Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 371: Selling Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark with Cody Meirick

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BPS 371: Selling Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark with Cody Meirick · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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You are listening to the IFAH 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,
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Episode number three seventy one. Hell is Empty and all the Devils are
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here William Shakespeare broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we really
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should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing
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you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay
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bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
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episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari.
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Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now. Unlike
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other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project
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you are and the goals of the project you are. You break it down
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by three categories, micro budget, indie film, market and studio film.
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There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to reading temp pole
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movies when your movie is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars and
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we wanted to focus on that At Bulletproof script coverage, our readers have worked
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with Marvel Studios, CIA, WME, NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott
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Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more. So if
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you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head on over
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to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Our guest today Cody Merrick, who is the filmmaker
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behind Scary Stories the documentary. Now, this documentary is based on the wildly
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successful Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and it is a very very
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popular ip or intellectual property that no one really done anything with and no one
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had ever really done a deep dive into the like the history, the or
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of how these stories came to be and the popularity behind them, and it's
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only you know, it's one of the most banned book series of all time
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because of the scariness of them, honestly, and Cody decided to put a
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documentary together and it just so happened that Get Them Aldough Toro's produced narrative version
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of that also came out this past summer as well. So the timing was
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perfect, it was absolutely perfect. And in this episode we talk about how
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Cody's selling his film, how he was able to create a product for a
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niche audience, how he was able to reach that niche audience get them excited
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about the project, and his strategy on not only how he made it,
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but how he's really just getting it out into the world and monetizing that audience
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and providing value to that audience. So, without any further ado, please
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enjoy my Scary conversation with Cody merrick I'd like to welcome to the show,
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Cody Merrick Man. Thank you so much for being on the show. Brother,
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Thanks for having me appreciate it. So we're going to talk about your
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documentary Scary Stories today. But first and foremost, man, how did you
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get started in the film business? Sure? So, I started so kind.
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I was always the creative type, and for a long time I wanted
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to be a writer. I kind of I guess I've thought back and realized
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back in my twenties, I spent my twenties I spent wanting to be a
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writer, a novelist, right, And it's because I always had this creative
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side. And then around the time I turned thirty, right before moved to
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Chicago, got a job with an education nonprofit where I worked to this day
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running a website and nowadays a lot of times running a website often involves creating
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content and in this case creating media, creating videos, web content, instructional
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videos, that sort of thing, right, And so I kind of learned
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a lot over the course of time working there, becoming a halfway decent editor,
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you know, telling the story in three minute chunks in some respects.
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And so so I got a certain amount of experience there, and at a
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certain point, about five years ago, I decided, you know what,
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I have a lot of the tools and the know how and that sort of
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thing to do a film, a low budget film, and going back to
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this kind of creative side, and so so I needed and a documentary really
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made sense. You know. Essentially what I do is, you know,
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make three minute documentaries and web form, you know, putting on a website,
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and so so a full length documentary made a lot of sense. I
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wanted to be marketable, I wanted to make sense. I also wanted to
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make sense for me to do it, you know, having from an education
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nonprofit talking about and also with degrees in literature and that sort of thing,
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you know, children's literature made a lot of sense it also. First and
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foremo I always would recommend if you're going to spend the years to get off
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the ground your project, then have it be something you're interested in. Have
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it be something you're passionate about, that sort of thing. And so so
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this idea to do a documentary on this particular title made a whole lot of
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sense for me. And so, yeah, I mean at some point you
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just you commit and you say you're doing this. It's yeah, exactly like
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you You've done all these plans and so on and so forth, and you
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you but at some point you just like put it out there. Guess what
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my name is, Cody Merrick, and I'm making this documentary and and you
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know it has fits and starts over over years, and documentaries definitely can because
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you can kind of piece together interviews and other things over time and so and
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so that's what I did. So its uh, I've been saying five years.
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Most of it happened over the course of three ish years. But then
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you can add on taking it to some festivals, finally getting distribution, so
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on and so forth. So the whole process from get go to you know,
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beginning was basically five years. Nice five years. So that's a long
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time to be on a project. So I'm assuming you're not doing this twenty
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four hours a day, seven days a week. I'm assuming you have your
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this is a side hustle at this point. No, No, I mean
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the job I said I got about ten years ago here in Chicago, still
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there. It's developed, the website has really grown, and I've helped it
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to grow, and we've gone it, taken it in different directions. But
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I'm still doing that to this day. Yeah. Very cool. Now,
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you made a documentary based on the very very popular Scary Stories franchise, which
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is almost as like a Goosebumps. I think behind They're only behind Goosebumps as
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far as sales are concerned. Correct, Yes, yes, And the interesting
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thing, you know, I did our interview R al Stein, the author
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of Goosebumps, and he's kind of my celebrity. I definitely have some other
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fairly well known people, but R al Stein's the one where it's like he's
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the Stephen King of the children's you know, children's literature. Everyone's heard pretty
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much heard of him, you know, And so he's a celebrity, right
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and so, but anyways, but these are a little bit different than his
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because r. Al Stein's been interviewed about a million times, and it's a
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different interview when you're interviewing someone who's been interviewed a million times. These books,
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the author passed away a long time ago, and the illustrator is at
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this point famously known for not doing interviews, and so there is kind of
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a hole there that like, okay, you know, a documentary that kind
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of gets under under the hood and learns a bit about these books and how
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they came to be and how how they're it's kind of a fandom, you
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know, and that's what's great for a documentary is that, you know,
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there's people that are very passionate about this title, whatever it may be.
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And then also you have the censorship piece. It's the argue. Really arguably
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the most banned or challenged children's book of the last forty years, I say
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children's book book. The first year in the first decade that the American Library
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Association made a list a decade long list was in the nineteen ninety It was
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number one on the list. The most challenged book of the nineteen nineties were
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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and it was still in the top
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ten. The last one wasn't published since nineteen ninety one, and so you
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know, in between two thousand and two thousand and ninety it was still in
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the top ten. So it was still a very much challenged book, even
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though they were you know, they were always in print, but you know,
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you didn't they weren't. You know, they had become more of a
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having a cult following in that sort of thing. And so this is very
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different than, for instance, a Goosebumps documentary because there's there's a number of
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other components to kind of go down and channel your documentary into. Now,
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when you went when you decided to go down this long and windy road of
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making this duck documentary, you had obviously in your mind. You know,
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you chose a subject matter that is something that you can leverage. So you're
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leveraging the Scary Stories brand. You're also you're also leveraging the audience for scary
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stories, which is over seven million books, if I'm not mistaken, have
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been sold, and on top of that, how many more have been read,
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So you're talking about millions. This is a very large niche audience,
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but an audience that you could arguably target if you wanted to go after them
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through Facebook, through other ways of cultivating that audience. What were some of
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the ways that you did cultivate an audience or plan to target this audience with
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your with your film. Sure it takes time, but I'm with with.
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I also run the social media for the nonprofit I work for, so I've
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got a lot of experience with with you know, growing an audience on social
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media and that sort of thing and targeting an audience. Right, we'll be
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right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
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A. You gotta stay active, You just gotta. And you know,
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each one is different. I remember I have a friend who is,
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you know, doing a podcast totally not filmmaking podcasts, just a podcast anyways,
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and he, you know, I talked to him a bit about it,
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and and you know, you're you're still no matter what, you're probably
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you're you're attaching yourself to a niche audience. And and so you're you're you
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want to have a h avenue and and and all all your the different platforms
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you're on to be constantly pumping out fresh stuff that people can like, people
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can share so on and so forth. People are going to notice you because
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you're pumping out new information. How do you do that? Well, each
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one is different, but I can guarantee you any anything, any documentary that
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has a topic, I can tell you what the niche is, right,
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you know, you're what's the one you usually use? Vegan chefs, Yes,
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the vegan chef, Yes, vegan chefs. Well, there you go.
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I mean that's you wouldn't want a documentary topic that's just food. It's
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way too broad. You're you're competing with you know, websites and social media
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that you know, it's it shows and networks. Yeah, networks exactly.
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Now, start to put niche down. Okay, vegan chef, Okay,
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you know what you can wrap your head around that there's people sharing things around,
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you know, being a vegan. There are people who've written books about,
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you know, being vegan, and I bet they would like to be
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promoted. So you promote them, and then when your film comes out,
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they're gonna go, oh, yeah, this is the person who shared my
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thing. So on and so so did you do that with this? Did
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you do that with this? This movie? If someone's followed me on social
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media for a while they know I'm just incredibly active with this particular one.
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You know, the art, the illustrations from the book are have become incredibly
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well known and beloved by many people. People get tattoos of the art,
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people do adaptations of the art but then in a different style, or that
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makes claymation things, or I don't know, there's a million things where people
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are kind of paying homage to the art. I guarantee you, in the
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past five years, if you made something, I probably shared. Made something
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related to scary stories to tell the dark, I probably shared it. Also,
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it's all based in folklore and urban legends, so there's a lot of
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kind of fun, interesting avenues you can go down, you know, just
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to pick one story, pick one single story from it, and I probably
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shared some kind of tidbit about that story at some point, so on and
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so forth, on different So I mean, it's just being really active,
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constantly pumping out stuff related to your topic, and people will like it,
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they'll share it, their comment on it, and so forth. You know,
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it's it's a hustle, you know, Yeah, but I you know,
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just leading up to my first crowdfunding campaign, I spent nine months building
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it and I've been building ever since. But I told myself I need nine
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months to even build a little bit of an audience for that first one,
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which I did, And how did How did the crowdfunding campaign go? It
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went? Okay, I mean I have a I definitely have a love hate
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relationship with crowdfunding at this point, which is to say, you know,
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I know it's it's it's perfectly valid way to go. And I won't say
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I won't do it again for sure. I definitely can't say that because maybe
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I just need to. That said, you know, so the first time
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I raised over seven thousand, and then I and then the two subsequent times
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I raised around two thousand each, so I raised somewhere in the twelve thousand
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range over the span of three campaigns. It happened, you know, different
14:07
points of the production, so I could, Okay, the first time I
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didn't, I just had a mostly a video pitch. I didn't have a
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trailer. The second time I had a trailer, third time, so on
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and so forth. I mean, you know, you try to, you
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know, give them something new each time you're doing it. That said,
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each subsequent time, Okay, number one, the first one was the most
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successful because no one had ever thought about doing a documentary about scary stories to
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tell in the dark. There's the coolest idea ever. People loved it.
14:35
I didn't have a very good pitch. The pitch video was actually I look
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back and I don't like it, you know, but I didn't have enough
14:43
for a trailer or a proper trailer and so on and so forth. But
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just the very idea got me some press. I got mentioned on some very
14:52
major websites just with the very concept of doing a documentary about these books.
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And so then subsequent ones it dropped off, you know, a because I
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was hitting a lot of the same a certain amount of the same audience I
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was before through social media. You know, I'd been building it, but
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still it's it's hard. And then also it's not a new idea anymore,
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so you know, it's much people are still discovering it, so you can
15:18
get some traction there, but it's it's definitely hard to get new press.
15:24
If you know, if okay, I've heard of that, I don't know
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if it'll ever get done. So it's hard to it's hard to you know,
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to see and that was my experience. That's not to say everyone has
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that same experience, but that was mine, and so it's it's it's tough
15:39
that said. Could I have done this without crowdfunding? No? Probably not.
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I mean, this is the end budget I estimate being around thirty five
15:48
thousand dollars, you know, and that was paid for in various ways,
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and that twelve thousand was a big chunk. Sure, So yeah, all
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right. Now, a lot of people think that you need permit or you
16:00
need the rights to do a documentary on a known subject. I know the
16:06
answer to be no for the most part, depending on what you do with
16:15
it. So can you talk? I'm sure this has come up. Were
16:21
you contacted by the CBS film people who are the producers of the Nukuia mol
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del Toro produced narrative feature film version of this? So okay, so early
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on, here's here's my advice right to that if you can do you absolutely
16:40
want to do, and that is getting access. Now, getting access in
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a lot of ways is part of what's going to sell the documentary in the
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long run. But then also getting that access allows you to get out of
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various legal ramifications. If you're getting that access by access, I mean,
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okay, you know, for instance, in my case. Uh, the
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family of the author of the books reached out to me after that crowdfunding first
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kept crowdfunding campaign. They loved the idea of the censorshipping. I mean,
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I'm sure they liked the idea of celebrating these books in a documentary form and
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that sort of thing. But also, you know the fact that I was
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really putting the censorship component upfront and a big part of what the documentary was
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going to be about. They liked that. They loved it, and so
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they supported it. So so that right there was a big thing right there.
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Approval. Yes, and they were a little bit of a liaison to
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some degree with the CBS film folks. Yes, they heard about it along
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the way. Of course this all happened over years, but they heard about
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it, you know. Main thing, and they didn't have to tell me
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this, but I was told indirectly was just make sure you're not adapting any
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of the stories. Well, of course not, you know I know that,
18:06
I know I can't do that, and it's a documentary, so you
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know. Now the illustrations, that's a different thing altogether. Yes, So
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so again, the illustrators has been known for many years. It does not
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engage, whether it's interviews or anything else. Now. And I can see
18:23
all over the internet that people are, you know, not only replicating his
18:29
art and they're putting on shirts and selling them, they're making money on his
18:32
illustrations. And I have, after tons of research in numerous years, I
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knew he doesn't seem to be lowering up and that sort of thing. So
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so there was that that said. That said, the tricky part, definitely
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with a documentary is okay, you know, let's hope no one even tries
18:53
to get a lawyer, right, And definitely because so you want to keep
18:57
everything everyone happy one and if you're doing a relatively positive spin on spin on
19:06
it, then then you're you're relatively safe, which is to say you're safer
19:11
than not. You know, it's not like I'm attacking these books, are
19:14
attacking an ip you know, uh that for some reason. Then then you're
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going to get into all kinds of you know, possible ramifications and legal and
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all that stuff. That said, I mean, there's definitely that's bolts part
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of it as far as okay, you know, I don't have permission to
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use these illustrations, but I use them throughout the documentary, but people are
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talking about the illustrate. It's illustrating a point that someone is saying, so
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on and so forth. I mean, there's a nuts and bolts way of
19:44
editing it. So you're pretty safe. That said, you're still going to
19:48
end up giving it to a lawyer at the end and saying here, watch
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the whole thing. How how much risk am I taking on? We'll be
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right back after a word for our sponsor and now back to the show,
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right, you know, and and and yeah, I mean one thing I
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would recommend is, if you can, especially with the documentary, it's a
20:17
bit easier, get a fiscal sponsor. And and that really helped because I
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don't know if I how much I could afford the legal fees that I needed
20:29
sporadically, and I was able to get them for free because I got a
20:33
fiscal sponsor and and went through channels to get that, and so that was
20:37
very helpful. You're always taking on a certain amount of risk. I mean,
20:41
I don't know every film is risk, right, I mean, you
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do the consent process as best you can. Documentary, you're you're gonna you're
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definitely lessening your risk all along the way by doing proper consents and you know,
20:56
so on and so forth, and jumping through hurdles and getting certain things
21:00
signed from certain people and stuff like that. That said, I was told
21:04
by another documentary film americ er some time ago. I mean, you,
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legally speaking, you can get away with a certain amount of seconds and you're
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it's it's probably not gonna get any traction anyone trying to say you can't show
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that. I mean, if it's brief enough, and again wrap it in
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like the fact that people it's people are talking about it and you're showing something,
21:30
you know, that's illustrating their point and that sort of thing. Yeah,
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there is a there's something called fair use, and there's a certain amount
21:36
of that. But there's a film that I always always come up with.
21:40
I always bring up His Room two three seven that documented about Stanley Kubrick.
21:44
Yes, Like you watch that movie and they're like just shooting they're just showing
21:48
full scenes from the shining, like completely, and they're actually now showing full
21:52
scenes of the shining. They're shooting showing full scenes of eyes wide shut,
21:56
and they're using it to demonstrate something else. But you know, and that
22:00
movie didn't get to and I know, it wasn't in a positive light.
22:03
I mean it made it made Stanley into this kind of wreck, loose,
22:07
crazy conspiracy theorist kind of thing. So it wasn't a positive spin on the
22:15
film on Stanley on anything. So next and you could see the very first
22:18
thing that second, this is not sponsored or approved by anybody at Warner Brothers,
22:22
anybody at this or that. But it got made and got released in
22:26
a large way. But the one thing that they do do in that movie
22:30
is they never show a clip of a movie without someone talking underneath it.
22:37
It's never like they just show a scene from the shining like. They didn't
22:40
do that. They basically always had someone talking under it. So it's all
22:45
about how much you want to kind of go after it, you know how
22:48
much. And that's and that's what you learn about fair use. There isn't
22:52
if you're looking for some kind of rule hard and fast, there is going
22:55
to find it. It doesn't exist. The hard and fast rule is get
22:57
a lawyer and talk to them along the way, along the way, or
23:02
definitely you know, when it's finishing, you have a you know, or
23:03
you haven't a cut of it. That's the hard and fast rule is honestly,
23:08
and I guarantee you they had they talked to a lawyer and they laid
23:11
out risks, and they probably I'm sure there's still what we're risks I mean
23:17
massive. Yeah, yeah, there's still plenty of risk there. I mean
23:22
to some degree, you're you're going down the road of h What you can
23:26
do from the very beginning is choose a topic where you know, you don't
23:32
think anyone is going to have a problem with it, right, I mean,
23:36
it all depends, like I mean, if you go, you know,
23:38
like I did. I went to the Sundance Film Festival and shot a
23:41
whole film at the Sundance Film Festival without their permission, shooting while the festival
23:47
is going on. And to you know, a lot of people are like,
23:49
are you afraid of Sundance? I'm like, no, I really hope
23:52
they lawyer up because can you imagine the press on Sundance trying to crow down
24:00
on an independent filmmaker to make a film about Basically, it was a love
24:03
letter to sun Dance in Park City. On top of it wasn't even negative
24:07
though I do poke a little fun. It's a parody almost of what it's
24:11
like to be a filmmaker, though I think it's more of a documentary because
24:15
it's so ridiculous. But people were like, you know, but that's not
24:18
even a documentary, but it is parody, and parody is another world that
24:25
you can get away with. So it's all it's a real gray area,
24:30
and it's all about the filmmaker and how confident they are that you know,
24:33
honestly, how ballsy they are. Because there's a lot of documentaries about subjects
24:37
that the subject matter in the documentary doesn't want the documentary to come out.
24:42
I mean, that's some of the best documentaries ever or about that you know,
24:47
or they you know, So it's it's very interesting. So I was
24:49
curious about that, and I wanted to get that out there because a lot
24:52
of people don't because this is a fairly known brand, it's a very fairly
24:56
known property, and you know, it's it's kind of like, want to
25:00
make the Harry Potter documentary, which I'm sure there is. What I've talked
25:04
about a little bit is this idea of early on having a plan for taking
25:11
your documentary out of the realm of being a fan film. Okay, and
25:15
and you know, Harry Potter is a good example, I can turn around
25:18
and make a Harry Potter movie tomorrow. But how is that different? How
25:22
did I add value? How did I make it any different than anyone posting
25:26
anything on YouTube and just throwing up there of people, random people talking about
25:30
Harry Potter. Okay, and I really you know, there's a there's a
25:37
well, there's a glut of movies in general, but there's a lot of
25:40
documentaries that nowadays, everyone and their brother has a documentary about every topic out
25:45
there, right virtually everyone, and and and that's kind of the running joke.
25:52
Is odd now they're doing a documentary about this you know, or that
25:56
and so on and so forth. So you need to find ways to rise
26:02
above that and say, okay, this is more than a fan film.
26:06
This is more I'm adding value, you know, I mean a celebrities that's
26:11
the go to. If you can get some celebrities great, interview them,
26:14
that's that's value because people like to hear celebrities talk about you know, whatever
26:18
it is. Be access, like I was saying earlier, you know,
26:22
if you have access to the story a documentary. There was making the festivals
26:29
around the same time I was going around as a documentary about Monster Squad.
26:36
Yeah, great, such a difficult favorite right of the eighties, and you
26:41
know, but there's a lot of cult favorites. What set that apart.
26:45
It is one of the kids in the movie doing the documentary, so he
26:48
immediately had access to the quote unquote official story of that movie, so that
26:55
that, you know, I'm not going to turn around and make a movie
26:56
about Texas Chainsaw Massacre tomorrow because I have no access and how you know,
27:03
how do I wasn't like, yeah, it wasn't it like that other movie
27:06
the worst movie ever made? Or it was about Troll Too, yes,
27:10
exactly, which it was one of the people that were in it, you
27:12
know. So that by the way, anyone who was not seeing that documentary,
27:17
it's so much better than the movie. I can't even tell you.
27:19
Yeah, yes, yes, I actually felt when I saw a Troll Too
27:22
after because I saw the documentary and I'm like, well, I gotta go
27:25
see watched Too. And then I watched Roll Too. I felt a little
27:29
bit of myself die inside. And it was that bad of a movie.
27:33
Like I love The Room. I can watch The Room all day, and
27:37
especially with a group of other filmmakers, it's even better. But yeah,
27:45
okay, So what was the the the distribution plan for the film and what
27:49
kind of window strategy did you have with it? So I had I definitely
27:57
I did what you probably each not doing much is to some degree, you
28:02
know, you know, hope for the best sort of thing. Go take
28:07
it every step of the way, take it to a few festivals. I
28:08
didn't go to a ton of festivals because I do think, you know,
28:12
unless you're getting in the top five or six, then you can definitely spend
28:17
way too much money touring around trying to go to festivals. But I did
28:21
a few, and and and then that resulted in several distributors being interested right
28:32
around the same time, three in all. And they're all smaller distributors,
28:36
I mean, there's a lot of them, right And so that was very
28:41
interesting and also very helpful because I, you know, not that I'm going
28:44
to go into detail here, but I did get to see kind of the
28:48
quote unquote deal for several different of these smaller distributors, and that was an
28:52
experience in and of itself just go I can kind of see, you know,
28:55
as much as you read here and there about it, it's still hard
29:00
because even what you read sometimes are you know, examples of oh I made
29:06
a small movie, it was a million dollars. Well that that's not that's
29:10
a different level, right, I want I want to read about the people
29:14
who made their you know, film for you know in the Yeah, exactly,
29:22
yeah, and and so you're you didn't make it for five thousand,
29:25
So you do need to make money, and you're actually you have a little
29:27
bit of debt or you maybe are paying people on the back end a little
29:30
bit here and there and so on, so so you need to make a
29:33
certain amount of money. That said, you don't need to make up a
29:36
million dollars or five hundred thousand dollars or anything like that. So so anyways,
29:41
so that was a useful experience for sure, kind of seeing these the
29:48
different distributors. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
29:57
now back to the show. Interested and seeing a few deals, and I
30:04
went with one of them for various reasons. And yeah, as far as
30:11
and I kind of knew, I mean, inevitably a distributor reach contacts you.
30:17
Okay, let's look at their library, let's do some research, let's
30:19
figure out. Okay, here are the other titles. Is how different and
30:25
similar are mind compared to others. You know, this was a you know,
30:29
a distributor that was known for horror movies, lower budget horror movies.
30:33
That not a big surprise. It's a documentary, I wanted to I was
30:37
mostly asking, Okay, you know, they have done some documentaries previously,
30:41
but you know, the bread and butter is more on the lower budget horror
30:45
movies, and so okay, you know with documentaries, a big thing is
30:52
you know, education distributors and that sort of thing. So I asked them
30:53
a lot of questions regarding that, and but as far as the release and
31:00
windowing, you know, I was surprised what we did, which is,
31:04
you know, uh t vod over the summer and for about four months and
31:11
then and DVD as well in the middle of that, and then uh and
31:18
then Amazon Prime, which it's on Amazon Prime. You but you windowed it
31:22
out with the release of the narrative film by by CBS Films. Yes,
31:26
yes, I mean to leverage that a bit. Yeah, sure, Yeah,
31:30
I mean wouldn't you Yeah, why wouldn't we? And and you know,
31:36
uh, how much that does I don't know. It's all it's really
31:40
hard to parse things. Because because I also hustled the heck out of it
31:45
the entire time in all kinds of other ways. And I've been building all
31:48
kinds of things, so on and so forth, and you know, and
31:52
they hired a PR company and how much you know they're you know, admit
31:56
late. You know how a small distributor works. You know they're going to
32:01
put some if you're lucky, they put some money into you know, uh,
32:07
pushing it for a period of time, and they definitely did. So
32:12
it's it's a little bit of a okay, how whatever success comes, it's
32:17
it can be difficult to parse, you know, how much is it was
32:21
me hustling, how much is it was a distributor actually putting some effort,
32:24
and how much of it was just okay, you know it was good timing,
32:28
and so it was going to happen no matter what. Yeah, I
32:30
mean, I'm not sure how good of I'm not sure what kind of response
32:34
you would have had five years ago if this film would have come out.
32:37
Sure, sure, absolutely, I mean from the get go, as far
32:40
as the adaptation goes. You know. So I had the idea for this
32:45
documentary five years ago, and I started to make a few spreadsheets, a
32:49
couple of lists, that sort of thing, and then Boom announced CBS Films
32:52
purchased the adaptation rights. That means nothing, which means nothing, which means
32:57
nothing absolutely absolutely, so five years ago they put a couple of writers that
33:00
are long since gone. It's been in development for many years. And then
33:07
so it could have never happened, which, you know, my thing.
33:12
Even back then it was like, if it never happens, then my documentary
33:15
is all anyone has about this, about this, and so so even if
33:21
it never happens, then there's a benefit there because it was obvious that people
33:24
were excited. I could see, you know, it was making news and
33:28
people on social media and so on and so forth were talking about, Oh,
33:30
wouldn't it great to be great to have a scary stories to tell in
33:32
a dark movie. So those same people in theory, will you know,
33:38
get something out of a documentary that does something very different and then you know
33:43
you've got the censorship piece, which really sets it apart from any kind of
33:47
adaptation. Right. But I think also moving forward in the future, people
33:51
who anybody who searches for scary stories, you are the second You're the second
33:57
result. Further until eternity or as long as those product those films are up
34:01
on those platforms, So that's not a bad place to do it. Is
34:04
like if you do a Back to the Future or a Big Trouble in Little
34:07
China as a call out two posters behind you. Documentaries, anytime someone searches
34:13
for those movies, that documentary pops up right next to it. That's a
34:16
good thing. That's a really good thing, and easy marketing. It is.
34:21
Anytime you could attach yourself to a popular brand and or franchise in one
34:27
way, shape or form, documentary being the easiest way to do it without
34:30
getting sued. Is a really good way of going about it. Now,
34:36
you also talked a little bit. I was just gonna say, I mean
34:38
one thing I'd also recommend, I mean, if you can, and not
34:44
all documentaries do this, but if you can attach some kind of cause behind
34:52
it, you know, I have you know, these are the most banned
34:53
books of the last four years. That sort of could anytime, like if
34:57
there's a if it's a movie, hey, you know, was it a
35:00
black filmmaker, was it a woman filmmaker, was it back when there weren't
35:06
many of those? Or was it this I mean, I don't know this
35:10
each one of a thousand things. Yeah, yeah, it could be a
35:13
thousand things. But if you can, if you can add some kind of
35:16
emotion to it in some way, some kind of cause, in some way,
35:21
shape or form, I think that package is it so much better and
35:27
says Okay, there's a reason for this documentary to exist, because I think
35:30
from the get go you have to make that argument. You have to say,
35:32
why make this documentary? And so you have to, you know,
35:37
you know, punch people in the face with the fact that there's a very
35:40
important reason for this documentary to exist. And so attaching that cause is it's
35:47
very helpful, and it also expands your audience. So so people listening you
35:52
have a niche audience of people who like scary stories. But then all of
35:54
a sudden you've got a whole brand new spilloff audience, which is just people
35:59
who are interested and the concept of banning books or the subject of banning of
36:02
banned books and censorship and all that. That's a whole other group that you
36:07
can target, which is arguably fairly niche and arguably something that you could focus
36:14
on. Whether they're going to want to watch a movie about scary stories.
36:15
Who knows, but there is potent a potential audience there that just by tweaking
36:22
the documentary a bit, it opens yourself up to it. So why wouldn't
36:25
you It makes it documented more interesting? Yes, And and there's there's Banned
36:30
Books Month, is Banded Books Week, which is September, which leads into
36:34
October and Halloween times. So it's like Superber October is like my my,
36:38
you know, uh, hopefully people will watch it anytime of the year,
36:42
but I feel like that time time of year people are talking about banned books
36:46
and then they're then they're talking about scary movies and books and that sort of
36:51
thing. So it's but but yeah, any cause you have yeah, you're
36:54
and you're totally right, you're kind of you know, adding an audience and
36:59
but you and you can focus in focus your efforts towards. Okay, do
37:04
they have a day or a week or something an event that is all about
37:07
that invention something you can yeah, convention, whatever it is. And American
37:14
Library Association is here in Chicago, and you know, I've made been you
37:19
know, made friends with them and interviewed people with them and that sort of
37:22
thing. So there's various you know, institutions around that cause that you can
37:25
really you know, uh, you know leverage and and you're and you're totally
37:32
right, you're hitting a slightly different audience than you were before. Now,
37:36
I always proposed, you know, being a film entrepreneur, you you always
37:39
think about uh, other product lines, other ancillary products that you can sell,
37:45
other things you can do, or services you can do. You're fairly
37:47
limited in this scenario because you don't have the rights, so you can't get
37:51
you can't make a T shirt, you can't make a hat, you can't
37:53
make a you know, a mug or or you know, anything that has
37:57
the term scary stories on because you don't own that brand. But and I'm
38:00
not sure if you have done this, but this is my unsolicited advice to
38:05
you. Since you have built up this audience that likes scary stories, why
38:09
wouldn't you create an affiliate program with Amazon and sell scary story books, scaria
38:15
story merchandise, scary story all that stuff. And you could easily put that
38:20
up on your social media platforms, on your website, put a store together,
38:23
so anyone who happens to find you or finds out more about scary stories.
38:28
Of documentary. If they go there, chances are that they might want
38:31
to buy the book or buy a T shirt. And that's something that you
38:35
could just be an affiliate for. Does that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely
38:37
absolutely, it's opening those doors. But I think that's an app I you
38:44
got no argument here. I don't know. I'll have to look into it.
38:46
Yeah. Sure, it's fairly easy to open up an Amazon affiliate account.
38:50
And it's just an easy passive revenue stream that is one hundred percent years.
38:53
You don't have to sell it. You don't have to you know,
38:55
there's no deal with a distributor about it, nothing else. And when you
38:59
have a brand as popular as this, you can create an online store being
39:06
an affiliate that sells not only scary story stuff. But then then you start
39:09
thinking, like, well, if I'm R. L. Steinbook's Goosebump stuff,
39:14
you can start creating all these product lines and little categories of things that
39:19
that audience might buy. And if they click on I don't know if you
39:22
know how affiliate programs work, but and I'll tell the audience is if they
39:27
click on your link for the Scary Stories book, and like, I really
39:30
don't want that Scary Stories book right now, but I do need that inflatable
39:32
mattress. Boom, they click and they buy the inflatable matrics within twenty four
39:37
hours. If you click in that link and you get I think it's five
39:42
percent whatever the percentages of that sale depending on the product, and they could
39:45
spend a thousand you know, I make a ton every month. We'll be
39:51
right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show specifically,
40:00
Like they just click in, They're like, Oh, I'd really want
40:02
to buy that book, but while I'm here, I'll buy my groceries.
40:07
I'll buy that shirt that I wanted. I'll buy that camera package I've been
40:09
looking for or that lens, and you get a piece of that action.
40:14
So it's a really great way to make a passive revenue stream off this documentary
40:19
moving forward. Yeah. Absolutely, I will absolutely look into that. That's
40:23
good advice. Okay, So I'm gonna ask you a few questions. I
40:27
ask all of my guests, sir, what advice would you give a film
40:30
entrepreneur starting a project today. I'll go back to the message of my documentary,
40:42
which is read read a lot. Yeah, I mean, you know,
40:49
I never went to film school, but I've read a whole lot of
40:52
books about how to put together a movie, how to you know, modern
40:58
distribution, so on. So so yeah, I would say a lot of
41:00
research and a lot of reading. I mean, just just make it a
41:04
priority to you know, I went through a period I'm not doing it now,
41:08
but I went through a period where I was I was watching at least
41:14
one filmmaking documentary a month and reading at least one book a filmmaking book a
41:21
month for a long period of time. And I mean, I know a
41:28
lot more and I'm a lot better at what I do because because I made
41:31
it a point to say, I'm going to consume as much information as now
41:37
you get to ingest it and then decide on your own Okay, how much
41:40
of that am I going to take and how much you know it doesn't apply
41:45
to me, so on and so forth. But just reading a ton and
41:50
makes a difference. Educate yourself as much as humanly possible. Put those tools
41:53
in that toolbox. Now, what is the lesson that took you the longest
41:57
to learn, whether in the film business or in life. I would say
42:07
that that it is a hustle, and it's not going hustle and so I've
42:13
gotten a certain mentality sometimes and I think we're all guilty of it, of
42:17
planning like crazy and getting everything prepared. It's like you know, building a
42:22
plane because you're about to go off a cliff and you think, okay,
42:25
I'm going to go off that cliff. It's just gonna fly and sail and
42:29
the job is done and voila. You know. I mean I feel a
42:34
little bit like I did that my first crowdfunding campaign, where it's like I
42:37
put so much into that and I just I read so many people say it's
42:42
just you know, it's it's like a second job for an entire six weeks
42:46
or month or whatever. You do it. You are going to hustle,
42:50
you know, incredibly hard for that period. But if you do, you
42:54
will hit your goal. Well I didn't hit my goal, but a certain
43:00
amount and that sort of thing. But anyways, you know, you put
43:02
all this information or all this planning into something and you think it's just going
43:07
to coast along after that, and that's not how That's not how life works,
43:10
and that's not how filmmaking works. It's it's a constant hustle. You
43:15
know, the film's never done. But the nice thing I think. So
43:20
it took I definitely took some time to learn that. But also on top
43:24
of that, the positive thing, the nice thing about being an independent filmmaker
43:30
is that, at least for me, if you're in the producing, directing,
43:34
writing type situation, your movie can define you more than you know,
43:42
all the other things that you might put energy towards, Like, you know,
43:46
you will always be attached to that piece of art, whatever it is.
43:51
And so I mean, I really like that. I like, you
43:54
know, at one point I wanted to be a novelist. But there's a
44:00
similar thing where it's like you put it out there in the world, and
44:02
that's that's part of what defines you and f you, you know, hopefully
44:07
you really liked it, then then it's always out there, you know.
44:12
And I but like I said, it's it's never done, and you're always
44:17
looking towards the next project where and you're also always looking at the last project
44:22
to see, okay, you know, how is it doing? You know?
44:27
And now three of your favorite films of all time. One of them
44:32
I'll probably have to choose a Charlie Kaufman movie Eternal Sunshine. Oh cool.
44:39
I love adaptation. Adaptation is one of my favorite That's my number two.
44:43
If you caught me a different day, I might say adaptation, but today
44:45
I'll say Eternal Sunshine. I'll probably go with it's a little cliche, but
44:53
I'll say Shawshake Redemption. Well, I mean, if you've listened to the
44:57
show, you you know, that's obviously the greatest movie of all time.
45:00
I mean, but it's I mean if you don't, if you don't love
45:06
that movie, you're dead inside and I can't speak to you. I mean,
45:07
it's obviously obviously yes, yes, so uh. And then the third,
45:14
I will go with What Dreams May Come? I love that thing.
45:22
Yeah, it's depressing, is all hack, but nowadays, nowadays even more
45:27
so. It's Yeah, but that's a movie. Yeah, for people who
45:31
haven't seen that one, that's the one with Robin Williams about side suicide and
45:37
death. And it's it's rough. It's a rough in hindsight, it's a
45:42
rough movie to watch now, but it is donning. It won the Oscar
45:45
for Best Visual Effects. It was it was basically like a a Renaissance painting.
45:51
The whole thing was like a Renaissance painting. It was just gorgeous,
45:54
beautiful. If you're don't good choices or good choices? Now? Where can
45:59
people find you? And find the documentary and find a lot more about everything,
46:04
So you can definitely find me. Website and social media is mostly scary
46:09
Stories doc and so you can definitely find me. Their Giant Thumb Studios.
46:15
You can find the website that separate website. And as far as the documentary,
46:21
it's on Amazon Prime right now and it's on all the major vod It's
46:24
on DVD, so you can definitely google scary stories to tell in dark documentary.
46:30
It's all over. You'll find reviews, You'll find all kinds of stuff,
46:35
so it'll be the first thing you find little competition when there's no other
46:37
one, So that's a good thing too. You are in as what I
46:39
like to call the blue ocean, where there's not a lot of blood in
46:43
the water. So very good, my friend. Thank you so much for
46:46
coming on the show. Brother. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having
46:50
me. It's fun. I want to thank Cody for coming on the show
46:53
and sharing his experience with the tribe today. Thank you so much, Cody.
46:57
You want to see this documentary or get links to anything else we talked
47:00
about in this episode. Please head over to the show notes at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot
47:05
tv. Forward slash three seventy one. Thank you so much for listening.
47:07
Guys, As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to
47:12
you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.