Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 285: Creating Friday the 13th & the Horror of Hollywood with Sean S. Cunningham

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BPS 285: Creating Friday the 13th & the Horror of Hollywood with Sean S. Cunningham · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to ih podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
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Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number two eighty five, Friday the thirteenth is still better
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than Monday. The whatever anonymous broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
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when we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting
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Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to
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make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
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Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host
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Slash Free. Well guys, today I got for you, guys a legend
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in the horror space. We have on the show writer, director and co
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creator of Friday the Thirteenth, Sean Cunningham, and Sean and I had an
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amazing conversation about how he came up with Friday the thirteenth, why they came
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up with the movie, the whole story about how it was got released widely
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theatrically back in the eighties, his impact on horror movies and the slasher genre
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in general, and so much more. We also discussed many of his other
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films that he did throughout the eighties and nineties that were classics as well.
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So, without any further ado, please enjoy this scary episode of the na
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Filmals podcast with my guest Sean Cunningham. I like to welcome to the show,
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Sean Cunningham. Heyden, Sean, I'm doing great. How are you.
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I'm doing great, my friend. Thank you so much for coming on
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the show. I've you know, I've not only been a fan of that
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little movie you did back in the eighties with A Got the person with the
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hacking and the stuff. I'm a fan of that and what you did there,
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but I mean I when I was in a video store, I worked
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in a video store from pretty much eighty eight to ninety three, many of
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your movies you were on my shelves from Deep Start six and and uh,
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I did so many movies spring Break and many other ones that you that you
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directed, and produced, which you've done a couple of You've done a few
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things in the business, my friend, you've done a couple of Sure,
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I've survived since the eighties, exactly, exactly. So my very first question
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to you is how did you get in this business? How did you start?
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Because you started back in the if I'm not mistake, in the early
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seventies producer. Yeah, I got, well, it's weird. I was
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working on Broadway as a stage manager and thought, well, maybe I could
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produce something off Broadway that would be um, that would be better than just
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stage managing all the time. And I looked at that and I said,
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John, there's no way I would invest in Nickel in an off Broadway show,
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and I let alone recommend it to my friends and family. So I
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was looking around and do something in it. I guess the long story short
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reason that I said, Well, if I were going to do a play,
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you get some actors, you get a script, get some costumes,
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you rehearse, then when you finished, then it's done and you show it
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to people. So making a movie can't be much different than that. Exactly.
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Yeah, and uh, and so that's how that's really how how it
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started. Im Uh, made a I made a sort of a m was
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the name used to be white Coder. You know. I got an actor
5:13
come out in a white coat and say, in the better interests, in
5:15
the interest of better marriages and interpersonal relationships, I'm going to show everybody how
5:20
to fuck better and fair enough. But we didn't. This was before before
5:28
there were any any over pornography. But it was a It was a strange
5:32
way to get started, but it spoke to the fact that I think one
5:38
of my biggest assets is I didn't know what I didn't know. So therefore
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I didn't have these red lights saying oh, you can't do that, or
5:48
that's crazy, or you know, what are you doing? And I would
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just you know, and just kept staggering forward. And what happened with this
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this little movie is that oh, I need to get into movie theater.
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So I got out the yellow pages which they had been and wintered the movie
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theaters, and near the top of the listings was Brandt Theaters. Now Bingo
6:16
Brandt was in his day a legend. His family owned a whole bunch of
6:20
property in New York and they owned theaters and forty second Street, and he
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was very kind and he said he looked at your movie. I play a
6:28
movie kid, And I said, great, how does that work? And
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he explained it to me, and you know, a certain amount of money
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comes into the box office and then after that we split a fifty fifty.
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I said, okay, that's how it works. Fine, And he ran
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the damn movie. I think it ran for something like twenty seven weeks or
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something on the corner of forty second Street and Broadway. And so making a
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mistake. The movie is terrible. I mean, you know, I mean,
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and even looking at it kindly, it was terrible. Um, but
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I had something that other people didn't have, is I was a producer of
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a hit movie. You know, it had played, you know, it
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got made for a dollar and a half and it played in Times Square and
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it made a bunch of money compared to what it costs. And so that
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was that was basically the beginning for me. And good No, I was
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just that. I know, I had a background in theater and then doing
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Broadway shows and Shakespeare and stuff like that. But um, what drove me
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when I first went in the film business and continued to drive me for a
7:46
long time, was not to not to fulfill you know, some great creative
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vision. You know, I just wanted to make something um and sell it
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for more than it cost to make it. You decide a family and kids
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and you know, all kinds of things, and so I had to.
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I was in the movie business to make a living. Now that's not to
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say it didn't enjoy a whole bunch of different things and different kinds of movies
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and try to you know, trying to figure it out. But at the
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end of the day, I think that that was that was one of my
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guiding principles. You know, how can you who's going to buy this?
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And why? And you know what, I'll tell you that's still refreshing because
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most filmmakers that go into the business go into it as an artist and not
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as a business person. And if you can find that combination of a businessman
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and an artist, or a business person and an artist too, that's when
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you get real success. And it was really interesting that you came out as
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a producer first, correct, before you before you start directing, and then
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you produced another little film with a young up and coming or director West something
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or other. Yeah, The Last House on the Left in nineteen seventy two,
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you was that his first film as a director. Yes, yes,
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it was West and I met at fifty six Westy Street and he was working
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as a cab driver and he was also syncing up documentary UM sixteen millimeter film
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down the hall and um, and we needed someone to help in the editing
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room, and we became friends and and um there came a time when when
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some of these guys that I knew wanted to make a feature film for their
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drive in theaters and so, um, they asked if we wanted to do
9:45
it, I should. Yeah, we'll be right back after a word from
9:50
our sponsor. And now back to the show. I think. So let's
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you know, I never made him. This is a movie movie and uh
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and and uh West said I'll write it because he liked to write, was
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one of his one of his things. And uh and so we got this
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the script, which is kind of roughly inspired by um version Spring and and
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you know, and it had some you know this dreadful um you know,
10:31
horrible twists in it, and um, we just you know, it was
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like being kids sneaking out at night and drawing graffiti on the on the walls
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and nobody catches you go home and do it again. Um. But um
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that was and the picture was turned into you know, sort of a cult
10:56
film. But as time, Um, it was so disturbing to people who
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saw it. Um, they wanted to close the film down or or you
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know Lynch the people who made it, and and uh, it's true,
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and I know it's nineteen seventy two, I mean seventy at least we made
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it in seventy one, seventy seventy one. And it was how do you
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it really becomes? How do you do this? You know? I remember
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um who was Yeah. Well, shortly after after Last House, Um,
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I went to California to see people in the movies for the first time.
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Um, and there was a company called American International Pictures, and I met
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this guy called Sam Arkoff and he got me onto a few sets and I
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came home with these stories and it included say, West, let me tell
12:05
you about this. There's a job called script supervisor. Yeah, as far
12:16
as we were concerned, you know, that was somebody that just took a
12:18
roll of tape, held it up to the camera and gave you know,
12:22
a clap to sink it up. Or if you had a cigarette to know
12:26
how long it was on a certain line. But not only was the great
12:33
idea, I just didn't know that there was somebody that really did that job
12:37
professionally and how important that job turned out to be. But that's the kind
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of that's the kind of ignorance I was dealing with. And then also,
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I mean back in the seventies. Look in the eighties when I was coming
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up in the early nineties, was barely any information about the filmmaking process in
12:54
the public eye. I mean, you had to go to a film school.
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And even in the seventies, I mean, film schools were just starting
13:01
to get off the ground with Coppola and those guys, and Scorsese and and
13:05
them coming up, But there was there just wasn't a lot of information.
13:07
Now everybody knows what the script supervisor, everybody knows what like, you know,
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every you can make a movie with your iPhone. So it's so much
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more information out there about the process. I can't really imagine you guys were
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just basically bumping around at the dark essentially. Yeah, yeah, and you
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know, and we survived her lucky to get buying. Then we went on
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to whatever, the next whatever, the next thing was going to be So
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then there was another movie that came out out of California and about this guy
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with a mask on who was killing who was killing people, and it was
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a huge hit. I remember it was called Halloween. It was it was
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called Halloween, and it was a big hit. And then was that the
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inspiration for you to start trying to figure out Friday the thirteenth? Um?
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In some ways it was. I saw Halloween, Oh gosh, I don't
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remember, six months maybe before Friday thirteenth, before I decided to do Friday
14:05
thirteenth, maybe nine months, I don't know, But I thought the coverager
14:09
made a terrific film. But what I really liked about it was that it
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was so small and so so personal, you know, Seemily Curtis going around
14:20
the dark house and some steadicam stuff outside and and and it just really worked.
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And so it's, you know, it said, you don't have to
14:30
have these giant crews and do all this big stuff. We could make a
14:33
small movie songs, so long as there was a market for it, and
14:37
maybe you know, figure out how to make a how to make you know,
14:41
a scary movie, you know. And at this point, Last House
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was in my rear view mirror way back, and I didn't want to make
14:56
some version of Last House again. But and I had I made two children's
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films in the late seventies, which a lot of one was on baseball,
15:03
the others on soccer, and I thought that that was where my career was
15:07
probably going. And the soccer movie actually it was okay, but it got
15:15
optioned by United Artists and so they wanted to make it into a TV series
15:22
and that was great, but it was going to take six to nine months
15:24
or you know, to roll around. So how am I going to raise
15:30
money? What am I going to do to keep the machine going? And
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when I was working on the kids' soccer movie, one of the things you
15:39
do is to come up with trying to come up with titles. This movie
15:43
opens and nobody comes better title, get a different title, and do you
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make lists of titles? And while I was one day with making lists of
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titles, I said, Friday the thirteenth. Man, if I had a
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movie called Friday the thirteenth, I could set you know, that was the
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That was the entire thought. And so that you know, cut to six
16:07
months later, however, I however, along was the end of it was
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around the fourth of July, and I said, let's try to make let's
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try to make a scary movie. I want to call it Friday the Thirteenth.
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And it was a question of well, can you get the rights and
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who knows what the rights are? And I said, well, yeah,
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I think so. So I took out a full page ad in Variety,
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you know, Friday the Thirteenth, Crashing through Mirrors and Glass, the most
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terrifying film never made, you know. And I figured if there was somebody
16:45
that had their rights to that, I got to respond. And a few
16:49
weeks past I never heard word one from a lawyer and and but I didn't
16:56
hear from distributors. Said well, I'd be interested in that. I'd be
17:00
interested in that. So we spent the rest of the summer trying to come
17:03
up with a movie which was, okay, what's scary? Well can you
17:10
do this like scary and and be kind of fun? And Victor Miller,
17:17
who I was working with at the time, you know, uh, we
17:22
said, well, what if it's sort of like you're a kid and you're
17:26
in bed and you think that, uh, there's somebody in the closet and
17:30
it gets right, Well, well, let's make a catalog of those things,
17:36
and and you seems we can include them in this sort of m structure.
17:41
So it was trying to find set pieces that seemed like seemed like they
17:47
would go together, and just roughly, I mean it's yeah, you know,
17:53
it was kind of ten little Indians, got a bunch of people in
17:56
the woods dying and being killed, and so you and the don't even say,
18:00
oh, who's doing that? Well, not her, she's dead.
18:03
He died too, so he gets smaller and smaller. And uh, it
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wasn't that. It wasn't that I had ideas of trying in some way to
18:15
imitate John's film Halloween. It was just that we had a small budget,
18:22
we didn't have any stars, we didn't have any distribution or production plans.
18:26
But figure, let's just try to make this thing and see it, see
18:30
if it works, and then we'll come back to the children's films in the
18:34
spring. So but so it seems to me that that you guys were basically
18:44
creating the template for this kind of horror movie. Because I know John's had
18:48
a high school. It was a little bit bigger in scope than or The
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Thirteenth You, if I'm not mistaken, was the first movie which is like,
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take a bunch of kids into the woods and kill them off and by
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one I don't think it was. Yeah, that's basically a template for a
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film now like yeah, And I would hasten to tell you and anybody that
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happens to be listening to that. I think that there were so many shortcompanies
19:15
in Friday the Thirteenth, and the film was grossly successful, not because of
19:23
those things that we did wrong, but in spite of them. So so
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what happened was so what happened was that, Oh, look at all the
19:33
money they made. All they did is take a bunch of kids in the
19:34
woods, chop them up, and there you are. I have a movie.
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I think he killed ten people, will kill twenty. It'll be so
19:44
much better. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
19:52
now back to the show. And the thinking isn't far off of that.
19:59
But I you know, um, over time, wherever and ever, I
20:06
keep thinking, most important part of anything that we do, like this is
20:10
the story and the story that you're going to tell. And it's very very
20:17
hard to come up with a good story well told. But that's that's where
20:22
the money is. And if you can figure out how to do it or
20:26
how to get a story, then you're off to a good start. Um
20:30
And I think um and people who write good screenplays get paid a ton of
20:37
money. And the biggest reason is that so few people can do it,
20:45
you know, and it takes you know, it takes so long to learn
20:49
that craft. And it's not just getting copy final drafts and start typing.
20:56
See you know, it's it's different than that. Um So I I think
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that. Yeah. My advice is, you know three most important things in
21:07
a movie or story, story and story, you know, without without without
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question, and you know when you're out there making this, it's again it
21:17
sounds like you guys were just literally bumping around the night no pun intended,
21:22
while you're making Friday the thirteenth, and you know, you've got a bunch
21:26
of young kids, one of them happening to be a young Kevin Bacon,
21:30
which is I always find fascinating. He had done h I think he had
21:33
done Animal House. He was an Animal House prior to that, and I'm
21:36
sure he was just happy to get a job at that point. He wasn't
21:37
sure, he wasn't he wasn't foot loose, just yet. Yet he wasn't
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great you know, a great kill if you will, if you're going to
21:45
say kills h in that film, and uh so you so you decided to
21:51
make this movie. You're starting to cast who gives you money for this kind
21:56
of film that is not other than Halloween been a financial success yet because it
22:03
came up pretty pretty soon right after Halloween. It goes within a year or
22:07
two, right, yes, yes, within a couple of years. So
22:10
Halloween's the only one that's done. Like broke the you know, kind of
22:14
opened the door open about it and said, hey, there's a market here.
22:18
Who who's crazy enough to give you the money to make this? Right
22:21
now? Well, let me back up, Well what happened was that challenge
22:33
Halloween? It was a really good movie, but it was in the days
22:37
of of you used to go to a Cincinnati and you'd have ten prints in
22:44
the back of your car, right and you think, have some new newspaper
22:47
ads and put up posters in the lobby and see if people came. You
22:52
might have radio ads. You know, you're trying to figure out how to
22:55
do it. And if it works okay in Cincinnati and you get your ten
22:59
prints, then hopefully twenty prints. You go on to the next market,
23:04
and now you've refined your refined your sales strategy, and you go to another
23:11
market, but you never opened wide. That nothing was really never done.
23:18
The first picture to open really wide, and I think it was eight hundred
23:22
theaters that once was jobs right, And when it came time to figure out
23:32
what are we going to do with Friday thirteenth, I'll back up and tell
23:34
you that the money that came, the money for Friday that the thirteenth,
23:38
came primarily from owners of theaters and drive ins. And we had we had
23:49
worked on some other little things before, and I wasn't ever sure if I
23:56
really wanted to get back into into bed with this guy. Um, but
24:02
so what the hell, We just will make a movie and just do it.
24:06
And so they had relationships with Frank Mancuso at Paramount, and we took
24:15
it to Paramount and Paramount the executives, for reason I can't understand, they
24:18
just loved it. And then what they wanted to do is schedule a second
24:22
screening and then bring all the secretaries that they could and kids that they could
24:30
into the screening and wait for the ending and the popcorn will go flying and
24:33
they laugh and it was so and Mancus at that point was a head of
24:41
distribution, I believe, the Paramount, and he decided he's going to take
24:45
this little movie with the name Friday the thirteenth and no stars and no apparent
24:52
you know, story to you know, to push and open it nationally.
25:00
And it was like, okay, hold on to your seat. So I
25:02
don't know, because this, if this hadn't failed, he might have lost
25:07
this job. It was one of those. It was one of those like
25:10
all in moments, And as it turned out, he was absolutely right.
25:15
Um. And he went on to become president of Paramount and do other things.
25:19
But the when I if I remember the release of or studying going back
25:26
and studying the release of of Friday the thirteenth, it was it was released
25:30
widely, um, but the trailer for it if you just were basically selling
25:37
the title and there's some kills, uh, and that that was essentially it
25:41
wasn't a story plot. It wasn't. It was just like it's called Friday
25:45
the thirteenth, the most terrifying day in the calendar, um, you know,
25:49
next to Halloween if that, but if not probably scarier than Halloween because
25:53
it's not a it's not a What I have found is it has universal psychic
26:00
real estate. You know, people carry around this this thing about Friday thirteenth
26:06
and bad luck and and it transcends almost all cultures because every culture they may
26:11
not call it Friday the thirteenth, but they have a day of the year
26:15
which is um predicated on don't ladders and that kind of thing. Right,
26:22
it's all it's all kind of bad luck stuff. Yeah, I know.
26:26
And now going back a little bit though, when you were you came up
26:30
with the characters you came up when you were were you writing, Yeah,
26:33
and Victor Miller and Steve Miner and Tom Savini were sort of Victor and I
26:41
first had this notion of you know, like ten Little Indians happening at a
26:45
summer camp and um and um, Steve was going to be the line producer
26:55
and we're trying to figure out how do you get a special effects guy and
26:59
we and that, and there's this guy in Pittsburgh and Savine you can we
27:07
try to find him, track him down and stuff, and and um we
27:11
did and he got in his car with Trent Tasso, and UM came up
27:18
to Connecticut and he was so excited and so psyched to do this, and
27:25
and so we're all just working with Yeah, you've got a kid in the
27:30
boys and he dies, Okay, what happened? And how do you make
27:33
it scary? And how do you shoot it? And and then and um
27:37
and you know, none of it could have been done, but you know,
27:42
all four of us really combined to to make it, make it happen.
27:47
What what did Tom do prior to that? Like, there wasn't a
27:49
lot of kind of living dead. Oh, that's the original, the original.
27:56
I think that was just I think that was just only was his only
28:00
credit, which, as you may recall, it's pretty good credit. And
28:03
yeah, well now it's a really good credit at the time. You know,
28:07
what's this thing? Yeah? What the hell is this? You know,
28:11
I want to see sound the music and I am in here. So
28:17
he was just a young kid who's super excited about makeup. And I think
28:22
that's the movie that essentially launched his career. After that, he was a
28:26
very busy man in the eighties. Oh he continues to this day. You
28:30
know. He studied with a guy named I believe his name. Oh God,
28:33
I want to say Dick Clark, Rick Baker, Rick Baker, thank
28:37
you and h And he really knew how to do prosthetics and all that kind
28:45
of stuff, and he wanted to do it. And he told me what
28:48
he's like, I have a dream speech. But his dream was he wanted
28:53
to chop somebody's head off on camera, you know, so you could really
28:59
sell that hit. It had never been done before and that. Yeah,
29:03
and so we figured out that, you know, very carefully of staging the
29:07
blocking for for how we could chop as powers at all. I mean you
29:14
essentially ushered in the slasher, the slasher as we know it to a certain
29:21
extent. Help help helped it, helped it along without question. And I
29:25
think it was after Frond the thirteenth, that's when there was a couple of
29:29
copycat just a couple of copycatty fills chopping wall, chop slaughter slaughter house or
29:41
chopping mall. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And
29:49
now back to the show genius. I was watching. I watched the trailer
29:56
the other day. I was like, what, because I remember it in
30:00
the thing I remembered in the video store I used to I used to rent
30:03
all this stuff that people would come in and Friday the thirteenth were all up
30:07
there, all four hundred and fifty versions up that came out, and then
30:11
you know, obviously Freddie and all these kind of but that that decade is
30:15
where all of the characters that we hi horror horror lovers love, like the
30:22
Freddy's, the Jason's, the Michael Myers, and then then they started to
30:26
go from there. But those are the original, the originals that came out
30:30
of that whole thing. Now, look, as a director, we always
30:34
have a day that we feel like the entire world is coming crashing down around
30:40
us and that we're not. I mean that's generally every day, but there's
30:42
always the one day in the project that you're like, oh my god,
30:45
I don't know if we're gonna make it here, Like I can't catch my
30:48
get my day done, or the camera falls into the lake, or prosthetic
30:52
isn't working. What was that day where you did you have any of those
30:56
days on Friday the thirteenth, and how did you come I think every filmmakers
31:02
has that day. I mean there may be worst days, but the oh
31:07
my god, it will never work again, day, right, which you
31:12
know you. You thought this movie was going to be set just going to
31:17
work so well, and you've got as tight as you can, and then
31:19
you show it to you show it to an audience. You're sitting in the
31:22
audience and they're getting ahead of you, and it's not working for this audience,
31:27
and oh why did I leave that in? I should have cut it
31:30
out? What am I going to do? And then you know, that's
31:33
sort of like day one, and then you recut and and try to come
31:37
up with the movie that represents what you were doing. But so for you,
31:44
there's always that screening. A screening doesn't necessarily have to be in front
31:47
of a paying audience. It can be for a studio, it can be
31:51
for a focus group, but it's one of You're sitting there with strangers who
31:55
have nothing invested in the movie, and they're going, man, what the
32:00
hell is that? That's stupid? Was that ending? Was that ending?
32:04
Always there? No? No, the ending was uh? The ending was
32:12
something that that one of my investors wanted to wanted to try, and it
32:20
just seems so stupid. I mean, this is a reality based ten Little
32:29
Indians thing, and um, I said, I get it, but I
32:36
don't know how we can insert it into the movie, because as it was
32:39
conceived is she's just there and the thing, the thing it was scripted was
32:45
everything with her on the lake and the police arriving and everything, and then
32:49
just I don't know where this creature comes up out of the out of the
32:52
bottom and grabs her. It sounds horrible, by the way, It's like
32:58
a horrible idea. And it was and and um uh, and I said,
33:06
I wouldn't. I wouldn't, couldn't shoot it until we figured out what
33:10
would what would follow it? What's the epilogue, Dakota. You can't.
33:15
You can't just end the movie with a punch in the stomach like that.
33:19
It's you know, no explanations, earnything. And once we got the little
33:23
there's little epilogue with Alice in the hospital bed and and dreaming about the things
33:30
that happened. Did it happen, did it not happen, and stuff like
33:34
that. Once you had that, okay, now we have least a place
33:37
to where it could go. It might be understood. Maybe it was a
33:39
dream, maybe it wasn't. And same time, Savine, he just grabbed
33:45
a hold of that and he just wanted he came up with this deformed creature
33:52
and and and he and it had to work under water and had to do
33:57
all those different things and uh uh and he you know, he just he
34:04
created that that that creature, that twelve year old boy or whatever it was.
34:10
Um, I'll tell you my son, Noel was supposed to play that
34:16
role. He was supposed to be Jason in the lake. Um until his
34:22
mother found out, you are not taking my son and putting him in the
34:28
ice cold water. That's crazy. You get somebody else. And so that's
34:32
that's how he uh that, that's how he lost the part. He could
34:37
have held it, I'm sure, and I'm sure he was. I'm sure
34:40
he's given mom somehow over the years over that well, over the years.
34:44
Yeah, But at the time it was like, oh good, I don't
34:45
have to do it, Jesus, that water is so cold. I mean,
34:50
he could be signing in conventions right now. Oh yeah. So so
34:55
so with the that's the one thing that always it's one of those trivia questions
35:00
like who's the killer in the first Friday of the thirteenth, and the wrong
35:02
answers Jason because everyone always says Jason is Jason's mom but it's one of those
35:08
one of those lovely uh questions. Now. Also, you know, I'm
35:15
sure you've seen Scream at this point in your life at West's Scream and a
35:19
lot of those rules that he put in the movie, or Kevin Kevin Williamson
35:23
wrote it put in the movie about don't have sex, you know, don't
35:29
say I'll be right, all the all the horror, all the tropes.
35:32
Many of those started in Frinda of the Thirteenth, Am I wrong? Yeah?
35:38
Um? Some of them did. I mean it's you know, you
35:40
got ten kids in the woods and you're gonna chop them off. Okay,
35:45
what are they gonna do? Yeah? And um, but I think one
35:49
of the things that happened is that people started to impose some morality on top
35:53
of it, like you know, the the Loose Girl and the and the
36:00
and the pod has well they've got to go, you know, because they're
36:04
obviously the bad people or who are not behaving. Well, it's a cautionary
36:09
tale. So we're going to really be rooting for this one girl, but
36:13
we're going to kill the others because they're so irresponsible. And that just made
36:19
makes a bad situation just that much worse. It's just it's just a bad
36:23
idea. And I think that the the underlying scary part of of Part thirteenth
36:34
and things that followed it. Um. I think it came from Jaws that
36:39
there's a shot in Jaws halfway through the movie and they've opened the beaches and
36:45
it's sunny and it's fourth of July or something, and and there's a shot
36:50
of the shark going down and he's looking up and and he sees nothing but
36:57
legs, and they're old people and young people and women and men, and
37:00
then he's gonna it just eats somebody, and it really depends how hungry he
37:07
is. It has nothing to do with oh, I'm going to eat you
37:12
know, I'm going to eat that dope smoking jerk, or I'm going to
37:15
get that tramp or something. No, it can happen to anybody at any
37:20
time for reasons which are completely beyond our control and knowing. I mean,
37:25
I think that's a core belief that we all have, and we need to.
37:30
We have this cognitive dissonance because what we do on a daily basis is
37:35
denied that anything really bad could happen to us. And on the other hand,
37:40
there's part of us that knows it could happen at any moment, the
37:44
rational versus the irrational, you know, and we're hard wired to ignore it.
37:49
But nevertheless, it's it's in there. And it's this the dynamic effect
37:57
fairy tails, where you look at something that you know it's true or could
38:00
be true, and it's really scary, so it freeze up. But when
38:04
you see it in the safety of a movie theater or you know, somebody
38:07
telling you a story about wants upon a time, um, you know,
38:13
you get to be exposed to your father dying or you know, being abandoned
38:17
by your parents, or whatever it is that might happen. Um. And
38:22
and you see it so many times, and as you see it, you
38:27
get a little bit number and a little bit number to the thing that was
38:30
really so scary to you in the first place. And and in a way
38:36
it's sort of it's establishing value systems, and it's um um, it's a
38:42
way of teaching you to deal with or or you know, saying that they're
38:46
tough things you have to deal with in life and you can do it,
38:52
then, you know. And I think that that's that's my understanding about how
38:58
um, how horror film um, have you know a lot of them were
39:04
at theircore. They were fairy tales. It's cathartic. It's cathartic, catharcis
39:10
and m here's a book by a guy named Brumo Bedelheim which all the users
39:15
have Enchantment, which really opened my eyes to this. And it's you know,
39:23
I anyway, that's no, but but you you actually answered a question
39:28
that I hadn't I was about to ask, which was, why do you
39:31
think these films have lasted the test of time? Characters like Jason and Freddie
39:38
and Michael that we just keep coming back to these these monsters, even Jaws.
39:45
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to
39:52
the show. Uh and those kind of what was about them? What are
39:59
about these films that people keep watching them, not only again and again,
40:02
but keep like I mean, obviously, from Friday the thirteenth, there was
40:07
maybe two, three, four, you know, five big horror movies.
40:10
I'm obviously the Exorcist and all those kind of movies which were different, but
40:15
then the slasher genre it just kept growing and growing. What is it about
40:20
that genre of horror that people just kept going back to and in many ways
40:25
having fun with because originally, if I remember Freddie, Freddie was terrifying,
40:30
but then Freddie turned into a comedy routine with some more eventually, and Jason
40:36
did for that matter, I think, But I don't think people keep going
40:43
back to horror films because of their horror films. So they go back to
40:46
experience. You know, why does the kid say no, no, read
40:52
me the read me of the story again from the beginning, and and don't
40:57
change it because oh he doesn't like it when you change. But you know
41:00
from the beginning. Um, I think that some strange, strange things happened
41:07
to Jason and to Freddy and Michael Myers. I think, but you saw
41:13
particularly um with Jason and Freddy is you went, you went to the movie
41:19
for whatever reasons, He's going on a roller coaster. It's like, oh
41:22
my shit, oh my god, oh my god, and you know,
41:24
and it becomes kind of a fun, crazy event. Um, and then
41:30
there's another and then you start saying, Okay, let's we're gonna have a
41:37
softball game Friday or thirteens. We're gonna have a softball game. We're gonna
41:40
choose up sides. Okay, I got the big guy with a mask.
41:43
Who do you got the big guy with the mask? It doesn't die that
41:51
great, You'll be on my side. Yeah, you can have those four
41:53
football players, no problem. And they I think that I think that there's
41:59
some thing in in the transformation of this call it Jason pretty, Jason slasher
42:12
flat kind of um, and that is that it's it's it's it's kind of
42:22
revenge of the of the nerds on steroids. You know, so much of
42:27
the audience feels like, you know, um, they did they weren't allowed
42:32
to sit at the cool kids lunch table. Oh and the book The Ones
42:37
Died? Do you notice that? And the same same, the same thing
42:43
happened the Living Dead where you can shoot the principle of this school if he's
42:47
got that look in his eye, you know. And and I there's just
42:52
kind of a I think nobody's ever said that one for one, but I
42:58
think that that's the that's the thing that happens. And so if you're going
43:01
to go out and experience that, now it's sort of predictable, like a
43:05
roller coaster ride. They're going to be things that are scary and bloody and
43:07
glory, but you can't scare me. Not only that because I got the
43:13
big guy on my side, but people that, you know, do you
43:19
go to a roller coaster ride in six Flags or someplace, there's gonna be
43:22
a lot of people get on the roller coaster. There's a whole bunch of
43:25
people sitting on the bench. They don't want to get on the roller coaster,
43:29
and they're never going to get on the roller coaster, and so that
43:34
this experience is not for everyone. You can't make it for everyone. You're
43:38
crazy if you think you can, because you can't. There are people that
43:43
like the roller coasters and the people that don't. And liking the roller coaster
43:47
has to do with those moments we have no control and you think that you're
43:52
enormous jeopardy. But at the same time you're strapped in and their bars and
43:55
harnesses and stuff. But still there's that, you know, a moment and
44:01
you know, and then if you're like a fan, you start, you
44:05
know, putting your arms up in the air. I'm not afraid of anything,
44:09
but no, no, I understand, no, but I understand where
44:14
you're coming from completely. You're absolutely right. I've never thought of it that
44:17
way, but that makes so much sense. Because in a lot of those
44:21
movies, I don't remember. It might have happened, but I don't remember
44:24
them killing the nerds. It's always, you know, the beautiful girl,
44:29
the big jock. Uh, those people that the cool kids are the ones
44:35
that go that go first. And I don't remember, and I don't remember
44:38
many nerds getting knocked out because you're like, well, yeah, it's the
44:44
equivalent of kicking the dog, Like, you don't do that. You can't.
44:49
You can't get a dog. You can't kick a dog in the movie,
44:51
because that's the village. No, I ask you. I do want
44:57
to ask you, Sean after the movie comes out. It's a huge,
45:00
huge hit. It is one of these, you know, biggest independent films
45:05
of its day. Um. I'm assuming you get a few phone calls.
45:08
Yeah, how did the town treat you? And why didn't you keep going
45:15
down that road? You know, as as a filmmaker, because you didn't
45:16
do the second or third, or fourth or any other Jason movie. Why
45:21
didn't you go down that road where others have I'm just curious. Well,
45:25
I mean, if it were to happen again tomorrow, you know, I
45:30
I would definitely you know, Um, ordered my business life differently. But
45:37
um, I didn't you know, Harry thirteenth Sushi took a bunch of kids
45:42
in the wood and you had chomped them up the book. I didn't want
45:45
to do that every year, and you know, find you know better machetes,
45:50
and and it wasn't what I wanted to do m Friday thirteenth was I
45:55
was naive enough, like I said, my education and took a long time
46:01
to think that. You know, they said, oh, Sean, you
46:04
made a really really terrific hit movie and we'd love to meet with you,
46:08
and then it would always come around too. So what do you want to
46:13
do next? Now me, I thought, comes, yeah, I thought
46:20
that the guy sitting behind the desk has got a whole filing cabinet full of
46:23
great scripts, he just hasn't found the right director, and um, and
46:30
so what do you want to do next? And my answer was kind of,
46:35
I don't know what you got. You know, the only thing that
46:38
the guys sitting behind the desk once he hears I'd like to do Friday the
46:43
thirteenth every year until I die, you know. And oh and I could
46:50
have shigned up at that point. I had no idea. Wow, that
46:54
that was you know, I thought, I think I thought of Friday the
46:58
thirteenth. There's a shample room kind of see, I can direct you got
47:01
anything? Now, let me go make real movies in your eyes. Yeah,
47:05
and I'm gonna have a script supervisor this time, Dawn, I hear.
47:09
They're important. It's you know, it's it's It's fascinating because I've had
47:17
a lot of people on my show over the years who had these kind of
47:22
like lottery ticket moments. I mean, you were one of the you and
47:25
and John uh and West you had these kind of lottery ticket moments where you
47:30
had extremely massive hits and how you you know, I've seen a lot of
47:37
them just go go a different direction, but like, I don't want to
47:40
do that for the rest of my life. And every one of them said,
47:45
I would have known now, if I would have known then what I
47:49
know now, Yeah, I would have done at least three or four more
47:55
just just and then retire. Yeah. Well yeah, but you had it.
48:01
But you had a hell of I mean, you had a hell of
48:02
a run in the eighties as well. Yeah, I had. I mean
48:06
I got a lot. I got to make a lot of movies and and
48:09
um, and and you know the challenge of making any movie is you know,
48:15
it's an annoy it's like climbing them out and you just get together with
48:20
a bunch of people. When you try to do this thing. It's really
48:22
hard separate from the content. It's just making a movie. It's just really
48:27
hard. It's really hard working. You and you meet and and bond with
48:30
a bunch of people, and making movies is Making movies is the fun part
48:36
of whatever whatever we do. Um. The rest of the time has spent
48:40
trying to get the movies made, and that gets old. Yeah, I
48:49
would I know that. I know that a number of your viewers are probably
48:57
film students, are people relatively new to really new to the business. And
49:00
you talked about going to film school and so on. What nobody ever tells
49:06
a film student is you go and you learn about the cameras and you learn
49:12
it. But now you learn about certain kinds of media, and you learn
49:15
how to make and do all this great stuff. But there are no jobs
49:21
for you, none, none, nobody's going to hire you to do that.
49:28
If you really want to do that, what you have to do is,
49:30
along with everything else you've been doing, is learn how to raise money
49:37
and and and it's very difficult. We'll be right back after a word from
49:44
our sponsor, and now back to the show. And until you get a
49:52
handle on that, you're going around, Um, you know the script,
49:58
and you're under your arm trying to get somebody give you enough money or to
50:00
make it for you. And it doesn't happen. It only happens if you
50:05
find a way, you know. And yet being a type of eight personality
50:08
is critical. I think, Um, you've got to go out and find
50:13
find a way to get enough money to make it. And if it's five
50:16
thousand dollars, do you take your ipound, you go out or your iPad
50:21
and you go out and and shoot it and do the best you can.
50:24
Come back and make another one next week, and then the week after that
50:29
and week after that, because it's the only way you're going to learn learn
50:32
how to do it, and nobody's going to give you the money to do
50:37
it. You have to find and by the way, everybody gets money different
50:40
ways, different places, different times. Oh, but that's that's one of
50:45
the things that they don't teach in film school. And it's you know,
50:50
it's it's a critical lesson and you know you probably more than night. But
50:55
see a lot of people that are talented and they've got great footage and they
51:01
can't get higher. They can't you know, they can't break in. And
51:07
but there isn't a way to break it. There isn't an apprenticeship for directors.
51:14
Is tough for other parts, yeah, camera department, art department.
51:17
Yeah, yeah, but those Yeah, that's that's a completely other thing.
51:22
Yeah. And you know, if you have to, if you have the
51:23
right bloodlines to the right jeans, you get that, you can be a
51:28
you know, a Dolly grip too. But I'm talking about the the people
51:35
that you go to film school. You don't go to film school to be
51:37
a grip. You go to be filmmaker, a storyteller and stuff like that.
51:42
And that's what you have to keep doing. But you're going to be
51:46
on your own for a long time trying to do that. And if you
51:50
know that going in, it's it's better than if you don't. It's really
51:53
And I appreciate that because that's a very wise piece of information there, because
51:58
I've come to understand. I heard this the other day and I thought this
52:00
was fantastic, and so it so perfectly defines our industry, which is it
52:09
is possible for anyone to direct the movie, but it's not probable, okay,
52:17
because he's like, there's so much work that goes because at the beginning,
52:22
everyone can make a movie, like, oh, it's possible. Yeah,
52:24
and now more than ever, more than in your day. Your day,
52:28
that was much harder to get a movie off the ground. Now you
52:30
could go make a movie for three or five brand and you can, but
52:35
the probability of that happening is very small because the amount of work. Things
52:43
have to line up, things have to fall into place. You have to
52:45
be the perseverance the years, like you said, to get things done.
52:51
And you know, I've been in the business now closing in on thirty years.
52:54
And that is really the definition of our business because it's possible. Yes,
53:00
that's what Hollywood sells. Anyone could be a star, anyone could be
53:05
a director, anyone could write a million dollars script. Don't forget and nobody
53:08
knows anything. And nobody knows anything but you. You can win. But
53:14
the probability of you selling a script for a million dollars, how many scripts
53:20
get sold for a million dollars? A handful how many filmmakers make a studio
53:24
movie. Now none, very few young filmmakers make them. It's very small.
53:30
So I just thought that was such an interesting and it's a raw it's
53:34
a tough fil to swallow, but it is the truth of our business.
53:37
Would you agree absolutely? It's it's um yeah, not anyone can, but
53:46
most people you know could could get it together to get a movie made somehow
53:53
not likely, like you said, she's not probable, but it's a lot
53:57
of work and it has nothing to do with what you learned when you studied
54:01
making movies. Um, it's it's it's an integral part of making movies.
54:07
That's just ignored. Um hm, well okay, um. I was thinking
54:20
thinking about um few things that that you know when I when I talked to
54:28
people about the movies. UM, I stay away from the technical technical issues
54:35
because well, I don't know them as well as all the people that do
54:37
them every day. But it seems to me that there are a few really
54:44
um important things. One is, I'm going to refer to something called You're
54:50
ready the poster or back in the day we called it the one sheet,
54:55
but today it might be the billboard on sunset boulevard or the thumbnail the thumbnail,
55:01
So what is the thumbnail for your movie? And because what is contained
55:08
in there it's done right, is the promise of what the movie is,
55:15
you know? And um you so from day one you know what you've promised
55:27
the audience and then you have to deliver on that. But you have to
55:29
keep coming back to it. You don't think about it later if you think
55:32
about this. I read the script in the pages. Did they just you
55:36
know, took all my emotional energy. I just couldn't couldn't stop reading it.
55:40
Okay, what's the poster? How you know? How are you gonna
55:46
how are you gonna get people in it? Because what you're what you're doing,
55:51
for all intents and purposes, is you're you're making this thing and then
55:53
you're stopping strangers on the street saying, wait, wait, wait, wait,
55:58
come with me. Please, I'm I want to show you something and
56:01
it's a movie and you're really gonna I promise you really gonna like it.
56:05
Please come with me. And you try to get him, and you pull
56:07
and you put them in the seat and that'll be fifteen bucks and then the
56:15
guy has to sit there for the next two hours. Of his life and
56:19
leave happy, and that's what we do. And if if he doesn't leave
56:23
happy, you don't get a chance to do it again, or not very
56:27
soon. And so I think that that's knowing what the poster is and embracing
56:36
the fact that you have an audience that is vital to what we do for
56:43
a living. The other thing that I think gets lost and and that's who
56:54
do you make a movie for? Who's your audience? And I think the
56:59
way to broach it is you're creating a gift for somebody, and it's not
57:08
for you to find yourself and to work out your anxieties and work out that's
57:13
an art film. That's an art film. That's art film. But even
57:15
at our film, you know, um, you you're making it for somebody
57:20
else, and you want it to be good and you want to be able
57:22
to give give it to this other person or people and they're going to be
57:29
glad that they got it, and they'll they'll react to the fact that you
57:32
really did the best you could to create this gift for them. And those
57:39
are that's what you're doing if you're doing it right. And I know those
57:45
aren't words you hear very often, but I think they're I think they're really
57:49
critical. Those are fen I mean those those words. I mean I've been
57:53
yelling both of those things from the top of the mountain for quite some time
57:57
now, Sean, it is something that's so important, and filmmakers they don't
58:00
they don't think about it. They don't think about the poster, they don't
58:02
think about the marketing, they don't think how they're gonna sell it, and
58:05
they definitely don't think about the audience. They just think about I want to
58:07
make this movie. I want to put this out there. But if you
58:10
don't think of who this is for, it's this is an expensive art,
58:14
man. It's not a this is not paint on canvas. This is not
58:17
writing a book, you know, this is this is an expensive art that
58:22
takes a lot of time, a lot of collaboration, a lot of things
58:27
to fall into place for it to be done period. Let alone. Well,
58:30
because there's a lot of movies made, then there's this many that are
58:35
really good and stand the test of time for whatever the reason is, um
58:40
and it is. I appreciate you saying that, and they're coming out of
58:44
your mouth. Hopefully people listening will listen. Well, but think but it's
58:51
interesting, but it's something that needs to be especially for younger filmmakers or first
58:53
time filmmakers. They don't understand that. I wrote a whole book about that
58:58
about like, understand your niche audience, understand your audience, and build a
59:01
product for that audience, build that thing to serve them and and and really
59:07
connect with them. And it's it is something that is not talked about very
59:12
often. So I do appreciate you saying that there is one question I've always
59:15
wanted to ask. I have to ask this, I need to no no,
59:22
no, no, no, no no no. It's not that kind
59:22
of answer that that that question. But I've always wanted to ask this question
59:28
because you do go to cons and you go and you sign a cons and
59:32
and I've been to men, I've signed that some cons I've I've experienced it
59:37
myself. Um, and I've I've gone to horror conventions earlier when I had
59:42
a one of my first films and I met a lot of your contemporaries and
59:45
all that stuff. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
59:53
and now back to the show. When you first got called, they say,
1:00:00
hey, Sean, we let me bring you over to a comic book
1:00:04
convention or horror convention to sign. What did you think? What do you
1:00:09
exactly? I'll say exactly what I thought, and you're out of your fucking
1:00:15
mind what you want me? And when I'm one night just like that's you
1:00:22
know, if if you hit sixty two home runs in the baseball season,
1:00:27
okay, go sign the baseball right. But I'm just I was just a
1:00:30
guy, and you know, to to charge somebody for signing something seems crazy,
1:00:37
and so I didn't do it, and uh and I still do not
1:00:43
many. Um, but I really enjoy it because I get to, um,
1:00:49
I get to better understand people that are fans of of the genre,
1:00:54
and um, you get it's it's really it's really kind of good for your
1:01:02
It's good to be reminded of the people that are out there and and that
1:01:07
they're often really nice people all there. They're they're comic book or they're such
1:01:15
sweet people, most of them I've ever met. And West uh referred to
1:01:25
them as wearing urban camouflage. Yeah, they don't, you know, you
1:01:36
don't want to stick out, and they want to be with their be with
1:01:39
people that share their values in their sense of fun and entertainment, but there's
1:01:46
kind of a uniform so that if you are one of them, you oh,
1:01:52
he's are people. He's are kind of people and you learn that and
1:01:57
um I uh, I like, I like interacting with the fans, and
1:02:05
um uh it's just it means so much more to them than it does to
1:02:12
me. Right, No, I understand. I understand that completely, and
1:02:16
so I, you know, I the notion of selling your signature straights witch
1:02:24
still actually goofy. It is a little goofy. And I remember I was
1:02:30
at I was at a I think the CA San Diego comic on and I
1:02:32
went to talk to an actor and I won't say the name because I'm still
1:02:37
a fan, but uh but I he was just sitting at a booth by
1:02:40
himself. It wasn't even an autograph scenario. And I had a statue of
1:02:44
one of the characters he played years ago, and I go, hey,
1:02:47
you know, can you sign this? And he's like, um, if
1:02:50
you want to dedicated his two hundred and seventy five bucks, if you want
1:02:53
it, non dedicated his four hundred and fifty bucks. And I'm like,
1:02:59
I'm just a fan man, just if I'm not selling this. I'm just
1:03:04
a fan. He's like, yeah, that's the price. I'm like,
1:03:07
wow, okay, so there's a dark side too, this is what sometimes.
1:03:13
But it wasn't even he was just sitting in the corner by himself,
1:03:15
like even in an autograph scenario. But it was interesting. It's such an
1:03:19
interesting there's been there's been documentaries on cons and and that whole subculture and stuff.
1:03:23
But I always wanted to ask someone like yourself, what did you think
1:03:28
when they first asked you to sign something and get eight for Yeah, it
1:03:31
just seemed looney. Yeah, my name is not Mickey Mantle or Tom Cruise
1:03:37
right right. You know it was like you, I thought, remember those
1:03:44
there's a TV show. He's Hollywood Squares, Yeah, I remember, right,
1:03:51
And they're individual personalities in each of the boxes, right, and most
1:03:58
of them were famous for being famous, not because they did anything. You
1:04:03
know what was j Simpsons houseboy, Kato Kaylin, he became famous. We're
1:04:12
living in the guests now. You want to you want to hear a funny
1:04:16
side note. When I moved to La my second home was a town home
1:04:21
into Luca Lake, and uh I lived across the way from Kato Klin he's
1:04:28
very very sweet guy. And you went straight to the top. I mean
1:04:32
I was there, big, I arrived right in the middle of it.
1:04:36
Now, I'm gonna ask you a few questions, ask all my guests,
1:04:40
Sean, what advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business
1:04:44
today? Um, the smart answer is don't quit your day job. But
1:04:54
I think that I think that what this has become is something that she loves
1:04:59
to do. And uh, this has to do with acting or directing or
1:05:03
any number of different things. And it's quite possible, as you say,
1:05:08
to do this with the very limited resources that we have at our at our
1:05:13
fingertips. Um, and do it and do it and do it and enjoy
1:05:16
it. But and do that in the same way that you might enjoy I
1:05:20
don't know, playing softball with the guys over the weekend. You know,
1:05:25
it's something as you can love and enjoy and be fine. Um, how
1:05:30
you can do this thing that we then allow you to support yourself doing it?
1:05:36
Um, is just it's it's possible, but it's not probable. You
1:05:43
know. Now they're going to be people say yeah, yeah, whatever,
1:05:46
all right, what else that's not me? All right? What else?
1:05:51
You got and I say, well, um, story, story, story,
1:05:57
And you know, if you can either write or find somebody that really
1:06:01
knows how to write well and and then tell stories and don't think that what
1:06:11
you're going to do is get it the first time out or the second or
1:06:15
the third. So what you have to do is you have to keep making
1:06:19
mistakes. And that's how you learn anything. As you go out, you
1:06:24
try something seems like a good idea. At the time, you fall down,
1:06:27
it doesn't work, You get up and do it again. And the
1:06:30
amount of time it takes they throw around ten thousand hours. And that's not
1:06:38
very long. But to convert the ten thousand hours that I think it takes
1:06:42
to even have your auntie in the game, as I say, a writer,
1:06:47
you can't go to you know, Robert McKee over the seminar weekend and
1:06:51
then come home and write the great screenplay. You just can't. You get
1:06:57
good guidance, but you just can't do that which you have to ten thousand
1:07:03
hours. Is let's just say you don't know anything about carpentry. You know,
1:07:08
you've looked at cabinets your whole life. You know exactly what cabinets look
1:07:12
like. But you don't know how to make them. So you apprentice yourself
1:07:15
to a master carpenter and he teaches you and you work really hard five days
1:07:25
a week and Christmas off, and after four to five years, depending you
1:07:30
will put in your ten thousand hours and at that point maybe you can make
1:07:38
one of those finally fitted cabinets and know how to stain it, because that's
1:07:45
all you've been doing for the last five years. And it's only five years.
1:07:48
I mean, if you did that when you were seventeen or eighteen years
1:07:51
old, you come out at the age of twenty three as a fine cabinet
1:07:55
maker, and then you then you keep building on that. But there's a
1:07:59
great deal of I think there's a great deal of time and effort that has
1:08:02
to be put into learning the craft. The art comes at the art comes
1:08:06
at the end. Uh And you know nine of what we do is a
1:08:13
craft. It's like any other craft. It has to be studied and learned
1:08:16
and you have to do the heavy list lifting. And you can't you you
1:08:20
can't start as a star. But that's what the film schools teach you.
1:08:27
You're a star kid, right, yeah, and that's that's stand for it.
1:08:30
Did you ever see the documentary um Gero Dreams of Sushi. No,
1:08:35
it was a it was an award winning documentary about this master sushi maker in
1:08:40
Japan. Like he's a he's the only sushi maker to ever win a Michelin
1:08:44
star ever. And when you apprentice with him, it's a ten year commitment.
1:08:53
The first four years you don't touch fish. It's all rice. All
1:09:00
you do is cook rice for four years, so you learn how to cook
1:09:06
rice properly, and then you begin to start touching fish after four years.
1:09:11
Can you imagine. Yeah, it's oh god, there's such a brilliant but
1:09:17
it's such a great things. Like you know, if you want to be
1:09:19
a cinematographer, you just want to get on set and start moving lights around
1:09:23
and start moving to camera. Like no, you've got to learn so much
1:09:28
technical knowledge and and you only learn it by doing it. Absolutely can't read
1:09:32
about it, you can't watch about it. We'll be right back after a
1:09:36
word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And I think
1:09:45
that, yeah, it's And if you want to make a career out of
1:09:53
it, what you must do is sell a movie for more than it costs
1:09:58
you to make. Every time Roger Corman style and that way. That way
1:10:01
you get to make another movie. And that seems overly simplified, but that's
1:10:08
got to be at the core of what you're doing if you're trying to make
1:10:11
a career out of it. But you don't have to. You can.
1:10:15
You can get yourself a camera and microphone and go shoot whatever you want and
1:10:20
play with it and come up with all kinds of things, show it to
1:10:23
your friends, go to film festivals, all that stuff, and you can.
1:10:28
You you know, certain people will come out with I don't know if
1:10:30
it's gonna be great art, but it could be really good stuff, right,
1:10:34
but they're not trying to make a living doing that. You've got to
1:10:39
have your day job or marry very well, that's amazing, great advice I've
1:10:46
had that that film advice I've had into Like I talked to one director and
1:10:50
he's like, what's of advice you give film likekers marry Well, that's what
1:10:55
I did, and my wife helps me pay for all my movies. So
1:11:00
now, what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether
1:11:03
in the film business or in life. Mm hmm, no, no,
1:11:15
mhm. I I don't know. I think it's um for me, it's
1:11:25
not learning, but one of those things you try to do, you try
1:11:30
to do the right thing. They don't always you do the right thing,
1:11:32
and nobody goes through life without making mistakes and having regrets. But you stay
1:11:41
on the road and you do the next right thing. Ever you did yesterday's
1:11:45
yesterday, and that's I mean, that's that's the lesson to be learned every
1:11:53
day. But that's you know, that's what you try to do. And
1:11:56
last question, Three of your favorite films all time? Oh so they go
1:12:03
all over the place, but um, I would say Love actually so good,
1:12:13
the Lion King and um in in Genres. I just I remember I
1:12:23
remember seeing the Alien, the really scrat original and that was just so good
1:12:28
at what he did. He was trying to, you know, and he
1:12:30
just all of all of those were for me home runs. Um, I
1:12:35
can't I can't disagree with any of those choices, sir, They're all excellent
1:12:41
choices. John. I appreciate your time, my friend. Thank you so
1:12:44
much for coming on the show. It has been such a pleasure and honor
1:12:46
talking to you about very nice to say that. I hope, I hope
1:12:50
you got something we got something. I think we got a couple of you
1:12:55
can probably trim this down to a nice, tight seven or eight minutes.
1:13:00
I appreciate it's really gonna you know, and some music, a few sound
1:13:04
effects and obvious and a good kill and then we're good. Now, then
1:13:09
I could sell it. Thank you can show it, John. I appreciate
1:13:13
you, my friend, Thank you for everything. Thank you very much,
1:13:15
and we'll talk again. I'm sure I want to thank Sean so much for
1:13:19
coming on the show and dropping his knowledge bombs and sharing his journey with the
1:13:25
tribe today. Thank you so much, Sean. If you want to get
1:13:27
links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show
1:13:29
notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Ford Slash two eighty five. Thank you
1:13:33
so much for listening, guys, As always, keep on writing no matter
1:13:38
what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting
1:13:42
podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.