oh yeah, that. Would have been vastly
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different. I mean, don't get me wrong,
7:58
still interesting. Yeah.
7:59
But yeah, vastly different. Yeah.
8:01
OK. Yeah.
8:01
OK, so I'm grateful for that school, endlessly grateful.
8:05
And it was probably the most stress, one of the most
8:09
stressful parts of preproduction for Stockton, for sure.
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I cried a bit. Yeah, that's valid.
8:14
And then production all sorts of loops.
8:17
There's so many loops. And we did talk about about one
8:20
of our actors wives getting pregnant.
8:23
Well, she didn't get pregnant. No, she, she, she was already
8:26
very pregnant. Very pregnant, potentially
8:28
having to give birth that day. And, and when we had so many
8:31
extras on set, it was it was wild.
8:33
It was wild. Do you do you want to talk about
8:35
acting a little bit? I always want to talk about
8:38
acting. OK, so well, let's talk about
8:41
the the production and the acting.
8:44
How do you balance what you love doing and what you hate doing?
8:47
Is there aspects of production that you hate?
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Can we throw? Yeah, I was like, let's throw a
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little precursor question in there, acting versus producing.
8:55
Do you have one that you prefer? Yeah, I think that was one of
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the things I learned doing Stockton to Table Rock is like,
9:03
I agreed to be a producer because no one else would.
9:05
And I did it. And after it was done, I was
9:09
like, holy cow, I love producing.
9:11
Yeah. Because my my artistic
9:14
statement, which I wrote before Stockton to Table Rock was very
9:17
acting centric. And it was very like, I want to
9:20
discover the Gray areas of humanity and very like
9:23
psychological and and very myopic in my acting experience.
9:28
But what happened through producing is it was like my
9:32
world exploded, my mind exploded and I realized like me as an
9:35
actor, I'm a drop in the bucket of production.
9:38
And being a producer gave me this bigger umbrella
9:42
understanding of like the actor is no more important than the
9:44
sound designer is no more important than the PA is no more
9:49
important than anyone. We are all just drops in the
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bucket making this happen. And I kind of fell in love with
9:55
film producing because I just want to be of service to the
9:58
story at the end of the day. Nice.
9:59
What was an unknown unknown that you ran into that is now a known
10:03
known well from the Jihari's window?
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I think that was the big one is I like producing.
10:08
I mean, like, I really thought I was going to hate it.
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I thought I was going to be doing it because I had to and no
10:13
one else would. And, you know, kind of
10:15
begrudgingly do it. And, and I came away being like,
10:18
no, I could see myself doing this and being happy because as
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long as stories are getting told, like that's fulfilling my,
10:24
what I put it was put on this earth to do.
10:28
How has it helped your auditioning and your acting
10:31
having produced? Yeah, huge impact having the
10:35
side from the other. It's given me a lot to think
10:41
about being on the other side of production in so far as if I
10:44
don't get the role, it's not necessarily because I'm a bad
10:47
actor. And if I don't get the role,
10:49
it's not because I wasn't pretty enough or skinny enough.
10:52
Like sometimes there are things that are indescribable that
10:57
casting is looking for that maybe just isn't me.
10:59
And like, that is OK. And so it's maybe more OK with
11:04
rejection. Just having watched so many
11:06
brilliant auditions and not having the like, well, she
11:09
sucks. It's never that.
11:11
It's like, wow, that was a truthful, beautiful performance
11:13
and it wasn't quite what we were looking for.
11:16
And sometimes it can be the weirdest thing.
11:18
It's just like, yeah, it's just the way their nose moves when
11:21
they talk. It doesn't fit what I had in
11:23
mind for the character moving on.
11:24
And it's like, not anything you have control over.
11:26
It's not anything negative, It's not anything bad.
11:28
It's just, it's not you. Exactly.
11:30
Or like even we all as actors, we are tasked with bringing our
11:34
unique Eunice to the role. And like I know my knee jerks
11:39
are to be condes. Like in a high intensity scene,
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I go condescending anger and and I shut down.
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Whereas other actresses are going to be more vulnerable,
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more open, more teary, more weepy.
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And like that's just not me. Like it takes a lot of work for
11:56
me to get there and I can get there, but like that's not going
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to be my knee jerk in an audition.
12:00
And like, sometimes castings, like, wow, it was really
12:03
truthful, really beautiful, but it's too harsh or it's too, you
12:06
know, it's just not the right vibe.
12:07
If you come across as kind of fierce and they want something
12:10
that's a little more demure, like that's not a bad thing,
12:13
that's not an insult. So, so you would say maybe
12:17
producing has kind of helped you find inner peace?
12:19
Definitely odd, as odd as that sounds.
12:22
I would agree and it's helped me honestly.
12:25
You guys, I don't mean to talk smack about my past self, but
12:29
it's helped me show up early, have a good attitude the whole
12:33
time, hit my mark. Listen to the audio and or the
12:37
sound designer when he says hey, can you stop ruffling that bag
12:40
around so much? And instead of being like I'm
12:43
trying to act, I need to be focused.
12:47
It's like, oh OK act, do your damn job.
12:49
And also don't make the bag ruffle like you know what I
12:52
mean? I actually heard I heard one
12:55
story about Stockton to Table Rock about your your Co lead
12:59
Jessica. And there was a scene in the the
13:04
house that was set as Rory and Shelly's home where the floor
13:09
was a little loud and creaky, right?
13:10
Am I remembering this correctly? And she had to walk back and
13:13
forth and she's kind of pacing and she's having this big
13:15
accelerated moment and and the sound Chuck says you can't say
13:21
the lines while you're moving. We're not going to hear it.
13:24
And she just nailed it. She just did.
13:26
She's like, oh, heard, and it does it.
13:28
Yeah, I mean, she literally went OK, She thought for like 10
13:32
seconds and then she went all right.
13:34
Let's do it and just pop right into it and it.
13:36
Didn't take anything away from the performance.
13:38
It's like because being an actor is being an artist and a
13:42
craftsperson, like you have to have the technical capabilities
13:46
as well as the emotional access in order to perform well.
13:49
And so it's that balancing act of how do I, how do I be
13:53
truthful and play the truth and also not mess up the sound
13:58
because it's very important. Or throw delicate props around,
14:00
or drop something where another character is not going to be
14:04
able to pick this up and run with it later, like or.
14:06
Accidentally hurt my Co actor because I'm not being aware of
14:09
my body or whatever it is. You know, like.
14:11
Kind of sounds like a fun story. I don't have a story but I'm
14:13
sure there is one. It's not my story, it just
14:16
happens. It happens so.
14:20
That's fair. What's something that you had to
14:22
learn on the fly during the shooting?
14:25
A stock chain to Table Rock or something, Maybe even outside of
14:28
that that was surprising to you that you're able to do it, Or
14:32
maybe that you completely failed and wish you could go back and
14:36
do it differently or will do it differently the next time.
14:38
Yeah, I think like I had to learn a lot on the fly, like how
14:41
to fill out a call sheet or how to scout a location.
14:45
And the number one pursuit that I think I'm trying to take with
14:49
me everywhere is to be my own calm within the storm.
14:54
Like being a good leader and being a good collaborator is
14:59
being able to speak up when something is important to me
15:02
into the story. And also being able to have
15:05
emotion, emotional intelligence, to be able to calm my inner
15:09
nerves, my inner storm when maybe I think we're running too
15:13
behind or maybe, you know, all these these factors that will
15:16
pop up on set and being able to take a breath and no matter how
15:20
I'm feeling, exude confidence and cool, calm collectedness.
15:24
And I think that's a life long pursuit, of course.
15:27
And then did you have scenes that you had a struggle with
15:30
being a producer and also acting where it was hard to stay in
15:35
character or hard to stay focused on that because you were
15:39
juggling a lot of those things in the back of your head?
15:42
I'm sure there were, you know, it was several years ago.
15:45
So looking back at it, I do remember on the days that I got
15:49
to just be a producer where it was, we were filming young Rory
15:52
scenes. I did feel a sense of relief and
15:57
a different layer of presence and then having my brain split
16:01
in two. But I also AM the way I act and
16:07
the way I have studied acting like I don't always need to be
16:10
feeling it in order to give a great performance.
16:12
In fact, I rarely am feeling it, whatever that means.
16:17
It's it's a rarity. And so being able to just like
16:20
drop in, be present, have my lines forward and backwards and
16:24
do my job and then be able to put on another hat, I mean, it
16:28
taught me a resilience that no other experience has and that I
16:31
carry with me on to every single set.
16:33
And I'm grateful for it. Right on.
16:36
Let's let's talk about Rory, the character from Stockton and how
16:41
did you get into that character? Because essentially I can give a
16:45
little bit of the back story here about Stockton to Table
16:47
Rock. It's it's comes from examples of
16:50
your life. However, Bradley writer,
16:53
director Bradley Norton wrote like wrote something completely
16:56
different. So it was kind of like, yes,
16:59
it's true, it's not true. How did you get yourself into
17:04
that role? Because it isn't exactly who you
17:07
are, but similar. What was your prep work for
17:10
that? Yeah, so the flashback scenes in
17:13
Stockton to Table Rock are based on my memories.
17:16
However, Rory is not Zoe at all. In fact, you know Rory is a go
17:23
getter. She is self actualized.
17:25
She is trying to make changes in her life.
17:27
Zoe at that age was smoking cigarettes behind the dumpster
17:30
and going off to house parties and trying to escape everything.
17:33
I gave up. I was like like Rory is so
17:36
different from me that I just approached this project like I
17:39
approach any project. I always start by reading the
17:42
script once for pleasure. The second time I write down
17:46
everything the script says about me, what other characters say
17:49
about me and what I say about me.
17:51
When I say me, I mean the character.
17:53
And then I read it again and again and again until I identify
17:57
what's called a super objective for what your character wants
17:59
around the entire script. Then I go through, I do my scene
18:03
goals, I do my tactics, my my verbs, my inner monologue.
18:07
Then I start curating memories and a back story.
18:11
And with film projects, I really like to do, and I learned this
18:14
from understudying. I like to create a tracking
18:17
sheet where I'm coming from, what just happened, what I need
18:21
to know. Because we film out of order and
18:23
I can get confused. I'm not that bright.
18:26
And so I need, I don't. Friend, no, that's not one, not
18:29
accurate. And two, also, no, it's really
18:32
confusing. Yeah, it's that's are wild
18:34
there. You're filming everything all
18:36
over the place and none of it is cohesive or on any sort of
18:40
linear timeline. Yeah, I think that's very valid
18:42
and actually really smart. Like that's a good tip for other
18:45
actors, especially if they're not comfortable filming.
18:49
Like if they've done a lot of stage, yes, but they haven't
18:51
done a lot of film. That's a really valuable tool
18:53
for them. Especially jumping into a
18:55
feature film, whereas a short film, obviously there's a couple
18:58
days so it be easier to keep straight.
18:59
But we were doing 20 days of filming roughly 20/21/21.
19:04
Yeah, yeah. And totally out of sequence.
19:07
Yeah, even in the same day, jumping around all over the
19:10
place. Oh, that's right, because you
19:11
only had the school for like 11 week or a few days or something
19:15
like that and. 5 days. I think so.
19:17
And we had to move it COVID after after the school, one
19:20
school cancelled, then a bunch of a bunch of the cast got
19:23
COVID. And so the the the other school
19:26
was flexible in that way too, where they're like, oh, OK,
19:28
that's fine. You can cancel this shoot and
19:29
this shoot and then you can come back in on another day.
19:31
We're like, thank you for that. Yeah, super, super flexible.
19:36
But then we had to reorganize all the shootings so that the
19:39
the people that didn't have COVID could get shot 1st and
19:42
then the people that were quarantining could come at the
19:44
end. Come in later, yeah?
19:46
When it was safe for them to be on set.
19:48
Yeah. And so then that threw another
19:50
wrench in it where I'm producing.
19:52
So I'm having to pivot all of these scenes and the scheduling
19:55
and and whatever the logistics. And then also as an actor, I had
20:00
not gotten off book for the scene that we had to film the
20:02
next day. Because it wasn't supposed to be
20:04
for another week or so. So then it was having to speed
20:08
get off book for all of these scenes that I had done the prep
20:11
work for. But I wasn't memorized because I
20:13
I memorized as we go throughout the process on a feature film,
20:17
it's a 90 page script unless I have a small role.
20:19
But this one, it was like a Hamlet line load.
20:21
Like, I'm not going to do it like a play.
20:24
No, that that feels like a lot of extra headspace that maybe
20:27
you didn't have to spare at this point.
20:29
Yeah, and also I was like making all the props too.
20:32
So there's this really great video I took of like me making
20:35
the badges for the teachers at the school.
20:38
And I'm also listening to my lines, memorizing my lines.
20:42
And I'm also like fielding emails for.
20:44
And it like that was my life for a long time, all of our lives,
20:48
not just mine, but for, for this whole period.
20:51
And like it was I, I'm sugar coating it because I have time
20:56
to look back at it and it's almost like a pregnancy.
20:59
Like women right after they give birth are like, I'm never doing
21:01
that again. And then they're like pregnant
21:03
like a year later and you're like, wait, girl.
21:05
No, it's it's because it's done intentionally, right?
21:07
It's oxytocin. Fucks us all over.
21:11
That's what I. Every time because you saw, you
21:13
saw that you saw it done and you're like so proud of it and
21:15
how much it's affected other people and you're like, of
21:17
course I would do that again. As a matter of fact, why aren't
21:19
we doing it now? Because like, it was so bad.
21:22
I wasn't, I wasn't sleeping. I would maybe go to bed at 1:00
21:25
in the morning. I would wake up at 4, AMI would
21:27
start working. I like I wasn't sleeping, I
21:30
wasn't eating very well. Like it was so stressful that
21:33
things got very dark mentally for me.
21:35
And at the end of shooting, I looked at Bradley and I said, I
21:37
will never do that again. Like dead ass.
21:41
And then now I'm like, I can't wait to produce and act in our
21:44
next film. Please send help save me from
21:48
myself. And then at the end of the at
21:50
the end of the shoot, your house flooded too.
21:52
No, that was at the beginning. Oh, that was the beginning.
21:54
The. Beginning of the.
21:55
Shoot. Oh, that's right.
21:56
That's. But you were basically living
21:57
out of an Airbnb then while all of your flooring was.
22:01
You don't need the stability of home back to Maslow's needs
22:04
while you're filming and producing and handling
22:08
everything so. Not only am I acting trying to
22:11
remember all my lines being character.
22:13
Make sure crafty shows up on time.
22:14
Make sure the PA knows where they're going.
22:16
I'm also calling the the insurance agent making sure our
22:19
floors are getting replaced like.
22:22
And that this is going to be covered and that we are not
22:24
responsible for this and you are paying for us to stay somewhere
22:27
else. Yeah.
22:28
Which they did shout out Progressive or whoever we're
22:31
insured with, I actually don't know.
22:34
We'll just we'll just say insert insurance company.
22:37
Leave it out. Give.
22:38
Us. Yeah, give us money.
22:39
Go home, look it up, text us, we'll cut it into a vertical
22:42
short and we'll throw their logo up and beg them to give us the
22:45
money. Who knows?
22:45
Let's do it. I like it.
22:47
Should we should we talk? I totally skipped over famous
22:50
Hollywood films and usually we do that at the beginning, but
22:53
let's let's chat about that a little bit.
22:54
Who, who do you aspire to be as far as acting is concerned?
22:58
Zoe Who? Who?
22:58
Who is somebody that people should know about that you find
23:02
as a strong actor? OK, I do have a list.
23:05
OK. Cool.
23:06
So literally all time favorite actors will die on this hill.
23:10
They are the best of the best. Philip Seymour Hoffman coming in
23:14
#1 This is an order. Right on roll of Philip Seymour
23:18
Hoffman, then. I it's a toss up between Doubt
23:20
and Capote. OK right on.
23:22
I love him in everything he does.
23:23
I'm sure there's a better movie out there, but those are top two
23:27
in my opinion. Frances Mcdorman #2 she just
23:30
played Lady Macbeth in the Macbeth.
23:34
Oh, OK, that would be the one. Anyway.
23:36
She's done a lot of really brilliant work.
23:38
She played Lady Mcbee and Hamlet.
23:39
Yeah, exactly. It's very weird.
23:41
I don't know how she made it work, but she did.
23:43
I don't. Know I had to specify that Kate
23:46
Winslet everything stunning gorgeous beautiful want to be
23:50
her when I grow up and you guys knew one for me just discovered
23:54
it in sinners stack and smoke baby Michael B Jordan.
23:57
I'm so glad you are finally on board with Michael B Jordan.
24:00
But I have to say, and oh gosh, Miles, is that the other?
24:06
The one who is actually the Blues player, The younger
24:08
cousin. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:10
So I don't know. Apparently no experience
24:13
whatsoever. That was his first film role.
24:15
Yeah. And he crushed it.
24:17
Yeah. I feel like being alongside
24:19
Michael B Jordan may have helped.
24:20
Yeah, I think loved sinners and if you're out there and we work
24:25
together, as soon either of you, you know, you're I love your
24:28
work and I could kind of tell that it was his first film.
24:32
Like he's he's green and it works for the role.
24:34
Oh it worked so. Beautiful.
24:36
I'm I'm glad they went that route because that fit the
24:39
character so hard. But I got to tell you, I fell in
24:41
love with that man's voice. Oh, who did?
24:44
And. Right.
24:46
You still need to see it because the sound design you.
24:48
Haven't seen it. No, I'm still on that.
24:50
The sound design in there, he's going to flip.
24:52
There's a car scene in this movie where they're talking
24:55
about something that happened elsewhere, and they get all the
24:59
audio from elsewhere and play it in the car while he's having
25:03
this monologue. Instead of like cutting away or
25:06
doing anything creative or weird with the camera, they keep it
25:08
really simple, really basic. But the sound design is so much.
25:11
Cheaper. It's so much cheaper just to do
25:13
sound design stuff and get other shots.
25:15
No, but the sound design and the score in that movie was 10 out
25:19
of 10. All the performances, the
25:21
storytelling. I mean I do have one qualm with
25:24
it, but we won't go down that road.
25:25
It's not performance related, it's storytelling.
25:27
So I'm not a writer, I shouldn't give notes, but IA great great
25:30
film I do like. Actors who portray stories and
25:34
producers who make stories happen are allowed to have notes
25:37
about stories. Maybe, maybe another time.
25:40
They are. And then the last one I wanted
25:43
to throw in there for ultimate performances.
25:46
I got to give a shout out to my favorite bad boy who gets a bad
25:49
rap, Nicolas Cage and leaving Las Vegas.
25:51
Nicolas Cage gets no shade on the show.
25:54
We adore that man. Always.
25:56
Well, you know he should get a little shade because the man
25:59
does everything. Have you seen vampires kiss?
26:01
I not a friend of mine keeps telling me to and keeps sending
26:05
me clips from it like him running down the street just
26:07
screaming that he's a vampire and I really want to see that
26:10
one. What's the one where he just
26:11
yells the alphabet? Was that vampire's?
26:14
KISS, I think it is. Oh, track, yeah.
26:17
He was explaining to like somebody like the office
26:19
receptionist, like how the filing system works and you just
26:22
start screaming the alphabet. It's such a good scene.
26:25
But Nicolas Cage, no matter what you think of him, good or bad,
26:28
he experiments with how big you can go while still being
26:32
believable. Because I think he's certifiably
26:34
insane. When you when and me too, when
26:37
he goes super big, you believe it.
26:40
You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He, he's there.
26:42
He's just there. He's just there.
26:44
And that's my goal. He's one of my These people are
26:47
all people I was fired to be one day.
26:49
I love it. That's fantastic.
26:51
Last question for you Zoe. I'm going to read this out
26:53
exactly. Indie films are notoriously low
26:56
budget, which means a lot of volunteers and or underpayment.
26:59
Hollywood tends to blow a lot of money on a couple of big name
27:02
listers. Given those two scenarios, which
27:05
situation is more like to have much situation is more likely to
27:08
have a better ensemble performance in your opinion?
27:12
OK, I have a hot take on this. OK, So I think ensemble
27:15
performances done really well are really rare.
27:19
I think in general in films they're rare.
27:21
I did just see Eddington, beautiful ensemble performance.
27:25
Pulp Fiction stands out as another beautiful So we got
27:28
indie, we got studio. However, I do want to say in my
27:32
opinion, TV shows, especially as seasons progress, that's where
27:37
you can get some really juicy ensemble performances because
27:42
the actors have more time. They have more time to get to
27:45
know their fellow actors. They have more time to get to
27:47
know their characters and their their colleagues characters.
27:50
And sort of why a stage play might have a better experience
27:53
and a better likelihood of an ensemble working well together
27:55
because they've been rehearsing for months and months and months
27:58
together. Yes, I, I just think like, you
28:02
know, when you look at Breaking Bad, like no, that is an
28:04
ensemble performance that I have not seen done in a feature film
28:08
yet, you know, or, or even you guys are rewatching Deadwood.
28:12
That's a great ensemble. That's very generous of you to
28:15
say. Rewatching for me, I have never
28:18
seen it before. I was trying.
28:19
I appreciate you trying to protect me.
28:21
I was, thank you. I'm trying to catch up on
28:24
popular media. I'm a few decades behind.
28:27
It's a great show, though I wish I were you being able to rewatch
28:30
it, you know, and or the wire, right, The wire, another great
28:34
ensemble. So I think the the format of ATV
28:38
lends itself a bit stronger to an ensemble performance.
28:41
So for an indie filmmaker, then you're saying it, in your
28:45
opinion, it would be worth it for them to pay a little bit
28:48
more for one actor and then save money on some of the other ones?
28:52
Because you're only going to get so good of an ensemble
28:54
performance anyway. I'm kidding.
28:56
Well, I think, well that's a great question.
28:59
I think that's really multi layered.
29:01
I think as an indie film producer there are benefits to
29:05
paying a little more for named talent because then when you go
29:07
to market and distribute or even go to festivals, you're going to
29:11
get more attention and more recognition than if you don't.
29:14
However, not every name talent is made the same.
29:19
Like God bless Brad Pitt and good fortune on his great
29:23
success in his career. However, Brad Pitt and Philip
29:26
Seymour Hoffman are not the same, period.
29:29
One's dead. One's dead, sadly.
29:33
The greatest of all time. Careful, this doesn't come out
29:35
for a few weeks and we've already had two celebrities.
29:37
I don't think we should be talking about the third one
29:39
that's going to drop. I just think we should wait.
29:41
I think we should talk. About it.
29:42
But Philip is dead, yes. But the implication is that the
29:45
other one isn't, and there's going to be another.
29:48
They always go in threes. No, not Brad.
29:51
It's not your time. I love you, Brad.
29:52
You're beautiful. You're just not Philip.
29:54
Seymour Hoffman. Beautiful.
29:56
But Philip Seymour Hoffman didn't have ABS, so you know, we
29:59
all have our strengths. That's true, see, because they
30:02
would be turned down for different roles for very
30:04
different reasons. See fact.
30:06
There we go. It's not.
30:07
It's not you as an actor. It's not what the role needs.
30:10
It's them. Full circle.
30:12
Well, with that show, we have a succinct farewell.
30:16
Sounds wonderful. Excellent.
30:18
Bye, bye, bye.