Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 796: No Film School, No Problem: Gary King's Journey of Grit and Creativity

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IFH 796: No Film School, No Problem: Gary King's Journey of Grit and Creativity · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Indi Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number seven
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: ninety six, Cinema should make You forget. You're sitting in
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  Speaker 1: a theater, Roman Polanski.
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  Speaker 2: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
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  Speaker 2: Film Hustle Podcast, where we showed you how to survive
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  Speaker 2: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
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  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast.
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  Speaker 3: I am your humble.
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  Speaker 1: Host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
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  Speaker 1: the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
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  Speaker 1: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
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  Speaker 4: No, it's my pleasure, Gary, because you are a person
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: who had who I've had, who I've wanted to have
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: on here for a while. You see, I'm already messing
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: up care. You see that I've had to I wanted
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: to have you on here for a while. And I
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: know I say that a lot, but honestly, you and
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: I have, you know, talked briefly before via Facebook and Twitter,
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: and then there was like a gap and then we
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: were talking briefly again. So you know, you're just a
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: person who I've met years ago who I now get
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: to have in this medium, and it's so good to
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: actually reconnect and and you know, do something like this.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: I think it's just so cool, you know what I mean?
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, man, I appreciate again you inviting me, because Twitter,
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: you know, years ago was actually a great place to
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: network and meet people, actually physically meet people after you
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: connect online, and it's it's changed a little bit into
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: more of.
• 2:45
  Speaker 6: Like a newsfeed.
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: So I appreciate the fact that you would follow up
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: or you did keep in touch because I think we
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: did meet years ago when it kind of first started,
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: and I'm just seen you blow up and I have
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: to kind of do a little side note here and
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: say you your voice and your style reminds me of
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: like an eighties DJ, back when I was like commuting
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: to school. I'm kind of old, you know, so you
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: know there was these like shock jock DJs, not that
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: you do a lot of cussing and you know, all
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: these weird kind of antics and stuff, but you have
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: that voice that really draws you in and stuff, and
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  Speaker 5: so you know, I think this is a really cool
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  Speaker 5: thing that you're doing.
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  Speaker 3: Gary.
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  Speaker 4: That is a huge compliment because I love the eighties.
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  Speaker 4: It was the best era of all time, and in
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: the course of all human history, the eighties is still
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: the best time to ever be alive, and I appreciate
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: that so much.
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  Speaker 3: Now my ego is going to be out of control now, Gary.
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  Speaker 6: It is. It is.
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: It'd be like just to feed youre to get one
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: more time, Like you would be like one of the
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: guys in rotation at WKRP.
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  Speaker 3: I'm like, Hey, this is David Gay RP.
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  Speaker 4: And I'd have like a horn or something like, you know,
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  Speaker 4: like exactly, and You're like, man, this guy's either you
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: think he's brilliant or or your dad would be driving
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: to be like, what the hell is this clown doing
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: on the radio?
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  Speaker 6: Exactly, Man, exactly.
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  Speaker 4: So Gary, you and I again, because we met a
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: few years ago, but you and I actually have a same, sorry,
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: a similar trajectory of similar a similar career path because
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: you actually started out in it and development and stuff
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: like that, and then you moved to New York to
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: become a filmmaker. And I want to ask about that,
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: just the sort of storys at the beginning. So you,
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: I assume went to college for maybe computer science or
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: something similar. So at what point did were you draw
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: into like the it work? I mean, were you always
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: a big it guy growing up?
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: Actually it was HR and not IT because I'm not
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: really technical. I actually suck at that kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 5: My brother was the engineer of the family. And I
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: went and fell into psychology for a while and got
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: a degree in psychology and did human resources for five years,
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  Speaker 5: and it just wasn't a creative world, you know, like
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: HR is all about rules and regulations, hiring and firing,
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: and it's just kind of a very depressing realm that
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: you live in. And after five years there was kind
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: of some wayoffs going around where it made me kind
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: of wake up from what I was doing what I
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: really wanted to do. And I was very lucky having
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: my wife answered me when I told her I wanted
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: to make films for a living, instead of like what
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: the hell are you talking about? Her, there was nothing
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: like that. She just said to me, Okay, so let's
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: figure out how we're going to get you there. I mean,
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: it was like the perfect response. And this was like
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: mid two thousands and yeah, So We've been going at
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  Speaker 5: it for a long time and every film that I
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: do just gets me closer to the goal.
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  Speaker 6: But I'm definitely not even close to where I want
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: to be.
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  Speaker 5: But it was definitely something where I had a love
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: for it growing up because my parents showed me all
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: these types of movies from different genres into fin errors
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: when I was a kid, and that stuck with me
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  Speaker 5: the whole time. Even when I went and studied psychology,
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: I didn't realize there was film school. I didn't realize
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  Speaker 5: people made films for a living, and that was part
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  Speaker 5: of the issue. That's why I didn't go to film school.
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: I studied something else. But thankfully, as you know, nowadays,
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: you don't actually have to go to school. You actually
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: have to just go make films. And that's part of
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: the process of learning.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, because you know, everyone has a camera nowadays and
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: even making practice films. And you know, that's something that
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: has been talked about on this podcast through a myriad
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: of guests, is just that if even if you don't
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: have access to maybe like a red package or or
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: like an a Sony was the Airflex package.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: You know, you even.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: If you take your phone and do it like Mark
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: Duplas says, and just make a movie in your backyard
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  Speaker 4: for a hundred bucks or whatever. It's all training to
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: build you, to make you get better so you can
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: do other things, to do more things to do. Incident,
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: now instead of a hundred dollars budget, you got a
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: two hundred dollar budget, and then you just keep moving forward.
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  Speaker 6: Exactly, man, exactly.
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  Speaker 5: There's nothing more educational than going and like writing something,
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: trying to translate it from the page to the screen,
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  Speaker 5: by working with your crew, working with actors, trying to
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  Speaker 5: produce the damn thing, you know, and then you're trying
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: to edit the footage to make it seem like, you know,
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: you had some type of you know, idea that was
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: that made sense at the time. There's, like I phrasing
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: Woody Ellen when he says something like, I have this
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: perfect film idea in my head and then I slowly
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: mess it up as I write it and direct it,
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: and you know, all that stuff I know when it
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: comes out. So it's such a learning lesson to do
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: every film. I'm still learning. And the funny thing is,
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: you know, all my films, the feature films I've done,
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: are out there and it's basically my film school. They're
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: almost like student films if you think about it.
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  Speaker 4: You know, so you were talking about Woody Allen and
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  Speaker 4: that that's also a guy who you know, some of
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: the things that he talks about and some of the
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: point of things that he says are just like you're like, oh,
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  Speaker 4: that's exactly what my problem is.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's not That's what I was doing.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, so, I mean, just to take a
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: step back, you know, I want to talk about just
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: in your background you mentioned hr and see this is
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: me Gary. When I see Silicon Valley, I'm immediately like,
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: okay it guy coding, you know.
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  Speaker 3: Something with computer science.
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  Speaker 4: But so you worked in the corporate world, and that
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  Speaker 4: that's where I was, you know, about what a year
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: ago or so, I worked at college and it was
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  Speaker 4: just like you realize, you don't want to do it anymore.
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  Speaker 4: It's such a grind. So you moved down to New
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: York to become a filmmaker. I mean did you, I mean,
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: just to sort of to dig a little deeper to that,
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  Speaker 4: did you have a plan that this was going to
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  Speaker 4: be it? And drive like a day that you set
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: and said, listen, I'm not going to work this job
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: anymore beyond this day and I'm just going to go
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: to New York and become a filmmaker or did you
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: sort of just do it on a whim?
• 8:26
  Speaker 6: It was kind of. It was a loose plan.
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: It was definitely My wife had friends and family out
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: in New York. So we we were living in the
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: barea Silicon Valley, and we said, okay, New York or
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: LA are probably the two most prominent places where you
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: can get stuff down done in network and all that stuff.
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: And she's from upstate New York, so a lot of
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: her friends actually moved down into the city and we
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: had She worked for the hospitality industry, so she put
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: out feelers to both New York and LA and I
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: just said, okay, so wherever you land your job, that's
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: Fate telling us that's where we need to go. And
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: those are the people I'm supposed to meet because I
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: had no connections, and it just figured, you know, I
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: was just going to let you know, Fate play a
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: hand and who I'm going to work with, and what
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: kind of stories I'm going to tell, what kind of
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: locations we're going to use, And it ended up being
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: New York and it was an amazing experience. Again, the
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: part of the plan was my wife was going to
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: have the stable job while I was just starting fresh.
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: We did cash out my four and one k, which
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: wasn't much after go to Uncle Sam took taxes away,
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: but we used that to make my first feature film.
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: I saved up a little bit more, and when we
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: moved out there, I made contacts by doing some web
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: commercials and doing some other smaller projects first to build
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: up a network of people that saw my passion, saw
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: what I was trying to do, knew there wasn't much
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: money in it, but because of the story I've written
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: and the things that I wanted to do, they were
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: in it for a little pay, knowing that we were
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: going to try to make something that was going to
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: get a lot of exposure for them.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And now back to the show.
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: So when you made that first film, Gary, did you
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: write for the budget? And no, Hey, listen, I can't
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: make a huge action film, you know what I mean.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: I can't make a four million dollar action film or
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: something like that. So did you write knowing this has
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: to be a small, compacted film, small, not obviously, you know,
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: it's professional and everything. I just met like small as
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: in scope, you know, again, because we're right, we're not
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: trying to make a four million dollar action film.
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so yes and no.
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: Because my first feature film was called New York Lately,
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: and at the time I was really inspired by Robert
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: Altman and pet Anderson and very a kaleidoscope of characters,
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: you know, following multiple storylines like shortcuts and boogie nights.
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: The thing was, I also picked that type of project
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: because I was asking at the time actors to work
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: for no money. It would just be the wonderful meals,
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: copy and credit. So what I wanted to do was
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: have a lot of characters so that each actor was
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: only committing three to four days of filming. It would
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: still be a feature film, but you know, the majority
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: of actors were only committing three to five days of
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: their time and not like sixteen twenty twenty five days
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: of no pay, because I really feel like shit if
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: I was doing that. But this was something where we're
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: casting a lot of newcomers, a lot of people that
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: hadn't had a lot of experience at the time. One
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: of them actually is blown up. She's on you're the worst.
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: It's Kelvin donnahue. And she was in a small role
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: in my film at the time. She had some credits
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: and she filmed for one day, you know. So it
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: was kind of just trying to be practical about asking
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: for people's time and commitment, knowing you weren't paying to
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: make a multiple storyline a lot of actors and characters,
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: and then just being inspired by the type of films
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: at that time that I was digging. So I just
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: wanted to kind of combine those two.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: So let me ask you this, Gary, did you ever
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: when Heather got you know, was just got that a level,
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: elite level, did you try to reach out to her
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: and she say who are you or something like that.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: Actually, no, you know, the funny thing was I moved
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: to LA right, I think as she booked it, or
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: was a little bit before she booked it. So she
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: moved to LA before I did, about four years ago
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: or something like that, and we connected for dinner and
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: you know, just cut up and then she booked it.
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: And so you know, she definitely thanked me when I
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: text her, like, holy shit, congrats and stuff. And I mean,
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: obviously he's busy now, so she won't write me back,
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: is often, but she definitely does respond.
• 12:35
  Speaker 6: She's a very sweet girl.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know that's awesome.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: And you know, I always make that joke with friends
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: of mine if any of us ever, you know, won
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: a contest or got distribution, it'd be like immediately it
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: all goes to your head and become you know, like
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: your ego just gets that so out of whack. And
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: we all make that joke with each other that like
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: as soon as one of us hits like, we're not
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: going to know anybody anymore.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: It was just going to be a big time with
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: every right.
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: It's almost like you make it and you like buy
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: a new phone and don't import your contact so you're like,
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: you're like, who the hell is this now? Like you're
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: not gonna you know, you're gonna change your whole like
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: click of people or something that'd be that would be
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: actually pretty terrible.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: And you know that that's the dream, Gary, that's the dream. No,
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: I'm just kidding. If everyone listening, I'm just making a joke.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: I don't want people writing me more hate mail. But
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: but but walking aside, Gary, just to get back to,
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: you know, to your career. One thing that you taught me,
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: and this was what you taught me a few years ago,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: which I've always kept with me, was when you're filming
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: a movie and and you're the director and you're directing
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: these actors and you're going through take and take and take.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: One thing you taught me that I always keep with
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: me is each take you need to have a variation
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: of something so that way when you're editing, you have
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: choices to go through. And as as you know pointed
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: as that is. For some reason, when I was making
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: my first films, I don't know why, I'd never thought
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: of just even trying to do anything different, because like
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: my early films, everything was like every everything was the same,
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: Like every take was literally like exactly the same. And
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: when you told me that, I was like, oh, yeah,
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: that actually makes a lot of sense, you know what
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, And you make those adjustments. So so that's
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: something theary that you've taught me that I've kept with
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: me is just you got to you gotta have those
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: choices when you're in the editing room.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: Man, that's funny because that basically happened in my first
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: short film when I was sitting there reviewing the footage
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: with my brother. He was like, dude, like every take,
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: like all these takes are the same thing.
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: You didn't deal with do anything else? So what am I?
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: What are you trying to even choose except like if
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: his hand, you know, happens to like randomly lift up
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: at this line versus this other line or whatever.
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: But basically, I hadn't on that first film, didn't tell
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: him to do anything different because I was just looking
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: for this single thing. I was so focused on trying
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: to get this one thing that you know, I didn't
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: really ask them to play around. But I mean directors
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: have different techniques. Some people like definitely have one single
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: thing in mind and that just trying to nail that
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: one thing. And that's what it is. And I've heard
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: other actors say that, you know, why do I want
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: to play around with stuff? Like just tell me what
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: you want, I'm gonna nail it. So it's funny. It's
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: like it's it's this kind of organic thing that you
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: feel on set. You know what you want and you
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: have to feel out how the actor and how the
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: actor works and stuff. So it's it's it's really really
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: a weird thing to work as a director, because you
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: actually don't get to do it a lot or not me,
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: I don't get to do it a lot. You know,
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: you there's like years in between times when you're on set.
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: You can do some smaller short projects or things like that.
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: But when you think about it, the director, if you're fortunate,
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: maybe you get to do two or three projects a year.
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: If you're you know, if you're playing around a lot more,
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: that's great. But if you're doing like really big projects
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: with a lot of money, the opportunity to work.
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: With actors is not as much.
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: When the you know, when the money's going, when the
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: crew is there and everything's on the line, like there's
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: not you don't get to do that very often. So
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: it's not like you get a lot of practice.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and very true.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: And you know that's why again where we're talking about
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: making movies yourself with you know, even just for practice,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: so that way when you do actually get up to
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: the plate, you're actually able to sort of make the.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Most of every every single take and everything.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: And you know, as we sort of you know, talk
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: about that, you know, these directing styles. One thing too,
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: I forget who taught me this, but basically I think
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: I think I maybe heard it from somebody, But he
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: said what he would do is he would just let
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: he would let the actors go the first take was
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: with no direction. They would just go through the script
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: and then he then he would slowly come back in
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: and start making adjustments.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Here or there.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: And you know, some people are you know, maybe their
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: their third take is always going to be their best
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: for some weird reason, and then the other actor always
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: has their best take is like the first take, you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: and and just sort of working and knowing everybody sort
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: of ticks like that or knowing that sort of thing.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: You know, that also helps repair, which is also why Gary,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: I've noticed a lot of directors always work with the
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: same actors over and over again.
• 16:55
  Speaker 6: Right, very true, very true.
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: A part of the rehearsal process, if I'm lucky get it,
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: is finding out actors working style.
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: Some people love to be told exactly what to do,
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: like look here at this line or look there, and
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: others want to be told what's my motivation?
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: Like why am I doing this?
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: I need to know and feel organically if you need
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: me to go over here or do this, like tell
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: me like my internal character's motivation or behaviors or thoughts
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: to be able to do that, so you can always
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: explore that working relationship in rehearsals if you have a luxury.
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: But you're right, it is funny because as you start filming,
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: you realize, damn this this one actress okay, her best
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: takes or take one and two, and then it just
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: starts to you know, fills a lot because she comes
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: out of the gates like boom.
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: You know, right there.
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: And then there's others who are like, you know, we're
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: not really gonna get anything good until it takes four
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: or five and six because we've consistently seen that, and
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: you start you know, you know, switching up your shot
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: lists because of that, which is hilarious. So, I mean,
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: there's so so many different things going on set as
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: a director, it's funny that you got to think about
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: things like that. And I'm talking to you about this
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: because not really, it doesn't get talked about a lot
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: until you actually do it and you realize, oh, that's
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: how it works, you know. Otherwise, like books don't tell
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: you this kind of stuff a lot of the time.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's so true because you know, I have
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: a ton of filmmaking books, and you know, as I've
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: sort of read them through different eyes, you know, you
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: read reading through the eyes of like a complete novice,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: you know, your complete needs. And then you really and
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: then you realize some of these books they're written by
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: people who've either never written or made a film, and
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: it's a lot of theory or they made a film
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: like thirty years ago, and you're like, well, you know, okay,
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: some of it's still pertinent, but some of it's just like,
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: you know, hey, here's a great deal in a movieola,
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: and you're like, what the so it's you know, it's
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: just stuff like that, and you realize, well, damn, this
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: book's out of date.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: And but but you know, that's why I wanted to
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: start this podcast.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: Stuff like that, you know, really getting into the nity
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: of gritty of stuff that people can actually take away.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: And it's actually full on, you know, actual practical advice,
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: no theory, it's just this is how it is, and
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: this is what you can do in a situation like.
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: That arrives exactly. Man.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: The funniest thing I definitely in the beginning of my career,
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: like twelve ten, twelve years ago, I bought a lot
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: of screenplay books, and obviously when people are writing and
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: they're reading these screen how to you know how to
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: write screenplays?
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: You just take the golden nuggets from each book. Obviously,
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: not every book is the Bible. We have to follow
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: to the t, you know.
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: But it's funny when you actually look at these authors,
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: when you actually research, like you said, you take a
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: look at their actual philmography, like.
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: What have they done?
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: And sometimes it's nothing or Okay, they've sold a lot
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: of stuff, which is great, nothing has been made, or
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: some people like have sold one thing, So obviously they
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: have some type of credentials, but they're not the only
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: one that knows how to do it, which is you know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: the funniest thing, because I had some people try to
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: tell me, oh, your script doesn't follow Robert McKee. It's like, well,
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: that's fine. You know, I don't want to follow Robert
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: mckhee's story. This script doesn't want to, you know, do
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: his formula. There's they prescribe just to one book, which
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: kind of drives me mad.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: You know I have I did the same thing the
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: first book I ever read was actually a screenplay formatting book.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: It was called The Screenwriders Bible, and I did read
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: the story, and you know, by McKee, and you know,
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: I've read all these different books and I think you
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm in the same boat with you, because
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of the times there's so much
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: theory going on that eventually you have to say, what
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: can I use out of this book. It's kind of
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: what Bruce Lee you always will say, you know, you
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: get rid of take what's useful, and get rid of
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: the rest.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: And you're always you're always looking for that.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: You're always looking for like what is that one quote
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: or golden nugget that I'm going to read? That's good,
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna go aha, I have an aha moment, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: now my perception has changed and that has given me
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: a new way of thinking to solve a problem or
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: a dilemma or something like that. But you really, those
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: books are really it's far few and far between because
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: you're trying to, you know, constantly have all this theory
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: and worry about all these formulas like oh my gosh,
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: does this scene have a positive or negative charge? Like
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: what the hell does that even freaking mean?
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: You know, you're have all.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: This theory and in these books, and you sit there
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: and you go, well, how do I actually implement that?
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: You know, you can't be writing and go writing to
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: a formula or writing to a template, or writing to
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: oh does this scene of a negative or positive charge?
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: And eventually you start getting lost in your own head
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: and then you never actually you get stuck an indecision
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: and never actually do anything.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's totally true, because you're right. You just start
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: overthinking things. And part of the goal is just to
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: finish a script. To me that I have so many
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: people that have said, oh, I'm working on a script,
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: I'm writing this, I'm writing that, I've gotten an idea.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: I always say, have you finished it? Have you finished
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: a draft? Well, no, I haven't. It's like, man, you know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: it's like you got to get over that hump. There's
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: a lot of people that have this fear of just
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: like actually finished and getting that feedback. And I call
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: it the vomit draft. There's a million different names for
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: the first draft. You just got to get it out there,
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: done and give it to some trusted readers and just
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: get that kind of feedback. Because again, almost like making
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: a film. It's writing a script is a learning lesson
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: because after you write it, you've learned so much. You
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: have something on the page to analyze and dissect now
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: and get some feedback and then rewrite because as they say,
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: the cliche is writing is rewriting.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, writing is rewriting definitely, because once you get that out,
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: you have to think you can go back and figure
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: out what actually things are. Oh, this is what this means.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: And I think a lot of times too, that's where
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: we get sort of caught up. I think a lot
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: of times when writers get caught up, honestly, Gary is
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: input versus output.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: And here's what I mean by that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of times when writers are writing
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: a script, or maybe even on the filmmakers are making
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: a short film or a feature length film, they're more
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: focused on the output of what the movie is going
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: to give. That meaning that all this movie is going
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: to go to Sundance and we're gonna win and we're
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: all going to become millionaires overnight.
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: And I feel.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: I think we've all had that, honestly, man, I think
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: we've all had that where it's like, hey, this short film,
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: this I'm going to put this up on YouTube or
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: I'm going to do this and we're going to become
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: you know, overnight sensations, and that's going to be our
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: meal ticket. And I honestly think you have to have
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: that attitude at some point, because you have to have
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: some kind of passion or in the game that you're
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: going to be the best one. And I honestly I
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: think that's actually a good thing. But I think the
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: other part of it is it's like a double edged
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: sword because then you become so focused on what it's
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: going to give you that you're not focused on that
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: input of actually making it a good movie.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: You're focused on the right parts of it.
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: I totally agree it's a hard thing to balance. You definitely,
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: you know, you want to make a living at us,
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: so you want that type of success, but it shouldn't
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: be a driving goal when you're creating, because then you're
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: kind of guessing what some other person wants when it
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: should be your story. It should be what you want
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: to tell and the byproduct of that. And as always
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: you see that as actually at the film festivals and
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: the festival darlings. Usually it's the more personal the story,
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: it's actually the more accessible it is to an audience
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: because they still relate to it because they see that struggle.
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: Regardless of race or gender, sexual orientation and whatnot, they
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: they relate to that struggle.
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: So it's something where the more watered down and the
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: more you're trying to guess, the more story by committee
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: the film is, and it's just becomes something that nobody
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: really cares about.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's universal themes that really could sort of you know,
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: hit home. And also when I noticed when a movie
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: does come with a story like hey this is my
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: biopic or hey this is you know something that's actually
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: happened to me, and it's a you know, I mean
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: I've had you know, different people who I actually had
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: a Sundance Award when are on here, which was Morgan
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Jay Freeman. He's episode ninety nine. He was actually on here.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: He actually won Sundance I think in what ninety two
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: or something, and he was explaining, you know how the
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: whole thing sort of came together, and you know, it's
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: you know, it was a movie about these kids in
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: New York and a lot of people were like, hey,
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: you know what, that's it has a universal theme or
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: you can grow up anywhere like this, and you know
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: you'll feel some of that.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: You know you'll feel some of that, some.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: Of those universal themes like ostracization, being a kid, you know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: you know, stuff like that, And you know that's that's
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: why it's not a bad thing to put any of
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: that stuff in a screenplay. I you know, I was
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: a part of a writers group one time, and people
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: were actually saying, like, oh, why does everything have to
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: have universal themes blah blah this or that. I'm like,
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: because it's you know, it's what draws people into your story.
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: You know, feelings of regret and stuff like that. Everyone
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: has those, and I think that that's a key element
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: to sort of why some screenplay sell get made, et cetera.
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: You know, yeah, it's funny too, because there's there's not
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: a formula at all. I mean, I made my most
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: successful one to date was in festival Wise Critically Wise
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: was how do you write a Joe Sherman's on my musical,
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: And it's about broady musicians, about Broadway people aspiring for success,
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: and some character are people that haven't reached it and
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: they almost have to give up their career. And it's
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: about you know, striving but not getting there. Ever, and
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: even though it's about Broadway, it had so many people
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: at the festival circuit come up to me and say, man,
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: I just really felt for this character or that character's me.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: Even they're not a dancer or a singer, but within
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: their life, they had some type of goal that they
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: never reached. They never got to get there, and they
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: will never get there. And so it's again, like you said,
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: a universal theme. It can be any topic or subject setting,
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: but there's something there that people relate to. And that
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: was powerful for me to learn from that film because
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: I made other films that I thought were great and
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: they you know, didn't turn out how I thought they
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: were going to be. And you know, the festivals didn't
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: really take to them. Audiences you know, some some liked it,
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: some didn't. So it's just, you know, once you have
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: that type of critical success, it's not like you can
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: just copy and paste it to the next thing.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: It's always it's subto organic, interesting process to try to
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: just create something that people will respond to.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the key.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: That's why I think a lot of times when people
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: take these movies and they sort of they deconstruct them,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: they'll take like the Godfather or Raging Bowl or whatever,
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: and they take it and they reverse engineer it, and
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: they go, how can I make that?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: Well, you see this one scene here in Scarface where
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: he kills the guy unexpectedly. Well, that that's what you
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: that that's his hero's turning point.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Blah blah blah blah blah. I'm like, okay. You know,
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: at first, you when you when you're reading screen, when
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: you're reading these screen.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: On any books, you're like, oh, wow, yeah, that that's
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: a brilliant that's a brilliant thing to say.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: That's a brilliant analytical statement.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: But then as you sort of realize, well, but how
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: does that work towards us, you know, well, maybe yeah,
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: you might be able to say, hey, if someone's reading
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: your screenplay, hey remember in Scarface when he did this thing.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it might be cool here. Maybe I don't know,
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: but I mean, like, you know, but to write using
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: that whole idea, I don't know if that's that's that
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: holds a lot of weight to it. You know, you
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: want to you don't want to be off movies. I
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: actually had a friend of mine who was in a
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: screen running competition, but he was a judge, and he
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: literally said he would read these screenplays and he said, Okay,
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: this is a scene from the Godfather, this is a
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: scene from you know, Casino, stuff like that, and he
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: realized they're just copying these movies because you know, that's
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: what they like, and they're trying to make a version
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: of that.
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: Right, that's true.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: But you know what, Dave, I think every script needs
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: the line you know, first you get the power. Once
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: you get the power and you get the women, like
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: everyone needs that. No, just kidding, but yeah, no, I
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: mean it's so true though, Like you can't you can't, just,
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: like I said, copy and paste things. They can definitely
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: be inspired by stuff, but you know, you can be
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: influenced by things.
• 28:48
  Speaker 6: But to try to.
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: Just say it worked there, it's a moment I can
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: think that I think will just work here because it
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: worked there. That's that's a little hard to kind of
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: like force it in. So you know, it's something where
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: it's it's a learning lesson. Again, I think people definitely
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: once they finish that script and get that feedback, you
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: can tell when something's you know, authentic and.
• 29:10
  Speaker 6: Should be there.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: Whereas people will be like this feels like it's from
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: out of left field because it was doing this and
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: all of a sudden you put this scene in here,
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: and it totally it doesn't make sense, you know.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know I do agree that that line
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: should be in every movie, by the way, that that
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: should be I take that back.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: It should be in every movie.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: And uh that that that is uh, you know that
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: is something that that it just lets you know who
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: the guy is. You know who let who the guy is,
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: and they wants the women in the power and and everything.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: So you know, guys, as we're talking sort of too
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: about you know, you make writing screenplays and and actually
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: all these sort of fine points about directing, I wanted
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: to ask about your second feature film, because after you
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: made your first feature, or after you made your first
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: film in New York, you know, where, at what point
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: did you start wanting to make your second one? You
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: were already like, look, I'm gonna use this momentum and
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: push this right into my second film, which was I
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: think it was.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: Dying of the Dead, right, or it's actually I got lucky,
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: I got hired to make a horror movie called Dismal
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: by some producers who were based in North Carolina, and
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: we went to shoot in Georgia.
• 30:21
  Speaker 6: So that was just a director for hire.
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: And I wanted to gain that experience of working with
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: somebody else's script, working with a producer, working on location.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: So I was out in Georgia for like, I think
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: five or six weeks. So it's something I, you know,
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: got very lucky with. And I was really excited because
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: I started looking like Woody Allen or you know, Steven Soilderberg,
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: like I was pumping out like wow, this this year,
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: I got two movies coming out, and then the next
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: year I had What's Up Lovely, which I was doing
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: on my own, and I made it for like two
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: thousand dollars, So I had three.
• 30:52
  Speaker 6: Movies coming out in two years. So I was like,
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: this is cool.
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: This is something I'm going to keep doing because that's
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: it feels so easy, you know, like movie the Year.
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that is a great pace. Obviously it doesn't doesn't
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: work like that.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Sorry, Eventually the break starts a slam and you're like,
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: oh man, and you know, and I think we've all
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: been there too, where we're like, well, what the hell's next,
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: and you just want to make something. You know, You're like,
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: I'll make anything, let's just do this thing. Uh So,
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: I but I but I what I meant to say
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: was death of the dead. I'm sorry, I call it
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: dying of the dead, but death of the day. So
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: I'm starting to like all all, you know, all the
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: ramerror movies are coming into no.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: But I'm just but uh but.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: When you actually so, when you started to actually go
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: back and make your own films, you know, at what
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: point were you just like, you know, I want to
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: go back to making my own stuff. I mean, you
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: did say you got a director for hire, gig and
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: you got to work with somebody else's script. But at
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: what point were you like, you know what, I want
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: to go back to this, you know, doing some more
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: of my own, my own material.
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: You know, at that time, I was really really inspired
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: by Steven Soderberg and his body of work at you know,
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: his commercial peak was I think the late nineties, mid
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: two thousands, where he was doing we were saying, we
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: were calling it the one for one for me, one
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: for them, one for them, one for me. So he
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: was doing you know, Aaron Brockovich for the studio, but
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: then he'd go and make the Liamy or he'd make
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: Out of Sight for the studio. Then he'd go and
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: make some gosh as a full frontal I think it
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: was called. So he'd make, you know, smaller independent films,
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: experimental stuff like The Girlfriend and Experience. I was in
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: love with him doing smaller films that were taking risks
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: and doing different type of storytelling, and then he'd make
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: something for the studio. And obviously I was doing on
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: a way lower budget, way lower scale and scope, but
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: that was kind of like my idol at the time,
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: just like, you know, if I can sustain this thing
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: where I'm going to make something for myself and then
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: go get hired to do something and take some of
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: that money and you know, funnel it back into mind
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: to make another film for myself, Like this could be
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: kind of cool. And that's what I was trying to
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: do and my early early career with the first I
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: think four films or so.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, Steven Soderberg, he's always up to something,
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: and it's always really cool to see directors like that.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: I have a friend of mine, he loves Richard link
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: Letter because Richard just does whatever he wants. I mean,
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: if you watch same thing exactly, because if you watched uh,
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: his latest one, which I think is called Everyone Loves
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: Some or Everyone Wants Some, Uh, that one that was
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: that last year. I had a friend of mine who
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: watched it and was like, Dave, is there.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: A plot to this movie? And I said, I said, well, no,
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: it's Richard link Letter.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: It's just you know, it is what it is, and uh,
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: you know it's I knew what to expect going in there,
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: you know, And and that's sort of why I think
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: everybody wants to have now the director's career who everyone
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: wants to have is of course Damian Chasse because you know,
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: he did he did.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: Lot of Land and then he did what hell was
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: that whip whiplash? Thank you?
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I could I just blank down in that name,
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: but uh but yeah, but you know, and that's sort
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: of the thing is, you know again, and I think
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: a lot of people are focused on that output because
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: again you're saying, well, Damien now can pretty much do
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: whatever he wants. He used to be Tarantino. Everyone wanted
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: his career because and that's where I'm guilty at Gary.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: I still want his career, just because he came out
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: of nowhere working at a video store.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: That's what I love is that he didn't go to
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: film score or anything else.
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, man, I mean that's I remember you on
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: your other podcast you mentioned that you worked, I think
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: at a video store. I worked at a Blockbuster up
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: in Seattle for a summer one summer while I was
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: in school, and.
• 34:33
  Speaker 6: It was awesome. Man.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: And again I didn't go to film school either, And
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: so it's something where just watching films, absorbing them and
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: then again is more about the actual making of them.
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: Is the education you need. Film school was amazing, Don't
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: get me wrong.
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: If I had the chance that the networking opportunity is amazing.
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: The people, the connections you get, the alumni connections you
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: get once you start entering the industry are told totally
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: totally amazing. And that's something I wish i'd done. But
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: I met so many people that have gone to film
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: school or no people that have gone, and they say, oh, well,
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: they you know, they don't really they don't really make
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: movies though they don't really know how to do like
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: direct movies. They've done some shorts, but they've never done
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: a feature or whatever. So it's you know, it's still
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: a lip sword, but it's something I think everyone was
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: living that dream when you wanted to be Tarantino or
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: Rubbert Rodrigez back in the nineties. And like you said,
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: dais Gazelle. Now's there's so many. That's a good thing,
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: like you have idols to aspire to be, which is
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: you know, keeps your fire going.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: So when you work at that blockbuster in Seattle, do
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: you have any funny stories, Gary, any funny customer stories any?
• 35:45
  Speaker 6: Oh? Yeah, uh yeah.
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: The best one I remember was we had a tape,
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: you know, the dropbox, the overnight dropbox. So we come
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: in the morning shift, we go through the bin, empty
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: the drop box, and you always have to do the check.
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: So like it says back lash the Mohicans, you have
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: to open up the case and make sure it's last
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: the Mohicans in there, you know. So we're doing through
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: the check to make sure for the tapes are correct.
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: And I opened up the case and the title is
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: just let's say lash the Mohicans. I can't remember exactly
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: what it was, but it was this wasn't that tape.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: All it had was this label that said X handwritten
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: X I'm like, what's this? You know what, I'm not
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: sure what this is a little better check to see
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: what it's. I have a feeling what it might be.
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: The store is not opening. I'm gonna put it on
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: the overhead monitors just to see. And it was full
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: on fucking like it was a total porn and someone
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: had her on the wrong tape. And it was funny
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: because we had to look up the customer. We had
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: to make that embarrassing call and as soon as we called,
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: as soon as we called was hey, this is a blockbuster.
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: The customer that said, oh, you got the porn, didn't you?
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: Like he knew somehow he knew. And so that was
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: I think probably the weirdest, funniest story, because I mean,
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: who the hell re turns a porno?
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: It's a blockbuster. It's just crazy.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: It's just called X.
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: And yeah, like they label it X.
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: I mean, what the at least name it like you know,
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: DeBie does Dallas or like like title unless in his
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: house you think his famous like X X one, x two,
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: x three, and he has like a database because he
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: doesn't want his wife to know there's like porn. So
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: he's got like, you know, some secret, you know, filing
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: system or something.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: He's hiding it away and it's weird.
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: You know, but they're all they're all late, you know,
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: they're all displayed nicely on the shelf. But the wife
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: thinks like, oh, it's like X Man or something like
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: who knows, But then it's something else.
• 37:30
  Speaker 6: Totally.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: There could be a movie in there too, Gary, Like
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: some guy returns the tape and the Blockbuster employees like
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: watch this and they're like, oh my god, this is
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: like a smut film, and then the guy comes after them.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: There's almost like a movie in there.
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: That's like, I love Brian de Palmer Blowout or let's
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: like blow up. That's like, that's totally dude, that's like
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: and you could set it in the eighties because like
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: they don't have video stories anymore, video stories anymore.
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: It's like eighties or nineties. Dude, I think you got
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: a film.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we should we should write that together. Man.
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: Well, okay, so dark comedy or suspense thriller.
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, you know what, I think dark comedies work better
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: right now, But it could be a cool suspense thriller
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: to throw it back, you know, just almost like that
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: Brian de Palmas style. Kind of like, uh, you know sisters.
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: Hm, wow, that'd be really dark. But I would love
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: a female lead.
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: That'd be cool if if she's the one that finds
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: it and then you know, the sky starts trying to
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: like you said, trying to get that tape back or
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: that's interesting, that's that's pretty cool man.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: By the way, everyone listening to this, that's guyranized now trademark.
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: Licensed.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: You're not gonna be in the theater just like eating
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: popcorn for a preview some of the new Tarantino Manson
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: Family Murder movie, and you're gonna see that's gonna be
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: a trailer.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: This idea, Like, wait a minute, that was that podcast
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: I did with Dave.
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: That was our idea right from Paramount Studios.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: She was Lonely Videos, We're black butt and then it
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: changed yeah right.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: Uh yeah, it'd be but it but it be you
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: know that that would be a fun idea to do
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: because I know a lot of times Kevin Smith, you
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: can't say this is a podcast, but I have a
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: Kevin Smith podcast fing in front of me, and he
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: always uses his podcast as sort of like a way
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: to sort of get new movie ideas and stuff like that.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: And I think it's great because I think podcasting is
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: such a really cool tool some people. Some people make
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: books out of it, like Tim Ferriss and James Autacher
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: and stuff like that. And I really Kevin's idea though,
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: just using it to sort of facilitate, you know, making
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: new movies and stuff.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Like that, or you know, or what have you. I
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: think it's just really cool as a creative outlet, you
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: know what I mean.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I man, that is really cool. I didn't realize
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: he did that.
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: It's I think if you have an audience, podcasting could
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: be amazing, you know, because it is the way to
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: directly talk with them instead of having to like write
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: tweets or like a long Facebook post. I mean, it's
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: definitely something where it's a lot more you get to
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: like express yourself a lot more quickly and something, like
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: you said, organically instead of having a proofread to writing
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: and then just sharing with your audience and then getting
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: feedback that way. That's that's interesting, man. It's something again,
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: if you had a pretty good listening audience, that's something
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: that really could work, you know, and he has he
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: has huge audience. I mean he has a huge audience.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he does.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: And you know, I actually I've had on the Thornton
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: Brothers and they had a really cool idea for a
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: film that's centered around a podcast. And basically it's about
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: a guy who's in his basement and he's this real
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: far right radical guy and he has this podcast that
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: he uses to sort of just throw all this venom
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: and hate to out in the world, and then one
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: day a listener.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Comes to silence him.
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: And it's a really really quiet it's called Cactus Jack.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: And I can't wait to see them do it, and
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: I really, you know, just hope that that they keep
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: pushing forward with it.
• 41:07
  Speaker 6: Now, did they they pitched it on the show to
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: you or they were already working on it and they
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: just kind of told you this is what we're doing.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they were already working on it and they
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: pitched it.
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: Okay, okay, Yeah, that's cool. I mean it sounds like
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: like a one location type of thing. It's like a
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: smaller budget to be able to just or is it
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: like a huge scope type movie.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: It's just one one location almost like Don't Breathe Night,
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: which I think is awesome, and I'm like, guys, keep
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: going with that idea, man.
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's funny because they totally reminded me and
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: it's totally not the same film, but just pump up
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: the volume with Christian Slater from the eighties and he
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: wasn't even like a far right guy in that movie,
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: but he was just this underground college DJ. But they
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: just kind of see that setting, just like, if they
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: can get an actor to be, you know, as charismatic
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: as Christian Slater from back then, or if it's a female,
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: who knows if they're actually thinking it's gonna be a female.
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: But I mean, yeah, whoever's playing that DJ better be
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: fucking charismatic because they're going to be carrying that movie
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: a lot.
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: That's that's really cool.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they actually did some test screen and he's actually
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: like real, real interesting.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: And by the way, I apologize for for going off
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: topic and I'm talking about other people's movies.
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: Sorry, no, man, No, that's awesome. That's awesome.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: So let's talk more about Kevin Smith.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: But yeah, but you mentioned one of your movies, by
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: the way, that you crowdfunded, which was how do you
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: write a Joe Shermer song.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about that.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: You know, you successfully crowdfunded a large portion of I
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: believe there was going to be an orchestra as part
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: of like one of the extended goals I believe, So
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: I wanted to ask Gary, you know, where did the
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: impetus for the idea come from to to actually make
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: this film and you know, and really how did you
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: go about, you know, actually actually making it.
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: So I've always loved musicals growing up. My parents showed
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: them to me, and it was something that I always
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: just enjoyed, Like I did not have a problem with
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: people just breaking in a song and dance, and they
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: showed me like Singing in the Rain, the Music Man,
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: My Fair Lady, and I loved them. And then I
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: discovered West Side Story, which is a little bit darker,
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: but they still broke out into song and dance and
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: I was like, this is awesome. You know, musical is
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: one of my favorite genres. And then I discovered all
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: that jazz and I was like, wow, this blew my mind,
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: like the editing style and the way the songs were
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: incorporated into the film versus them breaking out into song
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: and dance like you know, that's a totally different type
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: of musical. And then Once came out and I was like, man, okay,
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: so this was like low key, smaller film but amazing songs,
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: you know, but shot for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: So I was like, okay, Like I love musicals, I
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: don't think we make enough of them. And I wanted
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: to do something for modern audiences which kind of blended
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: both the spectacle and being realistic. So I wanted to
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: write a story that kind of was grounded in reality
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: but still had some amazing songs. But I never had
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: the song. So I just had that idea for years
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: until after I moved to New York again. I was
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: there for a few years, networked and made a few films.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: And Mark Deconso, one of my lead actors New York Lately,
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: had a friend named Joe Sherman, and he said, Dude,
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: I want to show you something. We were let's see,
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: trying to think North Carolina. We were in North Carolina
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: at the Charlotte Film Festival and I was in Mark Schuroman.
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: He pulls out his laptop because I want to show
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: you something. He's like, dude, Mark, I don't want to
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: watch poem right now, you know, we're at a festival.
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: It's all good. And he's like, no, no, no.
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: This guy named Joe Sherman. He writes music and it's awesome.
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: And he showed me some songs and I was like,
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: is this guy for real? Like is he already signed?
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: Is he doing Broadway movie Broadway shows. He's like no,
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: he just moved from Minnesota and he's just you know,
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: fresh off with boat and he's like trying to make
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: his way in New York.
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: And I was like, I got to meet this guy,
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: and we did.
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: We talked and I told him about my initial idea
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: about aspiring artists that are anonymous in New York. There's
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: so many, you know, amazingly talented singers and dancers in
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: New York, but they're your waiter, they're your server, they're
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: your bartender, you know, and you'll never know that they're
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: actually talented. That was the first spark of the idea
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: of the film, to be like, I want to show
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: what these people do and the struggles they go through
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: and the fact that you'll never know because they'll never
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: make it. And that evolved a little bit after, but
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: that was the beginning and with his songs incorporated and
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: just starting to do a few drafts and just you know,
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: honing in the story. That's how it became the movie.
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: That it is.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: And you see, that's that's sort of how those ideas
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: are a ferment, you know, those ideas sort have come
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: out of nowhere, you know, and it's just it's just
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: amazing how even a simple thing that someone showing you
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: a video can just open up a whole new sea
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: of things and the whole new sea of ideas and possibilities.
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: Right man, I have like literally right now, fifteen different ideas,
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: and back then, you know, I was tuning around with
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: like three or four. But the thing that always happens
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: is I meet somebody, or I find a location, or
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: something happens where all of a sudden, that idea bubbles
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: to the top. So, for among us, the film that's
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: coming out, the horror movie come out August eighth, gotta
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: plug it.
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: That film I had.
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: I'd always want to do a horror movie, but you know,
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: didn't think about it other than that, I just want
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: to make something scary. And again, Mark de Conso, my
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: my usual guy, the actors that my family has a
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: lake house up in Maine. We could totally shoot for
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: next to nothing as long as we just you know,
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: we can stay there and just make sure we don't
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: screw up the.
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: House or anything.
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: And then you know, and I was like, okay, we
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: can't blow it up. Okay, we won't blow it up,
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: but we'll make it a haunted house. But I want
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: to twist the convention to play with the genre so
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: it doesn't feel like paint by numbers type of movie.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: But that's you know again, like that's why that movie
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: came about, That's why we shot that one next. So
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: there's always something that comes into play that brings the
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: project to the to the surface.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: So you can't blow up the house, you can't. You
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: can't go through the walls. You can't you know, put
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: blood everywhere. Yeh, away all your fun Gary, I.
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: Know, man, I know.
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: So then we just wrote a you know, one room
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: talkie movie with white walls behind it and shot on
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: hi aid VHS and no, just kidding, no, I mean,
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: we've definitely that was That's the part of the fun
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: is like, Okay, so there's a little bit of you know, constraints,
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: So how are you going to be creative around that,
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: and that's how the film became what it is.
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: You know, it's funny, and I do want to ask
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: you about the about the film again. Uh, in just
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: one second, I want to tell you a little anecdote
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: about filming in a friend's house. A friend of mine,
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: a friend of mine when I did my student film,
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: which was my first ever film. I actually he said, hey,
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: we can film my grandparents' house. He goes, they're away.
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: They they have like three houses and this is the
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: one house that they're not going to use and they're
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: not using for the time for a long while, and
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: we can film there. The first day of filming, we
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: accidentally knock the entire door off the hinges. And because
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: this guy had to burst into a room, right so
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: rather than rather and what happens is the door I've
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: never seen a bathroom like this. The door hits into
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: the sink. There's no stopper or whatever. So he bursts
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: in the room and he hits the door, gets the
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: sink and literally the door comes off in his hand
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: like he's now holding the door like it's like a prop.
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: And he's like what.
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: The guy goes, what the fuck did you just do?
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: And now we're like, we're trying, and we're trying to
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: actually figure this out. So then it becomes the idea
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: of do we call a carpenter or.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: Do we try to fix it ourselves. And it's almost
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: like a sitcom.
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: It's almost like a Bad eighty sitcom where it's like,
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: oh great, now we got we gotta fix this door,
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: and as we fix the door, something else has to break.
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: But we ended up the guy's dad was actually had
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: a carpenter friend. He came in and he actually fixed
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: the door for us at.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: A later time.
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: But it was just.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: It just it was just the incident itself.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: That's so two things come to mind with that story.
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: So number one, hopefully you use that take in the
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: film like that made it into the movie.
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: Oh yeah, okay.
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: And two, you could totally tell you guys are film
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: nerds versus like sex freaks, because like risky business, like
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: if someone's house was empty, like party, but you guys
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: said let's make a movie.
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: You guys were film nerds, which is great, kudos to that.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: Exactly, a couple of guys the house to themselves time
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: to make a movie.
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: Right right, That's the first thing that comes to my mind.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: It's funny too, because that same guy his grandparents let
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: us use their beach house.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: This is I'm sorry, I'm sorry to keep holding these stories,
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: but this is great. This is great.
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: He said, Hey, my great parents said let us gonna
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: let us use their beach house. So you know, of course, hey,
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: let's let's bring down some beer, let's bring down some stuff. Well,
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: when we get there, he says, oh, there's only one rule.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: And I said, what's that. He goes, there can be
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: no girls here and I and I said, why is that?
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: He goes, Well, if if somebody were to come in,
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: he goes, like from my family, he goes, and if
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: they told my grandparents, they would get upset because they're
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: very old fashioned.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: And this and that we'll be right back after a
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: So I said, well we can, we can make another
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: movie while we're in here, and and he stared, daggers
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: into me and he goes, he goes, I'd rather just
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: have a party nice.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: Because this guy was I think a little burned down
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: of movie. He said the first one.
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: But uh, but no, it was just hilarious and uh,
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: and that that was We ended up just actually driving
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: to a c anyway, because he's right by.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: He was read back to see so we ended up
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: I ended up winning like two hundred bucks at a
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: slot machine that night.
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: So but.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: But, uh, but but I want to get back to
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: your your actual filmography, and your latest film is actually
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Dubout the August the eighth, So if you could, you know,
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: could you just give us a you know, a sort
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: of a summary of the film, give us a log line,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: and and you know, just a little more, any more
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: information you give us about the film.
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So among us is it's a supernatural thriller, a
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: horror thriller. It's about two, it's a married couple of
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: two characters. Mainly, it's a very character driven story about
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: My original idea was to start the movie off with
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: people just leaving the house already, because with most horror movies,
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: you always ask if the house is haunted, why you
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: just leave?
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: So this one we already address it. They leave the
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: house and they get into a car accident.
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: The husband gets paralyzed, and we flash forward a few
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: months and they're struggling with their marriage. You know that
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: they're living in an isolated area, hoping they've escaped whatever
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: was haunting them. They've lost their child, They're a broken family,
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: and the story is really about trying to move on
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: and trying to still stay together and still love each
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: other amongst all this tragedy, and there's a haunting still.
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: So it's something where I try to make something a
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: little bit different but still play with a lot of stuff.
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: Where there's you know, some scares and some suspense, but
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: there's definitely more there.
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: And I don't want to talk about the other, you know,
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: elements that I put in there other than that I
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: love to I channeled Brian de Palma, Little John Carpenter.
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: But also I had films when I was writing it
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: and making it that I showed the actors and my
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: DP that I wanted to kind of feel in term.
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: I wanted our film to feel like in terms of
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: the tone, so it'd be like Eyes White Shut that marriage,
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: you know, think about that marriage that they had, The
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: Gray with Leam Nice and Joel Carnahan's The Gray, Three Colors,
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: Blue was another one, Insidious, the Descent, Rust and Bone.
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: So these were the ones that I kind of told
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: people like, these are the films that show people that
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: are struggling and you really care for them. And that's
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: the kind of movie that I really wanted to make.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I love those those movies by the way
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: that you mentioned, because those movies, you know, are those
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: sort of movies where it's more about the character and
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: more about you know, using the location you have rather than.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: Again exactly, rather than again exactly.
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry, Gary, Oh no, I just say, yeah, I'm
• 53:01
  Speaker 6: agreeing with you.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I thought I kept cutting you off. I'm sorry
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: about that. No, so because sometimes you know, actually cut
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: people off. I'm sorry about that.
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: But I always like, whoops, sorry, I didn't mean to
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: step on your line. But what happens is, you know,
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: movies like that are really cool, and I mean like
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: The Great for instance, I remember the selling point for
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: me was they had a production still or maybe it
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: was maybe it was just a quick video and Liam
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: Neeson had those broken mini bottles on his hands, ready
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: to fight those wolves, and I went, well, this movie
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: is gonna be great.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, how can you go wrong about that?
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: Right? It's yeah, that movie is amazing. I was one
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: of my favorite movies that year.
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: I mean, the performances and again, just the kind of
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: movies that I love is like you really get to
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: know the characters who care about them and then the
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: shit goes down, you know. And that's something I analyzed.
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: And this is how we're talking about scripts. Like I
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: didn't analyze the script of The Exist Exercist, but I
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: watched it, and I remember it was about forty minutes
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: into the running time before anything really you know, spooky, happened.
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: So it's forty minutes of character development. And I was
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: lucky enough to talk to William Freakin at he did
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: a book signing, and this was in Brooklyn. We just
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: had watched Sorcerer and he had an autobiography come out,
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: and after the screening I got gone to sign it
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: and I just said, hey, mister, I said, Billy.
• 54:22
  Speaker 6: No, I didn't say Billy. I said, mister freaking.
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: What advice do you have for me if I'm going
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: to go shoot a horror movie in a few a
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: few weeks actually, And do you have any advice?
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: Just simple advice?
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: And he just said, no bullshit scares, make us care,
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: and that's exactly what I aim to do.
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: So and using that advice, that's when he says, no
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: bullshit scares. Using that advice, does he mean like none
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: of the sort of stuff where like, you know, a
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: scare happens or and it's like turns out to just
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: be a false uh you know what I mean, Like
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: the person sort of looks behind the curtain and there's
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: nothing there.
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: And then because I remember because the Exorcist had a
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: moment when you know, the mother goes up to the
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: attic and there's a big candle and then a flame
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: and she's scared because the caretaker's up there.
• 55:10
  Speaker 6: So that's like a genuine thing because that happened.
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: I think it's the one where the hand comes off
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: and touches you you know, uh, when they're like I'm
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: trying to think of what movies that did, but like
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: a character's looking around at spooky house and then the
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: hair I mean a hand comes from off a frame
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: and then touches the shoulder, and then the music is
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: jacked by like you know, ten times louder now and
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: just just to give you that scare versus like a
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: scare that's earned, you know.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, And there's actually a really good sort of movie school,
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: if you will, about that where if you look atup
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: the First Halloween where Donald Pleasants is sitting outside Michael
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: Myer's house and those kids go up there and they're like, hey,
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: knock on the door, and Donald's pleasance as doctor Loomis goes, hey, Mike,
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: you know you'll get out of here, your motherfucker your
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: little shity Yeah, and the kids freak out and they
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: run away. Well Donald pleasants so proud of himself. Well,
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: the sheriff grabs his shoulder real quick. But there's no
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: music whatsoever.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: There's none.
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: It's just Loomis going, Oh my God, Jesus, you could
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: be in Michael Myers, you know, And it's just that
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: right there. And I realized I'd never even thought of it,
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: and so I watched it again. I'm like, man, there
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: is no musical cue there, and it's brilliant. It's almost
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: like that guy John carpenterho knows what he's doing, but
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: I think he might.
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: Have something he might go places. No, but like, yeah,
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: Halloween is an amazing felm. And I think there's another
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: scene where Jamielee Curtis. Lorie is walking in the daytime
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: and she's walking home from school and I think she's
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: staring at the house. And as she's staring at the house,
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: she bumps into somebody, and again I don't believe there's
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: like a music cueue there, but it starts the shit
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: out of you.
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: And it's exactly you know the point.
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: Like, so, we have something in my movie where I
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: totally didn't purposely try to make it a jump scare,
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: but there's a moment like some character says something to
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: someone who's back is turned.
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: And I didn't put in a cue.
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: I didn't put in like this dude to try to
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: like just make people jump, because it's not earned. That's
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: like a jolt, that's like a startling moment versus like
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: a truly truly terrifying moment where you're startled because it's
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: actually happening to that character in that scene, not because
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: the score is making it happen.
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, because because I think that that and
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: that that's the main problem I have a lot of
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: modern horror movies too, ish is there's no real there's
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: no real idea of there's a real core, you know
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: what I mean. It's it just feels like it's sort
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: of put together, you know what I mean. And it's
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: just I actually it's a problem. I have a lot
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: of movies lately but but I digress. I mean, I
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: trust me, I watched so many movies, Gary, and I
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: have a twenty minute role. If you can't droll me
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: in with the first twenty minutes, I turn it off.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm done with that. But I just feel
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: sometimes that.
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: There's not a lot of there's there's a there's too
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: much money, not a create not enough creativity, or maybe
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: there's there's too much focus on the output and enough
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: on the input.
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: You know, mm hmmm, yeah, I mean, thanks, there's a
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: resurgence of solid horror movies lately, but like you said,
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: I mean for every solid horror movie, there's like ten
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: that copy it or copied the one that came before
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: it that was a hit, and they don't really know
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: what they're doing. They're just trying to copy the formula.
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: And that's that's when it just becomes stale or you
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: know something where you're like this, this, this has no
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: this had no reason to be made except for money
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: because obviously people really didn't care about it.
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: But so you know, with your new movie among Us
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: coming out on August the eighth, you know where that
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: can people view that at?
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: It is actually available on every major cable provider, which
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: is amazing. This is my first time my film is
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: going to be this wide to basically be on demand.
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: So if you're at home on August eighth, you can
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: just turn on your cable provider and among Us will
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: be there. You can also get it on iTunes, Amazon,
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: Google YouTube, like all those kind of streaming kind of services,
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: view d services you can get and it also is
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: available on DVD and Blu ray on Amazon dot Com,
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: and the DVD and blue ray have some bonus features,
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: so it has a deleted scene, alternate ending, and some bloopers,
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: so you get some fun stuff that way.
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: I love physical media. I still collect physical media.
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: I know I'm old school, but I wanted to make
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: sure our distributors, Gravitas Ventures, put some bonus features on.
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: If they're going to put out physical media, think you
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: got to put something and out. You can't put out
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: bare bone stuff. You gotta put something fun for people
• 59:24
  Speaker 6: to be able to want to collect it. Yeah.
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: I mean, Gravitas is awesome, by the way. I mean,
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: congratulations on everything. Gary, I mean, you know, just just
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: for meeting you a few years ago, I mean, you
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: have just exploded it. I'm like, man, he's Twitter verified,
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: he's got a wiki page.
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, man, well yeah, I mean if that's if
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: that's success, then sure I'll take it.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: But you know, obviously, for me, the funniest thing is
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: like there's you're never satisfied where you're at, because man,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: ten years ago, I would have loved to be here
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: now where I'm sitting being like, Man, okay, a film
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: with distribution, it's awesome because you know, when I first started,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: the first two or two films I made when in
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: terms of distribution didn't get picked up.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 6: And so now I'm like, I have distribution. This is great.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 6: They actually gave me a sweet deal. We're making money.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: This is awesome. But now obviously I want something bigger.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: I want something a little bit more, and that's the
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: thing that drives me to keep going. So thank you again.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: I didn't I totally don't mean like not to sound
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: like I that I'm not very appreciative, Like I totally
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: love the fact of where I'm at, but it's just
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: there's so much more to do and so much things
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: to create that I just want so much more.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 6: You know what I mean.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I completely understand. Gary tru trust, I completely understand.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 6: Man.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: You know, there's nothing wrong against universal theme. There's nothing
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: wrong with want of a better life for yourself.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: Right, that's true, man, that's very true. But yeah, it's
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: the funniest thing is that I was shocked about the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: Wikipedia page. I have no clue who created it. I
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: was really shocked about that piece. I mean, I still
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: don't know. Some sometimes I see it being updated and
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: I'm like, wow, I don't know. I don't know who's
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 5: doing this.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: This is funny. See, I expect go ahead.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: I was gonna say, see, you're you've got this fan
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: base you've been developing, and and and they're doing it,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: you know, and uh, they're they're they're holding the Gary
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: King or they could think you're that guy from that
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: World's End with that's page.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: I think that's the page.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: I think that's the page they're actually they thought they
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: were doing and then it turned out to be me.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's pretty much right.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: When I saw that movie, I was like, oh, Gary King,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: I know that guy.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: That was part of the fun of that movie because, uh,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: my friends said when they were watching they would giggle
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: every time.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 6: Not I mean, the movie's funny, but they're like it
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: was the.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: Extra funny factor because they'd be like, Gary King and
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: it's like they just think of me.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: It started giggling.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's uh again.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: That's how I got another layer of enjoyment out of
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: that movie too, just because by the way, Gary, speaking
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: of which, some Twitter questions came in, do you have
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: a few minutes to answer maybe one or two questions?
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: I yes, So this question came in.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, let me go grab my phone. I know
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: this is not not not good for an audio podcast.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: As I grabbed my phone, I know everyone's like, oh right.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: So this one came in and it said, I demand
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: to know what Carrie's favorite records are to write to?
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: All caps.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: This is the most important question. So Gary, Gary, what
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: are your favorite records to write to?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 6: Jesus Man? Oh god? So yeah, it's it definitely varies
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: from script to script.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: Obviously, when you know you're writing a certain genre, you
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: kind of pick and make create a playlist for your stuff.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 5: So I actually did a music drama that's done and
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: we're in development almost, you know, hoping to shoot soon.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: It's being shopped around. It's kind of a road trip
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: movie about a singer songwriter. So I pulled up, man,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: I made a playlist of these random people, you know,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: the beauty of Spotify. And I'm not being sponsored by
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: Spotify here, but I mean I can pull up the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: playlist right now. Since I'm sitting in my computer, I
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: can just I'll name a few artists from that playlist
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: that I that I had. So you went to your phone,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: I'm going to my laptop.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 6: Let's see here.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: By the way, I actually just submitted to have this
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: podcast on Spotify. So if you, if you are endorsed
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: by them, Gary, please put in a good word for.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 6: Us, right, Okay, So I had.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: Let's see, so I had some Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 5: Marvin Gaye, Beach Boys, let's see Iggy Pop, Ario Speedwagon,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: Joe Cocker, Theo, The Who, Future Islands. Let's tell this
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: this reader, I'm not this reader this list. I will
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: share my playlist with you. If he tweets me, I can.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: I can always send this off to him, like I
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: can make it public.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 6: But but yeah, no, it's it was. It's definitely like
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: it's a it's a road trip movie.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: It's it's a singer songwriter and she meets a guy
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: who plays like the blues, and so it's all these
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 5: different styles that are going through. And she's remembering her
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: father had passed away and he loved you know, older
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: kind of music like the Beach Boys and stuff.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 6: So it's like a mishmash of all these types of
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 6: musical styles.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: So it celebrates various types of artists and genres as
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: as this movie goes along. So I'm really happy about
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 5: it and I can't wait to make it.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: The guy did actually tweet both of us, so it's
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: Dave mhalland so you can see you'll see the sweet.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: On your timeline.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: Right. Nice. Okay, So, and the second.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: Question that came in Gary was was I'm sorry I
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: put my phone down, but I know the gist of
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: it was basically was basically, you know, where if if
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: you could give any advice for a person to start
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: making a film, where would it be.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: What would it be?
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry, it's like first time, first time ever.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: It's like a first time filmmaker.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 6: I would It's funny because I remember.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: So there's a piece of advice that all men says
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: is basically don't take any advice. And he's a maverick
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: and he's one of those guys who didn't take any
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: advice and you just is his own thing. So that's that's,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: you know, one thing that you can say. What the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: other one is for me is just not to give up.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: Definitely see it through to the end, because once you do,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: you'll either know if you love it and if you're
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: bitten by the bug to want to make more, or
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: if you've had enough and think, Okay, I did that
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: and I'm going to try something else now. Because filmmaking
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: is not easy. There's a lot of work into it,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: a lot of different people that come into play. I
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: was very fortunate to meet people early on in my
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: career that believed in me and wanted to work with
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: me for very little money. And I know the do
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 5: Plos brothers say this too, where they say, you know,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: if you're if you're making a movie and people, you
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: know you're paying people one hundred a day just to
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: be there, but you know others are asking for more.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: Those aren't the people you want to work with. And
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: you're starting out because you want people there for you
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: for the story, not from the money. Because at that stage,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: at that level, everyone's there trying to make something great,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: trying to elevate the careers. So it's something just do it,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: do it for the love, and then do it again.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: And you know that is excellent advice. Gary, don't take
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: any advice.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: No, but right, so whatever I just said, just delete
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 6: it and then just go do what go do what
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: you want.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and seriously and getting together. And this is not
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: to not to keep you for too long.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, Gary, I know we're going over, but I
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: just wanted to mention one thing that I've been listening.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: I listened to a lot of podcasts on my drive
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: to and from work, and I also listened to a
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: lot of books on audible via Audible, And one thing
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: I've noticed is, you know, building that masterline, building a
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: crew around you, you know what I mean of people
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: who are only supportive, but also we're striving to make
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: you better and also bring you opportunities and stuff like that,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: and uh and and it's a mutual beneficial thing. You know,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: it's not just all them giving to you. But I
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: think just you know, uh, building the finding those people
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: is like a skilling of itself, you know what I mean.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: Like finding a producer who just would work with you,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: almost like finding like you're your Frank Marshall or finding
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: like your Lawrence Bender something like that.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: You know what I mean.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: And people have asked me to because you know I
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: do so like I'm I'm okay, this is the only
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: time where I'm gonna get a little cocky, Gary.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: I'm not a very cocky guy.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 6: I am.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: Actually I'm not gonna just just make stuff up. I'm
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: actually very good at networking and producing stuff. I I
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: that is the only time I've ever gonna I've realized,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: I'm It's just like a natural thing for me to do.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: And I'm always meeting new people and stuff like that.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 5: And that that's gonna be your sound bite to promote
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 5: this show, by the way, You're just gonna use that
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: piece that like like who is.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: This guy again?
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: Why do I Why am I listening to this show?
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 6: Uh?
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: But but that that's actually where I'm really good at
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: and I and honestly, when I when I've been able,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: when I've been asked to do other people's movies, I'm
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: always like, I don't want to fucking do that. I
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: don't want to make it. Anybody else's movie. I want
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: to make my own movies, you know. And it's just
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: kind of you kind of wonder where to draw that
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: line though, because that's what I've been wondering in the
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: in the in the past couple of years, because I've
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: I've turned down so many movies projects have been offered
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: me come on as producer because I'm just like, well,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: there's no money. It's just well, you know what I mean,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: and it's probably good for both of us. I turn
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: it down because I you know what I mean, Like
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: I was just looking for money from this one project
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: or I might you know what I mean, and it's
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: not what I really want to do. So my heart's
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: not into it, you know what I mean. So I
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: think it's good for for everybody. If if if me
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: saying no.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I mean, a great producer is hard to find.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: I produced myself out of necessity, not because I love it,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: but finding a producer that.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: Loves it is rare, and if they're good at it,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 6: you got to hold on to them.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 5: And that's why I'm sure, like you said, Lawrence Bender
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: work with Tarantino for like three or four films, and
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: all these other people, if they partner up. They partner
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 5: up for a very very long time. And it's something
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 5: my wife does very well, and she does for my
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 5: films only because like you, you know, it's like I
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: believe in these projects. I don't want to be hired
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: to do something just to do it. So it's something
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: where it's such a hard skill and it's such a
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 5: it's not only hard, but it's something it's very delicate.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 5: Like you said, you have to be very good at
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: what you do to get.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 6: Things done right away.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 5: And it's it's again if I might be given you
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: a call later about producing, but now I'm just kidding you.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: Definitely.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: The cool thing is as a filmmaker for yourself too,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: you know what it takes to produce something, so as
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 5: you're writing it or as you're directing it, you can
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: work both hats to know what you can demand of
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: the crew or of yourself based on what you have
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: with the with the project.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 6: And if that's a.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: m and now back to the show.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: Really great skill like that's what I'm proud of as
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 5: a director, having produced, I know when to ask for
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: things and when not to ask for things based on
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: what's going on, and the producers really, you know, appreciate that.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: Anytime you want to call me Gary to talk about producing,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: let's do it, man, Let's.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 6: All right. Sounds good.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: I was just telling the story the.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: Other day about how I got a bunch of different
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: locations for free, and people were like, how the hell
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: did you do that?
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, it's a funny story.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: So but but you know, it's just, you know, I've
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: been doing a lot of writing for the past couple
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: of years and I hope to actually enter some scripts
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: in a slam dance this year, you know, just to
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: sort of get that juice back. And that's when the
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: main reason I created this podcast was not only just
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: to do something creative, but I get to meet all
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: some people and I mean it's just been all positives
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: you know about this podcast, and it's just you know,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: it's it's just awesome man, and Gary, I just want
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: to say thank you so much for coming on, and
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: before we go, I just want to have one more question,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: that is, where can weple find you out online?
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: First of all, you know, this conversation went really really quickly,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: so I enjoyed myself a lot, and they can find
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 5: me at the best place is g R king dot com.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 5: That's g r kig dot com. I believe there's links
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: to my Facebook, to my Twitter there, and there's information
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: to all my films where you can find them. So
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: New York Lately, What's up Lovely? And how do you
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: write a Joe Sherman song? You can see a little
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: bit of information about them, as well as links to
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: Amazon Prime where you can watch them for free, and
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: you can find out information about, among us, my latest
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: horror movie coming out, where I would love for you
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 5: guys to check out and appreciate the support.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: Gary, I want to say thank you.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 6: Well. You have to add one link to X the
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 6: project the working title also just X handwritten X.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: And yeah, by the way, was X Was it a
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: VHS tape or was it a DV day? I'm hooked.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 6: Let's hitch this tomorrow, right, I'll make some calls, We'll
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 6: get some meetie.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: Seriously, let's do it, man, Let's do it. Yeah, what's
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: stopping us?
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 6: Nice? Nice?
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: Gary R.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: King.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: I want to say thank you so much for coming on, Buddy.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 5: Dave, Dave, b thank you sir, and hope to come
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 5: back again sometime and definitely we'll be talking soon too.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: head over to the show notes at Indie Film Hustle
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: dot com Forward slash seven ninety six, and if you
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: so much for listening. Guys, as always, keep that hustle going,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: keep that dream alive, stay safe out there, and I'll
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: talk to you soon.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: Indie Film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: E F I L M h U S T l
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: E dot com.